Russian gas has stopped flowing to EU states via Ukraine after a five-year deal expired, marking the end of a decades-long arrangement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country would not allow Russia to “earn additional billions on our blood”. Poland’s government meanwhile said the cut-off was “another victory” against Moscow.

The European Commission said the EU had prepared for the change and most states could cope. Moldova, which is not in the EU, is already suffering shortages.

Russia can still send gas to Hungary, Turkey and Serbia through the TurkStream pipeline across the Black Sea.

Russian company Gazprom confirmed that gas exports via Ukraine to Europe stopped from 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

Moscow has transported gas to Europe through Ukraine since 1991.

While immediate effects are light, the strategic and symbolic impact for the whole of Europe is enormous.

Russia has lost an important market, but its president, Vladimir Putin, says EU countries will suffer most.

The EU has significantly reduced imports of gas from Russia since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but a number of eastern member states still depend largely on the supplies, making Russia about €5bn ($5.2bn; £4.2bn) a year.

Russian gas was less than 10% of the EU’s gas imports in 2023, according to the bloc. That figure was 40% in 2021.

But several EU members, including Slovakia and Austria, continued to import significant amounts of gas from Russia.

Austria’s energy regulator said that it did not forecast any disruption as it had diversified sources and built up reserves.

But the end of the transit deal has already caused serious tensions with Slovakia, which is now the main entry point of Russian gas into the EU and earned transit fees from piping the gas on to Austria, Hungary and Italy.

Slovakia has said it will pay more for alternative routes. Its energy regulator announced in early December that Gas prices for consumers would rise in 2025.

Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, said on Wednesday that the end of the deal would have “drastic” consequences for EU countries, but not on Russia, Reuters reported.

On Friday, Fico – who had just made a surprise visit to Moscow for talks with Putin – threatened to stop supplying electricity to Ukraine.

This prompted Zelensky to accuse Fico of helping Putin “fund the war and weaken Ukraine”.

“Fico is dragging Slovakia into Russia’s attempts to cause more suffering for Ukrainians,” the Ukrainian president said.

Poland has offered to support Kyiv in case Slovakia cuts off its electricity exports – supplies that are crucial to Ukraine, whose power plants come under regular attack from Russia.

Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there were alternative gas supply routes from international markets, such as a terminal in Croatia and connections from Germany and Poland.

“These routes should be explored so that Russia doesn’t make money on selling oil and gas to the European Union,” Sikorski said.

Poland is importing gas from the US, Qatar and the North Sea, he added.

“As far as I understand, all countries have alternative routes,” he said.

Moldova – which is not part of the EU – could be seriously affected by the end of the transit agreement. It generates much of its electricity at a power station fuelled by Russian gas.

It also supplied the Russia-backed breakaway region of Transnistria, a small sliver of land sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine where around 300,000 people live.

Russian gas company Gazprom had said on 28 December it would restrict gas to Moldova on 1 January because it said it had failed to fulfil its payment obligations.

Dorin Recean, Moldova’s prime minister, denied the alleged debt and accused Russia of using “energy as a political weapon” in a social media post. He said the move would leave Transnistria “without light and heat in the middle of the winter”.

Heat and hot water was cut off to Transnistria “due to the temporary cessation of gas supplies” at 07:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday, energy company Tirasteploenergo said on Telegram.

It urged residents to dress warmly, gather family members together in a single room, hang blankets or thick curtains over windows, and use electric heaters.

The temperature was due to drop below 0C on Wednesday night. Medical institutions and hospitals were still being supplied, the company said.

Moldova’s energy minister, Constantin Borosan, said his government had taken steps to ensure stable power supplies, but called on citizens to save energy.

A 60-day state of emergency in the energy sector has been in place since mid-December.

President Maia Sandu accused the Kremlin of “blackmail” possibly aimed at destabilising her country before a general election in 2025. The Moldovan government also said it had offered aid to Transnistria.

The EU has found alternative sources in liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and the US, as well as piped gas from Norway, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In December, the European Commission laid out plans to entirely replace gas transiting through Ukraine.

Puerto Rico was plunged into darkness on New Year’s Eve by a nearly island-wide blackout.

About 90% of almost 1.5 million customers had no electricity, said Luma Energy, the island’s main power distributor.

By late Tuesday night, more than 700,000 clients, including Puerto Rico’s water and sewer company and 16 hospitals, had power back, said Luma.

The blackout prompted renewed calls to address the unincorporated US territory’s power issues, which have persisted since Hurricane Maria in 2017.

A failure in an electric line at one of the main power plants, Costa Sur, caused cascading issues across the island, Luma spokesman Hugo Sorrentini said.

US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has spoken with Puerto Rico’s governor to offer assistance, the White House said.

“We can’t keep relying on an energy system that fails our people,” Jenniffer González-Colon, Puerto Rico’s current US congressional representative and the incoming governor of Puerto Rico, wrote on X.

“Today’s blackout and the uncertainty around restoration continue to impact our economy and quality of life,” she said.

On Facebook, the current governor, Pedro Pierluisi, demanded answers and solutions from the two main power companies, Luma and Genera.

Hundreds of thousands of residents at a time have been affected by power outages this year.

A June outage left about 350,000 customers without power as temperatures climbed, and more than 700,000 customers lost electricity after Hurricane Ernesto in August.

As they awoke to another day without power, Puerto Ricans expressed frustration.

“They’re part of my everyday life,” Enid Núñez, 49, said of the outages to the Associated Press.

Puerto Rico’s power grid was strained even before Hurricane Maria devastated the island.

US government funding helped shore up the grid, facilitate recovery projects from other natural disasters, and make other important infrastructure improvements.

But the implementation has been incomplete due to a variety of factors, such as issues starting construction and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s requirements to authorise use of some of the funds, according to a February 2024 report from the US Government Accountability Office.

“Inexcusably the power grid has still not recovered from damage in Hurricane Maria,” Mark Levine, New York City’s Manhattan borough president, wrote on X.

New York City is home to the largest Puerto Rican community in the mainland US.

Investigators have finished extracting data from one of the black boxes from the fated Jeju Air plane that crashed on Sunday, South Korea’s transport ministry has said.

The data from the cockpit voice recorder will now be converted into an audio file, while a second black box – a flight data recorder – will be sent to the United States for analysis.

Investigators hope data on the flight and voice recorders will provide insights about the crucial moments leading up to the tragedy.

Some 179 people died after the plane crashed into a structure and exploded, making it the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil.

Investigators say it is not feasible to locally decode the flight data recorder, which was damaged in the crash and is missing a crucial connector.

South Korean experts will be involved in the analysis process in the US, they said, adding that they are in discussion with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on when to hand over the flight data recorder.

NTSB has deployed officials to the crash site in South Korea’s Muan county to help investigate the cause of the plane crash.

The Boeing 737-800 plane was travelling from Bangkok when it crash-landed at Muan International Airport on Sunday and slid into a wall off the end of the runway, bursting into flames and killing everyone on board except two crew members.

Many questions remain unanswered and investigators are looking at the role a bird strike or weather conditions may have played.

They are also examining the concrete wall at the end of the runway, which some experts say could have exacerbated the impact of the crash.

The passengers on flight 7C2216 were aged between three and 78 years old, although most were in their 40s, 50s and 60s, according to Yonhap news agency. Two Thai nationals are among the dead and the rest are believed to be South Korean, authorities have said.

It had taken officials days to identify the bodies through fingerprints or DNA – with saliva samples collected from family members – as many of them have been severely damaged.

But on Wednesday, acting president Choi Sang-mok announced that all 179 victims on board the flight have now been identified.

New Year’s Day celebrations across the country have been cancelled or scaled down out of respect for the victims and their family, and authorities have announced a seven-day period of national mourning.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Jeju Air CEO Kim Yi-bae said that the airline was preparing emergency compensation for the victims’ families and would cover funeral costs.

He also said that a pre-flight inspection of the plane had found “no issues”. Investigations into the cause of the crash were ongoing.

Until a few days ago, 10-year-old Sushila Meena lived an ordinary life, far from the public eye, in a small village in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan.

But everything changed when legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar shared a video on social media of her playing cricket, bringing her into the media spotlight.

He praised her bowling action and said it had “shades of” former Indian bowler Zaheer Khan – who was known for his accuracy, swing, clever variations with the ball and a distinct bowling action.

The video was an instant hit and while it has been viewed by millions and shared by tens of thousands of people, there’s an ironic twist – the girl does not recognise the cricket icon who made her famous.

“I don’t know who he [Sachin Tendulkar] is,” Sushila says, explaining that her family doesn’t own a television and she has never watched cricket.

However, she is grateful to him.

Sushila, who is from a poor tribal family, is now being recognised and appreciated by everyone she meets. From politicians to social activists and even distant relatives, everyone now wants a picture with her.

Sushila struggles to find the right words to describe this new reality. She simply smiles and poses for photographs, still baffled by her newfound fame.

But as soon as she dons her school uniform and steps onto the field with a rubber ball in hand, the shy girl transforms into someone fearless, strong and focused.

“Once the ball is in my hand, all I can think about is getting the batter out,” she says.

Her classmate Asha, who is often on the other side with a bat in her hand, describes Sushila’s bowling as “difficult”.

“Her ball turns unexpectedly and then suddenly hits the wicket,” she says.

At home, Sushila’s mother Shantibai is proud of what her daughter has achieved.

She says that while many are eager to meet her, not everyone has been supportive.

A few have questioned the parents for allowing their daughter to play cricket instead of doing household chores.

Such opinions are common in parts of rural India, where girls are often expected to stay at home and discouraged from pursuing sports or activities outside the traditional gender roles.

“I don’t say anything to them, nor do I listen to what they are saying,” Shantibai says.

“I will never stop her from playing cricket.”

Everyone in Sushila’s school plays cricket and the credit for it goes to their teacher, Ishwarlal Meena.

“I started encouraging students to play cricket when I joined in 2017,” he says. “A fun activity is needed to keep them engaged at school – otherwise, they will stay at home.”

Mr Meena says that initially, he and other teachers would form teams and make the students play with them. Soon everyone wanted to join in.

Even though he has taken on the role of their coach, Mr Meena has no formal cricket training. He watches YouTube videos to learn and teach new techniques to the students.

Once he had enough students, Mr Meena created a social media account to showcase their cricketing talent. Slowly people started reacting to his videos – some even gave tips on form and techniques.

Sushila is not the first student from the school to become an internet sensation.

Last year, another student, Renuka Pargi, went viral for her batting skills. She is currently enrolled at a private cricket academy – which also pays all her expenses – in Rajasthan state’s capital, Jaipur.

But the school and the students here need more than just social media attention.

Sushila’s village and her school remain in poor condition.

“People come, they make big promises, but nothing changes,” Mr Meena says.

He adds that the school offers education only until primary level.

“Once they cross grade five, the cricket will stop. They will have no opportunities,” he points out.

Local government officials say they will see what can be done to provide better facilities to the village and its students. The forest department has sent some officials to do a survey and check if some land can be given to the school to extend its cricket field.

But nothing has happened until now.

Meanwhile, Sushila’s home is flooded with gifts. There are bats everywhere, even though she is a bowler.

Her teacher says no one has got her a proper cricket ball yet. They are much harder than the rubber ball she currently practises with and are needed to play higher levels of the sport.

When asked what she will do with so many bats, Sushila says shyly that she “will try to use them”.

Meanwhile, the big question in the village is whether Sushila’s viral fame will end up like the gifts she receives – a lot of attention and excitement, but ultimately making no real difference to her life.

Stunning election wins by a new left-leaning president and his party have changed Sri Lanka’s political landscape – but the cash-strapped island’s new rulers are quickly realising that campaign promises are easier to make than to keep.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s remarkable victory in the presidential election in September was swiftly followed by a landslide for his National People’s Power (NPP) alliance in parliamentary elections.

As a new year starts, he and his supporters want this to be a turning point for the country, which is trying to recover from devastating economic crisis and years of misrule.

However, they have limited room for manoeuvre to make good on pledges to voters, whose expectations from the new government are high.

Since the financial meltdown of 2022, economic recovery has been fragile and Sri Lanka is far from out of the woods.

The NPP won 159 seats in the 225-member assembly in November – an unprecedented two-thirds majority – giving Dissanayake a sweeping mandate to push through major economic and constitutional reforms.

However, even as the results were coming in, the new president had to gear up for a meeting with a visiting delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which the outgoing government had negotiated a $2.9bn (£2.31bn) bailout package.

The IMF deal became controversial as it led to severe austerity measures, tax rises and cuts in energy subsidies – hitting common people hard.

During the campaign Dissanayake and his alliance promised that they would re-negotiate parts of the IMF agreement.

But in his address to the new parliament, he performed a U-turn.

“The economy is in such a state that it cannot take the slightest shock… There’s no room to make mistakes,” Dissanayake said.

“This is not the time to discuss if the terms [of the IMF loan] are good or bad, if the agreement is favourable to us or not… The process had taken about two years, and we cannot start all over again.”

The voters’ overwhelming verdict for the NPP is seen as the culmination of a people’s uprising triggered by the economic crisis. The uprising toppled president Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the summer of 2022, when Sri Lanka ran out of foreign currency and struggled to import food and fuel.

The country had earlier declared bankruptcy after defaulting on its external debt of about $46bn. India, China and Japan are among those who have loaned billions of dollars.

The recent election results also reflected people’s anger towards established political parties – of former presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe and others – for failing to handle the economic meltdown.

“One of the priorities for Dissanayake will be to give some economic relief to the people due to excessive taxation and the cost-of-living crisis. Debt management is another big challenge,” veteran political analyst Prof Jayadeva Uyangoda told the BBC.

So far the massive political changes don’t seem to have had any impact on people like Niluka Dilrukshi, a mother-of-four who lives in a suburb of the capital Colombo. Her husband is a daily-wage labourer and the family still find it hard to get by.

The BBC spoke to her about the soaring cost of living in January 2022, months before mass protests erupted.

At that time, she said her family was eating only two meals a day, instead of three, and they were giving only vegetables and rice to their children due to the high cost of fish and meat.

“We are still struggling to make ends meet and nothing has changed. The price of rice, which is the staple food, has increased further. We are not getting any relief from the government,” Mrs Dilrukshi says.

People like her want the new government to take immediate steps to bring down the cost of essentials. Sri Lanka is an import-dependent nation, and it needs foreign currency to bring in items like food and medicine.

For now, Colombo is able to hold on to its currency reserves as it has suspended its debt repayments.

The real struggle, experts point out, will start probably in the next three or four years when it starts repaying its debt.

People’s perception of President Dissanayake and his new government could change if there’s no visible change in their standard of living in the next two or three years.

“People have given him a huge mandate. The IMF should respect that by allowing him to give some relief to the people through social welfare programmes,” says Prof Uyangoda.

Dissanayake must also contend with India and China, which are jostling for influence in Sri Lanka, where both have invested heavily in recent years.

“Both India and China will try to bring Colombo under their sphere of influence. I think the new government’s foreign policy will be very pragmatic without aligning with anyone,” says Prof Uyangoda.

In a careful diplomatic manoeuvre, Dissanayake chose Delhi as his first official overseas destination in mid-December. During the visit, India promised to supply liquefied natural gas for Sri Lankan power plants and work on connecting the power grids of the two countries in the long run.

China’s increasing foothold in Sri Lanka, especially calls by Chinese “research” vessels to the island’s ports – so close to India’s southern tip – has triggered concern in Delhi.

“I have given an assurance to the prime minister of India that we will not allow our land to be used in any way in a manner that is detrimental to the interest of India,” Dissanayake said after talks with Narendra Modi.

