US President Joe Biden has issued a presidential pardon for his son Hunter, who was facing sentencing for two criminal cases.

The move has proven controversial, since the outgoing president previously ruled out such a move. But he argued that the cases against his son were politically motivated.

His use of his pardoning powers continues a tradition of presidents on both sides of the American political divide granting clemency to people close to them.

Hunter Biden was awaiting sentencing later this month in two federal cases.

In June, he became the first child of a sitting US president to be criminally convicted – in a case relating to his gun ownership. He was found guilty by a jury in Delaware of three charges for lying about his drug use on a form when buying a handgun.

He was also awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in September in a federal tax case that centred on whether he paid enough tax from 2016-19. The nine charges included failure to file and pay his taxes, tax evasion and filing a false return.

He faced up to 25 years in prison in the gun case and 17 years in the tax case, though he was likely to get much shorter tariffs and to serve the two sentences concurrently, experts told the New York Times.

• Follow live reaction to this story
• President Biden’s statement in full
• What has the president said in the past about pardoning his son?
• Analysis: Biden’s pardon for son shows presidents now act differently
• Full story: Biden highlights ‘miscarriage of justice’

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

In this case, the president’s “full and unconditional pardon” covers any potential federal crimes the younger Biden may have committed during a period of more than 10 years from January 2014 to December 2024.

The wording of the pardon also makes clear that it covers any offence that the younger Biden “has committed or may have committed”. That could prevent legal scrutiny of his foreign business dealings such as in Ukraine, which is a major talking point for incoming President Donald Trump and his supporters.

The pardon represents legal forgiveness, ends any further punishment and restores rights such as being able to vote or run for public office.

Although the pardoning power is considered broad, it is not limitless. For example, a president can only issue pardons for federal (national-level) crimes.

The issue is relevant because there is a question mark over the sentencing of Trump in his hush-money case in New York. He will be unable to pardon himself in that state-level case when he returns to the White House in January.

There is a long-standing precedent of US presidents on both sides of the political divide issuing pardons – including to people close to them. This is the 26th pardon issued by Biden, a Democrat.

In 2020, Trump, a Republican, pardoned Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of his daughter Ivanka. Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison in 2004 for charges including tax evasion, campaign finance offences and witness tampering.

And in 2001, Bill Clinton, pardoned his younger half-brother, Roger Clinton, for a cocaine-related offence that dated back to 1985.

In both cases, the pardons were given to people who had already served a sentence. President Biden’s intervention in his son’s case comes before sentencing.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his four years in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center, comprising 143 pardons and 94 commuted sentences. Many were in a flurry before he left office.

That number is significantly fewer than his predecessor Barack Obama, who during his eight-year stint granted 1,927 acts of clemency, according to Pew. These were 1,715 commutations and 212 pardons.

One of the most controversial presidential pardons was granted by Gerald Ford to his predecessor Richard Nixon in 1974 – covering acts that occurred during the Watergate Scandal. It was described as an effort to heal the nation.

The day after he took office in 2021, Biden emphasised that he would do things differently to Trump. His press secretary told reporters that the flurry of last-minute pardons issued by Trump was “not a model… for how President Biden would use his own power. He would use his own power far more judiciously”.

Biden said after his son’s conviction that he would not issue a pardon. In the statement announcing his U-turn, he acknowledged that he had pledged to “not interfere with the justice department’s decision-making”. But, he said, the younger Biden had been “singled out” and subjected to a “miscarriage of justice”.

Trump is among those who have attacked Biden for the move, calling it an “abuse”.

The incoming president asked whether Biden would also pardon people prosecuted over the riot on 6 January 2021 – when Trump’s supporters rioted at the US Capitol building in an effort to thwart the certification of the 2020 election result.

Trump, who faced a series of legal issues while away from the White House, has repeatedly made the allegation that the US justice system has been weaponised against him and his supporters.

He has promised to issue pardons of his own for those who rioted in Washington. But who exactly will be granted clemency, and whether pardons will extend to those convicted of the most serious and violent offences, is still an open question.

Donald Trump has named his daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, as an adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

The Lebanese American businessman is the second in-law to be offered a position in the incoming administration, after Trump picked Charles Kushner, his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, to serve as ambassador to France.

Mr Boulos played a key unofficial role in the Trump campaign, helping him court Arab American and Muslim voters as many of them grew frustrated with the Biden administration over the Israel-Gaza war.

Announcing the appointment on social media, Trump said Mr Boulos was “instrumental in building tremendous new coalitions with the Arab American community”.

“He has been a longtime proponent of Republican and Conservative values,” Trump said on Truth Social, adding that Mr Boulos was an “asset” to his campaign.

On the campaign trail, Mr Boulos appealed to Arab American and Muslim voters by promising them that Trump would restore peace in the Middle East.

His efforts exploited a big vulnerability for the Harris campaign, who struggled to win support from Arab and Muslim Americans due to US support of Israel during the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.

“Those massacres would not have happened if there was a strong president at the White House,” Mr Boulos told Trump supporters in Arizona earlier this year, referring to the mounting civilian deaths in Gaza. “The entire war wouldn’t have happened.”

It is unclear how Mr Boulos intends to leverage his advisory role. Born in Lebanon, he is known to have forged ties with several political factions in his birth country.

He told the Associated Press in June that he is a “friend” of Sleiman Frangieh, a Christian Lebanese politician who is allied with the Shia Muslim political party and militant group Hezbollah.

Mr Boulos has already served as something of an informal liaison between Trump and Middle Eastern leaders, the New York Times reported.

He is also reported to have met Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

At that meeting, Mr Boulos reportedly conveyed Trump’s desire to end the Israel-Gaza war and other conflicts around the world.

Mr Boulos moved to Texas as a teenager, according to a profile of him in the New Arab, where he attended the University of Houston and obtained a law degree.

He has since worked at his family’s business – a Nigeria-based billion-dollar company that specialises in the distribution of motor vehicles and equipment across West Africa.

Unlike some of Trump’s other appointments, Mr Boulos’ advisory role does not require confirmation by the US Senate.

The reignited war in Syria is the latest fallout from the turmoil that has gripped the Middle East since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October last year.

The attacks, and Israel’s response, upended the status quo. Events in Syria in the last few days are more proof that the war gripping the Middle East is escalating, not subsiding.

During a decade of war after 2011, Bashar al-Assad’s rule survived because he was prepared to break Syria to save the regime he had inherited from his father.

To do that he relied on powerful allies, Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. They intervened on his side against rebel groups that ranged from the jihadist extremists of Islamic State to militias supported by the US and the rich Gulf monarchies.

Now Iran is reeling from severe blows inflicted by Israel, with US support, on its security in the Middle East. Its ally Hezbollah, which used to send its best men to fight for the Assad regime in Syria, has been crippled by Israel’s attacks. Russia has launched air strikes in the last few days against the rebel offensive in Syria – but its military power is almost entirely earmarked to fight the war in Ukraine.

The war in Syria did not end. It dropped out of the place it used to occupy in headline news, partly because of turbulence across the Middle East and beyond, and because it is almost impossible for journalists to get into the country.

In places the war was suspended, or frozen, but Syria is full of unfinished business.

The Assad regime has never regained the power it had used to control Syria before 2011, the year of the Arab uprisings, though it still kept a gulag of Syrian prisoners in its jails.

Even so, until the last few days, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad controlled the major cities, their surrounding countryside and the main highways connecting them.

Now a coalition of rebel groups, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has broken out of Idlib, the province along the border with Turkey that it controls, and in only a few days since 27 November swept away Syrian troops in a series of “astonishing” events, as one senior international diplomat told me.

Two days into the offensive, they were posting photos of fighters who had taken the ancient citadel of Aleppo, which had been an impregnable base for government troops between 2012 and 2015, when the city was divided between rebels and regime forces.

The atmosphere in Aleppo seems calm after the rout of government troops. One photo on social media showed uniformed and armed rebel fighters queuing for fried chicken at a fast-food outlet.

HTS has roots in al-Qaeda, though it broke with the group in 2016 and at times has fought its rump loyalists. But HTS is still designated as a terrorist group by the UN Security Council and countries including the US, the European Union, Turkey and the UK. (The Syrian regime calls all its opponents terrorists.)

The leader of HTS, Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, has a long history as a jihadist leader in Iraq and Syria. In recent years, though, he has moved away from strict jihadist ideology to try to broaden the appeal of his group.

The rebranding is also being used to attract support for the offensive, which HTS calls Operation Repelling the Aggression. That name, and its official announcements, avoid jihadist language and Islamist references.

Neutral language, according to Mina al-Lami, the jihadist media specialist at BBC Monitoring, is designed to distance what’s happening from the jihadist past of HTS and present the offensive as a joint rebel enterprise against the regime.

Syrians are generally repelled by extreme religious rhetoric. As jihadist groups came to dominate the rebellion after pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed after the first year or so of war after 2011, many Syrians either stayed neutral or sided reluctantly with the regime because they feared the murderous jihadist ideology of Islamic State.

The offensive led by HTS comes out of the splintered political landscape of northern Syria. Much of the north-east is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group led by Kurds and supported by the United States, which stations around 900 troops in the area.

Turkey is a big player, controlling borderlands where it has deployed its own regular troops as well as the militias it sponsors. Sleeper cells drawn from the remnants of Islamic State sometimes mount deadly ambushes on roads through the Syrian desert.

Reports from Syria say that the rebel forces have captured significant supplies of military equipment, including helicopters, and are pressing on towards Hama, the next significant city on the road to Damascus.

Without a doubt the regime and its allies will be working to steady themselves and to hit back, especially with air power. The rebels do not have an air force, though in another sign of the way that unmanned aerial vehicles are revolutionising warfare, there are reports that they used a drone to kill a senior regime intelligence official.

The renewed fighting in Syria is causing international alarm. The UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, issued a statement saying that “the latest developments pose severe risks to civilians and have serious implications for regional and international security… No Syrian party or existing group of actors can resolve the Syrian conflict via military means”.

Pedersen added that there had been “a collective failure to bring about a genuine political process” to implement UN Security Council resolution 2254, which was passed in 2015. That laid out a roadmap for peace, with the principle in the text that “the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria”.

The objective was a future shaped by free elections and a new constitution. But that meant Assad and his family giving up a country that they treated for years as their personal fief. More than half a million dead attest to their determination not to let that happen.

It is too soon to write the Assad regime off. It has a core of genuine support. Some Syrians see it as the least bad option – better than the jihadists who came to dominate the rebellion. But if other anti-Assad groups – and there are many – rise up, his regime will once again be in mortal danger.

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier has used special powers to push through a social security budget bill without a vote by MPs, in a move expected to trigger a vote of no confidence in his minority government.

The government is unlikely to survive the vote, which the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) opposition party said it would trigger this afternoon. It could take place as early as Wednesday.

Marine le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) said it would support the vote.

Despite last-minute concessions, Barnier clearly did not think he would be able to get his budget bill over the line.

The New Popular Front, an alliance of several left-wing parties, came out top against Macron’s supporters and the far right following early elections in July.

The alliance was left furious by Macron’s decision to veer to the centre right by picking Barnier as his new prime minister, and promised to vote against the government.

This has meant that Barnier has until now had to rely on the RN for his government’s survival.

He used article 49.3 of the French constitution, which allows the text of a bill to be passed without a vote, to push through his 2025 budget after the RN joined the left in opposing it.

“I don’t think French people will forgive us for choosing party interests over the future of the country,” Barnier told MPs on Tuesday as he explained the reasons for his decision. “Now, everybody will need to assume their own responsibility as I have assumed mine.”

Marine le Pen explained the RN position.

“Barnier didn’t listen to the 11 million voters of the RN… He said everyone should assume their own responsibility, and that’s what we will do,” she said.

Barnier was invited to form a government by President Emmanuel Macron in September.

If Barnier doesn’t survive Wednesday’s vote, he will remain in place as a caretaker prime minister until Macron announces a new government.

That could be a new majority government – unlikely given the splintering of the French parliament – or a technocratic government, to steer the country until new elections can be held next summer.

Several parties are also clamouring for new presidential elections. As it stands, Macron is due to stay in post until 2027.

At least 56 people have been killed in a crush at a football match in Guinea’s second-largest city, Nzérékoré, the government says.

Some reports indicate that events unravelled following a decision by the referee, who sent off two players from the visiting team, Labé, and awarded a controversial penalty kick.

An inquiry is being launched to find those responsible, Prime Minister Oury Bah said in a statement, calling the events “tragic” and offering his condolences to the bereaved.

One doctor, who did not want to be named, told AFP news agency there were “bodies lined up as far as the eye can see in the hospital”.

“Others are lying on the floor in the hallways. The morgue is full,” he added.

Local media said police had used tear gas after supporters of the visiting team, Labé, threw stones towards the pitch in anger at the referee.

“It all started with a contested decision by the referee. Then fans invaded the pitch,” one witness told AFP.

Videos and images on social media verified by the BBC show chaotic scenes outside the stadium, with large crowds attempting to climb over walls and numerous bodies on the ground.

Some of those lying unresponsive on the ground appear to be children.

Paul Sakouvogi, a local journalist in Nzérékoré, told the BBC that internet access in the region had been restricted, and that police were guarding the entrance to the hospital where the injured were being treated.

“I observed six police pick-ups positioned in front of the three entrances to the hospital. They allowed only the medical staff to access the hospital, while the others were told to go back the way they came.”

Prime Minister Bah has paid tribute to the dozens of people killed and promised full medical and psychological support to all those injured.

Guinea’s football body, Feguifoot, has called it a moment of “intense pain” and said that football is meant to “unite hearts and bring minds closer” not cause “tragedy and grief”.

Thousands of spectators were present when the crush happened at a match between Nzérékoré and Labé, local news website MediaGuinée reported.

Sunday’s match was part of a tournament in honour of President Mamady Doumbouya, who seized power in a coup in September 2021.

The opposition says the matches are part of a wider campaign to drum up support for the junta leader ahead of a possible run for the presidency.

On Monday, the opposition group National Alliance for Change and Democracy also accused the authorities of having “significant responsibility for these grave events”.

The government has not responded to this.

In recent months there has been increased scrutiny of powerful figures in Guinean football.

In July, Aboubacar Sampil, who is president of the country’s football body Feguifoot, became the subject of an investigation into corruption and violence in football.

A junior colleague accused Mr Sampil, who also leads the board of directors for local team ASK, of facilitating violence and trying to influence referees at a match that ASK was losing 0-1 to Milo FC.

The latter team had to abandon the game and had trouble leaving the ground safely, according to documents filed to Feguifoot’s ethics body.

Among other things, Mr Sampil has also been accused of bypassing protocol and unliterally appointing people to jobs.

He has always denied any wrongdoing.

Three people have died and at least 32 were hospitalised in the Philippines after eating an endangered sea turtle cooked in stew.

Dozens of indigenous Teduray people reported symptoms such as diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal spasms since eating the dish last week in a seaside town in Maguindanao del Norte Province, officials said.

While it is illegal to hunt or consume sea turtles under the Philippines’ environmental protection laws, the marine creatures are still eaten as a traditional delicacy in some communities.

But sea turtles that consume contaminated algae – including those that appear healthy – can be toxic when cooked and eaten.

Some of the dogs, cats and chickens that were fed the same sea turtle also died, Irene Dillo, a local official, told the BBC. She added that authorities were investigating the cause of the deaths.

The sea turtle was cooked as adobo, a popular Filipino dish consisting of meat and vegetables stewed in vinegar and soy sauce.

Residents of Datu Blah Sinsuat, a coastal town known for its white, sandy beaches and clear waters, frequently get their food from the sea. “It was unfortunate because there is so much other seafood in their village – lobsters, fish,” Ms Dillo said.

Most of the residents who were hospitalised have since been discharged, local media reported, while the three who died were buried immediately – in line with local tradition.

Datu Mohamad Sinsuat Jr, a local councillor, said that he has told local officials to strictly enforce the ban on hunting sea turtles in the region, vowing “this food poisoning incident will never happen again”.

Most sea turtle species are classified as endangered, and it is illegal in the Philippines to collect, harm or kill any of them. However sea turtles are hunted in some cultures for their flesh and eggs, which are believed to contain medicinal properties.

In 2013, 68 people in Philippines’ Eastern Samar Province fell ill – and four of them died – after consuming a sea turtle found near their village.

Georgia has seen a fourth night of street demonstrations and a string of public resignations, triggered by the ruling party’s decision to suspend a push to start talks on joining the European Union.

As tens of thousands of Georgians headed back to the streets of several cities, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said they had fallen victim to opposition lies and he rejected calls for new elections.

He confirmed reports that Georgia’s ambassador to the US, David Zalkaliani, had become the latest senior diplomat to stand down, explaining that he had come under considerable pressure.

