South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, almost two weeks after his short-lived declaration of martial law plunged the country into its worst political crisis for decades.

In dramatic scenes at the national assembly in Seoul, 204 lawmakers voted for an opposition motion to impeach Yoon, while an estimated 200,000 protesters outside demanded he be thrown out of office.

Saturday was the second opportunity in a week the assembly’s lawmakers had to begin the process of ousting Yoon, whose approval ratings have plummeted to 11%.

To succeed, the opposition parties, which together control 192 seats, needed at least eight members of Yoon’s People Power party (PPP) to vote in favour to reach the required two-thirds majority of 200 in the 300-seat chamber.

In the end, 12 PPP members were willing to throw their support behind impeachment.

South Korean TV said 85 MPs had voted against, while three ballots were spoilt and eight were ruled invalid. Huge cheers erupted outside the chamber as the results were announced, and MPs left to applause from onlookers.

Yoon, who was immediately suspended, called on South Koreans to support the acting president, Han Duck-soo, but vowed to continue fighting for his political future as the impeachment process enters its next stage.

“Although I am stopping for now, the journey I have walked with the people over the past two and a half years toward the future must never come to a halt. I will never give up,” Yoon said in a televised address.

Han promised to ensure stability after Yoon’s impeachment. “I will give all my strength and efforts to stabilise the government,” he told reporters.

The spotlight will now move to the country’s constitutional court, whose six justices must vote unanimously in favour to uphold parliament’s decision.

Yoon will now be suspended from office while the court deliberates. It has 180 days to rule on Yoon’s future. If it approves the motion, South Koreans must elect a new president within 60 days of its ruling.

On the eve of the vote the opposition Democratic party leader, Lee Jae-myung, implored PPP lawmakers to side with the people “wailing out in the freezing streets”. “History will remember and record your choice,” Lee said.

Crowds braving the bitter cold outside the national assembly building erupted in celebration as the result was announced. Some people – many of them young South Koreans – danced, sang, exchanged hugs and waved K-pop light sticks, which have quickly become a symbol of resistance.

“I’m so happy I have no words,” said a 25-year-old woman who identified herself as Yuri. “I was so worried the People Power party would not vote in favour of the motion. I’m so glad some of them had common sense. But I can’t believe that so many didn’t vote in favour. It’s shameful.”

Park Ka-hyun, 23, said: “I’m so proud of what we have achieved. Look how many people have come. We are just so happy.”

Yoon, a conservative whose two and a half years in office have been blighted by scandal and policy gridlock, shocked the world on 3 December when he imposed martial law after darkness.

The edict would have suspended all political activity, banned protests, suspended the legal process and curtailed press freedoms, while police and troops would have been responsible for enforcing the order.

Yoon, however, was forced to reverse his decision just six hours later after lawmakers voted unanimously to overturn it, in defiance of hundreds of troops who had been sent to the parliament building with orders to prevent MPs from meeting.

Last weekend an initial impeachment motion failed after all but three of Yoon’s People Power party MPs boycotted the vote, leaving the chamber short of the minimum number of votes to pass the motion.

The political fallout from Yoon’s declaration has shaken confidence in South Korean politics, with Saturday’s vote seen inside the country and beyond as a test of its lawmakers’ commitment to protect the democratic gains it has made in the decades since the end of military rule.

Yoon, who this week insisted he would not resign over the debacle, said he was imposing martial law to root out what he condemned, without offering evidence, as “pro-North Korean, anti-state” forces inside parliament that were determined to paralyse the government.

His move drew immediate criticism, including from members of his own party, while the uncertainty of the past 12 days has rattled financial markets and caused concern in the US, the South’s biggest ally, Japan and the UK.

The change of heart among PPP lawmakers was critical to Yoon’s fate. His fellow party members had initially appeared unwilling to impeach him. Analysts believe they were hoping to arrange a more orderly exit instead.

That, though, proved impossible after Yoon, in a televised address this week, vowed to fight attempts to remove him “until the very end” and justified his imposition of martial law as a legitimate “act of governance”.

Opposition parties and many experts have accused Yoon of fomenting rebellion, citing a law clause that categorises as rebellion the staging of a riot against established state authorities to undermine the constitution.

Yoon has been banned from leaving South Korea, as law enforcement authorities investigate whether he and others involved in the martial law declaration committed rebellion, abuse of power and other crimes. If convicted, the leader of a rebellion plot can face the death penalty or life imprisonment.

The vote to impeach South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was a dramatic fall from grace for the conservative leader, who must now suffer the ignominy of being forced from office well before the end of his five-year term.

But the vote on Saturday in the national assembly, where the impeachment motion just exceeded the required two-thirds majority after 12 members of Yoon’s party sided with the opposition, does not mean his presidency has ended.

Attention will now turn to South Korea’s constitutional court, which faces unprecedented challenges in handling Yoon’s impeachment.

The court must decide within 180 days whether to remove Yoon from office or reject the impeachment and restore his powers. If the court removes him or he resigns, a presidential election must be held within 60 days.

