At least 35 people have been killed in a car attack in southern China, believed to be the deadliest known act of public violence in the country in decades.

Police say a man crashed his car into a stadium in Zhuhai on Monday where he ran down groups of people exercising on the sports track.

The “serious and vicious attack” also injured 45 people – among them elderly and children, local media report.

Police say the 62-year-old driver, identified as a Mr Fan, appeared to have acted out of unhappiness over a divorce settlement.

He was arrested as he tried to flee the Zhuhai Sports Center and is in a coma due to self-inflicted wounds, police said in a statement.

The incident has sparked a national outcry in China, where President Xi Jinping vowed “severe punishment” for the perpetrator, and called for “all-out efforts” to treat the injured.

Details of those who were killed have not been disclosed by authorities yet, but mourners and members of the public had begun laying flowers and other tributes outside the stadium on Tuesday.

The venue – featuring a running track loop – had been a popular exercise ground for locals. Witnesses told Chinese media it appeared Mr Fan had deliberately run people down.

One man named Mr Chen told Caixin news magazine he and his walking group had just completed a lap of the stadium when a car charged towards them at high speed, “knocking down many people”.

Another person at the scene told Caixin: “It drove in a loop and people were hurt in all areas of the running track.”

According to local police, who released a statement on Tuesday, they said their initial investigations suggested Mr Fan’s actions were triggered by a property dispute following his divorce. He is still in a coma and so has not been questioned, police said.

The attack may be the deadliest act of random public violence in China in recent decades. A number have been reported this year including a mass stabbing and firearms attack in Shandong in February which killed at least 21 people. That incident was heavily censored by Chinese authorities.

Reports of Monday’s attack were already being restricted online on Tuesday – with several videos taken by witnesses at the scene removed from Chinese social media platforms.

But some footage still circulating online showed dozens of people lying on the ground and being attended to by paramedics and bystanders.

In China it is common for censors to quickly take down social media videos which are linked to high-profile incidences of crime.

BBC journalists reporting from the stadium at Zhuhai on Tuesday were also harassed and told to stop filming.

China has seen a spate of violent attacks on members of the public in recent months that have been reported in local media to varying degrees.

In October, a knife attack at a top school in Beijing injured five people, while in September, a man went on a stabbing spree at a supermarket in Shanghai, killing three people and injuring several others.

Also in September, a 10-year-old Japanese student died a day after he was stabbed near his school in southern China.

Following Monday’s car attack, Japan’s embassy warned its nationals living in the country to avoid speaking Japanese loudly in public.

The incident in Zhuhai has also taken place during heightened security in the city, which is hosting a major military airshow this week. The attack on Monday night took place 40km (24 miles) from where the high-profile Airshow China kicked off on Tuesday.

China is showcasing its newest warplanes and attack drones at the show, which top Russian defence official and former defence minister Sergei Shoigu is expected to attend.

Several entrances and exits to the sports centre were closed during the airshow to facilitate “control”, the centre’s management said on Tuesday.

Fixing LED strip lights to the bottom of surfboards could deter attacks by great white sharks, Australian scientists say.

A study conducted in Mossel Bay, South Africa involved towing seal-shaped boards fitted with different configurations of lights behind a boat to see which attracted the most attention.

The researchers from Macquarie University in New South Wales say the lights distorted the silhouette of their “decoys” on the ocean’s surface and limited the ability of the great whites to see against the sunlight.

Lights could prove a non-invasive means of shark restraint, unlike nets or drones, they added.

Great white sharks are the species responsible for most human shark-bite fatalities, and often attack their prey from underneath, lead researcher Laura Ryan said. This means that sometimes the sharks mistake a surfer’s silhouette for the outline of a seal.

Researchers say it is also important to see whether the LED lighting is effective in deterring other shark species known to attack humans, including bull sharks and tiger sharks.

Most attacks are associated with people surfing and participating in other board sports. There were 69 unprovoked shark bites in 2023, most in the US, Australia and South Africa, 10 of which were fatal, according to statistics.

The Australian study, published in the journal Current Biology, involved testing three different intensities of LED lights.

Ms Ryan said the study showed the brightest horizontal-aligned lights were less likely to be targeted.

The researchers said: “Our results reveal the importance of a dark silhouette against a lighter background in predatory behaviour in great white sharks and that altering the silhouette may form the basis of new non-invasive shark deterrent technology to protect human life.”

They added it was interesting that great white sharks were less attracted to the most conspicuous lights because other studies have found some species were drawn to bright, reflective objects.

The researchers are now building prototype lighting strips to test on surfboards and kayaks.

The climate-damaging vapours left behind by jet planes could be easily tackled, aviation experts say, with a new study suggesting they could be eliminated for a few pounds per flight.

Jet condensation trails, or contrails, have spawned wild conspiracy theories alleging mind control and the spreading of disease, but scientists say the real problem is their warming effect.

Researchers argue these smoky trails essentially double the amount of heating that’s caused by aviation’s use of fossil fuels.

The problem will be discussed at the UN climate conference, COP29, in Baku for the first time.

Contrails form in the sky in the same way that your breath goes misty on a chilly morning.

When a plane passes through cold humid air, the contrails form as the vapour from the engines condenses on unburned fuel fragments in the exhaust stream.

While the causes of contrails have been known about for decades, it’s only in recent years that the climate warming impact of these human generated clouds has been recognised.

“They create an artificial layer of clouds, which traps the heat from the Earth that’s trying to escape to outer space,” said Carlos Lopez de la Osa, from the Transport & Environment campaign group, which has carried out a new study on the solutions to contrails.

“The scale of the warming that’s associated with them is roughly having a similar impact to that of aviation carbon emissions.”

Conspiracy theories have grown up around contrails, with some people alleging they are in fact “chemtrails” that contain chemical or biological substances.

The aim of these chemtrails is either vaccinating the population, spreading pandemics of controlling the minds of the masses, the conspiracy theories go on to claim.

All of these ideas are completely untrue.

“It is unfortunate that these conspiracy theories are muddying the water on an issue where we need a lot of consensus, a lot of clarity,” said Matteo Mirolo, from Breakthrough Energy, and one of the organisers of the COP29 discussion about the contrails.

“Chemtrails are an unfounded theory. There’s simply no scientific backing.”

The COP event aims to draw attention to the fact that relatively simple changes to aviation practice could eliminate much of the warming impact of these trails.

According to the Transport & Environment study, some 80% of the warming associated with contrails is generated by just 3% of flights.

Tweaking the flight paths of a handful of aircraft could reduce contrail warming by more than half by 2040, at a cost of less than £4 per flight.

Geography and a flight’s latitude have a strong influence on whether a contrail is warming. Flights over North America, Europe and the North Atlantic region accounted for more than half of global contrail warming in 2019, the report said.

Time of day also influences the climate effects of contrails. Those formed by evening and night flights have the largest warming contribution. Seasonality is also important – the most warming contrails tend to occur in winter.

“Planes are already flying around thunderstorms and turbulence areas,” Mr Lopez de la Osa said.

“We will need to add one more constraint to flight planning, which is avoiding areas of contrail formation.”

“Of the climate solutions which are being discussed at COP29, it’s arguably one of the simplest ones.”

The researchers are hoping that by holding this event at COP they will spread awareness of the problem and the solutions.

They point to the huge amounts of money and research going into developing sustainable aviation fuels.

They believe that tackling contrails could achieve a major win for the climate, at a fraction of the cost.

The gates outside the Zhuhai sports complex in China were closed. Inside, the stadium was in darkness, as were the grounds around it.

It was here, hours before, where dozens of people were killed when a man drove an SUV into a crowd. Many more were injured.

Only security guards appeared to be moving around behind the fence when the BBC arrived, and they had been ordered to keep an eye out for reporters.

One approached us asking: “Are you journalists?” When I asked why he wanted to know, he replied: “Oh just to understand the situation.”

He and a colleague took photos of us and started making calls, watching us as they did.

Outside the gates people passed by to catch sight of the aftermath. But among them was a group of around a dozen people more interested in us.

A women started calling to the others: “Look, foreigners, foreigners.”

Soon a man who was with her was aggressively interrupting our reporting, grabbing me and shouting.

Often, when sensitive stories like this unfold in China, local Communist Party officials organise groups of cadres to pretend to be outraged locals who have been given the role of targeting foreign reporters and preventing any coverage.

Invariably it doesn’t stop the stories, it just makes China look bad.

After former Premier Li Keqiang died last year, crowds of these loyalists were sent to the street outside his old family home. Any journalist that arrived was surrounded and shouted at, pushed and abused.

Premier Li’s death was sensitive to the party not only because it was sudden and unexpected – but also because he was the last of the old liberal wing. It signalled that the party was now completely stacked with loyalists of President Xi Jinping.

But even for much more minor incidents the same things happen.

Last month, we travelled to a shopping mall in Shanghai where a man had randomly stabbed strangers to death.

The entire location had been cleansed of any evidence within hours of this horrible event taking place. By the morning after, the mall was up and running again as normal: no police crime scene tape, no flowers for the dead.

On one level, you can understand this – many of these inexplicable assaults on the community are copycat in nature. Tuesday’s attack is not an outlier, though it is shocking for its death toll.

But officials here sometimes want these bad things to simply go away as quickly as possible.

Hours after our confrontation outside the site of the Zhuhai attack, carloads of police had arrived to better manage the situation.

A crowd of residents had also gathered to light candles to remember the dead, and videos shared on social media showed lines of volunteers at hospitals offering to donate blood.

President Xi has called on officials to manage society’s problems in order to prevent this type of thing happening again in the future.

But, again, China is left wondering what has driven someone to such inconceivable horror. It is impossibly difficult to find the answers to this one.

A week after Donald Trump won a second-term in the White House, the contours of his new presidency have started taking shape.

The president-elect has announced nearly a dozen appointees, the first steps toward filling out his White House staff and key government departments. He also made comments to the media and on social media that highlight what his priorities will be upon taking office in January, with a special focus on immigration and foreign policy.

After a sometimes chaotic start to his first term, Trump is laying the groundwork for his next administration with a more clearly defined plan – and personnel ready to enact it.

Here’s a look at what we’ve learned so far.

Some of Trump’s newly revealed appointments suggest that the president-elect’s campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented migrants living in the US is no exaggeration.

Stephen Miller, who has been Trump’s close adviser and speechwriter since 2015, is Trump’s choice for White House deputy chief of staff for policy. He will likely shape any plans for mass deportations – and pare back both undocumented and legal immigration. During Trump’s first term, Miller was involved in developing some the administration’s strictest immigration policies.

Thomas Homan, acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in Trump’s first term, supported the president’s policy of separating undocumented families detained at the US-Mexico border. Now he’s back with an even broader portfolio, as Trump’s “immigration tsar”.

“I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen,” Homan said at a conservative conference in July.

Critics have warned that Trump’s mass deportation plan could cost upwards of $300b. In an interview with NBC News last week, however, the president-elect said cost was not an issue.

“When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here,” he said. “There is no price tag.”

• How would Trump’s promise of mass deportations of migrants work?

Many conservatives believe that China poses the single greatest threat to continued US global dominance, both economically and militarily. While Trump has been more circumspect, limiting most of his China critiques to the realm of trade, he is filling his foreign policy team with vocal China critics.

The president-elect picked Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, a retired Army colonel, as his national security adviser – a key foreign policy post within the White House. Waltz has said the US is in a “cold war” with China and was one of the first members of Congress to call for a US boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

In October, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick for US ambassador to the UN, accused China of “blatant and malicious election interference” amid reports that China-backed hackers attempted to gather information from the former president’s phones.

While Trump has yet to officially name his choice for secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio – another China hawk – appears to be the leading contender for the top diplomatic job. In 2020, Rubio was sanctioned by the Chinese government after he pushed measures to punish the nation for its crackdown on pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.

US-China relations were often rocky during Trump’s first term, amidst trade disputes and the Covid pandemic. The Biden administration, which kept many of Trump’s China tariffs and imposed some new ones, only somewhat calmed the waters. Now it looks like the next Trump administration will pick up where the last one left off.

• Who has joined Trump’s team so far?
• Trump picks Musk to advise on how to ‘dismantle’ bureaucracy

While the list of Trump’s political appointees grows, there’s another group that stays small – and exceedingly influential.

Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, has been a full-time presence at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago transition headquarters. According to media reports, he is advising the president-elect on cabinet nominees and even joined a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.

On Tuesday night, Trump announced that he was assigning Musk to work with tech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in a “department of government efficiency” tasked with identifying new budget cuts.

Musk has regularly offered his political opinions on his social media platform X, including endorsing Florida Senator Rick Scott’s bid to be the next Senate majority leader.

Musk’s political action committee spent around $200m to help Trump’s presidential campaign, and he promises to continue to fund the group’s efforts to advance the president-elect’s agenda and help Republican candidates in upcoming congressional elections.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen where Robert F Kennedy Jr, another key figure, lands. Trump has said that he plans to give the former Democrat and vaccine sceptic, who abandoned his independent bid and endorsed the Republican, a role in making America “healthy” again.

“He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go to it,” Trump said in his election victory speech.

As Trump takes office, Republicans have control of the Senate and could still take the House, albeit by a slim margin. However, the president-elect’s early actions suggest he is more concerned with exercising his presidential power than working with the legislative branch.

Last week, he posted on social media that the Senate’s Republican leadership should smooth the way for more presidential “recess appointments” – allowing him to fill top administration jobs without Senate approval when Congress is not in session. The move would strengthen presidential power by undercutting the chamber’s constitutional role to “advise and consent” on political appointees.

Meanwhile, the president-elect keeps chipping away at those narrow congressional majorities. Senators who move to administration roles can quickly be replaced by appointment from the governor of their home state. But any House vacancies – such as ones created by Stefanik and Waltz’s departures – require special elections that can take months to schedule.

Some of Trump’s advisors, including Musk, have warned that the president-elect could be endangering his legislative agenda if he plucks too many more Republicans from the chambers.

Even in the best of circumstances, congressional legislation takes time, effort and compromise. Executive action, such as new immigration enforcement, can be done with the stroke of a presidential pen.

Trump’s actions indicate he is, at least at the moment, more focused on the latter.

Trump has only just begun filling out the thousands of jobs that open up with a new presidential administration, not including the senior-level career bureaucrats he has said he will replace.

In 2016, as a political newcomer, he had to rely on more establishment Republicans for key roles. This time, he has a wealth of prospective candidates with proven track records of supporting him and after eight years, Trump loyalists are the Republican establishment.

On Tuesday, Trump named South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, and Fox News host and conservative author Pete Hegseth as defence secretary. Both have been fierce Trump defenders from the start.

Others, like Rubio and Stefanik, were critics of Trump early in his first presidential bid, but they have now spent years demonstrating that their harsh words are a thing of the past.

Rubio, who ran for president against Trump in 2016, may still have White House ambitions, however. Trump often soured on appointees who seemed drawn to the limelight during his first term, and even the warmest of relationships could go bad.

Trump may be placing a premium on loyalty with his early staff announcements, but the pressures of governing ultimately will reveal whether his second four years in office end up different than his first.

• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• When does he become president again?
• What happens to his legal cases now
• How he pulled off an incredible comeback

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of US politics in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Maria Troyanivska had come home early the night a Russian drone hit her bedroom.

“It flew in through the window, right into her room,” her mother Viktoria tells the BBC. After the explosion, she and her husband Volodymyr ran from the next room to find their daughter’s room on fire.

“We tried to put it out, but everything was burning so strongly,” she says through tears. “It was impossible to breathe – we had to leave.”

The Russian Shahed drone killed the 14-year-old in her bed, in her suburban apartment in Kyiv, last month.

“She died immediately, and then burned,” her mother said. “We had to bury her in a closed coffin. She had no chance of surviving.”

Russia is massively increasing drone strikes on Ukraine. More than 2,000 were launched in October, according to Ukraine’s general staff – a record number in this war.

The same report says Russia fired 1,410 drones in September, and 818 in August – compared with around 1,100 for the entire three-month period before that.

It’s part of a wider resurgence for Russian forces. The invaders are advancing all along the front lines. North Korean troops have joined the war on Moscow’s side. And with the election of Donald Trump for a second term as US president, Ukraine’s depleted and war-weary forces are facing uncertain support from their biggest military donor.

The majority of the Russian drones raining down on Ukraine are Iranian-designed Shaheds: propeller-driven, with a distinctive wing shape and a deadly warhead packed into the nose cone.

Russia has also started to launch fake drones, without any explosives, to confuse Ukraine’s air defence units and force them to waste ammunition.

Compared to missiles they are much cheaper to build, easier to fire, and designed to sap morale.

Every night, Ukrainians go to sleep to notifications pinging on their phones, as inbound drones crisscross the country, setting sirens blaring.

And every morning, they wake to news of yet another strike. Just since the start of November, drones have hit Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.

On Sunday, Russia launched 145 drones at Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky – a record number for a single day since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Kyiv said that day it had managed to shoot down 62 drones, and that a further 67 were “lost” – meaning they were either downed by electronic warfare, or disappeared from radar screens.

Ukrainian air defences are struggling to cope with the surging numbers.

“So far we have been intercepting them. I hope we will keep intercepting them,” Sgt Mykhailo Shamanov, a spokesperson for Kyiv city military administration, told the BBC.

While he says Russia tries to hit military installations, the “general aim is terrorising civilians”.

They know the Russians will continue to ramp up these attacks, he said – it’s why his government is constantly asking for more air defence from Western allies.

It’s also why Ukraine is nervously waiting to see how US President-elect Trump will approach the war when he re-enters office.

“Even if air defence works well, drone or missile debris falls on the city. It causes fires, damage and unfortunately sometimes victims,” he explained.

“Every night it’s a lottery – where it hits, where it’s shot down, where it falls and what happens.”

