President Biden’s decision to provide anti-personnel mines to Ukraine, and allow the use of long-range missiles on Russian territory comes as the Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line.

Data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows that Russia has gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as it did in 2023, and is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs in the eastern Donbas region.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is faltering. Russian troops have pushed Kyiv’s offensive backwards. Experts have questioned the success of the offensive, with one calling it a “strategic catastrophe” given manpower shortages faced by Ukraine.

These developments come at a time of heightened uncertainty with a second Donald Trump administration looming. The US president-elect has vowed to bring the war to a close when he takes office in January, with some fearing he could cut future military aid to Ukraine.

In the first few months of the war the front line moved quickly, with Russia gaining ground quickly before being pushed back by a Ukrainian counteroffensive. But in 2023 neither side made any major gains – with the conflict largely sliding into a stalemate.

But new ISW figures suggest the story in 2024 is more favourable for Russia. The ISW bases its analysis on confirmed social media footage and reports of troop movements.

The ISW data shows Moscow’s forces have seized around 2,700 sq km of Ukrainian territory so far this year, compared with just 465 sq km in the whole of 2023, a near six-fold increase.

Dr Marina Miron, a defence researcher at Kings College London, suggested to the BBC that there was a possibility the Ukrainian eastern front “might actually collapse” if Russia continued to advance at pace.

More than 1000 sq km was taken between 1 September and 3 November, suggesting the push accelerated in recent months. Two areas bearing the brunt of these advances are Kupiansk in Kharkiv region, and Kurakhove, a stepping stone to the key logistical hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.

Kupiansk and areas to the east of the Oskil river were liberated in the Kharkiv offensive of 2022, but Russia has progressively retaken the latter area. In a recent intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said Russian forces were trying to breach the north-eastern outskirts of the city.

Footage posted on 13 November and verified by the BBC is consistent with this analysis. The video shows a convoy of Russian armour being repelled after making it to within 4km of the key bridge at Kupiansk, the last major road crossing in the area.

While these reports do not necessarily translate to control of an area, it is indicative of how stretched Ukraine’s defensive line has become.

Elsewhere, since retaking the city of Vuhledar in October – an elevated position which sits above key supply lines and which Moscow spent two years fighting for – Russia has thrown resources at Kurakhove.

Ukraine’s forces defending the city have so far repelled attacks to the south and east. But the front line creeps ever closer, with Russia also threatening to encircle defenders from the north and west.

Col Yevgeny Sasyko, a former head of strategic communications with Ukraine’s general staff, said Russia places “powerful jaws” around the flanks of a city that slowly “grind though” defences until they collapse.

Footage from the city verified by the BBC showed massive destruction, with residential buildings heavily damaged.

The ISW concludes Moscow now holds a total of 110,649 sq km in Ukraine. For comparison, Ukrainian forces seized just over 1,171 sq km in the first month of its incursion into Kursk – though Russian forces have now retaken nearly half of that territory.

• Biden agrees to give Ukraine anti-personnel mines
• What we know about missile system Ukraine has used to strike Russia
• What arms are the US, UK and other nations supplying?

Despite its territorial gains, Russia’s advance has come at a huge cost.

An analysis carried out by BBC Russian confirmed that at least 78,329 troops have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, with Moscow’s losses from September to November this year more than one-and-a-half times greater than the same period in 2023.

The losses are compounded by the “meat grinder” approach said to be favoured by Russian commanders – describing the waves of recruits thrown towards Ukrainian positions in a bid to exhaust troops.

Despite the Russian advances, some experts have noted that the actual speed of the offensive is still slow. David Handelman, a military analyst, suggested Ukrainian troops in the east were slowly withdrawing to preserve manpower and resources, rather than suffering from a broader collapse.

Ukraine launched its shock incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August. It is unclear why Russia took so long to respond to the operation, which saw Kyiv’s troops quickly gain control over a number of border communities.

Dr Miron suggested that while the Kremlin would suffer a domestic political cost for as long as the incursion continued, Russia’s general staff had been keen to keep Ukraine’s forces tied down in Kursk as its forces made gains elsewhere along the front line.

But Moscow is now clearly intent on reclaiming the territory lost on its own soil. Some 50,000 troops have been deployed to the region.

Verified videos from the Kursk region show fierce fighting is taking place – and that Russia is suffering considerable losses in terms of manpower and equipment. But the data clearly shows Ukraine’s control of the region is shrinking.

Since the start of October, Russian counter-attacks have regained some 593 sq km worth of territory in the border region, ISW figures showed.

The Kursk incursion was initially a major boon for Ukraine in terms of morale at a time of serious setbacks, and the audacity of the operation was a reminder of its ability to surprise and harm its enemy.

But Dr Miron said while the Kursk incursion was a moment of “tactical brilliance” it has also been a “strategic catastrophe” for Ukraine.

“The whole idea was to maybe gain some political leverage in potential negotiations, but militarily to draw the Russian forces away from the Donbas in order to liberate Kursk. And what we’re seeing instead is that Ukrainian units are tied down there.”

Some of Kyiv’s most experienced and effective units are known to be fighting in Kursk. Mechanised units equipped with state-of-the-art Western armour are also involved in the offensive.

Ukrainian leaders had hinted that they hoped the incursion would force Moscow to redirect some of its forces from eastern Ukraine, slowing the Russian advance there. Instead, experts say most reinforcements were moved to Kursk from parts in Ukraine where the fighting is not as intense.

“According to Ukrainian soldiers from different parts of the front, the Russian troops reinforcing Kursk were mainly pulled from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia,” Yurri Clavilier, a land analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the BBC.

“The fighting there is not as intense as it is in the East. Some Russian units attacking Kharkiv were also redirected to Kursk as Ukraine managed to stall the Russian onslaught there,” he added.

The importance of territory to both sides is the strength it lends to their position in any potential negotiations. Although no peace negotiations have been discussed, US President-elect Trump has claimed he could end the war within 24 hours, without saying exactly how.

Fears persist in Ukraine that Trump could cut military aid as a means to force Kyiv to the table. President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News on Tuesday “I think we will lose [the war]” if cuts are pushed through.

“We have our production, but it’s not enough to prevail and I think it’s not enough to survive,” he said.

​​On Tuesday, Ukraine fired US-supplied long-range missiles into Russia for the first time – a day after Washington gave it permission to do so.​​ It is thought that the decision was made in part to help Ukraine hold on to part of the Kursk region, to help use as a bargaining chip in future negotiations.

Dr Miron told the BBC that Russia’s advance has handed them a stronger negotiating position as Trump’s new foreign policy team prepare to take office.

“What they’re controlling right now, it does give them a certain advantage,” she said. “If it came to negotiations, I’m sure that as the Russian side has been stressing, ‘we will do it based on the battlefield configuration’.

“From a Russian perspective, they have much better cards than the Ukrainians.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

US President-elect Donald Trump has picked former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO and his transition co-chair, Linda McMahon, as his nominee for education secretary.

A long-time Trump ally, McMahon led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first presidency and donated millions of dollars to his presidential campaign.

Trump has criticised the Department of Education, and has promised to close it down – a job McMahon could be tasked with after Trump returns to the White House in January 2025.

Trump earlier chose Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor and former TV host whose approaches have come under scrutiny, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The two selections on Tuesday – along with Trump’s choice of Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary – follow a pattern of the president-elect nominating loyal supporters to top roles in his cabinet.

• Who else is in Trump’s top team?
• United by loyalty, Trump’s new team have competing agendas

McMahon has a long history with the WWE and Trump, who used to make occasional appearances at wrestling matches. She co-founded Titan Sports with her husband in 1980, which then became the parent company of WWE later that decade.

She resigned as CEO in 2009 in order to undertake a failed bid to run for the US Senate.

McMahon has little background in education, but did serve on Connecticut state’s board of education from 2009 until 2010.

She is the board chair of the pro-Trump think tank the America First Policy Institute, meaning her confirmation in the Republican-majority Senate is likely. Hers is one of a number of top jobs that will require a vote of approval in the upper chamber of Congress.

Announcing his pick on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “For the past four years, as the chair of the board at the America First Policy Institute, Linda has been a fierce advocate for parents’ rights.”

He said McMahon would “spearhead” the effort to “send education BACK TO THE STATES”, in reference to his pledge to close the department.

Republicans have accused the education department of pushing what they describe as “woke” political ideology on to children, including on gender and race. They want the agency’s authority handed to US states, which run most education matters.

• Trump’s pledge to axe the Department of Education explained

McMahon was named in a lawsuit filed last month involving the WWE.

It alleges that she, her husband and other company leaders knowingly allowed young boys to be abused by a ringside announcer who died in 2012.

The McMahons deny wrongdoing. A lawyer representing the pair told USA Today Sports that the allegations are “false claims” that stem from “absurd, defamatory and utterly meritless” media reports.

Trump earlier picked Mehmet Oz to run the powerful agency that oversees the healthcare of millions of Americans.

Oz, who was selected to lead the CMS, trained as a surgeon before finding fame on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the early 2000s.

Oz has been criticised by experts for promoting what they called bad health advice about weight loss drugs and “miracle” cures, and suggesting malaria drugs as a cure for Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic.

“There may be no physician more qualified and capable than Dr Oz to make America healthy again,” Trump said in a statement.

The Trump transition team said in a statement that Oz “will work closely with [health secretary nominee] Robert F Kennedy Jr to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake”.

Like McMahon, Oz will need to be confirmed by the Senate next year before he officially takes charge of the agency.

The CMS oversees the country’s largest healthcare programs, providing coverage to more than 150 million Americans. The agency regulates health insurance and sets policy that guides the prices that doctors, hospitals and drug companies are paid for medical services.

In 2023, the US government spent more than $1.4tn (£1.1tn) on Medicaid and Medicare combined, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Trump said in a statement that Oz would “cut waste and fraud within our country’s most expensive government agency”. The Republican Party platform pledged to increase transparency, choice and competition and expand access to healthcare and prescription drugs.

Oz, 64, trained as a cardiothoracic surgeon – specialising in operations on the heart and lungs – and worked at New York City’s Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University.

After he appeared in dozens of Oprah segments, he started The Dr Oz Show, where he doled out health advice to viewers.

But the line between promotion and science on the show was not always clear, and Oz has recommended homeopathy, alternative medicine and other treatments that critics have called “pseudoscience”.

He was criticised during Senate hearings in 2014 for endorsing unproven pills that he said would “literally flush fat from your system” and “push fat from your belly”.

During those hearings Oz said he never sold any specific dietary supplements on his show. But he has publicly endorsed products off air and his financial ties to health care companies were revealed in fillings made during his 2022 run for the US Senate in Pennsylvania.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Oz promoted the anti-malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, which experts say are ineffective against the virus.

• How these new recruits will be vetted
• What Trump can and can’t do on day one
• What to know about Gaetz allegations
• Fact-checking RFK’s views on health policy
• What Trump picks say about Mid East policy

Family, friends and former bandmates have remembered Liam Payne at the One Direction star’s funeral, just over a month after he died at the age of 31.

The private service took place on Wednesday in Amersham in Buckinghamshire, north-west of London.

Payne’s former bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik were among the mourners, alongside Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy and his former partner Cheryl, with whom he shares a son.

Payne’s coffin arrived at the church on a white horse-drawn hearse carrying floral tributes spelling the words “son” and “daddy”.

After the service, four pallbearers carried the coffin from St Mary’s Church, followed by his parents and Cheryl.

Her Girls Aloud bandmates Kimberley Walsh and Nicola Roberts also attended the service, as did One Direction’s former label boss Simon Cowell, who was seen comforting the family.

Presenters James Corden, Marvin and Rochelle Humes, Scott Mills and Adrian Chiles were also among the mourners.

Other floral tributes at the funeral included one in the shape of a set of 10-pin bowling pins and ball, a reference to one of Payne’s favourite pastimes.

A small crowd of locals and onlookers gathered outside the church, but fans largely stayed away, with members of the One Direction group on Reddit reminding others that “memorials are for fans, funerals are for family”.

Payne lived in the nearby village of Chalfont St Giles.

Payne died on 16 October after falling from the third floor of a hotel room in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires.

In a short statement following his death, his family said: “We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul.”

An autopsy confirmed the 31-year-old had suffered internal and external bleeding and multiple traumatic injuries.

Payne was one of the most recognisable names in pop, after rising to fame on The X Factor.

Despite only coming third on the show in 2010, One Direction went on to become the biggest British group since The Beatles.

During their five-year career, they sold 70 million records, with four UK number one singles and four number one albums.

A co-writer on many of their hits, Payne also achieved solo success with tracks like Strip That Down and Bedroom Floor.

He is survived by his parents, two sisters and Bear, his son with Girls Aloud singer Cheryl.

Jimmy Lai, one of Hong Kong’s most influential pro-democracy figures, has testified in court for the first time in a national security trial that may see him sentenced to life in jail.

The 76-year-old founder of the now-defunct Hong Kong tabloid Apple Daily has been accused of colluding with foreign forces.

But Lai told the court on Wednesday that he had “never” used his foreign contacts, which include ex-US VP Mike Pence and former Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong.

Lai is already serving prison sentences for a range of offences for his alleged role in pro-democracy protests in 2019, which led to China imposing a sweeping national security law (NSL) in the city.

His hearing comes one day after the sentencing of 45 pro-democracy campaigners – part of a group known as the Hong Kong 47.

Sporting a brown jacket and glasses, Lai smiled and waved to his family and the public as he entered the courtroom, looking in good spirits, though he appeared to have lost weight since his arrest several years ago.

Outside the court, dozens of people waited in line to show their support for the media mogul.

A similar crowd had gathered on Tuesday for the sentencing of the Hong Kong 47, which included some of the biggest names in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, like Benny Tai and Joshua Wong.

When asked if he had tried to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong through his list of overseas contacts – which include the likes of former Taiwan president Tsai and high level US officials – Lai replied “never”.

Asked about his meeting with then US Vice President Mike Pence, Lai said he did not ask anything of him.

“I would just relay to him what happened in Hong Kong when he asked me,” he told the court.

He was also asked about his meeting with then secretary of state Mike Pompeo, to which he said he had asked Pompeo: “Not to do something but to say something, To voice support for Hong Kong.”

Lai is one of hundreds of activists, lawmakers and protesters that have been detained under the NSL, which Beijing claims was necessary to quell the unrest in Hong Kong that emerged in 2019.

In its daily press briefing on Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian slammed Lai, calling him the “main plotter and participant of the anti-China chaos in Hong Kong”.

Beijing considers Mr Lai a traitor who sought to undermine China’s security. But critics say Mr Lai’s case is yet another example of Beijing’s tightening grip on the former British territory.

Lai’s ongoing trial has seen him plead not guilty to two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces and a third count relating to his tabloid paper Apple Daily, which has been accused of publishing seditious material against the government following the imposition of the national security law.

Lai argued that he opposed violence and “never allowed” his newspaper’s staff to advocate for Hong Kong independence, which he described as a “conspiracy” and “too crazy to think about”.

“The core values of Apple Daily are actually the core values of the people of Hong Kong,” he added.

These values, he said, include the “rule of law, freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly.”

The tabloid, which ceased operations one year after Lai’s arrest, was known for its pro-democracy stance.

In 2021, authorities froze Apple Daily’s bank account and arrested key staff members, saying its articles violated the National Security Law.

The prosecution of Lai, who holds British citizenship, has captured international attention, with rights groups and foreign governments urging his release.

US President-elect Donald Trump said in a podcast in October that he would “100%” get Lai out of China.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has described Lai as a “priority” for his government, expressed concerns about Lai’s “deterioration” when he met Chinese President Xi Jinping during the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro this week.

Lai’s family and legal team have raised concerns about his health, pointing to his weight loss and increasing frailty during his recent court appearances.

Lai was previously sentenced to jail on charges including unauthorised assembly and fraud, and has been held in solitary confinement since late 2020.

A woman in Thailand has been sentenced to death in the first of a string of cases in which she is accused of murdering 14 friends with cyanide.

The court in Bangkok found Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, 36, guilty of putting poison in a wealthy friend’s food and drink while they were on a trip last year.

Relatives of the friend refused to accept she died of natural causes and an autopsy found traces of cyanide in her body. Police arrested Sararat and uncovered other similar deaths going back to 2015. One person she allegedly targeted survived.

Police say Sararat, dubbed Am Cyanide by Thai media, had a gambling addiction and targeted friends she owed money to, then stole their jewellery and valuables.

Sararat travelled with her friend Siriporn Khanwong, 32, to Ratchaburi province, west of Bangkok in April 2023, where they took part in a Buddhist protection ritual at a river, police said.

Siriporn collapsed and died after a meal with Sararat, who made no effort to help her, investigators said.

Traces of cyanide were found in Siriporn’s body and her phone, money and bags were missing when she was found, police said.