But Kobakhidze sought to deny the reason for the protests, saying on Sunday that “we have not suspended anything, it’s a lie”.

Only three days before, his party Georgian Dream had accused the EU of using talks on joining the union as “blackmail” and said the government had decided not to put that issue on the agenda until the end of 2028.

Pro-EU protesters were out in big numbers again on Sunday night, and when fireworks were aimed at the parliament building as well as riot police, the police responded with water cannon.

Large groups of riot police huddled in side streets beside parliament, and it was not until early on Monday that the protests on the main Rustaveli avenue were dispersed.

As demonstrators fled the area, a number of people were detained, including Zurab Japaridze, one of the leaders of opposition alliance Coalition for Change.

Georgia’s interior ministry said later that 21 officers were injured in clashes overnight, while the pro-opposition president, Salome Zourabichvili, said arrested protesters had been subjected to beatings and cited lawyers who said the majority of them had sustained serious injuries.

Georgia’s increasingly authoritarian government has been accused by the EU and US of democratic backsliding. On Saturday, the US took the significant step of suspending its strategic partnership with Georgia.

Kobakhidze insisted that Georgian Dream was still “committed to European integration… and we are continuing on our path to the European dream”.

And yet an increasing array of public officials do not appear to believe that is the case. Several ambassadors have resigned, and hundreds of civil servants and more than 3,000 teachers have signed letters condemning the decision to put EU accession on hold.

Many Georgians have been shocked by the level of violence directed at Georgian journalists as well as protesters. Dozens of reporters have been beaten or pepper sprayed and some have needed hospital treatment.

Georgia’s human rights ombudsman Levan Ioseliani said “this is brutality”, and he appealed to police not to abuse their power.

The prime minister said it was opposition groups and not the police that had meted out “systemic violence”.

Georgian ex-ambassador to the EU Natalie Sabanadze, now at Chatham House in the UK, believes the level of violence, the string of resignations and civil disobedience indicate a “qualitative change” to the protests now taking place.

“Maybe [the government] thought people would be scared, but it’s not working out like this,” she told the BBC. “Yesterday civil society activists and artists went to the public broadcaster and took it over and forced their way into the live stream. I’ve seen this before, in pre-revolutionary Georgia [in 2003].”

Georgia’s pro-Western president is due to step down in a matter of weeks, however since last month’s contested parliamentary elections which opposition parties have denounced as rigged, she has become a powerful figurehead, rallying protesters against the government and calling for a new vote.

She and the protesters accuse the government of aiming to drag their country back into Russia’s sphere of influence, even though an overwhelming majority of the population backs joining the EU.

Georgia has a population of some 3.7 million and 20% of its territory is under Russian military occupation in two breakaway regions.

During the day on Sunday, a small group of protesters occupied a traffic intersection in front of Tbilisi State University.

“I’m here for my country’s future and the future of my three-year-old son,” said one protester called Salome, aged 29. “I don’t want him to spend his life at protests and I don’t want a Russian government.”

While Georgian Dream flatly denies any links to the Kremlin, it has in the past year adopted Russian-style laws that target civil society groups with funding from abroad as well as LGBT rights.

Half an hour’s walk away from the daylight protest, a small army of cleaners was trying to scrub off graffiti from a wall in front of the Georgian parliament.

Some of the windows of the building were smashed on Saturday night, and an effigy was set alight of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire seen as the driving force behind Georgian Dream’s 12 years in power.

The question now is what will happen next in Georgia’s deepening political and constitutional crisis.

The Georgian Dream government’s relations with its Western partners are very badly damaged.

The EU’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, warned on Sunday that the government’s actions would “have direct consequences from EU side”, and the US decision to suspend its strategic partnership will also be widely felt.

The Georgian prime minister had little time for the president or her call for new elections.

“Mrs Salome Zourabichvili has four Fridays left [as president] and she can’t get used to it. I understand her emotional state, but of course on 29 December she’ll have to leave.”

“Italian” tomato purees sold by several UK supermarkets appear to contain tomatoes grown and picked in China using forced labour, the BBC has found.

Some have “Italian” in their name such as Tesco’s “Italian Tomato Purée”. Others have “Italian” in their description, such as Asda’s double concentrate which says it contains “Puréed Italian grown tomatoes” – and Waitrose’s “Essential Tomato Purée”, describing itself as “Italian tomato puree”.

A total of 17 products, most of them own-brands sold in UK and German retailers, are likely to contain Chinese tomatoes – testing commissioned by the BBC World Service shows.

Most Chinese tomatoes come from the Xinjiang region, where their production is linked to forced labour by Uyghur and other largely Muslim minorities. The UN accuses the Chinese state – which views these minorities as a security risk – of torture and abuse. China denies it forces people to work in the tomato industry and says workers’ rights are protected by law. It says the UN report is based on “disinformation and lies”.

All the supermarkets whose products we tested dispute our findings.

China grows about a third of the world’s tomatoes. The north-western region of Xinjiang has the perfect climate for growing the fruit.

It is also where China began a programme of mass detentions in 2017. Human rights groups allege more than a million Uyghurs have been detained in hundreds of facilities, which China has termed “re-education camps”.

The BBC has spoken to 14 people who say they endured or witnessed forced labour in Xinjiang’s tomato fields over the past 16 years. “[The prison authorities] told us the tomatoes would be exported overseas,” Ahmed (not his real name) said, adding that if the workers did not meet the quotas – as much as 650kg a day – they would be shocked with electric prods.

Mamutjan, a Uyghur teacher who was imprisoned in 2015 for an irregularity in his travel documentation, says he was beaten for failing to meet the high tomato quotas expected of him.

“In a dark prison cell, there were chains hanging from the ceiling. They hung me up there and said ‘Why can’t you finish the job?’ They beat my buttocks really hard, hit me in the ribs. I still have marks.”

It is hard to verify these accounts, but they are consistent, and echo evidence in a 2022 UN report which reported torture and forced labour in detention centres in Xinjiang.

By piecing together shipping data from around the world, the BBC discovered how most Xinjiang tomatoes are transported into Europe – by train through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and into Georgia, from where they are shipped onwards to Italy.

One company name repeatedly appeared as a recipient in the data. This was Antonio Petti, part of a group of major tomato-processing firms in Italy. It received more than 36 million kg of tomato paste from the company Xinjiang Guannong and its subsidiaries between 2020 and 2023, the data showed.

The Petti group produces tomato goods under its own name, but also supplies others to supermarkets across Europe who sell them as their own branded products.

Our investigation tested 64 different tomato purees sold in the UK, Germany and the US – comparing them in a lab to samples from China and Italy. They included top Italian brands and supermarket own-brands, and many were produced by Petti.

We asked Source Certain, a world-renowned origin verification firm based in Australia, to investigate whether the origin claims on the purees’ labels were accurate. The company began by building what its CEO Cameron Scadding calls a “fingerprint” which is unique to a country of origin – analysing the trace elements which the tomatoes absorb from local water and rocks.

“The first objective for us was to establish what the underlying trace element profile would look like for China, and [what] a likely profile would look like for Italy. We found they were very distinct,” he said.

Source Certain then compared those country profiles with the 64 tomato purees we wanted to test – the majority of which claimed to contain Italian tomatoes or gave the impression they did – and a few which did not make any origin claim.

The lab results suggested many of these products did indeed contain Italian tomatoes – including all those sold in the US, top Italian brands including Mutti and Napolina, and some German and UK supermarket own-brands, including those sold by Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer.

But 17 appeared to contain Chinese tomatoes, 10 of which are made by Petti – the Italian company we found listed repeatedly in international shipping records.

Of those 10 made by Petti, these were for sale in UK supermarkets at the time of testing from April-August 2024:

These were for sale in German supermarkets, during our testing period:

In response, all the supermarkets said they took these allegations very seriously and have carried out internal investigations which found no evidence of Chinese tomatoes. Many have also disputed the testing methodology used by our experts. Tesco suspended supply and Rewe immediately withdrew the products. Waitrose, Morrisons, Edeka and Rewe said they had run their own tests, and that the results contradicted ours and did not show the presence of Chinese tomatoes in the products.

But one major retailer has admitted to using Chinese tomatoes. Lidl told us they were in another version of its Baresa Tomatenmark – made by the Italian supplier Giaguaro – sold in Germany last year “for a short time” because of supply problems and that they are investigating this. Giaguaro said all its suppliers respected workers’ rights and it is currently not using Chinese tomatoes in Lidl products. The BBC understands the tomatoes were supplied by the Xinjiang company Cofco Tunhe, which the US sanctioned in December last year for forced labour.

In 2021, one of the Petti group’s factories was raided by the Italian military police on suspicion of fraud – it was reported by the Italian press that Chinese and other foreign tomatoes were passed off as Italian.

But a year after the raid, the case was settled out of court. Petti denied the allegations about Chinese tomatoes and the issue was dropped.

As part of our investigation into Petti, a BBC undercover reporter posed as a businessman wanting to place a large order with the firm. Invited to tour a company factory in Tuscany by Pasquale Petti, the General Manager of Italian Food, part of the Petti group, our reporter asked him if Petti used Chinese tomatoes.

“Yes… In Europe no-one wants Chinese tomatoes. But if for you it’s OK, we will find a way to produce the best price possible, even using Chinese tomatoes,” he said.

The reporter’s undercover camera also captured a crucial detail – a dozen blue barrels of tomato paste lined up inside the factory. A label visible on one of them read: “Xinjiang Guannong Tomato Products Co Ltd, prod date 2023-08-20.”

In its response to our investigation, the Petti group told us it had not bought from Xinjiang Guannong since that company was sanctioned by the US for using forced labour in 2020, but did say that it had regularly purchased tomato paste from a Chinese company called Bazhou Red Fruit.

This firm “did not engage in forced labour”, Petti told us. However our investigation has found that Bazhou Red Fruit shares a phone number with Xinjiang Guannong, and other evidence, including shipping data analysis, suggests that Bazhou is its shell company.

Petti added that: “In future we will not import tomato products from China and will enhance our monitoring of suppliers to ensure compliance with human and workers’ rights.”

While the US has introduced strict legislation to ban all Xinjiang exports, Europe and the UK take a softer approach, allowing companies simply to self-regulate to ensure forced labour is not used in supply chains.

This is now set to change in the EU, which has committed to stronger laws, says Chloe Cranston, from the NGO Anti-Slavery International. But she warns this will make it even more likely that the UK will become “a dumping ground” for forced labour products.

Outside the UK, watch the Eye Investigations documentary Blood on the Shelves on YouTube

“The UK Modern Slavery Act, sadly, is utterly not fit for purpose,” she says.

A spokesperson for the UK Department for Business and Trade told us: “We are clear that no company in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chain… We keep our approach to how the UK can best tackle forced labour and environmental harms in supply chains under continual review and work internationally to enhance global labour standards.”

Dario Dongo, journalist and food lawyer, says the findings expose a wider problem – “the true cost of food”.

“So when we see [a] low price we have to question ourselves. What is behind that? What is the true cost of this product? Who is paying for that?”

An Iranian rapper who was sentenced to death for supporting anti-government protests has been released from prison after two years.

Toomaj Salehi was arrested in October 2022 after publicly supporting protests that erupted throughout Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

His death sentence was overturned in June and he was released from prison on Sunday “after serving his sentence” of a year for propaganda against the state, Iran’s judiciary-run Mizan news agency reported.

Mr Salehi, 34, boldly criticised Iran’s leaders in his music and was already banned from performing at concerts prior to his arrest.

• Iranian rapper’s death sentence overturned

He was sentenced to six years and three months in prison in July 2023, after avoiding a death sentence due to a Supreme Court ruling.

Mr Salehi was briefly released on bail before being rearrested days later for sharing “false claims without evidence” – seemingly a reference to a video he posted claiming to have been “tortured” by intelligence ministry agents.

He was sentenced to death in April 2024 for the capital offence of “corruption on earth”, though this was later overturned.

The rapper had been charged with a string of offences, including spreading lies in cyberspace, disruption of public order and propaganda against the establishment.

Index on Censorship, a campaign group that had been working to free the rapper, welcomed his release and said Mr Salehi “should never have been imprisoned to begin with”.

His arrest came at the height of nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death.

The 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman was detained by the religious police while visiting Tehran with her family for allegedly wearing an “improper” hijab.

Hundreds were killed and thousands arrested during the unrest that followed.

No-one lives in the ghostly outskirts of el-Geneina any more.

But its empty buildings still stand to tell their shocking stories, loudly and clearly.

Charred homes and shops are peppered with bullet holes. Doors are wrecked. Metal shutters are smashed. Rusting Sudanese army tanks dot the streets.

In this rare trip for international journalists into Darfur, we could still smell the fires which blazed here last year.

“It was utterly chilling to drive through these smoked-out ruins and ghost towns,” reflected the UN’s new relief chief Tom Fletcher, whose visit to this hardscrabble capital of West Darfur marked the first time a senior UN official was able to visit this territory since Sudan’s vicious war erupted 19 months ago.

“Darfur has seen the worst of the worst,” is how Mr Fletcher, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, described its calamity.

“It’s facing this crisis of protection, including an epidemic of sexual violence, as well as the spectre of famine.”

His short but significant visit only became possible after extensive negotiations with Sudan’s two main rival forces – those headed by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), who heads the government recognised by the UN, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who are now in charge in most of Darfur.

UN officials refer to the RSF as “those in control of the area”.

It was RSF fighters, along with allied Arab militias, who ran amok in el-Geneina last year, mainly targeting residents from the non-Arab Masalit community in what human rights groups, including UN experts, have described as ethnic cleansing and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch concluded it was a possible genocide.

The Sudanese army has also come under sharp criticism. Arab civilians were also reported to have perished in this turmoil, many from shelling by army tanks, or in blistering air raids.

Both the RSF and the SAF deny accusations of war crimes and point accusing fingers at their rivals.

Few journalists have made it to el-Geneina to see its plight, including the aftermath of what were two massacres over a period of several months last year, which the UN says killed up to 15,000 people.

The frenzy of violence, rape and looting is regarded as one of the worst atrocities in Sudan’s brutal conflagration, which has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

We travelled from the Chadian border town of Adre, with the UN delegation, on a journey of less than an hour on a rippling dirt track enveloped in dust, which slices through the desolate semi-desert plateau dotted with half-built or abandoned clay-brick buildings.

A small number of hulking lorries packed with the aid of the UN’s World Food Programme, as well as rickety Sudanese carts driven by horses or donkeys, go back and forth across a border marked by not much more than a few wooden posts and ropes.

But on the other side of the frontier, across the no-man’s land in a dry sloping wadi and along our bleak route, gun-toting RSF fighters in camouflage uniforms patrol this part of Sudan. Some are just young boys who flash cheeky grins.

But, before we left Adre, knowing how hard it may be to gather testimonies inside, we spent time in the sprawling informal camp run by the UN and Chadian authorities close to the border. A throng, mainly women of all ages, some cradling children, fill the vast field. It’s a temporary settlement of startling proportions.

Everyone we spoke with was from el-Geneina. And they all carried their stories with them as they escaped acute hunger and the horrors visited upon their homes.

“When we fled, our young brothers were killed,” piped up a self-assured 14-year-old Sudanese girl in a rose pink headscarf, who spoke calmly and quietly about terrifying times.

“Some of them were still breastfeeding, too young to walk. Our elders escaping with us were killed too.”

I asked her how she managed to survive.

“We had to hide by day and resume our journey in the middle of the night. If you move during the day, they will kill you. But even moving at night is still so dangerous.”

Her family finally made the hard choice to leave their homeland. Her mother was with her but she didn’t know where her father was.

“Kids were separated from their fathers and husbands,” shouted an elderly woman whose dark eyes blazed with anger.

“They indiscriminately killed everyone – women, boys, babies, everyone.”

“We used to get food from our farms,” chimed in another woman as their stories tumbled over each other.

“But when the war began, we couldn’t farm and the animals ate our crops, so we were left with nothing. “

In el-Geneina, our first stop is a modest health centre in the al-Riyadh displacement camp, where Sudanese women in brightly coloured veils sit in chairs along the wall, or huddle on bamboo mats on the floor.

A delegation of mainly elderly men, some with crutches, sit closer to the front under the shade of the corrugated metal roof and wide-boughed trees which frame an open wall.

It feels like a different el-Geneina. There’s no visible presence of armed RSF men in a leafy neighbourhood lined with humble mud houses. Young boys turn cartwheels, women in vivid head-to-toe veils walk purposively past, and donkey carts ferrying water drums trot along dusty dirt roads.

“We have suffered a lot,” underlines a community elder, a white-turbaned teacher who is the first to address the visiting UN team in their signature blue vests. He speaks precisely and carefully.