Vitaliy and his men have no fixed post – their weaponry for shooting down the Shaheds is carried on the back of a flatbed truck, allowing them to manoeuvre quickly.

“We try to monitor, move, outpace the drone, destroy it,” he said.

It’s clear the job is taking its toll.

“Half a year ago, it was 50 drones a month. Now the number has risen to 100 drones, every night,” he said.

Their days are getting longer too. When the Russians used mainly missiles to bomb Ukraine, the unit commander said, the air alerts would last about six hours. “Now, it’s around 12 or 13 hours,” he said.

Vitaliy is confident in front of his men, declaring that they can handle all that the Russians can fire at them if they get weapons from Western allies. “Our guys could even deal with 250 drones [in a night],” he said.

But air defence can only do so much. Ukrainians will continue to suffer until Russia stops its invasion and its air assaults on cities.

Viktoria says their lives are now divided into before and after their daughter’s death. They are staying with a friend after the destruction of their flat; she said they sleep in the corridor at night to shelter from the constant drone attacks.

“Of course it’s exhausting,” she said. “But it seems to me it makes people even more angry, irritates and outrages them. Because people really cannot understand, especially lately, those attacks that hit peaceful houses.”

“I don’t understand at all why this war started and for what,” Maria’s father, Volodymyr, told the BBC. “What sense does it make? Not from an economic perspective, nor human, territorial – people just die.”

“It’s just some ambitions of sick people.”

Volkswagen Group (VW) and Tesla rival Rivian have launched a joint venture, with the German car giant increasing its investment in the partnership.

The two companies say the the deal is now worth $5.8bn (£4.55bn) – up from an initial pledge of $5bn by VW.

Shares in the US electric vehicle (EV) maker jumped more than 9% in after-hours trading following the announcement.

The tie-up will see the firms sharing critical technology at a time of slowing global demand for electric cars and increased competition from Chinese rivals.

The joint venture provides loss-making Rivian with a crucial source of funding as it prepares for the launch next year of its R2 model – a sports utility vehicle (SUV) that is smaller and more affordable than its current offerings.

It also means VW will be able to use Rivian’s technology in its own range of vehicles.

The first VW models equipped with Rivian technology are expected to be available to customers as early as 2027.

“By combining their complementary expertise, the two companies plan to reduce development costs and scale new technologies more quickly,” the two companies said in a statement.

Under the plan, developers and software engineers from both firms will initially work side by side in California, while three other facilities in North America and Europe will be set up.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced he will step down from his role following a damning report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church of England.

The review found that Justin Welby, 68, “could and should” have reported John Smyth’s abuse of boys and young men to police in 2013.

In a statement, Mr Welby said that “it is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility” for his response after he was first told about the abuse.

“I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England.”

“I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church.

“As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse,” he added.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he “respects the decision that has been taken and his thoughts remain first and foremost with all the victims”.

It was not immediately clear when the archbishop would leave his post but the process of finding a replacement is likely to take at least six months.

• Read Archbishop Justin Welby’s statement in full
• Why did an abuse scandal lead to Welby’s resignation?
• Church covered up ‘abhorrent’ abuse, report finds

Last week, an independent report found inaction from the Church was a “missed opportunity” to bring Smyth to justice before his 2018 death.

In his resignation statement, Mr Welby said he was “told that police had been notified” at the time and that he “believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow”.

He also spoke of his “profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures” of the Church over the days since the report was published.

“For nearly 12 years I have struggled to introduce improvements. It is for others to judge what has been done,” he said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England and leads 85 million Anglicans in 165 countries around the world.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said the Church had made “real progress” in safeguarding under Mr Welby’s leadership but added: “There is much further to go.”

The Church’s lead safeguarding bishop, Joanne Grenfell, said the archbishop’s resignation “does not absolve any of us from bringing about the wholesale changes in culture and leadership that are essential”.

Former vicar Mark Stibbe, a survivor of Smyth’s abuse, said Mr Welby had “done the right thing” in resigning.

“What I think the survivor group would like is more resignations because that means more accountability,” he told Channel 4 News.

The archbishop had been facing mounting pressure to resign in the days since the report’s publication.

A member of the Church’s parliament, the General Synod, who had started a petition calling for Mr Welby’s resignation, said: “I think it’s sad that it’s taken so long for meaningful action to take place.”

The Rev Dr Ian Paul added that he hoped that Mr Welby’s decision would be the first step towards “cultural change in [the Church’s] senior leadership”.

Clare MacLaren, Canon Provost of Sunderland Minster, told the BBC Mr Welby’s resignation was “not before time”.

“It’s something that’s been brewing for the last 24 hours at least,” she said. “It would have been good if he’d done it immediately.”

The independent report into the Church’s handling of John Smyth’s abuse published last week found that from July 2013, “the Church of England knew, at the highest level, about the abuse that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s,” naming Mr Welby specifically.

It found that “several opportunities were missed” to formally report the abuse to police.

One survivor of Smyth’s abuse told the BBC the archbishop and the Church had effectively been involved in a “cover-up”.

The archbishop said in his statement that the report had exposed a “conspiracy of silence” about the abuse.

Smyth was a prominent barrister as well as a lay preacher – a member of the congregation who delivers sermons but is not ordained – who ran summer camps for young Christians.

The report accused him of attacking up to 30 boys he had met at the summer camps during the 1970s and 1980s with a “clearly sexually motivated, sadistic regime” of beatings.

He singled out boys attending the camps and in sessions at leading public schools, including Winchester College, before taking them to his home and beating them with a garden cane in his shed.

Smyth then relocated in the 1980s to Zimbabwe, and later South Africa, where he is alleged to have abused a further 85 to 100 “young male children aged 13 to 17”.

Smyth is believed to have continued his abuse in South Africa until he died in Cape Town in 2018, aged 75.

Mr Welby was educated at Eton and the University of Cambridge. He spent 11 years in the oil industry before retraining as a priest.

He was ordained in 1992 and became a vicar in Warwickshire, a Canon of Coventry Cathedral, the Dean of Liverpool, and the Bishop of Durham before being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013.

Mr Welby will be remembered as a political archbishop.

He spoke frequently in the House of Lords, attacked the payday lender Wonga, openly backed Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and heavily criticised the Conservative government over its immigration and welfare policies.

He tried to move the Church away from focusing on its internal debates. But he leaves a national church that is smaller, and as divided as ever.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell told the BBC the ordination of women as bishops and his work in racial justice were key parts of Mr Welby’s legacy.

The president of COP29’s host country has told the UN climate conference that oil and gas are a “gift of god”.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev criticised “Western fake news” about the country’s emissions and said nations “should not be blamed” for having fossil fuel reserves.

The country plans to expand gas production by up to a third over the next decade.

Shortly afterwards, UN chief António Guterres told the conference that doubling down on the use of fossil fuels was “absurd”.

He said the “clean energy revolution” had arrived and that no government could stop it.

Separately, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer pledged further reductions on emissions, saying the UK will now aim for an 81% decrease by 2035. The UK called for other countries to match the new target.

“Make no mistake, the race is on for the clean energy jobs of the future, the economy of tomorrow, and I don’t want to be in the middle of the pack – I want to get ahead of the game,” Sir Keir told the conference.

Some observers had expressed concerns about the world’s largest climate conference taking place in Azerbaijan.

Its minister for ecology and natural resources – a former oil executive that spent 26 years at Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company Socar – is the conference’s chairman.

There are also concerns that Azerbaijani officials are using COP29 to boost investment in the country’s national oil and gas company.

But addressing the conference on its second day, President Aliyev said Azerbaijan had been subject to “slander and blackmail” ahead of COP29.

He said it had been as if “Western fake news media”, charities and politicians were “competing in spreading disinformation… about our country”.

Aliyev said the country’s share in global gas emissions was “only 0.1%”.

“Oil, gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper, all… are natural resources and countries should not be blamed for having them, and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market, because the market needs them.”

Oil and gas are a major cause of climate change because they release planet-warming greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide when burned for energy.

The US is also under the spotlight at the conference, following the election victory of Donald Trump – a known climate sceptic.

On Monday, US President Joe Biden’s envoy John Podesta called out president-elect Trump’s view that climate change was a hoax and said the US team would continue to work on the deal passed at COP28 in 2023.

He added that Washington was also working on a deal passed last year in Dubai to triple renewable power by 2030.

Addressing the conference in Baku on Tuesday, UN Secretary General Guterres decried “doubling down on fossil fuels”.

“The sound you hear is the ticking clock,” he said.

“We are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and time is not on our side.”

He called 2024 a “masterclass in climate destruction” with disasters being “supercharged by human-made climate change”.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization previously said that 2024 is on track to be the world’s warmest year on record.

Guterres said “a new finance goal” was needed, with wealthiest countries paying the most.

“They are the largest emitters, with the greatest capacities and responsibilities,” he said.

“Developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed.”

The Azerbaijani president’s comments are unlikely to derail talks behind the scenes, which are largely about getting more cash for poorer countries to help implement their climate plans.

Developing nations are calling for richer countries to agree together on a fund that could add up to $1 trillion, using public and private money.

Leaders of most of the world’s biggest polluters were not present in Baku, including Biden, France’s leader Emmanuel Macron and India’s Narendra Modi.

• This year set to be first to breach 1.5C global warming limit
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The environment minister for Burkino Faso, a central African country among the poorest in the world, told the BBC that more cash was essential.

Roger Baro said it would help his nation deal with the current impacts of climate change in the country, which is experiencing widespread drought, flash floods and disease outbreaks.

The disasters occurred in the Sahel region, which saw temperatures of 45C this year in a heatwave that scientists said would have been impossible to reach without climate change.

Among other world leaders to take to the stage on Tuesday was Spain’s prime minister, who called for “drastic measures” after floods killed more than 200 people in the country.

Experts say that climate change contributed to the heavy rainfall that caused the floods.

“We need to undergo decarbonisation, adapt our towns and infrastructure,” said Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

COP29 is scheduled to last until 22 November, but there are already fears that the tricky issues on the table could make a final agreement very difficult.

After more than 600 days of denied visits, calls and correspondence, the jailed Belarusian opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova has been allowed to see her father in prison.

A photo, published on social media, shows the activist in what appears to be a prison housecoat hugging her father.

On her face is the smile she became famous for as one of the leaders of a wave of giant protests in 2020 that put the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko under unprecedented pressure.

It survived by responding with mass arrests, police beatings and torture – all thoroughly documented, but still flatly denied by officials.

A peaceful protester, Maria Kolesnikova was sentenced to 11 years for extremism and supposedly plotting to overthrow the government.

In September, her sister, Tatsiana, told the BBC that she was worried the Belarusian regime was “killing Maria slowly” in jail, where she had been kept in punishing conditions since March 2023, and was not allowed any contact with relatives or lawyers.

Tatsiana called then for more international pressure to secure her sister’s release, and the freedom of the many other political prisoners in Belarus.

Now, she has posted the new prison photo on X with the line: “I cannot believe it!”

The family have not yet shared any information about her health.

In an odd twist the photo was first published on Telegram by the former opposition journalist Roman Protasevich, who was arrested when his Ryanair flight over Belarus was forcibly grounded. He now cooperates with the authorities, after a presidential pardon and early release.

Mr Protasevich has given no details about the picture of Maria and her father, or the circumstances.

• Belarus isolates political prisoners to break their spirit
• ‘I don’t regret anything’, Kolesnikova tells BBC

Alexander Lukashenko, in power since the early 1990s, has called another presidential election in January in which no genuine opposition candidates will be allowed to take part.

Recently, perhaps hoping to improve his image, he began pardoning small groups of prisoners.

More than 70 have been set free since summer, including people jailed for participating in the 2020 protests, but most were close to the end of their sentence or sick.

An announcement last week stated that another group jailed for “extremism” would be pardoned. It promised “big news”, and said two women were on the list.

But Tatsiana told the BBC that she did not believe the sudden reappearance of her sister for a prison visit meant she was about to be set free.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, now in exile after running for election against Lukashenko, sent a short video on Telegram with greetings for “Masha”, as she called Maria affectionately, and expressed “joy” to see her reunited with her father.

“How happy I am to see the smile that captivated us in 2020 and stays the same despite all you’ve been through,” Tikhanovskaya said.

Writing on X she added: “Now, we must keep up the pressure to break the isolation of other political prisoners & free them all!”

Tikhanovskaya’s husband, Sergei, is one of those still in prison and has also been kept incommunicado for many months, as have other political prisoners including Viktor Babaryko – another would-be presidential candidate locked up in 2020.

Franak Viacorka, an adviser to Tikhanovskaya, told the BBC that Lukashenko’s gesture to Maria was tokenism.

“Lukashenko is afraid right now to make any big moves and changes before his sham election – his self-reappointment. Just showing Maria doesn’t threaten him, but he wants to show it as a big gesture of humanity – which it’s not of course,” Mr Viacorka believes.

He put the gesture down to a recent increase in international attention and pressure.

Lukashenko has been an international pariah for many years, with the European Union condemning the 2020 election results as “falsified”.

As for others still held, Mr Viacorka said: “I dream of the moment my friends and colleagues are released. But I am a realist.”

At least 23 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on two houses in central Lebanon where displaced families were reportedly living, the Lebanese health ministry says.

Fifteen people, mostly women and children, were killed in Joun and eight others were killed near Baalchmay. Both villages are in the Mount Lebanon region and outside areas where the armed group Hezbollah has a strong presence.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the strikes, which came after it hit what it said were a number of Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Meanwhile, two people were killed by Hezbollah rocket fire in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.

It came a day after Israel’s defence minister ruled out a ceasefire with Hezbollah until its war goals were met.

The Israeli military went on the offensive against Hezbollah – which it proscribes as a terrorist organisation – after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

Israel says it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of northern Israeli border area residents displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of Palestinians the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 2,600 in the seven weeks since Israel launched an intense air campaign followed by a ground invasion in the south, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Another 1.2 million people have been displaced.

On Tuesday morning, the Israeli military carried out at least 10 strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, after issuing evacuation orders for 11 locations.

Lebanese media reported that several buildings were levelled, including a medical centre in the Bir al-Abed area, but there were no reports of casualties.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, including command centres and weapons production sites.

In the evening, the Israeli military declared that it had “dismantled a majority of Hezbollah’s weapons storage and missile manufacturing facilities” that had been “systematically concealed beneath civilian buildings” in Dahieh.

Most residents of Dahieh – one of the areas where Hezbollah has a significant presence, along with southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley – have fled because their neighbourhoods have been targeted repeatedly since September.

On Tuesday night, the Lebanese health ministry said 15 people were killed, including eight women and four children, in an Israeli strike on a house in Joun, in the Chouf mountains near the southern coastal city of Sidon.

The state-run National News Agency reported that displaced families had been staying there.

Residents and a security official said another house where displaced families had taken refuge was hit in Baalchmay, 30km (20 miles) to the north-east, killing eight people and injuring five.

Wael Murtada told the Associated Press that the home had belonged to his uncle and that those inside had fled from Dahieh about 40 days ago. He said at least three children were among the dead.

The targets of the two strikes were unclear.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, five people were killed in a strike in the southern village of Teffahta, according to the health ministry.

In the northern town of Ain Yaaqou, Lebanon’s Civil Defence agency said its first responders had recovered the bodies of 16 people, including four Syrian refugees, from the rubble of a residential building that was destroyed by an air strike on Monday night.

The Israeli military said its forces had targeted a “military structure with a terrorist inside”.

It also said Israeli soldiers were continuing ground operations in southern Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure, including rocket launchers.

About 55 projectiles were fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israel on Tuesday, according to the Israeli military.

One rocket hit a warehouse in Nahariya, killing two Israeli men in their 50s.

“There was a lot of destruction and an active fire,” paramedic Dor Vakinin told AFP news agency.

“We performed medical examinations on two men who were lying unconscious…Unfortunately, their injuries were too severe and after the examinations we had to determine the death of both of them.”

Hezbollah said its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military base north of the town of Acre, and that it had also targeted troops stationed in several Israeli border communities.

A Hezbollah drone also hit the playground of a kindergarten in a suburb of the Israeli city of Haifa, but no-one was hurt.

On Monday, new Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X that he had told a forum of Israel generals that “there will be no ceasefire” until Hezbollah could no longer carry out such attacks.

“We will continue to hit Hezbollah with full force until the goals of the war are achieved. Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel’s right to enforce and prevent terrorism on its own,” he added.

Katz said the goals were “disarming Hezbollah and its withdrawal beyond the Litani river”, which runs about 30km north of the border with Israel, as well as “returning the residents of the north safely to their homes”.

Earlier, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar had said there was “a certain progress” after being asked by journalists in Jerusalem about a possible ceasefire.

Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif told a news conference in Beirut: “We hear a lot of talk, but so far, according to my information, nothing official has reached Lebanon or us in this regard.”

Lebanon’s government has called for a ceasefire based on the full implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

The resolution called for Lebanese territory south of the Litani to be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and a UN peacekeeping force.

Israel has long complained that the resolution failed to prevent Hezbollah from building a formidable military presence in south and firing rockets over the border.

America’s aviation regulator has suspended flights by US carriers to Haiti for at least 30 days after three gun attacks in a day on planes departing from the Caribbean nation.

Aircraft from JetBlue, Spirit and American Airlines were all hit by bullets on Monday after flying to the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In the attack on the Spirit plane, a flight attendant suffered minor injuries but no passengers were hurt.

On Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a Notice to Air Missions (Notam) banning flights because of “safety-of-flight risks associated with ongoing security instability”.

US flights are now not allowed within 10,000ft (3,048m) of the territory and airspace of Haiti.

Separately, the FBI said it had become involved in the investigation into the Spirit shooting.

“The FBI is aware of the incident and working with our law enforcement partners,” it said. “As this is an ongoing matter, we don’t have any further comment.”

Increasingly violent gang warfare has plagued the poorest nation in the Americas since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. More than 3,600 people have been killed in Haiti since January and more than 500,000 have had to leave their homes, according to the UN.