“You got justice, my child. Today, there is justice in this world,” Siriporn’s mother, Thongpin Kiatchanasiri, said in front of the courtroom, as she held a photo of her daughter.

Thongpin said that out of anger, she could not stand to look at Sararat, who she said was smiling when the sentence was being read. Sararat pleaded not guilty to the charges against her.

Her former husband, an ex-police officer, and her lawyer, were handed prison terms of one year and four months, and two years respectively, for hiding evidence to help her evade prosecution. They had also pleaded not guilty before Wednesday’s sentencing.

The ex-husband, Vitoon Rangsiwuthaporn, gave himself up last year. Police said he most likely helped Sararat poison an ex-boyfriend, Suthisak Poonkwan.

Sararat was also ordered to pay Siriporn’s family two million baht ($57,667; £45,446) in compensation.

Cyanide starves the body’s cells of oxygen, which can induce heart attacks. Early symptoms include dizziness, shortness of breath and vomiting.

It can lead to lung injury, coma and death within seconds when consumed in large amounts, but even small doses can still be very harmful.

Its use in Thailand is heavily regulated and those found to have unauthorised access face up two years in jail.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News late on Tuesday that Ukraine would lose the war if Washington, its main military backer, pulled funding.

The Ukrainian leader said it would be “very dangerous if we lose unity in Europe, and what is most important is unity between Ukraine and the United States”.

US President-elect Donald Trump has campaigned on a promise to end US involvement in wars and instead use taxpayers’ money to improve Americans’ lives.

He has said he will bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end within 24 hours, without saying how.

“If they will cut, I think we will lose,” Zelensky told Fox News.

“Of course anyway we will stay, we will fight, we have our production but it is not enough to prevail and it think it is not enough to survive.”

Asked if Trump would be able to influence Putin to end the war, Zelensky replied: “It will not be simple but yes he can because he is stronger than Putin.

“Putin is weaker than the United States. The President of the United States has the strength, authority and weapons, and he can decrease the price of energy resources.”

Many Republicans want US taxpayer funding for Ukraine to stop.

Senator JD Vance, who will be Trump’s vice-president, has regularly objected to providing arms to Ukraine, saying the US lacks the manufacturing capacity.

Earlier this year, he told the Munich Security Conference that Europe should wake up to the US having to “pivot” its focus to East Asia.

It is a feeling also held by many voters, with 62% of Republicans telling a Pew Research poll that the US had no responsibility to support Ukraine in the war against Russia.

On Tuesday, Ukraine fired US-supplied longer-range missiles at Russian territory for the first time, a day after the US gave permission for their use.

US President Joe Biden has also agreed to give Ukraine anti-personnel land mines, a US defence official told the BBC.

But Zelensky said Ukraine was going through a “very difficult period” on the battlefield.

The Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Its analysis found Russian forces seized six times more territory in 2024 than it did in the previous year.

Based on confirmed social media footage and reports of troop movements, the ISW said Moscow’s forces seized around 2,700 sq km of Ukrainian territory so far this year, compared with just 465 sq km in the whole of 2023.

Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is faltering as Russian troops have pushed Kyiv’s offensive backwards.

Zelensky also had harsh words for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for speaking to Putin on the phone last week.

He told Fox News it was a “Pandora’s box” because Putin’s isolation would increase the pressure on him.

Winter has come to Delhi and with it, a familiar sense of gloom. The sky here is grey and there is a thick, visible blanket of smog.

If you stay outdoors for more than a few minutes, you can almost taste ash. You will feel breathless within minutes if you try to run or even walk at a brisk pace in the smog.

Newspapers are back to using words like toxic, deadly and poisonous in their main headlines.

Most schools have been shut and people have been advised to stay indoors – though those whose livelihoods depend on working outdoors can’t afford to do so.

Delhi’s air quality score was somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 on Monday and Tuesday, according to different monitoring agencies. The acceptable limit is less than 100.

These scores measure the levels of particulate matter – called PM 2.5 and PM10 – in the air. These tiny particles can enter the lungs and cause a host of diseases.

On social media, people have been expressing shock, disappointment and anguish that it’s all happening again.

Along with the gloom, there is a strong sense of déjà vu – like we have seen this all many times before in the past 15 years.

I recorded this video of my drive to office in 2017, when smog had reduced visibility to less than 2m.

On Tuesday, my drive to the office seemed even worse.

And we have covered every twist and turn of this story in the past two decades.

We have reported how pollution is making people sick and reducing their life expectancy here, here and here.

We have reported on India’s Supreme Court ordering the government to take urgent steps to curb pollution every year. The court has done the same this year.

We have reported on how pollution affects children the most and how their freedom is taken away here, here and here.

We have written about how politicians blame each other for the problem every year here, here and here.

We have discussed the root cause of the problem here, here and here.

We have also talked about solutions – both the ones that marginally worked and the ones that failed miserably – here, here and here.

We have reported on how pollution affects the poorest the most and how many don’t have a choice but to go out and work in the smog here, here and here.

Covering this story feels like watching (and being in) the same dystopian film every year – following the same characters, plot and script. The outcome is always the same – nothing changes.

The parks are empty again – people, particularly children and the elderly, have been told to stay indoors.

Those who must work – daily-wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, delivery riders – are coughing but still going out.

Hospitals are seeing an increasing number of people coming in with respiratory problems.

And amid all this, we are back to the same question again – why does nothing change?

The simple answer is that solving Delhi’s air problem requires monumental efforts and co-ordination.

The sources of the problem are many. One of them is the practice of farmers burning crop remains to clear their fields quickly to sow seeds for the next yield.

This mostly happens in the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The smoke from the farm fires engulfs Delhi every winter and hangs low in the atmosphere as wind speeds reduce during winter months.

But farmers can’t be entirely blamed for this because this is the cheapest way of clearing fields.

Different governments have talked about providing machines and financial incentives to stop crop burning, but very little has happened on the ground.

Delhi itself produces a huge chunk of the pollution – emission from vehicles, construction and factories.

Every year, in the winter months, people get angry, journalists write and produce reports, politicians blame each other and courts fume – until we do it all over again the next year.

A public health emergency like this would spark mass protests in most democracies. But the anger in Delhi is mostly limited to social media.

Activists say the reason is that pollution doesn’t cause immediate problems for most people. Ingesting high levels of PM2.5 causes health to deteriorate slowly. A Lancet study found that pollution led to more than 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019.

And then there is the class divide. People who can afford to temporarily leave the city do that, those who can buy air purifiers do that, and those who can vent on social media do that.

The rest, who don’t have these options, just go about their lives.

The collective angst has so far not resulted in a massive protest and, as the Supreme Court once observed, politicians just “pass the buck” and wait for the season to get over.

Experts say governments at the federal level and in different states need to leave their party politics behind and work together to solve this problem. They need to focus on long-term solutions.

And citizens need to hold politicians accountable and courts have to pass decisive orders months before the pollution worsens.

This year, we are again in the thick of the season and temporary measures have been announced, like banning construction work.

But can these bring Delhi’s elusive blue skies back? The evidence from the past few years doesn’t give much hope.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

At least 36 people have been killed and 50 others injured in Israeli air strikes on residential buildings and an industrial area in the central Syrian town of Palmyra, Syrian state media report.

The Sana news agency cited a military source as saying that Israeli jets attacked from the direction of the Jordanian border to the south at around 13:30 (10:30 GMT) and that the strikes causes significant material damage.

A UK-based monitoring group put the death toll at 41 and reported that the strikes hit a weapons depot and other locations in and around an area inhabited by families of Iran-backed militia fighters.

The Israeli military said it did not comment on foreign reports.

Israel has previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes in recent years on targets in Syria that it says are linked to Iran and allied armed groups such as Hezbollah.

The Israeli strikes in Syria have reportedly been more frequent since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, in response to cross-border attacks on northern Israel by Hezbollah and other groups in Lebanon and Syria.

Videos and photos posted on social media following Wednesday’s strikes appear to show three large columns of black smoke rising from the Palmyra area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, cited its sources on the ground as saying that Israeli fighter jets struck three locations in the town.

Two were in the al-Jamiya neighbourhood, including a weapons depot near the industrial zone inhabited by families of Iran-backed fighters of Iraqi and other foreign nationalities, it said.

The third location was nearby and targeted a meeting attended by leaders of Iran-backed militias based in Palmyra and the surrounding desert as well as leaders of the Iraqi group Nujaba and Hezbollah, it added.

The SOHR reported that 41 people were killed, including 22 foreign nationals and seven Syrians, and seven civilians were among the injured.

Last Thursday, Israel confirmed that it had carried out several air strikes in the Syrian capital, Damascus, which Syrian state media said killed 15 people.

The Israeli military said it had struck “terrorist infrastructure sites and command centres” belonging to the armed group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Multiple injuries are feared after a car was driven into a crowd of people outside a primary school in China’s southern Hunan province.

State media said “several students and adults were injured and fell to the ground”, and several people were hospitalised, but a police statement later said there were no life-threatening injuries.

The driver of the vehicle – identified as a white SUV – was caught by parents and school security officers and handed over to police.

This is the third attack on a crowd in China in a week, and it has fuelled concerns about public safety.

“About a dozen people were hit, some of them seriously, but luckily the ambulance came very quickly,” Mr Zhu, a parent of one of the children at the school, told the BBC.

He said he heard the attack just as he was leaving the school premises, after dropping off his eight-year-old.

“Six or seven parents had forced the car of the person who hit others to stop. Even the security guard was knocked down. The guard is quite old, in his 70s or 80s, and couldn’t do much,” he said.

The school has been identified as the Yong’an Primary School in Dingcheng District in Hunan province.

Video from the scene posted on a private WeChat account showed some children lying on the ground, while others, carrying school bags, were fleeing in panic.

Another video filmed soon after the incident showed an angry pedestrian hitting the SUV with a snow shovel while the driver was still inside.

The driver is then seen stepping out of the other side of the vehicle, only to be surrounded by bystanders who started beating him with sticks.

Similar attacks in recent days have sparked discussions online about the social phenomenon of “taking revenge on society“, where individuals act on personal grievances by attacking strangers.

On Saturday eight people were killed and 17 others were wounded in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China. Police said the suspect was a 21-year-old former student at the school who was meant to graduate this year but had failed the exam.

Before that, on 12 November, at least 35 people were killed in a car attack in southern China, when a man ran into groups of people exercising on a sports track.

And in October, in Shanghai, a man killed three people and wounded 15 others in stabbing at a supermarket.

According to police records, there have been 19 incidents of indiscriminate violence in China this year in which the perpetrator was not known to the victims. Sixty-three people have been killed and 166 injured in these attacks. This is a sharp increase on previous years – 16 killed and 40 injured in 2023, for instance.

While the incidents are still sporadic and rare, they are high-profile. And the videos that often circulate soon after on social media have prompted concern and fear among people.

“These are symptoms of a society with a lot of pent-up grievances,” Lynette Ong, distinguished professor of Chinese politics at Canada’s University of Toronto, told AFP.

“Some people resort to giving up. Others, if they’re angry, want to take revenge.”

A slowing economy, high youth unemployment and a property crisis that has hurt savings have led to increasing uncertainty about the future among Chinese people.

Ong said, in the circumstacnes, violent attacks were the “negative side of the same coin”.

President Xi Jinping has ordered local officials to ensure the safety and “social stability” of communities and to “strictly prevent extreme cases”.

Officials are keen to show they are acting quickly. They worry that such a high number of casualties in a single year could raise questions about China’s safety record, further alarming people and even discouraging tourism.

The Communist Party has rapidly expanded surveillance in recent years and after the car attack last week in Zhuhai, there have been further orders to deploy local officials and community workers to try to prevent unrest.

US media giant Comcast is set to spin off its NBCUniversal cable television arm, as the industry continues to struggle with the emergence of streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The plan, formally announced on Wednesday, is to create a new company that will include channels such as MSNBC, CNBC, USA, E!, Syfy and the Golf Channel.

The networks are still profitable and generated a combined revenue of $7bn (£5.5bn) in the year to the end of September.

Comcast will keep the NBC broadcast television network, its film and television studios and its theme parks, as well as its Peacock streaming service.

Comcast said the aim was to complete the plan in about a year.

The expectation is that Comcast will be better placed for growth after the split from the cable networks, which have seen audiences decline.

Executives also said they believed the new company would be well-poised to buy other cable TV networks that could potentially go up for sale in the future.

The new firm will have the chairman of NBCUniversal’s media group, Mark Lazarus, as its chief executive.

“We see a real opportunity to invest and build additional scale and I’m excited about the growth opportunities this transition will unlock,” Mr Lazarus said in the announcement.

Comcast’s president, Michael Cavanagh, first hinted at the plan during a call with investors last month.

At the time, Mr Cavanagh said he was exploring a strategy that could create “a new well-capitalised company owned by our shareholders and comprised of our strong portfolio of cable networks”.

Comcast took control of NBCUniversal in 2011 before the rise of streaming. At the time, its cable networks were seen as some of its most attractive businesses.

But a growing number of cable TV viewers have been cancelling their subscriptions and moving on to streaming platforms. Comcast said the brands to be included in the spin-off reached about 70 million US households.

Earlier this year, Warner Bros and Paramount Global cut billions of dollars from the valuation of their cable TV networks.

Comcast is the first major media company to officially make the move to carve up up its business.

Walt Disney has also considered spinning off its cable networks but ended up scrapping the plan.

Shares in Comcast were poised to open for trading in New York about 2% higher after the announcement.

Palestinians are “facing diminishing conditions for survival” in parts of northern Gaza under siege by Israeli forces because virtually no aid has been delivered in 40 days, the UN has warned.

The UN said all its attempts to support the estimated 65,000 to 75,000 people in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia this month had been denied or impeded, forcing bakeries and kitchens to shut down.

Earlier this month, a UN-backed assessment said there was a strong likelihood that famine was imminent in areas of northern Gaza.

The Israeli military has said its six-week-long offensive targets regrouping Hamas fighters, and that it is facilitating civilian evacuations and supply deliveries to hospitals.

Hundreds of people have been killed and between 100,000 and 130,000 others have been displaced to Gaza City, where the UN has said essential resources like shelter, water and healthcare are severely limited.

UN agencies had planned 31 missions to the besieged areas of North Gaza governorate between 1 and 18 November, according to the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Twenty-seven were rejected by Israeli authorities and the other four were severely impeded, meaning they were prevented from accomplishing all the work they set out to do.

“This is happening when the IPC Famine Review Committee said just 11 days ago that parts of northern Gaza face an imminent risk of famine – and that immediate action is needed in days, not weeks,” UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

“The result is that bakeries and kitchens in North Gaza governorate have shut down, nutrition support [for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women] has been suspended, and the refuelling of water and sanitation facilities has been completely blocked.”

Mr Dujarric said access to the three barely functional hospitals there also remained severely restricted, amid what he called “desperate shortages” of medical supplies and fuel.

On Sunday, a World Health Organisation-led mission to Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia was able to deliver 10,000 litres of fuel and transfer 17 patients, three unaccompanied children and 22 caregivers to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

However, Mr Dujarric said the aid workers were forced to offload all the food supplies and some of the medical supplies they were transporting at an Israeli military checkpoint before reaching the hospital.

The director of Kamal Adwan, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, warned on Wednesday that the situation there was becoming “even more catastrophic”.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry cited him as saying that the hospital had 85 patients receiving “the minimum level of healthcare” and that it needed children’s food and infant formula to treat an increasing number of malnutrition cases.

Since Tuesday, 17 children had arrived at the emergency room showing signs of malnutrition and an elderly man had died due to severe dehydration, he added.

There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

But data from the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, Cogat, said 472 aid lorries had entered northern Gaza via the Erez West crossing as of 17 November, without specifying whether any of that aid was allowed into the besieged areas.

Cogat also said it was continuing to work with international partners to “facilitate broad humanitarian responses for the civilian population in Gaza”.

On Monday, a boy from Beit Lahia told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme that he and his family had fled to Gaza City after the Israeli military dropped leaflets from a quadcopter, ordering their immediate evacuation.

“The road from Beit Lahia to Gaza [City] was rough and bumpy with no transport available for us. When we arrived, we didn’t find anything… neither food nor drink. We headed to the schools, but there was no space left because the number of displaced… was huge,” he said.

“As a result, we were thrown into the streets and didn’t know where to go. We are six families living in the streets, sitting on sand, dirt and debris.”

The IDF said in a statement on Monday that its forces had killed “dozens of terrorists in close-quarters encounters and through targeted strikes” in the Beit Lahia area over the past week.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency told AFP news agency that a drone had killed two people, including a 15-year-old girl, at a school sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahia.

The agency’s first responders had also recovered the bodies of seven people killed in an overnight Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia, he added.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 43,980 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Logan Paul, the massively popular social media personality, is facing fresh questions over his cryptocurrency dealings amid ongoing concerns he may have profited from misleading fans.