“It’s true that when the war started some people supported SAF, and some supported RSF. But as displaced people we are neutral and in need of every kind of assistance.”

This camp was first established in 2003, a reminder that Darfur’s agony erupted two decades ago when the infamous Arab militia known as the Janjaweed sowed terror among non-Arab communities and was also accused of multiple war crimes. It gave rise to the RSF.

The teacher listed a catalogue of basic needs – from food for malnourished women and children, to schools and clean water. He also explained that most women are now in charge of their families.

Some of the young women, only their eyes visible, film the meeting on their phones, perhaps wanting some record of this rare event.

Mr Fletcher addressed them directly.

“You must often feel that no-one is listening and that no-one understands what you have endured, more than anyone else in the population, and maybe more than anyone else in the world.” They respond with vigorous clapping.

The UN’s next stop, behind closed doors, is even more forthright when Mr Fletcher and his colleagues sit in front of a gathering of Sudanese and international NGOs based in Darfur who are struggling to respond to this enormous catastrophe.

Unlike the UN, they haven’t waited for permissions from Gen Burhan’s government to operate here; approval for the UN’s international staff to be based here was recently revoked.

Twenty NGOs, working without reliable internet or electricity or even phones, and struggling to obtain more Sudanese visas for staff, say they’re trying to help the 99.9% of the population in need. Their message was clear – the UN system was failing them.

“More needs to be done,” Tariq Riebl, who heads the Sudan operations of the Norwegian Refugee Council, tells us after the meeting. But he says his worst fear “is that no-one cares, that they’re only paying attention to other crises such as Ukraine and Gaza”.

“This is one of the worst conflicts we’ve seen in recent memory, in terms of the violence that’s been committed, and people fleeing,” he emphasises.

“And there are also very few actual famines anymore, but this one is one.”

So far, the global Famine Review Committee (FRC) has declared it in one part of the Zamzam displacement camp housing about half a million people in North Darfur; more than a dozen other areas are said to be on the brink.

“The UN can’t just charge across the border anywhere we would like to,” insists Mr Fletcher.

“But this week we’ve got more flights coming in to regional airports, more hubs opening inside Sudan, and we’re getting more people on the ground as well.”

During his week-long visit to Sudan and its neighbours, he met representatives of both the SAF and the RSF to push for more access across lines and across borders.

He started his new job vowing “to end impunity and indifference”.

“It would be rash to say I can end impunity alone,” he remarks diplomatically about a conflict in which rival regional powers have been arming and assisting the warring parties.

The United Arab Emirates is accused of backing the RSF, although it denies this. While countries including Egypt, Iran, and Russia are known to be supporting the SAF. Others are also weighing in, including Saudi Arabia and regional organisations including the Arab Union, with all sides saying they’re working for peace, not war.

When it comes to indifference, after Mr Fletcher’s first visit many more Sudanese and aid workers will be watching closely, hoping he can make a difference in this “toughest crisis in the world”.

• ‘Rape me, not my daughter’ – women tell BBC of Sudan sexual violence
• Watch: Inside a hospital on Sudan’s hunger front line
• Watch: BBC reporter’s emotional return to ransacked family home

The world’s top court has begun hearing evidence in a significant case that may clarify the legal responsibilities of governments in relation to climate change.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will hear testimony from nearly 100 countries including Vanuatu, the Pacific island nation that initiated the effort to get a legal opinion.

The hearing will attempt to answer key questions as to what countries should do to fight climate change and, critically, what should they do to repair damages linked to rising temperatures.

While the outcome is not legally binding, it could give extra weight to climate change lawsuits all over the world.

The idea to get the court to issue a legal opinion was originally proposed by law students in Fiji five years ago.

It was then taken up by Vanuatu, an island nation with bitter experience of the impacts of rising temperatures and sea levels.

Last year, around 80% of the population were directly impacted by a double cyclone.

The extent of the damage prompted the government to declare a six-month state of emergency.

Under pressure from Vanuatu and many other nations, the UN General Assembly referred two important climate questions to the international judges of the ICJ.

These relate to the obligations that countries have under international law to protect the Earth’s climate system from polluting greenhouse gas emissions.

But they also asked the court to rule on the legal consequences of these obligations in cases where states “by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment.”

Vanuatu will be the first country to give evidence at today’s hearing in the Netherlands.

“We are on the frontline of climate change impact,” said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuautu’s special envoy, told journalists ahead of the hearing.

“Our call for an advisory opinion from the ICJ on climate change is at a pivotal moment… one that sets clear the international legal obligations for climate action.”

While the decision of the court is non-binding, the outcome could be used in other legal cases where small island states are seeking financial recompense from the developed world over the loss and damage they have suffered as a result of historic emissions of planet warming gases.

The court case comes just a week after the end of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.

The decision taken there by the richer world to provide $300bn a year in climate finance by 2035 provoked anger among developing nations who argued it was completely insufficient for their needs.

In the Hague, the court will also hear from a range of countries including the US and China, as well as representatives of the oil producing group OPEC.

The hearings will last until December 13 with the court’s opinion expected in 2025.

Rihab Faour fled her home. Then she fled again. Then a third time. Then a fourth. And by the fourth time, a year after the first, she had been fleeing Israeli bombs for so long that nowhere in Lebanon felt safe.

Her journey had begun in October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. That prompted Hezbollah, the Lebanese political and militant group, to fire rockets into Israel and Israel to retaliate by bombing southern Lebanon.

The Israeli bombs fell close enough to Rihab’s village that the 33-year-old and her husband Saeed, an employee of the municipal water company, gathered their daughters Tia, eight, and Naya, six, and fled to Rihab’s parents’ house in Dahieh, a suburb of the capital Beirut.

In Dahieh, for a while, life went on almost as normal, with the exception that Naya and Tia missed their friends, their own beds, their toys and all clothes they had had to leave behind.

Most of all they missed going to school, which had been replaced by online learning. They were excited when, back in August, Rihab enrolled them in a new school in Beirut and took them to buy brand new school uniforms.

But before their first day could arrive, Israel expanded its bombing of Lebanon to include parts of Beirut, particularly the Dahieh suburb that the family now called home.

Israel was assassinating senior Hezbollah figures in the suburb, but it was using large, bunker-busting bombs, each capable of destroying a residential building. In some strikes, Israel dropped dozens of these bombs in one go and flattened entire city blocks.

So the Faour family packed up and fled again, this time to a rented house in another Beirut neighbourhood, Jnah. After a powerful air strike in Jnah, they moved to Saeed’s parents’ house in the neighbourhood of Barbour. There, they lived with 17 others in a single house – people piled on people.

For Tia and Naya though, now nine and seven, it was a rare joy to be surrounded by their cousins day and night. So much so that even when Rihab’s father, a retired Lebanese army sergeant, found a rental apartment in the Basta neighbourhood just for the four of them, the girls did not want to go.

“Naya begged us to stay there with all the family,” Rihab recalled. “We told her we just had to go for one sleep in this new house, then we would come straight back to the family and to all the children.”

And she offered the girls a bargain – come to stay at the new apartment and you can choose your dinner. So on the way home they stopped for rotisserie chicken and other treats from the shop, and at about 7.30pm, with the streets still alive with people, the family pulled up to a rundown building in Basta in central Beirut.

Back in 2006, during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah, the bombing was confined to certain areas of Lebanon – the south, Dahieh, and some infrastructure targets. This time, as senior members of Hezbollah spread out around the country, Israel bombed them where they went.

This brought bombs to places previously thought safe, including parts of central Beirut.

None of that was weighing on Tia and Naya as the family unloaded their belongings into the new apartment. For now, the girls were more concerned with returning to their cousins at the earliest opportunity.

Unlike Saeed’s parents’ house, the new Basta apartment had running water and a generator for electricity. The girls were happy when they saw that the family finally had their own space. Rihab and Saeed relaxed a little. Most likely, there would have been an Israeli drone buzzing overhead, but the sound had become so common over Beirut that it was possible to tune it out.

Rihab put the food and treats on the table. “We sat down to eat and we were talking and laughing,” she said. “And that was it, my last memory of them.”

The bomb was a US-made Jdam. It hit the building on 10 October at about 8pm, half an hour after the family had arrived. It levelled all three storeys and destroyed parts of adjacent buildings and cars, and killed 22 men, women and children, making it the deadliest strike on central Beirut since the beginning of the fighting a year earlier.

The Israeli military issued no warning ahead of the strike, so the building was full of people. Israel was reportedly targeting Wafiq Safa, the head of Hezbollah’s co-ordination and liaison unit, but Safa was never reported to be among the dead. He had either survived, or he wasn’t there to begin with. The IDF declined to comment on the strike or the lack of a warning ahead of it.

Rihab woke up in Beirut’s Zahraa Hospital, unable to move. Her back and arm were badly injured and she needed at least two operations. She drifted in and out of consciousness. Everything in her mind between laughing with her daughters at dinner and waking up in the hospital was blank.

While she lay there that night, her family searched Beirut’s hospitals. By midnight, they knew that Saeed and Tia were dead. DNA tests would be required to confirm that Naya had been killed, as well as another girl her age brought to the same hospital, because their injuries prevented straightforward identification.

Rihab’s doctors advised the family not to tell her any of this. They were worried that, still facing significant surgery, the news would be too much for her. So for two weeks, as she underwent and then recovered from her operations, her mother Basima reassured her that Saeed and the girls were being treated in different hospitals.

But Rihab sensed that something was wrong, and she began to insist on seeing pictures and videos of the girls. “She could feel it in her heart,” Basima said.

Eleven days after the strike, the DNA test confirmed that Tia was dead, and on the 15th day a hospital psychiatrist told Rihab that Saeed and the girls were gone.

Six weeks later, Rihab was sitting in a stiff plastic chair in an apartment in Beirut, her eyes dark and her face drawn. She was still recovering from her surgeries – to install eight screws into her spine and another three into her arm. She had been lying down for a long time, and now she was trying to sit up more and to walk a little, though every movement caused her pain.

Naya’s eighth birthday had been four days earlier. Rihab was passing her time “either crying or sleeping”, she said. But she wanted to talk about her family.

“Naya was very attached to me, she followed me wherever I went. Tia loved her grandparents and she was happy if I left her with them. Both of the girls loved drawing, they loved playing with toys, they missed going to school. They would play teacher and student together for hours.”

Above all they loved to watch videos together on TikTok. Rihab and Saeed thought they were still too young to post their own videos online, so Rihab would film them dancing and playing and tell the girls she was posting them on the app, which seemed to satisfy them, for now.

Saeed had come into Rihab’s life in 2013. Rihab was raised in Beirut but her family would visit the village of Mays El Jabal in the summer, because the air was cooler there and the village was surrounded by countryside, and that summer she met Saeed through mutual friends.

Rihab completed her undergraduate law degree and began studying for a masters, but the couple became engaged and then married, and soon Tia was born, so Rihab put her budding law career on hold.

Now, in the midst of her loss, she has tentatively begun to think of studying again. “I am going to need something to fill my days,” she said.

Saeed and Tia were buried the day after they died, by Rihab’s father and uncles, in temporary wooden caskets in an unmarked grave in Dahieh. Two weeks later, the men of the family dug again in the same spot and buried Naya. Rihab’s uncle placed two sprigs of artificial cherry blossom atop the grave, for the two girls, and later someone else laid a wreath for a stranger buried beside them.

Then an Israeli air strike hit the building directly adjacent to the cemetery and the resultant blast wave and debris smashed gravestones and churned up the earth around them. About the same time, another Israeli air strike hit the family home in Dahieh, destroying several items Rihab had wanted to keep, including two new, unworn school uniforms.

Not long after that, it was all over. A ceasefire announced last week allowed thousands of displaced people to stream back to their villages in the south of Lebanon. Rihab and Saeed’s village was heavily bombed by the Israelis and their family home there destroyed, her uncle said, but Rihab cannot return home anyway, because she will be in a backbrace for several more months and cannot travel.

As joy spread through Lebanon at the news of the ceasefire, new pictures emerged of Wafiq Safa, the reported target of the bomb that killed Saeed, Tia, Naya and 19 others. Safa had not been seen in public since the strike, but he appeared to be alive and well.

Since Hunter Biden’s conviction on federal felony gun and tax charges over the summer, the White House has insisted that President Joe Biden had no intention of pardoning his son.

But on Sunday, the president issued a controversial sweeping pardon, saying his son had been subject to attacks from his political rivals.

Republicans have been quick to denounce the move – citing Biden’s previous pledges not to intervene on Hunter’s behalf. The move has also cast a renewed spotlight on the role of presidential pardons and the independence of the US justice system.

President-elect Donald Trump called the intervention an “abuse”, while House Oversight Committee chair James Comer accused President Biden of seeking to “avoid accountability”.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in two separate trials over the summer – one on federal tax charges and one of lying about his drug use on a form when buying a handgun.

In the aftermath of his conviction, the White House immediately made it clear that he could not expect a presidential pardon from his father.

In an interview with ABC in June, when asked whether he had “ruled out a pardon” for his son, Biden replied: “Yes.”

Biden also told reporters at a G7 summit in June: “I said I’d abide by the jury decision, and I will do that. And I will not pardon him.”

As recently as 7 November – just two days after Donald Trump clinched his return to the White House – Biden administration officials were still insisting that the president had no intention of pardoning his son.

• Follow live reaction to this story
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When asked in a news conference if President Biden would be tempted to help Hunter, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “We’ve been asked that question multiple times, our answer stands, which is no.”

Biden also emphasised in June that he was “satisfied” that his son had received a fair trial – in contrast to his comments on Sunday where he said Hunter had been the subject of “a miscarriage of justice”.

Presidential pardons are not rare and there have been examples of previous presidents pardoning family members.

In January 2001 – just before he left office – Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother for drug distribution convictions dating back to 1985.

And Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner – the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner – in December 2020 for making false statements during an investigation, witness tampering and tax evasion.

Over the weekend the president-elect appointed Charles Kushner as his nominee to be US ambassador to France, a move which has raised some eyebrows in Paris.

But Hunter Biden’s pardon differs from the previous examples in several ways – most notably that a president has never pardoned his own son before.

The length of the pardon President Biden has granted has also faced some scrutiny. Hunter Biden’s pardon covers any crimes committed by his son over an almost 11-year period from 1 January 2014 to 1 December 2024.

Jeffrey Crouch, an assistant professor of politics at American University, told the BBC that it “is highly unusual to have a presidential pardon that covers such a broad time span”.

Another distinguishing factor is that Hunter Biden has yet to be sentenced and is due to appear in court later this month. According to the US justice department it is “highly unusual” for a president to pardon someone before they are sentenced for a federal offence.

Jeffrey Crouch told the BBC that officials normally recommend a five-year waiting period before applying a pardon.

The move is not unheard of, however. For example, in 2017 Donald Trump pardoned ex-Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio – convicted of criminal contempt – before he was sentenced.

Biden has been outspoken in attacking some of the pardons his predecessor issued during his first term in office.

In 2019, Biden attacked Trump for pardoning two US army officers – one of whom had been convicted and one who was set to stand trial – for war crimes in Afghanistan.

Biden said the then-president had betrayed “the rule of law, the values that make our country exceptional and the men and women who wear the uniform honourably”.

Later, in 2020, when Trump commuted the sentence of his informal adviser Roger Stone, Biden called his rival “the most corrupt president in modern American history”.

More broadly, during his 2020 campaign, Biden accused Trump of undermining the office of the attorney general and politicising the office.

“The attorney general is not the president’s lawyer. It’s the people’s lawyer,” Biden said. “We never saw anything like the prostitution of that office like we see it today.”

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It’s a controversial topic that divides opinion: should people with bigger cars pay more for parking?

Cardiff has become the latest council to ponder the question. As part of a public consultation, it’s asking for views on whether residents with larger vehicles should pay more for permits.

“We’re consulting on the principle of whether it’s right… if you’re driving a larger or more polluting vehicle, to pay a bit more,” council leader Huw Thomas told the BBC this week.

“These are vehicles that take up more space, they cause more damage to our roads, and if they happen to hit a pedestrian they’re likely to cause more serious injuries,” he said.

Other councils, including Bristol, Oxford and Haringey in north London are also looking into the option of charging larger vehicles more.

So, back to Mr Thomas’s question: is it right?

We headed to Haringey to see what local residents thought.

“I think it’s a load of crap,” Nev says, adding he has grown weary of traffic-reducing and environmental policies in the borough.

“We’re already paying more if you’ve got a big car. You’re paying more tax, you pay more for petrol to fill it. That’s your business.”

But fellow resident Gary Oliva says: “If you can afford a large car, then you can afford to pay for it.

“Public transport in London is very, very good. If you want to get from A to B get on a bus, get on a train, get on the tube.”