The country has close relations with the US which is home to a large Haitian diaspora.

All three US airlines involved had already suspended flights independently after the attacks:

• American Airlines announced on Tuesday that one of its planes, American Flight 819, had been struck by a bullet in Haiti. The damage was discovered in a post-flight inspection after it landed in Miami, Florida

• JetBlue Airways Flight 634 returning from Port-au-Prince was discovered with bullet damage after arriving in New York.

• Spirit Airlines Flight 951 from Fort Lauderdale in Florida was hit by gunfire as it tried to land in Port-au-Prince. It was diverted to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, where it landed safely at Santiago Airport.

In a statement, the US embassy in Haiti said it was “aware of gang-led efforts to block travel to and from Port-au-Prince” and said the security situation in the country remained “unpredictable and dangerous”.

Monday’s attacks came just as a new prime minister was taking office in Haiti.

Alix Didier Fils-Aimé said his priority was “restoring security”, according to AFP news agency.

On Tuesday, the US state department urged Haiti’s leaders to put personal interests aside and concentrate on restoring the country.

“The acute and immediate needs of the Haitian people mandate that the transitional government prioritize governance over the competing personal interests of political actors,” a statement said.

US President-elect Donald Trump has picked Elon Musk to lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) for his incoming administration.

He announced that Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech investor, will work with the SpaceX and Tesla founder on the project – whose acronym refers to Musk’s favourite cryptocurrency Dogecoin – to “dismantle” bureaucracy.

The pair will provide external advice to the White House on how to “drive large scale structural reform”, said Trump.

Earlier, Trump announced the appointment of the Fox News host and combat veteran Pete Hegseth to be his defence secretary and John Ratcliffe – a former Texas congressman and federal prosecutor – to lead the CIA.

Musk – a mega-donor to the Trump campaign – has been hotly tipped for a role in the administration. Ramaswamy ran as a Republican candidate for president earlier this year, against Trump.

In Tuesday night’s announcement, Trump said the Doge initiative would help the administration “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal Agencies”.

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The Doge is not an official government department – such agencies have to be established through an act of Congress and typically employ tens of thousands of staff.

Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy would work with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to tackle “massive waste and fraud” in $6.5tn (£5.1tn) of annual government spending.

Musk recently called for at least $2tn in cuts to federal spending, nearly a third of the government’s budget, without offering specifics. He has also proposed eliminating hundreds of federal agencies, arguing that many of them have overlapping areas of responsibility.

Trump has likened the new Doge initiative to the Manhattan Project, a top-secret World War Two programme to develop the first nuclear weapons.

The president-elect said Musk and Ramaswamy would complete their work no later than 4 July (American Independence Day) 2026.

“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,” Trump wrote.

In a press release from Trump’s campaign, Musk said: “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people.”

After the announcement, Musk posted on his social media platform, X: “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”

Ramaswamy reposted Trump’s announcement on social media saying “we will not go gently”. He also said he was withdrawing from consideration to fill incoming US Vice-President JD Vance’s soon-to-be-vacated Ohio Senate seat.

Last year, while running for president, Ramaswamy said he would fire more than 75% of the federal work force and close down several major agencies, including the Department of Education, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The name of the new advisory board alludes to the cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, which was originally founded as a parody but went on to become a popular cryptocurrency.

Democrat Ruben Gallego has beaten Republican Kari Lake in their closely watched US Senate race in Arizona, the BBC’s US partner CBS News projects.

Gallego, a 44-year-old Iraq War veteran who has served in the US House of Representatives, has a lead of about two points over Lake, 55, a former news anchor and an outspoken ally of Donald Trump.

The contest came two years after Lake – who denies that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election – lost the Arizona governor race; a result she also challenged.

Gallego’s win represents some solace for Democrats, in a swing state that went against them in the presidential election, and in the overall battle for control of the Senate.

Gallego will become the first Latino to represent Arizona in the US Senate, replacing independent lawmaker and former Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.

The battleground state of Arizona had not elected a Democratic US senator for 30 years before Sinema won her seat, followed by fellow Democrat Mark Kelly, who won John McCain’s seat in 2020 after he died.

Having entered politics with progressive positions, Gallego was observed by pundits to be running on a more moderate platform in 2024.

He emphasised his military background, and promised to lower rising costs and to fix a “broken” immigration system in the border state.

Lake, meanwhile, frequently attacked Gallego’s personal life, including the criminal background of his estranged father. She consistently trailed Gallego in the polls leading up to the race.

Next year, the Republican Party will take control of the Senate, or upper chamber of US Congress, with a narrow majority.

Meanwhile, they are a handful of seats short of winning majority control of the House, or lower chamber – though several races remain too close to call.

The Republican Party is four seats short of winning majority control of the US House of Representatives, which would make it easier for Donald Trump to enact his agenda.

On Monday morning, the party was at 214 seats, just short of the 218 needed to take control of the lower chamber of Congress, according to projections by Reuters.

The Senate, or upper chamber, and the White House have already flipped to Republicans – meaning the new president-elect could have significant power after he is sworn in on 20 January 2025.

Control of the House will give Republicans the ability to initiate spending legislation and launch impeachment proceedings against officials.

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Under Trump, a unified Republican Party could more easily push through tax cuts and introduce border control measures.

Here are some of the races that have yet to be called.

The key races to watch are:

• California’s 45th congressional district: Republican Congresswoman Michelle Steel, the incumbent, has been leading against Democrat Derek Tran
• California’s 27th: Democrat George Whitesides is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Garcia. Garcia has been leading by a narrow margin
• California’s 41st: Incumbent Republican Congressman Ken Calvert is running against Democrat Will Rollins, and has also been leading by a narrow margin
• California’s 22nd: Democrat Rudy Salas is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman David Valadao, who has been enjoying a lead
• California’s 13th: Incumbent Republican Congressman John Duarte is running against Democrat Adam Gray, and has been leading

There are two closely-watched races in this swing state.

Republican Juan Ciscomani, the Republican, appears to be neck and neck with his Democratic challenger, Kirsten Engel, in Arizona’s 6th district, located in the south-east corner of the state.

In Arizona’s 1st district, David Schweikert has a slight lead over Democratic challenger Amish Shah. This district covers north-eastern Maricopa County, outside Phoenix.

Incumbent Democratic Congressman Jared Golden is fighting to keep his seat in Maine’s 2nd congressional district – one of two congressional districts in the state. This encompasses the majority of the state north of Augusta and Portland.

Golden is currently leading in the race against his Republican challenger, Austin Theriault. Almost all votes have been counted.

Democrats are looking to hold onto one seat in Ohio’s 9th congressional district, which encompasses Toledo in the state’s north.

Incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who has served in Congress since 1983, narrowly leads in the race against her Republican challenger, Derek Merrin.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice-weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Donald Trump’s Florida residence and private club Mar-a-Lago is once again the Winter White House – the place to be seen for West Wing hopefuls as the US president-elect assembles a new administration behind its opulent doors.

While President Joe Biden will remain in office until January, this part of Florida has become a rival centre of political power in America.

Just two years after an FBI raid found classified documents about US nuclear weapons and spy satellites stored in a bathroom, an eclectic mix of insiders are swarming to Mar-a-Lago, which is patrolled by robot dogs and armed guards on boats.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, rumoured as a potential energy secretary, was there on election night. So was former US Defence Department chief of staff Kash Patel.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been alongside Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago during family dinners and calls with world leaders.

Musk has been photographed inside the private club with his son and on the runway of Palm Beach International Airport, as he shuttles back and forth to be by the president-elect’s side.

For those not blessed with an invitation to stay at Mar-a-Lago itself, the hotels and restaurants around nearby West Palm Beach are packed with office-seekers jostling for influence in the new administration and supporters celebrating Trump’s victory.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, vaccine sceptic and scion of the one of the most famous US political dynasties, was by the swanky pool bar of The Ben hotel, where a fake ice rink and Christmas tree greet guests.

Giant, golden Great Dane dog sculptures adorn the lobby and every floor outside the lifts.

He is part of the transition team and the one-time presidential candidate is vying for a role with influence over health policy.

Speaking even before the election, alongside the former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat-turned-Republican, he said: “There’s people of all different kinds of ideology and people that we’re going to have to go up against in that transition team and fight for our vision.”

Also spotted at The Ben was outspoken Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who recently blamed the Biden administration for causing flooding in Republican areas of North Carolina. She is believed to be jockeying for a cabinet position.

At The Breakers, an opulent Italian Renaissance-style oceanfront hotel, the young valets were most star struck by the visit of Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, who joined his friend Trump on stage on election night, but who says he has no personal political aspirations.

The same cannot be said for others. One GOP insider that the BBC ran into in the corridors said the transition was “a free for all”, as different factions of the party battle for dominance.

“Trump loves to see people scramble and suck up.”

But the insider noted with a hint of worry that some “minimally acceptable people are starting to say they don’t want a role”.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, for one, has conveyed that he isn’t interested in working in the administration and would prefer a Senate leadership position.

Donald Trump is expected to focus less on elected officials to fill senior positions.

His son, Don Jr, said during an interview on Fox News that he wants people who “don’t think they know better” than his father and that he’s prepared to block anyone he thinks would be a disaster.

The president-elect has been vocal about doing things differently this time around, feeling his biggest mistake during his first presidency was hiring “bad people, or disloyal people”.

Back in 2016, plans for the transition that had been prepared by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in concert with the outgoing Obama administration were laid to waste.

Once the Trump team won what was seen as an improbable victory, they decided on an unconventional approach and fired Christie.

What ensued was an Apprentice-style parade of people to Trump Tower in New York that played out in front of the cameras.

Back then, news crews packed into the lobby to capture everyone headed up the golden elevator to see Donald Trump on the 26th floor.

While the world was still trying to understand what a Trump presidency would look like, those with influence in Wall Street, media, politics and entertainment all sought an audience, including Bill Gates, Al Gore and even Kanye West.

This time around, Trump seems to be prioritising loyalty, tallying up who has been with him since day one.

And the world’s media are crammed onto hotel balconies and the parks and beaches surrounding Mar-a-Lago, where security is at fortress levels.

The transition process is still unconventional by design, but so far it is far more behind the scenes than in 2016.

Trump’s first appointment – Florida political consultant Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff – does offer one clue that a well-built Florida conservative political operation could be ready to replicate its success in the White House.

• Who is in the frame to join Trump’s new top team?

Slater Bayliss, co-founder of a Florida-based lobbying firm, Advocacy Partners, has worked both for and against Ms Wiles during election battles in the state and much prefers to be on her side.

“I would say, borrowing a nickname from our friends across the pond, Susie is the Iron Lady of American electoral politics.”

He says offers have been flooding in from talent across the state, which has served as a “stronghold of resistance for smart conservative thinkers who love our country and desire to play a role in making it more reflective of our electorate”.

Republican political consultant Max Goodman says there is anticipation of a Florida wave crashing into Washington.

He expects Trump’s team will be mining staffers in Susie Wiles’s team and in the state, whose congressional and Senate delegations came out early for Trump.

“There is no hotter political farm system in the country than the state of Florida, when you have a president and the most prolific political consultant turned chief of staff calling Florida home,” he said.

Despite having the second largest Republican congressional delegation in the country, Mr Goodman says Florida has “notoriously been snubbed” when it comes to having a seat at the leadership table.

He believes that could change with Ms Wiles leading the charge, and with key Floridians such as Rick Scott potentially in line as Senate Majority leader and Senator Marco Rubio in contention for a high-profile cabinet position.

One person who has thrown his hand up to work in the transition is Joe Gruters, who is waiting to see how that shapes up.

He was the 2016 co-chairman of Trump’s Florida campaign with Ms Wiles, then the chairman of the Republican state party, and is now a state senator.

Mr Gruters describes himself as a “loyal foot soldier”, who was the only member of the Florida legislature to immediately endorse Trump’s 2024 bid and appear at Mar-a-Lago for his announcement.

He is counting on Ms Wiles taking her “battle-tested” lieutenants up with her to Washington to fill out positions.

“They know who the true believers are… and they probably have a clear idea of who they’re going to put in most of these positions,” Mr Gruters said.

Palm Beach didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for Donald Trump when he first arrived on the scene with his purchase of Mar-a-Lago in the 1980s.

But walking around town now, it’s obvious that this is firmly Maga country – Trump-branded bikinis and hats are a common sight.

Next week, Argentina’s President Javier Milei is expected to visit Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump and Elon Musk.

Also next week, CPAC, or the Conservative Political Action Conference, is hosting its annual investors summit at Mar-a-Lago with tickets costing up to $25,000 (£19,350).

And it’s unlikely the migration south will stop once Donald Trump is inaugurated and occupies the Oval Office once more.

Slater Bayliss – the Florida lobbyist – thinks Trump will want to spend as much time in Florida as possible during his second term.

That will go some way, he said, in “making the 62,500 square feet of Mar-a -Lago the most sacred real-estate in the political universe”.

Donald Trump has made the first hires of his incoming administration, naming a chief of staff, a border tsar, a national security advisor, a US ambassador to the United Nations and an environmental protection agency head.

The president-elect may also be on the verge of appointing his top diplomat, the secretary of state, ahead of his return to the White House on 20 January 2025.

Susie Wiles, who headed his campaign, becomes the first female chief of staff, while Tom Homan, who served in the first Trump term, will play a critical role on the border and immigration.

A president is responsible for about 4,000 political appointments – a process that can take months.

Here is a closer look at those posts already filled, and the names in the mix for the top jobs.

The US secretary of state is the president’s main adviser on foreign affairs, and acts as America’s top diplomat when representing the country overseas.

Media reports suggest that Florida Senator Marco Rubio – who was most recently under consideration to be Trump’s vice-president – is the frontrunner.

Rubio, 53, takes a hawkish view of China. He opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican primary but has since mended fences. He is a senior member of the Senate foreign relations committee and vice-chairman of the chamber’s select intelligence panel.

A dark horse for the nomination, however, is Richard Grenell, a loyalist who served as ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and acting national intelligence chief. Grenell, 58, was heavily involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and even sat in on his private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in September.

Florida congressman Michael Waltz has been selected by President-elect Donald Trump as the next national security adviser.

In a statement on Tuesday announcing Waltz’s appointment, Trump said the congressman is a “nationally recognized leader in national security,” noting that he is the first Green Beret – or member of the US Army Special Forces – to be elected to Congress and had previously served in the US Army for 27 years.

Trump hailed Waltz as “an expert on threats posed by China, Russia, Iran and global terrorism” and “a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda”.

The national security adviser counsels the president on various threats to the US and Waltz would likely have to help navigate the US position on the wars in Israel, and in Ukraine and Russia.

It is considered an influential role and does not require Senate confirmation.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been nominated for the key role of overseeing US security, covering its borders, cyber-threats, terrorism and emergency response.

The agency has a $62bn (£48bn) budget and employs thousands of people.

She will work closely with Tom Homan, named border tsar, and Stephen Miller, who is in charge of policy, to deliver on Trump’s immigration pledges.

Noem was passed over to be Trump’s running mate after she told how she killed her pet dog.

This is a critical job because it includes responsibility for Trump’s mass deportations of millions of undocumented migrants, which was a central campaign pledge.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, calling Homan a “stalwart” on border control.

The former police officer was acting director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Trump’s first term and he has advocated a zero-tolerance stance on the issue.

“Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back,” he said in July. “And I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”

• How would mass deportations work?

New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has been tapped to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations.

Stefanik has made national headlines with her sharp questioning in congressional committees, first at Trump’s 2019 impeachment hearings and again this year quizzing college leaders about anti-semitism on campus.

“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement to the New York Post.

Certain political appointments in the US – including the UN ambassador job – require the approval of the US Senate. But Trump has demanded that the next Senate leader let him make appointments without traditional confirmation votes.

Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, has agreed to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, both he and Trump said. The Senate will still need to confirm his appointment.

He will be in charge of tackling America’s climate policy in this role.

“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” Zeldin said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

Zeldin has long been a Trump ally – and is one of 126 Republican members of Congress who signed onto a brief to the Supreme Court that contested the 2020 election results.

While serving in congress from 2015 to 2023, Zeldin voted against expanding a number of environmental policies. He has already said he plans to “roll back regulations” from day one.

He has not earned high marks from environmental groups for his voting record on environmental issues.

Susie Wiles and campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita were the masterminds behind Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris.

In his victory speech, Trump called her “the ice maiden” – a reference to her composure – and said she liked to stay in the background. Wiles was the first appointment in Trump’s top team.

The chief of staff is often a president’s top aide, overseeing daily operations in the West Wing and managing the boss’s staff.

Wiles, 67, has worked in Republican politics for decades, from Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign to electing Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis as governors of Florida.

Republicans have said she commands respect and has an ability to corral the big egos of those in Trump’s orbit, which could enable her to impose a sense of order that none of his four previous chiefs of staff could.

• Who is Susie Wiles, new chief of staff?
• Seven things Trump says he will do in power

No personnel decision may be more critical to the trajectory of Trump’s second term than his appointee to lead the Department of Justice.

After uneven relationships with both Jeff Sessions and William Barr, the attorneys general during his first term, Trump is widely expected to pick a loyalist who will wield its prosecutorial power in the manner of an “attack dog”.

Among the names being floated for the cabinet post are:

• Aileen Cannon, the Trump-nominated federal judge who threw out his classified documents case
• ex- justice department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who is alleged to have aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been both indicted and impeached like Trump
• Matthew Whitaker, the man who took over for three months as acting attorney general after Sessions stepped down at Trump’s request
• Mike Davis, a right-wing activist who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and has issued bombastic threats against Trump critics and journalists
• Mark Paoletta, who served in Trump’s budget office and argues there is no legal requirement for a president to stay out of justice department decisions

Trump has chosen his former director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, to serve as Central Intelligence Agency director.