The impeachment motion – which passed with the support of 204 of the assembly’s 300 lawmakers, with 85 voting against – is merely the first step in removing Yoon from office. And it could end in failure.

While his presidential powers will immediately be passed on to the prime minister – and now acting president – Han Duck-soo, Yoon’s opponents must wait to learn if they have succeeded in making him only the second South Korean president to be successfully impeached.

The other was Park Geun-hye, who was forced out in 2017 for corruption and abuse of power. Her legal nemesis was, ironically, Yoon Suk Yeol, then South Korea’s prosecutor general.

In 2004, the then president, Roh Moo-hyun, was impeached on charges of failing to maintain political neutrality as required of a high public official. But the constitutional court rejected the motion after two months of deliberation and Roh went on to complete his term in office.

The constitutional court will examine whether Yoon violated the constitution through his martial law declaration and subsequent actions. In addition, he is being investigated over potential insurrection charges – a crime that can carry the death penalty.

For insurrection to be proven, investigating authorities would need to demonstrate both intent to subvert the constitutional order and evidence of actual violent acts. Special forces troops breaking windows to enter parliament and scuffling with parliamentary staff on the night martial law was declared could be examined as potential evidence.

The constitutional and criminal processes will operate independently, but if Yoon is arrested during the impeachment process it could influence the court’s deliberations.

As crowds celebrated Yoon’s impeachment, and applauded MPs as they left the assembly building, uncertainty clouds the next part of the process.

The constitutional court usually has nine justices but currently has just six, as three who left their positions in October have yet to be replaced. To be approved, an impeachment vote must usually receive the support of at least six of the nine justices.

In Yoon’s case, however, all six would have to approve Saturday’s decision in parliamentary. In other words, just one dissenting voice on the bench could give him a reprieve, although his position would be severely – and perhaps fatally – weakened.

The constitutional court typically requires seven justices to deliberate cases, although it recently allowed six-judge deliberations in a separate impeachment case. Legal experts believe the court would be reluctant to make such a momentous decision without a full bench, given the political gravity of removing a president.

The most likely way forward is for the court to ask the national assembly to appoint three new justices before proceeding with Yoon’s impeachment trial.

The vote to impeach South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was a dramatic fall from grace for the conservative leader, who must now suffer the ignominy of being forced from office well before the end of his five-year term.

But the vote on Saturday in the national assembly, where the impeachment motion just exceeded the required two-thirds majority after 12 members of Yoon’s party sided with the opposition, does not mean his presidency has ended.

Attention will now turn to South Korea’s constitutional court, which faces unprecedented challenges in handling Yoon’s impeachment.

The court must decide within 180 days whether to remove Yoon from office or reject the impeachment and restore his powers. If the court removes him or he resigns, a presidential election must be held within 60 days.

The impeachment motion – which passed with the support of 204 of the assembly’s 300 lawmakers, with 85 voting against – is merely the first step in removing Yoon from office. And it could end in failure.

While his presidential powers will immediately be passed on to the prime minister – and now acting president – Han Duck-soo, Yoon’s opponents must wait to learn if they have succeeded in making him only the second South Korean president to be successfully impeached.

The other was Park Geun-hye, who was forced out in 2017 for corruption and abuse of power. Her legal nemesis was, ironically, Yoon Suk Yeol, then South Korea’s prosecutor general.

In 2004, the then president, Roh Moo-hyun, was impeached on charges of failing to maintain political neutrality as required of a high public official. But the constitutional court rejected the motion after two months of deliberation and Roh went on to complete his term in office.

The constitutional court will examine whether Yoon violated the constitution through his martial law declaration and subsequent actions. In addition, he is being investigated over potential insurrection charges – a crime that can carry the death penalty.

For insurrection to be proven, investigating authorities would need to demonstrate both intent to subvert the constitutional order and evidence of actual violent acts. Special forces troops breaking windows to enter parliament and scuffling with parliamentary staff on the night martial law was declared could be examined as potential evidence.

The constitutional and criminal processes will operate independently, but if Yoon is arrested during the impeachment process it could influence the court’s deliberations.

As crowds celebrated Yoon’s impeachment, and applauded MPs as they left the assembly building, uncertainty clouds the next part of the process.

The constitutional court usually has nine justices but currently has just six, as three who left their positions in October have yet to be replaced. To be approved, an impeachment vote must usually receive the support of at least six of the nine justices.

In Yoon’s case, however, all six would have to approve Saturday’s decision in parliamentary. In other words, just one dissenting voice on the bench could give him a reprieve, although his position would be severely – and perhaps fatally – weakened.

The constitutional court typically requires seven justices to deliberate cases, although it recently allowed six-judge deliberations in a separate impeachment case. Legal experts believe the court would be reluctant to make such a momentous decision without a full bench, given the political gravity of removing a president.

The most likely way forward is for the court to ask the national assembly to appoint three new justices before proceeding with Yoon’s impeachment trial.