Delhi will no doubt be pleased with the assurance, but Dissanayake will find out what Beijing expects when he visits China in mid-January.

US officials say hackers linked to the Chinese government are responsible for breaching security at major telecommunications companies and US agencies.

The latest hack, announced on Monday, targeted the US Department of the Treasury, which called the infiltration a “major incident”.

Officials said the hackers were able to access employee workstations and some unclassified documents. China denies involvement.

It’s the latest in a string of cyber-attacks that have emerged in recent months against US and other Western targets.

The treasury department hack followed news in late October that the two major US presidential campaigns were targeted.

The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) said the hack targeting the White House campaigns was carried out “by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China”.

In September, reports surfaced of an operation that managed to breach security at top telecommunications firms.

The White House recently said at least nine companies were hacked, including telecoms giants AT&T and Verizon.

And earlier in the year, in March, seven Chinese nationals were charged with running a hacking operation that lasted at least 14 years and targeted foreign critics of China, businesses and politicians.

Operations linked by Western governments to China have also targeted the UK’s Electoral Commission, and the UK and New Zealand parliaments.

While full details have yet to be revealed, the hacks appear to be the work of several different units – each, US authorities say, linked to the Chinese state.

The hacking groups are given nicknames by security firms. For instance the group behind the telecoms hack is most commonly known by Salt Typhoon, the name given to it by researchers at Microsoft. Other firms have dubbed it Famous Sparrow, Ghost Emperor and Earth Estrie.

Salt Typhoon is thought to be behind the telecoms hack. A separate group, nicknamed Volt Typhoon, has been accused of breaking into critical infrastructure organisations for potential disruption attacks.

The seven Chinese citizens charged with hacking were linked by US justice department officials to an operation known as Zirconium or Judgment Panda.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre says the same operation targeted UK parliamentarians’ emails in 2021.

The most recent hacks seem to have been aimed at powerful individuals and collecting data that could benefit the Chinese government.

Among others, they targeted the phones of President-elect Donald Trump, Vice-President-elect JD Vance, and people working for Vice-President Kamala Harris’s campaign.

The hackers have also accessed a database of phone numbers subject to law enforcement wiretaps – knowledge that experts say could be used to discover which foreign spies are under surveillance.

And millions of Americans may have had their data breached by the attacks on telecoms companies.

Richard Forno, assistant director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Cybersecurity Institute, said the Chinese efforts were being directed at a variety of targets.

“It’s more generic information gathering, let’s see what we can get into, and see what we can find,” he said.

US lawmakers of both parties have expressed concern about the hacks.

Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, called Salt Typhoon’s activities the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history”.

Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said an intelligence briefing about the hack was “deeply, deeply concerning”.

“The information I heard, it made me want to basically smash my phone at the end of it,” he told CNBC.

FBI Director Christopher Wray recently said that Salt Typhoon’s hack of telecoms companies was China’s “most significant cyber-espionage campaign in history”.

He previously said China’s hacking programme was bigger “than [that of] every other major nation combined”.

In addition to charges laid against the seven Chinese nationals, earlier this month US authorities warned China Telecom Americas, the US subsidiary of one of China’s largest communications companies, that it is a national security threat.

The company has 30 days to respond, and could ultimately face a ban.

In May, the UK sanctioned two individuals and Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd, which it said was linked to Judgment Panda.

Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz has said that foreign hackers must face “higher costs and consequences”.

Mr Forno, of the UMBC Cybersecurity Institute, said the hacks were probably years in the making.

“China traditionally takes a very long and strategic view of how they conduct their espionage and intelligence operations,” he said. “The US tends to be much more reactive and much more interested in immediate and visible results.”

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a news briefing that the accusations were “baseless” and “lacking evidence”.

“China consistently opposes all forms of hacking and firmly rejects the dissemination of false information targeting China for political purposes,” Mao said.

A Chinese embassy spokesman said in a statement: “The US needs to stop using cybersecurity to smear and slander China, and stop spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats.”

Whether you want to know about some of the coming year’s biggest gigs and festivals, or which books, films and TV shows are coming out, there should be something here for everyone.

You can also discover 2025’s key fashion trends, plus which theatre is reimagining Wayne and Coleen Rooney as mythical heroes – and why a giant spider is returning to London.

Here they tautologically come, slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball.

Yes, spectacular squabbling siblings Oasis are back after their 15-year huff, ready to go Supersonic all over again.

The much-anticipated tour rocks into Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on 4 July, and is set to be the comeback of the year.

And a new generation of stars are stepping up to stadium headliner status. Dua Lipa and Lana Del Rey will sashay into Wembley and Anfield this summer; while K-Pop band Stray Kids have booked two nights at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Festival bills are getting a long overdue shake-up, too. Spain’s Primavera has pulled a blinder, booking three of pop’s biggest wavemakers – Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan.

Roan will also headline Reading and Leeds, while her friend and collaborator Olivia Rodrigo has booked her first headline slot at London’s BST festival in Hyde Park, and Fontaines DC have a massive show at London’s Finsbury Park in July (the announcement video is a must-see).

Meanwhile, Coldplay have booked a record-breaking 10 night residency at Wembley Stadium, as well as two gigs in Hull’s Craven Park. Ten per cent of the proceeds will go to grassroots music venues across the UK.

There’s new music on the way from indie hero Sam Fender and brooding R&B icon The Weeknd, as well as a welcome return to pop from part-time actress Lady Gaga.

Gaga’s progenitor, Madonna, is also back in the studio with her Confessions On A Dancefloor partner Stuart Price; while the UK’s biggest rapper, Central Cee, is gearing up to release his debut album in January.

The first major event of the year (unless you’re Drake) will be Kendrick Lamar headlining the Super Bowl half-time show in February. We’ll also be watching the Grammy Awards, to find out whether they’re prepared to snub Beyoncé in the best album category for a fifth time.

The Brit Awards follow on 1 March. They should accept the inevitable now and rename the ceremony The Brats.

What else? Glastonbury has booked Rod Stewart to play the legend slot, but the rest of the line-up is shrouded in mystery. And for rock fans, Leicestershire’s Download Festival has an unassailable line-up: Green Day, KoRn, Weezer, Bullet For My Valentine, The Darkness and Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter.

This year also marks the golden anniversary of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run – so expect a flurry of nostalgia for two of rock’s most seminal works.

It’ll also be 25 years since Ronan Keating’s Life Is A Rollercoaster topped the UK charts, but I bet that’ll be brushed under the carpet.

Typical.

Traditionally, January and the first half of February see a glut of Bafta and Oscar hopefuls being released, all hoping for glory as the climax of awards season approaches.

This year, those films include Maria, starring Angelina Jolie as acclaimed opera singer Maria Callas; A Complete Unknown, in which Timothée Chalamet takes on the role of Bob Dylan; and A Real Pain, a tender story about two Jewish American cousins (played by Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) visiting places in Poland associated with the Holocaust.

There’s also Hard Truths, directed by Mike Leigh and starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a depressed middle-aged woman. And September 5th looks at the events of the 1972 Munich Olympics through the eyes of a US sports broadcast team when a group of Israeli athletes and coaches are taken hostage by a Palestinian militant group.

February will also see the return of Bridget Jones, with Renée Zellweger once again taking on the title role for Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy.

After – by its high standards – a hit-and-miss couple of years, Marvel is hoping for major success with Captain America: Brave New World, where Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson takes on the Cap America mantle; Thunderbolts, where a group of anti-heroes including Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova take on government missions; and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn as the titluar quartet of heroes.

Director Danny Boyle, who directed 28 Days Later in 2002, returns to helm the third film in the series, 28 Years Later, which stars Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jack O’Connell.

June and July will see franchise reboot Jurassic World Rebirth; the eighth Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible film, The Final Reckoning; John Wick spin-off Ballerina; and director James Gunn‘s new take on Superman. The summer will also bring Brad Pitt‘s Formula 1 action drama F1.

Towards the of the year, the second Wicked movie, Wicked: For Good, will be released. And with the first two movies being among the biggest box office hits of all time, there’s huge anticipation for director James Cameron‘s third Avatar film, Fire and Ash.

In recent years, the first day of January has been when many broadcasters like to launch the shows they have particular hopes for. And 2025 is no different.

New Year’s Day sees Netflix releasing Missing You, about a police officer (Rosalind Eleazar) who finds her former fiance on a dating app. Netflix’s last adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel was Fool Me Once, which was a monster hit – the second-biggest drama of 2024 on any channel.

The same day also has the launch of the third series of BBC One’s The Traitors, which has become one of TV’s biggest entertainment hits. A few days later, Playing Nice begins on ITV1 – it’s a drama starring James Norton and Niamh Algar as a couple who find that their child was switched at birth in a hospital mix-up.

Netflix’s two biggest shows ever will be returning in 2025. Wednesday, the Addams Family spin-off starring Jenna Ortega, will air its second series later in the year; while Stranger Things will say goodbye with its fifth and final series.

There will be second helpings of a number of popular dramas including Tom Hiddleston spy drama The Night Manager, with Olivia Colman also back as Angela Burr; and video game adaptation The Last of Us, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

The stylish and slightly surreal The White Lotus is back for a third series in February.

Following The House of the Dragon, a second Game of Thrones spin-off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, will once again take viewers to the fictional world of Westeros. Another spin-off – The War Between The Land and the Sea – comes from the Doctor Who universe, or Whoniverse.

Nearly 40 years on from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, there will be two TV dramas based on the tragic events at Lockerbie in 1988. Sky Atlantic’s Lockerbie: A Search for Truth stars Oscar winner Colin Firth as Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the disaster. Meanwhile, BBC One’s Lockerbie will focus on the investigation into the crash and how it affected the families of those involved.

And not for the first time, EastEnders will broadcast a live episode in February. But this time, viewers will decide the outcome of one particular storyline. It’s all to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary.

A coat and woolly hat may be the only fashion choices you’re currently making, but fear not, something more exciting is just around the corner.

Thanks to the way the fashion calendar works, we already know what looks are going to be in come spring time. Back in September and October, designers showcased their looks for those warmer months, and a few key trends emerged.

One of them was very demure and mindful – think soft pastels, pussy bow blouses and pleats – as demonstrated by Chanel and Balenciaga.

And if you practically live in sportswear (whether you go to the gym in it is irrelevant), then the next trend is for you.

Designers such as Loewe showed their racier side at fashion week – think stretchy materials and big brand logos that wouldn’t look out of place on your favourite athlete.

Minimalist, clean lines were a big part of autumn and winter looks, but maximum volume is in for 2025. Tutus, frills and tassels were all spotted on the runway – with Stella McCartney stealing the show with her asymmetric dresses in soft fabrics.

Let’s not forget the guys either – office wear was an aesthetic seen across Men’s Fashion Week with Fendi’s suit and tie combos one of the most memorable takes on this look.

They were showcased in a selection of bright colours such as pale green, turquoise and peach – which looked great on the catwalk but may not be appropriate for the morning commute to work.

If your stocking was a little lacking in the literary department, there are plenty of bookish delights heading your way in 2025.

The Hunger Games juggernaut is once again rolling into town – Suzanne Collins’ Sunrise on the Reaping (Scholastic, 18 March) is a prequel set 24 years before the events of the original novels, starting on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games.

It’s been 12 years since Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie treated us to a long-form novel, so Dream Count (Fourth Estate, 4 March) will be a publishing event.

The latest work from the author of modern classics such as Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun centres on the lives of four women living in Nigeria and the US. With family drama, career ambitions and romantic dilemmas taking centre stage, we’re anticipating an ambitious, juicy epic that will hopefully be worth the wait.

Another family drama comes from debut author Sanam Mahloudji, who was born in Tehran but left during the Islamic Revolution. The Persians (Fourth Estate, 30 January) is a sweeping and irreverent tale following five women from three generations of a once illustrious Iranian family, who are trying to find an identity in their adopted home in the US. But it’s a struggle to leave the past behind.

Another must-read debut is Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa (Penguin, 6 March). It follows a woman with a congenital muscle disorder, who posts outrageous stories on an erotica website from the confines of her care home. Her new male carer has read it all and the pair make a pact. Funny and frank, this book lingers in the mind long after you turn the final page.

Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Bloomsbury, 18 March) is the highly anticipated first novel since Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Set in Zanzibar in the 1990s, this coming-of-age novel focuses on three very different young people, including Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents.

Finally, Pope Francis’s Hope (Viking, 14 January) is the first autobiography to be published by a Pope. He originally intended for the memoir to appear only after his death, but according to his publisher “the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope” moved him to release it early.

If you fancy a visual feast, having just consumed plenty of the edible variety, the works of artist JMW Turner may be just what you’re after.

Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery says its In Light and Shade exhibition (7 February to 21 November) will offer a “rare opportunity” to see the Liber Studiorum prints, created from his etchings, and it will also display some of its other Turner masterpieces.

For something completely different, London’s Courtauld Gallery’s Abstract Erotic (20 June to 14 September) will explore the sculptural works of Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse and Alice Adams, highlighting their “commitment to using humour and abstract form to ask important questions about sexuality and bodies”.

Bourgeois will also feature at London’s Tate Modern, when her giant stainless steel spider, called Maman, returns there in May to celebrate the gallery’s 25th birthday. The 10m (33ft) sculpture will be reinstalled in the Turbine Hall, having been the first work seen when the gallery opened.

Norwegian artist Edvard Munch – famous for The Scream – will feature at London’s National Portrait Gallery (13 March to 15 June). Calling him “one of the great portraitists of the 19th and 20th Centuries”, it says the show will illustrate how many of his pictures “double up as icons or examples of the human condition”.

Meanwhile, the photography of Lee Miller, whose life was recently brought to the big screen by Kate Winslet, will get the UK’s “most extensive retrospective of her work” at London’s Tate Britain.

The extraordinary career of the US-born Vogue model turned World War Two photographer will be explored in 250 images, with some displayed for the first time (2 October to 15 February 2026).

At the Ulster Museum in Belfast, visitors can delve into the “science of love” at the Late Late Love Lab on Valentine’s Day. It will include revelations about the “scandalous” sex lives of insects – who knew? – and an exploration of “the deadly allure of beauty”.

Stepping outside, V&A Dundee is hosting a UK-first exhibition on the history of modern garden design. Garden Futures: Designing with Nature (from 17 May) will explore the history and future of gardens, including how they have developed around the world – and how they influence artists, writers and designers.

In London, a string of big names are in new versions of old classics.

They include Jonathan Bailey as Shakespeare’s Richard II at the Bridge Theatre (10 February to 2 May), Cate Blanchett and Emma Corrin in The Seagull by Anton Chekhov at The Barbican (26 February to 5 April) and Ewan McGregor in My Master Builder, inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, at Wyndham’s Theatre (17 April to 12 July).

Elsewhere, Lily Allen continues her reinvention as an actress, playing a woman trapped in a controlling marriage in Hedda, a new version of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, at Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio (25 July to 23 August).

News of the new James Bond may come this year – but until then, A Role To Die For satirises the spy franchise, following a female film producer (who is “legally distinct” from 007 supremo Barbara Broccoli) as she prepares to unveil her new star, at Cirencester Barn (30 January to 15 March).

Another epic spoof will see Wayne and Coleen Rooney reimagined as mythical heroes in a fantasy land, where their trials and tribulations are fodder for Helen Serafinowicz’s comedy The Legend of Rooney’s Ring at Liverpool’s Royal Court (18 July to 25 August).

A very different legend has inspired Nessie, a musical about a nature-loving 11-year-old girl whose meeting with the Loch Ness Monster leads to a quest to save the loch, at Edinburgh’s Capital Theatres (28 March to 5 April) and Pitlochry Festival Theatre (9 July to 16 August).