Trump said in his statement that the ex-Texas congressman “has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public”.

There are other yet-to-be-appointed key positions running intelligence agencies, including the FBI and director of national intelligence.

Trump has said he would fire FBI Director Chris Wray, who he nominated in 2017, but has since fallen out with. Jeffrey Jensen, a former Trump-appointed US attorney, has been under consideration to replace Wray.

Pete Hegseth has been nominated to be the next defence secretary in the new Trump administration.

The army veteran is also a Fox News host and former head of two advocacy groups for military veterans. He previously ran unsuccessfully for a Senate seat in Minnesota.

“Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” Trump wrote in a statement. “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.”

His appointment is one of the most highly anticipated in Trump’s cabinet as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza rage on.

“Nobody fights harder for the Troops and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy,” Trump said.

Trump is reportedly considering Robert Lighthizer, a free trade sceptic who led the tariff war with China as the US trade representative, as his chief financial officer.

But at least four others may be under consideration for the role, including Scott Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager who has become a major fundraiser and economic adviser to the president-elect; John Paulson, another megadonor from the hedge fund world; former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Jay Clayton; and Fox Business Network financial commentator Larry Kudlow, who ran Trump’s national economic council during his first term.

The woman co-chairing Trump’s transition team, Linda McMahon, is tipped as a key contender to represent US businesses and job creation in his cabinet – after previously serving as small business administrator during his first term.

Others who could fill this vacancy include Brooke Rollins; Robert Lighthizer; and Kelly Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman who briefly served in the US Senate.

Doug Burgum is also a contender to lead the energy department, where he would implement Trump’s pledges to “drill, baby, drill” and overhaul US energy policy.

A software entrepreneur who sold his small company to Microsoft in 2001, Burgum briefly ran in the 2024 Republican primary before dropping out, endorsing Trump and quickly impressing him with his low-drama persona and sizeable wealth.

Former energy secretary Dan Brouillette is also reportedly in the running.

• Trump victory is a major setback for climate action, experts say

Karoline Leavitt, 27, who impressed Trump as his campaign’s national press secretary, has already served as an assistant White House press secretary and may be a shoo-in to be the administration’s spokesperson.

RFK Jr, as he is known, is an environmental lawyer by trade, a vaccine sceptic by fame and the nephew of former President John F Kennedy.

He is on a shortlist to run the health and human services department, multiple people close to the president-elect’s campaign told CBS.

Despite having no medical qualifications to his name, Kennedy, 70, is expected to become a kind of “public health tsar” in the Trump administration.

There has been speculation about his inability to pass a background check for security clearance due to past controversies, including dumping a bear carcass in New York’s Central Park.

The world’s richest man poured millions of dollars into re-electing Trump and critics say he will now have the power to shape the regulations that affect his companies Tesla, SpaceX and X.

Both he and Trump have focused on the idea of him leading a new “Department of Government Efficiency”, where he would cut costs and streamline what he calls a “massive, suffocating federal bureaucracy”.

The would-be agency’s acronym – DOGE – is a playful reference to a “meme-coin” cryptocurrency Musk has previously promoted.

But Musk, 53, could also play a role in global diplomacy. He participated in Trump’s first call with Ukraine’s Zelensky on Wednesday.

Justin Welby has resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury after facing increasing pressure to stand down over his failure to report prolific child abuser John Smyth.

Here are the events that led up to Mr Welby’s resignation after 11 years in the post.

A damning independent review published last week found Mr Welby – the most senior bishop within the Church of England – and other church officers should have formally reported Smyth in 2013 to police in the UK and authorities in South Africa.

Smyth was accused of attacking dozens of boys, including those he met at Christian camps, in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s.

The barrister and senior member of a Christian charity then moved to Zimbabwe and later South Africa, where he abused up to 100 boys aged 13 to 17, the Makin review added.

By 2013, the Church of England “knew, at the highest level” about Smyth’s abuse, including Mr Welby who took up the Church’s top job that year.

If he and other Church officers had reported this to police in the UK and authorities in South Africa at that time, “John Smyth could have [been] brought to justice at a much earlier point”, the independent report said.

Mr Welby had previously resisted calls to step aside over his response to the case since 2013.

But amid mounting pressure, he said in a statement on Tuesday he must take “personal and institutional responsibility”.

The prime minister’s spokeswoman said Keir Starmer “respects the decision” to step down and his thoughts “first and foremost, remain with all the victims”.

• Read Archbishop Justin Welby’s statement in full
• Church covered up ‘abhorrent’ abuse, report finds

Smyth’s abuse was first reported to the charity Iwerne Trust, where he had been chairman, in the early 1980s.

A report detailing his “horrific” beatings of teenaged boys was presented to some Church leaders in 1982. But the recipients of that report “participated in an active cover-up” to prevent its findings, including that crimes had been committed, coming to light, the Makin review said.

Smyth’s abuse in the UK re-emerged in 2012, when a church officer in Cambridgeshire received a letter “out of the blue” from a fellow survivor.

The review stated that five police forces were told of the abuse between 2013 and 2016. Church leaders however did not lodge a formal report.

It was not until 2017, after a Channel 4 documentary revealed details about Smyth’s abuse to the public, that police launched a full investigation.

Smyth is believed to have continued his abuse in South Africa until his death in 2018.

Mr Welby worked at summer camps in Dorset where Smyth met some of his victims, but the archbishop said he was unaware of the nature of the allegations until 2013.

A member of the clergy warned Mr Welby about Smyth in the 1980s, but the archbishop told the review this had been “vague” and “there was no indication given of the abuses which later came to light”.

After the Channel 4 documentary was broadcast in 2017, Mr Welby apologised “unreservedly” to Smyth’s victims but did not resign.

Following the Makin review this month, the archbishop said he had considered resigning over its findings and repeated his apology.

Mr Welby acknowledged that the review made clear he had “personally failed to ensure it was energetically investigated”.

But on Tuesday, following a petition set up by members of the Church’s parliament – the General Synod – and mounting pressure to go, Mr Welby resigned.

Critics included Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley, who said Mr Welby’s resignation would “be a very clear indication that a line has been drawn, and that we must move towards independence of safeguarding”.

Andrew Morse, a survivor of Smyth’s abuse, also called for Mr Welby to go, saying that he felt the archbishop’s admission that he had not done enough in response to the reports meant that both he and the Church of England had effectively been involved in a “cover-up”.

The petition calling for his resignation, which accused the archbishop of “allowing abuse to continue” and said his position was “no longer tenable”, was signed by more than 14,000 people.

The prime minister had also publicly said victims of Smyth had been “failed very, very badly,” but would not comment when asked whether the archbishop should quit.

The Archbishop has to ask the King, who is the head of the Church of England, for permission to retire.

It is convention to also inform the prime minister.

It is not known how long the archbishop will remain in post but the process of finding a replacement is likely to take at least six months.

A consultation, which is expected to last several months, will ask people in and outside the Church of England what they want from the next archbishop.

The information will help form the basis of a longlist of suitable candidates.

While candidates cannot apply for the role, those chosen to be interviewed do not have to be from the Church of England and they do not have to be bishops, although they are likely to be.

The candidates will then be interviewed by a committee, with a chair appointed by the prime minister.

Members will include representatives from around the global Anglican Communion, the General Synod, as well as at least one bishop.

At least two-thirds of the committee members must agree before a decision is made.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is also the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican community.

Donald Trump and his Republican Party have an ambitious agenda and (near) control of US Congress.

Trump has said he will “make heads spin” as he moves full-speed ahead after his inauguration on 20 January.

His team has said to expect a flurry of executive orders – directives from the US president – out of the Oval Office in the first week.

Policy experts and lawyers are already drafting those orders as part of the administration’s transition.

Still, advocacy groups and Democratic state governors have vowed to challenge at least some of those plans.

Here is what the president-elect has said about his second-term priorities.

Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Sunday “we know he promised to sign an executive order to secure the southern border”.

“We know that on day one he is going to launch the largest mass deportation of illegal immigrants in American history,” she said.

In the week since his re-election, Trump has prioritised filling leadership positions that would oversee immigration, suggesting he is preparing to tackle his plans for border policy early.

He tapped veteran immigration official Tom Homan as his “border tsar”; selected South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to oversee homeland security; and appointed Steven Miller as White House deputy chief of staff for policy. Mr Miller is best known for shaping some Trump’s most restrictive policies on illegal immigration during his first term.

Any mass deportation programme could face logistical difficulties as well as a flurry of legal challenges from immigration and human rights activists.

Trump could also re-implement his “Remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while claims are processed.

President Joe Biden had called the programme “inhumane” and tried to end it on his first day in office, but faced legal challenges. In 2022, the Supreme Court allowed him to move ahead.

During the Trump administration, about 70,000 asylum seekers were returned to Mexico to wait for their hearings.

Another day one promise was to end birthright citizenship – the 150-year-old principle that says anyone born on US soil is an American citizen.

It’s not clear how Trump plans to achieve this policy. He has pledged an executive order but birthright citizenship is explicitly guaranteed by the US Constitution, meaning it can only be altered under specific circumstances.

He would need states to agree to a national convention or a two-thirds vote in favour in the narrowly split Congress to propose a change, then subsequent approval by three-fourths of state legislatures – of which Republicans control just over half.

Trump did not mention pardons in his victory speech, but he has long suggested that pardoning those convicted of storming the Capitol in 2021 would be a priority.

“Oh, absolutely, I would. If they’re innocent, I would pardon them,” Trump said during a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists.

US presidents have wide authority to forgive people convicted of federal crimes or end their prison sentences. Prosecutors may also decide to drop pending cases depending on who Trump might choose to pardon.

What’s less clear is who might get a pardon.

At one point, Trump told CNN: “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”

Ms Leavitt told the Washington Post that he will decide “on a case-by-case basis when he is back in the White House”.

More than 1,500 people were arrested in connection with the Capitol riot. According to federal numbers, more than 750 of them were sentenced for crimes ranging from trespassing to assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.

Trump has also faced his own legal challenges over his actions following the 2020 election and a separate classified documents case.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, a veteran prosecutor appointed to oversee the US Department of Justice’s investigations into Trump, filed charges, to which the president-elect has pleaded not guilty.

Trump has said firing Jack Smith will be one of his top priorities.

“I would fire him within two seconds. He’ll be one of the first things addressed,” he said in an interview in October.

The case was already facing an uncertain future. The Supreme Court ruled in July that presidents have partial immunity from criminal prosecution for their conduct in office, undermining Mr Smith’s case.

Trump’s electoral win also gives him the power to pardon himself of any federal crimes, though no president has done so before.

The Department of Justice is reportedly in talks with Mr Smith over winding down the cases. It is unclear whether Trump might go further and punish Mr Smith.

Trump has regularly railed against the special counsel in interviews and online, calling him a “crooked person”, a “scoundrel” and other insults.

In his 2016 campaign, Trump made withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement a priority. Within six months of taking office, the United States moved to exit landmark deal.

President Joe Biden made rejoining the agreement one of his top priorities when he ran against Trump in 2020. Biden signed a letter requesting the US be readmitted on his first day in office.

How will Trump respond in his second term? Media reports suggest that his team is preparing orders to withdraw once again when he takes office in January.

Leaving the agreement would mean the US is no longer beholden to meeting set carbon emissions reductions.

Among other priorities at odds with the Paris standards, Trump has said he wants to prioritise US production of oil and gas. He promised to quickly expedite permitting and fracking – “We’re drilling, drilling, drilling,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity last year.

Trump has also criticised the Biden administration’s plans to expand wind energy and increase electric car production, which could be early targets in his new administration.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he could end the Russia-Ukraine war “in a day”. He has also repeatedly criticised the US government’s continued support of Ukraine, casting the war is a drain on resources.

He has not yet given specifics on how he would negotiate the war’s end beyond saying he would help the two countries strike a deal.

Since his re-election, Trump has spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a call that lasted “about half an hour”, with billionaire Elon Musk also taking part. A source told the BBC that “it was not really a conversation to talk about very substantial things”.

The Kremlin denied that Trump held a call with Vladimir Putin, though media reports said Trump warned the Russian president against escalating the war in Ukraine.

The economy is an issue that Trump heavily campaigned on, vowing to end inflation as soon as he takes office.

“We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply chain issues,” Trump has said.

“I will instruct my cabinet that I expect results within the first 100 days, or much sooner than that.”

He said he would sign an executive order that directs every cabinet secretary and agency head to “use every tool and authority at their disposal” to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices down.

Trump’s plan includes imposing tariffs on imported goods, especially those coming in from China, arguing that these taxes would keep manufacturing jobs in the US.

It’s still unclear how widespread these tariffs will be, but Trump has raised the prospect of at least a 10% across-the-board tariff on imported goods, as well as a 60% import tax on goods from China.

He also vowed to target Mexico with his tariffs.

“I’m going to inform (the Mexican president) on Day 1 or sooner that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send into the US,” he has said.

These tariffs would probably not need congressional approval.

Trump already introduced tariffs in his first term, citing Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which empowers a president to impose duties on goods that could affect US national security.

Another promise is to “end the Biden-Harris war on American energy”, Trump has said, vowing to ramp up oil drilling and fracking as a way to lower the cost of energy bills for consumers.

Trump can do this with an executive order that rolls back environmental protections, which would allow him to halt clean energy projects and scrap climate targets set by the Biden administration.

The president-elect has also vowed to fire Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on day one. Gensler, who was appointed by Biden, pushed for climate disclosure rules and strong enforcement of the cryptocurrency market.

Trump has championed cryptocurrency, and his election saw the value of Bitcoin go up by 30% in the past week due to an expectation that his administration will be more crypto-friendly.

Donald Trump has vowed to undo the changes made by President Biden to Title X, the country’s only national, federally funded family planning programme.

In 2019, during his first term, Trump’s administration implemented a new rule that prohibited any healthy provider in the Title X network from mentioning abortion to patients, even if a patient raised questions about it themselves.

The change effectively stripped tens of millions of dollars from organisations such as Planned Parenthood that offer or refer patients for abortions.

But just months later, when Biden took office, he had that policy reversed.

Now, it’s expected that Trump will change the rules again.

How will history judge my tenure?

That’s a question Dhananjay Yashwant Chandrachud, who retired as India’s 50th chief justice on Sunday, asked just weeks before he finished his term.

Justice Chandrachud said his mind was “heavily preoccupied with fears and anxieties about the future and the past”.

“I find myself pondering: Did I achieve everything I set out to do? How will history judge my tenure? Could I have done things differently? What legacy will I leave for future generations of judges and legal professionals?” he said.

The soul searching came at a time when many in India are also debating what legacy he leaves behind.

Justice Chandrachud served more than eight years as a top court judge and as chief justice for the past two years. He presided over one of the most powerful Supreme Courts in the world with jurisdiction over India’s 1.4 billion citizens.

The top court is the final court of appeal, the final interpreter of the constitution and its judgements, which are binding on all other courts in India, routinely make news – although judges seldom do.

But Justice Chandrachud, sometimes described as India’s “first celebrity judge” and a “rockstar judge”, has routinely hit the headlines.

According to Arghya Sengupta of the Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy, the jurist was India’s most prolific chief justice who wrote 93 judgements – more than his last four predecessors put together – including some on matters of seminal importance. He also made huge strides in terms of digitisation and livestreaming of court hearings – making them more accessible to citizens.

But some of the recent coverage has also been unflattering, with critics saying he wasn’t assertive enough and his tenure has been disappointing.

The Harvard-educated judge has many firsts to his name – he was the youngest to head a high court and his two-year-term was the longest for a chief justice in more than a decade. He’s also the only chief justice whose father also served in the role.

During his years in the Supreme Court, he developed a reputation for being a progressive, liberal judge known for his nuanced and thoughtful judgements related to matters of liberty, freedom of speech and gender and LGBT rights.

He was part of landmark rulings that decriminalised homosexuality and allowed menstruating women into Kerala’s Sabarimala shrine. His utterances on the right to privacy and right to dissent were extensively praised.

So, his elevation to be India’s top judge in November 2022 was welcomed by senior lawyers, activists and citizens with many expressing a “strong hope that under his leadership the court will rise to greater heights”.

It was a time when India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was getting ready to secure a third term in the 2024 general election.

Opposition parties, activists and sections of the press were accusing the government of targeting them, with global rights organisations saying Indian democracy was under threat.

Although the government denied any wrongdoing, many of India’s top academics, rights activists and popular opposition leaders found themselves in jail and the country kept sliding on the global press freedom index. (The government has always rejected such ratings, saying they are biased against India.)

Senior lawyer Kamini Jaiswal says Justice Chandrachud’s appointment had come at “a crucial juncture as some of the last chief justices had left under a cloud of dark spots and the position had been denigrated with serious allegations”.

“So, we thought Justice Chandrachud would use his erudition and brilliant mind to do a lot of good for the citizens. But he has been disappointing,” she said.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Chander Uday Singh says his record is “a mixed bag”.

“In his judgments, he would lay down the law brilliantly which could be used as a precedent for future cases. But whenever the state was heavily invested in any issue, he failed to hold power to account, so the state got away with what they had set out of achieve.”

For instance, he points out that the court struck down a government scheme that allowed people to make anonymous donations to political parties, calling it unconstitutional and illegal. “But then he did not hold anyone accountable for the illegality.”

Similarly, when it came to a political crisis in the western state of Maharashtra or Delhi’s power struggle with the federal government, his judgments tended to favour the government, he adds.

“There was hope that through his judgments, he would set things right in a country that is under a strong majoritarian government. But he fell short.”

Several top lawyers have also criticised Justice Chandrachud for what he did as the “master of the roster” by failing to effectively prevent the prolonged incarceration of political prisoners – leading to the death of some of them without ever getting bail. This happened despite Justice Chandrachud saying that bail should be the norm and not the exception.

And as he neared his retirement, Justice Chandrachud also made headlines for what he did not in the court, but outside.