However, Selin Akdenez, who is a single mum and drives an SUV, says parking in London is already expensive, and the prospect of paying more for residential parking is something that she couldn’t afford.

“I disagree because I have a child so I do have to have a bigger car,” she says. “My mother is really old. If she needs a GP appointment or dentist, I have to take her.”

A YouGov poll last year found 39% of adults thought there should be higher parking fees for bigger and heavier cars, while 53% thought all cars should have the same parking fees.

The split was much closer in London than in any other region, with 45% thinking bigger cars should pay higher fees, and 44% thinking they shouldn’t.

But what do we actually mean by bigger?

In Haringey, where the price of a permit already varies depending on your car’s emissions, the council proposed adding a 5% surcharge for medium vehicles 4-4.49m long, and a 10% surcharge for large vehicles over 4.5m long.

To put that in context, a Kia Picanto would count as a small car, a Volvo V40 or BMW 1 Series medium, and an MG5 or Land Rover Discovery large.

Haringey’s public consultation has just closed. The council says no decisions have been taken on any of the proposals.

In Belgium, Brussels has a length-based system in place in certain parts of the city. A residential permit costs €25 (£21) per year but if your vehicle is over 4.9m long you pay an additional charge of €120 per year.

In Cardiff, weight is the factor under consideration, whether vehicles over 2.4 tonnes revenue weight should pay more, although no price has been suggested. Revenue weight refers to the maximum weight of a vehicle, including passengers, fuel and luggage.

In Autocar’s list of the best family SUVs, four out of the top five would exceed this limit – the Kia EV9, Land Rover Discovery Sport, Hyundai Santa Fe, and Volvo XC60.

Car weight is the model used in some French cities. Earlier this year, Parisians voted to triple parking rates for cars weighing 1.6 tonnes or more to €18 an hour in the inner city, although this does not apply to residents.

Oliver Lord is from the Clean Cities campaign group, which worked on the campaign in Paris arguing that SUVs are dangerous and bad for the environment.

He says it is “inevitable” that size-based parking charges will come to the UK, pointing to the fact that 60% of car sales in the UK last year were SUVs.

“These bigger cars not only burn more fuel, they take up more space,” he says.

Even big electric cars have issues because they take up more room and are more dangerous than smaller electric cars, he adds.

“If you’ve not only got more cars but the cars are bigger, how are you going to adapt your city to climate change?”

But Erin Baker, editorial director at AutoTrader, is against blanket policies based on size because she says cars can vary greatly. For instance, some models may be long or heavy but still be fuel-efficient.

“Yes it tends to be the bigger the car the heavier it is and so it’s less fuel-efficient. But it’s a clumsy way of looking at it,” she says.

She also says it’s not always the case that larger cars have wealthier owners.

“If you look at key workers or people who live outside the city – these are not two-car families, these are one car [households] because that’s what the family budget allows for. So it will be big – an estate or an SUV.”

Luke Bosdet from motoring organisation the AA says it is reasonable to charge more for vehicles that exceed the length of a standard parking space.

“I would think that vehicle length is a measure that residents would understand better and go along with, particularly with the squeeze on parking in residential streets.”

However, he says: “Other reasons for increased permit costs, such as fuel type or level of CO2 emissions are not. Other taxes, such as vehicle excise duty, company car tax, ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) and CAZ (Clean Air Zone) charges do that.”

Any extra charges imposed on drivers would be seen as unfair, says Erin Baker.

“Consumers think: don’t penalise me, and don’t penalise me when the car industry is building bigger cars.”

Back in Haringey, resident Amanda Davies says the proposal to charge larger cars more to park “just adds to the fuel of the council being seen as making money out of car users”.

She has a Mini currently, but says if she did want to get a bigger car, she wouldn’t want to be penalised for that by having to pay more for parking.

“It’s a really tough one because yes we should discourage people to have cars in inner cities full stop, because they are huge polluters.

“However, some people are dependent on a car for work, for disability or for whatever reason – so I think it’s just about finding a balance.

“It’s an interesting topic because we don’t use our car that often, and now I’m considering that we should get rid of it.”

It may be the start of a new week but you’ll still find plenty of Black Friday sales as the event goes online for Cyber Monday.

It can be easy to get swept up in the shopping frenzy and end up out of pocket – instead of bagging a bargain.

The vast majority of Black Friday or Cyber Monday offers can be found even cheaper – or the same price – at other times of the year, consumer group Which? has warned.

We’ve spoken to some experts who have shared tips on how to shop both Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales without getting ripped off.

“It’s only a deal if it’s something you genuinely wanted or needed before seeing the discount,” said Sarah Johnson, director of merchandise consultancy Flourish Retail.

She recommends making a list and budget to stick to in order to avoid impulse buys.

“Make the deals work for you by using Black Friday to save on products you already planned to buy,” she said.

“If you stick to your list and stay within your budget, you’ll maximise your savings without unnecessary splurges.”

“When looking to make a purchase, it’s worth comparing the price at multiple retailers,” said Harry Rose, editor of Which? Magazine.

He also recommended using websites that allow you to check a product’s price history over the previous 12 months.

“That way you’ll know a good deal when you see one,” he said.

Which? investigated deals on 227 products at eight of the biggest home and tech retailers in the UK in last year’s Black Friday “fortnight” between 20 November and 1 December.

Its research suggested nine in 10 of the deals analysed were the same price or cheaper at other times of the year.

Mr Rose said you should not feel “pressured to splash out on Black Friday or Cyber Monday purchases as those deals are usually repeated – if not beaten – at other times of the year”.

If you spot something you want to buy in the Black Friday or Cyber Momday sales, search for it on a second-hand platform where you might find it even cheaper, says resale influencer, Jess.

Many resale platforms give you the option of offering a price that matches your budget, she said.

“If you make an offer and it’s reasonable most sellers will accept,” she said. “So not only are you likely to get a good deal in the first place because it’s not new from a shop but you can offer a lower price.”

Vintage clothing influencer Vivien Tang also buys and sells on resale websites.

“I think it is very easy to find almost new or brand new items on second-hand platforms,” she said. “The condition option on listings is now compulsory so it makes it easier to filter for newer items.”

If you’re using the sales to buy Christmas presents you should not rule out buying second hand, according to a new report.

Some 63% of people would be comfortable receiving second-hand Christmas gifts and a further 26% felt neutral about the idea, according to a survey by research consultancy Retail Economics for second-hand marketplace Vinted.

Many people will use a credit card, or may dip into their overdraft, when buying what they consider bargain items on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

But if you end up paying interest, this could outstrip any savings made on the promotions.

Using a typical credit card to make a £300 purchase, then paying back at £20 a month would take more than a year to pay off and mean having to pay £55 in interest, according to the financial information service Moneyfacts.

Using an overdraft would usually lead to an even bigger interest bill.

A credit card offers more protection when buying something over £100, so there is greater chance of a refund if something goes wrong.

Financial experts say paying off a credit card immediately, perhaps from savings, before any interest is accrued, is the safest option.

Criminals use the hype around Black Friday and Cyber Monday to try to steal from online shoppers.

Purchase scams are when someone is tricked into sending money via a bank transfer to buy something – often advertised online or via social media – that doesn’t exist.

The number of purchase scams soared by 29% around Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year, according to analysis by Lloyds Bank.

The bank’s fraud prevention director, Liz Ziegler, said: “When shopping online, the best way stay safe is to buy from a trusted retailer, and always pay by card for the greatest protection.

“If you’re unable to do those things, that should be a big red flag that you’re about to get scammed.”

You should be wary of fake websites and check the web address belongs to the official brand before you enter any financial or personal information, according to Which?.

Beware of posts from a newly-created social media accounts, or links to a recently-created website. You can use verified domain checkers to confirm when a website was created, Which? said.

It warned against buying at “too good to be true” prices because if something seems too good to be true, it likely is.

“The fight game awaits!” Conor McGregor proclaimed to his millions of social media followers on Tuesday, while retailers pulled products linked to him from shelves, murals of him were erased and brands announced they had cut ties.

It followed a 12-person jury in Dublin finding McGregor guilty of sexual assault in a civil case brought by Nikita Hand, who accused him of raping her at a Dublin hotel in December 2018. She was awarded nearly €250,000 (£208,000) in damages. In a social media post, McGregor said he would appeal the decision.

Ms Hand’s case was one of several legal issues and controversies that McGregor, one of Ireland’s most famous athletes, has faced over the past few years.

In 2018, he was arrested in New York for throwing a metal dolly at the window of a bus which had a group of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) staff and athletes on board. A year later, he was convicted and fined €1,000 (£850) for punching a man who rejected his offer of a drink in a Dublin pub.

Some commentators argue that support for McGregor within Ireland, where he had been thought of as a trailblazer, has been dwindling for some time – but the shift after Ms Hand’s civil case was seismic.

Within a week, hundreds of supermarkets in both the UK and Ireland removed brands associated with him. Proximo Spirits, the company that bought McGregor’s Proper No Twelve whiskey brand in 2021, said it did not plan to use his name or likeness in its marketing going forward.

• Woman wins civil rape case against Conor McGregor

IO Interactive, the creators of the Hitman video game, said it would cease its collaboration with McGregor in light of the court ruling. Ireland’s National Wax Museum also said it removed its figure of McGregor two weeks ago.

He built his brand on his patriotism and brash persona. But the controversies surrounding him have turned some former supporters against him and become an increasing distraction from his career.

Petesy Carroll, a mixed martial arts (MMA) journalist, credits McGregor and his team for bringing MMA to Ireland, but says they have “also destroyed it as a sport here”.

Now, after the civil case, it’s unclear what comes next.

McGregor’s rise to sporting stardom has often been described as a rags-to-riches tale. As a teenager, living in Lucan, Dublin, he quit his job as an apprentice plumber to pursue a career in a sport that was relatively unknown in Ireland.

“The Irish mentality is when you’re finished school, if you’re not going to college or anything you need to get a job straight away. There’s no chasing your dreams,” he said in a 2013 interview with RTÉ’s Late Late Show, where he was 24 years old and almost unrecognisable.

The brash, confident, boisterous traits his “notorious” brand is now synonymous with with were untraceable.

“I thought I could do something with my life. I knew I had the ability to make it in this game,” he said.

Carroll, who has been covering McGregor since the beginning of his career, says McGregor burst on to the mainstream at a time when Ireland was grappling with the impact of the 2008 recession.

“There are no opportunities, everybody’s leaving for Australia or Canada, and here’s this guy saying ‘No, be proud to be Irish. It’s cool to be Irish,’” Carroll says.

“I used to think this guy, it’s great, he’s the same age as me, I’m a college graduate, I’ve walked out of college into a country that cannot afford me any opportunity, and here’s this guy blazing a trail.”

McGregor made his UFC debut in Stockholm in 2013, aged 25, defeating Marcus Brimage and winning a knockout of the night award, which came with a $60,000 bonus. In a press conference after the event, McGregor said it was the best moment of his career yet.

“I didn’t have money before this,” he said, “I was collecting €188-a-week off the social welfare, and now here I am with a 60 G’s bonus and then my own pay.”

Carroll says money changed McGregor’s life “to the point that everyone stopped treating him like a human”.

“Everyone panders to him,” he adds.

In 2015, McGregor beat Chad Mendes in the interim featherweight championship. The bout attracted a sold-out crowd of more than 16,000 at an arena in Las Vegas.

“People don’t give him credit,” Luke Keeler, a professional boxer from Dublin, says of the win. “It was a huge impact that he made. He was dedicated and had great belief at the time.”

By then, it was clear his fame – and bank account – was reaching new heights.

One of the biggest moments in his career came later that year, when he defeated José Aldo to win the featherweight title. His first loss was against Nate Diaz in 2016. A rematch a few months later, which McGregor won, sold a record-breaking 1.6 million pay-per-view buys.

That year, on the US chat show Jimmy Kimmel Live, McGregor was asked at what age he realised he was good at fighting. “I’m Irish, we’re all good at fighting,” he told Kimmel. “Where I come from, where I grew up, you had to be aware, you had to be able to defend yourself, so that’s how I got into it.”

Back on home soil, McGregor was named Sportsperson of the Year at the RTÉ Sport Awards. Sinéad O’Carroll, an Irish journalist and editor who covered the recent trial, says this was seen as a “remarkable feat” as it happened in the same year as the Olympics and Ireland’s Euro 2016 victory over Italy.

“It was divisive though,” she adds. “Some people thought that he wasn’t so much a sportsperson, that he was more a celebrity and people looked up to him because of his attitude and his fame.

“He’s never been a very clear-cut, popular figure in Ireland, but he would have been part of that establishment, winning that award, being invited onto the Late Late Show and would have been highly regarded for his feats in the cage, if nothing else,” she says.

Carroll, the MMA journalist, says it was around this time McGregor “started showing everyone who he was”.

“It was kind of like one of those moments when you’re like, ‘oh, he is what we think he is’.”

His next bout was with Eddie Alvarez, beating him to become the first fighter in MMA history to hold belts in two weight divisions simultaneously.

McGregor stepped away from the UFC in 2017, spending much of that year campaigning for a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather. He fought Mayweather in August of that year, having faced accusations of racism during the promotional tour, which McGregor rejected. Mayweather stopped him in the 10th round.

Ms O’Carroll says some people did not like the antics in the lead up to the fight or the mixing of genres from MMA to boxing.

“But he still would have had a huge support base, and I remember that fight. It was in the middle of the night, but huge numbers of people would have gotten up in the morning to watch it and it would have been headline news,” she adds.

Carroll says the Mayweather fight marked a change in McGregor’s behaviour.

“He became an icon and he earned so much money, I don’t think he had to be as invested,” he says. “He became a spectacle.”

McGregor returned to the Octagon in October 2018 – two months before the night when a jury found he had assaulted Ms Hand – and lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov.

He has not fought since 2021, but in a statement on Tuesday, he indicated that he was preparing his return.

“It was amazing what he’d done [in sport],” says Keeler, the boxer.

“But he lost the run of himself… I don’t think he had any role models or anyone he was willing to listen to. I think that was his downfall. No one could actually tell him to cop on.”

BBC News has approached McGregor for comment for this story.

Ms Hand, a 35-year-old hair colourist, made a statement to Irish police in early 2019 alleging McGregor had raped her. After an investigation into the claim, police referred the case to Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Irish media reported on the allegations without naming McGregor, but news reports revealing him as the suspect emerged in the US a few months later. The DPP decided not to criminally prosecute McGregor due to insufficient evidence.

Ms Hand then took civil action against McGregor, suing him for damages for assault. Her lawsuit also alleged that McGregor’s friend, James Lawrence, assaulted her by having sex with her without her consent.

The jury found she had been assaulted by McGregor, but not by Mr Lawrence.

Dr Daniel Kane, a gynaecologist and forensic examiner, told the court how he had to use forceps to remove a tampon Ms Hand said she had been wearing on the night of the assault, which had been “wedged inside”. A paramedic who examined Ms Hand on the day after the alleged attacks said she had not seen a patient as bruised as Ms Hand was in a long time.

McGregor said he and Ms Hand had athletic but consensual sex.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) said calls over the six hours after the verdict was delivered surged by 150%.

Rachel Morrogh, DRCC’s chief executive, said that given the case involved McGregor, an international celebrity, interest was high and news reporting within Ireland was “slightly different”.

“There was rolling news coverage, live updates from the court, and it was the most read news items in many of our national media platforms,” she says.

“It meant that the survivors and victims of sexual violence couldn’t really avoid this news – it was everywhere.

“That includes across social media as well, and on social media people were giving their own views and interpretations of what was happening in court. That was difficult for people that we work with.”

Many people were calling to congratulate Ms Hand, she says, adding: “Many of them were just expressing relief at the verdict, and others were calling because they were either considering taking a legal case or were in the middle of one themselves.”

After the trial concluded, journalists swarmed around Ms Hand as she made a statement outside the courthouse. She fought back tears as she spoke, but her voice grew stronger as she told journalists she hoped her story would encourage all sexual assault victims to speak up, “no matter how afraid you might be”.

“You have a voice, keep on fighting for justice,” she said.

Ms Hand’s case has challenged perceptions in Ireland around how sexual assault victims should behave, Carroll says.

“We’re having much more nuanced conversations, I feel, in Ireland about this. It honestly feels like a cultural milestone.”

Now, a gym in Corrandulla, Galway, paints over a mural imprinted on its walls since 2016 depicting McGregor, the Irish tricolour behind him, with his fists punching the air.

“With the court ruling last week, I was actually in the car driving and it came on the radio and I straight away just rang a couple of my staff and was like ‘okay, we have to take that down,’” Gary Scully, the owner of Scully Fitness, says.