One of Indian cinema’s biggest ever hits, 1995 rom-com Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ), is adapted as colourful stage musical Come Fall In Love by the film’s writer-director Aditya Chopra, at Manchester Opera House (29 May to 21 June).

Alan Partridge’s downtrodden assistant Lynn (and her facial expressions) are the inspiration for punk singer Leah in Laura Horton’s Lynn Faces, about the fallout from an abusive relationship. It is on tour in Norwich, Exeter, Plymouth and London (28 January to 1 March).

And Boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s 1977 visit to South Shields is the backdrop to Ishy Din’s Champion, a drama about a mixed-race family in the Tyneside town, at Newcastle’s Live Theatre (13 February to 8 March).

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have filed competing lawsuits that ramp up a battle over allegations of what happened on the set of their film, It Ends With Us.

Lively filed a lawsuit in New York against the actor and his publicity team on Tuesday, alleging sexual harassment on the set of the film and a scheme to “destroy” her reputation.

Baldoni, meanwhile, has filed a lawsuit against The New York Times, which first reported Lively’s legal complaint, accusing journalists of working with the actress to damage his reputation and ignoring evidence which contradicted her claims.

The newspaper has denied his allegations and said their original story was “meticulously and responsibly reported”.

Lively’s legal case includes many of the same accusations which appeared in her civil rights complaint, often a precursor to a lawsuit, which was filed in California in December.

She asks for compensatory damages, including “lost wages” and money for “mental pain and anguish”. She does not specify a monetary amount.

In his own lawsuit against The New York Times, first reported by Variety, Baldoni claims libel and fraud, He accuses journalists of working with the actress to “damage” his reputation, and not giving his team appropriate time to respond to a “bombshell story”.

Baloni’s lawsuit alleges that the Times relied on “‘cherry picked’ and altered communications “stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead”.

In a statement, the New York Times told BBC News its report was “based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article”.

“We published their [Baldoni and his team’s] full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well.”

• Blake Lively’s claims put spotlight on ‘hostile’ Hollywood tactics
• Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively: What you need to know

Baldoni was dropped by his talent agency after the claims were published in the newspaper. His lawsuit asks for a jury trial and damages of $250m (£199m).

The actor’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told CBS News that the newspaper “aided and abetted” a “smear campaign designed to revitalise Lively’s… floundering public image”.

Baldoni’s lawsuit includes many of the same text messages and communications listed by Lively, which she used to accuse his team of orchestrating a social media campaign to alter public opinion against her.

In her own lawsuit, Lively accuses Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image following a meeting to address “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour”.

In the meeting, she is said to have laid out 30 demands relating to alleged misconduct to ensure they could continue to produce the film, which included not describing genitalia on set and not adding any intimate scenes beyond the ones Lively had previously approved.

Lively’s legal team further accused Baldoni and his film studio Wayfarer of leading a “multi-tiered plan” to wreck her reputation, which included social media manipulation and using friendly journalists to further certain narratives.

Baldoni’s lawyers have previously told the BBC that the allegations made by Lively are “categorically false” and said they hired a crisis manager because Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.

BBC News has contacted representatives for Lively, Baldoni and The New York Times for further comment.

It Ends With Us was released last summer, and sees Lively play a woman in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Baldoni.

The film is based on a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover. The 45-year-old author has said her inspiration was the domestic abuse endured by her mother.

They are smiling now as they play together in the sand at al-Mawasi tent camp in southern Gaza, but the children of the Masri family have survived horrific events.

“Their lives were in danger, they were exposed to so much killing and destruction,” says their grandmother, Kawther al-Masri.

An Israeli bombing six weeks ago struck their home in the northern town of Beit Lahia, killing the parents of one-year-old Jamal and the mother and two young sisters of his cousins Maria, Jana and Zeina, aged from two to nine. The girls’ father was arrested by Israeli forces more than a year ago.

When the children were pulled from the rubble, they were injured and alone.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, more than 14,500 children have reportedly been killed, thousands more injured and an estimated 17,000 have been left unaccompanied or separated from the family members who would ordinarily care for them.

Some are too young to know their names and remain unidentified.

In a chaotic situation amid bombings and mass displacement, the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, has managed to reunite just 63 children with their parents or guardians. Last month, the BBC followed the story of the four Masri cousins.

“The happiness of their return is indescribable, but it’s overshadowed with sadness – they came back without their parents,” Kawther al-Masri told us.

Initially, the news that reached Kawther in mid-November was that all of her loved ones who had remained in the family’s house in northern Gaza had been killed. But she says that after she prayed, word reached her that three of her grandchildren were still alive.

She immediately knew that she had to bring them to her. “I longed for them,” she explains. “Honestly, I wished I could go to the North and fetch them, but God’s will is above everything.”

For more than a year now, Israel has divided the northern third of the Gaza Strip from the southern two-thirds along the line of a valley, Wadi Gaza. Humanitarian workers have to carry out special co-ordination to cross the Israeli military zone bisecting the territory.

After Kawther collected the documents she needed, Unicef carried out its own welfare checks and went through a laborious process to arrange to move the Masri children.

As the four bereaved cousins underwent medical treatment, distant relatives had looked after them. Unicef filmed their emotional goodbye before it took the children away in armoured vehicles.

The short distance from Gaza City to Deir al-Balah where the convoy was heading now involves crossing an Israeli checkpoint, it takes a long time to drive and can be very risky as the war rages on. Yet Unicef says it is prioritising child reunifications.

“The challenges are multiple,” says Rosalia Bollen, a Unicef spokeswoman. “But we’re talking here about highly vulnerable children.”

“These are stories of loss – of deep mental trauma and physical trauma and for these children to recover. The fact that they’ve been reunified with one or both parents, or a family member, is extremely, extremely important.”

Kawther describes an agonising wait on the day the children were due to arrive until finally Unicef telephoned. She hadn’t seen her grandchildren for 14 months.

“I didn’t know who to hug first!” she exclaims. “The first one I hugged was Jana and then Zeina. I kissed her and hugged her.”

“My son’s children used to call me ‘Kuko’ and although Zeina couldn’t speak the last time I saw her, she knew this was my nickname. She kept asking: ‘Are you Kuko? Are you the one I came here for?’ And I told her I was. She felt safe.”

The story of the Masri family is not uncommon. They were split up in the early days of the war.

A week after the 7 October 2023 Hamas assault which killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel, the Israeli military ordered 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to move south, signalling that it planned to start a ground invasion.

Kawther and most of her children quickly packed up and moved to Rafah, but transportation for her two sons, Ramadan and Hamza, fell through. They ended up staying behind with their wives – one of whom was pregnant – and small children.

In November 2023, Hamza was arrested by Israeli forces in Beit Lahia. His close relatives insist that he and they are farmers with no political affiliations. The BBC has been unable to get information from the Israeli authorities about what happened to Hamza.

Israel has detained thousands of Gazans during the war, saying they are suspected of terrorism.

“This has been our fate,” Kawthar tells us despairingly. “We lost our homes, our land and our loved ones, and we were divided between the North and the South.”

With so many people unaccounted for, many turn to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for help. It takes detailed information and cross-checks this with sources it can access, such as hospital lists and names of returned detainees.

More than 8,300 cases have been reported to the organisation but only about 2,100 have been closed. Of these, only a small number have led to family reunifications.

“People are in limbo – they don’t know whether their family member is alive, whether they are injured or in hospital, whether they are trapped under rubble or whether they will see them again,” says Sarah Davies from the ICRC.

Doctors and staff at hospitals also play a part in trying to connect their patients with loved ones.

Nearly a year ago, the BBC filmed a newborn baby who had been delivered by Caesarean section after her mother was killed in an Israeli air strike. Medics called the little girl “the daughter of Hanna Abu Amsha” and kept information about her in the hope her relatives could track her down.

Recently, the nursery at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir al-Balah told us that the baby was eventually handed over to her father and was doing well.

Days after the Masri family’s reunion, a local journalist working with the BBC visited Kawther and her grandchildren in the al-Mawasi displaced people’s camp where they now live in a tent. With aid in short supply, Unicef had given them help to get extra food and medication.

The girls also had warm jackets – some protection against the cold temperatures which have led to several babies dying of hypothermia, including at the camp on the coast, close to the city of Khan Younis.

While Kawther is relieved to have the children with her, she still does not feel they are safe. She worries about how to care for them and their mental health.

“They are in shock,” she says. “No matter how much we try to distract the girls and avoid talking of the war, every now and then they wander off in thought.”

“When night falls, they are afraid. They say: ‘There’s a plane, there’s a strike.’ They ask me: ‘Is it dawn yet?’ and only when morning comes, they start to feel reassured.”

Kawther says she desperately hopes for a ceasefire and for her grandchildren to rebuild their lives. Not to become part of a lost generation.

This has been one of the most eventful years since I began covering global security for the BBC in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks in 2001.

The sudden toppling of Syria’s President Assad, North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia. British and US missiles sent to Ukraine and fired at Russia, Iranian missiles shipped to Russia. US-armed Israeli air strikes in Lebanon and Gaza, Yemeni missiles fired at Israel.

It’s a complex and confusing web of conflicts and it prompts the inevitable question: Are the world’s battle lines becoming ever more interconnected?

Let’s get one thing straight: this is World War Three, although President Putin does like to dangle that menace to scare the West away from sending more powerful weapons to Ukraine. But it’s clear that many of the conflicts on our planet have an international dimension, so how do these lines join up?

We can start with the war that has been raging in the east of Europe, across Ukraine since 24 February 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a failed bid to take over the whole country.

Rustam Nugudin, “Achilles” Battalion, Ukrainian Armed Forces

Lurid media reports that inexperienced North Korean troops, newly arrived on the battlefield, are “gorging” on internet porn, something unavailable to them in their own closed, hermit state, can not mask the fact that their involvement in this European war is a serious escalation. Serious enough to prompt the US and other Western countries to lift their ban on Ukraine using Western long-range missiles to attack targets deep inside Russia, provoking fury in the Kremlin.

Beyond the battlefield bravado, the arrival of a division-sized contingent of North Korean soldiers, thought to number between 10-12,000, is bad news for Ukraine which is already struggling with a shortage of manpower.

“Even if they are not the strongest soldiers, 10,000 is quite a lot, it’s two brigades”, says Rustam Nugudin, a Ukrainian commander on the frontline. “Just imagine that it only took two brigades to push the Russians back from the Kharkiv region.”

Voicing a complaint shared by many Ukrainians, he adds: “Yes, our Western allies help us with some weapons and training, and we are very grateful for that, but the scale of it is incomparable next to the military assistance Russia gets from Iran and North Korea. It must be the other way round if you’d really like to see us – and Europe – win.”

But the war in Ukraine was already internationalised long before the North Koreans showed up. Belarus, a nominally independent European nation but now almost completely in-step with Moscow, was used as a launch pad to attack Ukraine. From early on in the months following its 2022 invasion, Iran has been supplying Russia with Shahed explosive-tipped drones and more recently the Islamic Republic has been accused of shipping powerful ballistic missiles to Russia across the Caspian Sea.

And the West has hardly been a bystander in this conflict. A massive one-way pipeline of US, Nato and EU assistance, both financial and military, has enabled Ukraine to largely hold off the Russian army – until now.

“What we are seeing is a fundamental imbalance of approaches,” says the BBC’s Ukraine expert Vitaly Shevchenko. “While the West’s policy of caution and containment has imposed limitations on what Ukraine can do, Moscow appears unconcerned about the conflict expanding and possibly even keen for it to do so.”

The complexities of this region frankly make the Ukraine war look straightforward. Because there are several conflicts in this region all either raging or dormant, and all going on at the same time.

But first, an important caveat. Contrary to the impression we often get via the world’s media, most of the Middle East is at war. Day-to-day life in places like Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Egypt goes on as normal, untouched by the threat of war. Even in countries that have recently experienced conflict in some form, like Iraq and Iran, life is largely peaceful for most people.

Almost no one saw this one coming. Not Syria’s now-departed President Bashar al-Assad. Nor his backers in Tehran, Moscow and South Beirut. Nor, it seems, America’s multi-billion dollar intelligence community.

In the space of less than a fortnight, a coalition of Islamist rebels known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who are designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US, EU and UK, managed to break out of their stronghold in northwest Syria and seize city after city until they have now become Syria’s new rulers.

This is so much more than just a localised, single-country event; it has several international strands to it.

One of the many effects of the Hamas-led raid into southern Israel is that the Israeli government’s response has had a devastating effect on Iran’s allies in the region. The last time Syria’s rebels looked like threatening Assad’s rule, in 2015, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia all came to his aid and drove the rebels back. Not this time. Russia is busy fighting Ukraine, Hezbollah has been decimated by its short war with Israel and Iran is bruised after seeing how easily Israeli warplanes were able to penetrate its airspace in the autumn.

The net result is that Assad’s allies were either incapable or unwilling to come to his aid, while Turkey, which backs the rebels, saw an opportunity to reshape the situation to its own advantage.

The situation in Gaza is nothing short of tragic.

The latest conflict there (and there have been many shorter ones before this one) was triggered by the raid led by Hamas (the militants proscribed as a terrorist group by many governments) into southern Israel on 7 October 2023 in which more than 1100 people were killed and around 250 taken into Gaza as hostages. Since then, Israel’s war on Hamas has resulted in more than 44,000 Palestinians being killed there. These are mostly civilian deaths and although that figure comes from the Hamas-run Health Ministry, it is largely endorsed by independent aid agencies. Israel says it has largely degraded Hamas’s military capabilities.

Today, 15 months into this war, much of Gaza lies in ruins. More than a million people have been displaced, often multiple times, out of a population of 2.4 million. Many of those are living in miserable conditions in tents, plagued by snakes, scorpions and scabies in the summer, and battered by the weather in the winter.

Numerous attempts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have failed, despite the efforts of Qatar, Egypt, the US and others. Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas as a military force and while its ranks have been heavily depleted, the fighting is not yet over and devastating Israeli airstrikes on built-up areas continue.

There appears to be no agreed plan for what happens after the fighting stops, nor who will govern the Gaza Strip after more than 18 years of rule by Hamas.

In many ways Gaza is the well-spring of other conflicts in the region, leading to exchanges of fire between Israel and, variously, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and Syria.

Iran supports a number of allied or “proxy” militias around the Middle East, giving them money, weapons and training through its Quds Force, a branch of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). All are avowedly hostile to Israel and collectively known by Iran as the “Axis of Resistance”.

In Lebanon, for years now, the strongest military force has not been the national army, nor the UN peacekeepers stationed in the south. It is Hezbollah, a militant force armed by Iran with advanced missiles and rockets.

On 8 October 2023, Hezbollah began raining rockets and drones down on northern Israel in solidarity, it said, with its brothers-in-arms in Gaza. In September 2024, Israel changed its war aims to include clearing Hezbollah away from the border so that more than 60,000 Israelis could return to their homes in the north.

Israel, through a combination of covert sabotage by Mossad, its external spy agency, and its military, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), has dealt Hezbollah a series of devastating blows, assassinating its long-time leader, blowing up its communications and destroying tonnes of its weaponry. Thousands of people have been killed in the short Israel-Lebanon war that preceded a ceasefire in late November.

Israel is at war with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and has fired missiles at – and been attacked from – Iran, Yemen, Syria and Iraq.

The US has continued to supply Israel with a colossal amount of military aid – both defensive such as the THAAD missile defence and offensive weapons such as parts for the F35 aircraft – despite the killing of so many Palestinians in Gaza and almost universal worldwide opprobrium. This makes the US – and by extension the West in general – unpopular in the Arab world and increases the risk of recruitment by proscribed terror groups likes Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaida leading to what Western security officials say is the risk of a rise of transnational terrorism.

Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” – Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis etc – has been weakened by Israeli assaults this year but is not broken.

Iran, in addition to supplying its proxies in the region, has been sending missiles to Russia to be used against Ukraine. There are reports that in return Russian satellite intelligence is being passed to the Houthis in Yemen, via Iran, to help them target Western shipping passing from the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea.

Russia may have lost its key Mediterranean ally, Syria, but it still has a big one in the form of Libya’s “Marshal” Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi. Russian air force cargo planes have recently been seen flying into Libyan airstrips, both on the coast and inland at a place called Brak. Moscow clearly sees Libya as both a springboard for projecting its global reach in the Mediterranean and also as a staging post for its mercenary activities further south in Sudan and the Sahel.

The Russian mercenary group formerly known as Wagner and now rebranded as “Afrika Korps” have successfully supplanted French and other Western forces in the Sahel nations and former French colonies of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Central African Republic.

This means Russia has effectively inherited the IS jihadist problem in those countries but in the meantime it is enriching itself from lucrative deals that see mineral and other wealth flowing back to Moscow.

Ukraine recently appeared to take a wrong turn in this area by enabling a major attack on Malian government forces and their Russian mentors in July. Ukrainian Special Forces reportedly supplied drones and training to Tuareg rebels that resulted in an ambush, killing 84 Russian mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers. Kyiv is clearly trying to “take the fight to the enemy” but if they were responsible for supplying the drones, this move is widely considered to have backfired. Ukraine has denied involvement.

South Korea is worried. There is no such thing as a free lunch, the saying goes, and Seoul is now wondering just what Pyongyang will be getting from Moscow in return for the dispatching all those thousands of North Korean soldiers to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. Will it be missile technology? Nuclear know-how? Submarine or satellite assistance?

Up until now South Korea has carefully avoided sending any military kit directly to Ukraine, sending it instead to the US to replace kit which then gets sent to Ukraine. But South Korea, which has an advanced military industrial base, is now considering lifting this ban and sending equipment directly to Kyiv.

All of this increases the already febrile tensions on the Korean Peninsula where a paranoid nuclear-armed state (the North) faces off against its pro-Western democratic neighbour (the South). The two countries never officially ended their war – it stopped with an Armistice in 1953.

This is not yet a conflict but it is a major potential flashpoint.

While the West spent the first 20 years of this century preoccupied with fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, China quietly colonised strategic reefs in international waters in the South China Sea and claimed them for its own. Its coastguard has since clashed frequently with Philippines vessels, claiming they are infringing on Chinese territory, despite being only just outside the Philippines maritime boundary and nowhere near China’s coastline.

But the big worry is Taiwan. Beijing has repeatedly vowed to “return” this self-governing democracy to the mainland, even though it has never been ruled by Beijing at any point since the Communists came to power and the People’s Republic of China came into being in 1949. President Xi Jinping has said publicly that this will be achieved, “by force if necessary” before the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2049.

Taiwan does not want to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. It has voted in a pro-democracy, anti-Beijing president, William Lai, whom the politburo in Beijing absolutely detests. They accuse him of seeking independence for Taiwan (a red line for China) and responded to a recent robust speech of his with a series of threatening military exercises and air incursions all around the island.

The big question is: if China invades – or more likely blockades – Taiwan then will the US come to its defence by committing its own forces? Will a second-term President Trump view this as a challenge to America’s vital interests in the Pacific? Or will he abandon Taiwan to its fate?

This has the potential for a truly catastrophic conflict with global economic consequences that would dwarf Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This was the year that the balance of power in the Middle East shifted dramatically, in Israel’s favour and to Iran’s disadvantage. Israel’s government has clearly decided to go all-out to “neutralise” its enemies, be they in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen or Syria. Red lines previously adhered to, by both Iran and Israel, have now been crossed, with the two sides trading missiles in direct attacks on each other for the first time.

The Ukraine war has now shown itself to be almost certainly unwinnable, at least for Ukraine. Russia has ramped up its defence industrial machine to the extent it can now partially overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences and its front lines but not so much that it can take the whole country. Yet Ukraine’s position now looks weaker than at any time since the early months of the full-scale invasion.

The war has become increasingly internationalised, with North Korean troops arriving in Europe to fight on Russia’s side and the West giving the green light for Ukraine to fire its long-range missiles into Russia.

Sweden has now joined Nato, meaning that eight Nato countries now border the Baltic Sea where Russia maintains two strategic footholds, in St Petersburg and Kaliningrad. There have been several incidents of so-called “hybrid warfare” in the Baltic, where Russia is suspected of purposefully damaging undersea communications cables.

There will likely be a concerted effort by the incoming Trump administration to force a peace deal in Ukraine. This may well stumble at the first hurdle. President Putin has already made his terms clear and they amount to virtual capitulation for Kyiv so will be largely unacceptable there, even for Ukraine’s exhausted population. But if Trump turns off the tap of US weaponry then Europe cannot possibly make up the shortfall, leaving Ukraine weaker and even more prone to Russian attacks in the air and on the ground. Some kind of messy ceasefire deal may be the least painful of all options for Ukraine, even though it does not trust Putin’s word.

The Middle East is still in flux. Iran and Israel have unfinished business but Tehran is well aware of its own weaknesses and of Israel’s increasingly aggressive posture in the region. It would not take much provocation to trigger a new round of Israeli airstrikes on Iran. There is already widespread speculation that Donald Trump – who authorised the assassination of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force Commander in 2020 – may work with Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear programme.

Syria could go either way. It could settle down into a successful, pluralistic nation, bucking the trend of other revolutions in the region. Or it could descend into factional infighting. The West will continue to struggle to restrain Turkey from hitting the Syrian Kurds, the West’s chief ally against IS.

Despite the global coalition against IS drawing down its military component in the Middle East, IS-KP (Islamic State Khorasan Province) showed how dangerous they are this year with the Moscow Crocus Hall attack that killed 145 people. Western intelligence estimates are that IS continues to try to capitalise on anger over Gaza and recruit volunteers for attacks in Europe including the UK.

There will be renewed pressure from all sides for a substantive peace deal in Gaza that brings the hostages home and ends Israel’s assault on that battered territory. But Israel is reluctant to withdraw completely from the territory while Hamas, which holds the hostages, has always insisted this has to happen.

There is talk of a grand bargain that sees Saudi Arabia finally recognise the state of Israel in exchange for a binding security deal with Washington. But the Saudis have made clear this can only happen if there is a “clear, irrevocable path to an independent Palestinian state”. That is something that Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu is vehemently opposed to and Israeli settlers seizing of Palestinian land continues apace and with President Trump in the White House its likely to continue further.

His re-arrival on the international stage is one of the reasons why 2025 could be no less eventful than 2024.

From busy freeways to classic-car street racing, Los Angeles has long been considered the capital of American car culture. Can it change in time for the Olympics?

With nearly year-round sunny skies, some say LA is the ideal place for cycling.

“It is the perfect community for runners and cycling and outdoors, yet as a generality we are hooked on our vehicles, we are hooked on the need to have speed,” said Damian Kevitt, the executive director of Streets Are For Everyone (Safe).

But until recently, it was cars – and not pedestrians or cyclists – that ruled the roads.

Spreading over 460 square miles (1,200 sq km), Los Angeles is known for its never-ending sprawl, and its traffic jams.

While cities like New York and Boston have embraced mass transit, in LA it never quite caught on – only about 7% of Angelenos take transit to work, according to Neighborhood Data for Social Change.

And while LA weather would be the envy of any Amsterdam cyclist, only about 1% bikes to work.

But with hundreds of thousands of spectators expected to attend the city for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games, something has to be done to make getting around the city easier.

Los Angeles adopted the “Twenty-eight by ’28” transport plan in 2017 to expand mass transit options before the summer Olympics. Since then, miles and miles of new bike lanes have been popping up.

“This is long overdue,” Mr Kevitt said.

A cyclist who lost his leg in 2013 after a car hit him as he rode his bike in Griffith Park, Kevitt thinks more people will commute using their own bikes or rentable Metro city bikes once the streets are safer and bike lanes are more connected to each other.

LA voters in 2024 overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to require the city to build more bike lanes and more walkable, livable spaces in Los Angeles.

But will car-loving Angelenos embrace bike culture? Some are actively fighting the changes, grumbling that bike lanes only worsen traffic for cars in the city of stars.

“What do you mean we voted for it? Not here! Not me!” said Darin Drabing, the president and CEO of Forest Lawn Cemetery, who is fighting against bike lanes near the cemetery because he thinks it will increase traffic during his commute and funerals.

“Everywhere I’ve seen [it] implemented, they failed,” he said. “All it does is increase congestion and frustration for people.”

Some do fail.

While protected bike lanes have transformed Olympic host cities like Paris and London, politicians are currently trying to rip out bike lanes in Toronto that have been a part of the city’s streets for almost a decade (they are being sued by cyclists to stop that plan).

In Los Angeles County, the city of Glendale recently voted to remove some bike lanes after complaints about increased traffic.

And new protected bike lanes are creating frustration along Hollywood Boulevard, where automobile traffic is now limited to one lane in each direction for several miles. But it’s also causing others to commute by bike occasionally instead of driving.

Cyclist Mimi Holt used to ride her bike in Seattle then quit riding for nearly 20 years out of fear of speeding drivers on LA’s busy streets.

“In LA people drive so fast, it’s so utterly terrifying,” she said.

When her doctor told her she was pre-diabetic, she decided to risk the roads to get more exercise, and said since getting back on two wheels, she feels much younger.

She said she can’t wait for the city’s “islands of bike lanes” to be connected to one another.

“If only there was a connecting path, I would be on them all the time,” Ms Holt said, adding that she would get rid of her car if cycling safely everywhere were an option in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city and the LA 2028 Olympic committee were making great progress towards a “transit first” Olympics, as she calls it, after she initially sparked controversy by championing a “car-free” Games.

But with over 100 miles (160km) of bike lanes planned, advocates worry the process is taking too long.

So far, just five of the “Twenty-eight by ’28” projects have been completed and 23 are in progress – and not all of them are expected to be completed in time for the Games.

Los Angeles has already secured $900m (£717m) from the Biden administration to help mostly with rail projects. But it will take more to make the city’s transit dreams come true by 2028.

Mayor Bass and other city leaders have written a letter to the Trump transition team requesting $3.2bn in federal funding for “the largest and most spectacular sporting event held in American history”.

President Trump was supportive of LA’s Olympic bid during his first presidency, telling officials not to forget to invite him.

Mayor Bass said they haven’t had a response yet to the letter, but she said she’s hopeful President-elect Trump will be supportive despite his frequent tensions with other California political leaders, such as Governor Gavin Newsom and congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

Some people, like Ms Holt, love the idea of ditching their cars, for a variety of reasons.

“I can barely afford my car. Insurance is really expensive, gas is really expensive and it’s not good for the environment,” Ms Holt said at a meeting to view proposed bike paths all over Los Angeles.

But while many Angelenos rely on mass transit to get to work and school, many others who live here have never taken a bus or ventured underground to the subway, which is often portrayed as crime-infested and dystopian in the media.

And many locals think the idea of a car-free Games is absurd.

“That’s a wonderful dream,” said Shivon Ozinga, a Burbank resident opposed to additional bike lanes near her neighborhood. She said the city is too vast, sprawling and reliant on cars to change.

“I can’t imagine it happening in that short amount of time given our car culture here.”

But Mayor Bass can imagine a transportation revolution and said she believes the transit changes in Los Angeles will be lasting long beyond the Olympic Games and the 2026 World Cup.

“As a bike rider, I certainly hope so,” she said.

From fun viral videos and celebration of Indian sporting glory to moments that made us shake our heads in wonder – the year 2024 had all of this and more to offer on Indian social media.

Here are some of the most memorable moments that we have picked for you.

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani and his family kept the world captivated for several months with opulent celebrations for his son Anant’s wedding.

The extravaganza first caught people’s eye in March when some of the world’s most influential people started arriving in India to attend a pre-wedding event. The star of that show was pop star Rihanna, whose performance at the event was her first in India.

Over the next few months, Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and Justin Bieber performed at different events leading up to the wedding.

Guests included Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian, actor John Cena, former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, Samsung chairman Jay Y Lee and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan among hundreds of others.

Dolly Chaiwala, a tea vendor from the state of Maharashtra, found himself going viral online after he served a cup of tea to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

The tea seller was already known for his flamboyant social media presence and unique style of serving tea.

Gates’s video of the moment has more than 176m views on his official Instagram page.

“In India, you can find innovation everywhere you turn – even in the preparation of a simple cup of tea,” he wrote.

Dolly Chaiwala later told news agency ANI he didn’t know he’d served tea to the tech billionaire.

“I was not aware of it at all. I thought that he was a guy from a foreign country and I had to serve him tea,” he said.

Sushila Meena, a 10-year-old girl from the small tribal hamlet Ramer Talab in the northern state of Rajasthan, went viral on social media this month after cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar shared a video of her bowling on X, formerly Twitter.

The young girl’s video, originally shared on Instagram by her school teacher, showed her bowling in slow motion on a makeshift cricket pitch in her village.

Tendulkar shared the video, commenting that her bowling action was “smooth, effortless, and lovely to watch!” He also said Meena had “shades of” former India bowler Zahir Khan.

Khan promptly agreed. Several former cricketers have now come forward to help her realise her dream of playing for India.

India celebrated as Gukesh Dommaraju defeated China’s Ding Liren this month to become the youngest-ever world chess champion.

Dommaraju, 18, is four years younger than the former record-holder, Russian grand-master Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he won the title in 1985.

Indians had been following the 14-game World Championship competition with an intensity usually reserved for major cricket tournaments.

Fans began celebrating after a blunder by Liren paved the way for Dommaraju’s win.

The teenager burst into tears as his win was announced and the room erupted with cheers.

The video of his tearful reaction quickly went viral on social media.

Is caramel popcorn just like any other popcorn? No, argued India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council which determines the rates at which various products are taxed.

Earlier this month, the council announced that non-branded popcorn that was mixed with salt and spices would be taxed at 5% but caramel popcorn, which it categorised as a sugar confectionery, would attract an 18% tax.

India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman explained that the presence of added sugar made caramel popcorn a “mithai” or confectionery, hence attracting tax under a different category than regular popcorn.

The decision had Indians up in arms, sparking a range of memes and criticism online.

“Our country’s tax system has truly evolved, popcorn is now the gold standard of luxury,” one user wrote on X.

Instagram influencer and celebrity popularly known as Orry commented that caramel popcorn was injurious to “financial health”.

Jairam Ramesh, a spokesman of main opposition Congress party, said the “absurdity of three different tax slabs for popcorn under GST… only brings to light a deeper issue: the growing complexity of a system that was supposed to be a Good and Simple Tax”.

A South Korean man accused of being responsible for a cryptocurrency crisis which cost investors $40bn (£31.8bn) has finally been extradited to the United States.

Do Kwon was the boss of Terraform, which operated two cryptocurrencies – TerraUSD and Luna – both of which collapsed in 2022, sparking a wider sell-off in the crypto market.

The US says he was responsible for the coins’ failure, accusing him of “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud”.

Kwon fled South Korea after a warrant for his arrest was issued, eventually ending up in Montenegro where he has now been extradited from, following a lengthy legal battle.

He was previously found guilty of forging documents by a Montenegro court, having been arrested as he was attempting to board a plane to Dubai in March 2023.