In September, there was uproar over a viral video that showed him praying at home with PM Modi during a Hindu religious festival.

Ms Jaiswal said by publicising the photo, “a message was being sent that the chief justice is close to the PM”. Lawyers, former judges, opposition politicians and many citizens also criticised him saying “the presence of a politician at a private event erodes the perception of impartiality of the judiciary”.

Another burst of criticism greeted Justice Chandrachud’s comment last month when he said he had asked God for a solution to the vexed Babri Mosque-Ram temple dispute. “I sat before the deity and told him he needed to find a solution and he gave it to me,” he said.

The comment led to a firestorm of criticism, not entirely unexpected as the mosque-temple dispute has been one of the most contentious and religiously polarising issues in modern India.

The mosque was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992. A five-judge bench, which included Justice Chandrachud, ruled in 2019 that the demolition was illegal, but still gave the disputed land to Hindus and a separate site for the mosque to be built. Earlier this year, PM Modi inaugurated a grand new temple at the site, fulfilling a longstanding promise by his party.

So, no surprise then that Justice Chandrachud’s comment, seen by many as religious, was extensively criticised.

Retired high court judge Anjana Prakash told HW news that his comment was “dramatic, filmy and laughable and it had brought down the level of judiciary”.

“A judge has to decide cases on principles of law. Where does God come into a judgement? Besides, people have different gods. And if a justice from another faith had said this, would the reaction be the same?” she asked.

Justice Prakash and other critics wondered if he was cosying up to the government for a post-retirement assignment.

In the days preceding his retirement, Justice Chandrachud addressed some of the criticism in interactions with the media.

“The separation of powers doesn’t mean antagonistic relations between the executive and the judiciary, it doesn’t mean that they cannot meet,” he said at an event by the Indian Express newspaper, adding that such meetings were not used “to cut deals”.

“The ultimate proof of our good behaviour lies in the written word – in our judgements. Is it consistent with the constitution or not?”

Justice Chandrachud said his comment on seeking divine guidance was because “I am a person of faith” and “to impute motives to judges is not right”.

He added that courts were facing pressure “from lobbies and pressure groups” and they would praise a decision critical of the government, but if he ruled in favour of the government, they questioned his independence.

At his farewell on Friday, the outgoing chief justice said he was perhaps India’s most trolled judge, but his “shoulders are broad enough to accept all criticism”.

And at the weekend, he told Times of India that he believed he had “left the system better than I found it”.

“I’m retiring with a sense of satisfaction,” he said.

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has helped push the price of Bitcoin to a series of record highs.

Backers of the digital currency are celebrating, and wondering how much more valuable it could become – with some suggesting it could reach $100,000 per coin.

Its price is rocketing because the president-elect has vowed to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet” – a remarkable turnaround given as recently as 2021 he was calling Bitcoin a “scam.”

He even started accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as donations to his election campaign and raised millions from the industry.

But that is just one of the many twists and turns in the jaw-dropping story of Bitcoin, which continues to captivate people worldwide and has seen the making – and losing – of huge fortunes.

Here’s the BBC’s list of the seven wildest moments – so far – in Bitcoin’s tumultuous history.

1. The mysterious creator of Bitcoin

Despite its enormous profile, no-one actually knows for sure who invented Bitcoin. The idea for it was posted on internet forums in 2008 by someone calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto.

They explained how a peer-to-peer digital cash system could work to enable people to send virtual coins over the internet, just as easily as sending an email.

Satoshi created a complex computer system that would process transactions and create new coins using a huge network of self-appointed volunteers around the world who used special software and powerful computers.

But he – or they – never revealed their identity, and the world has never worked it out.

In 2014, Japanese-American man Dorian Nakamoto was pursued by reporters who thought he was the elusive Bitcoin creator, but it proved to be false lead caused by some mistranslated information.

Australian computer scientist Craig Wright said it was him in 2016 – but after years of legal battles, a High Court judge concluded he was not Satoshi.

Earlier this year, a Canadian Bitcoin expert called Peter Todd strongly denied being Satoshi, while in London this month a British man, Stephen Mollah, claimed he was – but no-one believed him.

2. Making history with pizza

Bitcoin now underpins a two trillion-dollar cryptocurrency industry – but the first recorded transaction using it was the purchase of pizza.

On 22 May 2010, Lazlo Hanyecz, offered $41 worth of Bitcoin on a crypto forum in return for two pizzas.

A 19-year-old student obliged and the day went down in history for fans of the currency as #BitcoinPizza day.

A source of memes for those in crypto community, it also showcased the power of Bitcoin – an internet money that could genuinely buy items online.

Criminals must have been watching too, because within a year the first darknet marketplace was launched selling drugs and other illegal goods in exchange for Bitcoin.

The deal looks pretty bad for Lazlo now too. If he had held onto those coins they would now be worth hundreds of millions of dollars!

3. Becoming legal tender

In September 2021, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, central America, made Bitcoin legal tender.

Hairdressers, supermarkets and other shops had to accept Bitcoin by law, alongside its main currency, the US dollar.

Many Bitcoin enthusiasts and reporters visited the area, briefly boosting tourism to the country.

While President Bukele hoped the move would increase investment in his country and cut costs for citizens exchanging money, it did not become as popular as he hoped.

He is still hoping it will take off but for now the US dollar still remains king in the country.

As well as the huge amount of public money President Bukele spent on trying to make people embrace Bitcoin he also, controversially, bought more than 6,000 bitcoins over the past few years.

The president spent at least $120m buying up bitcoins at various prices in the hope of making a profit for his cash-strapped country.

It started to look good for him in December 2023 when, for the first time, his stash skyrocketed in value.

A website built by Dutch software engineer Elias Zerrouq is tracking the country’s Bitcoin holdings and currently estimates that the coins have risen 98% in value.

4. Kazakhstan’s crypto boom and bust

In 2021, Kazakhstan became a hotspot for Bitcoin mining – the process of crunching through the complex calculations that underpin crypto transactions.

These days it takes warehouses full of the latest computers running all day and all night, but the reward is brand new bitcoins for those companies that take part.

Warehouses of computers require lots of power – and many businesses moved to Kazakhstan where electricity was abundant thanks to huge coal reserves.

At first the government welcomed them with open arms as they brought investment.

But too many miners arrived and put huge strain on the electricity grid, putting the country at risk of blackouts.

Within a year, Kazakhstan’s Bitcoin mining industry went from boom to bust as the government imposed restrictions and increased taxes to curb the growth.

Around the world it is estimated that the Bitcoin network uses as much electricity as a small country, raising concerns about its environmental impact.

5. Bitcoins in the rubbish dump

Imagine having a crypto wallet worth more than $100m (£78m) – and then accidentally throwing away a hard drive containing the login details.

That’s what James Howells, from south Wales, says happened to him

The very nature of crypto means that recovery is not as easy as resetting your password. With no banks involved – there is no customer support helpline.

Unfortunately for him, his local council in Newport refused to let him access the landfill site where he says the device ended up – even after he offered to donate 25% of his Bitcoin stash to local charities if they let him.

He told the BBC: “It was a penny dropping moment and it was a sinking feeling.”

6. Crypto King fraudster

No one has lost as much Bitcoin as former billionaire crypto mogul, Sam Bankman-Fried. The founder of the massive crypto firm FTX was nicknamed the Crypto King and loved by the community.

FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange that allowed people to trade normal money for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

His empire was worth an estimated $32bn and he was flying high until everything came crashing down within days.

Journalists had discovered that Bankman-Fried’s company was financially shaky and had been illegally transferring FTX customer funds to prop up his other company, Alameda Research.

Just before his arrest at his luxury apartment complex in the Bahamas in December 2022 he spoke to reporters. He told the BBC: “I don’t think I committed fraud. I didn’t want any of this to happen. I was certainly not nearly as competent as I thought I was.”

After being extradited to the US he was found guilty of fraud and money laundering and was jailed for 25 years.

7. Investment bank boom

Despite all the turmoil, Bitcoin continues to attract attention from investors and big companies.

In fact, in January 2024, some of the biggest financial firms in the world added Bitcoin to their official asset lists as Spot Bitcoin ETFs. These are like stocks and shares, linked to the value of Bitcoin but you don’t have to personally own any.

Customers have been pouring billions into these brand new products. Companies including Blackrock, Fidelity and GrayScale, have also been buying up Bitcoins in their thousands, pushing up its value to record highs.

It is a huge milestone for crypto with some fans believing that Bitcoin is finally being taken as seriously as the mysterious Satoshi imagined.

Nonetheless, few would back against more wild moments as the Bitcoin story continues to unfold.

Financial markets greeted Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election with a blistering rally.

That’s despite considerable debate about how Trump’s plans for tariffs, lower taxes and mass migrant deportations might affect the world’s largest economy.

A week on, the surge finally appears to be settling. The three major stock indexes in the US ended the day lower on Tuesday, after rising roughly 5% since 4 November, the day before the election.

Here are some of the companies that have come out ahead, as investors try to game out what the next four years might bring.

Tesla shares have surged roughly 35% since 4 November.

The rally has pushed the market value of the firm back above $1tn for the first time since 2022 and boosted the wealth of boss Elon Musk, who owns a roughly 13% stake in the company, by more than $50bn.

It marks a bet by investors that a Trump White House might ease up on some of the investigations by safety regulators into features such as self-driving.

The ties between Trump and Musk could also help Tesla navigate shifts in relationship between the US and China, where the company has a significant presence.

Although Trump is generally expected to reduce government support for electric vehicles, such as tax credits, analysts say this could actually benefit Tesla, the market leader in the US, making it harder for rivals to catch up.

The price of the best-known cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, jumped more than 25% to new all-time records this week on the back of Trump’s win, briefly storming past $89,000.

The gains are a sign that investors are anticipating big changes for the sector, which faced a crackdown under the Biden administration from regulators warning it was rife with hucksters and fraudsters.

Trump once also called crypto a scam, but he changed his tune on the campaign trail this year, promising to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet”.

He said he would create a strategic bitcoin stockpile and sack Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler, who had sparked anger by taking legal action against firms under existing financial laws.

Crypto firms insist their sector should be subject to new, tailor-made rules. That likely depends on Congress, where they could also get a friendlier hearing this year.

Shares in some of America’s biggest banks have seen double digit gains since the day before the election as investors bet financial firms will be among the most immediate beneficiaries of Trump’s promises for lighter regulation.

Among other issues, he will now have a voice shaping pending rules that set how much cash banks must keep on hand as financial cushion.

Trump is also expected to part ways with Lina Khan, current head of the Federal Trade Commission, who is known for her anti-monopoly views and is blamed for casting a chill on deal-making, a key business for banks.

Shares in Capital One and Discover, which have a merger under review by regulators, have jumped more than 15% since the result.

Shares in the leading publicly traded prison firms GEO Group and CoreCivic have jumped roughly 70% since 4 November.

The gains point to the big opportunity investors see for private prison operators as Trump vows to round up and deport millions of migrants.

In 2021, President Joe Biden had ordered the Justice Department to stop doing business with private prison companies.

But Trump, who reversed a similar order during his first term, is expected to change that policy and drive new business, as he looks for help to carry out his immigration promises.

Trump’s first actions as president have been focused on assembling the team in charge of immigration policy, a signal it is likely to be a priority.

The dollar index is hovering at its highest level since April, rising more than 2% in the last week.

It is good news for American tourists travelling abroad – but a more mixed signal about the economy.

That is in part because the strength of the dollar is closely tied to interest rates, which investors are now betting could stay higher than previously anticipated.

It partially reflects data from before the election suggesting the US economy is stronger than previously understood.

But investors also see a risk that lower taxes, less immigration and new trade barriers could keep pressure on inflation, making the US central bank more reluctant to cut interest rates.

Last week, the Federal Reserve offered little guidance about the months ahead, saying it was too early to tell what impact Trump’s policies might have.

The largest restoration of Rembrandt’s masterpiece, The Night Watch, is under way at the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.

Following five years of research using techniques such as digital imaging and artificial intelligence, eight restorers will begin “Operation Night Watch” by removing the varnish from the painting – in full view of the public, within the glass-enclosed space in The Night Watch Room.

“The start of the restoration is thrilling,” Rijksmuseum general director Taco Dibbits said.

“Removing the varnish will reveal The Night Watch’s eventful history. It will be a unique experience for the public to follow this process up close.”

The varnish, applied during a 1975-76 restoration, will be removed using microfibre cloths and cotton swabs.

The process follows years of scientific research, trials on other paintings, and tests on The Night Watch itself.

Made for Amsterdam’s Arquebusiers Guild Hall, Rembrandt van Rijn’s 1642 oil painting is one of the earliest to portray a group in action.

A captain, dressed in black, is telling his lieutenant to start the company marching. And the guardsmen are moving into formation.

Rembrandt uses the light to focus on particular details, such as the captain’s gesturing hand and the young girl, a mascot, in the background.

The painting’s original name is Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq – but it became known as The Night Watch, in the 18th Century.

The artwork was coated with a dark varnish and accumulated dirt over the years, giving the false impression it depicts a night scene.

The Night Watch has been attacked with a knife – in 1911 and again in 1975, when the attacker slashed 12 cuts into the canvas.

And in 1990, a man sprayed acid on to the painting – although, this time, thanks to a guard’s rapid intervention, only the varnish was damaged.

The Night Watch has been treated at least 25 times – but this latest research and restoration project is the most extensive so far.

More than two million visitors come to see the painting, at the museum, in the Netherlands, every year.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” in some of the harshest public criticism of the country by a Saudi official since the start of the war.

Speaking at a summit of Muslim and Arab leaders the prince also criticised Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran.

Israel has vehemently denied that its forces are committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In a sign of improving ties between rivals Riyadh and Tehran, Prince Mohammed also warned Israel against launching attacks on Iranian soil.

Saudi’s de facto leader was joined by other leaders present in calling for a total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said it was a “failing of the international community” that the war in Gaza had not been stopped, accusing Israel of causing starvation in the territory.

Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud said: “Where the international community primarily has failed is ending the immediate conflict and putting an end to Israel’s aggression.”

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, which saw hundreds of gunmen enter southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.

Israel retaliated by launching a military campaign to destroy Hamas, during which more than 43,400 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A report by the UN’s Human Rights Office found that close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period in Gaza were women and children.

Leaders at the summit also condemned what they described as Israel’s “continuous attacks” against UN staff and facilities in Gaza.

Last month, the Knesset passed a bill to ban Unrwa, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, from operating in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, accusing the organisation of colluding with Hamas.

Several countries, including the US and the UK, have expressed serious concern about the move limiting the agency’s ability to transfer aid to Gaza.

In the backdrop of the well-attended summit, is Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Gulf leaders are aware of his closeness to Israel, but they also have good relations with him, and want him to use his influence and his fondness for deal-making to secure an end to conflicts in this region.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump is viewed much more favourably than Joe Biden, but his track record in the Middle East is mixed.

He pleased Israel and angered the Muslim world by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as the annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. He also secured the Abraham Accords in 2020 which saw the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and Sudan agree to do so.

One editorial in a leading Saudi newspaper today is titled: “A new era of hope. Trump’s return and the promise of stability.”

Gladiator II – Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated sequel following the 2000 epic – has been met with a mixed response from film critics.

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called the movie a “thrilling spectacle” and “gobsmacking reboot”.

His four-star review also praised Paul Mescal for his performance as the illegitimate son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, Lucius, and called him a “formidable lead”.

However, he agreed with most critics that while the film is an enjoyable watch, it doesn’t quite live up to the Oscar-winning original.

“It isn’t quite as strong as its predecessor,” wrote Robbie Collin for The Telegraph. “But it is still the year’s most relentlessly entertaining blockbuster.”

“You miss Russell Crowe, but Mescal is always watchable, with a stocky, swarthy, brooding presence,” he added in the four-star review.

The FT’s review celebrated veteran director, Ridley Scott, for his “stubborn charm”, “belligerent swagger” and “ideas that are more pulpy and loopy”.

“The best of the film is its sheer bloody-minded heft, a blockbuster fuelled by an insistence on bigger, sillier, movie-r,” Danny Leigh wrote, giving the film three stars.

But he added that he’d “be amazed if the sequel is remembered by Christmas, let alone in 24 years”.

Variety’s Owen Gleiberman said that while the sequel was a “solid piece of neoclassical popcorn” it’s “ultimately a mere shadow” of the original.

He also noted that while Mescal delivers a fine performance he has “an anger that never quite simmers to a boil” and “we now can’t help but see him as a millennial knockoff of Crowe’s glowering royal punk”.

• Paul Mescal cast in Gladiator II after ’30-minute Zoom call’
• Paul Mescal battles a rhino in new Gladiator film
• Paul Mescal in Dublin for Gladiator II premiere
• Director Sir Ridley Scott made a Knight Grand Cross

The Independent’s four-star review also commended 86-year-old Scott, who appears to care less about habits and expectations the older he gets.

“Gladiator II is equal in scale and spectacle, and weighted with metaphor, but it’s also shot through with the kind of wry, absurdist slant that’s come to dominate Scott’s work of the last decade and a half,” wrote Clarisse Loughrey. “At times, Gladiator II is pure camp.”

The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film delivers bigger, bolder action thanks to advances in digital technology.

There are “heavily armed gladiators riding a charging rhinoceros” and “wounded men tumbling from boats into the jaws of ravenous sharks” during the nautical battle staged in the flooded pit of the Colosseum.

David Rooney was less favourable about Mescal’s performance and called it “a tad flat at times” with his emotional range “sticking mostly to the same notes of brooding intensity and simmering rage”.

Kevin Maher at The Times also criticised Mescal and said he “disappoints in this dreary, Marvel-esque sequel”.

In his two-star review, he wrote that the film is a “scattershot effort with half-formed characters and undernourished plotlines that seem to exist only in conversation with the Russell Crowe original.