Former FBI officials have warned that Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next FBI director, Kash Patel, could have limitless power at the bureau as they confront the likelihood that he will be confirmed next year after locking down support from key Republicans and the current director’s intention to resign.

The alarm has come as Patel, who has called for shutting down FBI headquarters and drafted a so-called enemies list of people Trump feels wronged by, appears set to have his nomination supported unanimously by Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee.

The problem with Patel leading the FBI in the second Trump administration is that typical checks on the power of the FBI director would almost certainly be gone, according to former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi and other former officials familiar with the matter.

Patel is almost certain to install his own chief of staff and a new FBI general counsel to sign off on any campaign of retribution, while Pam Bondi, the Trump pick for attorney general, has previously echoed Patel’s aims to make the agency subservient to the White House.

“I don’t think people truly realize how powerful an FBI director can be, unrestrained,” Figliuzzi recently said on the Highly Conflicted podcast. “You want to open a case and call it a threat assessment or a preliminary investigation, you can do it.

“If the FBI director wants to get a press conference together, not tell the DoJ, and make pronouncements to the public about a case opening or a case closing or someone should be prosecuted, they can do it.

“And then going through files? I imagine on the first day in office, he’s going to say, ‘I need every file that has the word Trump in it,’” Figliuzzi said. “That should be a real concern, that Kash Patel is going through informant files and saying, ‘Look at that, this guy coughed it up on Trump.’”

Trump settled on Patel to be the next FBI director – he soured on the current director, Chris Wray, partly for not blocking the criminal investigation into his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago – after he demonstrated personal loyalty and espoused the same distrust of the agency.

Patel has no experience working at the bureau and his national security experience has mainly come through the lens of Trump politics, including when he was a staffer on the House intelligence committee during the first Trump presidency before joining the administration itself.

That résumé has drawn criticism from former FBI officials who have privately questioned whether Patel has any knowledge of how the FBI operates and whether attempts to launch partisan, political investigations would distract from other counterterrorism or criminal probes.

Figliuzzi also suggested that Patel working in tandem with the Trump White House could exert influence over things like background checks, both for first-time applicants for security clearances and reinvestigations of people who previously went through FBI vetting.

“Agents know how to do a background investigation,” Figliuzzi said, “but once it gets to headquarters, can it be manipulated by somebody like Kash Patel? You bet. What gets to his desk and what gets to the Oval Office might be two very different things.

“Now that’s not supposed to happen, but you know where that happens? Not only in my experience, but we’ve all seen it with Justice Kavanaugh – the reinvestigation.

“When there’s a reinvestigation, that would apply to anybody who’s already had a federal background [investigation] done for their position. And guess what? Those are different. The White House dictates the parameters of a reinvestigation, which is permitted.”

Georgian lawmakers have elected Mikheil Kavelashvili, a pro-Russia, hardline critic of the west, as the country’s new president.

Kavelashvili, a former professional football player, has strong anti-western views. In public speeches this year, he has repeatedly alleged that western intelligence agencies are seeking to drive Georgia into war with Russia.

Georgian presidents are picked by a college of electors composed of MPs and representatives of local government. Of 225 electors present, 224 voted for Kavelashvili, who was the only candidate nominated.

The Black Sea nation has been in turmoil since the governing Georgian Dream party claimed victory in contested parliamentary elections in October.

Its decision last month to delay EU membership talks ignited a fresh wave of mass rallies.

The opposition has denounced Saturday’s election as “illegitimate” and said the sitting president, Salome Zourabichvili, remains the country’s sole legitimate leader.

Pro-western Zourabishvili – who is at loggerheads with Georgian Dream – has refused to step down and is demanding new parliamentary elections, paving the way for a constitutional showdown.

On Saturday morning, protesters began gathering outside the parliament building, which was cordoned off by police forces.

Demonstrators shared tea to keep warm on the frosty morning, with water cannon parked nearby, an AFP reporter witnessed.

“Georgia never loses its sense of humour, celebrating the election of a footballer as president,” Zurabishvili wrote on social media.

She shared video footage of protesters playing football in the snow – a clear jab at Kavelashvili.

One of the protesters, 40-year-old Natia Apkhazava, said she had arrived early “to protect our European future”.

“Our [parliamentary] election was rigged. We need new elections,” she said.

“We have been protesting here for 16 days … and we’ll keep fighting for our European future.”

Protests are scheduled to take place at a dozen of different locations in Tbilisi.

Thousands of pro-EU demonstrators filled the streets of the capital Tbilisi on Friday, before gathering outside parliament for the 16th consecutive day.

A former diplomat, Zourabishvili is a hugely popular figure among protesters, who view her as a beacon of Georgia’s European aspirations.

“What will happen in parliament tomorrow is a parody. It will be an event entirely devoid of legitimacy, unconstitutional and illegitimate,” Zourabishvili told a press conference on Friday.

Opposition groups accuse Georgian Dream of rigging the 26 October parliamentary vote, backsliding on democracy and moving Tbilisi closer to Russia – all at the expense of the Caucasus nation’s constitutionally mandated efforts to join the EU.

