New Orleans was in full swing in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day.

Revellers were spilling out of bustling bars and packed clubs in the city’s French Quarter – an area often referred to as the beating heart of the city’s famous nightlife.

“It was all young kids out. Lots of 19, 20, 21-year-olds,” recalled Derrick Albert, a local DJ who plies his trade each night at the corner of Canal and Bourbon streets.

That intersection is home to a packed tourist hotel, a store selling ice cream and chocolate fudge and restaurants selling oysters and daiquiris in large plastic to-go cups.

But at about 03:15 (09:15 GMT), the youthful revelry turned to terror as a man – identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas resident and US Army veteran – drove a rental truck at high-speed into a crowd.

He killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens, some seriously.

Grainy CCTV footage shows the moment the attack began, with the white pick-up truck driving up Canal Street past other vehicles, before taking a right on to Bourbon Street, swerving around a police car, speeding up suddenly and ploughing into the crowds.

“We just heard this squeal, the rev of an engine and a huge, loud impact,” Kimberly Stricklen, a visitor to New Orleans, told Reuters. “Then, the people, screaming. The sound of crunching metal and bodies.”

• Follow latest developments as they happen

The vehicle would continue for three blocks – striking more bystanders along the way – until the driver crashed and came to a stop near the corner of Bourbon and Conti streets.

Jabbar then left his vehicle and shot at police. He was killed by their return fire.

“We heard shots, and saw people running past the window,” said Steve Hyde, a British visitor who was at a bar called the Erin Rose, on Conti Street just off Bourbon. “Then the sirens started… I’m heartbroken. I love this city.”

By 03:17 – just two minutes after the attack – New Orleans Police Department officers, already out in force for new year’s eve, were on the scene and calling for urgent help captured in chaotic radio chatter.

“I have at least six casualties. I have an office doing chest compressions on one. I have another white male that’s got agonal breathing,” one officer can be heard saying, referring to a gasping, irregular breathing pattern common in emergencies. “Multiple casualties.”

Soon after, the area was teeming with police, who cordoned off the entire area with crime scene tape and dozens of officers and vehicles as investigators arrived and ambulances drove off.

• Who were the victims of New Orleans attack?
• What we know about attack and suspect

For Mr Albert, the incident was a close call.

Just a few weeks ago, he’d been issued a ticket by the city and told he had to move down the block from his usual spot – which would have been on the very pavement that the suspect drove through to get past the police car.

“That’s usually my corner,” he told the BBC, gesturing at a Walgreen’s pharmacy at the edge of the crime scene.

“I would have been killed. I got more than lucky yesterday. He’d have run right over me. That ticket saved my life. I’d have been the first one he hit.”

The FBI has said the black flag of the Islamic State group was found inside the vehicle which ploughed into partygoers, along with two suspected improvised explosive devices discovered nearby.

Investigators have said they believe the driver of the vehicle was not acting alone.

But on the streets of New Orleans, much of the debate has focused on whether more could have been done to prevent the attack and keep people safe.

The barriers put in place years ago to prevent vehicles from entering Bourbon Street were in the process of being replaced so there were gaps. A solitary police car was parked there.

“We did have a car there. We had barriers there. We had officers there, and they still got around,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters. “We indeed had a plan, but the terrorist defeated it.”

A perceived failure to properly secure the road has left some, like Mr Albert, puzzled.

He believes that the number of people out for New Year’s Eve, as well as the thousands of people in town for the highly anticipated Sugar Bowl American football game that had been scheduled for 1 January, warranted tighter security.

A 2017 memo seen by CBS, the BBC’s US partner, revealed that officials in New Orleans were aware of the risk of a mass casualty attack using vehicles as weapons.

The document specifically referenced similar attacks that have taken place in France, the UK and New York.

“We all knew it could happen at some point. Maybe at Mardi Gras. Maybe the Superbowl,” Mr Albert said. “Of course they could have stopped it… they’ll get sued over that.”