“There is no substantial story this time around, and no driving ideas in the hotchpotch screenplay.”

The Wrap’s William Bibbiani agreed and said while the film “has everything it needs in the action department, it’s the story that falls apart”.

“The whole thing hangs on contrivance and familiarity, not characters, so the fights don’t seem to matter much.”

However, Bibbiani and Maher noted that Denzel Washington is particularly good as Machiavellian former slave, Macrinus, who now profits off gladiators.

Maher said the film “only ignites when Denzel Washington’s brilliant, bisexual slave manager is on screen,” he said.

Other critics agreed and The Guardian said he “almost steals the entire picture”, while The Hollywood Reporter called his performance “lip-smacking”.

Empire’s four-star review praised other members of the cast as well – Pedro Pascal is “as charismatic as ever” and Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger as Roman Emperor twins “rival Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus from the original Gladiator in terms of crazed volatility and also have a distinct whiff of the ultimate mad emperor Caligula”.

People in Thailand are accusing a high-profile television drama of potentially abusing animals after a cat was shown convulsing on the ground.

Concerned viewers of Thai drama “The Empress of Ayodhaya” questioned what was done to the animal to make its performance so convincing, with some suggesting potential mistreatment.

Despite the show’s producers scrambling to reassure audiences of the cat’s safety, a boycott campaign has gained traction on social media.

Authorities said they were investigating allegations of animal abuse.

In the controversial scene, a woman makes a cat drink her tea to test if it has been spiked. Moments later, the cat lies purring and writhing on the ground until it “dies”.

Social media users, including public figures, quickly took to social media to air their anger about potential mistreatment of the cat.

Those concerns have now cast a shadow over what was marketed as one of the biggest Thai dramas of the year.

“The Empress of Ayodhaya” tells a story about royal tensions in the Ayutthaya period, inspired by the story of a 16th century Siamese queen.

Thai television channel One31 and the show’s director, Sant Srikaenlaw, said the cat had been put under anaesthesia with the supervision of experts. Sant added that the cat had regained consciousness, and promised to take it in for a health check.

The show’s producers also posted photos and videos of the cat to prove that it was safe and healthy.

This has done little to quell public anger.

The Veterinary Council of Thailand, which warned of the dangers of sedating animals, said it would take relevant action on the case. Meanwhile, Thailand’s Livestock Department said it has started investigating allegations of animal cruelty, adding that it had asked to examine the cat to make sure it was not harmed.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) issued a statement on Monday condemning the anesthetising of the cat for entertainment, describing it as “reckless, dangerous, and cruel”.

“The public is rightly outraged, especially knowing that today, anything is possible with CGI, AI and animatronics,” the statement said. “If you can’t make a TV show without risking the lives of animals, you’re in the wrong business.”

Princess Zelda is one of Nintendo’s best-known characters, but she’d never starred in one of its games until this year.

Despite lending her name to the Legend of Zelda series, she’d always played a supporting role behind regular hero Link.

That all changed with Echoes of Wisdom, released a few weeks ago.

BBC Newsbeat caught up with series producer Eiji Aonuma and the game’s directors, Tomomi Sano and Satoshi Terada, to find out about making the game and their reaction to its launch.

Echoes of Wisdom was a complete surprise when it was announced at the Nintendo Direct showcase in June.

Fans were quick to realise the significance of a game starring the princess as the main character.

But it also introduced a new play style for the series.

Rather than being equipped with a sword and shield, as in previous Legend of Zelda games, the main character has the ability to copy items and enemies found during their quest.

Known as echoes, these items can then be spawned or “pasted” into the world, allowing players to come up with solutions to obstacles and puzzles.

You might stack beds and boxes to scale a wall, or unleash several enemies to attack one of the game’s bosses.

Series producer Aonuma acknowledges “a lot of the focus of the topic of conversation was going to be on Zelda being the main protagonist”.

But, he says, a bigger concern for him was “whether or not the unique gameplay of the echoes was going to be conveyed properly and understood properly by the viewers”.

It’s a feeling shared by directors Terada and Sano.

“Whether or not the Zelda fans would accept these new elements was something I was watching over nervously,” says Terada, chief of third-party co-developer Grezzo.

Sano says she was “relieved to see that it was being accepted positively, and was really watching closely over my smartphone to see people’s reactions the following day as well”.

Since getting their hands on the new game, some players have reported taking a while to get to grips with the new system.

Aonuma, who says he completed Echoes of Wisdom eight times during its development, admits that he had similar feelings on his first playthrough.

“From the second time through I sort of realised that there’s various ways and methods of overcoming these puzzles and overcoming the challenges,” he says.

Aonuma says experimenting with different methods helped him to change his experience.

“And so I think that realisation that you can do various things and there are various ways to overcome and solve these puzzles is sort of a turning point of whether you become used to using the echoes in the new game system.”

Recent Zelda games have given players much more room to be creative and test the limits of what they can do, with some sharing the results online.

Last year’s Tears of the Kingdom, for example, allowed players to build strange contraptions and led to memorable creations such as a giant robotic Godzilla.

Terada says that the team spent a lot of time testing Echoes of Wisdom’s various combinations, but even they were surprised once people got their hands on it.

“Seeing how players are using it, I was really amazed at people’s imaginations,” he says.

The developers admit they were impressed by one trick that’s been widely shared, of players combining a bed with a tornado to propel Zelda into the air.

“That was one that we hadn’t thought of,” Terada admits.

Sano adds: “Players were using the tornado and the bed to actually climb and go over mountains.

“And this was something that I was amazed by, something that I probably wouldn’t be able to do.”

Echoes of Wisdoms received positive reviews upon its release, with the majority of critics praising the game for the sense of freedom it gave players.

But there were a few common criticisms.

One of the main ones was about the game’s performance on the Switch console, which was released back in 2017.

Many players said the game’s frame rate – which governs the smoothness of on-screen animations – was unstable.

Sano confirmed that Echoes of Wisdom uses a variable frame rate, and that the developers felt this was the “best option” available.

Players and reviewers also had complaints about the menu system used to select echoes during the game.

By the end it’s possible to have gathered a total of 127, and the main method of selecting them involves scrolling sideways through a very long row of icons.

It can be filtered using options including most used and newest, but many still felt that it could have been more streamlined.

Terada tells Newsbeat the developers wanted to encourage players to experiment.

“One of the essences of this game is being able to figure out different ways of using each of these echoes,” he says.

“And so in that sense we wanted players to fall upon and see the echoes that they may not have noticed or have been using while they’re sorting through all the echoes that they have.”

He also pointed out that there’s an alternative notebook method which enables players to access the echoes they’ve gathered more quickly.

Zelda celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2026, and Aonuma says Echoes of Wisdom shares some DNA with the original game in the series.

Aonuma says that he thought it “might be close to impossible” to make a new entry adding new elements to the top-down style of earlier Zelda titles.

But, he says: “I think through this game we were able to satisfy a lot of players.

“And so this game made me realise that there’s still a lot of possibility for these top-down Zelda games as well.”

The future of Nintendo is currently a topic of speculation among fans, with fans waiting for news on its successor to the Switch.

Aonuma didn’t give anything away there, but did share something about his vision for the next instalments of Zelda.

“And so we will also have those dynamic 3D Zeldas as well,” he says.

“But in addition to that, we’re also hoping that we can continue with these 2D top-down Zeldas.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Ghana is due to get a new president after December’s election. The current vice-president, Mahamudu Bawumia, and a former head of state, John Mahama, are the two leading candidates in contention to win the poll.

Nana Akufo-Addo, first elected in 2016, is coming to the end of his second and final four-year term.

On Saturday 7 December, the nearly 18.8 million Ghanaians registered to vote will be able to take part in the country’s ninth general election since multiparty politics was reintroduced in the early 1990s.

In the last 30 years, the country has had a series of closely fought but peaceful polls. Ghana has a reputation for the orderly transfer of power between administrations.

On polling day, two elections will be taking place simultaneously:

• Presidential – there are 12 candidates
• Parliamentary – voters in 275 constituencies across the country will be choosing their MP.

Although 12 hopefuls are vying for the presidency, only two have a realistic chance of winning. Since the return of multiparty politics in 1992 only candidates from either the National Democratic Congress (NDC) or the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have won.

The two front-runners are:

• Mahamudu Bawumia (NPP) – Having served as Akufo-Addo’s vice-president for eight years, the 61-year-old Oxford-educated economist could make history as the country’s first Muslim president. The former deputy governor of the central bank gained a reputation for his financial know-how. But that could also be his undoing as he has faced heavy criticism after Ghana plummeted into its most severe economic crisis in years under his watch.
• John Mahama (NDC) – Winning this ballot would represent a comeback for the 65-year-old as he already served as president for four-and-a-half years from 2012 but then lost the 2016 election. In office, he was nicknamed “Mr Dumsor”, which is a reference to the power cuts that plagued his time in office. Amid the current tough economy, Mahama has pledged an “urgent reset” for the country that needs an experienced leader at the helm.

Among other candidates garnering attention are:

• Nana Kwame Bediako – The businessman, also known as “Cheddar”, does not have a political background but has made a lot of impact on social media and attracted young supporters.
• Alan Kyerematen – The former minister, nicknamed “Alan Cash”, left the NPP last year after complaining that the presidential primaries were biased against him. He could draw some NPP support in the party’s heartland in the Ashanti region.

Economic questions have topped people’s concerns in the build-up to the election, especially the rising cost of living. At the end of 2022, the annual inflation rate hit 54%. It has come down since then but prices are still rising steeply.

The World Bank said as many as 850,000 Ghanaians may have been pushed into poverty in 2022 because of the rising prices of goods and services. These “new poor” joined the six million who were already living in poverty.

By the end of 2022, government finances had been depleted with little left to support the country’s budget, forcing Ghana to go to the International Monetary Fund for help.

• How Ghana’s central bank lost $5bn in one year

Unemployment among young people and an exodus of Ghanaians looking for better opportunities elsewhere has also been a feature of recent years.

The NDC has decried this as an “abysmal performance” and has demanded a reset.

The governing NPP says it has built a resilient economy that is on the “cusp of… transformation” so it is not the time to change.

Concerns over the environmental impact of illegal gold mining – known in the country as “galamsey” – have become another major talking-point. A series of demonstrations over the practice, which has led to the pollution of several major rivers with dangerous chemicals, have been held in the build-up to the vote.

• Ghana gold rush sparks environmental disaster

Both major parties agree that the issue needs to be addressed, but while the NPP says it is important for the economy to allow some small-scale miners to continue their work, the NDC is calling for much tougher regulation and the restriction of new licences.

To win the presidential election in the first round, a candidate must get more than half of the votes cast. If no-one passes that threshold then a second round run-off featuring the two candidates with the largest number of votes will take place by the end of December.

The parliamentary election is run on a first-past-the-post basis with the winner being the candidate in each constituency with the largest share of votes, even if that is less than 50%.

On election day, each voter can turn up to their assigned polling station with their voter’s ID card, where they will have their fingerprints electronically checked and are then issued with the two ballot papers. Each person who has cast their ballot then has their little finger marked with indelible ink to prevent voting a second time.

Since 1992, Ghana has had several tight presidential elections.

In 2008, less than half a percentage point separated the two candidates in the second round.

In the election four years later, the winner, Mahama, crept over the 50% threshold in the first round by less than 80,000 votes.

That result triggered a legal complaint from the NPP, which argued that tally sheets at certain polling stations had been tampered with. The challenge was unsuccessful, but it did lead the electoral commission to introduce new measures to ensure greater transparency.

Election observers have frequently praised the way the vote has been run.

Going by previous elections, the electoral commission is likely to announce the result by 10 December.

• Journalist’s apology not enough to satisfy Ghanaian king
• Ghana rejoices as looted treasure put on display
• Ghana’s first photojournalist turns 95
• ‘Bipolar, colour and me’ – an artist’s spreadsheet of emotion
• Ghana – a basic guide

Former US congressman Michael Grimm has been paralysed from the chest down after being thrown from a horse during a polo tournament.

His friend and former New York City council member, Vincent Ignizio, told the Associated Press the “tragic accident” occurred in September, and that he was currently receiving treatment.

Ignizio has also set up a fundraising page to pay for the New York Republican’s medical treatment.

A former marine and FBI agent, Grimm, 54, represented Staten Island and part of Brooklyn in the House of Representatives, but resigned months before being convicted of tax evasion in 2015.

“Through the grace of God and the amazing medical teams who have helped him, Mr Grimm has miraculously thread the needle to survive,” his fundraising page said, adding that the treatment to enable him to walk again would cost “millions of dollars”.

Ignizio said his friend was being treated at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey, where the late actor Christopher Reeve stayed after a similar accident in 1995, the Associated Press reported.

“His ultimate goal is to get himself to walk again,” Ignizio added.

On Monday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said his “thoughts and prayers” were with Grimm and that he was “deeply saddened” by the accident.

“Grimm is a Marine veteran, and as we honour our nation’s service members this Veteran’s Day, I hope for a full and speedy recovery,” he wrote on X.

Grimm was first elected to the House in 2010.

After a two-year federal investigation into his finances, he was charged in 2014, and the following year sentenced to eight months in prison.

Prosecutors at the time said he under-reported wages and revenue so as to avoid payroll, income and sales taxes.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has formally apologised to victims of abuse in care homes, following an inquiry into one of the country’s biggest abuse scandals.

The historic apology, delivered in parliament, comes after a report found that 200,000 children and vulnerable adults had suffered abuse while in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019.

Many of them included people from the Māori and Pacific communities and those with mental or physical disabilities.

The government has since promised to reform the care system.

“I make this apology to all survivors on behalf of my own and previous governments,” said Luxon on Tuesday.

“It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,” he added. “For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility.”

The inquiry, which Luxon described as the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, took six years to complete and included interviews with more than 2,300 survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care institutions.

The ensuing report documented a wide range of abuses including rape, sterilisation, and forced labour.

It found that faith-based institutions often had higher rates of sexual abuse than state care; and civil and faith leaders fought to cover up abuse by moving abusers to other locations and denying culpability, with many victims dying before seeing justice.

The findings were seen as vindication for those who found themselves facing down powerful officialdom, the state, and religious institutions – and often struggling to be believed.

Some survivors and advocates arrived in parliament Tuesday to hear the prime minister’s apology, while hundreds of others tuned in through livestreams across the country. Luxon had earlier faced criticism for delivering the apology in parliament, as that meant many survivors could not hear from the prime minister directly.

Survivors have argued that Luxon’s apology rings hollow unless it is accompanied with proper plans for restitution.

“The effects of that trauma came through later on in life,” Tupua Urlich, a Māori survivor who had given his testimony of abuse to the inquiry, told the BBC’s Newsday programme. “It’s not just the physical abuse, it was the disconnection from my family, from my culture.”

“Justice? No, not yet… These words are nothing unless they’re followed by action, and the right kind of action that is informed by survivors.

“The government have proven that alone they’re not trusted, nor capable, of providing the sort of change and service that we need.”

Details on a restitution scheme are not expected until early next year.

Luxon said Tuesday that while the government works on a new financial redress mechanism for survivors, it would pump an additional NZ$32m ($19m, £15m) into its current system.

The inquiry had made over 100 recommendations, including public apologies from New Zealand authorities and religious leaders, as well as legislation mandating suspected abuse to be reported.

Luxon said the government has either completed or is in the process of working on 28 of these recommendations, but did not give specific detail.

A bill aimed at better protecting children in care had its first reading in parliament on Tuesday, after Luxon delivered the apology. The bill proposes, among other things, a ban on strip searches and greater restrictions on people working with young children.

Luxon also announced a National Remembrance Day to be held on 12 November next year to mark the anniversary of Tuesday’s apology.

“It is on all of us to do all we can to ensure that abuse that should never have been accepted, no longer occurs,” he said.

Germany is set to hold elections on 23 February, following the collapse of the governing coalition.

The country was plunged into crisis after Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the Social Democrats, fired the finance minister and coalition partner, Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats, following weeks of internal tensions.

The February date is a proposal and there are several steps to confirmation. The German press agency DPA reported that these were largely a formality.

It said the next step was for Scholz to put the current government to a confidence vote on 16 December.

If he loses, which is the expected outcome, the election date will formally be proposed to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He will then have 21 days to dissolve the German parliament, the Bundestag.

• Germany engulfed by political crisis as Scholz coalition falls apart

Tensions boiled over in the Bundestag last Wednesday during a row over the 2025 budget.

The chancellor fired Lindner, saying he had “betrayed my confidence” and put the interests of his party over those of the country.

Lindner accused Scholz of “leading Germany into a phase of uncertainty”.

The turmoil plunged Europe’s largest economy into political chaos, hours after Donald Trump’s US election victory triggered uncertainty about the future of the continent’s economy and security.

Scholz’s initial plan for a no-confidence vote in January and elections in mid-March was rejected by the leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz, as not soon enough.

The DPA reported that leaders of both main parties agreed the February date, and that the Greens and Free Democrats, the junior coalition partners, support the plan.

A week after Donald Trump won a second-term in the White House, the contours of his new presidency have started taking shape.

The president-elect has announced nearly a dozen appointees, the first steps toward filling out his White House staff and key government departments. He also made comments to the media and on social media that highlight what his priorities will be upon taking office in January, with a special focus on immigration and foreign policy.

After a sometimes chaotic start to his first term, Trump is laying the groundwork for his next administration with a more clearly defined plan – and personnel ready to enact it.

Here’s a look at what we’ve learned so far.

Some of Trump’s newly revealed appointments suggest that the president-elect’s campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented migrants living in the US is no exaggeration.

Stephen Miller, who has been Trump’s close adviser and speechwriter since 2015, is Trump’s choice for White House deputy chief of staff for policy. He will likely shape any plans for mass deportations – and pare back both undocumented and legal immigration. During Trump’s first term, Miller was involved in developing some the administration’s strictest immigration policies.