The BBC has seen new evidence suggesting he promoted investments without revealing he had a financial interest in them.

The influence of Paul – whose YouTube channel has more than 23 million followers – appears to have caused prices in these investments to spike, leading to suggestions he could have profited from sales of any tokens he held.

Paul also currently faces a multi-million-dollar lawsuit over a failed crypto project called CryptoZoo.

He denies any wrongdoing.

The BBC has discovered that shortly before Paul tweeted about a particular crypto coin in 2021, an anonymous crypto wallet with close connections to his public wallet had traded in the coin.

That anonymous wallet went on to make a $120,000 (£92,000) profit.

Crypto wallets (which can be physical devices or an online service) hold users’ keys to their accounts, and let people send, receive and spend crypto.

Our finding comes after Time Magazine reported similar activity involving a different cryptocurrency and another anonymous wallet.

For several months, Paul refused to talk to the BBC about our investigation. Then he appeared to relent, inviting us to interview him at his gym in Puerto Rico.

However, when our crew arrived, a Logan Paul lookalike turned up in the YouTuber’s place, shortly followed by a crowd shouting abuse about the BBC.

Minutes after abandoning the interview, we received a lawyer’s letter on behalf of Paul, warning us of the possible consequences if we published our findings.

Logan Paul built a worldwide following as an internet celebrity by uploading short video clips, first to the now-closed platform Vine, and then on YouTube.

About three years ago, Paul’s videos began mentioning cryptocurrency (crypto, as it is commonly known) more and more.

Crypto is a form of digital money that uses secure technology to work, without the need for a central bank.

In 2021, Paul promoted a series of extremely high-risk crypto tokens called “meme coins”.

These are usually inspired by internet jokes or memes and are supported by online communities. Meme coins have no other real purpose other than to be traded and, since they have no intrinsic worth, their value can – and often does – drop to zero.

Paul extolled the virtues of an Elon Musk-themed meme coin known as Elongate. “Elongate made me rich. Elon baby let’s go!” Paul announced in a video clip to Maverick Club, his subscription-only fan club.

Following this namecheck, the price of Elongate rose by over 6,000% to an all-time high. It then remained at that price for a few hours before it crashed.

We cannot be sure of Logan Paul’s intentions when he released his clip. However, it seems likely that his mention of Elongate affected its price.

Tech journalist Will Gotsegen says crypto is a market driven to some extent by social media and influencers: “A big guy with a lot of influence… someone like Logan Paul, buys a tonne of crypto and tells their followers about it. They’re going to buy it too.”

The anonymous crypto wallet analysed by the BBC appears to have close connections to Paul.

Anyone can see the transactions made by a wallet, but the owner can choose to remain anonymous. If an owner attaches their name or personal details it becomes a public wallet.

We could see that the wallet first received funds in February 2021 from a public wallet owned by Logan Paul. It then started buying and trading crypto.

Logan Paul: Bad Influence?

Logan Paul, one of the biggest social media influencers in the world, is facing criticism for his role in promoting cryptocurrency projects. Matt Shea investigates the allegations.

Speaking to law enforcement and alleged victims, and trying to get close to the man himself, Shea seeks to finally answer the question: did Logan Paul do anything wrong?

Watch on BBC Three at 21:00, 20 November or on BBC iPlayer shortly after broadcast

The wallet was later paid funds from Maverick Club and held Elongate when Paul promoted it on 10 May 2021.

Shortly after, it also traded in another Musk-related meme coin – after Paul had tweeted that it was headed “to the moon”. In the crypto community, this means someone believes the price of the coin is about to shoot up.

About an hour before Paul’s tweet, the unknown wallet purchased almost $160,000 (£123,000) worth of the token. The tweet prompted an influx of buyers, spiking the price.

Twelve hours later, the wallet sold most of its holding. The total profit made from this trade appears to be just over $120,000 (£92,000).

Logan Paul chose not to respond to the BBC’s allegations regarding the crypto wallet, the trading that occurred within it, or his connection to it, despite responding to some of our other requests via his legal team.

In June 2021, Paul also promoted a meme coin called “Dink Doink”.

Anyone who bought it would own shares in a cartoon character that resembled a metal coil. They would earn a portion of its earnings if it appeared in a TV show or film.

Paul promoted the token on Twitter (as the site was then known), and told a Telegram group dedicated to Dink Doink that he “believed” in it, saying: “I think it’s going to go crazy.”

Again, this led to a huge influx of buyers, causing Dink Doink’s value to spike. Then – following a familiar pattern – large-scale holders of the token began selling, causing its price to fall by 96% in just two weeks.

Time Magazine analysed another anonymous wallet that had bought Dink Doink prior to Logan Paul’s promotion of the coin and then sold its holding shortly after. This wallet later sent $100,000 (£78,000) to Paul’s public wallet.

When the BBC asked the influencer about this wallet, his lawyers did not deny that it belonged to him, or was held for his benefit, but were adamant that the $100,000 that was transferred was not related to Dink Doink.

They do accept that Paul traded Dink Doink, but say he only made $17,000 (£13,400).

For several months, Paul refused to be interviewed by the BBC.

Then, unexpectedly, he agreed to talk to us at the boxing gym in Puerto Rico that he co-owns with his brother.

We sent Paul a list of the allegations we wanted him to respond to, and his PR team requested we travel to the Caribbean island, so he could answer in person.

They also insisted we flew into the island while it was being pummeled by Tropical Storm Ernesto, which had knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people.

At the gym, we noticed a strange atmosphere – with a suspicious number of his own cameras pointed at us. Paul’s assistant insisted our cameras should be recording from the moment the star entered the room, because of his strict schedule and timekeeping.

Then things became even stranger. Instead of Logan Paul, a lookalike arrived and sat down in front of our reporter, Matt Shea, and began impersonating the YouTuber.

We called him out and began complaining to Paul’s assistant, asking whether the real Logan Paul would be coming. At that moment, a group of people suddenly appeared, apparently from nowhere, wielding banners and shouting that the BBC were “paedophiles”.

We had flown all that way just to be trolled.

In the past few years, a number of celebrities have run into legal trouble for promoting crypto to followers without disclosing that they had vested interests.

Kim Kardashian was fined $1.26m (£1m) in 2022 for promoting a token called EthereumMax on her Instagram account.

According to Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the body policing the US investment industry, if a celebrity is promoting a particular crypto token, they are “supposed to tell you if they get paid, how much they get paid, whether they own the tokens, whether they made money on the tokens, whether they actually know something about the project”.

Logan Paul is now facing a lawsuit concerning his next venture in crypto – CryptoZoo.

This was marketed as an online trading card game, but instead of cards, CryptoZoo was to use NFTs (non-fungible tokens) – collectible pieces of digital art that can have a value of their own.

To play CryptoZoo, it was necessary to buy a cryptocurrency called Zoo Token, that could then be used to buy NFT “eggs”.

These eggs were supposed to eventually hatch into NFT “animals” that would breed and give birth to NFT “hybrid animals” with names like penguin-shark and panda-fin.

Paul’s team claimed these hybrid animals would somehow make participants money by passively generating more Zoo Tokens.

“It’s a really fun game that makes you money,” he told his audience shortly ahead of the launch in September 2021.

CryptoZoo attracted about $18.5m (£14.3m) in investment.

Rueben Tauk – a 21-year-old from north-east England – was among the Logan Paul fans who bought into CryptoZoo.

“I was really excited to be part of something that he was doing.”

However, the game was beset by problems from the moment it was released.

“We were given certain expectations about features that would be released,” Rueben told us. “A lot of the time those features wouldn’t work.

“After a certain point, you start to realise that something’s wrong.”

The value of the Zoo Tokens and the eggs started to plummet. Rueben says he personally lost £33,000.

At least 130 investors are now involved in a lawsuit against Paul (Rueben is not one of them). They claim they lost about $4.2m (£3.25m).

The lawyer behind the claim, Tom Kherkher – himself a popular YouTuber on legal affairs – says the failure to deliver the game forms only part of the case.

He says leaked messages reveal Paul and his team were involved in a “stealth launch” of the Zoo Tokens, allowing them to quietly buy in at a low price.

“The team appeared to agree that they can begin selling once the total value of all the Zoo Token in circulation hits $200m [£157m],” he says.

“If you had that document with that exact verbiage issued by a CEO of a publicly traded company, they would be charged with fraud in two seconds. That is insider trading.”

Paul has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing relating to CryptoZoo. Instead, he has laid the blame on other members of the team whom he also says failed to deliver the promised features.

Earlier this year, Paul announced a partial compensation scheme for disappointed investors. He promised to refund people who had bought the NFT eggs, but only if they agreed not sue him for anything relating to CryptoZoo.

Paul is also bringing a libel claim against one of his online detractors in the USA, for claims made about his motives.

Logan Paul’s immense popularity depends on his fans, and shows little sign of declining.

In recent years, Paul has turned his hand to boxing and wrestling, as well as launching the drinks company Prime, with British influencer KSI.

The product became notorious for its viral launch – with only a limited stocks made available, Prime spawned a re-sale market with bottles being advertised for hundreds of pounds. It was a testament to both Logan Paul and KSI’s influence over their primarily young audience.

However, for at least one fan, his image has been tarnished for good.

“Once you listen to someone and trust what they’re saying and they betray that trust,” says Rueben Tauk, “their words don’t mean anything to you any more.”

Ukraine has fired US-supplied longer-range missiles at Russian territory for the first time, the Russian government said, a day after Washington gave its permission for such attacks.

US officials also confirmed use of the Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms) to CBS news, the BBC’s US partner. Ukraine has not commented.

Russia’s defence ministry said the strike had targeted the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine to the north on Tuesday morning.

It said five missiles had been shot down and one had caused damage – with its fragments starting a fire at a military facility.

But two US officials said initial indications suggested Russia had intercepted just two missiles out of around eight fired by Ukraine.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the contradicting figures.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused Washington of trying to escalate the conflict.

“That Atacms was used repeatedly overnight against Bryansk Region is of course a signal that they [the US] want escalation,” he said.

“And without the Americans, use of these high-tech missiles, as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has said many times, is impossible.”

He said Russia would “proceed from the understanding” that the missiles were operated by “American military experts”.

“We will be taking this as a renewed face of the Western war against Russia and we will react accordingly,” he told a press conference at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Kremlin approved changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, setting out new conditions under which the country would consider using its arsenal.

It now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.

Commenting on the changes, US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “Since the beginning of its war of aggression against Ukraine, [Russia] has sought to coerce and intimidate both Ukraine and other countries around the world through irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and behaviour.”

He added that the US had not “seen any reason” to change its own nuclear posture, but would “continue to call on Russia to stop bellicose and irresponsible rhetoric”.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also described the move as “irresponsible rhetoric”, adding that was “not going to deter our support for Ukraine”.

Ukraine has already been using Atacms in Russian-occupied areas of its own territory for more than a year.

The missiles can hit targets at a range of up to 300km (186 miles) and are difficult to intercept.

Kyiv is now able to strike deeper into Russia using the missiles, including around the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces hold more than 1,000 sq km of territory. Ukrainian and US officials reportedly expect a counter-offensive in the region.

• Atacms: What we know about missile system Ukraine is using to strike Russia

In a statement, Russia’s defence ministry said the strike had been launched at 03:25 (00:25 GMT).

A fire caused by fallen debris from one of the missiles was quickly extinguished and there were no casualties, it said.

Ukraine’s military earlier confirmed that it had struck an ammunition warehouse in the Russian region of Bryansk, but it did not specify whether Atacms had been used.

It said the attack, on a depot around 100km from the border near the town of Karachev, had caused 12 secondary explosions.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky urged Europe to “push Russia harder” in a speech marking 1,000 days since Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of the country.

“The more time he [Putin] has, the worse the conditions become,” he told a special session of the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Zelensky spoke amid speculation that Ukraine had for the first time used the US-supplied Atacams long range missile system to hit a target deep inside Russia, a day after Washington signalled its permission.

An ammunition warehouse was struck with the missiles in the Russian region of Bryansk, about 100 kilometres from the border, an unconfirmed report on the RBC Ukraine news website said.

But Kyiv often uses domestic drones to hit targets inside Russia, and there was no immediate evidence that US missiles were used.

On Monday, US officials said that President Biden had removed US sanctions on the use of the Atacms system outside of Ukraine’s borders.

It is thought that Ukraine was given permission to use the missiles only to defend its forces inside Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a surprise incursion in August and where an assault from Russian and North Korean troops was expected within days.

• Putin approves changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine

Addressing members of the European Parliament on Tuesday morning, 1,000 days since the invasion began on 24 February 2022, Zelensky warned that Putin “[would] not stop on his own” and urged that Russia be pushed towards a “just peace”.

He said the deployment of North Korean troops was a clear sign that Moscow was determined to escalate the conflict.

“While some European leaders think about some elections, or something like this, at Ukraine’s expense, Putin is focused on winning this war,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military commander in chief wrote on Telegram that the country had faced 1,000 days of “extremely complex, fierce battle for our existence” and “destroying the enemy”.

“In the frozen trenches of Donetsk region and in the burning steppes of Kherson region under shells, hail, and anti-aircraft guns – we are fighting for the right to life.”

He added: “Every dark night, even if there are a thousand of them, always ends with dawn.”

The comments came after 12 people, including a child, were killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy overnight, where 11 were also killed in a separate strike on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin approved its updated nuclear doctrine – which says that any aggression from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be regarded as a joint attack on Russia.

Under the changes, a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

The EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell Fontelles also said on Tuesday the EU continued to stand with Ukraine, but that it “need[ed] to do more and quicker”.

“The European Union will continue to advance support to help achieve victory for Ukraine and to bring peace to our continent,” he said in a video shared on X.

“History will judge us based on our actions and reactions,” read the caption.

• Russia vows ‘tangible’ response if US missiles used against its territory

Earlier, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer reiterated his country’s “ironclad” support for Ukraine amid speculation he could give Kyiv permission to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets deep inside Russian territory.

Vladimir Putin has approved changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, setting out new conditions under which the country would consider using its arsenal.

The doctrine now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.

The update was proposed in September and rubber stamped on Tuesday, the 1,000th day of the war with Ukraine.

It also follows Washington’s decision on Monday to allow Ukraine to fire long-range US missiles into Russia.

Under the changes, a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

Any aggression against Russia by a state which is a member of a coalition would be seen by Moscow as aggression from the whole group.

The updates expand the number of countries and coalitions, and the kinds of military threats, subject to a possible nuclear response, according to state-run news agency Tass.

Putin has threatened the use of nuclear weapons before, and Ukraine has criticised it as “nuclear sabre-rattling” to deter its allies from providing further support.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said “we strongly are in favour of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen”.

Speaking at a press conference at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Mr Lavrov said a declaration signed by the group, which includes Russia “clearly said we want to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons”.

• Missile news welcomed in Ukraine but ‘won’t win war’

Announcing the change, the Kremlin urged other countries to study the changes.

“This is a very important text,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Tass, adding “it should become a subject to a very deep analysis”.

On Monday, Russia warned of “an appropriate and tangible” response to US President Joe Biden’s move to let Ukraine use ATACMS missiles to strike the country.

Such an attack inside Russian territory “would represent the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in hostilities against Russia”, a foreign ministry statement said.

Mr Peskov said on Tuesday that the new doctrine was published “in a timely manner” and that Putin had requested it be updated earlier this year so that it was “in line with the current situation”, AP reported.

In a sports park next to the red walls and glossy blue tiles which surround Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, a group of pensioners are working out.

“I’m 74 and I hope this helps me live a long time,” one man says after he finishes his pull-ups, just as a cold wind blows leaves from cypress trees across the park, disrupting another man who is mid-headstand. Women reach for gloves and sweaters as they take turns hanging from an overhead assault course.

Chinese emperors once came to this Ming dynasty holy site to pray for a good harvest. Now the park is used by locals to enjoy their retirement after spending decades contributing to China’s spectacular growth.

They’ve watched their country open up to the world and their factories propel its economy, which nips at the heels of the United States as the world’s largest.

But some fear what the promises of US president-elect Donald Trump – who has vowed steep tariffs on goods made in China – means for the country’s export-driven economy.

For many in China, Trump is a figure of fun and memes of him dancing to the YMCA are shared widely on social media. Others worry that he’s too unpredictable.

“I like Trump, but he’s unstable. Who knows what he might do?” says the 74-year-old pensioner, whose name has been withheld.

Some of Trump’s cabinet choices – announced since his election victory – will no doubt make people even more wary.

Marco Rubio, his pick for Secretary of State, has called Beijing “the threat that will define this century”. He is also sanctioned by Beijing. Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, wrote earlier this month that the US should “urgently” bring the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to an end so it can “finally focus strategy attention where it should be: countering the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party”.

But China has been in training for a second Trump presidency, says Yu Jie, a Senior Research Fellow on China at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

Despite concern on the street, she says his return comes as “no surprise” to Beijing, although she warns that the world should still “expect a roller-coaster type of relationship to unfold” when Trump takes office in January.