A video of Mr Scully’s staff brushing white paint over the artwork went viral. He says the response has mostly been positive, but some disagreed with the move.

“Some of them are like, ‘Typical Irish, build someone up and the second they have a wobble, knock them down.’ But I think the case and the ruling was a bit more than a wobble,” he says.

He says McGregor is “no longer a role model to the general public” after the ruling.

“People want nothing to do with him, they don’t want to see him, they don’t want anything to do with putting money his way. The way he’s behaved is just absolutely terrible,” Mr Scully says.

“He feels like he’s above the law, and now it’s proved he isn’t.”

The mysterious detention of Uganda’s opposition leader Kizza Besigye while on a visit to Kenya nearly two weeks ago has sparked widespread condemnation and fears of a clandestine exchange of intelligence between the two neighbours.

Besigye’s allies and wife have come out to reveal harrowing details of how the opposition chief was apparently lured to meet his abductors, said to have disguised themselves as Kenyan security agents.

Reports say he was spied on from the time he boarded a plane at Entebbe airport in Uganda for Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, where he was picked up, before somehow being transferred to a military court back home without any extradition proceedings.

While Kenya insists it played no role and is investigating the incident, Uganda holds that Kenya was fully aware of the plan, citing intelligence correspondence aimed at tracking Besigye down.

As his detention is extended until next week by a military court in Kampala, we piece together what we know so far.

Besigye has contested and lost four presidential elections against President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.

He has been less active in politics recently, and did not contest the 2021 election.

But earlier this year, he formed a new party, the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) after breaking away from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), which he founded two decades ago.

The opposition politician has for years travelled to Kenya and moved freely, sometimes to attend high-profile events – even while he remained Museveni’s main challenger and biggest critic.

This time, Besigye travelled to Nairobi to attend the launch of a book by Kenyan opposition politician Martha Karua.

The 68-year-old landed in the city on the morning of 16 November and took a taxi to his hotel in the affluent suburb of Hurlingham. He was accompanied by long-term ally Hajj Obeid Lutale.

A few hours later, he left the hotel, boarded a taxi and headed to Riverside Drive, some 5km (three miles) from his hotel, for a private meeting, according to his political allies.

This was the last time he was seen until he re-emerged in Uganda four days later.

His taxi driver said he waited for the veteran politician for more than 12 hours, before deciding to leave when he was unable to phone him.

Besigye’s team in Uganda started relaying distress calls after their leader’s mobile phones went unanswered.

His disappearance hit the headlines and raised eyebrows in the region, with his wife Winnie Byanyima, the head of the UN’s organisation to tackle HIV and Aids, taking to social media to report that her husband had been “kidnapped” in Nairobi.

The next day, his reserved seat at the book launch, where he was expected to be the guest speaker, remained empty with organisers raising the alarm about his absence.

Besigye and his friend Lutale arrived at the apartment along Riverside Drive where he was due to meet an unidentified Ugandan national and another unknown British national, according to Ms Byanyima.

The British national supposedly wanted to introduce Besigye to a group of colleagues and businessmen, who had expressed an interest in financially backing the PFF, she said.

In the room there was a box of what appeared to be a stash of money. One of the hosts had two guns.

Shortly after a brief introduction, eight men in plain clothes who said they were Kenyan police officers knocked on the door and told Besigye and his associate they were under arrest, Ms Byanyima told Kenya’s Citizen TV.

The opposition chief tried to explain he had nothing to do with the items in the room, but the security agents did not listen.

Four of the men bundled Besigye and Lutale into a car with Kenyan number plates and drove them under the cover of night towards the border with Uganda.

“It was clearly an operation well planned,” Ms Byanyima added.

Before crossing over to Uganda, the four men switched from speaking Swahili and started talking in the Ugandan languages, Luganda and Runyankole.

The two captive were ferried to Uganda without their belongings, including their passports, which were later picked up by Besigye’s party officials from the Nairobi hotel.

PFF spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda told Uganda’s Monitor newspaper that Besigye and his friend went through the Malaba border post without stopping for routine security checks.

“They only changed vehicles. The four-wheel drive vehicle with the Kenyan number plate was left at the Malaba border post and moved to another vehicle with [a] Ugandan number plate,” he said.

Uganda’s Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi said detectives had gathered enough intelligence to arrest Besigye while in Nairobi.

He said the Kenyan authorities had enabled the cross-border operation, even though officials in Nairobi insist they knew nothing about it.

Besigye is now being tried in Kampala and not Nairobi because the crime that was planned was “against Uganda and not Kenya”, Ugandan army spokesman Brig Gen Felix Kulayigye told the BBC’s Africa Daily podcast.

“We have a legal framework with our counterparts in Kenya to deal with matters that threaten regional security,” he added.

However, he did not explain why there was no extradition process.

Reports indicate that Besigye’s arrest had been planned for months and was executed with the help of some people who were close to him.

Organisers of the meeting are said to be a British national and a senior official of the Ugandan army, both of whom were well known to Besigye, Ugandan media reported.

His wife alleged the British national who was in the meeting was a “paid operative who tried to plant guns” on Besigye.

Over the decades, hundreds of civilians have been tried in Uganda’s military courts, even though the Constitutional Court has ruled against the practice.

Besigye, who is no stranger to appearing in military courts, is back there because he subjected himself to military law, Brig Kulayigye told the BBC.

Last week, he and his co-accused were arraigned at the Makindye military court after being held incommunicado for four days.

They are facing four charges which include being found with two pistols and ammunition, and seeking to buy weapons from foreigners in the Swiss city of Geneva, the Greek capital, Athens, and Nairobi.

The two denied all charges.

Besigye objected to being tried by a court martial, saying that if there were any charges against him, he should be tried in a civilian court.

His lawyers also argued that the alleged offences were committed outside Uganda and therefore they were arraigned in the court martial illegally.

But the court overruled the lawyers and allowed the hearing to continue.

The accused were initially remanded to Luzira maximum prison until 2 December, which has now been extended to 10 December.

The court is then expected to rule on objections raised by the defence team, including whether Uganda has jurisdiction to try Besigye on crimes he allegedly committed on foreign soil.

The adjournment also gives time for Besigye’s new lead lawyer, Kenya’s Martha Karua, to obtain a temporary practising licence to participate in the trial.

Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan lawyer and a human rights activist, told the BBC that Kenya should have arrested Besigye and extradited him to Uganda following the laws that govern the process.

Ms Byanyima said she did not expect her husband to get justice.

But Brig Kulayigye said the court martial “is not a kangaroo court”.

“Justice will be served.”

Kenyan authorities have swung between denying any knowledge of the operation and remaining silent, while Ugandan officials say that a lot of intelligence was shared between the two countries.

“The government of Uganda was in touch with the government of Kenya. Otherwise, how would you arrest somebody in the middle of Nairobi and then bring him back to Uganda, whether through the airport or land, without the full knowledge and support of the state there in Kenya?” Information Minister Baryomunsi told Uganda’s NBS TV.

Many Kenyans are asking about the nature of security ties between the two countries and if there was a full disclosure that Besigye would be charged in a military court.

Last Tuesday, Kenya’s acting Foreign Affairs Minister Musalia Mudavadi refrained from giving clear answers to journalists, pleading that his country should not be judged “too harshly”.

Mudavadi, who is also the acting interior minister, said Kenya was an open country, which allowed “a lot of latitude”. But he warned foreigners against causing a rift between Kenya and their home countries.

He said Besigye’s matter would be resolved diplomatically, describing Uganda as Kenya’s “strong partner”.

The acknowledgement by Uganda that Kenya was involved in the abduction has left the Kenyan government facing a backlash both in Uganda and back home.

Some Ugandans have held protests outside the Kenyan embassy in Kampala while others have threatened to boycott Kenyan brands.

Besigye’s detention follows a string of high-profile abductions and disappearances in Kenya, including the forced deportation of four Turkish refugees to Ankara, where they faced allegations of conspiring against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

• ‘We live in fear’ – forced expulsions taint Kenya’s safe haven image
• Who is Kizza Besigye?
• TikToker jailed for 32 months for insulting Uganda’s president
• Uganda’s Stella Nyanzi bares breasts in protest at jail sentence
• Top designer vows to regrow dreadlocks cut after Uganda arrest

Sir Elton John said he has been unable to watch the stage show he wrote the music for due to losing his eyesight.

Speaking at the gala performance of The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical he said: “I have lost my sight and I haven’t been able to see the performance but I have enjoyed listening to it.”

The West End show hosted a charity gala for the Elton John AIDS Foundation on Sunday evening.

The star-studded event attracted a host of famous faces including Anna Wintour, Lily Collins and Donatella Versace.

The 77-year-old pop star has been struggling with his eyesight since getting an infection in his right eye in July.

While his exact condition is unclear, Sir Elton told ABC News’ Good Morning America in November that he developed the infection in the south of France.

“It’s been four months now since I haven’t been able to see, and my left eye is not the greatest,” he said at the time.

Speaking to the BBC on the red carpet, Wintour said she was looking forward to supporting Elton and described the musical as “entertaining”.

Asked whether the film and musical is at all representative of what the fashion industry is actually like, Vogue’s editor-in-chief said it was “for audiences to decide”.

“It’s for the audience and for the people I work with to decide if there are any similarities between me and Miranda Priestly,” she added.

It has often been rumoured that the character of Priestly was based loosely on Wintour.

The Devil Wears Prada tells the story of an aspirational young journalist, Andy, who became the assistant to one of New York’s most infamous fashion magazine editors, Miranda Priestly.

American fashion designer Betsey Johnson said “everyone in the fashion industry loves the show”.

The 82-year-old said she was “lucky” she got through the industry without having to “play the game”.

“When I saw the film for the first time, I thought thank god I missed all that stuff because I would not want to have gone through all that.”

The production sees American singer and actress Vanessa Williams step into the iconic role of feared fashion magazine editor Miranda.

TV personality Michelle Visage said Williams, best known for her roles in Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives, has “absolutely” always been the perfect person to play Priestly.

Visage also spoke to the BBC about the progress the fashion industry is making.

“I can’t believe in the film that Andy was called fat when she was a size six,” she said.

“I would hope things have changed – we have seen some more inclusion and I hope we always hope to progress.”

Model Elizabeth Hurley said she thought “every woman’s body is now celebrated” and was keen to see “how that is shown in this theatre show”.

However, singer Beverley Knight said she doesn’t think “the fashion industry has moved on leaps and bounds” in terms of how it views women of different sizes.

Beauty and the Beast actor Luke Evans said he loves the film because it’s “full of characters and ego” but he has “no idea” why it’s such a cultural phenomenon.

“It’s probably because fashion changes all the time but the people at the top never do and this is sort of an insider, behind the scenes version,” he said.

He added he doesn’t think there are many similarities between Priestly and Wintour as he’s met “Anna many times and she’s very lovely so I don’t think they’re similar”.

Comedian David Walliams was also in attendance with his mother and they both said they “know it’s going to be brilliant and we haven’t even seen it”.

“We’re missing Strictly Come Dancing for this, that’s how much we love Elton,” the pair joked.

Are you spending hours scrolling mindlessly on Instagram reels and TikTok? If so, you might be suffering from brain rot, which Oxford University Press has named its phrase or word of the year.

It is a term that captures concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The usage saw an increase of 230% in its frequency from 2023 to 2024.

Psychologist and Oxford University Professor Andrew Przybylski says the popularity of the word is a “symptom of the time we’re living in”.

Brain rot beat five other phrases or words on the dictionary publisher’s shortlist, including demure, Romantasy and dynamic pricing.

Brain rot is defined as the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging,

The first recorded use of brain rot dates much before the creation of the internet – it was written down in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden.

He criticises society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas and how this is part of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort.

It leads him to ask: “While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”

The word initially gained traction on social media among Gen Z and Gen Alpha communities, but it’s now being used in the mainstream as a way to describe low-quality, low-value content found on social media.

Prof Przybylski says “there’s no evidence of brain rot actually being a thing”.

“Instead it describes our dissatisfaction with the online world and it’s a word that we can use to bundle our anxieties that we have around social media.”

Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, says looking back at the Oxford Word of the Year over the last two decades “you can see society’s growing preoccupation with how our virtual lives are evolving, the way internet culture is permeating so much of who we are and what we talk about”.

“Last year’s winning word, ‘rizz,’ was an interesting example of how language is increasingly formed, shaped, and shared within online communities.

“Brain rot speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.”

• Demure (adj.): Of a person: reserved or restrained in appearance or behaviour. Of clothing: not showy, ostentatious, or overly revealing
• Dynamic pricing (n.): The practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions; in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand
• Lore (n.): A body of (supposed) facts, background information, and anecdotes relating to someone or something, regarded as knowledge required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question
• Romantasy (n.): A genre of fiction combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy, typically featuring themes of magic, the supernatural, or adventure alongside a central romantic storyline
• Slop (n.): Art, writing, or other content generated using artificial intelligence, shared and distributed online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way, and characterized as being of low quality, inauthentic, or inaccurate

Oxford University Press – publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary – is not the only one to have a word of the year. Last month Cambridge Dictionary announced that manifest was its winner.

The traditional definition of manifest included the adjective “easily noticed or obvious” and the noun “to show something clearly through signs or actions”.

It now includes “to manifest” in the sense of “to imagine achieving something you want, in the belief doing so will make it more likely to happen”.

It comes off the back of a global wellness trend endorsed by celebrities including singer Dua Lipa who said she manifested her headline slot at Glastonbury.

Collins English Dictionary also announced in November that its word of the year was brat – a word that has been everywhere over the last couple of months thanks to Charli XCX’s viral album.

Brat is defined as someone with a “confident, independent and hedonistic attitude”.

It started as the name of her number one album, but it has arguably grown into a cultural movement for some, with people adopting the brat way of life.

Another internet phenomenon has inspired the Dictionary.com word of the year which is demure.

The word took off in August after content creator Jools Lebron, posted on TikTok abut her demure work outfit and mindful make-up.

The “very demure, very mindful” trend took off after that and the satirical idea pokes fun at the stereotypical ideas of femininity.

Norway has paused its controversial project to open up its seabed for commercial-scale deep-sea mining.

Oslo had planned to let companies apply to mine 280,000 sq km (108,000 sq miles) of its waters for precious metals – an area bigger than the size of the UK.

The move was blocked after the country’s Socialist Left Party said it would not support the government’s budget unless it scrapped the first licensing round, set for 2025.

Environmental scientists had warned the move could be catastrophic for marine life, while the plans were opposed by 32 countries including France, Canada, Brazil and Germany.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoer called Sunday’s development a “postponement” and said preparatory work on regulations and environmental impact would continue.

Greenpeace Norway’s Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle said the pause was “a huge win”.

“It has been truly embarrassing to watch Norway positioning itself as an ocean leader, while planning to give green light to ocean destruction in its own waters.”

The country’s energy ministry has not yet commented.

• Deep-sea mining: Norway approves controversial practice
• Is seabed mining an economic necessity or a hazard?

Norway became the first country in the world to move forward with commercial-scale deep-sea mining when it approved the plans in January.

The deep sea is home to minerals such as lithium, scandium and cobalt – which are critical for green technologies.

Although the metals are available on land, they are concentrated in a small number of countries, increasing the risk to supply.

Oslo said it did not want to rely on China for such materials, stressing it would only begin issuing licences once more environmental research was carried out.

The move put Norway at odds with the EU and the UK, which have called for a temporary ban on the practice due to concerns about environmental damage.

• What is the UN High Seas Treaty and why is it needed?

More than 100 EU lawmakers called on Oslo to reject the project, citing the risk “to marine biodiversity and the acceleration of climate change”.

The country’s Institute of Marine Research criticised the government’s research into the move’s environmental impact – saying five to 10 more years of work were needed.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Norway said in a statement last week it was suing the government over the plans.

At least three Norwegian seabed mineral start-ups had said they would bid in the first licensing round.

On Monday, one of the start-ups – Green Minerals – said it expected a delay of up to a year following the plans’ suspension.

Neighbours actor Ian Smith, who plays Harold Bishop on the Australian soap, has announced he is leaving the show after revealing he has terminal cancer.

The 86-year-old told Australia’s 10 News First programme he had pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma, a rare form of lung cancer.

“I found out a few months back that I have cancer, that I have a very aggressive non-fixable cancer and they expect me to die,” he said.

Actress Anne Charleston, who played Madge, will return alongside Bishop for some of his last scenes.

Smith said: “I’ve had three chemos – although, the first one wasn’t chemo, it was immunotherapy, which is reasonably new to the medical world.

“I’ve really put my hand up, I think just to be a guinea pig plus the fact I don’t want to die, I want to stay alive with quality as long as I can – and if they can do that, I’m very happy.