Thomas Homan, acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in Trump’s first term, supported the president’s policy of separating undocumented families detained at the US-Mexico border. Now he’s back with an even broader portfolio, as Trump’s “immigration tsar”.

“I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen,” Homan said at a conservative conference in July.

Critics have warned that Trump’s mass deportation plan could cost upwards of $300b. In an interview with NBC News last week, however, the president-elect said cost was not an issue.

“When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here,” he said. “There is no price tag.”

• How would Trump’s promise of mass deportations of migrants work?

Many conservatives believe that China poses the single greatest threat to continued US global dominance, both economically and militarily. While Trump has been more circumspect, limiting most of his China critiques to the realm of trade, he is filling his foreign policy team with vocal China critics.

The president-elect picked Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, a retired Army colonel, as his national security adviser – a key foreign policy post within the White House. Waltz has said the US is in a “cold war” with China and was one of the first members of Congress to call for a US boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

In October, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick for US ambassador to the UN, accused China of “blatant and malicious election interference” amid reports that China-backed hackers attempted to gather information from the former president’s phones.

While Trump has yet to officially name his choice for secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio – another China hawk – appears to be the leading contender for the top diplomatic job. In 2020, Rubio was sanctioned by the Chinese government after he pushed measures to punish the nation for its crackdown on pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.

US-China relations were often rocky during Trump’s first term, amidst trade disputes and the Covid pandemic. The Biden administration, which kept many of Trump’s China tariffs and imposed some new ones, only somewhat calmed the waters. Now it looks like the next Trump administration will pick up where the last one left off.

• Who has joined Trump’s team so far?
• Trump picks Musk to advise on how to ‘dismantle’ bureaucracy

While the list of Trump’s political appointees grows, there’s another group that stays small – and exceedingly influential.

Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, has been a full-time presence at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago transition headquarters. According to media reports, he is advising the president-elect on cabinet nominees and even joined a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.

On Tuesday night, Trump announced that he was assigning Musk to work with tech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in a “department of government efficiency” tasked with identifying new budget cuts.

Musk has regularly offered his political opinions on his social media platform X, including endorsing Florida Senator Rick Scott’s bid to be the next Senate majority leader.

Musk’s political action committee spent around $200m to help Trump’s presidential campaign, and he promises to continue to fund the group’s efforts to advance the president-elect’s agenda and help Republican candidates in upcoming congressional elections.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen where Robert F Kennedy Jr, another key figure, lands. Trump has said that he plans to give the former Democrat and vaccine sceptic, who abandoned his independent bid and endorsed the Republican, a role in making America “healthy” again.

“He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go to it,” Trump said in his election victory speech.

As Trump takes office, Republicans have control of the Senate and could still take the House, albeit by a slim margin. However, the president-elect’s early actions suggest he is more concerned with exercising his presidential power than working with the legislative branch.

Last week, he posted on social media that the Senate’s Republican leadership should smooth the way for more presidential “recess appointments” – allowing him to fill top administration jobs without Senate approval when Congress is not in session. The move would strengthen presidential power by undercutting the chamber’s constitutional role to “advise and consent” on political appointees.

Meanwhile, the president-elect keeps chipping away at those narrow congressional majorities. Senators who move to administration roles can quickly be replaced by appointment from the governor of their home state. But any House vacancies – such as ones created by Stefanik and Waltz’s departures – require special elections that can take months to schedule.

Some of Trump’s advisors, including Musk, have warned that the president-elect could be endangering his legislative agenda if he plucks too many more Republicans from the chambers.

Even in the best of circumstances, congressional legislation takes time, effort and compromise. Executive action, such as new immigration enforcement, can be done with the stroke of a presidential pen.

Trump’s actions indicate he is, at least at the moment, more focused on the latter.

Trump has only just begun filling out the thousands of jobs that open up with a new presidential administration, not including the senior-level career bureaucrats he has said he will replace.

In 2016, as a political newcomer, he had to rely on more establishment Republicans for key roles. This time, he has a wealth of prospective candidates with proven track records of supporting him and after eight years, Trump loyalists are the Republican establishment.

On Tuesday, Trump named South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, and Fox News host and conservative author Pete Hegseth as defence secretary. Both have been fierce Trump defenders from the start.

Others, like Rubio and Stefanik, were critics of Trump early in his first presidential bid, but they have now spent years demonstrating that their harsh words are a thing of the past.

Rubio, who ran for president against Trump in 2016, may still have White House ambitions, however. Trump often soured on appointees who seemed drawn to the limelight during his first term, and even the warmest of relationships could go bad.

Trump may be placing a premium on loyalty with his early staff announcements, but the pressures of governing ultimately will reveal whether his second four years in office end up different than his first.

• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• When does he become president again?
• What happens to his legal cases now
• How he pulled off an incredible comeback

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of US politics in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

The gates outside the Zhuhai sports complex in China were closed. Inside, the stadium was in darkness, as were the grounds around it.

It was here, hours before, where dozens of people were killed when a man drove an SUV into a crowd. Many more were injured.

Only security guards appeared to be moving around behind the fence when the BBC arrived, and they had been ordered to keep an eye out for reporters.

One approached us asking: “Are you journalists?” When I asked why he wanted to know, he replied: “Oh just to understand the situation.”

He and a colleague took photos of us and started making calls, watching us as they did.

Outside the gates people passed by to catch sight of the aftermath. But among them was a group of around a dozen people more interested in us.

A women started calling to the others: “Look, foreigners, foreigners.”

Soon a man who was with her was aggressively interrupting our reporting, grabbing me and shouting.

Often, when sensitive stories like this unfold in China, local Communist Party officials organise groups of cadres to pretend to be outraged locals who have been given the role of targeting foreign reporters and preventing any coverage.

Invariably it doesn’t stop the stories, it just makes China look bad.

After former Premier Li Keqiang died last year, crowds of these loyalists were sent to the street outside his old family home. Any journalist that arrived was surrounded and shouted at, pushed and abused.

Premier Li’s death was sensitive to the party not only because it was sudden and unexpected – but also because he was the last of the old liberal wing. It signalled that the party was now completely stacked with loyalists of President Xi Jinping.

But even for much more minor incidents the same things happen.

Last month, we travelled to a shopping mall in Shanghai where a man had randomly stabbed strangers to death.

The entire location had been cleansed of any evidence within hours of this horrible event taking place. By the morning after, the mall was up and running again as normal: no police crime scene tape, no flowers for the dead.

On one level, you can understand this – many of these inexplicable assaults on the community are copycat in nature. Tuesday’s attack is not an outlier, though it is shocking for its death toll.

But officials here sometimes want these bad things to simply go away as quickly as possible.

Hours after our confrontation outside the site of the Zhuhai attack, carloads of police had arrived to better manage the situation.

A crowd of residents had also gathered to light candles to remember the dead, and videos shared on social media showed lines of volunteers at hospitals offering to donate blood.

President Xi has called on officials to manage society’s problems in order to prevent this type of thing happening again in the future.

But, again, China is left wondering what has driven someone to such inconceivable horror. It is impossibly difficult to find the answers to this one.

At least 35 people have been killed in a car attack in southern China, believed to be the deadliest known act of public violence in the country in decades.

Police say a man crashed his car into a stadium in Zhuhai on Monday where he ran down groups of people exercising on the sports track.

The “serious and vicious attack” also injured 45 people – among them elderly and children, local media report.

Police say the 62-year-old driver, identified as a Mr Fan, appeared to have acted out of unhappiness over a divorce settlement.

He was arrested as he tried to flee the Zhuhai Sports Center and is in a coma due to self-inflicted wounds, police said in a statement.

The incident has sparked a national outcry in China, where President Xi Jinping vowed “severe punishment” for the perpetrator, and called for “all-out efforts” to treat the injured.

Details of those who were killed have not been disclosed by authorities yet, but mourners and members of the public had begun laying flowers and other tributes outside the stadium on Tuesday.

The venue – featuring a running track loop – had been a popular exercise ground for locals. Witnesses told Chinese media it appeared Mr Fan had deliberately run people down.

One man named Mr Chen told Caixin news magazine he and his walking group had just completed a lap of the stadium when a car charged towards them at high speed, “knocking down many people”.

Another person at the scene told Caixin: “It drove in a loop and people were hurt in all areas of the running track.”

According to local police, who released a statement on Tuesday, they said their initial investigations suggested Mr Fan’s actions were triggered by a property dispute following his divorce. He is still in a coma and so has not been questioned, police said.

The attack may be the deadliest act of random public violence in China in recent decades. A number have been reported this year including a mass stabbing and firearms attack in Shandong in February which killed at least 21 people. That incident was heavily censored by Chinese authorities.

Reports of Monday’s attack were already being restricted online on Tuesday – with several videos taken by witnesses at the scene removed from Chinese social media platforms.

But some footage still circulating online showed dozens of people lying on the ground and being attended to by paramedics and bystanders.

In China it is common for censors to quickly take down social media videos which are linked to high-profile incidences of crime.

BBC journalists reporting from the stadium at Zhuhai on Tuesday were also harassed and told to stop filming.

China has seen a spate of violent attacks on members of the public in recent months that have been reported in local media to varying degrees.

In October, a knife attack at a top school in Beijing injured five people, while in September, a man went on a stabbing spree at a supermarket in Shanghai, killing three people and injuring several others.

Also in September, a 10-year-old Japanese student died a day after he was stabbed near his school in southern China.

Following Monday’s car attack, Japan’s embassy warned its nationals living in the country to avoid speaking Japanese loudly in public.

The incident in Zhuhai has also taken place during heightened security in the city, which is hosting a major military airshow this week. The attack on Monday night took place 40km (24 miles) from where the high-profile Airshow China kicked off on Tuesday.

China is showcasing its newest warplanes and attack drones at the show, which top Russian defence official and former defence minister Sergei Shoigu is expected to attend.

Several entrances and exits to the sports centre were closed during the airshow to facilitate “control”, the centre’s management said on Tuesday.

A multiple-missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on two US warships has been thwarted, the Pentagon has said.

At least eight drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles were aimed at the USS Stockdale and the USS Spruance on Monday.

The vessels shot down the projectiles and were “not damaged and no personnel were hurt,” Pentagon press secretary Air Force Major Gen Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday.

The attack followed a series of airstrikes made by the US Central Command against Houthi weapons storage bases in Yemen.

• US bombers target underground Houthi weapon sites in Yemen

The attack happened while the Iranian-backed rebel group were travelling through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a waterway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Al-Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by Yemen’s Houthi movement, said that a series of airstrikes had targeted two US warships and a third vessel in the Arabian Sea.

The group’s military spokesman, Yahya al-Sarea, said in a statement on X that the rebels had “successfully” bombarded the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with a number of cruise missiles.

Ryder said he was “not aware of any attacks” on the Abraham Lincoln vessel.

“We will continue to make clear to the Houthis there will be consequences for their illegal and reckless attacks,” he said.

The Houthis are part of a network of armed groups in the Middle East backed by Iran that includes Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

They have repeatedly targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November 2023. They have sunk two vessels, seized a third of targeted ships and killed crew members.

They say they are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

They have claimed, often falsely, that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.

Earlier this year, the US, UK and 12 other nations launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect Red Sea shipping lanes against the Houthis.

In October, the US military said it had launched strikes on 15 Houthi targets in Yemen, with several explosions reported in the capital Sanaa.

It has previously said it aims to degrade the Houthis’ ability to target shipping.

Volkswagen Group (VW) and Tesla rival Rivian have launched a joint venture, with the German car giant increasing its investment in the partnership.

The two companies say the the deal is now worth $5.8bn (£4.55bn) – up from an initial pledge of $5bn by VW.

Shares in the US electric vehicle (EV) maker jumped more than 9% in after-hours trading following the announcement.

The tie-up will see the firms sharing critical technology at a time of slowing global demand for electric cars and increased competition from Chinese rivals.

The joint venture provides loss-making Rivian with a crucial source of funding as it prepares for the launch next year of its R2 model – a sports utility vehicle (SUV) that is smaller and more affordable than its current offerings.

It also means VW will be able to use Rivian’s technology in its own range of vehicles.

The first VW models equipped with Rivian technology are expected to be available to customers as early as 2027.

“By combining their complementary expertise, the two companies plan to reduce development costs and scale new technologies more quickly,” the two companies said in a statement.

Under the plan, developers and software engineers from both firms will initially work side by side in California, while three other facilities in North America and Europe will be set up.

The president of COP29’s host country has told the UN climate conference that oil and gas are a “gift of god”.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev criticised “Western fake news” about the country’s emissions and said nations “should not be blamed” for having fossil fuel reserves.

The country plans to expand gas production by up to a third over the next decade.

Shortly afterwards, UN chief António Guterres told the conference that doubling down on the use of fossil fuels was “absurd”.

He said the “clean energy revolution” had arrived and that no government could stop it.

Separately, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer pledged further reductions on emissions, saying the UK will now aim for an 81% decrease by 2035. The UK called for other countries to match the new target.

“Make no mistake, the race is on for the clean energy jobs of the future, the economy of tomorrow, and I don’t want to be in the middle of the pack – I want to get ahead of the game,” Sir Keir told the conference.

Some observers had expressed concerns about the world’s largest climate conference taking place in Azerbaijan.

Its minister for ecology and natural resources – a former oil executive that spent 26 years at Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company Socar – is the conference’s chairman.

There are also concerns that Azerbaijani officials are using COP29 to boost investment in the country’s national oil and gas company.

But addressing the conference on its second day, President Aliyev said Azerbaijan had been subject to “slander and blackmail” ahead of COP29.

He said it had been as if “Western fake news media”, charities and politicians were “competing in spreading disinformation… about our country”.

Aliyev said the country’s share in global gas emissions was “only 0.1%”.

“Oil, gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper, all… are natural resources and countries should not be blamed for having them, and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market, because the market needs them.”

Oil and gas are a major cause of climate change because they release planet-warming greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide when burned for energy.

The US is also under the spotlight at the conference, following the election victory of Donald Trump – a known climate sceptic.

On Monday, US President Joe Biden’s envoy John Podesta called out president-elect Trump’s view that climate change was a hoax and said the US team would continue to work on the deal passed at COP28 in 2023.

He added that Washington was also working on a deal passed last year in Dubai to triple renewable power by 2030.

Addressing the conference in Baku on Tuesday, UN Secretary General Guterres decried “doubling down on fossil fuels”.

“The sound you hear is the ticking clock,” he said.

“We are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and time is not on our side.”

He called 2024 a “masterclass in climate destruction” with disasters being “supercharged by human-made climate change”.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization previously said that 2024 is on track to be the world’s warmest year on record.

Guterres said “a new finance goal” was needed, with wealthiest countries paying the most.

“They are the largest emitters, with the greatest capacities and responsibilities,” he said.

“Developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed.”

The Azerbaijani president’s comments are unlikely to derail talks behind the scenes, which are largely about getting more cash for poorer countries to help implement their climate plans.

Developing nations are calling for richer countries to agree together on a fund that could add up to $1 trillion, using public and private money.

Leaders of most of the world’s biggest polluters were not present in Baku, including Biden, France’s leader Emmanuel Macron and India’s Narendra Modi.

• This year set to be first to breach 1.5C global warming limit
• COP29: Will rich nations promise more money for climate change?
• What is the Paris climate agreement and why does 1.5C matter?

The environment minister for Burkino Faso, a central African country among the poorest in the world, told the BBC that more cash was essential.

Roger Baro said it would help his nation deal with the current impacts of climate change in the country, which is experiencing widespread drought, flash floods and disease outbreaks.

The disasters occurred in the Sahel region, which saw temperatures of 45C this year in a heatwave that scientists said would have been impossible to reach without climate change.

Among other world leaders to take to the stage on Tuesday was Spain’s prime minister, who called for “drastic measures” after floods killed more than 200 people in the country.

Experts say that climate change contributed to the heavy rainfall that caused the floods.

“We need to undergo decarbonisation, adapt our towns and infrastructure,” said Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

COP29 is scheduled to last until 22 November, but there are already fears that the tricky issues on the table could make a final agreement very difficult.

Financial markets greeted Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election with a blistering rally.

That’s despite considerable debate about how Trump’s plans for tariffs, lower taxes and mass migrant deportations might affect the world’s largest economy.

A week on, the surge finally appears to be settling. The three major stock indexes in the US ended the day lower on Tuesday, after rising roughly 5% since 4 November, the day before the election.

Here are some of the companies that have come out ahead, as investors try to game out what the next four years might bring.

Tesla shares have surged roughly 35% since 4 November.

The rally has pushed the market value of the firm back above $1tn for the first time since 2022 and boosted the wealth of boss Elon Musk, who owns a roughly 13% stake in the company, by more than $50bn.

It marks a bet by investors that a Trump White House might ease up on some of the investigations by safety regulators into features such as self-driving.

The ties between Trump and Musk could also help Tesla navigate shifts in relationship between the US and China, where the company has a significant presence.

Although Trump is generally expected to reduce government support for electric vehicles, such as tax credits, analysts say this could actually benefit Tesla, the market leader in the US, making it harder for rivals to catch up.

The price of the best-known cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, jumped more than 25% to new all-time records this week on the back of Trump’s win, briefly storming past $89,000.

The gains are a sign that investors are anticipating big changes for the sector, which faced a crackdown under the Biden administration from regulators warning it was rife with hucksters and fraudsters.

Trump once also called crypto a scam, but he changed his tune on the campaign trail this year, promising to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet”.

He said he would create a strategic bitcoin stockpile and sack Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler, who had sparked anger by taking legal action against firms under existing financial laws.

Crypto firms insist their sector should be subject to new, tailor-made rules. That likely depends on Congress, where they could also get a friendlier hearing this year.

Shares in some of America’s biggest banks have seen double digit gains since the day before the election as investors bet financial firms will be among the most immediate beneficiaries of Trump’s promises for lighter regulation.