Kavelashvili, 53 – the sole candidate for the largely ceremonial post – is known for his vehement anti-west diatribes and opposition to LGBTQ rights.

Georgian Dream scrapped direct presidential elections in 2017.

With Zourabishvili refusing to leave office, opposition lawmakers boycotting parliament and protests showing no signs of abating, Kavelashvili’s presidency is likely to be undermined from the onset.

One author of Georgia’s constitution, Vakhtang Khmaladze, has argued that all decisions by the new parliament are void.

This is because it ratified the mandates of newly elected lawmakers before the outcome of a court case filed by the incumbent president contesting the elections, he explained.

“Georgia is facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis,” Khmaladze said.

It remains unclear how the government will react to Zourabishvili’s refusal to step down after her successor is inaugurated on 29 December.

Police have fired teargas and water cannon during more than two weeks of demonstrations and arrested more than 400 protesters, according to the Social Justice Centre NGO.

On Friday, Amnesty International said protesters had faced “brutal dispersal tactics, arbitrary detention and torture”.

There have also been raids on the offices of opposition parties and arrests of their leaders.

As international condemnation of the police crackdown mounted, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, told Georgians their “European dream must not be extinguished”.

“We are by your side in supporting your European and democratic aspirations,” he said in a video address.

Earlier this week, Macron called the Georgian Dream founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili – the tycoon widely considered to be Georgia’s real power broker.

His decision to call Ivanishvili – rather than the prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze – is indicative of the west’s hesitancy to recognise the legitimacy of Georgian Dream’s new government.

Washington has also imposed fresh sanctions on Georgian officials, barring visas for about 20 people accused of “undermining democracy in Georgia”, including ministers and parliamentarians.

A businessman accused of being a Chinese spy was invited to Buckingham Palace and other royal residences by the Duke of York, it has been reported.

The man – who was banned from Britain by the government on national security grounds – visited Buckingham Palace twice, and also entered St James’s Palace and Windsor Castle at the invitation of Andrew, the Times reported.

On Friday, the duke said he had “ceased all contact” with the businessman when concerns were first raised about him. A statement from his office said Andrew met the individual through “official channels”, with “nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed”.

Last March, the businessman, only known as H6, brought a case to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) after the then home secretary, Suella Braverman, said he should be excluded from the UK in March 2023.

Judges were told that in a briefing for the home secretary in July 2023, officials claimed H6 had been in a position to generate relationships between prominent UK figures and senior Chinese officials “that could be leveraged for political interference purposes”.

Rana Mitter, the ST Lee professor of US-Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and an expert in Chinese politics, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that part of the Chinese spying strategy was to look for people who might be “influential over time” but are “in a bit of a doldrums”.

He said the situation involving the Duke of York and H6 was “not so much about spying in the sense of trying to find out secrets, it’s about trying to influence”.

“Getting to know the elites of countries like Britain is a useful task, not for immediate knowledge but maybe for long-term development of links in society. It seems that’s what has been going on here,” Mitter said.

“One of the things that quite often will happen is looking out for who may be influential over time, but perhaps is in a bit of a down spot, a bit of a doldrums.

“One of the best examples from a generation ago would have been President Richard Nixon – after he had to resign in disgrace over Watergate he was frequently invited to China.”

Several newspapers have reported that the king has been briefed about his brother’s links to the alleged spy.

The revelations come after the royal family reportedly took further steps over the summer to distance themselves from the disgraced duke, with the king said to have axed his £1m annual “living allowance” and the security Charles had been privately funding for Andrew’s home.

Andrew Lownie, who is writing a biography of the duke and Sarah, Duchess of York, said the latest news involving the king’s younger brother would affect the wider family and the “future of the monarchy” as he called for greater transparency around the the royals’ finances.

He said: “The real scandals surrounding him are financial more than sexual.

“Given he cannot police his own activities and understand where the moral boundaries lie, it is time for proper scrutiny of his finances and a public register of royal interests.

“Judging from online comments to newspaper articles, this episode is highly damaging for the whole of the royal family, whose finances and business activities should now be more transparent.”

“Time, too, for the exemption for them in the Freedom of Information Act be removed and their wills not sealed.

“After recent scandals, I think this is a very serious moment for the future of the monarchy.”

Senior Tories including Braverman have called for H6 to lose his anonymity, as a “deterrent to others taking part in similar activities”.

Tom Tugendhat, a former Tory security minister, said the revelations were “extremely embarrassing”.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: “Our security and intelligence agencies are continually vigilant for any threat to UK national security, whether that be around foreign influence, whether it be around espionage, whether it be around any security threat.

“We won’t hesitate to take action wherever any challenge arises.”

Asked whether the anonymity of H6 should be lifted, she said: “We always respect the decisions of the courts and also don’t comment on individual cases.”

Buckingham Palace and the Duke of York’s office have been approached for comment.

A woman who alleged being sexually assaulted at age 13 by rappers Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs during a post-award show party now admits that there are inconsistencies with respect to her claims, and her attorney says he is continuing to investigate her story.