The competition between the two nations has been ramping up for some time, long before Trump won the election. It turned especially tense during the Biden administration because of tariffs and geopolitical disagreements ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the future of Taiwan.

Yet there was dialogue, with several senior US officials making trips to Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to work with the incoming Trump administration, but he also used his last meeting with President Joe Biden to warn Washington that a “new cold war should not be fought and cannot be won”.

He added that “containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail”.

Beijing has long accused the US and its allies of trying to contain China – they see tariffs targeting Chinese-made imports, laws restricting the country’s access to advanced AI chips and military alliances in the South China Sea and beyond as part of this approach.

And Trump’s decision to pick Rubio and Waltz suggests his administration will “take a much harsher, muscular approach with China,” says Lyle Morris from the Asia Society’s Centre for China Analysis.

“While Trump views his personal relationship with Xi Jinping as an avenue for negotiation, he will likely lean on Waltz and Rubio in fashioning a more aggressive, uncompromising policy towards China.”

They are far from the only voices in Washington that see China as a threat to US security and its economy – a view that surprises the average person in Beijing.

“You’re much better off here than in the US right now,” says the 74-year-old in the park before heading off to stretch.

Just north of the Temple of Heaven is the Forbidden City, where Chinese emperors lived for almost 500 years. It was here, in 2017, that Xi hosted Trump, bestowing on his guest an honour not granted to any US president since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Xi shut down the area and took Trump on a tour of the imperial quarters, every moment broadcast live on state TV. He was served kung pao chicken for dinner, and in turn brought a video of his granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, singing a Chinese song which went viral on social media.

It was billed by both as a high point in US-China relations, but that quickly soured after the Covid pandemic broke out in Wuhan in 2019 and spread globally in 2020. Trump repeatedly called it the “Chinese virus” and blamed the outbreak on Beijing. He also kicked off a tit-for-tat trade war, with tariffs still in place on more than $300bn (£238bn) of goods.

When Trump starts his second term, he will be encountering a stronger Xi, who has cemented his position at China’s helm with a historic third term – and the possibility of remaining in power for life.

Given it has the world’s largest army and navy, Washington is now concerned that the country is building a bigger nuclear arsenal.

Even as Trump was unveiling his new cabinet, Chinese state media published videos from the country’s biggest airshow of a new stealth fighter jet – the J35-A – flying vertically and upside-down. China is only the second country to boast two stealth fighters in its inventory. The other is the US. The world’s first two-seat stealth fighter, the J20-S, was also on display.

Last week, researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California found satellite images that indicate China is working on nuclear propulsion for a new aircraft carrier.

The studies have “sparked serious concerns over Beijing’s potential adoption of a first-use strategy and increased nuclear threats, fuelling strong support to significantly boost US nuclear capabilities in response,” says Tong Zhao from think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Unless Trump personally intervenes, which seems unlikely, it appears the two nations are on the brink of a much more intense nuclear competition with far-reaching implications for international stability.”

Under Xi’s leadership in recent years, China has also become more assertive in its territorial claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

One worry is that Beijing is ramping up militarily to invade Taiwan, which it sees as a breakaway province that will eventually be under its control. Under Trump and his cabinet, would the US be willing to defend Taiwan?

It’s a question asked of every US president. Trump has dodged it, saying he wouldn’t have to use military force because Xi knew he was “crazy”, and he would impose paralysing tariffs on Chinese imports if that happened.

Despite Trump’s unwillingness to participate in foreign wars, most experts expect Washington to continue providing military assistance to Taipei. For one, it is bound by law to sell defensive weapons to the island. Two, the Trump administration sold more arms to Taiwan than any other.

“There is strong bipartisan support for continuing military aid to Taiwan. I don’t expect Trump to significantly change course on arms sales to Taiwan,” Mr Morris says.

These glaring differences aside, Trump does seem to admire Xi’s strongman image.

In 2020 he declared that he and Xi Jinping “love each other”, even in the midst of a bitter trade war with China.

“I had a very strong relationship with him,” he confirmed in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.

It’s hard to know what Xi thinks – he has said very little about their relationship and barely mentions Trump by name.

In 2018, Chinese state media CGTN took direct aim at the American leader, and released an unflattering video with the sarcastic title: “Thanks Mr Trump, you are great!” It was later taken down by censors.

But what we do know is both leaders project a type of muscular nationalism. Xi’s dream is the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and Trump believes only he can “make America great again”. Both promise that they are working towards a new golden age for their countries.

Trump’s “golden age” for America includes 60% tariffs on Chinese-made goods.

But Beijing is in no mood for a second trade war. It has troubles of its own.

President Xi’s dream of prosperity is in jeopardy. China’s economy is sluggish, its property sector is sinking, nearly 20% of its young people are struggling to find jobs and it has one of the world’s fastest growing ageing populations.

Some of this economic pain is clear at the Temple of Heaven. We join the throngs of Chinese tour groups walking through white marble gates. It has become fashionable for young people to dress up in Qing dynasty costumes although their long silk robes often fail to hide the other big trend – chunky white trainers.

Dozens of school groups are listening attentively to guides about their city’s colourful history while a queue forms around the altar to make a wish. I watch as a middle-aged woman dressed in black takes her turn. She turns three times, clasps her hands, closes her eyes and looks toward the sky. Later we ask what she hoped for. She says many people come here and ask for their children to get jobs or to get into a good school.

“We wish for better lives and prospects,” she says. While China claims to have eradicated extreme poverty, millions of labourers and factory workers across the country, those who contributed to China’s rise, will worry what about what’s to come.

Her future and the future of China’s economy may partly depend on just how serious Trump is about his tariffs. This time, Beijing is prepared, according to Yu Jie.

“China has already begun to diversify its sources of agricultural imports (notably from Brazil, Argentina and Russia) and increased the volumes of its exports in non-US allied countries. At a domestic level, the recent local government debt recapitalisation is also paving the way to offset the negative impacts on the likely trade war with the Trump Administration.”

Beijing may also have another hope. Billionaire Elon Musk now appears to have Trump’s ear. His company, Tesla, depends on China for production – about half of all its EVs are made in the country. Chinese leaders may ask if Musk can temper Trump’s trade impulses.

But the great power struggle of the 21st century is not just over trade. Xi’s dream also involves making China the world’s dominant power.

Some experts believe this is where another Trump presidency may offer Beijing an opportunity.

“Chinese leaders will reinforce the narrative that the US is the single and most disruptive source of global instability, while portraying China as a responsible and confident world power,” says Yu Jie.

Biden spent four years building up friendships across Asia with the likes of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam – all in an effort to contain China.

In the past, Trump’s “America-first” doctrine isolated and weakened these US alliances. He opted for deals over delicate diplomacy and often put a price tag on America’s friendships. In 2018, for instance, he demanded more money from South Korea to continue keeping US troops in the country.

Beijing has already built up alliances with emerging economies. It is also trying to repair its relationship with the UK and Europe, while mending historical grievances with Asian neighbours, South Korea and Japan.

If Washington’s influence does wane around the world, it could be a win for President Xi.

Back at the park, as we discuss the results of the US election, one man holds up four fingers. “He’s only got four years,” he says. “The US is always changing leaders. In China, we have more time.”

Time is indeed on Beijing’s side. Xi could be president for life – and so can afford to make slow but steady progress towards his goals.

Even if Trump does get in the way, it will not be for long.

India’s forthcoming cricket tour of Australia continues a historic rivalry that has evolved since 1947-48. This fierce competition is now as keenly awaited as the Ashes. But the inaugural tour unfolded against the harrowing backdrop of India’s independence and partition, with cricketers confronting turmoil and communal strife at home, as they prepared to face Australia’s legendary Donald Bradman and his “Invincibles”.

In 1947, as India prepared for its first cricket tour of Australia, the nation was in the midst of unprecedented upheaval.

Independence had come with the painful partition that created Pakistan, sparking one of history’s largest and bloodiest migrations. Amidst this chaos and as millions crossed borders, religious violence spread with Hindus and Sikhs on one side, and Muslims on the other. India’s 16-member cricket squad – selected months earlier – also had to deal with both personal and national turmoil as they readied themselves for a landmark series.

Anthony De Mello, the president of Board of Control for Cricket in India, announced the team with a backdrop of a map of undivided India, proclaiming that the team would represent all of India.

Until then, the Indian cricket team – known as “All India” – had only toured three times for official Test matches to England between 1932 and 1946, losing the series on every occasion.

But in 1946 future Australian captain Lindsay Hassett brought an Australian Services team to India to celebrate the Allies’ victory in World War Two. India won the unofficial series of three matches 1-0 and Hassett reported back to the Australian cricket authorities that the Indians were worthy of an official Test series.

Excitement and anticipation ran high in Indian cricket circles as the team was expected to face the mighty Australians, led by legendary batsman Donald Bradman. His team was later dubbed “Bradman’s Invincibles” after returning undefeated from England in 1948.

De Mello’s India squad was led by ace opening batsman Vijay Merchant, with his reliable partner Mushtaq Ali serving as deputy.

Both had been exceptional on the English tours of 1936 and 1946, cementing their leadership roles. The squad also boasted elegant batter Rusi Modi and promising debutant fast bowler Fazal Mahmood, adding a dynamic mix of experience and fresh talent.

But both Merchant and Modi withdrew from the tour on medical grounds. Ali also withdrew following the death of his elder brother, leaving him with family responsibilities.

As a result, Lala Amarnath was announced as the new captain and Vijay Hazare his deputy.

However, the violence that erupted following partition nearly prevented Amarnath from reaching Australia. According to a 2004 biography by his son Rajender Amarnath, Lala Amarnath narrowly escaped a sectarian mob in Patiala in Indian Punjab. His home in Lahore, now in Pakistan, along with its priceless artefacts, was lost forever.

He also encountered danger during a train journey to Delhi.

At a station in Indian Punjab, a police official recognised Amarnath and gave him a kada – a steel bangle worn by Sikhs and many Hindus as a religious symbol. Later, a mob at the station spared the cricketer because of the kada – it probably led them to believe he shared their faith.

On the other side of the religious divide, pace bowler Mahmood found himself facing a deadly mob on a train.

The team had scheduled two weeks of training in Pune (then Poona) from 15 August – though it was not known then, that was the day India was partitioned.

Despite restrictions, Mahmood reached Poona for the training camp. Afterwards, he travelled to Bombay (now Mumbai) en route to Lahore. He writes in his 2003 autobiography that on the train, two men threatened him, but former Indian captain CK Nayudu intervened, bat in hand, and warned them off.

Once he reached curfew-bound Lahore, Mahmood was horrified by the bloodshed he witnessed there and decided to stay back in Pakistan and not tour Australia. He later became part of the Pakistani cricket team and made his Test debut in 1952-53 against India.

Two other members of India’s squad for the Australia tour – Gul Mohammad and Amir Elahi – also later moved to Pakistan and played against India in the 1952-53 series.

Despite these setbacks, India’s tour went ahead, though a weakened India faced Australia without four of its leading players and lost the series 4-0.

The two countries now play each other almost every two years. The miracle, however, is that the inaugural tour of 1947-48 happened at all, given the tumult at home.

Tulsi Gabbard – a former Democratic congresswoman who joined the Republican Party to back Donald Trump – is the president-elect’s pick for director of national intelligence.

The wide-ranging role would mean she oversees US intelligence agencies like the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA), which focuses on intelligence gathering.

The nomination has raised questions over Gabbard’s lack of experience in intelligence as well as accusations that she has in the past amplified Russia propaganda.

She will require Senate confirmation to take up the role.

If she is confirmed to the role Gabbard would manage a budget of more than $70bn (£55bn) and oversee 18 intelligence agencies.

But the nomination has sparked criticism in some quarters.

Reacting to the appointment on X, Democratic Virginia congresswoman member of the House Intelligence Committee Abigail Spanberger said she was “appalled at the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard”.

“Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin,” she said.

A military veteran who served with a medical unit in Iraq, Gabbard has set a number of political precedents in her career.

She was first elected to the Hawaii State Legislature aged 21 in 2002, the youngest person ever elected in the state. She left after one term when her National Guard unit was deployed to Iraq.

Gabbard went on to represent Hawaii in Congress from 2013 until 2021 – becoming the first Hindu to serve in the House.

She previously championed liberal causes like government-run healthcare, free college tuition and gun control. These issues were part of her 2020 run for the Democratic presidential nomination – which she eventually dropped out of, endorsing Joe Biden.

In 2022 she left the Democratic Party and initially registered as an independent – accusing her former party of being an “elitist cabal of warmongers” driven by “cowardly wokeness”.

Becoming a contributor to Fox News, she was vocal on topics such as gender and freedom of speech and became an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump before joining the Republican Party less than a month ago.

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In 2019, during Gabbard’s bid to secure the Democratic presidential nomination she was criticised by rivals after receiving apparently favourable coverage on Russian state media.

In the same year, she also faced criticism for her perceived support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, seen as a key Russian ally.

She said Assad “is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States” – and defended meeting him in 2017, during Trump’s first term.

In that same year, she said in an interview with CNN that she was “sceptical” that the Syrian regime was behind a chemical weapons attack which killed dozens of people.

Trump said there could be “no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons”, speaking after the United States launched a missile strike on Syrian air base in response.

In 2019, Gabbard did also describe Assad as a “brutal dictator”.

Gabbard has also made a string of controversial statements relating to Russia and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Writing on social media on the day Russia invaded, she said the war could have been prevented if the US and its Western allies had recognised Russia’s “legitimate security concerns” about Ukraine’s bid to join Nato.

The following month, she said it was an “undeniable fact” that there were US-funded biolabs in Ukraine that could “release and spread deadly pathogens” as she called for a ceasefire.

In response, Republican senator Mitt Romney said Gabbard had embraced “actual Russian propaganda”.

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On Russian TV her nomination as intelligence director is being framed as likely to complicate Washington’s relations with Ukraine.

Rossiya 1 correspondent Dmitry Melnikov said that her nomination “does not bode well for Kyiv”, noting that in the past she “openly accused the Biden administration of provoking Russia”.

The channel’s presenter also pointed out that Gabbard had “strongly criticised Zelensky and called for dialogue with Russia”.

Winter has come to Delhi and with it, a familiar sense of gloom. The sky here is grey and there is a thick, visible blanket of smog.

If you stay outdoors for more than a few minutes, you can almost taste ash. You will feel breathless within minutes if you try to run or even walk at a brisk pace in the smog.

Newspapers are back to using words like toxic, deadly and poisonous in their main headlines.

Most schools have been shut and people have been advised to stay indoors – though those whose livelihoods depend on working outdoors can’t afford to do so.

Delhi’s air quality score was somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 on Monday and Tuesday, according to different monitoring agencies. The acceptable limit is less than 100.

These scores measure the levels of particulate matter – called PM 2.5 and PM10 – in the air. These tiny particles can enter the lungs and cause a host of diseases.

On social media, people have been expressing shock, disappointment and anguish that it’s all happening again.

Along with the gloom, there is a strong sense of déjà vu – like we have seen this all many times before in the past 15 years.

I recorded this video of my drive to office in 2017, when smog had reduced visibility to less than 2m.

On Tuesday, my drive to the office seemed even worse.

And we have covered every twist and turn of this story in the past two decades.

We have reported how pollution is making people sick and reducing their life expectancy here, here and here.

We have reported on India’s Supreme Court ordering the government to take urgent steps to curb pollution every year. The court has done the same this year.

We have reported on how pollution affects children the most and how their freedom is taken away here, here and here.

We have written about how politicians blame each other for the problem every year here, here and here.

We have discussed the root cause of the problem here, here and here.

We have also talked about solutions – both the ones that marginally worked and the ones that failed miserably – here, here and here.

We have reported on how pollution affects the poorest the most and how many don’t have a choice but to go out and work in the smog here, here and here.

Covering this story feels like watching (and being in) the same dystopian film every year – following the same characters, plot and script. The outcome is always the same – nothing changes.

The parks are empty again – people, particularly children and the elderly, have been told to stay indoors.

Those who must work – daily-wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, delivery riders – are coughing but still going out.

Hospitals are seeing an increasing number of people coming in with respiratory problems.

And amid all this, we are back to the same question again – why does nothing change?

The simple answer is that solving Delhi’s air problem requires monumental efforts and co-ordination.

The sources of the problem are many. One of them is the practice of farmers burning crop remains to clear their fields quickly to sow seeds for the next yield.

This mostly happens in the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The smoke from the farm fires engulfs Delhi every winter and hangs low in the atmosphere as wind speeds reduce during winter months.

But farmers can’t be entirely blamed for this because this is the cheapest way of clearing fields.

Different governments have talked about providing machines and financial incentives to stop crop burning, but very little has happened on the ground.

Delhi itself produces a huge chunk of the pollution – emission from vehicles, construction and factories.