Among other issues, he will now have a voice shaping pending rules that set how much cash banks must keep on hand as financial cushion.

Trump is also expected to part ways with Lina Khan, current head of the Federal Trade Commission, who is known for her anti-monopoly views and is blamed for casting a chill on deal-making, a key business for banks.

Shares in Capital One and Discover, which have a merger under review by regulators, have jumped more than 15% since the result.

Shares in the leading publicly traded prison firms GEO Group and CoreCivic have jumped roughly 70% since 4 November.

The gains point to the big opportunity investors see for private prison operators as Trump vows to round up and deport millions of migrants.

In 2021, President Joe Biden had ordered the Justice Department to stop doing business with private prison companies.

But Trump, who reversed a similar order during his first term, is expected to change that policy and drive new business, as he looks for help to carry out his immigration promises.

Trump’s first actions as president have been focused on assembling the team in charge of immigration policy, a signal it is likely to be a priority.

The dollar index is hovering at its highest level since April, rising more than 2% in the last week.

It is good news for American tourists travelling abroad – but a more mixed signal about the economy.

That is in part because the strength of the dollar is closely tied to interest rates, which investors are now betting could stay higher than previously anticipated.

It partially reflects data from before the election suggesting the US economy is stronger than previously understood.

But investors also see a risk that lower taxes, less immigration and new trade barriers could keep pressure on inflation, making the US central bank more reluctant to cut interest rates.

Last week, the Federal Reserve offered little guidance about the months ahead, saying it was too early to tell what impact Trump’s policies might have.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced he will step down from his role following a damning report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church of England.

The review found that Justin Welby, 68, “could and should” have reported John Smyth’s abuse of boys and young men to police in 2013.

In a statement, Mr Welby said that “it is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility” for his response after he was first told about the abuse.

“I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England.”

“I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church.

“As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse,” he added.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he “respects the decision that has been taken and his thoughts remain first and foremost with all the victims”.

It was not immediately clear when the archbishop would leave his post but the process of finding a replacement is likely to take at least six months.

• Read Archbishop Justin Welby’s statement in full
• Why did an abuse scandal lead to Welby’s resignation?
• Church covered up ‘abhorrent’ abuse, report finds

Last week, an independent report found inaction from the Church was a “missed opportunity” to bring Smyth to justice before his 2018 death.

In his resignation statement, Mr Welby said he was “told that police had been notified” at the time and that he “believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow”.

He also spoke of his “profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures” of the Church over the days since the report was published.

“For nearly 12 years I have struggled to introduce improvements. It is for others to judge what has been done,” he said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England and leads 85 million Anglicans in 165 countries around the world.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said the Church had made “real progress” in safeguarding under Mr Welby’s leadership but added: “There is much further to go.”

The Church’s lead safeguarding bishop, Joanne Grenfell, said the archbishop’s resignation “does not absolve any of us from bringing about the wholesale changes in culture and leadership that are essential”.

Former vicar Mark Stibbe, a survivor of Smyth’s abuse, said Mr Welby had “done the right thing” in resigning.

“What I think the survivor group would like is more resignations because that means more accountability,” he told Channel 4 News.

The archbishop had been facing mounting pressure to resign in the days since the report’s publication.

A member of the Church’s parliament, the General Synod, who had started a petition calling for Mr Welby’s resignation, said: “I think it’s sad that it’s taken so long for meaningful action to take place.”

The Rev Dr Ian Paul added that he hoped that Mr Welby’s decision would be the first step towards “cultural change in [the Church’s] senior leadership”.

Clare MacLaren, Canon Provost of Sunderland Minster, told the BBC Mr Welby’s resignation was “not before time”.

“It’s something that’s been brewing for the last 24 hours at least,” she said. “It would have been good if he’d done it immediately.”

The independent report into the Church’s handling of John Smyth’s abuse published last week found that from July 2013, “the Church of England knew, at the highest level, about the abuse that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s,” naming Mr Welby specifically.

It found that “several opportunities were missed” to formally report the abuse to police.

One survivor of Smyth’s abuse told the BBC the archbishop and the Church had effectively been involved in a “cover-up”.

The archbishop said in his statement that the report had exposed a “conspiracy of silence” about the abuse.

Smyth was a prominent barrister as well as a lay preacher – a member of the congregation who delivers sermons but is not ordained – who ran summer camps for young Christians.

The report accused him of attacking up to 30 boys he had met at the summer camps during the 1970s and 1980s with a “clearly sexually motivated, sadistic regime” of beatings.

He singled out boys attending the camps and in sessions at leading public schools, including Winchester College, before taking them to his home and beating them with a garden cane in his shed.

Smyth then relocated in the 1980s to Zimbabwe, and later South Africa, where he is alleged to have abused a further 85 to 100 “young male children aged 13 to 17”.

Smyth is believed to have continued his abuse in South Africa until he died in Cape Town in 2018, aged 75.

Mr Welby was educated at Eton and the University of Cambridge. He spent 11 years in the oil industry before retraining as a priest.

He was ordained in 1992 and became a vicar in Warwickshire, a Canon of Coventry Cathedral, the Dean of Liverpool, and the Bishop of Durham before being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013.

Mr Welby will be remembered as a political archbishop.

He spoke frequently in the House of Lords, attacked the payday lender Wonga, openly backed Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and heavily criticised the Conservative government over its immigration and welfare policies.

He tried to move the Church away from focusing on its internal debates. But he leaves a national church that is smaller, and as divided as ever.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell told the BBC the ordination of women as bishops and his work in racial justice were key parts of Mr Welby’s legacy.

Ahead of the verdict, Nadezhda Buyanova was led, handcuffed, into the courtroom and locked inside a glass and metal cage.

Through the glass, the 68-year-old paediatrician told me what she thought of her predicament.

“It’s absurd, just absurd,” the doctor said.

“I can’t get my head around what’s happening to me. Perhaps later I’ll be able to.”

The paediatrician had been reported to police by the mother of a 7-year-old boy she’d been treating.

The woman had claimed that the doctor had made negative comments about the boy’s father, a Russian soldier, who had been killed fighting in Ukraine and that the doctor had said Russian servicemen there were legitimate targets.

Ms Buyanova denies making such comments and there is no audio or video recording to prove she made them.

But back in February, she was arrested and charged with spreading false information about the Russian armed forces. After a short spell under house arrest, she was placed in pre-trial detention.

Now Ms Buyanova was in the dock and about to learn her fate.

Before the judge entered, court officials ordered camera crews out of the courtroom. Along with other journalists, we were ushered into the corridor.

Minutes later the door to the courtroom opened again.

• Russia’s targeting of ‘enemies within’ evokes ghosts of the Soviet past
• Russians accused of crimes offered choice – go to war instead of court
• Russia jails French researcher in ‘foreign agent’ case

“Five-and-a-half years!” cried one of Ms Buyanova’s supporters in the public gallery. “She’s been sent to a penal colony for five-and-a-half years!”

“The sentence is monstrously harsh,” the doctor’s lawyer, Oskar Cherdzhiyev, told me.

“We didn’t expect this, even given what is happening today [in Russia]. Just a few words proved enough to put someone behind bars for such a long time.”

Alina, one of the doctor’s group of supporters in court, said: “For me it was important that Nadezhda saw that a lot of us came today, so that, if a miracle didn’t happen – and we were all still hoping for a miracle – it would be just that little bit easier for her.”

“It’s very difficult to speak about this. We’re all in shock.”

The law against spreading false information about the army is one of several harsh pieces of legislation adopted in Russia since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the aim of silencing or punishing criticism of the war.

The imprisonment of a Moscow paediatrician is the latest sign that, for Russia, a war abroad is fuelling repression at home.

A Premier League footballer has been further questioned by police and remains under investigation for allegedly raping three women and sexually assaulting a fourth, the BBC can reveal.

This comes a year on from a BBC News investigation, which spoke to five women who accused the Premier League player of rape, sexual assault or controlling behaviour.

Despite four women reporting the man, who we are calling Player X, to the police for alleged sexual offences from 2021 to 2023, he has continued to play for the club.

One woman told the BBC the lack of action from the club and governing body the Football Association contributed to her attempting to take her own life.

“I didn’t want to exist in a world where I’m constantly reminded that rape allegations can be ignored as long as you’re talented enough,” she explained.

Another woman said they believe if Player X had been suspended after the first allegation she would not have gone on to be sexually assaulted.

The football bodies say they take sexual misconduct very seriously.

The BBC has confirmed that the footballer attended a police station on Thursday 7 November and was interviewed under caution – this was the first time he was questioned about an allegation of rape reported last year by a fourth woman.

It has been two and half years since Player X was first arrested on suspicion of rape in July 2022, following a report from one woman. Shortly afterwards he was also arrested for an earlier allegation of rape from a second woman, who reported him to the police in August 2021.

Player X was questioned by police in February 2023 about allegations of sexual assault made by a third woman.

Privacy rules regarding the identification of suspects means the BBC is not naming the footballer. The player has denied wrongdoing, the BBC understands.

One of the women, who we are calling Kira, first reported Player X to the police in August 2021 and has expressed finding the criminal process extremely strenuous, as she continues to wait for the outcome of the police investigation.

“This investigation, my only chance at justice, has drained me physically and mentally…the longer this investigation drags on, the more my trust in the system fades,” she told the BBC.

The BBC investigation from last November found seven out of 20 Premier League clubs have had players or bosses investigated by the police for sexual offences since 2020.

However, the bodies only have regulations on how to respond to allegations of this nature if they occur within “a football environment”, or if concerns relate to children or vulnerable adults. Therefore, they say the allegations against Player X do not fall under their safeguarding requirements.

This contrasts with the approach in the United States, where the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) have publicly-available policies for players, or staff, who have been accused of sexual or domestic violence.

The women told the BBC last November that the club, FA and Premier league are prioritising commercial interests over the safety of women.

The celebrity status of top footballers has led to calls for players who become embroiled in criminal allegations to be suspended until it has been fully investigated.

Dame Caroline Dineage, chairwoman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, told the BBC last year that footballers’ public role-model position means it is crucial any sexual abuse allegations are handled appropriately.

“As part of the new regulator’s role setting licensing conditions, we want to see it have the powers to take clubs to task for their approach and lack of progress when it comes to improving every aspect of equality, diversity and inclusion,” she added.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport told the BBC that as there is an ongoing investigation this is a matter for the police, the FA and Premier League.

After first going to the police in August 2021, Kira emailed the FA, Premier League and the club about her allegations the following month “in desperation”, as she was worried about him continuing to play on such a big platform while he was being investigated.

The club told her it couldn’t discuss her allegations for legal reasons. The Premier League directed her to the FA.

More than four months after contacting the FA about her allegations, it told her in emails that it could take “no further action” as the alleged behaviour did not breach its regulations.

It stated there was “no evidence” to suggest that Player X “poses a risk of harm to children or adults at risk”. It sent her a PDF document that was titled “Football’s Safeguarding Children policy” – which did not apply to her.

“They were hiding behind their lack of policies whilst knowing that the regulations they did have set up were meant to protect profits, not victims,” says Kira.

In July 2024, Kira again approached the club, Premier League and FA – sending them evidence that she was a “vulnerable adult”.

In an email, seen by the BBC, the club told her they had passed her correspondence onto the Premier League and the FA. The Premier League told her it was unable to discuss allegations currently under police investigation. And the FA, told her it couldn’t share any details or updates regarding if any FA interventions have been taken.

“Further, we refer to our email…where we explained we are not the employer of the individual,” it added.

Speaking about the response Kira told the BBC their correspondence has “reinforced a devastating message that I don’t matter, that more women coming forward doesn’t matter, and that even when I meet safeguarding requirements, it will never matter”.

Another woman – Mia – says she believes if the FA and club had acted when they were first alerted to a rape allegation in 2021, she wouldn’t have later gone to the house of Player X where she alleges he sexually assaulted her.

“If they had decided to take the first allegation seriously… if they had suspended him, I never would have been in that situation that I was in that day,” she told the BBC.

“Their decision caused me to suffer,” she said.

While the FA has detailed policies in place for players accused of betting on the game, there isn’t anything similar for players accused of sexual or domestic violence that takes place beyond the football environment.

Clubs’ responses to players and leading figures under police investigation for such offences are varied – with some opting to suspend, and others not.

Some lawyers in the UK have noted the many legal difficulties facing football clubs when considering how to deal with a player facing allegations of sexual or domestic violence, without overarching rules in place.

This month, Benjamin Mendy successfully sued Manchester City over his unpaid wages during his suspension, after he was charged with rape and sexual assault in 2021 and later found not guilty on all counts.

A spokesperson for the Met said: “Met officers are investigating following a number of reports of alleged sexual offences between 2021 and 2023.

“A man in his 30s was arrested in July 2022. He has since been interviewed by police on two further occasions while under caution.

“The investigation remains ongoing and detectives are continuing with in-depth and detailed enquiries. Those who have come forward to police continue to receive support from Met officers.”

The footballer’s club and the Premier League told us they were unable to comment on an ongoing police investigation.

A spokesperson for the FA added: “Our safeguarding policies and procedures allow us to support and protect children and adults at risk within a football-related environment.”

“Regardless of where the incident took place, if the individual has a role within football, we always carry out a thorough safeguarding risk assessment and take the appropriate action if we believe there is a risk of harm to children. We are unable to comment on specific cases, but that does not mean that we haven’t taken the required action or applied appropriate safeguards within our jurisdiction.”

The BBC has confirmed that Match of the Day host Gary Lineker is to step down from the flagship football show at the end of this season, but will host BBC Sport’s coverage of the 2026 World Cup.

He will also front the BBC’s coverage of the FA Cup 2025/2026.

“The BBC and Gary Lineker have agreed in principle a contract extension through to the 2026 World Cup,” the BBC said, while confirming his Match of the Day tenure was ending.

Lineker said: “I’m delighted to continue my long association with BBC Sport and would like to thank all those who made this happen.”

• Who could replace Lineker as host?
• How Gary Lineker went from football sensation to BBC star

He will continue with the MOTD Top Ten podcast and the BBC will also now host the popular The Rest is Football podcast on BBC Sounds.

The podcast features Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards discussing the latest football news along with stories from their careers, and is part of Goalhanger productions, co-founded by Lineker.

This marks the first time it will also be made available on the BBC’s own audio platform; it is currently available on podcast platforms such as Spotify and Apple.

The BBC said there will be one episode per week of The Rest is Football on BBC Sounds from next month.

Goalhanger also produces popular shows including The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics and The Rest is Entertainment.

Lineker, whose contract was coming to an end, entered negotiations with the BBC’s new head of sport in October.

BBC News understands that Lineker was open to staying on at Match of the Day, but the BBC did not offer him a new contract for the show.

However, it’s understood both parties are now happy with the new agreement.

“With 33 million viewers last season across the Premier League and FA Cup, Match of the Day remains part of the staple diet of football fans who still get a huge buzz from hearing that iconic theme tune on a Saturday night,” the BBC said.

“The show continually evolves for changing viewing habits bringing its unique and unmatched analysis and commentary across all platforms. Future plans for Match of the Day will be announced in due course.”

Alex Kay-Jelski, director of BBC Sport described Lineker as a world-class presenter.

“We’re delighted that he’ll lead our coverage of the next World Cup and continue to lead our live coverage of the FA Cup,” he said.

“After 25 seasons Gary is stepping down from MOTD. We want to thank him for everything he has done for the show, which continues to attract millions of viewers each week.

“He’ll be hugely missed on the show but we’re so happy he is staying with the BBC to present live football.”

Former BBC director general Greg Dyke told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Lineker was “the outstanding sports presenter of his time”, but added: “Life moves on, presenters don’t stay forever.”

The 63-year-old has hosted Match of the Day since 1999. He will have held the post for 26 years when he leaves at the end of the Premier League season in May 2025.

Dyke, who was director general when Lineker first began hosting the football show in 1999, did not speculate on whether Lineker had been “offered a new contract or not”.

He also said he did not know whether the recent controversy over the presenter’s social media use was connected with his departure.

“Whether this is anything to do with that I don’t know. It’s one of the few times I’ve disagreed with the BBC since I left,” he said.

“I thought that he was a sports presenter, and therefore what he was saying about politics was irrelevant to his performance as as a presenter.

“But it’s there in the background. So it must have been a thought in the mind of of whoever took the decision.”

Dyke said losing the presenter was “a big loss”, but “in the end people watch Match of the Day for the football”.

Lineker told Esquire magazine in an interview published earlier this month that he accepted he will “have to slow down at some point”.

Dyke also said the BBC is “in difficulties financially”, referring to recent job cuts being made as part of wider BBC efforts to save £700m a year, adding that losing Lineker “would be a saving on a sports budget, which you could use elsewhere”.

Lineker is one of the corporation’s best-known presenters and its highest-paid star, of those whose salaries are declared, earning more than £1.3m a year.

He has also presented coverage of major tournaments like World Cups and European Championships for the BBC, as well as BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremonies.

Lineker has worked for other sports networks during his time at the BBC, including US network NBC and BT Sport (now TNT Sport).

Alastair Campbell, who co-presents The Rest Is Politics podcast, said Lineker would be “a very hard act to follow”, Sky News reported.

“He is an excellent broadcaster and a very good guy,” Campbell said.

Lineker’s new contract has now been agreed and he will leave on a high at the biggest tournament in world football. But replacing a star presenter on a high profile show is always a risk.

Lineker was briefly suspended by bosses last year after an outcry over his social media post about the UK’s asylum policy.

The incident led to a review of BBC social media guidelines, which concluded that high-profile presenters should be allowed to express views on issues and policies but stop short of political campaigning.

Lineker described the new rules at the time as “all very sensible”.

Before becoming a TV presenter, Lineker had a hugely successful career as a striker for England as well as Leicester, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Barcelona.