NBC News published those remarks from the unnamed woman and her attorney, the Houston-based personal injury specialist Tony Buzbee, in an interview on Friday evening. And Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, issued a statement saying the NBC interview validated his position that Buzbee and his client targeted him with a false complaint to gain money and fame for themselves.

“This incident didn’t happen and yet he filed it in court and doubled down in the press,” Jay-Z’s statement said of the highly publicized pending lawsuit linking him to criminally charged alleged sex trafficker Combs. “True Justice is coming. We fight FROM victory, not FOR victory. This was over before it began. This 1-800 lawyer doesn’t realize it yet, but, soon.”

In the piece with NBC, the plaintiff recounted how she was driven from Rochester, New York, to New York City for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards before Combs’s limo driver offered her a lift to the afterparty. She described speaking with musician Benji Madden and his brother at the party in question before her father picked her up after her alleged assault.

However, a representative of the Madden brothers confirmed to NBC that the siblings were touring the midwestern US during the VMAs. And her father reportedly said he doesn’t remember what would have been a drive home of more than five hours.

A friend of the plaintiff supposedly drove her to the awards show, but she has since died, according to NBC’s reporting.

The woman – now reportedly living in Alabama – admitted to NBC that she made “some mistakes” when recalling the night that she says she was assaulted by Jay-Z and Combs. But she said she stood by her allegations: that Combs and Jay-Z raped her in a bedroom after she signed a nondisclosure agreement, ingested a drink that made her feel “woozy” and went to lie down. She said she fled to a nearby gas station after the alleged attack and from there called for a ride home.

Buzbee, in an email to the Associated Press, said his team’s job is to continue gathering facts and evidence whenever someone raises new issues that didn’t previously exist. He indicated that he would keep vetting the plaintiff’s account.

Meanwhile, Jay-Z’s attorney, Alex Spiro, has requested the dismissal of the case against the 24-time Grammy winner, saying in a statement: “It is stunning that a lawyer would not only file such a serious complaint without proper vetting, but would make things worse by further peddling this false story in the press.”

It remains to be seen what effect the victim’s acknowledgments to NBC may ultimately have on her case. Experts have long known sexual assault victims can “make incomplete, inconsistent or even untrue” statements because of disordered thinking resulting from trauma, as End Violence Against Women International noted in a 2008 report.

The lawsuit brought by Buzbee against Jay-Z and Combs forms part of a mound of sexual assault lawsuits aimed primarily against Combs as he remains jailed in New York awaiting trial on federal charges of sex trafficking filed against him in September.

Buzbee in October held a news conference announcing that he represents about 120 men and women with allegations of sexual misconduct against Combs, whose requests to be released from federal custody on bail have been denied three times.

Having established toll-free phone line for people with accusations against Combs, Buzbee’s firm soon began filing a series of lawsuits against the rap empresario.

Another prominent legal dispute involving Buzbee saw him pursue numerous sexual misconduct and assault lawsuits against NFL quarterback DeShaun Watson, most of which produced settlements for his clients. And he helped the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, win an acquittal in September 2023 at the politico’s impeachment trial on charges of bribery and dereliction of duty.

Jay-Z anonymously sued Buzbee in November on claims that the attorney was trying to extort money out of the rapper after sending him a letter threatening to go public with his client’s rape allegation if the musician didn’t pay up. Buzbee has characterized the letter to Jay-Z as an offer to mediate a financial settlement out of court before his client sued.

With Jay-Z rejecting a settlement, Buzbee’s client sued the music mogul on 9 December.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

A woman who alleged being sexually assaulted at age 13 by rappers Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs during a post-award show party now admits that there are inconsistencies with respect to her claims, and her attorney says he is continuing to investigate her story.

NBC News published those remarks from the unnamed woman and her attorney, the Houston-based personal injury specialist Tony Buzbee, in an interview on Friday evening. And Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, issued a statement saying the NBC interview validated his position that Buzbee and his client targeted him with a false complaint to gain money and fame for themselves.

“This incident didn’t happen and yet he filed it in court and doubled down in the press,” Jay-Z’s statement said of the highly publicized pending lawsuit linking him to criminally charged alleged sex trafficker Combs. “True Justice is coming. We fight FROM victory, not FOR victory. This was over before it began. This 1-800 lawyer doesn’t realize it yet, but, soon.”

In the piece with NBC, the plaintiff recounted how she was driven from Rochester, New York, to New York City for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards before Combs’s limo driver offered her a lift to the afterparty. She described speaking with musician Benji Madden and his brother at the party in question before her father picked her up after her alleged assault.

However, a representative of the Madden brothers confirmed to NBC that the siblings were touring the midwestern US during the VMAs. And her father reportedly said he doesn’t remember what would have been a drive home of more than five hours.

A friend of the plaintiff supposedly drove her to the awards show, but she has since died, according to NBC’s reporting.