Every year, in the winter months, people get angry, journalists write and produce reports, politicians blame each other and courts fume – until we do it all over again the next year.

A public health emergency like this would spark mass protests in most democracies. But the anger in Delhi is mostly limited to social media.

Activists say the reason is that pollution doesn’t cause immediate problems for most people. Ingesting high levels of PM2.5 causes health to deteriorate slowly. A Lancet study found that pollution led to more than 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019.

And then there is the class divide. People who can afford to temporarily leave the city do that, those who can buy air purifiers do that, and those who can vent on social media do that.

The rest, who don’t have these options, just go about their lives.

The collective angst has so far not resulted in a massive protest and, as the Supreme Court once observed, politicians just “pass the buck” and wait for the season to get over.

Experts say governments at the federal level and in different states need to leave their party politics behind and work together to solve this problem. They need to focus on long-term solutions.

And citizens need to hold politicians accountable and courts have to pass decisive orders months before the pollution worsens.

This year, we are again in the thick of the season and temporary measures have been announced, like banning construction work.

But can these bring Delhi’s elusive blue skies back? The evidence from the past few years doesn’t give much hope.

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On a Thursday afternoon towards the end of last month, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman set out to gather olives on her family’s land near the village of Faqqua, in the north of the occupied West Bank.

It was something that Hanan Abu Salameh had done for decades.

Within minutes, the mother of seven and grandmother of 14 lay dying in the dust of the olive grove, with a bullet wound in her chest – she’d been shot by an Israeli soldier.

Even though the family had co-ordinated their intention to pick olives with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), according to her son Fares and husband Hossam, the soldier fired several shots as other family members fled for cover.

The IDF says it’s investigating the incident, but Hanan’s grieving relatives have little hope or expectation that her killer will be brought to justice.

This wasn’t an isolated incident.

Harvesting olives is an age-old ritual and also an economic necessity for many Palestinians, but, according to the UN, it is increasingly precarious.

Farmers across the West Bank – internationally regarded as Palestinian land occupied by Israel – face heightened risks, like organised attacks by Israeli settlers seeking to sabotage the olive harvest, along with the use of force by Israeli security forces to block roads and Palestinians’ access to their lands.

“Last year we couldn’t even harvest our olives, except for a very small amount,” says Omar Tanatara, a farmer from the village of Umm Safa.

“At one point, the army came, threw the olives we’d already gathered on the ground, and ordered us to go home,” says Omar, who is also a member of the village council.

“Some people were even shot at and olives trees were cut down with saws – that’s how we later found them,” adds Omar, as he and other villagers use small hand-held rakes to pull this year’s harvest from their remaining trees while they can.

Even when Israeli and international activists accompany villagers to their olive groves, hoping to deter the threat, there’s no guarantee of safety.

Zuraya Hadad instinctively winces as we watch a video of the incident in which her ribs were broken by a masked man wielding a large stick.

The Israeli peace activist had been helping Palestinian farmers pick their olives when she was assaulted without provocation.

Rather than arresting her attacker, Israeli soldiers, who’d accompanied settlers to the site, just told him to move on.

“Even when we come to help, it doesn’t guarantee that the Palestinians can harvest their olives,” Zuraya tells me as she recovers from her injuries at home.

“We try to raise awareness, but in the end it’s either the settlers steal the olives or cut the trees, or they remain unpicked and go to waste.”

Land is at the heart of the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians – who controls it and who has access to it.

For thousands of Palestinian families and villages, cultivating and harvesting olives is a big part of their economy.

But many say that, in recent times, access to trees on their land has been impeded, often violently by Israeli settlers.

Hundreds of trees – which can take years to reach fruit-bearing maturity – have been deliberately burned or cut down, says the UN.

More than 96,000 dunums (approximately 96 sq km; 37 sq miles) of olive groves in the West Bank also went uncultivated in 2023 because of Israeli restrictions on access for Palestinian farmers.

After being gathered by hand, villagers from Umm Safa take sacks full of olives to the nearby factory, where the presses have restarted this season.

Olives are the most important agricultural product in the West Bank. In a good year, they’re worth more than $70m (£54m) to the Palestinian economy.

But income was well down last year and this year will be even worse, says factory owner Abd al-Rahman Khalifa, as even fewer farmers are able to harvest their crop owing to attacks by settlers.

“Let me give you an example,” he tells me.

“My brother-in-law in Lubban – next to the Israeli settlement – went to pick his own olives, but they broke his arms and they made him leave along with everyone who was with him.”

“We, as Palestinians, don’t have petrol or big companies. Our main agricultural crop is olives,” he adds. “So, like the Gulf depends on oil, and the Americans on business, our economy is dependent on the olive tree.”

On the hill overlooking the olive groves of Umm Safa stands an illegal settler outpost – a farm.

The extremist settler who runs it, Zvi Bar Yosef, was sanctioned this year by the UK and other Western governments for repeated acts of violence against Palestinians, including twice threatening families at gunpoint.

Over the last year of the war in Gaza, Jewish settlers have been emboldened by the support of far-right Israeli ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir.

As national security minister, he has given out free firearms to hundreds of settlers and has encouraged them to assert their right to what – they say – is their “God-given” land.

Ben-Gvir has also been accused of openly supporting the disruption of olive harvesting on Palestinian land.

At the olive press, farmers wait patiently in the yard to witness the transformation of the olives they’ve been able to gather this year into “liquid gold”.

The olive tree has been a symbol of this land for centuries.

For generations of Palestinians, it is their link to the land – a link that is under threat now more than ever.

Ariana Grande has told the BBC that she channelled her personal feelings of loss when filming Wicked.

“Losing someone you love is something we’ve all unfortunately had to experience – and sometimes we have the privilege to say goodbye and sometimes we don’t,” she says.

Grande, 31, plays Galinda Upland in the film, which is an adaptation of the hugely successful stage musical exploring the Wizard of Oz universe from the perspective of two witches.

The two-time Grammy award winner has suffered personal tragedy in recent years, after the 2017 Manchester bombing of her concert and the death of her former partner Mac Miller a year later.

She says appearing in Wicked, one of the first Broadway shows she saw as a child, “feels like a homecoming”.

“This music has always brought such comfort and now being able to spend time with it and be trusted with it is the privilege of a lifetime.”

In the weeks running up to the film’s release, the close relationship between Grande and co-star Cynthia Erivo has been in the spotlight.

“From the moment we were cast, Cynthia invited me over and we hung out for five hours and we laughed and we cried and got to know each other.

“We had a real conversation right off the bat about creating a safe space for each other and being honest with each other,” she says.

Grande and Erivo’s characters begin in the Oz universe as university students, before later becoming enemies as Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West.

Erivo, 37, has described her role as “a real honour” and nods to the foundations formed by the original stage actors Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, who she calls “the architects”.

“We’ve been handed something really special and it’s a dream come true and truly big shoes to fill,” she adds.

Critics have so far given the film mixed reviews. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw praised the “sugar-rush fantasy” and awarded four stars, describing Wicked as a “blast of entertainment power”.

There was another four-star review from Empire’s Helen O’Hara, who said director Jon M Chu “uses every bell and whistle possible to turn the stage show into a movie epic”.

However, in a two-star review, the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin described Wicked as “utterly exhausting and hopelessly miscast”, adding that there was “no conceivable artistic argument” to have split the the Broadway show into two films.

The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey awarded three stars and questioned the way it was shot, with characters often “aggressively backlit”.

“Jon M Chu treats his Oz as if it were as mundane as a city block,” she added.

But Screen Daily’s Fionnuala Halligan concluded: “It’s so doggedly faithful to the show, so emphatically orchestrated and so powered by Cynthia Erivo’s exceptional performance, that resistance to its 169 minutes of theme park magic becomes futile.”

Erivo, who received a best actress nomination at the Oscars for her portrayal of Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet in 2019, is also a decorated stage performer who received a Tony Award in 2016 for the Broadway adaptation of The Color Purple.

She says she was able to draw on her own experiences of struggling with acceptance for the role of Elphaba, who is outcast for her green exterior.

“Whether you feel ‘other’, or you feel different from everyone else, I think both of us have experience in those spaces that we have used to infuse our characters,” she says.

Wicked, which first came to Broadway in 2003, has gone on to be the third-highest grossing theatre show in the world, behind The Lion King and The Phantom of the Opera.

Many have pinned its enduring success with audiences on the relatability of its content – from Elphaba’s struggle with self-identity to Glinda’s difficulty in making moral choices.

Its reimagining for the big screen also stars Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible and Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage as the voice of Doctor Dillamond – who is an animated goat.

Oscar nominee Jeff Goldblum appears as the Wizard of Oz and British star Jonathan Bailey – who has received international recognition in recent years after starring in Netflix hit Bridgerton – as Fiyero.

Goldblum says the central themes of the film, which include embracing diversity, were important to the cast, who were able to “come together to work and appreciate each other with empathy, compassion and love”.

Bailey also says everyone he worked with had their own “Elphaba story”, adding “we have at points in our lives felt different”.

He says: “In this film particularly, it’s the superpower of individuality which becomes a power to harness.

“I think it’s really important right now as well, this theme that there’s more that unites us than divides us.”

The musical has been a West End and Broadway institution for more than 20 years, but Chu says the central themes of the plot are more relevant than ever.

“Elphaba says something has changed within me, something’s not the same – and that’s the line that really got me into this movie, I felt like we all feel uneasy,” he says.

Chu, who also directed Crazy Rich Asians in 2018, says he received the script for the film during the pandemic, which made him think about how the film could reflect his real-life experience of looking for truth in a confusing time.

He says the cast also made themselves “emotionally available” during filming and were able to put themselves personally in the shoes of their characters.

“Ariana, Cynthia and Jeff were talking about the real-world stakes of what we were putting into these characters,” he adds.

“It wasn’t just about global politics, it was more personal than that.

“We were all going through stuff in our own lives and I think they were generous to offer that up within the roles of Glinda, Elphaba and the Wizard.”

As I waited for brain surgery, I instinctively pressed record on my phone camera, thinking I might be documenting the final months of my life.

I have made a career telling other people’s stories but this seemed like a time to tell my own.

It began with a bicycle crash in June 2023 when I broke 10 ribs – but that led to me discovering a much bigger health challenge.

In bed one night, I had a seizure which revealed a cancerous brain tumour.

The most likely scenario seemed to be that I had an aggressive glioblastoma, a tumour which typically ends your life within 12 to 18 months.

In my hospital bed, I turned the camera on myself, not as a self-indulgence, but to spotlight a nasty cancer that’s hard to treat and even harder to beat.

I suppose this was my way of extracting some purpose from a personal tragedy.

The result is My Brain Tumour And Me – a TV and iPlayer film that is far more optimistic than you might think.

After 15 months I’m still going strong because it turns out I have a rare form of the disease, an oligodendroglioma, that tends to respond better to treatment.

The brilliant brain surgeon Paul Brennan saved my life by chopping out most of my tumour and, with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, it seems to be keeping my cancer in check for now.

There are quarterly scans to see if it’s growing again.

There have been a couple of false alarms but the most recent check suggests my tumour is stable. I have no idea how long that will last.

I try not to worry too much between scans because what my brain tumour is up to is not within my control.

What I have been learning to deal with are the difficult legacies of my cancer treatment – persistent fatigue and the risk of further seizures.

A daily nap and careful budgeting of my time and effort help with the fatigue.

Adjustments to anti-seizure medication have minimised the frequency and severity of any fits.

It has taken time, trial and error to get that right.

In December last year I had a very big seizure which put me in intensive care.

A medically-induced coma was the only way doctors could make it stop.

When I came round I felt extremely lucky to be alive – but the euphoria I had experienced after brain surgery was absent.

This time, I felt as if I had only narrowly escaped death.

It had all been a bit too close for comfort. I was very emotional.

This was, and remains, the lowest point in my experience of living with brain cancer.

But I bounced back and further tweaks to my epilepsy drugs gave me enough confidence to return to the hills I love so much.

Rarely do I feel more alive than when I’m on top of one of Scotland’s magnificent mountains.

By March this year, I felt well enough to climb one without any sense of foreboding.

The specialists are clear – they don’t want to stop me doing things. They want to enable me to live as normally as possible.

In preparation for my climb up Meall nan Tarmachan, on the banks of Loch Tay, I had successfully scaled another mountain the weekend before with no problems.

So when my friend Nikolaj and I strode out from the Ben Lawers car park to climb the Perthshire peak we had no concerns.

Within 10 minutes – before we’d really begun our ascent – I suddenly had to lie down.

It wasn’t long before my left hand and arm were twitching and shaking uncontrollably. I was having another seizure.

It is very frustrating to feel perfectly well and then to be immobilised by epilepsy. Fits are also physically exhausting.

If I had thought there was much chance of this happening that day, I would have stayed at home.

This is one of only four big seizures I have ever had. The others happened in bed, at work and in a hospital car park.

Nikolaj and other walkers made me comfortable on the hill and I was given the medication I carry with me.

There was an impressive response from the emergency services and I imagined recovering on the hillside then walking slowly back to the car park.

But that was not to be.

At times, the professionals attending to me on the mountainside were not sure if things were getting better or worse so they decided to have me winched aboard a Coastguard helicopter and taken to hospital.

I would like to thank everyone who was there for me that day. I am extremely grateful.

The seizure had stopped by the time I got to A&E in Glasgow. I was soon calling friends and family to work out the best way home to East Lothian.

While on the hill, I had persuaded my walking companion to film some of the drama on his phone.

At first, he was uncomfortable with this request but when I explained that I wanted to show what having a seizure was like, he agreed.

His camerawork is some of the footage which features in My Brain Tumour and Me – my attempt to give an insight into living with an incurable cancer that is not well understood.

My wife Claire and my mum Jennifer also described the impact that such a devastating diagnosis can have on your family.

I am very lucky. I am defying the typical odds.

Six in 10 people with brain cancer do not live for more than a year beyond their diagnosis.

I may be around for some years yet.

If I have a wobble, I know I can count on the love and support of my family and friends.

I’ve found that more overwhelming and humbling than being confronted with my own mortality.

I also have a wonderful network of fellow brain tumour patients, including my friend Theo Burrell, to help me through.

That’s important because sometimes only someone with a similar condition can really understand.

The medical care I have had from NHS doctors and nurses in Edinburgh has been exceptional.

My recovery is allowing me to make a gradual return to work covering politics for BBC Scotland.

That helps me stay positive, as does the personal effort I put into Brain Power – a fundraising community I set up to help establish a new Brain Tumour Research centre in Scotland.

No-one can tell me how I got my tumour and no-one can fix it.

I think well resourced science can do a lot better. If not for me, for those who come after.

In my case, there has been no need for medical help with seizures since the airlift in March.

After four months off the mountains, my walking boots are back on.

My personal challenge is to climb all 282 Munros – Scottish mountains above 3,000ft – by the end of 2028.

Despite all my health problems since last summer, I have completed my first nine, including Meall nan Tarmachan second time around. That is a start.

There’s been a lot of dog walking and a little bit of running and cycling too.

In June, around the anniversary of my bike crash, I returned to the route I was on when I took a tumble.

I called at the café I had been heading for that day and enjoyed the breakfast I had been denied the year before.

Never before has French toast with bacon and maple syrup tasted so good.

I am now starting to think about how to celebrate my 50th birthday in 2026 – 15 months from now.

It’s not so long since I thought I would not be around to mark that milestone.

Now, the half century seems within reach.

My Brain Tumour And Me – Glenn Campbell faces down his mortality and considers what matters most in life.

You can watch the programme on BBC One Scotland at 19:00 on Wednesday 20 November or on the iPlayer.

More than 40,000 people have protested outside New Zealand’s parliament against a controversial bill seeking to reinterpret the country’s founding document between British colonisers and Māori people.

Tuesday’s demonstration marked the end of a nine-day hīkoi, or peaceful protest, that had made its way through the country.

The Treaty Principles bill argues that New Zealand should reinterpret and legally define the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, a document seen as fundamental to the country’s race relations.

Many critics see it as an attempt to take rights away from Māori people. Supporters of the change say the treaty no longer reflects a multicultural society.

Tuesday’s march brought together activists and other opponents of the bill.

The hīkoi swelled to one of the biggest in the country’s history, with many participants draped in colours of the Māori flag, as they marched through the capital Wellington.

It easily dwarfed the 5,000-strong crowd that turned up for land rights in 1975, and double the size of another major hīkoi in 2004, which rallied for shore and sea ownership rights.

Wellington’s rail network saw what might have been its busiest morning ever as the hīkoi poured through the capital, according to the city’s transport chair Thomas Nash.

The Māori Queen Ngā Wai hono i te pō led the delegation into the grounds surrounding the Beehive, New Zealand’s parliament house, as thousands followed behind.

The bill is not likely to pass into law but the conversations and the division are set to continue. It will be another six months until a second reading.