“But I wake up every morning hoping there’s no pain, because I know that’s the beginning of the bad part”.

A post on the Neighbours X account says: “Harold waves goodbye to Ramsay Street.

“We’re sharing the sad news that Ian Smith will soon be stepping away from the beloved role of Harold Bishop.

“Ian first played Harold in 1987 and it’s been a huge privilege to welcome him back to the show over the years.”

The soap said: “In what context Anne will appear is yet to be revealed – but to have the iconic couple reunited will be one final treat for fans.

“Erinsborough won’t quite be the same again – but rest assured that Harold is set to have a send-off fit for Ramsay Street royalty.”

Smith told 10 News First about the death of his wife Gail, from cancer, in 2019.

“That, really, I think if that hadn’t happened, I’d be a lot worse off now – but my life finished then,” he said.

“I’ve seen so many deaths.

“I’ve seen some good ones and I’ve seen bad ones – and I’m hoping I’ll go the nice way.”

Smith first appeared in Neighbours in 1987, playing an old flame of Madge’s.

Due to appear in only a few episodes, his much-loved character ended up staying until 1991, when Harold was washed out to sea while on holiday.

He returned to the soap in 1996, until 2009 – and after a few subsequent guest appearances, came back as a regular earlier this year.

Huge flooding caused by heavy rain in Malaysia and neighbouring Thailand has killed at least 12 people, officials say.

More than 122,000 people have been forced out of their homes in northern Malaysia, while in southern Thailand, around 13,000 others have also been displaced.

There are fears the number could rise, as heavy rain and storm warnings remain in place.

Emergency services personnel have been deployed to help rescue stranded residents and shelters are being provided.

The flooding, which began earlier in the week, has seen thousands of residents evacuated in both nations.

Videos on social media and local news show cars and houses submerged, and people wading through waist-deep water.

One video, filmed in Thailand’s Sateng Nok district, showed rescuers carrying a baby out from a roof of a flooded home.

Flooding has impacted nearly 534,000 households in southern Thailand, disaster officials said, and two hospitals had to close to prevent floodwaters from damaging medical facilities.

Six provinces have declared a disaster due to the floods.

The government has designated 50 million baht ($1.7m; £1.3m) in flood relief for each province, with Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra saying the goal is to “restore normalcy as quickly as possible”.

In Malaysia, the flooding is mostly concentrated on the north-eastern state of Kelantan, which borders Thailand.

There, the National Disaster Management Agency says the evacuees account for 63% of the total number.

One resident in the town of Pasir Puteh in Kelantan said her area had been flooded since Wednesday.

“The water has already reached my house corridor and is just two inches away from coming inside,” Zamrah Majid told AFP news agency.

Another resident of the same town said he and his family have been isolated by the floods.

“There’s no way in or out of for any vehicles to enter my neighbourhood,” Muhammad Zulkarnain told AFP.

Another eight states in Malaysia have also been affected.

So far, the number of those displaced surpasses that of 2014, which saw one of the worst floods in the country.

Provisions for disaster management have been sent to Terengganu and Kelantan State Governments, according to the prime minister’s office.

On Friday, he barred his cabinet members from going on leave so they can focus on the disaster.

The Malaysian Meteorological Department warned that heavy rains will continue until Sunday in some states, while its Thai counterpart warned that “very heavy rain” could continue through next week.

Both countries experience monsoon rains around this time of the year, and flooding isn’t uncommon.

In 2021, Malaysia faced some of its worse flooding in decades, which killed at least 14 people.

Ten years earlier, in 2011, widespread flooding across Thailand killed at least 500 people and damaged millions of homes.

There are nine seats left to be filled in the Irish general election.

Only a small number of seats separate the three major parties with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael best placed to form a coalition government.

However, Sinn Féin insists it will still be involved in the coalition talks.

Candidates fought it out for 174 seats in the Dáil (Irish Parliament), 88 of which are needed to secure a majority.

First preference percentage share for the largest three parties was: Fianna Fáil 21.9%, Fine Gael 20.8%, Sinn Féin 19.0%.

Turnout for the election was 59.7%, the lowest in more than a century.

Counting began again after 09:00 local time on Monday. Currently Fianna Fáil is in the lead with 44 seats.

Fine Gael has 37 seats – the same number as the main outgoing opposition party Sinn Féin.

Fianna Fáil’s deputy leader Jack Chambers told RTE’s Morning Ireland on Monday that he did not expect a new government to be formed before Christmas.

But he said he did not expect talks to take five months like the last time.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael served together in the outgoing government, along with the Green Party.

However, the Greens have had a disappointing election having secured just one seat so far.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are expected to return with a seat total in the mid-80s.

To return to government, they may need the support of one of the smaller parties or a number of the many independent politicians who are expected to be elected as the counting of votes continues on Monday.

The frontrunner to be the next taoiseach (Irish prime minister) is Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin.

However Sinn Féin is adamant that it has a role to play in the negotiations and plans to consult with other left-leaning parties.

But, at best, those parties are likely to finish with a combined total in the 60s and would therefore need the support of independents.

Based on current predictions, the scale of the challenge facing Sinn Féin is enormous.

Nothing at this stage can be ruled out as weeks, if not months, of political talks are now likely.

Former Finance Minister, Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers, who was re-elected in the Dublin West constituency, said his party was “very clear” on its position with Sinn Féin.

“There is no common ground when it comes to substance in policy,” he added.

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster, Chambers said: “We’re going to significantly increase our representation here in the capital of Dublin and indeed across the country.

“And we will have a greater level of representation in the next Dáil than we did in the last one, and that’s having served in government when we had serious economic challenges.”

Among the new Teachtaí Dála (TDs), as members of the Dáil are known, is Fine Gael’s Emer Currie.

The former Irish senator is a daughter of the late Northern Ireland politician Austin Currie, who co-founded the Social Democratic and Labour Party.

“He would have been absolutely delighted,” Currie told Good Morning Ulster, adding that her election was a “very special” moment for her whole family.

With her party in line to return to government, Currie said the result of the election seemed to indicate that the public was content with the status quo.

“It’s a statement that they felt that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were working well together,” she said.

Sinn Féin’s Mairéad Farrell, who topped the poll in Galway West, said Sinn Féin were going to speak “to other progressive parties” to consider “how we can move forward”.

“We’ve always been very clear that we want to be in government, we believe strongly that there needs to be a mandate for change and that all parties should listen to the electorate,” she added.

Meanwhile, Cian O’Callaghan, deputy leader of Social Democrats, said there was a “possibility of a coalition with left parties in it” but due to the results so far, a left only government would not be possible.

Callaghan has been re-elected in Dublin Bay North.

Responding to claims that the left failed to coalesce their argument before the election, O’Callaghan said: “I think every party needs to stand on their own two feet and make the case to the electorate as to why people should vote for them.

“The reason we have different parties is because there is differences and it gives people a different choice as well in the election.”

The Green Party will be “very disappointed” in their results according to Lisa Keenan, assistant professor of political science at Trinity College, Dublin.

The Greens were the smallest junior coalition partner in the last government.

“They were going into in this election with 12 seats, they’ve lost all but one,” she said.

“They were perceived to be lucky to hold on to that one – that’s the seat of their leader Roderic O’Gorman.

“And I think for them it’s a little bit tough to take in a sense that in government they achieved many, many important policy wins.”

US President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose 100% tariffs on a bloc of nine nations if they were to create a rival currency to the US dollar.

“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump wrote on social media on Saturday.

Major world powers China and Russia are part of the Brics alliance, along with Brazil, India, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.

During the US election, Trump campaigned on implementing widespread tariffs. He has escalated threats of steep levies in recent days.

This latest message from Trump, who will take office next year on 20 January, was aimed at the Brics, a bloc of mostly emerging economies.

Leading politicians in Brazil and Russia have suggested creating a Brics currency to reduce the US dollar’s dominance in global trade. But internal disagreement has slowed any progress.

“We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new Brics currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or they will face 100% tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“They can go find another sucker,” he said.

But some Trump allies have suggested his recent announcements have been negotiation tactics, meant as more of an opening bid than a promise.

Asked about the president-elect’s proposed use of tariffs, Republican Senator Ted Cruz responded by noting the “importance of leverage”.

“You look at the threat of tariffs against Mexico and Canada, immediately has produced action,” the Texan said on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an unscheduled trip to Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago, seemingly to head off a potential 25% tariff on Canadian goods heading south.

Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has previously suggested that the president-elect’s threats to impose major tariff hikes were part of his negotiating strategy.

“My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” Bessent said of Trump in an interview with the Financial Times before he was nominated for the role.

“It’s escalate to de-escalate.”

A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter the country, proportional to the value of the import. So a car imported to the US with a value of $50,000 subject to a 25% tariff, would face a $12,500 charge.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

He has previously claimed that these taxes are “not going to be a cost to you, it’s a cost to another country”.

This is almost universally regarded by economists as misleading.

The charge is physically paid by the domestic company that imports the goods, not the foreign company that exports them.

So, in that sense, it is a straightforward tax paid by domestic US firms to the US government.

Trump imposed a number of tariffs in his first term of office, many of which have been kept in place by his successor, President Joe Biden. Economic studies suggest most of the economic burden was ultimately borne by US consumers.

• Brics: What is the group and which countries have joined?
• ‘Trump tariffs may backfire’
• US firms race to get ahead of Trump tariffs

MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace has apologised for suggesting allegations against him came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.

In a video posted on his Instagram story, he said: “I want to apologise for any offence that I caused with my post yesterday, and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people.

“I wasn’t in a good head space when I posted it. I’ve been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion, I felt very alone, under siege, yesterday, when I posted it.

“It’s obvious to me I need to take some time out while this investigation is under way. I hope you understand and I do hope that you will accept this apology.”

Meanwhile, the BBC has confirmed it will go ahead with the broadcast of the current series of MasterChef.

“MasterChef is life-changing for the chefs that take part and the show is about more than one individual,” a BBC spokesman said on Monday afternoon.

Wallace’s apology follows an earlier video, uploaded on Sunday, in which he said there had been “13 complaints” from “over 4,000 contestants” he had worked with in 20 years on the BBC show MasterChef.

He suggested allegations that he had behaved inappropriately came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.

One of his accusers said the comments showed he “clearly hasn’t learnt his lesson”, while another said he wrongly “seems to be saying he’s the victim of classism”.

Ulrika Jonsson, who claimed she was told that Wallace made a “rape joke” during her time on Celebrity MasterChef, told the Daily Telegraph she felt Wallace’s response showed “the arrogance of a man who has zero introspection or self-awareness”.

“When he made reference to women of a certain age I was just seething… I was just absolutely wild,” she said.

Wallace stepped back from MasterChef last week after allegations were made that he had made inappropriate comments while working on the show.

A BBC investigation heard from 13 people spanning a range of ages, who worked across five different programmes.

Wallace has denied behaviour of a sexually harassing nature.

He has not responded to requests for an interview from BBC News.

• Wallace’s response to MasterChef claims was misogynistic, says No 10
• MasterChef’s Gregg Wallace steps aside after allegations
• Wallace was ‘fascinated by my sex life and made lesbian jokes’
• Gregg Wallace denies inappropriate sexual comments
• Gregg Wallace hits out at ‘handful’ of accusers
• ‘Rigorous’ law firm to lead Wallace probe – MasterChef producers
• Accusers criticise Wallace’s response to allegations

Earlier on Monday, a Downing Street spokesman described Wallace’s comments as “inappropriate and misogynistic”.

“As you know, the BBC is conducting an independent review into workplace culture, which must deliver clear and timely recommendations, and it’s essential that staff and the wider public have confidence that the BBC takes these issues seriously,” a government spokesman said.

Asked whether Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer believed the BBC represented good value for money after another scandal involving one of its presenters, the spokesman replied: “As I say, it’s important that the public have got confidence that the BBC are taking these issues seriously.

“It’s right that the BBC are conducting this independent review, and the public would expect to see clear and timely recommendations, followed up on as result of this review.”

No 10 has also confirmed Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy held talks with BBC bosses in the wake of the row about Wallace’s alleged behaviour.

MasterChef will continue on BBC One at 21:00 GMT on Monday, with further episodes scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday.

All three of this week’s episodes have already been made available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

A Christmas special is also due to be broadcast later this month. In a press release issued on Friday, the BBC said viewers could “expect fireworks, great Christmas banter and good food”.

On Monday morning, MP Rupa Huq suggested the BBC consider pausing the series while Wallace’s behaviour is investigated.

She told BBC News the broadcast of further episodes of MasterChef “could be massively triggering for the women involved, in fact any woman involved in any type of similar incidents”, and said the BBC should consider pausing the series “out of sensitivity”.

But the BBC confirmed later in the day it would broadcast the series as planned for the sake of the contestants who had taken part.

Production company Banijay UK said it has launched an investigation, with which Wallace was co-operating, while the BBC has said it will “always listen if people want to make us aware of something directly”.

People who have come forward with allegations against Wallace include former BBC Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark, who said he told stories and jokes of a “sexualised nature” in front of contestants and crew when she was on Celebrity MasterChef.

Other allegations we have heard include Wallace talking openly about his sex life, taking his top off in front of a female worker saying he wanted to “give her a fashion show”, and telling a junior female colleague he wasn’t wearing any boxer shorts under his jeans.

BBC News has also spoken to a former MasterChef worker who says he showed her topless pictures of himself and asked for massages, and a former worker on Channel 5’s Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends, who says he was fascinated by the fact she dated women and asked for the logistics of how it worked.

Another female worker on MasterChef in 2019 says Wallace talked about his sex life; a female worker on the BBC Good Food Show in 2010 says Wallace stared at her chest; and a male worker on MasterChef in 2005-06 says Wallace regularly said sexually explicit things on set.

But some workers have spoken of more positive experiences with Wallace.

One former worker on Inside the Factory told the BBC he made a lot of “dad jokes” but it never went beyond that.

A former MasterChef worker said nothing during her time there was concerning. Another said she didn’t feel there was any malice to his comments, although she understood why some people may have felt uncomfortable.

Wallace has also re-posted comments on social media from former contestants who said they had positive memories of working with him.

Joe Biden had repeadely denied that he was going to pardon his son Hunter for his gun and tax evasion convictions or commute what was shaping up to be a substantive prison sentence.

On the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving – at a moment when the American public’s attention was decidedly elsewhere – he announced he had changed his mind.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” he wrote in a press statement announcing his decision. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Biden’s move has already prompted furious claims of hypocrisy from Republicans – for breaking his promise and for using his presidential power to protect his son. One Democratic governor, Jared Polis of Colorado, quickly released a statement saying he was “disappointed” and that the move would “tarnish” the outgoing president’s reputation.

• Follow live reaction to this story
• President Biden’s statement in full
• What did Hunter Biden do and what is a presidential pardon?
• Full story: Biden highlights ‘miscarriage of justice’

Presidents have pardoned family members in the past. In 2001, Bill Clinton issued clemency for his brother Roger’s 1985 drug conviction. Hunter Biden’s “full and unconditional” pardon was particularly broad, however. It covers his criminal convictions, as well as any future charges for “offenses against the United States” from the start of 2014 to this Sunday.

That time period includes two years that Hunter Biden served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma and was involved in other international dealings while his father served as vice-president. Republicans have alleged that Hunter Biden had improperly benefitted from his father’s position of power and that the elder Biden had been connected to his son’s business dealings.

The president’s explanation for the pardon might sound familiar to anyone who has listened to Donald Trump rail against America’s system of justice in recent years.

Trump, as he exited the White House in 2021, issued a series of pardons for his close associates and allies who had been swept up in the multiple criminal investigations that encircled him throughout his presidential term. In doing so, he bypassed established White House procedures for exercising the broad presidential pardon power. And although he was criticised for the action at the time, there were little if any political consequences.

Last week, in fact, Trump announced that he was nominating one of his 2021 pardon recipients – Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner – to be US ambassador to France. Kushner had been convicted of campaign finance violations, tax evasion and witness tampering in 2005 and served two years in prison.

With Biden’s political career drawing to a close, however, there is little price he could pay for his action. And given that Democrats lost power in both Congress and the White House last month, there are few members of the party in a position of power to face the consequences.

If Vice-President Kamala Harris had won, her presidential transition would have been derailed at least temporarily, as she would have been pressed to condemn Biden’s move. It may have made such a sweeping act by Biden less likely. Instead, the national attention will quickly shift back to the incoming Trump presidency.

The rules governing presidential pardoning – or at the very least the processes and established guardrails that had guided its use – appear to have been fundamentally and permanently altered. At this point there may be scarce grounds for anyone to complain, no matter on which side of the political aisle they stand.