The woman – now reportedly living in Alabama – admitted to NBC that she made “some mistakes” when recalling the night that she says she was assaulted by Jay-Z and Combs. But she said she stood by her allegations: that Combs and Jay-Z raped her in a bedroom after she signed a nondisclosure agreement, ingested a drink that made her feel “woozy” and went to lie down. She said she fled to a nearby gas station after the alleged attack and from there called for a ride home.

Buzbee, in an email to the Associated Press, said his team’s job is to continue gathering facts and evidence whenever someone raises new issues that didn’t previously exist. He indicated that he would keep vetting the plaintiff’s account.

Meanwhile, Jay-Z’s attorney, Alex Spiro, has requested the dismissal of the case against the 24-time Grammy winner, saying in a statement: “It is stunning that a lawyer would not only file such a serious complaint without proper vetting, but would make things worse by further peddling this false story in the press.”

It remains to be seen what effect the victim’s acknowledgments to NBC may ultimately have on her case. Experts have long known sexual assault victims can “make incomplete, inconsistent or even untrue” statements because of disordered thinking resulting from trauma, as End Violence Against Women International noted in a 2008 report.

The lawsuit brought by Buzbee against Jay-Z and Combs forms part of a mound of sexual assault lawsuits aimed primarily against Combs as he remains jailed in New York awaiting trial on federal charges of sex trafficking filed against him in September.

Buzbee in October held a news conference announcing that he represents about 120 men and women with allegations of sexual misconduct against Combs, whose requests to be released from federal custody on bail have been denied three times.

Having established toll-free phone line for people with accusations against Combs, Buzbee’s firm soon began filing a series of lawsuits against the rap empresario.

Another prominent legal dispute involving Buzbee saw him pursue numerous sexual misconduct and assault lawsuits against NFL quarterback DeShaun Watson, most of which produced settlements for his clients. And he helped the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, win an acquittal in September 2023 at the politico’s impeachment trial on charges of bribery and dereliction of duty.

Jay-Z anonymously sued Buzbee in November on claims that the attorney was trying to extort money out of the rapper after sending him a letter threatening to go public with his client’s rape allegation if the musician didn’t pay up. Buzbee has characterized the letter to Jay-Z as an offer to mediate a financial settlement out of court before his client sued.

With Jay-Z rejecting a settlement, Buzbee’s client sued the music mogul on 9 December.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

A body has been found in the search for a skier missing overnight in the Cairngorms.

Sam Burns, 40, was last in contact with friends at about 11.30am on Friday. He has since failed to return to his van, which was parked in the Cairngorm mountain car park.

It is thought he planned to ski Y gully or diagonal gully from the Cairngorm plateau.

Police said the body of a man was found in the Cairngorms at about 11am on Saturday. Formal identification is yet to take place, but the family of Burns has been informed.

Police said there did not appear to be any suspicious circumstances, and a report would be submitted to the procurator fiscal.

The United States is expected to push Britain to allow tariff-free access to high-quality American meat as part of any trade deal signed under the incoming Trump administration, amid interest from the president-elect’s trade chief.

Previous attempts to forge an agreement with the US have failed. Demands to allow the import of chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef – produced in the US but illegal in the UK – have proved too unpalatable for British ministers.

However, leading trade and industry figures in the US now say that stumbling block could be removed by only allowing meat produced to existing UK standards to enter the country without tariffs. They say the market for such meat has flourished in the US since the issue of a post-Brexit trade deal was first raised.

British ministers have only ruled out any future deal that would undermine British food standards. Michael Froman, the US trade representative under Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017, said the incoming administration was likely to concentrate on China and tariffs. However, in terms of a UK deal, he said “much has changed since the old days of battles over chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef”.

“The US now has sizeable markets for hormone and chemical-free poultry and beef, and it is at least possible there could be a compromise on certain longstanding issues,” he said. “If the UK is serious about negotiating an FTA with the US, though, it should make sure it has the political support to make hard decisions on market access, rules and standards.”

Any move to widen free access to US meat risks provoking British farmers, who already face stiff competition and many of whom have been angered by the government’s inheritance tax increases on agricultural land. Farmers already complain about the trade deals signed under Boris Johnson that allowed for greater beef and lamb imports from Australia and New Zealand.

But US producers remain keen on the idea of a deal for certain products. “US agriculture has been adamant that we need more proactive initiatives on trade and certainly the UK is one of the big economies, big markets, big consumer bases out there where we have extremely limited access,” said Erin Borror, a vice-president of the US Meat Export Federation. “From our perspective, it’s really just entirely upside potential. Our producers, our exporters are all about supplying what the consumer and the customer wants. Just let the market work.”

The incoming US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, name-checked the UK as a possible partner for a future free trade deal last year. “I recommend that the United States seek market access in non-Chinese markets in incremental, sectoral and bilateral agreements with other countries,” he said. “Focusing on trading partners such as the United Kingdom, Kenya, the Philippines and India would be a good start.”

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has signalled that she will seek to maintain as much free trade as possible with the US after the arrival of Trump. She is also under pressure to deliver promised economic growth. British farmers have already attempted to warn the government. Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers’ Union, told the Observer that he was “closely monitoring the political changes in the US”.