It was introduced by a junior member of the governing coalition, the Act political party.

The party’s leader, David Seymour, says that over time the treaty’s core values have led to racial divisions, not unity.

“My Treaty Principles Bill says that I, like everybody else, whether their ancestors came here a thousand years ago, like some of mine did, or just got off the plane at Auckland International Airport this morning to begin their journey as New Zealanders, have the same basic rights and dignity,” Seymour, who has Māori ancestry, told the BBC.

“Your starting point is to take a human being and ask, what’s your ancestry? What kind of human are you? That used to be called prejudice. It used to be called bigotry. It used to be called profiling and discrimination. Now you’re trying to make a virtue of it. I think that’s a big mistake.”

Meanwhile, inside the Beehive, MPs discussed the bill.

Among them was Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who said it would not pass into law – despite him being part of the same coalition as Act.

“Our position as the National Party is unchanged. We won’t be supporting the bill beyond second reading and therefore it won’t become law,” Luxon said, according to the New Zealand Herald.

“We don’t think through the stroke of a pen you go rewrite 184 years of debate and discussion.”

New Zealand is often considered a world leader when it comes to supporting indigenous rights – but under Luxon’s centre-right government, there are fears those rights are now at risk.

“They are trying to take our rights away,” Stan Lingman, who has both Māori and Swedish ancestry told the BBC before Tuesday’s protest. “[The hikoi is] for all New Zealanders – white, yellow, pink, blue. We will fight against this bill.”

Stan’s wife Pamela said she was marching for her “mokos”, which means grandchildren in the Māori language.

Other New Zealanders felt the march has gone too far.

“They [Māori] seem to want more and more and more,” said Barbara Lecomte, who lives in the coastal suburbs north of Wellington. “There’s a whole cosmopolitan mix of different nationalities now. We are all New Zealanders. I think we should work together and have equal rights.”

Equality, though, is still a way off, according to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of Te Pāti Māori (Maori Party).

“We can’t live equally if we have one people who are the indigenous people living ‘less than’,” she argued. What the coalition government is doing is “an absolute attempt to divide an otherwise progressive country and it’s really embarrassing”.

New Zealand’s parliament was brought to a temporary halt last week by MPs performing a haka, or traditional dance, in opposition to the bill. Footage of the incident went viral.

“To see it in parliament, in the highest house in Aotearoa, there’s been a real state of surprise and I think disappointment and sadness that in 2024 when we see politics and the Trump extremes, this is what the Māori are having to endure,” said Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “It’s humiliating for the government because we [New Zealand] are normally seen as punching above our weight in all of the great things in life.”

Protest organisers on Monday taught participants the words and moves of the rally’s haka, with the audience enthusiastically repeating the lyrics written on a large white sheet.

“This isn’t just any normal hīkoi – this is the hīkoi of everybody,” said grandmother Rose Raharuhi Spicer, explaining that they’ve called on non-Māori, Pacific Islanders and the wider population in New Zealand to support them.

This was the fourth hīkoi Rose had been on. She comes from New Zealand’s northernmost settlement, Te Hāpua, directly above Auckland. It’s the same village that the most famous hīkoi started from, back in 1975, protesting over land rights.

This time, she brought her children and grandchildren.

“This is our grandchildren’s legacy,” she said. “It’s not just one person or one party – and to alter [it] is wrong.”

Los Angeles, the second largest US city, is setting itself up for a standoff with President-elect Donald Trump over immigration.

On Tuesday, its city council passed a “sanctuary city” ordinance to bar using local resources to help federal immigration authorities.

LA’s public school system also reaffirmed itself as a “sanctuary” for undocumented immigrants and LGBTQ students in a series of emergency resolutions.

Trump, who will be sworn in in two months, has promised mass deportations once he returns to the White House. His chosen “border czar”, Tim Homan, has urged sanctuary cities to “get the hell out of the way” of federal immigration crackdowns.

The term “sanctuary city” has been popular in the US for more than a decade to describe places that limit their assistance to federal immigration authorities. Since it is not a legal term, cities have taken a variety of approaches to becoming “sanctuaries”, such as setting policies in laws or simply changing local policing practices.

Aimed at making a 2019 executive order into city law, the city council’s sanctuary city ordinance prohibits using city resources for immigration enforcement, including cooperating with federal immigration agents, NBC News Los Angeles reports.

The ordinance will “prevent federal immigration enforcement from being able to access city facilities or to use city resources in the pursuit of immigration enforcement”, council member Nithya Raman told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, ahead of the vote.

It will also prohibit some data sharing between immigration authorities and city officials and agencies.

The ordinance will go into effect once it has been signed by Mayor Karen Bass.

Officials in a number of other cities, including Boston and New York City, have similarly promised that local resources would not be allocated to helping federal immigration enforcement issues.

Since Trump was elected the first time, dozens of school districts have declared themselves “sanctuaries” or “safe havens” to reassure students they will not be deported.

The Los Angeles school district – roughly 140 miles (225km) from the country’s southern border with Mexico – also voted on a series of emergency resolutions explicitly aimed at combatting what the board’s president, Jackie Goldberg, has described as an anti-immigrant and LGBTQ sentiment from the incoming president.

As well as restating a sanctuary policy for students and families within the school district, the resolution also calls for training for teachers and staff about how they should communicate with immigration authorities.

“We’re not going to be running in fear,” she said in quotes cited by the LA Times ahead of the resolution’s passing. “We’re going to fight you, every inch of the way.”

The move is likely to put the city on a collision course with the incoming Trump administration, which has vowed it will begin a large-scale mass deportation effort from the very beginning of the administration.

Trump’s chosen “border czar”, former acting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan, has repeatedly said that “sanctuary” city designations would not prevent the administration from carrying out its immigration policy goals.

In an 11 November interview with Fox, Homan said “nothing will stop us from deporting migrant criminals.”

“We’re going to do the job with you, or without you,” he said.

A Republican congresswoman has introduced a bill to ban transgender women from using female bathrooms in the US Capitol, just weeks after the first-ever openly transgender lawmaker was elected to the House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, South Carolina’s Nancy Mace said her resolution was “absolutely” a response to the election of Sarah McBride, who will be sworn into office in January.

McBride called the move “a blatant attempt from far-right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing”.

Republicans campaigned heavily on opposing transgender rights during the election. At a closing rally, Donald Trump said he would keep “transgender insanity the hell out of our schools… and men out of women’s sports”.

The resolution introduced on Monday does not specifically mention McBride, but Mace told reporters on Tuesday, that “it’s 100 percent because of McBride”, according to the Washington Post.

“This is about women and our right to privacy, our right to safety,” Mace said. “I’m not going to allow biological men into women’s private spaces. It is the height of hypocrisy.”

• Sarah McBride becomes first transgender Congress member

On Monday, McBride responded to the measure, posting on X: “Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.”

House Democrats strongly condemned the resolution and accused Mace of bullying a fellow member of Congress.

“This is your priority, that you want to bully a member of Congress, as opposed to welcoming her to join this body so all of us can work together to get things done and deliver real results for the American people?” Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.

It is unclear when the measure may be taken up by Congress for a vote. It is expected to be part of the House rules package that members vote on after being sworn in.

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Tuesday declined to say that it would be part of the rules package, telling reporters that lawmakers would seek consensus as they approach the “unprecedented” issue.

“We’re going to do that in a deliberate fashion with members’ consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person,” Johnson said.

“We treat everybody with dignity,” he added. “We’ll provide appropriate accommodation for every member of Congress.”

It comes as Republicans in Washington DC and in state capitols have focused sharply on transgender issues, including seeking to limit access to gender-related surgery for minors and to bar transgender athletes from female-only sports categories.

During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump said transgender students should be allowed to use whichever bathroom “they feel is appropriate”, but he reversed his stance after facing Republican criticism.

A New York priest who let popstar Sabrina Carpenter film provocative scenes for a music video inside his church has been accused of mismanagement and stripped of his duties.

Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello was relieved of “any pastoral oversight or governance role” at the church, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn said in a statement.

Church officials launched an investigation after the October 2023 music video release for Carpenter’s hit song Feather, filmed inside the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.

The Diocese said the investigation found other instances of mismanagement beyond the music video that appalled some, including unapproved financial transfers.

“I am saddened to share that investigations conducted by Alvarez & Marsal and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP have uncovered evidence of serious violations of Diocesan policies and protocols,” Bishop Robert Brennan said in the statement, according to the BBC’s media partner CBS News.

A replacement was installed and Mr Gigantiello was removed from his responsibilities, the statement read.

Mr Gigantiello’s administrative powers had been revoked last November shortly after the criticism of Carpenter’s video.

He was also removed from fundraising duties as vicar of development for the diocese.

Images from Carpenter’s video show a crucifix with profanity printed on it and also Carpenter dancing on the altar in a short black dress.

The diocese at the time said it was “appalled” and that proper procedures for filming had not been followed, the Associated Press reported.

In a letter to parishioners last year, Mr Gigantiello said allowing Carpenter to film inside the church was a “lapse in judgment”. He has not responded to the allegations that led to his dismissal.

On Monday, Bishop Brennan said a larger review under the investigation detected other instances of administrative impropriety, including Mr Gigantiello using a credit card for personal expenses.

Bishop Brennan also said that, from 2019 to 2021, Mr Gigantiello transferred nearly $2m (£1.5M) in church funds to bank accounts affiliated with a former staff member of New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Adams was indicted in September on five counts of criminal offences, including bribery, wire fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. A number of investigations have centred on Adams and those in his orbit – leading to subpoenas, law enforcement raids and a flurry of resignations of top officials who help lead New York City.

A possible ban on social media for under-16s in the UK is “on the table”, the technology secretary Peter Kyle has told the BBC.

Speaking on the Today programme, on BBC Radio 4, he said he would “do what it takes” to keep people and in particular children safe online.

He also announced further research into the impact tech such as smartphones and social media was having on young people, claiming there was currently “no firm, peer-reviewed evidence”.

Kyle has spelt out his priorities in what he called a “letter of strategic intent” to the regulator Ofcom, which is assuming extra powers under the Online Safety Act (OSA).

Campaign group the Molly Rose Foundation welcomed what it called an “important marker for Ofcom to be bolder” but said that should not obscure the fact that the OSA needed to be strengthened.

“Our research is clear. The public and parents back an updated Act that embeds an overarching duty of care on tech firms, and the Prime Minister must act quickly and decisively to deliver this unfinished job,” it said in a post on X.

Iona Silverman, from law firm Freeths, described a potential social media ban as “a drop in an ocean-sized problem”, saying teenagers would just find new ways to access problematic material online.

“The government needs to think bigger: this is a problem that requires a cultural shift, and also requires legislation to be one step ahead of, rather than behind, technology,” she said.

The idea of legally restricting social media for young people has come into the spotlight after Australia’s government said it would introduce legislation to ban children under 16 from social media.

Asked whether the UK would follow suit, Kyle said “everything is on the table with me”, but said he wanted to see more evidence first.

He said he was also focused on making sure the powers contained in the OSA, which is coming into effect next year, were used “assertively” by the regulator.

“I just want to make sure that Ofcom knows that government expects them to be used,” he told the BBC.

The OSA demands tech firms take more responsibility for the content on their platforms to protect children from some legal but harmful material.

Kyle said he wanted to see evidence that tech firms were delivering suitable age verification for users, and that the sector was moving towards having “safety baked in from the outset.”

Social media and messaging platforms could face significant fines potentially measured in the billions if they do not comply with the OSA.

It has already led to a range of companies introducing significant changes to how they work – with Instagram creating new teen accounts in September, and Roblox banning young children from messaging others in November.

Nonetheless, critics have consistently said the government needs to do more.

In February, the mother of the murdered teenager Brianna Ghey told the BBC it did not go far enough.

As well as restricting social media for young people, some suggest their use of smartphones should also be more tightly controlled.

Parliament is considering a private members bill which examines how to make children’s digital lives safer.

It will hear evidence from a body called Healthcare Professionals for Safer Screens, which wants curbs on smartphones.

“When I created this group, it was very much pushing on an open door,” said founder and GP Rebecca Foljambe.

“There’s so many health professionals who are worried about this.”

The government has stopped short of banning smartphones in schools but has issued guidance to ensure that all schools implement effective smartphone-free restrictions.

Peter Kyle told the BBC in October he believed the battle over phone use in schools had been won.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sentenced the former head of the Islamic police in Mali’s historic city of Timbuktu to 10 years in prison for war crimes.

Prosecutors said al-Hassan ag Abdoul Aziz ag Mohamed ag Mahmoud led a “reign of terror” in the city after it was overrun in 2012 by the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine group.

He was found guilty in June this year of torture, overseeing public amputations by machete and the brutal floggings of residents, including children.

Hassan, aged 47, was acquitted on charges of rape and sexual slavery, as well as destroying Timbuktu’s ancient mausoleums.

Hassan looked emotionless after his sentence was read out on Wednesday, at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands.

The jail term “is proportionate to the gravity of the crimes and the individual circumstances and culpability of Mr Al Hassan,” said presiding judge Kimberly Prost.

“It adequately reflects the strong condemnation by the international community for the crimes committed by him and acknowledges the significant harm and suffering caused to the victims,” she added.

• What does the International Criminal Court do?
• How Timbuktu’s manuscripts were smuggled to safety

Some rights groups had expressed disappointment that Hassan was charged but then acquitted of gender-based crimes.

According to the AFP news agency, the court heard that some women were arrested then raped in detention under the rule of Ansar Dine.

The ICC ruled that crimes of sexual violence had taken place, but Hassan was not found to bear responsibility for them.

Hassan has 30 days to appeal against the judgement and reparations to the victims will be addressed in due course.

He was handed over to the ICC in 2018 by the Malian authorities – five years after French troops helped liberate Timbuktu from the jihadists.

Ansar Dine was one of several Islamist militant groups to exploit an ethnic Tuareg uprising to take over cities in northern Mali.

Another Islamist militant leader who destroyed ancient shrines in Timbuktu was sentenced to nine years in jail in 2016.

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi admitted to leading fighters who destroyed historic mausoleums at the world heritage site in Mali in 2012.

Timbuktu was a major centre of Islamic learning between the 13th and 17th Centuries and was added to the Unesco world heritage list in 1988.

• Islamist rebel apologises for destroying Timbuktu shrines at ICC trial
• A quick guide to Mali
• Mali: The world’s ‘most dangerous peacekeeping mission’

Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is currently in federal custody awaiting trial on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

His arrest in New York came amid a series of civil suits alleging sexual assault and physical violence, some going back to the 1990s.

More than two dozen people have filed lawsuits against the rapper, accusing him of using his influence in the entertainment industry to do everything from drugging, assaulting and raping people.

The latest batch of lawsuits include allegations from two men who were underage at the time of the alleged sexual assaults. Both described being hopeful that Mr Combs could help jumpstart their careers in the entertainment industry.

The Harlem-born rapper has denied all the allegations, both those laid out in lawsuits and in his federal indictment.

Mr Combs, 54, was arrested on Monday 16 September in a New York hotel on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force and transportation for purposes of prostitution.

Federal prosecutors have accused him of “creating a criminal enterprise” in which he “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfil his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct”.

They said Mr Combs had used drugs, violence and the power of his status to “lure female victims” into extended sex acts called “Freak Offs”.

They also revealed they had uncovered firearms, ammunition and more than 1,000 bottles of lubricant during raids on Mr Combs’ homes in Miami and Los Angeles in March.

Prosecutors have reportedly been in touch with several witnesses who worked under Mr Combs and some of the accusers currently suing him, and have left open the possibility of more charges.

The singer-producer has pleaded not guilty to the three felony counts against him and his attorney told reporters he was a “fighter” who was “not afraid of the charges”.

Mr Combs is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a federal jail notorious for its violence and poor inmate care.

MDC includes an extra-security section with barracks-style housing reserved for special detainees, and US media report that Mr Combs is sharing the space with convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.

His legal team sought his release pending trial because of the jail’s “horrific” conditions, but prosecutors argued he posed “a serious flight risk” and Mr Combs has twice been denied bail.

If convicted, he faces a sentence of anywhere from 15 years to life in prison.

Mr Combs’ former on-and-off girlfriend, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, was first to blow the whistle on the self-proclaimed “bad boy for life”.

In a lawsuit filed last November, the model and musician alleged he had “trapped” her for over a decade in a “cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking”.

Mr Combs “vehemently” denied the claims. A day after the suit landed in court, both parties said they had “amicably” settled the case, though Mr Combs’ attorney said the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing”.

But in May, CNN obtained surveillance footage that showed the entertainer-turned-entrepreneur assaulting Ms Ventura in a 2016 altercation that is detailed in her suit.

Mr Combs finally acknowledged the incident in an Instagram video two days later, saying he was “disgusted” by what he had done.

“My behaviour on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions,” he said.

At least 27 others – including several men – have since come forward with their own claims. Here are details from some of the cases – many have included plaintiffs who filed anonymously.