It had been unclear whether he would face criminal proceedings in the US, however, as Montenegro does not have extradition treaties with the US or South Korea, which has also been seeking his extradition.

Kwon finally being sent to the US brings to an end legal proceedings that lasted more than 18 months.

The Montenegrin Ministry of Justice approved the extradition earlier in December.

It claimed that Do Kwon had also agreed to it.

Kwon’s firm Terraform Labs became widely known in 2021, when its coins Luna and TerraUSD exploded in popularity.

Fans of Luna became known as “Lunatics”, with Kwon referred to as their “king”.

But, despite a huge amount of money being poured into the coins, on 9 May 2022 Terraform Labs collapsed catastrophically, losing more than 99% of its value in 48 hours.

Investors scrambled to take their money out of other cryptocurrencies, fearing that a similar thing could happen to them, which resulted in values falling significantly across the whole sector.

It’s estimated the so-called “cryptocrash” resulted in losses of $400bn (£318 bn).

Bitcoin was among the assets affected, however it has significantly grown in value since then and briefly stood at more than $100,000 per coin in December.

Terraform Labs ultimately filed for bankruptcy in the US in January 2024.

When I meet Willem Dafoe on Zoom to discuss his latest movie Nosferatu, we get on to mortality fast.

The four-time Oscar-nominated actor is talking to me for Radio 4’s Today programme about Robert Eggers’ remake of the 1922 silent film of the same name, which was an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Nosferatu is the tale of a terrifying vampire who is infatuated with a haunted young woman called Ellen, played by Lily-Rose Depp.

The story that unfolds involves a lot of death. Where creatures that feed on human blood are concerned, that’s pretty standard. But Dafoe, who plays a vampire-hunting professor of the occult in the film, tells me in real life too “we’re all somewhere considering death all the time”.

For him, that’s one explanation for the popularity of vampire stories.

Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula has been adapted numerous times, and vampires in general are never far from our screens.

Dafoe rationalises the enduring appeal of the subgenre like this: “It’s a very interesting proposition to have the undead visit the living, and it becomes something of a meditation of the dark side of things versus the light”.

Even if we don’t know it, he muses, all of us are always addressing this type of conflict in some form.

An interview with Dafoe is never dull; he’s a thoughtful and intelligent actor, who, for the best part of 50 years, has combined big Hollywood successes (Spiderman movies, John Wick, Born on the Fourth of July) with the arthouse films he relishes.

He dropped out of university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to join an experimental theatre company but, since those early days, his voracious work ethic and intense appeal as perhaps the greatest living character actor have seen him in more than 130 films. His debut, Heaven’s Gate, was in 1980. Seven years later, he was first nominated for an Oscar for the Vietnam war film Platoon.

Dafoe was crucified as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ and cut off his ear as Van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate. He spent six hours a day in the prosthetics make-up chair to morph into a reclusive scientist in Poor Things, and he has even been a version of a vampire himself, in Shadow of the Vampire.

While the original 1922 silent movie by F.W. Murnau pioneered some early special effects, including superimposing the image of Nosferatu on to a ship to create a frightening ghostly glow, Eggers goes for an earthy take, grounded in history and reality.

There were 2,000 real live rats on set.

It’s perfect for Dafoe, who tells me he doesn’t like to work too much with computer-generated imagery (the green screen and other visual effects that have become integral to filmmaking).

“You need to earn the authority to pretend, and through the technology, that gets lost”.

Don’t expect well-trodden vampire movie fare in this Nosferatu. Count Orlok doesn’t have the symmetrical fanged teeth we’re used to. This vampire isn’t a suave seducer in a high-collared black cloak.

Dafoe says Eggers wanted to get back to “a time when people actually believed in vampires”. To do this, “he went for a much more folk-based vampire”.

The actor believes this is “why this Orlok in the movie is so very different to anything we’ve ever seen before”.

The film is packed with talent popular with Gen Z (Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin). The cast – and the status of the 1922 original in the film firmament – means Eggers’ movie had achieved a cult-like following even before its release.

In the US, that was on Christmas Day. I asked whether Dafoe thought a movie about a bloodsucking, diseased creature and the horror he unleashes on a 19th Century German town was the perfect antidote to a day of family festivities.

He pointed to “the shadow side” of these occasions, “a time when some people fall into depression because they fall out of that happiness”.

It’s true that his film work offers up both sides – the joy and the pain of life, the extremes of being human and everything in-between.

He tells me that if you don’t recognise there is a shadow side to life, “you’re going to become a victim of it some day”.

As I look at him on the computer screen, it’s impossible not to reflect on how expressive his face is – a face that could be carved from the earth.

He tells me he only realised it when he started being photographed on the red carpet.

“Man, they get some ugly pictures of me. They get some grotesque pictures and they get some nice pictures”.

He puts that down to his face having “range”.

“I never think about my face,” he goes on. “If I ever do, it’s really just to tell it to calm down”.

On a bright January morning in 1979, then US president Jimmy Carter greeted a historic guest in Washington: Deng Xiaoping, the man who unlocked China’s economy.

The first leader of Communist China to visit the United States, Deng had arrived the previous evening, to light snow and a welcome by the US vice-president, the secretary of state and their spouses.

It was the start of a diplomatic relationship that would forever change the world, setting the stage for China’s economic ascent – and later, its rivalry with the US.

Establishing formal ties with China was among Carter’s more remarkable legacies, during a turbulent presidency that ended with one term.

Born on 1 October, the same date as the founding of the People’s Republic of China, “he liked to say it was destiny that brought him and China together”, said Yawei Liu, a close friend of Carter’s.

Even after leaving office, he painstakingly cultivated a close bond with the Chinese people – but that was affected as ties between Washington and Beijing cooled.

Yet he remains one of a small group of US statesmen cherished by Beijing for helping to bring Communist China out of isolation in the 1970s.

Beijing has expressed its condolences, calling Carter the “driving force” behind the 1979 agreement. But the Chinese internet has gone much further, referring to him as “Meirenzong” or the “benevolent American”, giving him a title that was once reserved for emperors.

• What to know about Jimmy Carter’s funeral
• Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s legendary 77-year marriage

Carter’s first encounter with China was in 1949, while the country was suffering the final convulsions of a bloody decades-long civil war.

As a young US naval officer, his submarine unit was dispatched to Qingdao in eastern China. They were to aid Kuomintang troops who were fending off a Communist siege by Mao Zedong’s army.

Just kilometres away behind enemy lines was a Chinese commander named Deng Xiaoping.

When they finally met decades later, it was as leaders of their respective countries.

It was an earlier US President, Richard Nixon, and his secretary of state Henry Kissinger who had laid the groundwork for wooing what was then Mao’s China. With Beijing and Moscow at loggerheads, they had sensed an opportunity to draw away a Soviet ally.

But those efforts culminated under Carter – and Deng – who pushed for deeper ties. For months, the US president dispatched trusted negotiators for secret talks with Beijing.

The breakthrough came in late 1978. In the middle of December, the two countries announced that they would “recognise each other and establish diplomatic relations from January 1, 1979”.

The world was surprised and Beijing was elated, but the island of Taiwan, which had long relied on US support against Chinese claims, was crushed. Carter is still a controversial figure there.

Previously, the US had only recognised the government of Taiwan, which China viewed as a renegade province. And for years US support for Taiwan had been the sticking point in negotiations.

Switching recognition to Beijing meant the US had finally acknowledged China’s position that there was only one Chinese government – and it was in Beijing. This is the One China policy, which, to this day, forms the cornerstone of US-China relations.

But the pivot raised inevitable questions about US commitment to its allies. Uneasy with Carter’s decision, Congress eventually forced through a law codifying its right to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons, thus creating a lasting contradiction in US foreign policy.

Still historians agree that 1979 signalled an extraordinary set of moves that reoriented global power: not only did it unite the US and China against the Soviet Union, but also paved the way for peace and rapid economic growth in East Asia.

But Carter could not have done it without his special relationship with Deng Xiaoping. “It’s a pleasure to negotiate with him,” Carter wrote in his diary after spending a day with Deng during his January visit, according to Deng’s biographer Ezra Vogel.

“The two of them followed common sense, there were actually significant similarities in their no-nonsense personalities,” said Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. “There was something really unique between the two men that really established trust.”

Deng Xiaoping had survived three political purges under Mao to emerge as one of China’s most consequential leaders. Historians credit his vision, self-assurance, frankness and sharp wit in no small part for this crucial diplomatic win.

He sensed the opportunity Carter offered, Vogel writes – to both thwart Soviet power and to kickstart the modernisation that had begun in Japan, Taiwan and even South Korea. He knew it would elude China without US help.

Deng’s visit to the US began with a warm first meeting at the White House, where he chuckled while revealing his Qingdao connection to Carter, according to Chinese reports. He was exuberant as the two clasped hands in front of cameras in the Rose Garden, saying: “Now our two countries’ peoples are shaking hands.”

Over the next few days, Deng staged a whirlwind charm offensive on the Americans as he toured several states with Carter. In one famous image, Deng is seen grinning as he dons a cowboy hat at a Texan rodeo. “Deng avoids politics, goes Texan,” read a local newspaper headline.

Carter described Deng as “smart, tough, intelligent, frank, courageous, personable, self-assured, friendly”, according to Vogel.

He later wrote in his diary the trip was “one of the delightful experiences of my Presidency… to me, everything went right, and the Chinese leader seemed equally pleased.”

“Carter was really a catalytic agent for what was more than a diplomatic rapprochement – it was a dramatic moment of signalling,” said Orville Schell, the director of the Asia Society’s Centre on US-China Relations who, as a journalist in 1979, covered Deng’s trip.

“He introduced Deng to the country and actually to the world. It made what had been a contentious relationship to something very congenial. The way Carter and Deng interacted, these were signals that it was okay to both peoples to set history aside and start a new relationship.”

Under Carter, China was granted “most favoured nation” trade status, boosting its economy and creating jobs. Within a year, two-way trade between the two countries doubled.

Throughout the next decade China became an important trade partner not just for the US but also the world, which was “extraordinarily important” for China’s growth, noted Prof Yang.

Carter’s connection with China endured long after his presidency ended.

In the 1990s his non-profit group The Carter Center played a significant role in China’s nascent grassroots democracy where – on the invitation of the Chinese government – it observed village elections, trained officials and educated voters.

Unusually for a former US president, Carter returned several times to China on personal visits. On one trip, he and his wife Rosalynn helped to build shelters for victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

His commitment to humanitarian work, his humble background as the son of a peanut farmer, and “folksy style” – which stood in contrast to the formal public personas of Chinese leaders – endeared him to many Chinese, according to Prof Yang: “He will be seen as a role model of a leader who cares, not just in rhetoric but also in actions.”

“Everywhere he travelled in China, people showed their warm feelings for him… The Chinese people really liked him for his courage and his honesty,” said Dr Liu, a senior adviser with the Carter Center. He accompanied Carter on several trips, including a 2014 tour where he was fêted by local officials and universities.

In Qingdao, the city put on a surprise fireworks show for his 90th birthday. In Beijing, Deng’s daughter hosted a banquet and presented a gift – a copy of the People’s Daily front page of the 1979 communique. “Both were moved to tears,” Dr Liu recalled.

That was to be his last visit. As the US-China relationship grew rockier, so too did Carter’s ties with the Chinese leadership, particularly after Xi Jinping took power.

On the eve of his 2014 visit, top government officials instructed universities not to sponsor his events, prompting a last-minute scramble to change venues, Carter noted.

A state dinner held for him at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was sparsely attended, recalled Mr Schell. Notably, it was hosted by then vice-president Li Yuanchao, while Xi was said to be entertaining another dignitary elsewhere in the complex.

“He wouldn’t even come to tip his hat to Carter. That really showed the state of relations,” Mr Schell said. “Carter was really very angry. Two of his aides told me he even felt like leaving early because he felt disrespected.”

The Carter Center’s activities in China were eventually curtailed, and a website they maintained to document the village elections was taken offline. No clear explanation was given at the time, but Dr Liu attributed this to China’s growing suspicion of foreign organisations following the 2010 Arab Spring.

Though Carter said little about the snub publicly, it would have been felt no less acutely, given the lengths he had gone to advocate for engagement.

It has also raised questions whether his approach on human rights with China – he characterised it as “patience” but others criticised it as soft-pedalling – was justified in the end.

Carter often “made a tremendous effort… not to stick fingers into China’s eyes on the human rights question,” Mr Schell noted. “He did temper himself even when he was out of office, as The Carter Center had a real stake in the country.”

Some see his decision to engage with Communist China as born out of an American sincerity at the time. Following the violent chaos of the Cultural Revolution, there was “a disbelief among many Americans – how could the Chinese be living in angry isolation?” Prof Yang said. “There was a genuine desire among American leaders to really help.”

Others say that in attempting to shore up support against the Soviets, the US set the course for China’s rise and ended up creating one of its greatest rivals.

But these actions also benefited millions of Chinese, helping to lift them out of poverty and – for a time – widening political freedom at the local level.

“I think all of us from that generation were children of engagement,” Mr Schell said. “We were hoping Carter would find the formula that would slowly bring China into a comfortable relationship with [the] US and the rest of the world.”

Toward the end of his life, Carter grew more alarmed about the growing distrust between the US and China, and frequently warned of a possible “modern Cold War”.

“In 1979, Deng Xiaoping and I knew we were advancing the cause of peace. While today’s leaders face a different world, the cause of peace remains just as important,” he wrote on the 40th anniversary of normalisation of relations.

“[Leaders] must accept our conviction that the United States and China need to build their futures together, for themselves and for humanity at large.”

Stunning election wins by a new left-leaning president and his party have changed Sri Lanka’s political landscape – but the cash-strapped island’s new rulers are quickly realising that campaign promises are easier to make than to keep.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s remarkable victory in the presidential election in September was swiftly followed by a landslide for his National People’s Power (NPP) alliance in parliamentary elections.

As a new year starts, he and his supporters want this to be a turning point for the country, which is trying to recover from devastating economic crisis and years of misrule.

However, they have limited room for manoeuvre to make good on pledges to voters, whose expectations from the new government are high.

Since the financial meltdown of 2022, economic recovery has been fragile and Sri Lanka is far from out of the woods.

The NPP won 159 seats in the 225-member assembly in November – an unprecedented two-thirds majority – giving Dissanayake a sweeping mandate to push through major economic and constitutional reforms.

However, even as the results were coming in, the new president had to gear up for a meeting with a visiting delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which the outgoing government had negotiated a $2.9bn (£2.31bn) bailout package.

The IMF deal became controversial as it led to severe austerity measures, tax rises and cuts in energy subsidies – hitting common people hard.

During the campaign Dissanayake and his alliance promised that they would re-negotiate parts of the IMF agreement.

But in his address to the new parliament, he performed a U-turn.

“The economy is in such a state that it cannot take the slightest shock… There’s no room to make mistakes,” Dissanayake said.

“This is not the time to discuss if the terms [of the IMF loan] are good or bad, if the agreement is favourable to us or not… The process had taken about two years, and we cannot start all over again.”

The voters’ overwhelming verdict for the NPP is seen as the culmination of a people’s uprising triggered by the economic crisis. The uprising toppled president Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the summer of 2022, when Sri Lanka ran out of foreign currency and struggled to import food and fuel.

The country had earlier declared bankruptcy after defaulting on its external debt of about $46bn. India, China and Japan are among those who have loaned billions of dollars.

The recent election results also reflected people’s anger towards established political parties – of former presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe and others – for failing to handle the economic meltdown.

“One of the priorities for Dissanayake will be to give some economic relief to the people due to excessive taxation and the cost-of-living crisis. Debt management is another big challenge,” veteran political analyst Prof Jayadeva Uyangoda told the BBC.