“Restarting trade talks simply to avoid president-elect Trump’s potential tariffs does not strike me as the right foundation for a balanced trade agreement,” he said. “If negotiations do proceed, it is vital that any agreement upholds the high standards we set in the UK, ensuring that products which would be illegal to produce here do not gain access to our market.”

Jonathan Reynolds, the trade secretary, said recently that past talks over the likes of chlorinated chicken had been difficult because of “the very different regulatory regimes for agriculture and food that exist in the UK and the EU in relation to the US”.

“But are there things we can be talking about? Whether you characterise that as an FTA or simply a negotiation between two allies and friends, there are definitely things we could work together on and I would welcome that conversation.”

At least three people have died and dozens were injured after an explosive was thrown into a crowd at a music festival in Thailand.

Thai police said two suspects were in custody on Saturday.

An explosive device was thrown into a crowd during an outdoor performance at an annual festival in the town of Umphang, in Tak province, which borders Myanmar, just before midnight on Friday, according to the Association of Umphang Rescue Groups.

Police said at least 48 people had been injured and that charges against the suspects had not yet been pressed because the investigation was continuing.

Thanathip Sawangsang, a spokesperson for the defence ministry, said local police reported there had been a fight between rival groups of men before the explosion and that there was no wider security threat. The evidence showed that the explosive device was a homemade bomb, he said.

Tak province has a heavy military presence in its border areas, including in Umphang.

The prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed her condolences to the victims and their families.

The government’s spokesperson, Jirayu Houngsap, said the prime minister had ordered security personnel and relevant agencies in the area to investigate and help those who had been affected.

Her Cosmopolitan-sipping, Manolo-wearing, wise-cracking Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City was a generation-defining star turn. Now Sarah Jessica Parker has an unexpectedly cerebral new role, as a judge on next year’s Booker Prize.

Parker said it was “the thrill of a life” and “a golden ticket” to be appointed to the 2025 panel, which will be chaired by former winner Paddy Doyle. The actor, who earlier this year appeared on the London stage in the play Plaza Suite, has been quietly embedded in the literary world since becoming an editorial director at Hogarth in 2017, launching her own imprint, SJP Lit, with the independent publisher Zando in 2022.

Novelist Bernardine Evaristo, winner of the 2019 Booker for her novel Girl, Woman, Other, welcomed the appointment for its ability to “hopefully draw attention to and even expand the audience for literary fiction”. She added that “an ideal Booker judge was someone who was extremely well-read and passionate about novels, and open to a wide range of original voices and different cultures.” Gaby Wood, the chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, described Parker this week as an “incredible supporter of contemporary fiction” whose reading recommendations were frequently “ahead of the game or ahead of the Booker”.

Parker brings Oscar-night stardust to London’s 55-year-old premier literary prize. A wardrobe that includes custom-made Chanel, vintage Vivienne Westwood and a towering Dolce & Gabbana golden crown featuring a miniature nativity scene, worn to the Met Ball, will up the ante at a ceremony not generally known for its fashion moments.

The book industry has come to appreciate the power of celebrity ever since Oprah’s book club proved famous readers such as Winfrey to have vastly more leverage over the fiction-buying book club than traditional reviewers. The hardcover edition of one of her picks, James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, sold 149,500 copies, while the Oprah-endorsed paperback sold 2.7m. Smart celebrities now routinely add intellectual depth to their personal brands by sharing their highbrow reading tastes on social media. Cindy Crawford’s supermodel daughter Kaia Gerber and the singer Dua Lipa both curate online book clubs, with Gerber waxing lyrical about Plato and Eve Babitz and Lipa recommending Sylvia Plath and Gabriel García Márquez.

Parker’s Booker journey began on New Year’s Eve 2022, when she commented “Oh let me try!!!” under a Booker prize Instagram post describing the task of reading between 150 and 170 books – some of them several times – that the job requires. Parker said this week that she did not think her request would be taken seriously. “I would never be so bold.” she told the New York Times.

Accusations of dumbing down have long been a subplot of the Booker narrative. In 2011, a panel chaired by Dame Stella Rimington sparked outrage by naming “readability” and prose that could “zip along” as among the qualities they were looking for. Fleur Sinclair, the president of the Booksellers Association, welcomed Parker’s power to “raise the profile” of the prize. “Anyone high-profile championing reading and books, or any conversation that puts the enormous value of books and reading into the minds of as many people as possible is a good thing,” she said.

Publisher Juliet Mabey, whose independent Oneworld house has had a hat-trick of Booker wins with authors Paul Beatty, Paul Lynch and Marlon James, and who once described literary prizes as “posh bingo”, told the Guardian that the Booker’s catholic tastes in judges was a strength of the prize. “The Booker picks judges to reflect a range of backgrounds, from authors, literary critics, actors, artists, musicians and other people with a passion for reading and often a public presence.” Mabey noted that other literary prizes rely on the same judges each year “and publishers learn their tastes and submit accordingly, which can result in a very narrow range of prize winners. With the Booker Prize, so often the winner is a complete surprise, and that is one of the things that makes it so special.”