“With this decision, Biden has now made it easier for Trump to abuse the clemency power again,” Jeffrey Crouch, a legal expert from American University, told CBS, the BBC’s US partner. “If presidents from both political parties feel free to abuse clemency without consequence, the pardon power becomes less a tool of grace and more of a political instrument.”

The Trump camp was quick to issue a response to the news of the Biden pardon, saying that the president-elect would fix the US justice system and restore due process in his second term.

It’s something to keep in mind when Trump returns to office, as he is expected to again use his pardoning power to aid associates who have been prosecuted during the Biden presidency – and to free many of his supporters who have been convicted during the 6 January, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

Trump mentioned the 6 January cases when criticising the Hunter Biden pardon, and he is likely to cite the president’s action when he issues his own round of pardons next year.

Both sides will continue to accuse the other of partisan prosecutions and governing as though they are above the law. An American public that polls suggest already is sceptical of ethics in government may now be even more convinced that both sides share the blame.

Three people have died and at least 32 were hospitalised in the Philippines after eating an endangered sea turtle cooked in stew.

Dozens of indigenous Teduray people reported symptoms such as diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal spasms since eating the dish last week in a seaside town in Maguindanao del Norte Province, officials said.

While it is illegal to hunt or consume sea turtles under the Philippines’ environmental protection laws, the marine creatures are still eaten as a traditional delicacy in some communities.

But sea turtles that consume contaminated algae – including those that appear healthy – can be toxic when cooked and eaten.

Some of the dogs, cats and chickens that were fed the same sea turtle also died, Irene Dillo, a local official, told the BBC. She added that authorities were investigating the cause of the deaths.

The sea turtle was cooked as adobo, a popular Filipino dish consisting of meat and vegetables stewed in vinegar and soy sauce.

Residents of Datu Blah Sinsuat, a coastal town known for its white, sandy beaches and clear waters, frequently get their food from the sea. “It was unfortunate because there is so much other seafood in their village – lobsters, fish,” Ms Dillo said.

Most of the residents who were hospitalised have since been discharged, local media reported, while the three who died were buried immediately – in line with local tradition.

Datu Mohamad Sinsuat Jr, a local councillor, said that he has told local officials to strictly enforce the ban on hunting sea turtles in the region, vowing “this food poisoning incident will never happen again”.

Most sea turtle species are classified as endangered, and it is illegal in the Philippines to collect, harm or kill any of them. However sea turtles are hunted in some cultures for their flesh and eggs, which are believed to contain medicinal properties.

In 2013, 68 people in Philippines’ Eastern Samar Province fell ill – and four of them died – after consuming a sea turtle found near their village.

Shaun Flores was 11 years old when he first started watching porn, after being introduced to it by a friend.

“I was hooked almost immediately,” the now 30-year-old says.

“It was just like, wow, what is this that people are doing where they look like they’re just having the time of their lives.”

Shaun’s curiosity quickly turned into something that he found difficult to stop.

He describes watching porn morning, noon and night, saying it became as “common as brushing your teeth”.

Shaun has shared his story in a new BBC iPlayer series, Sex After.

“I realised there was an issue when I had no energy to do anything,” he says. “I didn’t want to play football, I just wanted to be inside.

“But there was the guilt and the shame that came with it, and no matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t stop watching it.

“That’s when I knew there was something up.”

While not everyone who watches porn will develop an unhealthy relationship with it, Shaun isn’t alone in his viewing habits.

Ofcom’s Online Nation 2024 report suggests 29% of UK adults accessed online porn in May 2024. Additionally, new research from addiction treatment centre, UKAT, suggests that millions of Britons are viewing pornography regularly – with 1.8 million watching daily, some multiple times a day.

According to treatment providers, more people are seeking help for problematic porn use.

Dr Paula Hall, a UKCP-accredited sexual and relationship psychotherapist at The Laurel Centre, in London, specialises in helping people affected by sex addiction and porn addiction.

“The numbers of clients seeking help with pornography problems at The Laurel Centre have doubled over recent years, as have our requests from health professionals for further training,” she tells the BBC.

Dr Hall explains that they have also seen a growing number of younger people seeking help.

“Ten years ago the majority of our clients would have been married men in their 40s and 50s who were seeking help because their partner had discovered their use of sex workers,” she says.

“But increasingly, our clients are in their 20s and 30s, many of whom are single, who are recognising the growing toll of porn use on their lives and on their ability to get or maintain a relationship.”

Lee Fernandes, lead therapist at the UKAT Group, also says the number of people they treat for problematic porn use has risen “significantly” in recent years.

They now receive multiple enquiries for help from people struggling with their porn use every single day. Prior to 2020, it was one or two enquiries a week

Fernandes explains that advancements in technology and the subsequent easy accessibility of porn is making it easier for people of all ages to access sexual content online. He believes his is contributing to the increase in people seeking help that he has experienced.

“It’s not very hard for someone to pull out their phone, go onto a site and look at porn, whether they’re 12 years old or 60 years old,” he says. “It is quite troubling.”

According to Fernandes, other reasons for people watching porn online include curiosity, boredom, stress relief and lack of sexual satisfaction.

While porn use might start for these reasons, Fernandes describes it as being “very addictive”.

“It fulfils that dopamine reward system,” he explains. “Once you start it’s quite difficult to stop.”

However, while problematic porn use might mimic an addiction, it isn’t diagnostically recognised as such.

Instead, it is categorised as problematic online pornography use (POPU), or compulsive behaviour.

For people who develop this relationship with porn, the effects can be negative.

And for the youngest in society who are growing up with free, hardcore content at their fingertips, the impact of early overexposure can be far reaching.

The Children’s Commissioner for England promotes and protects the rights of children.

Recent research from their office found that, in 2023, 10% of children had seen porn by the age of nine and 27% had seen it by age 11.

“Young people tell me their exposure to pornography is widespread and normalised – with the average age at which children first seeing pornography being 13 years old,” Dame Rachel de Souza, the current Children’s Commissioner, tells the BBC.

“Pornography is no longer confined to dedicated adult sites – children tell me they can see violent content, depicting coercive, degrading or pain-inducing sexual acts on social media.

“The implications of seeing this kind of material are vast – my research has found that frequent users of pornography are more likely to engage in physically aggressive sex acts.”

De Souza adds that it is “vital” for high-quality relationship and sex education to be given parity of importance with other subjects to help young people understand that pornography is unrealistic.

Silva Neves, a psychotherapist who specialises in the treatment of compulsive sexual behaviours, agrees that viewing porn at a young age can have a negative impact.

However, he emphasises that the lack of quality sex education for young people leads to them looking for information elsewhere.

“They’re then going to see hairless vulvas,” he says. “They’re going to see 9in penises.

“They’re going to see hard intercourse lasting for 30 minutes and choking, and all these things, and they’re going to think, ‘ok, so this is sex’.

“But it’s much easier to point the finger at porn and say porn is the problem.”

Courtney Daniella Boateng, 26, first started watching porn when she was at primary school.

For her, it was partly driven by the lack of proper sex education available to her. She explains that her classes at school were focussed on the biology of reproduction, rather than the experience of sex.

She says that the taboo that seemed to exist around it made it even more fascinating to try and understand it.

“I ended up searching for sex videos,” she explains. “It was a very wide door that had just blown open into a whole new world.”

Courtney started off watching sporadically, sometimes on the weekends or occasionally before school. But then, she says, it turned into almost every day.

“That was when I started to realise this is having a negative effect on me because I’m doing this way too often,” she says.

Courtney lost her virginity when she was 18 – a moment she describes as “terrible”.

“It never felt like real life matched up to the hype…that I got from watching porn or masturbating,” she says.

Courtney eventually realised that she had an unhealthy dependency on porn.

“I would always find myself fighting whether I could actually stop and it would literally just leave me feeling so powerless,” she said.

She stopped watching porn in her early 20s and decided to become celibate. Along with her fiancé, they have committed to abstinence until after their wedding.

For Shaun, his excessive porn habit led to him being “exhausted” from masturbating.

“I think the role that it [porn] had to play was that it distorted my sense of self, and gave me a dysmorphia around sex, or my body, or my penis,” he says.

However, experts say it is important to recognise that, for many people, it is possible to have a healthy relationship with porn. For some, there may even be benefits.

For example, research conducted by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) suggests that porn provides a way for young people unsure of their sexuality to understand themselves better.

‘’We must remember that an unhealthy relationship with porn only occurs when the individual has lost the power of choice; they cannot function normally in their day to day lives without watching porn,” concludes Fernandes.

“We would urge anyone who thinks they fall into this category to seek professional help.”

“It’s left me with a lot of unlearning to do,” says Courtney. “I have had to learn what realistic sex was.

“I have had to learn to love my body and not compare it to other women’s bodies.

“I have had to learn to love and not objectify people, men and women. And not just see them as sexual objects, but actually see them as people.

“If I could rewind the clock, I wouldn’t have started it.”

For Shaun, giving up is one of the “best decisions” he’s ever made.

“The addiction made me lose connections and now I’m trying to be connected to people that I generally love and I really care about,” he says.

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier has used special powers to push through a social security budget bill without a vote by MPs, in a move expected to trigger a vote of no confidence in his minority government.

The government is unlikely to survive the vote, which the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) opposition party said it would trigger this afternoon. It could take place as early as Wednesday.

Marine le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) said it would support the vote.

Despite last-minute concessions, Barnier clearly did not think he would be able to get his budget bill over the line.

The New Popular Front, an alliance of several left-wing parties, came out top against Macron’s supporters and the far right following early elections in July.

The alliance was left furious by Macron’s decision to veer to the centre right by picking Barnier as his new prime minister, and promised to vote against the government.

This has meant that Barnier has until now had to rely on the RN for his government’s survival.

He used article 49.3 of the French constitution, which allows the text of a bill to be passed without a vote, to push through his 2025 budget after the RN joined the left in opposing it.

“I don’t think French people will forgive us for choosing party interests over the future of the country,” Barnier told MPs on Tuesday as he explained the reasons for his decision. “Now, everybody will need to assume their own responsibility as I have assumed mine.”

Marine le Pen explained the RN position.

“Barnier didn’t listen to the 11 million voters of the RN… He said everyone should assume their own responsibility, and that’s what we will do,” she said.

Barnier was invited to form a government by President Emmanuel Macron in September.

If Barnier doesn’t survive Wednesday’s vote, he will remain in place as a caretaker prime minister until Macron announces a new government.

That could be a new majority government – unlikely given the splintering of the French parliament – or a technocratic government, to steer the country until new elections can be held next summer.

Several parties are also clamouring for new presidential elections. As it stands, Macron is due to stay in post until 2027.

Wearable tech – currently dominated by smart watches – is a multi-billion dollar industry with a sharp focus on health tracking.

Many premium products claim to accurately track exercise routines, body temperature, heart rate, menstrual cycle and sleep patterns, among others.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has talked about a proposal to give wearables to millions of NHS patients in England, enabling them to track symptoms such as reactions to cancer treatments, from home.

But many doctors – and tech experts – remain cautious about using health data captured by wearables.

I’m currently trying out a smart ring from the firm Ultrahuman – and it seemed to know that I was getting sick before I did.

It alerted me one weekend that my temperature was slightly elevated, and my sleep had been restless. It warned me that this could be a sign I was coming down with something.

I tutted something about the symptoms of perimenopause and ignored it – but two days later I was laid up in bed with gastric flu.

I didn’t need medical assistance, but if I had – would the data from my wearable have helped healthcare professionals with my treatment? Many wearable brands actively encourage this.

The Oura smart ring, for example, offers a service where patients can download their data in the form of a report to share with their doctor.

Dr Jake Deutsch, a US-based clinician who also advises Oura, says wearable data enables him to “assess overall health more precisely” – but not all doctors agree that it’s genuinely useful all of the time.

Dr Helen Salisbury is a GP at a busy practice in Oxford. She says not many patients come in brandishing their wearables, but she’s noticed it has increased, and it concerns her.

“I think for the number of times when it’s useful there’s probably more times that it’s not terribly useful, and I worry that we are building a society of hypochondria and over-monitoring of our bodies,” she says.

Dr Salisbury says there can be a large number of reasons why we might temporarily get abnormal data such as an increased heart rate, whether it’s a blip in our bodies or a device malfunction – and many of them do not require further investigation.

“I’m concerned that we will be encouraging people to monitor everything all the time, and see their doctor every time the machine thinks they’re ill, rather than when they think they’re ill.”

And she makes a further point about the psychological use of this data as a kind of insurance policy against shock health diagnoses. A nasty cancerous tumour for example, is not necessarily going to be flagged by a watch or an app, she says.

What wearables do is encourage good habits – but the best message you can take from them is the same advice doctors have been giving us for years. Dr Salisbury adds: “The thing you can actually do is walk more, don’t drink too much alcohol, try and maintain a healthy weight. That never changes.”

The Apple Watch is reported to be the world’s best-selling smart watch, although sales have slowed lately.

Apple didn’t comment, but the tech giant uses true stories of people whose lives have been saved because of the heart tracking function of the device in its marketing, and anecdotally I have heard plenty of those too. What I haven’t heard however, is how many cases of false positives there are.

In many cases when patients present their data to healthcare professionals, clinicians prefer to try to recreate it using their own equipment, rather than simply trust what the wearable has captured.

There are several reasons for this, says Dr Yang Wei, associate professor in wearable technologies at Nottingham Trent University – and they’re all very practical.

“When you go to hospital, and you measure your ECG [electrocardiogram, a test that checks the activity of your heart], you don’t worry about power consumption because the machine is plugged into the wall,” he says.

“On your watch, you’re not going to measure your ECG continuously because you drain your battery straight away.”

In addition, movement – both of the wearable itself on a wrist, for example, and general movement of the person wearing it – can “create noise” in the data it collects, he adds, making it less reliable.

Dr Wei points to the ring on my finger.

“The gold standard to measure the heart rate is from the wrist or direct from the heart,” he says. “If you measure from the finger, you’re sacrificing accuracy.”

It is the role of software to fill in such data gaps, he says – but there’s no international standard for wearables here – for either the sensors and software that power wearable devices, or for the data itself, and even what format it is gathered in.

The more consistently a device is worn, the more accurate its data is likely to be. But here’s a cautionary tale.

Ben Wood was out for the day when his wife received a series of alarming notifications from his Apple Watch, telling her he had been in a car crash. It advised her to text him rather than call because he may need to keep the line clear for the emergency services.

The alerts were genuine, and sent to her as his emergency contact – but in this case unnecessary. Ben was out at a race track driving some fast cars. He admitted that he “wasn’t very gifted” at it – but said he felt safe at all times.

“The boundaries between incident and alert need to be managed carefully,” he wrote in a blog post. “I’m curious to see how device-makers, emergency services, first responders and individuals think about this technology in the future.”

Pritesh Mistry, digital technologies fellow at the Kings Fund, agrees that there are significant challenges around folding current patient-generated data into our healthcare systems, and adds that the discussion has already been going on for several years in the UK without any clear resolution.

He says there’s “a good case to be made” for the use of wearables in the UK government’s current drive to push care out of hospitals and into community settings.

“But without that underpinning foundation of technology enablement in terms of the infrastructure, and supporting the workforce to have the skills, knowledge, capacity and confidence, I think it’s going to be a challenge,” he adds.

US President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose 100% tariffs on a bloc of nine nations if they were to create a rival currency to the US dollar.

“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump wrote on social media on Saturday.

Major world powers China and Russia are part of the Brics alliance, along with Brazil, India, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.

During the US election, Trump campaigned on implementing widespread tariffs. He has escalated threats of steep levies in recent days.

This latest message from Trump, who will take office next year on 20 January, was aimed at the Brics, a bloc of mostly emerging economies.

Leading politicians in Brazil and Russia have suggested creating a Brics currency to reduce the US dollar’s dominance in global trade. But internal disagreement has slowed any progress.

“We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new Brics currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or they will face 100% tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“They can go find another sucker,” he said.

But some Trump allies have suggested his recent announcements have been negotiation tactics, meant as more of an opening bid than a promise.

Asked about the president-elect’s proposed use of tariffs, Republican Senator Ted Cruz responded by noting the “importance of leverage”.

“You look at the threat of tariffs against Mexico and Canada, immediately has produced action,” the Texan said on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an unscheduled trip to Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago, seemingly to head off a potential 25% tariff on Canadian goods heading south.

Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has previously suggested that the president-elect’s threats to impose major tariff hikes were part of his negotiating strategy.

“My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” Bessent said of Trump in an interview with the Financial Times before he was nominated for the role.

“It’s escalate to de-escalate.”

A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter the country, proportional to the value of the import. So a car imported to the US with a value of $50,000 subject to a 25% tariff, would face a $12,500 charge.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

He has previously claimed that these taxes are “not going to be a cost to you, it’s a cost to another country”.