So far the massive political changes don’t seem to have had any impact on people like Niluka Dilrukshi, a mother-of-four who lives in a suburb of the capital Colombo. Her husband is a daily-wage labourer and the family still find it hard to get by.

The BBC spoke to her about the soaring cost of living in January 2022, months before mass protests erupted.

At that time, she said her family was eating only two meals a day, instead of three, and they were giving only vegetables and rice to their children due to the high cost of fish and meat.

“We are still struggling to make ends meet and nothing has changed. The price of rice, which is the staple food, has increased further. We are not getting any relief from the government,” Mrs Dilrukshi says.

People like her want the new government to take immediate steps to bring down the cost of essentials. Sri Lanka is an import-dependent nation, and it needs foreign currency to bring in items like food and medicine.

For now, Colombo is able to hold on to its currency reserves as it has suspended its debt repayments.

The real struggle, experts point out, will start probably in the next three or four years when it starts repaying its debt.

People’s perception of President Dissanayake and his new government could change if there’s no visible change in their standard of living in the next two or three years.

“People have given him a huge mandate. The IMF should respect that by allowing him to give some relief to the people through social welfare programmes,” says Prof Uyangoda.

Dissanayake must also contend with India and China, which are jostling for influence in Sri Lanka, where both have invested heavily in recent years.

“Both India and China will try to bring Colombo under their sphere of influence. I think the new government’s foreign policy will be very pragmatic without aligning with anyone,” says Prof Uyangoda.

In a careful diplomatic manoeuvre, Dissanayake chose Delhi as his first official overseas destination in mid-December. During the visit, India promised to supply liquefied natural gas for Sri Lankan power plants and work on connecting the power grids of the two countries in the long run.

China’s increasing foothold in Sri Lanka, especially calls by Chinese “research” vessels to the island’s ports – so close to India’s southern tip – has triggered concern in Delhi.

“I have given an assurance to the prime minister of India that we will not allow our land to be used in any way in a manner that is detrimental to the interest of India,” Dissanayake said after talks with Narendra Modi.

Delhi will no doubt be pleased with the assurance, but Dissanayake will find out what Beijing expects when he visits China in mid-January.

The FBI says it has discovered more than 150 bombs during a raid on a farm in Virginia – thought to be the largest such cache seized by the law-enforcement agency in its history.

Brad Spafford was arrested on 17 December in Isle of Wight County, 180 miles (290km) south of Washington DC, after a tip-off that he was stockpiling weapons and homemade ammunition on the property he shares with his wife and two young children.

Investigators say some of the devices were found in a bedroom in an unsecured backpack labelled “#nolivesmatter” – an apparent reference to a far-right, anti-government movement.

A lawyer for Mr Spafford denied he is a danger to the community and is seeking his client’s release from pre-trial detention.

The suspect has so far only been charged with possessing an unregistered short-barrelled rifle, though investigators say more charges are likely.

Investigators said on Tuesday that the bombs were “preliminarily assessed as the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history”.

Mr Spafford had allegedly used photos of US President Joe Biden for target practice and expressed hope that Vice-President Kamala Harris would be assassinated.

He had recently sought qualifications in sniper-rifle shooting at a local range, according to the court papers.

The charging document says an unnamed neighbour reported that Mr Spafford had continued to build bombs even after losing three fingers on his right hand in 2021 “while working with a homemade explosive device”.

The neighbour, who used to work in law enforcement, wore a recording device during a visit to Mr Spafford’s 20-acre farm earlier this year, investigators say.

The evidence gathered by the neighbour led FBI agents to search the property, where they found explosives scattered around a home, according to the charging document.

An initial FBI assessment found the devices to be “pipe bombs”. The majority were in a detached garage, and were sorted by colour. Some were labelled “lethal”.

Several bombs were found loaded into a wearable vest, said the court papers.

More bombs “were found completely unsecured in a backpack” in the home. The exterior of the backpack was labelled “#nolivesmatter”, said the court papers.

Nolivesmatter is a movement that promotes extremist ideology, targeted attacks, mass killings, and criminal activity, and has encouraged members to engage in self-harm and animal abuse, according to the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.

In addition to the pipe bombs, investigators say they found a jar of a highly volatile explosive called HMTD, which the FBI notes is so unstable it can be exploded merely by a temperature change and does not require a detonator to explode.

The jar of HMTD was labelled “Dangerous” and “Do Not Touch”, and was being stored in a freezer next to food that was accessible to the children, according to the court papers.

The neighbour also told investigators that Mr Spafford had discussed fortifying the property with a turret for a 50-calibre firearm on the roof.

Mr Spafford, who worked at a machine shop, had also said that missing children in the news had been taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooters, according to the court papers.

A lawyer for Mr Spafford said on Tuesday that the government’s claim he was dangerous was “rank speculation and fear mongering”, because the suspect had no criminal record.

“There is not a shred of evidence in the record that Mr Spafford ever threatened anyone and the contention that someone might be in danger because of their political views and comments is nonsensical,” the lawyer wrote.

The federal judge overseeing the case ordered that Mr Spafford be released with electronic monitoring.

However, that decision is on hold as the government seeks to keep the suspect in pre-trial detention.

Police in New York City have named a woman who was set on fire and burned to death last week on a subway train in Brooklyn.

Debrina Kawam, 57, of New Jersey, has been identified as the victim of the seemingly random 22 December attack that burned her body beyond recognition.

Sebastian Zapeta, 33, is accused of starting the blaze with a lighter while Ms Kawam was asleep. He allegedly fanned the flames with a shirt and then watched the fire grow from a bench outside the subway car.

Last week, a grand jury indicted Mr Zapeta, who claims to have no memory of the incident, on four counts of murder and one count of arson.

Julie Bolcer, a spokesperson for New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner, said the death was ruled a homicide and caused by “thermal and inhalational injuries”. She made the identification public on Tuesday.

“The identity was confirmed by the medical examiner yesterday through fingerprint analysis, following a multi-agency effort with our partners in law enforcement,” she said.

It took authorities more than a week to identify Ms Kawam’s body.

At a press conference on Tuesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that Ms Kawam had recently spent time at a city homeless shelter.

“It really reinforces what I’ve been saying, people should not be living on our subway system, they should be in a place of care. And no matter where she lived, that should not have happened,” he said.

Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said at a press conference early in the investigation that authorities had worked to collect DNA evidence and fingerprints from Ms Kawam’s remains.

“It’s a priority for me, for my office, for the police department to identify this woman, so we can notify her family,” Mr Gonzalez said.

False and unverified information about her, including a fake AI-generated picture, had circulated online in the aftermath of the attack.

There was also an outpouring of support, including a vigil held for the then-unidentified victim last week.

Police say that Ms Kawam was motionless, apparently asleep, on a stationary subway train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue Station in Brooklyn early on 22 December when Mr Zapeta allegedly approached her with a lighter.

The pair never interacted, and police believe they did not know each other.

Jessica Tisch, New York’s police commissioner, said that the smell of smoke drew police officers and Metropolitan Transit Authority personnel to the fire and they extinguished the flames.

“Unbeknownst to the officers who responded, the suspect had stayed on the scene and was seated on a bench on the platform just outside the train car,” Ms Tisch said.

Authorities declared Ms Kawam dead at the scene.

Ms Tisch described the incident as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being”.

In a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, prosecutor Ari Rottenberg said Mr Zapeta told investigators that he had been drinking and did not remember the incident, but did identify himself in photos and surveillance video showing the fire being lit.

The suspect, who is originally from Guatemala, was deported from the US in 2018 and later re-entered the country illegally, immigration authorities said.

He is due back in court on 7 January, prosecutors said.

Despite a decline in crime rates on New York City’s subway, the incident is one of a string of attacks that has raised concerns for riders on America’s largest mass transit system.

The subway safety issue arose again on Tuesday afternoon when someone was pushed on to the tracks in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood in front of an oncoming subway, according to New York City police.

The unidentified male victim was admitted to hospital with a head injury, authorities said. Police later detained a suspect, according to local media.

The World Health Organization has urged China to share data on the origins of the Covid pandemic, five years on from its start in the city of Wuhan.

“This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said in a statement to mark what it called the “milestone” anniversary.

“Without transparency, sharing, and co-operation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics,” it added.

Many scientists think the virus transferred naturally from animals to humans, but some suspicions persist that it escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.

China has not responded to Monday’s WHO statement. In the past it has strongly rejected the lab leak theory.

In September, a team of scientists said it was “beyond reasonable doubt” that the Covid pandemic started with infected animals sold at a market, rather than a laboratory leak.

They came to this conclusion after analysing hundreds of samples collected from Wuhan in January 2020.

• Covid origin studies say evidence points to Wuhan market
• Covid origin: Why the Wuhan lab-leak theory is so disputed

In its statement, the WHO went back to the early days of Covid and traced its evolution from a local phenomenon to a global scourge, leading to lockdowns around the world and the ultimately successful race to develop vaccines.

“Five years ago on 31 December 2019, WHO’s Country Office in China picked up a media statement by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission from their website on cases of ‘viral pneumonia’ in Wuhan, China,” the organisation said.

“In the weeks, months and years that unfolded after that, Covid-19 came to shape our lives and our world,” it went on.

The WHO said it “went to work immediately” as 2020 dawned. It recalled how its employees activated emergency systems on 1 January and informed the world three days later.

“By 9-12 January, WHO had published its first set of comprehensive guidance for countries, and on 13 January, we brought together partners to publish the blueprint of the first Sars-CoV-2 laboratory test,” it added.

The WHO said it wanted to “honour the lives changed and lost, recognise those who are suffering from Covid-19 and long Covid, express gratitude to the health workers who sacrificed so much to care for us, and commit to learning from Covid-19 to build a healthier tomorrow”.

In May 2023, the WHO declared that Covid-19 no longer represented a “global health emergency”.

Its director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at the time that at least seven million people had died in the pandemic.

But he added that the true figure was “likely” closer to 20 million deaths – nearly three times the official estimate.

Since then, the WHO has repeatedly warned against complacency about the possible emergence of future Covid-like illnesses.

Dr Ghebreyesus has said the next pandemic “can come at any moment” and has urged the world to be prepared.

The UN Human Rights Office says Israeli attacks on and around hospitals have pushed Gaza’s healthcare system to “the brink of total collapse” and raised serious concerns about war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A new report describes a pattern in which Israeli forces struck, besieged and forcibly evacuated hospitals, leading to patients dying or being killed.

It acknowledges Israel’s allegations that hospitals have been used by Palestinian armed groups, but says the evidence is “vague”.

Israel’s mission in Geneva said the report was an expression of what it called the UN Human Rights Office’s “politically-driven obsession with Israel“ and that it “relied on information from Hamas health authorities”. It stressed that Israeli forces operated in accordance with international law and would “never target innocent civilians”.

“It is the murderous terrorist organisation Hamas that uses civilians as human shields, and uses hospitals for terror activity,” it added.

It comes days after the last functioning hospital in besieged northern Gaza was raided by the Israeli military, which said it was being used as Hamas command centre.

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

More than 45,500 people have been killed and 108,300 injured in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

“As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Tuesday.

“The protection of hospitals during warfare is paramount and must be respected by all sides, at all times.”

The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said it documented at least 136 strikes on 27 of the 38 hospitals in Gaza and 12 other medical facilities during the period covered by the report, which was between October 2023 and June 2024.

Those strikes claimed “significant casualties among doctors, nurses, medics and other civilians” and caused “significant damage, if not complete destruction of civilian infrastructure”, it added.

Medical personnel and hospitals are specifically protected under international humanitarian law, provided they do not commit, or are not used to commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful to the enemy. Even then, any attack must still comply with the fundamental principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack.

The OHCHR said intentionally directing attacks against hospitals and places where the sick and wounded were treated, intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, and intentionally launching disproportionate attacks were war crimes.

And under certain circumstances, the deliberate destruction of healthcare facilities may also amount to a form of collective punishment, which would also constitute a war crime.

According to the report, in most instances where Israel has attacked hospitals, Israel has alleged that the hospitals were being improperly used by Palestinian armed groups.

“However, insufficient information has so far been made available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information,” the UN report says.

“If these allegations were verified, this would raise serious concerns that Palestinian armed groups were using the presence of civilians to intentionally shield themselves from attack, which would amount to a war crime.”

Hamas and medical staff have denied that the hospitals have been used by armed groups.

The report also says that the impacts of Israeli military operations in and around hospitals have extended far beyond the physical structures.

“Many women are giving birth with no or minimal pre- and postnatal care, increasing the risk of preventable maternal and child mortality,” it says.

“OHCHR has received reports that a number of newborns died because their mothers were unable to attend postnatal check-ups or reach medical facilities to give birth.”

The report also says that people with trauma injuries were being prevented from receiving timely and possibly life-saving treatment, noting that the Gaza health ministry had reported an 80% decrease in the number of hospital beds and the killing of more than 500 medical professionals by the end of June.

“Many injured reportedly died while waiting to be hospitalized or treated. Even those who managed to receive critical treatment, including surgery, received it without proper bedding and facilities, and were often discharged prematurely due to a lack of space.”

The OHCHR cites the Israeli government as saying in response to the report that the Israeli military had taken “extensive measures” to “mitigate civilian harm and minimize disruption to medical services”.

These included enabling evacuation routes from hospitals, providing medical equipment, fuel and other aid to keep hospitals functioning, and establishing field hospitals, it said.

The Israeli government also asserted that Hamas had chosen to “to methodically abuse the protection of medical facilities”, “embeds its tunnel system and infrastructure within the premises of medical facilities as a matter of strategy, and utilizes them as arms caches and accessible HQs for its operatives”.

Türk called for independent investigations to be carried out into incidents documented in the report, and said it “must also be a priority for Israel, as the occupying power, to ensure and facilitate access to adequate healthcare for the Palestinian population”.

The victims of a recent £10m jewellery raid on a London mansion have offered rewards totalling £1.5m to help catch the thief and recover their stolen items.

Some of the jewellery stolen from the house on exclusive Avenue Road, near Primrose Hill, is reported to belong to Shafira Huang.

As well as a £500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thief, the house owners are offering 10% of the value of any recovered jewellery for information that leads to its retrieval – which could total as much as £1.5m, the Metropolitan Police confirmed.

A spokesperson for the family told the Metro they believed the heist on 7 December was a “pre-planned professional job”.

“Everyone is OK, but only by 63 seconds a member of staff would have been in direct confrontation with the robber had they entered the room slightly earlier,” the spokesperson said.

“I can categorically say that all windows in the house were closed.”

The spokesperson added: “They are an absolutely lovely family. Time is a great healer but obviously it’s a shock.”

Among the items taken, totalling £10.4m, were distinctive pieces such as two De Beers butterfly diamond rings, pink sapphire earrings shaped like butterflies from Katherine Wang, and a gold, diamond and sapphire Van Cleef necklace.

In addition to the jewellery, £150,000 of designer handbags and £5,000 in cash were stolen in the raid.

Many of the missing items are unique in their design, and therefore easily identifiable, the Met Police said.

The Met Police believes the house was targeted between 17:00 and 17:30 GMT by a man who climbed in through a second-floor window.

The suspect is described as white, aged in his late 20s to 30s, and is said to have worn a dark hoodie, cargo pants and grey baseball cap and had kept his face covered.

Avenue Road, where the raid took place, links the Swiss Cottage and Regent’s Park areas and has some of the most expensive properties in London.

A South Korean man accused of being responsible for a cryptocurrency crisis which cost investors $40bn (£31.8bn) has finally been extradited to the United States.