Gaby Wood noted that the emotional intelligence of actors, developed through reading scripts gave them an ear for dialogue and an appreciation of how character is formed on the page, and is an asset to a judging panel. Justine Jordan, the Guardian’s fiction editor and herself a judge of the 2024 Booker Prize, noted that the ability to work collectively, learned on set and on stage, lent itself to the “collegiality” important to working toward joint decisions. “What really matters is the mix of judges, the alchemy of five minds coming together. This year’s panel was also informed by other creative practices. Nitin Sawhney hears music when he reads and Edmund de Waal was inspired by certain books to go and make pots,” Jordan observed. For each individual judge, being “both a generous and a rigorous reader, and eager to put the hundreds of hours in” was essential, she added.

Carrie Bradshaw, Parker’s alter-ego on Sex And The City, framed the actor as chick-lit adjacent, but as executive producer on the sequel And Just Like That, she worked with publishing houses to give a platform to young novelists by featuring their books on screen. Bradshaw appeared in one episode reading Who They Was, Gabriel Krauze’s Booker-longlisted semi-autobiographical novel about complex identities set in London gangland. Talking to Goodreads in 2017 about what she hoped to accomplish in her then-new role in publishing, Parker said that “literary fiction deserves caretaking … and the stories and authors I’m looking for tend to be global voices about unknown places, cultures, faiths.”

Parker said this week that, as a Booker judge, “my assumption is that we’re going to talk about books we love because they touched us, they made us feel things”. Authors hoping to make the grade will find clues to her taste on social media, where she recently posted a photograph of a suitcase stuffed with holiday reading, which included the forthcoming Flesh by David Szalay, described by writer William Boyd as “mordant, knowing and disturbingly wise”, and Havoc by Christopher Bollen, a Luxor-set thriller of Highsmithian sophistication with an unreliable narrator. “I can get toothpaste and moisturiser anywhere,” Parker wrote in the caption.

Carrie Bradshaw established Parker’s status in popular culture as an icon of modern womanhood. Literary fiction, once macho territory presided over by big beasts in the form of established male novelists, has become a more feminine landscape, with female authors featured prominently on prize lists. Women now make up 80% of consumers of fiction. Alina Grabowski’s novel Women and Children First, weaving 10 women’s perspectives to explore the impact of a teenage girl’s death in a Massachusetts small town, was the first title published by SJP Lit. Grabowski credited Parker’s support with “opening up a whole audience that I don’t know if I would have had access to otherwise”.

Movie stardom has long been a stepping stone to other careers for men, from Clint Eastwood’s jump to directing to Ronald Reagan’s elevation to the White House – but until now, fewer female actors have made equivalent progress. Kate Winslet spoke recently about feeling that she was “letting other women down” by not becoming a director, and planned to “change the culture”. In establishing an identity as a literary authority, Parker mirrors the playbook of Reese Witherspoon, who has made a popular book club part of a media empire that also includes a successful production company.

Actors who have previously joined the panel include Fiona Shaw, Olivia Williams and Joanna Lumley, who stirred controversy when, in 1985, she opposed the panel’s decision to crown Keri Hulme’s The Bone People as winner, calling the subject matter “indefensible” and absenting herself from the final meeting. Lumley later said of the experience that “the so-called bitchy world of acting was a Brownie’s tea party compared with the piranha-infested waters of publishing.”

Fearne Cotton has announced that she and husband, Jesse Wood, have separated after 10 years of marriage.

In a post to her Instagram story on Friday, the TV presenter and podcast host said: “It is with a heavy heart that I let you all know that Jesse and I are ending our marriage.

“Our priority has been, and will always be, our children. We please ask that you respect the privacy of our family at this time.”

Cotton, 43, married Wood, the son of the Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, in July 2014 at Richmond register office in south-west London after announcing their engagement in 2013.

The couple, who have a son and daughter together, met in Ibiza in 2011.

Wood, 48, has two other children from a previous relationship.

Earlier in the month, Cotton announced she was undergoing an operation to remove two benign tumours from her jaw and would be resting after “to get better before Christmas”.

A benign tumour is a mass of cells that are non-cancerous, tend to stay in one place and can be safely removed during surgery.

Cotton began her career in the late-1990s presenting children’s television shows for GMTV, CITV and CBBC.

She has also hosted The Xtra Factor and Top Of The Pops, and was a panellist on ITV’s Celebrity Juice.

In 2007, she became the first regular female presenter of the Radio 1 Chart Show, going on to present her own weekday 10am show on the station from 2009.

In 2015 she stepped down from the mid-morning slot for “family and new adventures” after revealing was pregnant with her second child earlier in year.

She joined BBC Radio 2 in 2016 where she is best known for her Sounds Of The 90s music nostalgia shows.

Cotton currently hosts the Happy Place podcast, where she has interviewed celebrities including the US actor Riley Keough, TV and film star David Tennant and singer Perrie Edwards.