Nearly 24 hours after the attack took place, the corner of Canal and Bourbon streets remained an active crime zone, with dozens of police cars blocking the road and police tape still strung up.

But nearby, life – and the party – slowly began to return to the French Quarter.

Bars on the same block as the attack were doing brisk business, primarily to legions of football fans in town for the rescheduled Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame.

Music from a live jazz musician blared over curious onlookers who had come to see the crime scene. Across the street, a Michael Jackson impersonator moonwalked on the pavement as a coroner’s vehicle left the area.

While the area is still reeling from the attack and loss of life, many, like Mr Albert, said they were confident the area will return to normal sooner than later.

“Of course we will,” he said. “Of course we’ll bounce back.”

A gunman has killed 12 people, including two children, in a series of shootings in southern Montenegro.

Authorities said the man – later identified as Aco Martinovic, 45 – had been drinking heavily all day when got into an altercation with another guest at a restaurant in the Cetinje area around 17.30 (16.30 GMT) on New Year’s Day.

After the argument, Martinovic went home to retrieve a weapon, then returned to the restaurant and began his rampage, killing several customers.

Martinovic then drove to five other locations and shot several more people, including members of his immediate and extended family. The restaurant owner and his children, aged 10 and 13, were also killed.

Police tracked Martinovic down after an hours-long manhunt. When they ordered him to drop his weapon during a stand-off, he fatally injured himself and died as he was being transported to hospital.

The government has declared three days of national mourning from Thursday, with Prime Minister Milojko Spajic saying the shooting had “shrouded our country in black”.

Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic called the incident a “consequence of disturbed interpersonal relations”, according to AFP news agency.

Four people were taken to hospital after being seriously wounded in the shooting. Three of them were in a stable but life-threatening condition, authorities said, while one was in critical condition.

Writing on social media, the prime minister said: “This senseless act has caused immeasurable sadness and bitterness in each of us. There are no words of comfort.”

Milojko Spajic said the country’s security council would hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to “urgently consider all options” to protect the public, including a complete ban on the possession of weapons.

Mass shootings are comparatively rare in the small Balkan nation.

In 2022, a man killed several people, including children, in Cetinje following a family dispute.

Freezing weather is expected to hit the eastern US in the coming days as the polar vortex moves.

Temperatures are expected to remain below average for the south-east and East Coast through the first half of January. The Gulf of Mexico and Florida could also experience temperatures below freezing.

Meteorologists are predicting heavy snow for the Great Lakes region and into the Appalachians, as well as bitterly cold wind chills.

The polar vortex is an area of cold air that circulates around the Arctic. That area can shift and expand, bringing lower temperatures further south than usual.

• What is a polar vortex and how does it happen?

Modelling by the independent forecaster Atmospheric and Environmental Research shows the polar vortex expanding over the US in the first two weeks of the new year.

The forecaster says this will bring below-normal temperatures into the eastern US during the second week of January.

The National Weather Service (NWS) warns that “the coldest air of the season to date and dangerous wind chills are likely across many areas of the south-east”.

NWS predicts that lows could reach -8C (18F) in parts of Texas and -4C in Georgia on Tuesday night.

Temperatures will be far colder in the north, with northern Minnesota expected to dip to -25C at the same time.

Beyond then, exact temperatures are hard to forecast – but the NWS expects the coldest weather to occur towards the end of the second week of January.

Heavy snow is anticipated to extend from the Great Lakes region into central and eastern parts of the US around then, but snow could reach as far south as Texas.

The NWS says that while significant accumulations of snow are not expected for the south-east, “these regions are often ill-equipped to handle snowy conditions, resulting in potentially higher impacts”.

It predicts an average of close to two inches of snowfall for the period.

In 2022, a powerful Arctic winter storm caused several deaths and widespread disruption across the US, leaving 1.5 million properties without power. The storm also caused oil production to temporarily cease at a dozen facilities on the Gulf coast.