Do Kwon was the boss of Terraform, which operated two cryptocurrencies – TerraUSD and Luna – both of which collapsed in 2022, sparking a wider sell-off in the crypto market.

The US says he was responsible for the coins’ failure, accusing him of “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud”.

Kwon fled South Korea after a warrant for his arrest was issued, eventually ending up in Montenegro where he has now been extradited from, following a lengthy legal battle.

He was previously found guilty of forging documents by a Montenegro court, having been arrested as he was attempting to board a plane to Dubai in March 2023.

It had been unclear whether he would face criminal proceedings in the US, however, as Montenegro does not have extradition treaties with the US or South Korea, which has also been seeking his extradition.

Kwon finally being sent to the US brings to an end legal proceedings that lasted more than 18 months.

The Montenegrin Ministry of Justice approved the extradition earlier in December.

It claimed that Do Kwon had also agreed to it.

Kwon’s firm Terraform Labs became widely known in 2021, when its coins Luna and TerraUSD exploded in popularity.

Fans of Luna became known as “Lunatics”, with Kwon referred to as their “king”.

But, despite a huge amount of money being poured into the coins, on 9 May 2022 Terraform Labs collapsed catastrophically, losing more than 99% of its value in 48 hours.

Investors scrambled to take their money out of other cryptocurrencies, fearing that a similar thing could happen to them, which resulted in values falling significantly across the whole sector.

It’s estimated the so-called “cryptocrash” resulted in losses of $400bn (£318 bn).

Bitcoin was among the assets affected, however it has significantly grown in value since then and briefly stood at more than $100,000 per coin in December.

Terraform Labs ultimately filed for bankruptcy in the US in January 2024.

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has sparked speculation after changing his name on his social media platform X to “Kekius Maximus”.

The tech mogul – and close confidant of US President-Elect Donald Trump – offered no immediate explanation for the name or his new profile image which depicts the character Pepe the Frog – a meme that has been used by far-right groups.

The move has sent ripples through the cryptocurrency world, sending the value of a memecoin – a digital currency inspired by internet memes – that shares the same name skyrocketing.

In the past, Mr Musk has influenced crypto prices with his social media commentary, but it was not immediately clear if he had any involvement in this particular memecoin.

“Kekius” appears to be a Latinisation of “kek”, a word roughly equivalent to “laugh out loud” popularised by gamers but now often associated with the alt right.

“Kek” is also the name of the ancient Egyptian god of darkness, who is sometimes depicted with the head of a frog.

Many people would link “Maximus” to the name of Russell Crowe’s heroic character in the film Gladiator, Maximus Decimus Meridius.

Mr Musk’s new profile image depicts Pepe in Roman military dress holding what appears to be a game console.

Investigators have finished extracting data from one of the black boxes from the fated Jeju Air plane that crashed on Sunday, South Korea’s transport ministry has said.

The data from the cockpit voice recorder will now be converted into an audio file, while a second black box – a flight data recorder – will be sent to the United States for analysis.

Investigators hope data on the flight and voice recorders will provide insights about the crucial moments leading up to the tragedy.

Some 179 people died after the plane crashed into a structure and exploded, making it the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil.

Investigators say it is not feasible to locally decode the flight data recorder, which was damaged in the crash and is missing a crucial connector.

South Korean experts will be involved in the analysis process in the US, they said, adding that they are in discussion with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on when to hand over the flight data recorder.

NTSB has deployed officials to the crash site in South Korea’s Muan county to help investigate the cause of the plane crash.

The Boeing 737-800 plane was travelling from Bangkok when it crash-landed at Muan International Airport on Sunday and slid into a wall off the end of the runway, bursting into flames and killing everyone on board except two crew members.

Many questions remain unanswered and investigators are looking at the role a bird strike or weather conditions may have played.

They are also examining the concrete wall at the end of the runway, which some experts say could have exacerbated the impact of the crash.

The passengers on flight 7C2216 were aged between three and 78 years old, although most were in their 40s, 50s and 60s, according to Yonhap news agency. Two Thai nationals are among the dead and the rest are believed to be South Korean, authorities have said.

It had taken officials days to identify the bodies through fingerprints or DNA – with saliva samples collected from family members – as many of them have been severely damaged.

But on Wednesday, acting president Choi Sang-mok announced that all 179 victims on board the flight have now been identified.

New Year’s Day celebrations across the country have been cancelled or scaled down out of respect for the victims and their family, and authorities have announced a seven-day period of national mourning.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Jeju Air CEO Kim Yi-bae said that the airline was preparing emergency compensation for the victims’ families and would cover funeral costs.

He also said that a pre-flight inspection of the plane had found “no issues”. Investigations into the cause of the crash were ongoing.

Ten people have been killed and 35 injured after a man intentionally drove into a crowd in New Orleans and then began firing a weapon, police have said.

Police chief Anne Kirkpatrick said the attacker drove a pickup truck along Bourbon Street “very fast… trying to run over as many people as he could” at around 03:15 (09:15 GMT). He crashed, then shot and injured two police officers.

The FBI said in a statement it is “working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism”. The suspect is dead, the agency added.

Kirkpatrick said the man was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did”. One witness said he “walked past dead and injured bodies” in the street.

A CBS reporter saw multiple people with injuries on the ground at the intersection of Bourbon and Canal streets.

A video confirmed as genuine by BBC Verify shows a person lying on the ground and a crowd scattering as what appear to be gunshots are heard. Another shows two injured people lying in a street.

A long gun was recovered from the scene, law enforcement sources told CBS, the BBC’s US news partner.

Whit Davis, from Shreveport, Louisiana, told the BBC that he had been in a bar in the Bourbon Street area when the attacker struck. He did not hear the crash and shooting as the music was too loud.

“People started running and getting under tables like it was an active shooter drill. Then the police held us in the bar for a while and when we were finally allowed to leave we were walking past dead and injured bodies all over the street,” he said.

“Everyone was just completely in shock,” he added. “I visit New Orleans frequently and have never seen anything close to this bad.”

FBI Special Agent Althea Duncan, who is leading the investigation, said an improvised explosive device was also found at the scene and they were working on confirming whether it was “viable”.

US President Joe Biden had been briefed “on the horrific news”, according to a White House statement.

“The FBI is already on the ground supporting local law enforcement in the investigation and the president will continue to be briefed throughout the day,” the statement read.

It adds that Biden called the city’s mayor this morning to offer “full federal support.”

Jim and Nicole Mowrer, who were visiting New Orleans from Iowa, told CBS that they were in the French Quarter when they heard crashing noises down the street.

They said they saw a white truck slam through a barricade “at a high rate of speed”, then heard gunshots after the crashing noises.

“We stayed in the alcove until the gunfire stopped, came out into the street, and came across a lot of – several people who had been hit, [we] wanted to see what we could do to help,” Nicole said.

They tried to help people they thought were wounded but realised the victims had died. They said the truck hit people only about a block away from where they were walking.

The couple said the victims they saw had injuries from the impact, and did not see any apparent gunshot wounds. They said they left the area once emergency responders started arriving.

An unnamed man was working in a nearby hotel when he heard “loud banging sounds” a little bit before 03:20 local time.

“We were in our room just pretty much closing down for the evening at the end of all the events and everything and when we looked out the window we noticed there was a lot of bodies lying on the ground,” he told CBS News.

“The truck was speeding away. I immediately ran downstairs to see if there were some people I can help out and unfortunately some people did perish during that event.”

He said they put other people into the hotel for assistance.

“The scene was just horrific,” he said.

Initial reports seem to indicate that a majority of the victims were locals, police said.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said in a post on X that he was “praying for all the victims and first responders on scene”.

“A horrific act of violence took place on Bourbon Street earlier this morning,” Landry wrote.

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Could the influence of pornography, OnlyFans and so-called “natural family planning” techniques explain the drop in teenagers’ use of condoms?

YMCA sexual health educator Sarah Peart said some boys were not willing to use them “because they’re not seeing that in pornography”.

She said young girls were often “targeted on social media” by those endorsing hormone-free, period-tracking apps to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Young people have also said that controversial OnlyFans adult content creators set poor examples, who made headlines after bragging of having sex with several young men in a day.

Footage also emerged of one OnlyFans creator saying she had not used condoms during oral sex, putting her at risk of HIV.

“We’ve had multiple young people say “natural family planning” is their main form of contraception,” said Ms Peart, adding that the lack of positive role models and influencers was a challenge for those providing sex education.

The YMCA sessions at schools, colleges and youth services attempt to inform, bust myths, discuss healthy relationships, but also hammer home the message that pregnancy is not the only risk.

“It’s such a difficult barrier convincing young people that birth control isn’t enough, and that you do need to protect yourself from STIs (sexually transmitted infections).”

She added they would also explain that “natural family planning” was not always reliable, “especially at that age when maybe periods aren’t regular and young people don’t tend to be the most strict with keeping notes”.

“Our sessions also cover pornography and OnlyFans does sometimes come up as a strand of that.

“We try to educate young people to make their own healthy choices – and hopefully that includes not opening an OnlyFans account, but we can only provide the education.”

When BBC Wales asked young people for their thoughts, while many were too uncomfortable to speak publicly, most said buying condoms was seen as too embarrassing.

Liz Vieira, 20, from Llandysul, Ceredigion, said the decline in use of condoms – reported by the World Health Organization – did not surprise her given the prominence of adult content creators and their attitudes towards risk.

“I guess it’s up to them, but as long as it’s not meaning women in relationships are having a hard time. Because it sends a message it’s OK to use women as you please. I don’t think that’s a good thing,” she said.

Mason Down and Dylan Steggles, from Cardiff, said sex education in school was also limited.

“We only had two days of it at school,” said 18-year-old Dylan. “And that was only an hour or two each time.”

“There’s more of that content online now [porn] so you can easily access it at a young age, which might influence how young people feel about condoms,” said Mason.

The sessions delivered by YMCA for young people include information on the C-Card scheme, which is a supported service across the UK, providing training on sexual health awareness, as well as free condoms, lubrication and dental dams.

“Condoms are really expensive, so it’s a fantastic service to make them accessible, but also acceptable, and not some weird, dark hidden corner of the pub toilets,” said Ms Peart.

She is aware of fears the scheme could be seen as encouraging under-age sex but said research suggested more information at a younger age was likely to delay that.

“We try and persuade them to wait until they’re at least 16. But if they are going to, then we can make sure they can do it in a safe way.”

The World Health Organization recently reported that 56% of 15-year-old girls in Wales, and 49% of boys, had not used a condom the last time they had sex.

It comes amid a rise in STIs in the past year: 22% in chlamydia, 127% in gonorrhoea, and 14% in syphilis.

Ellie Whelan and Megan Grimley, both 21, from Cardiff, said the move away from condoms surprised them given more of their peers had turned away from the pill or coil as forms of contraception.

Use of long-acting, reversible contraception – such as an intra-uterine device (IUD) or hormonal implant – has fallen 22% in the last five years, with terminations up by a third.

“I think it’s a lot to do with false information or bad experiences – or people are too scared to get information and talk about it,” said Megan.

Testing is the best way to find out if you have a sexually transmitted infection.

The Sexual Health Wales service offers a free test kit for over-16s which can be sent and returned by post or collected from community venues.

Sexual health clinics across Wales also provide testing and support.

Infections can take several weeks after contact to show up in a test.

HIV takes seven weeks to be detected, hepatitis C and B can take 12 weeks or more, and chlamydia and gonorrhoea can show up within a fortnight.

But it is not solely an issue for young adults. Ms Peart said the YMCA sessions explain the range of contraception available, but at the back of most classrooms is a teacher also taking notes, as the gap in STI knowledge in particular is on “a national, societal level”.

It is also reflected in the rise in sexually transmitted infections in the over-40s, according to Public Health Wales’s Zoe Couzens, as people enter new relationships after divorce or bereavement.

“And I’m not putting an upper age on that – we’ve had a 72-year-old with chlamydia,” she said.

“It’s about ensuring the message goes out across all age groups.

“But the issue for the women especially is that pregnancy is not the concern they have any more, so they’re not going to take the precautions. So that’s another group that needs to be educated.”

Arguably the rise in cases is a result of increased testing, as the free “test and post” service by Public Health Wales has made that far more accessible.

“Chlamydia is the most common [STI] in Wales, followed by gonorrhoea – and while it’s all treatable with antibiotics, gonorrhoea is a nasty little bug that is developing resistance to antibiotics.

“Twenty years ago we had two cases of syphilis in Wales – last year it was 507.

“It tends to be a silent infection, but it can develop into neuro syphilis and cause cardiac problems.”

Given other STIs can cause infertility, pain and pelvic inflammatory disease, the notion they are easily remedied is one many professionals wish to tackle.

• Chlamydia is passed on through unprotected oral, vaginal or anal sex, sharing sex toys, or genital-to-genital contact
• Gonorrhoea can be spread through oral, vaginal or anal sex without a condom, or the sharing of sex toys
• HIV is passed in infected body fluids such as semen, vaginal or rectal secretions, blood and breast milk, and the most common way to pass it on is through sex without a condom or sharing drug equipment
• Syphilis is transmitted during unprotected oral, vaginal or anal sex, or through sharing sex toys, and it is also possible to pass on from mother to baby
• Herpes is highly contagious and is passed by skin-to-skin contact like vaginal, anal or oral sex, sharing sex toys, or oral sex with someone who has a cold sore
• Genital warts is shared by skin-to-skin contact, including vaginal or anal sex and by sharing sex toys.

Chlamydia: often described as a silent infection as most people do not have obvious signs. Symptoms can include pain when urinating, unusual discharge from the vagina, penis or rectum. Women may get pain in the tummy, bleeding during or after sex and in between periods, while men can have pain and swelling in the testicles.

Gonorrhoea: some people have no symptoms, but those who do may have a yellow or green discharge; a burning sensation when they wee and pain or tenderness in the stomach.

Syphilis: many people won’t have symptoms. But for those that do, it will start with a small, painless ulcer in the mouth or genitals, followed by a rash. If left untreated, the infection can result in visual impairment, dementia and death. In pregnancy it can also lead to miscarriages, still births and infant mortality.

Herpes: again, some people have no symptoms, but they can include small blisters that burst to leave red, open sores around the genitals, rectum, thighs and buttocks. Blisters and ulcers can also be on the cervix; it can cause vaginal discharge, pain when having a wee, as well as general flu-like symptoms.

Genital warts: in women they start as small, gritty-feeling lumps that become larger. In men the warts will feel firm and raised, with a rough surface. They can be single warts or grow in clusters.

Japanese toilets – equipped with music players, automatic flushes, and heated seats – are clearly not afraid of making a splash with their innovative designs.

But these cutting edge seats have an unlikely nemesis: toilet paper.

Toto, a top Japanese toilet bowl maker, said last week that users should refrain from wiping their seats with toilet paper, as it risks creating micro scratches on the surface.

The company’s advice came after a series of posts on social media complaining about scratches and discolouration.

A Toto representative told Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun that its bidet toilet seats are made of plastic resin due to the material’s “resistance to detergents and its ability to be molded into complex shapes”.

However, wiping the seat with toilet paper or dry cloth can cause small, invisible scratches where dirt may accumulate, leading to discolouration.

But Toto is not the only manufacturer that has advised users against using toilet paper to wipe its toilet seats.

Similar recommendations have previously been issued by cleaning experts and also published on lifestyle sites.

Instead of dry toilet paper, people recommend using soft cloth soaked in tap water or detergent. They also advise against using thinners, nylon or metal scrubbers, or abrasives – all of which could damage the surface of the toilet seat.