Joi Dickerson-Neal, who said Ms Ventura had inspired her to speak out, alleged Mr Combs had “intentionally drugged” and raped her when she was a Syracuse University student in 1991, and had made her a victim of revenge porn by filming the assault and showing it to others.

Representatives for Mr Combs blasted the lawsuit as “purely a money grab” and have asked for it to be dismissed.

Liza Gardner accused Mr Combs and R&B crooner Aaron Hall of plying her with drinks and then forcing her to have sex with them against her will when she was 16 years old. She also claimed that Mr Combs had visited her home the next day and choked her until she passed out. Mr Combs’ attorney slammed the claims as “bogus”.

The three initial lawsuits were brought under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act, which granted adult victims a one-year window to bring claims against their abusers regardless of statutes of limitation.

A woman so far identified only as Jane Doe claimed that Mr Combs, former Bad Boy Records president Harve Pierre and a third person had violently gang-raped her in a New York City studio when she was a 17-year-old high school student.

A few days later, Mr Combs broke his silence on social media against “sickening allegations… by individuals looking for a quick pay day”. His attorneys are seeking to dismiss the “baseless and time-barred” case. Mr Pierre has meanwhile called the suit a “tale of fiction”.

Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, a producer and videographer who worked on Mr Combs’ most recent album, accused the mogul of running an illegal racketeering enterprise in which he was forced to procure drugs, solicit sex workers and tape sex acts. He also claimed Mr Combs and actor Cuba Gooding Jr had groped him without consent.

Grace O’Marcaigh, who worked on a yacht leased by the Combs family in 2022, accused the rapper and his son, Christian “King” Combs, of sexual assault. She blamed them for creating an “environment of debauchery” with suspected sex workers and top celebrities aboard.

Crystal McKinney claimed she had been drugged and sexually assaulted by Mr Combs following a Men’s Fashion Week event in 2003 when she was 22 years old. She also said he had subsequently “blackballed” her in the modelling world.

April Lampros, who says she met Mr Combs as a student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in 1994, detailed “four terrifying sexual encounters” through the early 2000s.

Adria English, a former adult-film actress who worked with Mr Combs in the 2000s, said he had used her as a “sexual pawn for the pleasure and financial benefit of others” during the “White Parties” he hosted at his homes in New York and Miami.

Dawn Richards, who once sang in two Combs-assembled groups including Danity Kane, said she had personally witnessed his violence against Ms Ventura and that he had threatened her life when she tried to intervene.

Thalia Graves, who is backed by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, claimed Mr Combs and his bodyguard Joseph Sherman had sedated, overpowered and tied her up before recording themselves raping her and later distributing the sex tape.

Six anonymous accusers: Six lawsuits were filed on 14 October by four men and two women. One of the women accused Mr Combs of raping her at a hotel and another suit accused the rapper of ordering a 16-year-old boy to undress when the teen was talking to him about breaking into the music industry.

Ashley Parham filed a lawsuit on 15 October claiming that Mr Combs had raped her as “payback” for a comment she made suggesting that he was responsible for the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. Shakur’s murder has never been solved, but a man currently on trial for his murder has previously claimed that Mr Combs had paid for him to be killed.

Mr Combs’ legal team has dismissed the flurry of lawsuits as “clear attempts to garner publicity.”

“Mr Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defences, and the integrity of the judicial process,” his attorneys said in a statement, adding: “Mr Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone – adult or minor, man or woman.”

Nine more lawsuits were filed anonymously between 20 October and 28 of October. Many of the lawsuits were filed by adults who said they were underage at the time of the alleged sexual assaults.

Two male accusers said in lawsuits that they were sexually assaulted while meeting with the mogul about their careers in the music industry while they were minors.

Several of the lawsuits included details that the incidents happened at some of Mr Combs’ notorious parties.

Five more anonymous lawsuits were filed against Mr Combs on 19 November from three men and two women. The suits centre on allegations of sexual assault at parties with at least two of them outlining rape accusations against Mr Combs.

A woman in Thailand has been sentenced to death in the first of a string of cases in which she is accused of murdering 14 friends with cyanide.

The court in Bangkok found Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, 36, guilty of putting poison in a wealthy friend’s food and drink while they were on a trip last year.

Relatives of the friend refused to accept she died of natural causes and an autopsy found traces of cyanide in her body. Police arrested Sararat and uncovered other similar deaths going back to 2015. One person she allegedly targeted survived.

Police say Sararat, dubbed Am Cyanide by Thai media, had a gambling addiction and targeted friends she owed money to, then stole their jewellery and valuables.

Sararat travelled with her friend Siriporn Khanwong, 32, to Ratchaburi province, west of Bangkok in April 2023, where they took part in a Buddhist protection ritual at a river, police said.

Siriporn collapsed and died after a meal with Sararat, who made no effort to help her, investigators said.

Traces of cyanide were found in Siriporn’s body and her phone, money and bags were missing when she was found, police said.

“You got justice, my child. Today, there is justice in this world,” Siriporn’s mother, Thongpin Kiatchanasiri, said in front of the courtroom, as she held a photo of her daughter.

Thongpin said that out of anger, she could not stand to look at Sararat, who she said was smiling when the sentence was being read. Sararat pleaded not guilty to the charges against her.

Her former husband, an ex-police officer, and her lawyer, were handed prison terms of one year and four months, and two years respectively, for hiding evidence to help her evade prosecution. They had also pleaded not guilty before Wednesday’s sentencing.

The ex-husband, Vitoon Rangsiwuthaporn, gave himself up last year. Police said he most likely helped Sararat poison an ex-boyfriend, Suthisak Poonkwan.

Sararat was also ordered to pay Siriporn’s family two million baht ($57,667; £45,446) in compensation.

Cyanide starves the body’s cells of oxygen, which can induce heart attacks. Early symptoms include dizziness, shortness of breath and vomiting.

It can lead to lung injury, coma and death within seconds when consumed in large amounts, but even small doses can still be very harmful.

Its use in Thailand is heavily regulated and those found to have unauthorised access face up two years in jail.

Family, friends and former bandmates have remembered Liam Payne at the One Direction star’s funeral, just over a month after he died at the age of 31.

The private service took place on Wednesday in Amersham in Buckinghamshire, north-west of London.

Payne’s former bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik were among the mourners, alongside Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy and his former partner Cheryl, with whom he shares a son.

Payne’s coffin arrived at the church on a white horse-drawn hearse carrying floral tributes spelling the words “son” and “daddy”.

After the service, four pallbearers carried the coffin from St Mary’s Church, followed by his parents and Cheryl.

Her Girls Aloud bandmates Kimberley Walsh and Nicola Roberts also attended the service, as did One Direction’s former label boss Simon Cowell, who was seen comforting the family.

Presenters James Corden, Marvin and Rochelle Humes, Scott Mills and Adrian Chiles were also among the mourners.

Other floral tributes at the funeral included one in the shape of a set of 10-pin bowling pins and ball, a reference to one of Payne’s favourite pastimes.

A small crowd of locals and onlookers gathered outside the church, but fans largely stayed away, with members of the One Direction group on Reddit reminding others that “memorials are for fans, funerals are for family”.

Payne lived in the nearby village of Chalfont St Giles.

Payne died on 16 October after falling from the third floor of a hotel room in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires.

In a short statement following his death, his family said: “We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul.”

An autopsy confirmed the 31-year-old had suffered internal and external bleeding and multiple traumatic injuries.

Payne was one of the most recognisable names in pop, after rising to fame on The X Factor.

Despite only coming third on the show in 2010, One Direction went on to become the biggest British group since The Beatles.

During their five-year career, they sold 70 million records, with four UK number one singles and four number one albums.

A co-writer on many of their hits, Payne also achieved solo success with tracks like Strip That Down and Bedroom Floor.

He is survived by his parents, two sisters and Bear, his son with Girls Aloud singer Cheryl.

US President-elect Donald Trump has picked former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO and his transition co-chair, Linda McMahon, as his nominee for education secretary.

A long-time Trump ally, McMahon led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first presidency and donated millions of dollars to his presidential campaign.

Trump has criticised the Department of Education, and has promised to close it down – a job McMahon could be tasked with after Trump returns to the White House in January 2025.

Trump earlier chose Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor and former TV host whose approaches have come under scrutiny, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The two selections on Tuesday – along with Trump’s choice of Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary – follow a pattern of the president-elect nominating loyal supporters to top roles in his cabinet.

• Who else is in Trump’s top team?
• United by loyalty, Trump’s new team have competing agendas

McMahon has a long history with the WWE and Trump, who used to make occasional appearances at wrestling matches. She co-founded Titan Sports with her husband in 1980, which then became the parent company of WWE later that decade.

She resigned as CEO in 2009 in order to undertake a failed bid to run for the US Senate.

McMahon has little background in education, but did serve on Connecticut state’s board of education from 2009 until 2010.

She is the board chair of the pro-Trump think tank the America First Policy Institute, meaning her confirmation in the Republican-majority Senate is likely. Hers is one of a number of top jobs that will require a vote of approval in the upper chamber of Congress.

Announcing his pick on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “For the past four years, as the chair of the board at the America First Policy Institute, Linda has been a fierce advocate for parents’ rights.”

He said McMahon would “spearhead” the effort to “send education BACK TO THE STATES”, in reference to his pledge to close the department.

Republicans have accused the education department of pushing what they describe as “woke” political ideology on to children, including on gender and race. They want the agency’s authority handed to US states, which run most education matters.

• Trump’s pledge to axe the Department of Education explained

McMahon was named in a lawsuit filed last month involving the WWE.

It alleges that she, her husband and other company leaders knowingly allowed young boys to be abused by a ringside announcer who died in 2012.

The McMahons deny wrongdoing. A lawyer representing the pair told USA Today Sports that the allegations are “false claims” that stem from “absurd, defamatory and utterly meritless” media reports.

Trump earlier picked Mehmet Oz to run the powerful agency that oversees the healthcare of millions of Americans.

Oz, who was selected to lead the CMS, trained as a surgeon before finding fame on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the early 2000s.

Oz has been criticised by experts for promoting what they called bad health advice about weight loss drugs and “miracle” cures, and suggesting malaria drugs as a cure for Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic.

“There may be no physician more qualified and capable than Dr Oz to make America healthy again,” Trump said in a statement.

The Trump transition team said in a statement that Oz “will work closely with [health secretary nominee] Robert F Kennedy Jr to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake”.

Like McMahon, Oz will need to be confirmed by the Senate next year before he officially takes charge of the agency.

The CMS oversees the country’s largest healthcare programs, providing coverage to more than 150 million Americans. The agency regulates health insurance and sets policy that guides the prices that doctors, hospitals and drug companies are paid for medical services.

In 2023, the US government spent more than $1.4tn (£1.1tn) on Medicaid and Medicare combined, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Trump said in a statement that Oz would “cut waste and fraud within our country’s most expensive government agency”. The Republican Party platform pledged to increase transparency, choice and competition and expand access to healthcare and prescription drugs.

Oz, 64, trained as a cardiothoracic surgeon – specialising in operations on the heart and lungs – and worked at New York City’s Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University.

After he appeared in dozens of Oprah segments, he started The Dr Oz Show, where he doled out health advice to viewers.

But the line between promotion and science on the show was not always clear, and Oz has recommended homeopathy, alternative medicine and other treatments that critics have called “pseudoscience”.

He was criticised during Senate hearings in 2014 for endorsing unproven pills that he said would “literally flush fat from your system” and “push fat from your belly”.

During those hearings Oz said he never sold any specific dietary supplements on his show. But he has publicly endorsed products off air and his financial ties to health care companies were revealed in fillings made during his 2022 run for the US Senate in Pennsylvania.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Oz promoted the anti-malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, which experts say are ineffective against the virus.

• How these new recruits will be vetted
• What Trump can and can’t do on day one
• What to know about Gaetz allegations
• Fact-checking RFK’s views on health policy
• What Trump picks say about Mid East policy

President Biden’s decision to provide anti-personnel mines to Ukraine, and allow the use of long-range missiles on Russian territory comes as the Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line.

Data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows that Russia has gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as it did in 2023, and is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs in the eastern Donbas region.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is faltering. Russian troops have pushed Kyiv’s offensive backwards. Experts have questioned the success of the offensive, with one calling it a “strategic catastrophe” given manpower shortages faced by Ukraine.

These developments come at a time of heightened uncertainty with a second Donald Trump administration looming. The US president-elect has vowed to bring the war to a close when he takes office in January, with some fearing he could cut future military aid to Ukraine.

In the first few months of the war the front line moved quickly, with Russia gaining ground quickly before being pushed back by a Ukrainian counteroffensive. But in 2023 neither side made any major gains – with the conflict largely sliding into a stalemate.

But new ISW figures suggest the story in 2024 is more favourable for Russia. The ISW bases its analysis on confirmed social media footage and reports of troop movements.

The ISW data shows Moscow’s forces have seized around 2,700 sq km of Ukrainian territory so far this year, compared with just 465 sq km in the whole of 2023, a near six-fold increase.

Dr Marina Miron, a defence researcher at Kings College London, suggested to the BBC that there was a possibility the Ukrainian eastern front “might actually collapse” if Russia continued to advance at pace.

More than 1000 sq km was taken between 1 September and 3 November, suggesting the push accelerated in recent months. Two areas bearing the brunt of these advances are Kupiansk in Kharkiv region, and Kurakhove, a stepping stone to the key logistical hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.

Kupiansk and areas to the east of the Oskil river were liberated in the Kharkiv offensive of 2022, but Russia has progressively retaken the latter area. In a recent intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said Russian forces were trying to breach the north-eastern outskirts of the city.

Footage posted on 13 November and verified by the BBC is consistent with this analysis. The video shows a convoy of Russian armour being repelled after making it to within 4km of the key bridge at Kupiansk, the last major road crossing in the area.

While these reports do not necessarily translate to control of an area, it is indicative of how stretched Ukraine’s defensive line has become.

Elsewhere, since retaking the city of Vuhledar in October – an elevated position which sits above key supply lines and which Moscow spent two years fighting for – Russia has thrown resources at Kurakhove.

Ukraine’s forces defending the city have so far repelled attacks to the south and east. But the front line creeps ever closer, with Russia also threatening to encircle defenders from the north and west.

Col Yevgeny Sasyko, a former head of strategic communications with Ukraine’s general staff, said Russia places “powerful jaws” around the flanks of a city that slowly “grind though” defences until they collapse.

Footage from the city verified by the BBC showed massive destruction, with residential buildings heavily damaged.

The ISW concludes Moscow now holds a total of 110,649 sq km in Ukraine. For comparison, Ukrainian forces seized just over 1,171 sq km in the first month of its incursion into Kursk – though Russian forces have now retaken nearly half of that territory.

• Biden agrees to give Ukraine anti-personnel mines
• What we know about missile system Ukraine has used to strike Russia
• What arms are the US, UK and other nations supplying?

Despite its territorial gains, Russia’s advance has come at a huge cost.

An analysis carried out by BBC Russian confirmed that at least 78,329 troops have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, with Moscow’s losses from September to November this year more than one-and-a-half times greater than the same period in 2023.

The losses are compounded by the “meat grinder” approach said to be favoured by Russian commanders – describing the waves of recruits thrown towards Ukrainian positions in a bid to exhaust troops.

Despite the Russian advances, some experts have noted that the actual speed of the offensive is still slow. David Handelman, a military analyst, suggested Ukrainian troops in the east were slowly withdrawing to preserve manpower and resources, rather than suffering from a broader collapse.

Ukraine launched its shock incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August. It is unclear why Russia took so long to respond to the operation, which saw Kyiv’s troops quickly gain control over a number of border communities.

Dr Miron suggested that while the Kremlin would suffer a domestic political cost for as long as the incursion continued, Russia’s general staff had been keen to keep Ukraine’s forces tied down in Kursk as its forces made gains elsewhere along the front line.

But Moscow is now clearly intent on reclaiming the territory lost on its own soil. Some 50,000 troops have been deployed to the region.

Verified videos from the Kursk region show fierce fighting is taking place – and that Russia is suffering considerable losses in terms of manpower and equipment. But the data clearly shows Ukraine’s control of the region is shrinking.

Since the start of October, Russian counter-attacks have regained some 593 sq km worth of territory in the border region, ISW figures showed.

The Kursk incursion was initially a major boon for Ukraine in terms of morale at a time of serious setbacks, and the audacity of the operation was a reminder of its ability to surprise and harm its enemy.

But Dr Miron said while the Kursk incursion was a moment of “tactical brilliance” it has also been a “strategic catastrophe” for Ukraine.

“The whole idea was to maybe gain some political leverage in potential negotiations, but militarily to draw the Russian forces away from the Donbas in order to liberate Kursk. And what we’re seeing instead is that Ukrainian units are tied down there.”