This is almost universally regarded by economists as misleading.

The charge is physically paid by the domestic company that imports the goods, not the foreign company that exports them.

So, in that sense, it is a straightforward tax paid by domestic US firms to the US government.

Trump imposed a number of tariffs in his first term of office, many of which have been kept in place by his successor, President Joe Biden. Economic studies suggest most of the economic burden was ultimately borne by US consumers.

• Brics: What is the group and which countries have joined?
• ‘Trump tariffs may backfire’
• US firms race to get ahead of Trump tariffs

US President Joe Biden has issued a presidential pardon for his son Hunter, who was facing sentencing for two criminal cases.

The move has proven controversial, since the outgoing president previously ruled out such a move. But he argued that the cases against his son were politically motivated.

His use of his pardoning powers continues a tradition of presidents on both sides of the American political divide granting clemency to people close to them.

Hunter Biden was awaiting sentencing later this month in two federal cases.

In June, he became the first child of a sitting US president to be criminally convicted – in a case relating to his gun ownership. He was found guilty by a jury in Delaware of three charges for lying about his drug use on a form when buying a handgun.

He was also awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in September in a federal tax case that centred on whether he paid enough tax from 2016-19. The nine charges included failure to file and pay his taxes, tax evasion and filing a false return.

He faced up to 25 years in prison in the gun case and 17 years in the tax case, though he was likely to get much shorter tariffs and to serve the two sentences concurrently, experts told the New York Times.

• Follow live reaction to this story
• President Biden’s statement in full
• What has the president said in the past about pardoning his son?
• Analysis: Biden’s pardon for son shows presidents now act differently
• Full story: Biden highlights ‘miscarriage of justice’

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

In this case, the president’s “full and unconditional pardon” covers any potential federal crimes the younger Biden may have committed during a period of more than 10 years from January 2014 to December 2024.

The wording of the pardon also makes clear that it covers any offence that the younger Biden “has committed or may have committed”. That could prevent legal scrutiny of his foreign business dealings such as in Ukraine, which is a major talking point for incoming President Donald Trump and his supporters.

The pardon represents legal forgiveness, ends any further punishment and restores rights such as being able to vote or run for public office.

Although the pardoning power is considered broad, it is not limitless. For example, a president can only issue pardons for federal (national-level) crimes.

The issue is relevant because there is a question mark over the sentencing of Trump in his hush-money case in New York. He will be unable to pardon himself in that state-level case when he returns to the White House in January.

There is a long-standing precedent of US presidents on both sides of the political divide issuing pardons – including to people close to them. This is the 26th pardon issued by Biden, a Democrat.

In 2020, Trump, a Republican, pardoned Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of his daughter Ivanka. Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison in 2004 for charges including tax evasion, campaign finance offences and witness tampering.

And in 2001, Bill Clinton, pardoned his younger half-brother, Roger Clinton, for a cocaine-related offence that dated back to 1985.

In both cases, the pardons were given to people who had already served a sentence. President Biden’s intervention in his son’s case comes before sentencing.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his four years in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center, comprising 143 pardons and 94 commuted sentences. Many were in a flurry before he left office.

That number is significantly fewer than his predecessor Barack Obama, who during his eight-year stint granted 1,927 acts of clemency, according to Pew. These were 1,715 commutations and 212 pardons.

One of the most controversial presidential pardons was granted by Gerald Ford to his predecessor Richard Nixon in 1974 – covering acts that occurred during the Watergate Scandal. It was described as an effort to heal the nation.

The day after he took office in 2021, Biden emphasised that he would do things differently to Trump. His press secretary told reporters that the flurry of last-minute pardons issued by Trump was “not a model… for how President Biden would use his own power. He would use his own power far more judiciously”.

Biden said after his son’s conviction that he would not issue a pardon. In the statement announcing his U-turn, he acknowledged that he had pledged to “not interfere with the justice department’s decision-making”. But, he said, the younger Biden had been “singled out” and subjected to a “miscarriage of justice”.

Trump is among those who have attacked Biden for the move, calling it an “abuse”.

The incoming president asked whether Biden would also pardon people prosecuted over the riot on 6 January 2021 – when Trump’s supporters rioted at the US Capitol building in an effort to thwart the certification of the 2020 election result.

Trump, who faced a series of legal issues while away from the White House, has repeatedly made the allegation that the US justice system has been weaponised against him and his supporters.

He has promised to issue pardons of his own for those who rioted in Washington. But who exactly will be granted clemency, and whether pardons will extend to those convicted of the most serious and violent offences, is still an open question.

The reignited war in Syria is the latest fallout from the turmoil that has gripped the Middle East since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October last year.

The attacks, and Israel’s response, upended the status quo. Events in Syria in the last few days are more proof that the war gripping the Middle East is escalating, not subsiding.

During a decade of war after 2011, Bashar al-Assad’s rule survived because he was prepared to break Syria to save the regime he had inherited from his father.

To do that he relied on powerful allies, Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. They intervened on his side against rebel groups that ranged from the jihadist extremists of Islamic State to militias supported by the US and the rich Gulf monarchies.

Now Iran is reeling from severe blows inflicted by Israel, with US support, on its security in the Middle East. Its ally Hezbollah, which used to send its best men to fight for the Assad regime in Syria, has been crippled by Israel’s attacks. Russia has launched air strikes in the last few days against the rebel offensive in Syria – but its military power is almost entirely earmarked to fight the war in Ukraine.

The war in Syria did not end. It dropped out of the place it used to occupy in headline news, partly because of turbulence across the Middle East and beyond, and because it is almost impossible for journalists to get into the country.

In places the war was suspended, or frozen, but Syria is full of unfinished business.

The Assad regime has never regained the power it had used to control Syria before 2011, the year of the Arab uprisings, though it still kept a gulag of Syrian prisoners in its jails.

Even so, until the last few days, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad controlled the major cities, their surrounding countryside and the main highways connecting them.

Now a coalition of rebel groups, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has broken out of Idlib, the province along the border with Turkey that it controls, and in only a few days since 27 November swept away Syrian troops in a series of “astonishing” events, as one senior international diplomat told me.

Two days into the offensive, they were posting photos of fighters who had taken the ancient citadel of Aleppo, which had been an impregnable base for government troops between 2012 and 2015, when the city was divided between rebels and regime forces.

The atmosphere in Aleppo seems calm after the rout of government troops. One photo on social media showed uniformed and armed rebel fighters queuing for fried chicken at a fast-food outlet.

HTS has roots in al-Qaeda, though it broke with the group in 2016 and at times has fought its rump loyalists. But HTS is still designated as a terrorist group by the UN Security Council and countries including the US, the European Union, Turkey and the UK. (The Syrian regime calls all its opponents terrorists.)

The leader of HTS, Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, has a long history as a jihadist leader in Iraq and Syria. In recent years, though, he has moved away from strict jihadist ideology to try to broaden the appeal of his group.

The rebranding is also being used to attract support for the offensive, which HTS calls Operation Repelling the Aggression. That name, and its official announcements, avoid jihadist language and Islamist references.

Neutral language, according to Mina al-Lami, the jihadist media specialist at BBC Monitoring, is designed to distance what’s happening from the jihadist past of HTS and present the offensive as a joint rebel enterprise against the regime.

Syrians are generally repelled by extreme religious rhetoric. As jihadist groups came to dominate the rebellion after pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed after the first year or so of war after 2011, many Syrians either stayed neutral or sided reluctantly with the regime because they feared the murderous jihadist ideology of Islamic State.

The offensive led by HTS comes out of the splintered political landscape of northern Syria. Much of the north-east is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group led by Kurds and supported by the United States, which stations around 900 troops in the area.

Turkey is a big player, controlling borderlands where it has deployed its own regular troops as well as the militias it sponsors. Sleeper cells drawn from the remnants of Islamic State sometimes mount deadly ambushes on roads through the Syrian desert.

Reports from Syria say that the rebel forces have captured significant supplies of military equipment, including helicopters, and are pressing on towards Hama, the next significant city on the road to Damascus.

Without a doubt the regime and its allies will be working to steady themselves and to hit back, especially with air power. The rebels do not have an air force, though in another sign of the way that unmanned aerial vehicles are revolutionising warfare, there are reports that they used a drone to kill a senior regime intelligence official.

The renewed fighting in Syria is causing international alarm. The UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, issued a statement saying that “the latest developments pose severe risks to civilians and have serious implications for regional and international security… No Syrian party or existing group of actors can resolve the Syrian conflict via military means”.

Pedersen added that there had been “a collective failure to bring about a genuine political process” to implement UN Security Council resolution 2254, which was passed in 2015. That laid out a roadmap for peace, with the principle in the text that “the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria”.

The objective was a future shaped by free elections and a new constitution. But that meant Assad and his family giving up a country that they treated for years as their personal fief. More than half a million dead attest to their determination not to let that happen.

It is too soon to write the Assad regime off. It has a core of genuine support. Some Syrians see it as the least bad option – better than the jihadists who came to dominate the rebellion. But if other anti-Assad groups – and there are many – rise up, his regime will once again be in mortal danger.

Are you spending hours scrolling mindlessly on Instagram reels and TikTok? If so, you might be suffering from brain rot, which Oxford University Press has named its phrase or word of the year.

It is a term that captures concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The usage saw an increase of 230% in its frequency from 2023 to 2024.

Psychologist and Oxford University Professor Andrew Przybylski says the popularity of the word is a “symptom of the time we’re living in”.

Brain rot beat five other phrases or words on the dictionary publisher’s shortlist, including demure, Romantasy and dynamic pricing.

Brain rot is defined as the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging,

The first recorded use of brain rot dates much before the creation of the internet – it was written down in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden.

He criticises society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas and how this is part of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort.

It leads him to ask: “While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”

The word initially gained traction on social media among Gen Z and Gen Alpha communities, but it’s now being used in the mainstream as a way to describe low-quality, low-value content found on social media.

Prof Przybylski says “there’s no evidence of brain rot actually being a thing”.

“Instead it describes our dissatisfaction with the online world and it’s a word that we can use to bundle our anxieties that we have around social media.”

Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, says looking back at the Oxford Word of the Year over the last two decades “you can see society’s growing preoccupation with how our virtual lives are evolving, the way internet culture is permeating so much of who we are and what we talk about”.

“Last year’s winning word, ‘rizz,’ was an interesting example of how language is increasingly formed, shaped, and shared within online communities.

“Brain rot speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.”

• Demure (adj.): Of a person: reserved or restrained in appearance or behaviour. Of clothing: not showy, ostentatious, or overly revealing
• Dynamic pricing (n.): The practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions; in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand
• Lore (n.): A body of (supposed) facts, background information, and anecdotes relating to someone or something, regarded as knowledge required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question
• Romantasy (n.): A genre of fiction combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy, typically featuring themes of magic, the supernatural, or adventure alongside a central romantic storyline
• Slop (n.): Art, writing, or other content generated using artificial intelligence, shared and distributed online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way, and characterized as being of low quality, inauthentic, or inaccurate

Oxford University Press – publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary – is not the only one to have a word of the year. Last month Cambridge Dictionary announced that manifest was its winner.

The traditional definition of manifest included the adjective “easily noticed or obvious” and the noun “to show something clearly through signs or actions”.

It now includes “to manifest” in the sense of “to imagine achieving something you want, in the belief doing so will make it more likely to happen”.

It comes off the back of a global wellness trend endorsed by celebrities including singer Dua Lipa who said she manifested her headline slot at Glastonbury.

Collins English Dictionary also announced in November that its word of the year was brat – a word that has been everywhere over the last couple of months thanks to Charli XCX’s viral album.

Brat is defined as someone with a “confident, independent and hedonistic attitude”.

It started as the name of her number one album, but it has arguably grown into a cultural movement for some, with people adopting the brat way of life.

Another internet phenomenon has inspired the Dictionary.com word of the year which is demure.

The word took off in August after content creator Jools Lebron, posted on TikTok abut her demure work outfit and mindful make-up.

The “very demure, very mindful” trend took off after that and the satirical idea pokes fun at the stereotypical ideas of femininity.

Donald Trump has named his daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, as an adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

The Lebanese American businessman is the second in-law to be offered a position in the incoming administration, after Trump picked Charles Kushner, his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, to serve as ambassador to France.

Mr Boulos played a key unofficial role in the Trump campaign, helping him court Arab American and Muslim voters as many of them grew frustrated with the Biden administration over the Israel-Gaza war.

Announcing the appointment on social media, Trump said Mr Boulos was “instrumental in building tremendous new coalitions with the Arab American community”.

“He has been a longtime proponent of Republican and Conservative values,” Trump said on Truth Social, adding that Mr Boulos was an “asset” to his campaign.

On the campaign trail, Mr Boulos appealed to Arab American and Muslim voters by promising them that Trump would restore peace in the Middle East.

His efforts exploited a big vulnerability for the Harris campaign, who struggled to win support from Arab and Muslim Americans due to US support of Israel during the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.

“Those massacres would not have happened if there was a strong president at the White House,” Mr Boulos told Trump supporters in Arizona earlier this year, referring to the mounting civilian deaths in Gaza. “The entire war wouldn’t have happened.”

It is unclear how Mr Boulos intends to leverage his advisory role. Born in Lebanon, he is known to have forged ties with several political factions in his birth country.

He told the Associated Press in June that he is a “friend” of Sleiman Frangieh, a Christian Lebanese politician who is allied with the Shia Muslim political party and militant group Hezbollah.

Mr Boulos has already served as something of an informal liaison between Trump and Middle Eastern leaders, the New York Times reported.

He is also reported to have met Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

At that meeting, Mr Boulos reportedly conveyed Trump’s desire to end the Israel-Gaza war and other conflicts around the world.

Mr Boulos moved to Texas as a teenager, according to a profile of him in the New Arab, where he attended the University of Houston and obtained a law degree.

He has since worked at his family’s business – a Nigeria-based billion-dollar company that specialises in the distribution of motor vehicles and equipment across West Africa.

Unlike some of Trump’s other appointments, Mr Boulos’ advisory role does not require confirmation by the US Senate.

At least 56 people have been killed in a crush at a football match in Guinea’s second-largest city, Nzérékoré, the government says.

Some reports indicate that events unravelled following a decision by the referee, who sent off two players from the visiting team, Labé, and awarded a controversial penalty kick.

An inquiry is being launched to find those responsible, Prime Minister Oury Bah said in a statement, calling the events “tragic” and offering his condolences to the bereaved.

One doctor, who did not want to be named, told AFP news agency there were “bodies lined up as far as the eye can see in the hospital”.

“Others are lying on the floor in the hallways. The morgue is full,” he added.

Local media said police had used tear gas after supporters of the visiting team, Labé, threw stones towards the pitch in anger at the referee.

“It all started with a contested decision by the referee. Then fans invaded the pitch,” one witness told AFP.

Videos and images on social media verified by the BBC show chaotic scenes outside the stadium, with large crowds attempting to climb over walls and numerous bodies on the ground.

Some of those lying unresponsive on the ground appear to be children.

Paul Sakouvogi, a local journalist in Nzérékoré, told the BBC that internet access in the region had been restricted, and that police were guarding the entrance to the hospital where the injured were being treated.

“I observed six police pick-ups positioned in front of the three entrances to the hospital. They allowed only the medical staff to access the hospital, while the others were told to go back the way they came.”

Prime Minister Bah has paid tribute to the dozens of people killed and promised full medical and psychological support to all those injured.

Guinea’s football body, Feguifoot, has called it a moment of “intense pain” and said that football is meant to “unite hearts and bring minds closer” not cause “tragedy and grief”.

Thousands of spectators were present when the crush happened at a match between Nzérékoré and Labé, local news website MediaGuinée reported.

Sunday’s match was part of a tournament in honour of President Mamady Doumbouya, who seized power in a coup in September 2021.

The opposition says the matches are part of a wider campaign to drum up support for the junta leader ahead of a possible run for the presidency.

On Monday, the opposition group National Alliance for Change and Democracy also accused the authorities of having “significant responsibility for these grave events”.

The government has not responded to this.

In recent months there has been increased scrutiny of powerful figures in Guinean football.

In July, Aboubacar Sampil, who is president of the country’s football body Feguifoot, became the subject of an investigation into corruption and violence in football.

A junior colleague accused Mr Sampil, who also leads the board of directors for local team ASK, of facilitating violence and trying to influence referees at a match that ASK was losing 0-1 to Milo FC.

The latter team had to abandon the game and had trouble leaving the ground safely, according to documents filed to Feguifoot’s ethics body.

Among other things, Mr Sampil has also been accused of bypassing protocol and unliterally appointing people to jobs.

He has always denied any wrongdoing.