The company said that while it was looking into more scratch-resistant materials, “there are no plans to change the material at this time.”

The Washlet, Toto’s flagship bidet toilet, includes features like an automatic lid, an air dryer and pressure controls for the bidet’s water stream.

Japanese toilets, with their thoughtful designs viewed as an extension of the country’s hospitality culture, have become an unlikely tourist attraction for foreigners and a source of pride at home.

Russian gas has stopped flowing to EU states via Ukraine after a five-year deal expired, marking the end of a decades-long arrangement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country would not allow Russia to “earn additional billions on our blood”. Poland’s government meanwhile said the cut-off was “another victory” against Moscow.

The European Commission said the EU had prepared for the change and most states could cope. Moldova, which is not in the EU, is already suffering shortages.

Russia can still send gas to Hungary, Turkey and Serbia through the TurkStream pipeline across the Black Sea.

Russian company Gazprom confirmed that gas exports via Ukraine to Europe stopped from 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

Moscow has transported gas to Europe through Ukraine since 1991.

While immediate effects are light, the strategic and symbolic impact for the whole of Europe is enormous.

Russia has lost an important market, but its president, Vladimir Putin, says EU countries will suffer most.

The EU has significantly reduced imports of gas from Russia since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but a number of eastern member states still depend largely on the supplies, making Russia about €5bn ($5.2bn; £4.2bn) a year.

Russian gas was less than 10% of the EU’s gas imports in 2023, according to the bloc. That figure was 40% in 2021.

But several EU members, including Slovakia and Austria, continued to import significant amounts of gas from Russia.

Austria’s energy regulator said that it did not forecast any disruption as it had diversified sources and built up reserves.

But the end of the transit deal has already caused serious tensions with Slovakia, which is now the main entry point of Russian gas into the EU and earned transit fees from piping the gas on to Austria, Hungary and Italy.

Slovakia has said it will pay more for alternative routes. Its energy regulator announced in early December that Gas prices for consumers would rise in 2025.

Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, said on Wednesday that the end of the deal would have “drastic” consequences for EU countries, but not on Russia, Reuters reported.

On Friday, Fico – who had just made a surprise visit to Moscow for talks with Putin – threatened to stop supplying electricity to Ukraine.

This prompted Zelensky to accuse Fico of helping Putin “fund the war and weaken Ukraine”.

“Fico is dragging Slovakia into Russia’s attempts to cause more suffering for Ukrainians,” the Ukrainian president said.

Poland has offered to support Kyiv in case Slovakia cuts off its electricity exports – supplies that are crucial to Ukraine, whose power plants come under regular attack from Russia.

Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there were alternative gas supply routes from international markets, such as a terminal in Croatia and connections from Germany and Poland.

“These routes should be explored so that Russia doesn’t make money on selling oil and gas to the European Union,” Sikorski said.

Poland is importing gas from the US, Qatar and the North Sea, he added.

“As far as I understand, all countries have alternative routes,” he said.

Moldova – which is not part of the EU – could be seriously affected by the end of the transit agreement. It generates much of its electricity at a power station fuelled by Russian gas.

It also supplied the Russia-backed breakaway region of Transnistria, a small sliver of land sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine where around 300,000 people live.

Russian gas company Gazprom had said on 28 December it would restrict gas to Moldova on 1 January because it said it had failed to fulfil its payment obligations.

Dorin Recean, Moldova’s prime minister, denied the alleged debt and accused Russia of using “energy as a political weapon” in a social media post. He said the move would leave Transnistria “without light and heat in the middle of the winter”.

Heat and hot water was cut off to Transnistria “due to the temporary cessation of gas supplies” at 07:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday, energy company Tirasteploenergo said on Telegram.

It urged residents to dress warmly, gather family members together in a single room, hang blankets or thick curtains over windows, and use electric heaters.

The temperature was due to drop below 0C on Wednesday night. Medical institutions and hospitals were still being supplied, the company said.

Moldova’s energy minister, Constantin Borosan, said his government had taken steps to ensure stable power supplies, but called on citizens to save energy.

A 60-day state of emergency in the energy sector has been in place since mid-December.

President Maia Sandu accused the Kremlin of “blackmail” possibly aimed at destabilising her country before a general election in 2025. The Moldovan government also said it had offered aid to Transnistria.

The EU has found alternative sources in liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and the US, as well as piped gas from Norway, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In December, the European Commission laid out plans to entirely replace gas transiting through Ukraine.

More than 100 flood warnings have been issued across the UK and a major incident declared in Greater Manchester as wind and rain hits parts of the country on the first day of 2025.

Greater Manchester Police said people became trapped in their homes without running water, while others were rescued from cars stranded in floodwaters.

Some weather warnings for wind and ice remain in place for parts of the UK – and forecaster say temperatures will plummet overnight, with snow due to roll in over the weekend.

Wednesday’s flooding and disruption came after New Year’s Eve events across the country were cancelled due to bad weather – although celebrations in Manchester and London went ahead.

Severe rainfall through the night resulted in flooding in a number of areas across Greater Manchester, the police force said.

Places affected include Bolton, Didsbury, South Manchester, Harpurhey, North Manchester, Stalybridge, Stockport and Wigan.

Flood waters in Stockport have trapped a number of people in their flats without electricity or running water.

Two separate rescues were carried out by authorities overnight in Warrington and nearby Lymm after people became trapped in their vehicles in floodwater.

The Environment Agency (EA) has issued 109 flood warnings in England, mostly concentrated in the North West.

There are also 11 flood warnings in place for north Wales and 17 warnings in place for Scotland.

The Met Office weather warnings in place across the UK include:

• A yellow warning for snow and ice for northern Scotland until 15:00
• A yellow warning for ice for the rest of Scotland, Northern Ireland and much of England and Wales throughout this evening and into Thursday morning
• A yellow warning of wind is in place across southern England and Wales until 15:00

Previous rain warnings covering parts of the UK, including for rain in north west England, have now been lifted.

In the Highlands, forecasters warned “blizzard conditions are possible”, especially in the far northern regions of Sutherland and Caithness.

London’s New Year’s Day parade suffered a short delay due to the high winds in the capital.

The parade was delayed by 30 minutes to avoid coinciding with a squall line – a narrow band of extremely high wind – that was expected in London around midday.

Organisers said inflatable cartoon characters due to feature in the parade would not be used after advice from the Met Office.

Around 90mm of rain has fallen widely across north west England over the last 24 hours with over 100mm recorded on some hills in north Wales and Cumbria.

There are lane closures on several motorways and roads of north west England.

Rain and strong winds will continue to affect parts of southern England and East Anglia, but the weather will become drier and brighter across Wales, the Midlands and north England with the strong winds easing.

A weather front over Scotland is bringing rain with some sleet and snow over hills. It will bring much colder arctic air as it move southwards, with sunny spells and snow showers following.

A few centimetres of snow is expected at low elevations overnight, but the hills of north Scotland are likely to see 5-10cm of snow in places bringing some local disruption.

It will feel increasingly bitter as arctic air reaches all areas by Thursday.

Over the weekend, there is a yellow snow warning in place for the vast majority of the UK, stretching from southern Scotland, across north England, the Midlands, Wales, over London and across much of the south east and west.

An area of low pressure will move into this cold air on Sunday bringing rain and some disruptive snow on its northern edge.

The poor weather conditions are causing rail disruptions in parts of the country and several rail operators have urged passengers to check online before travelling.

• Heavy flooding has led to widespread cancellations across Northern Rail services on Wednesday, including to and from Manchester airport.

• The TransPennine Express service urged customers not to travel at all on Wednesday due to heavy flooding on several routes.

• Transport for Wales said the weather had caused a number of its lines to be blocked.

• Northern Ireland’s Translink similarly advised travellers to check routes before travelling.

Despite the poor weather, thousands of people gathered along Embankment in the capital to see in the New Year with a fireworks display over the Thames at midnight on Wednesday.

Celebrations in Manchester also went ahead as planned, after its fireworks display was moved to the top of the city’s central library.

Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh were cancelled over public safety concerns, as were fireworks displays in Blackpool, Newcastle, the Isle of Wight and Ripon in North Yorkshire.

Hogmanay organisers, Unique Assembly, had previously apologised to international tourists who travelled to Edinburgh for the street party and midnight fireworks display.

Scotland’s Culture Secretary Angus Robertson said cancelling the festival was “undoubtedly” the correct decision.

The fireworks display in Blackpool was cancelled because of the expected high winds. The town’s other events, including a projection show to mark the start of 2025, went ahead.

Until a few days ago, 10-year-old Sushila Meena lived an ordinary life, far from the public eye, in a small village in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan.

But everything changed when legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar shared a video on social media of her playing cricket, bringing her into the media spotlight.

He praised her bowling action and said it had “shades of” former Indian bowler Zaheer Khan – who was known for his accuracy, swing, clever variations with the ball and a distinct bowling action.

The video was an instant hit and while it has been viewed by millions and shared by tens of thousands of people, there’s an ironic twist – the girl does not recognise the cricket icon who made her famous.

“I don’t know who he [Sachin Tendulkar] is,” Sushila says, explaining that her family doesn’t own a television and she has never watched cricket.

However, she is grateful to him.

Sushila, who is from a poor tribal family, is now being recognised and appreciated by everyone she meets. From politicians to social activists and even distant relatives, everyone now wants a picture with her.

Sushila struggles to find the right words to describe this new reality. She simply smiles and poses for photographs, still baffled by her newfound fame.

But as soon as she dons her school uniform and steps onto the field with a rubber ball in hand, the shy girl transforms into someone fearless, strong and focused.

“Once the ball is in my hand, all I can think about is getting the batter out,” she says.

Her classmate Asha, who is often on the other side with a bat in her hand, describes Sushila’s bowling as “difficult”.

“Her ball turns unexpectedly and then suddenly hits the wicket,” she says.

At home, Sushila’s mother Shantibai is proud of what her daughter has achieved.

She says that while many are eager to meet her, not everyone has been supportive.

A few have questioned the parents for allowing their daughter to play cricket instead of doing household chores.

Such opinions are common in parts of rural India, where girls are often expected to stay at home and discouraged from pursuing sports or activities outside the traditional gender roles.

“I don’t say anything to them, nor do I listen to what they are saying,” Shantibai says.

“I will never stop her from playing cricket.”

Everyone in Sushila’s school plays cricket and the credit for it goes to their teacher, Ishwarlal Meena.

“I started encouraging students to play cricket when I joined in 2017,” he says. “A fun activity is needed to keep them engaged at school – otherwise, they will stay at home.”

Mr Meena says that initially, he and other teachers would form teams and make the students play with them. Soon everyone wanted to join in.

Even though he has taken on the role of their coach, Mr Meena has no formal cricket training. He watches YouTube videos to learn and teach new techniques to the students.

Once he had enough students, Mr Meena created a social media account to showcase their cricketing talent. Slowly people started reacting to his videos – some even gave tips on form and techniques.

Sushila is not the first student from the school to become an internet sensation.

Last year, another student, Renuka Pargi, went viral for her batting skills. She is currently enrolled at a private cricket academy – which also pays all her expenses – in Rajasthan state’s capital, Jaipur.

But the school and the students here need more than just social media attention.

Sushila’s village and her school remain in poor condition.

“People come, they make big promises, but nothing changes,” Mr Meena says.

He adds that the school offers education only until primary level.

“Once they cross grade five, the cricket will stop. They will have no opportunities,” he points out.

Local government officials say they will see what can be done to provide better facilities to the village and its students. The forest department has sent some officials to do a survey and check if some land can be given to the school to extend its cricket field.

But nothing has happened until now.

Meanwhile, Sushila’s home is flooded with gifts. There are bats everywhere, even though she is a bowler.

Her teacher says no one has got her a proper cricket ball yet. They are much harder than the rubber ball she currently practises with and are needed to play higher levels of the sport.

When asked what she will do with so many bats, Sushila says shyly that she “will try to use them”.

Meanwhile, the big question in the village is whether Sushila’s viral fame will end up like the gifts she receives – a lot of attention and excitement, but ultimately making no real difference to her life.

The new Syrian authorities are reported to have given some foreign Islamist fighters senior official posts in the country’s armed forces.

The army is being re-organised by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that is now effectively in charge of the country following the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.

There’s been no confirmation by the new leadership of the move, but it seems likely to raise concern inside and outside Syria over the role such foreign militants may play in the country’s future.

It comes amid reports that Syria’s new de-facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has held separate meetings with representatives of the Kurds and Christians in the country – two communities that are most concerned about the potential agenda of the new authorities.

Several Syrian sources have deduced that out of almost 50 new military roles that have been announced, at least six have gone to foreigners.

Based on the names that have been published, they are said to include Chinese Uyghurs, a Jordanian and a Turkish national. All are said to have been given high-ranking positions as colonels or brigadier-generals.

The role of foreign fighters in various armed groups during the civil war is one that stirs strong feelings in Syria.

Thousands of fighters from many different countries joined the uprising against Assad as it became an all-out armed conflict when mass protests were met with violence by the security forces.

Jihadists from abroad were seen as trying to impose their extremist ideology on Syria – something which Syrians from all communities are now saying they will not accept in the country’s future after Assad.

Some formed their own groups and others provided the core of the Islamic State (IS) group, which took control of large regions in the east of Syria.

Opponents of HTS had long accused it of being largely made up of foreign jihadists – a charge Assad supporters used to try to delegitimise the group as it mounted its final, decisive offensive against the regime.

But in the years that he ran the rebel enclave in Idlib, Ahmed al-Sharaa – the leader of HTS and now Syria – had been getting rid of some of those foreign fighters in a bid to bolster his group’s credentials as a nationalist rather than overtly jihadist force.

Since taking power al-Sharaa has repeatedly stressed the vision of a unified Syrian state, in which all communities must be respected and have a stake.

On Tuesday, a Syrian official said the first talks between members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and al-Sharaa since he became the most powerful man in Syria three weeks ago have now taken place and were positive.

The SDF is backed by the US and controls much of the north-east of Syria.

But Turkey, which has backed al-Sharaa’s group HTS, sees them as terrorists, which has raised fears of a looming confrontation.

Al-Sharaa has also met high level members of the Christian clergy. The Christian minority in Syria has long felt threatened by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

HTS once espoused such an ideology, but al-Sharaa has for some time embraced a more moderate stance.

He has stressed that he wants all communities to have a stake in Syria’s future and is preparing a National Dialogue Conference to try to ensure that this process can begin.

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For those who are concerned that his actions might not match his words, this apparent move to formalise the positions of some prominent foreign fighters may give them further pause for thought.

The appointments appear to have been made in order to reward those fighters – whether from Syria or elsewhere – who played a significant role in the final triumph over the regime.

For the same reason, some of the remaining foreign fighters – along with their families – now seem likely to be given Syrian citizenship.

The issue is just one of many that could complicate any successful transition to a new political and social framework in Syria.

The new authorities are putting a lot of weight on a National Dialogue Conference that is being prepared to bring together representatives from all sections of society – although no date has been set.

The hope is that the conference will set in motion the process to rebuild the institutions of the broken and divided country.

A female prison officer has been suspended after being arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

It follows reports in The Sun that a custody officer was detained after a video of her having sex with a male inmate was shared with prisoners at HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.

The BBC has not been able to verify the nature of the allegations but can confirm she is aged 19 and was suspended from her job at the privately-run prison on 23 December, following her arrest by Northamptonshire Police.

“A prison custody officer has been suspended and arrested by Northamptonshire Police on suspicion of misconduct in a public office,” a spokesperson for HMP Five Wells said.

Both the prison and police said they were unable to comment further.