Some of Kyiv’s most experienced and effective units are known to be fighting in Kursk. Mechanised units equipped with state-of-the-art Western armour are also involved in the offensive.

Ukrainian leaders had hinted that they hoped the incursion would force Moscow to redirect some of its forces from eastern Ukraine, slowing the Russian advance there. Instead, experts say most reinforcements were moved to Kursk from parts in Ukraine where the fighting is not as intense.

“According to Ukrainian soldiers from different parts of the front, the Russian troops reinforcing Kursk were mainly pulled from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia,” Yurri Clavilier, a land analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the BBC.

“The fighting there is not as intense as it is in the East. Some Russian units attacking Kharkiv were also redirected to Kursk as Ukraine managed to stall the Russian onslaught there,” he added.

The importance of territory to both sides is the strength it lends to their position in any potential negotiations. Although no peace negotiations have been discussed, US President-elect Trump has claimed he could end the war within 24 hours, without saying exactly how.

Fears persist in Ukraine that Trump could cut military aid as a means to force Kyiv to the table. President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News on Tuesday “I think we will lose [the war]” if cuts are pushed through.

“We have our production, but it’s not enough to prevail and I think it’s not enough to survive,” he said.

​​On Tuesday, Ukraine fired US-supplied long-range missiles into Russia for the first time – a day after Washington gave it permission to do so.​​ It is thought that the decision was made in part to help Ukraine hold on to part of the Kursk region, to help use as a bargaining chip in future negotiations.

Dr Miron told the BBC that Russia’s advance has handed them a stronger negotiating position as Trump’s new foreign policy team prepare to take office.

“What they’re controlling right now, it does give them a certain advantage,” she said. “If it came to negotiations, I’m sure that as the Russian side has been stressing, ‘we will do it based on the battlefield configuration’.

“From a Russian perspective, they have much better cards than the Ukrainians.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Winter has come to Delhi and with it, a familiar sense of gloom. The sky here is grey and there is a thick, visible blanket of smog.

If you stay outdoors for more than a few minutes, you can almost taste ash. You will feel breathless within minutes if you try to run or even walk at a brisk pace in the smog.

Newspapers are back to using words like toxic, deadly and poisonous in their main headlines.

Most schools have been shut and people have been advised to stay indoors – though those whose livelihoods depend on working outdoors can’t afford to do so.

Delhi’s air quality score was somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 on Monday and Tuesday, according to different monitoring agencies. The acceptable limit is less than 100.

These scores measure the levels of particulate matter – called PM 2.5 and PM10 – in the air. These tiny particles can enter the lungs and cause a host of diseases.

On social media, people have been expressing shock, disappointment and anguish that it’s all happening again.

Along with the gloom, there is a strong sense of déjà vu – like we have seen this all many times before in the past 15 years.

I recorded this video of my drive to office in 2017, when smog had reduced visibility to less than 2m.

On Tuesday, my drive to the office seemed even worse.

And we have covered every twist and turn of this story in the past two decades.

We have reported how pollution is making people sick and reducing their life expectancy here, here and here.

We have reported on India’s Supreme Court ordering the government to take urgent steps to curb pollution every year. The court has done the same this year.

We have reported on how pollution affects children the most and how their freedom is taken away here, here and here.

We have written about how politicians blame each other for the problem every year here, here and here.

We have discussed the root cause of the problem here, here and here.

We have also talked about solutions – both the ones that marginally worked and the ones that failed miserably – here, here and here.

We have reported on how pollution affects the poorest the most and how many don’t have a choice but to go out and work in the smog here, here and here.

Covering this story feels like watching (and being in) the same dystopian film every year – following the same characters, plot and script. The outcome is always the same – nothing changes.

The parks are empty again – people, particularly children and the elderly, have been told to stay indoors.

Those who must work – daily-wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, delivery riders – are coughing but still going out.

Hospitals are seeing an increasing number of people coming in with respiratory problems.

And amid all this, we are back to the same question again – why does nothing change?

The simple answer is that solving Delhi’s air problem requires monumental efforts and co-ordination.

The sources of the problem are many. One of them is the practice of farmers burning crop remains to clear their fields quickly to sow seeds for the next yield.

This mostly happens in the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The smoke from the farm fires engulfs Delhi every winter and hangs low in the atmosphere as wind speeds reduce during winter months.

But farmers can’t be entirely blamed for this because this is the cheapest way of clearing fields.

Different governments have talked about providing machines and financial incentives to stop crop burning, but very little has happened on the ground.

Delhi itself produces a huge chunk of the pollution – emission from vehicles, construction and factories.

Every year, in the winter months, people get angry, journalists write and produce reports, politicians blame each other and courts fume – until we do it all over again the next year.

A public health emergency like this would spark mass protests in most democracies. But the anger in Delhi is mostly limited to social media.

Activists say the reason is that pollution doesn’t cause immediate problems for most people. Ingesting high levels of PM2.5 causes health to deteriorate slowly. A Lancet study found that pollution led to more than 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019.

And then there is the class divide. People who can afford to temporarily leave the city do that, those who can buy air purifiers do that, and those who can vent on social media do that.

The rest, who don’t have these options, just go about their lives.

The collective angst has so far not resulted in a massive protest and, as the Supreme Court once observed, politicians just “pass the buck” and wait for the season to get over.

Experts say governments at the federal level and in different states need to leave their party politics behind and work together to solve this problem. They need to focus on long-term solutions.

And citizens need to hold politicians accountable and courts have to pass decisive orders months before the pollution worsens.

This year, we are again in the thick of the season and temporary measures have been announced, like banning construction work.

But can these bring Delhi’s elusive blue skies back? The evidence from the past few years doesn’t give much hope.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

A storm off the coast of the US north-west and western Canada is pummelling the region – bringing high winds, flooding and snow to over seven million residents living in states along the Pacific Ocean.

The storm has caused widespread power outages for hundreds of thousands of Americans, and its strong winds have downed trees.

At least one person – a woman near Seattle – has died.

The “bomb cyclone” – as forecasters call it – has been caused by air pressure quickly dropping off the coast, which has rapidly intensified the weather system.

The effects of the storm were seen on Wednesday morning, with fallen trees damaging homes and blocking roadways in Washington state.

A woman died when a tree fell on a homeless encampment in Lynwood, north of Seattle, Washington, according to a social media post from South County Fire Department.

High winds are leading to power cuts. On Wednesday morning, more than 600,000 homes in Washington were without power, according to poweroutage.us. Around 15,000 customers were experiencing outages in California.

Several schools in Washington are expected to close or face disruption.

“It’s severe out there. Trees are coming down all over the city, with multiple falling onto homes,” Washington’s Bellevue Fire Department wrote in a social media post. “If you are able, head to the lowest floor you can and stay away from windows. Do not go outside if you can avoid it,”

In northern California, the US Weather Prediction Center (WPC) issued a high risk of excessive rainfall and warned of flash flooding and mudslides. The San Francisco bay is expected to see up to 8in (20cm) of rain.

The storm has also stretched up to Canada, where wind is the primary concern and gusts of up to 100mph (160km/h) have been reported off the coast of Vancouver Island. Around 140,000 customers were without power in British Columbia, according to the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority.

Beyond wind, rain and snow, the storm could also bring flash flooding, rock slides and debris flows, as well as heavy mountain snow, in areas of high elevation. The storm is expected to create blizzard conditions through the Cascade Range of mountains, which runs through both countries.

Winds are expected to subside by midday on Wednesday. But atmospheric moisture around northern California is expected to linger through the week, bringing excessive rainfall.

• Atmospheric rivers: Inside the giant ‘sky rivers’ swelling with climate change

Bomb cyclone is a term given by meteorologists to a storm that appears to intensify rapidly, with its central air pressure dropping to at least 24 millibars in 24 hours.

They are referred to as ‘bomb’ cyclones due to the explosive power of these storms caused by the rapid fall in pressure.

The storm brings with it an array of weather, ranging from blizzards to severe thunderstorms to heavy precipitation.

These weather events are not unusual for this time of year.

Similar atmospheric river events – when small regions of moisture travel outside tropical regions – have occurred throughout North America over the last few weeks.

But the conditions of an atmospheric river combined with a bomb cyclone can create a major weather event.

The UK will speed up the decommissioning of old military equipment to save up to £500m over five years, the government says.

Defence Secretary John Healey told the House of Commons that the move would free up funds for further investment in the armed forces, in line with the government’s target of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence.

Ships, drones and helicopters – some more than 50 years old – will be decommissioned.

Responding to the announcement, Conservative shadow secretary of defence James Cartlidge criticised it as “cuts, instead of a pathway to 2.5%”.

The government says the move will help with the implementation of the strategic defence review, due to report next year.

The equipment being scrapped is:

• Two amphibious assault ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark
• A Type 23 frigate, HMS Northumberland, which was in refit but has now been ruled as uneconomical due to structural damage discovered during repairs
• Two tankers, RFA Wave Knight and RFA Wave Ruler
• Watchkeeper WK450 Mk1 drones
• Fourteen CH-47 Chinook helicopters, the oldest Chinooks currently being used by the UK
• Seventeen Puma helicopters, which were first introduced over 50 years ago

Some of the ships are currently on land and were not due to return to sea before their planned retirement, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) said, but were still costing millions of pounds per year to maintain.

Structural damage discovered during repairs to HMS Northumberland means repairing the ship is now uneconomical, the MOD says.

The decommissioned ships will be replaced by a new Type 26 frigate and multi-role support ships.

The Chinook and Puma helicopters being retired have been in use for decades. The Chinooks will be replaced by the newer H-47(ER) variant, which will enter service in 2027, the MOD said. The Pumas will be replaced by new Airbus H-145 helicopters.

No replacement for the Watchkeeper drones has yet been announced. But drone technology has progressed quickly in the 14 years since it was introduced, the MOD said, something which has been particularly obvious during the Ukraine war.

“These are mostly capabilities that are approaching retirement anyway, have been at low levels of readiness or aren’t worth further refits or investment,” said Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

“But the fact that defence either can’t crew them, or is prepared to cut them to make very modest savings over five years is an indication of just how tight resources must be in the MOD right now.”

The MOD believes the changes will help deliver the aims of the strategic defence review, a “root and branch” consideration of the current state of the armed forces, the threats the UK faces and the capabilities needed to address them.

“These are not the only difficult decisions we will need to make as a new government to deal with the fiscal inheritance,” Healy said, adding that the changes would “secure better value for money for taxpayers and better outcomes for our military”.

The savings will be retained in defence and all personnel will be redeployed or retrained, Healy said.

In the Commons, Conservative shadow secretary of defence James Cartlidge claimed that HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark could have been prepared if needed for a warfighting scenario, contrary to Healy’s claims that the ships were effectively mothballed.

Chief of the General Staff Gen Sir Roly Walker said: “I’ve flown many missions in CH47 and Puma, latter day warhorses – and I will miss them.

“But all warhorses must go out to pasture at some stage, oftentimes because we’ve found a faster, better, and cheaper way.”

Chief of the Defence Staff Adm Sir Tony Radakin said: “Accelerating the disposal of legacy equipment is the logical approach to focus on the transition to new capabilities that better reflect changing technology and tactics.

“It also complements our taking some tough decisions to ease some of the current financial pressures.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News late on Tuesday that Ukraine would lose the war if Washington, its main military backer, pulled funding.

The Ukrainian leader said it would be “very dangerous if we lose unity in Europe, and what is most important is unity between Ukraine and the United States”.

US President-elect Donald Trump has campaigned on a promise to end US involvement in wars and instead use taxpayers’ money to improve Americans’ lives.

He has said he will bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end within 24 hours, without saying how.

“If they will cut, I think we will lose,” Zelensky told Fox News.

“Of course anyway we will stay, we will fight, we have our production but it is not enough to prevail and it think it is not enough to survive.”

Asked if Trump would be able to influence Putin to end the war, Zelensky replied: “It will not be simple but yes he can because he is stronger than Putin.

“Putin is weaker than the United States. The President of the United States has the strength, authority and weapons, and he can decrease the price of energy resources.”

Many Republicans want US taxpayer funding for Ukraine to stop.

Senator JD Vance, who will be Trump’s vice-president, has regularly objected to providing arms to Ukraine, saying the US lacks the manufacturing capacity.

Earlier this year, he told the Munich Security Conference that Europe should wake up to the US having to “pivot” its focus to East Asia.

It is a feeling also held by many voters, with 62% of Republicans telling a Pew Research poll that the US had no responsibility to support Ukraine in the war against Russia.

On Tuesday, Ukraine fired US-supplied longer-range missiles at Russian territory for the first time, a day after the US gave permission for their use.

US President Joe Biden has also agreed to give Ukraine anti-personnel land mines, a US defence official told the BBC.

But Zelensky said Ukraine was going through a “very difficult period” on the battlefield.

The Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Its analysis found Russian forces seized six times more territory in 2024 than it did in the previous year.

Based on confirmed social media footage and reports of troop movements, the ISW said Moscow’s forces seized around 2,700 sq km of Ukrainian territory so far this year, compared with just 465 sq km in the whole of 2023.

Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is faltering as Russian troops have pushed Kyiv’s offensive backwards.

Zelensky also had harsh words for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for speaking to Putin on the phone last week.

He told Fox News it was a “Pandora’s box” because Putin’s isolation would increase the pressure on him.

Luxury car manufacturer Jaguar has unveiled a new logo and branding ahead of its relaunch as an electric-only brand.

The British vehicle maker, owned by Tata Motors, will launch three new electric cars in 2026, having taken new cars off sale more than a year ago to focus on reinventing the brand.

As part of its rebrand, Jaguar revealed a brand new logo on Tuesday, alongside a new prancing “leaper” cat design and marketing slogans such as “delete ordinary”.

The new bespoke logo, written as JaGUar, has “seamlessly blended upper and lower case characters in visual harmony”, the company said.

Jaguar, which has sites around the country including in Warwickshire, Coventry, Solihull and Castle Bromwich, announced its transition to electric vehicles in 2021.

Managing director Rawdon Glover said taking new cars off sale was “intentional” as it looked to create a barrier between the old models and the new Jaguar vehicles.

“We need to change people’s perceptions of what Jaguar stands for,” he said.

“And that’s not a straightforward, easy thing to do. So having a fire break in between old and new is, actually, very helpful.”

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) chief creative officer Gerry McGovern said Jaguar had “its roots in originality” and that its founder, Sir William Lyons, believed it “should be a copy of nothing.”

The new Jaguar brand was “imaginative, bold and artistic” and “unique and fearless,” he added.

The first car within the new brand would be a four-door GT built in Solihull, West Midlands, JLR previously said.

Ukraine has fired US-supplied longer-range missiles at Russian territory for the first time, the Russian government said, a day after Washington gave its permission for such attacks.

US officials also confirmed use of the Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms) to CBS news, the BBC’s US partner. Ukraine has not commented.

Russia’s defence ministry said the strike had targeted the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine to the north on Tuesday morning.

It said five missiles had been shot down and one had caused damage – with its fragments starting a fire at a military facility.

But two US officials said initial indications suggested Russia had intercepted just two missiles out of around eight fired by Ukraine.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the contradicting figures.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused Washington of trying to escalate the conflict.

“That Atacms was used repeatedly overnight against Bryansk Region is of course a signal that they [the US] want escalation,” he said.

“And without the Americans, use of these high-tech missiles, as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has said many times, is impossible.”

He said Russia would “proceed from the understanding” that the missiles were operated by “American military experts”.

“We will be taking this as a renewed face of the Western war against Russia and we will react accordingly,” he told a press conference at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Kremlin approved changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, setting out new conditions under which the country would consider using its arsenal.

It now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.

Commenting on the changes, US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “Since the beginning of its war of aggression against Ukraine, [Russia] has sought to coerce and intimidate both Ukraine and other countries around the world through irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and behaviour.”

He added that the US had not “seen any reason” to change its own nuclear posture, but would “continue to call on Russia to stop bellicose and irresponsible rhetoric”.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also described the move as “irresponsible rhetoric”, adding that was “not going to deter our support for Ukraine”.

Ukraine has already been using Atacms in Russian-occupied areas of its own territory for more than a year.

The missiles can hit targets at a range of up to 300km (186 miles) and are difficult to intercept.

Kyiv is now able to strike deeper into Russia using the missiles, including around the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces hold more than 1,000 sq km of territory. Ukrainian and US officials reportedly expect a counter-offensive in the region.

• Atacms: What we know about missile system Ukraine is using to strike Russia

In a statement, Russia’s defence ministry said the strike had been launched at 03:25 (00:25 GMT).

A fire caused by fallen debris from one of the missiles was quickly extinguished and there were no casualties, it said.

Ukraine’s military earlier confirmed that it had struck an ammunition warehouse in the Russian region of Bryansk, but it did not specify whether Atacms had been used.

It said the attack, on a depot around 100km from the border near the town of Karachev, had caused 12 secondary explosions.