While northern parts of the US are accustomed to cold winters with lots of snow, winds from the Canadian Arctic could bring hazardous wind chills of -29C to -34C. This can cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes.

A well-known American college football player, a young aspiring nurse and a mother of a four-year-old are among the victims of the New Year’s day attack in New Orleans in which at least 15 people were killed.

Their names are being released by families and relatives before authorities complete post-mortem examinations.

Here’s what we know so far.

Martin “Tiger” Bech, who was in his late twenties, was a former football player at Princeton University.

His death was confirmed in a statement by the university.

“There was no more appropriate nickname of a Princeton player I coached,” Princeton football coach Bob Surace said in a statement.

“He was a ‘Tiger’ in every way – a ferocious competitor with endless energy, a beloved teammate and a caring friend.”

Martin Bech’s brother, Jack Bech, posted a tribute on X alongside a news article reporting his death.

“Love you always brother!” he wrote. “You inspired me everyday now you get to be with me in every moment. I got this family T, don’t worry. This is for us.”

Saint Thomas Moore Principal Marty Cannon, Mr Bech’s coach senior year of high school, said he was special.

“I don’t think there was, there’s ever been anybody like Tiger,” he said.

“We could go on and on about how great of an athlete he was, but he was way more than that. He was a complete guy and he was a, he was a stand-up guy that we really respected and honored, and we really liked.”

Mr Bech was a member of the 2016 and 2018 Ivy League Championship teams.

More on the New Orleans attack

• LIVE: Several people involved in IS-inspired attack
• The attacker: What we know about Shamsud-Din Jabbar
• Watch: How day of deadly attack unfolded

The 18-year-old was an aspiring nurse.

Her death was confirmed by her mother, Melissa Dedeaux, on social media.

“I lost my baby just pray for me and my family pleaseeeeee!!! God I need you now!!,” the mother pleaded, along with a photograph of her daughter wearing a red graduation cap and gown from this year.

Ms Dedeaux – who is also a nurse – told local media outlet Nola that her daughter had been due to start her nurse training later this month.

She added that Nikyra had snuck out with a cousin and friend, who both survived.

Nikyra’s school friend, Dante Reed, told the New York Times he had received a frantic call from her cousin, saying they had run when they heard gunshots, and that she – Nikyra – was missing.

Her grandmother, Jennifer Smith, told the paper “she was a joy for the little time we had her.”

“I’m very proud of all of my grandchildren, and that one especially.”

The death of the store manager and father of two was confirmed to CBS News, the BBC News’ US partner, by his cousin Shirell Robinson Jackson.

Ms Jackson described him as “full of life”, and said the 37-year-old had messaged the family minutes after midnight to wish them a Happy New Near.

He was with another cousin who was injured in the attack.

Mr Hunter’s younger sister, Courtney Hunter, told the NY Times her brother loved to be around the family and was competitive when it came to playing games.

His father, Belal Badawi, confirmed Kareem’s death, expressing “great sadness and grief”.

Mr Badawi said: “We ask Allah Almighty to shower his mercy on him, and give us patience and strength to overcome this”.

“We belong to Allah, and to him we shall return”, he added in an expression commonly recited by Muslims when hearing of another Muslim’s death.

Last year, a Facebook post by Mr Badawi congratulated Kareem after he graduated from high school.

Kareem was a student at the University of Alabama, whose president, Stuart R Bell, said: “I grieve alongside family and friends of Kareem in their heartbreaking loss.”

Mr Bell’s message – which was shared by the faculty on Facebook – also asked people to “take a moment to pray for those impacted by this tragedy.”

The 21-year-old’s death has been confirmed by his former high school, Archbishop Shaw, on social media.

“We are asking the entire Archbishop Shaw family to pray for the repose of Hubert’s soul, his family and friends during this difficult time, and all those affected by this tragedy.

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”

Kimberly Usher Fall, Ms Perez’s friend and boss at the deli store she managed, called her a dedicated, smart and a “good-hearted person”, according to CBS.

“She was beautiful and full of life,” she wrote on an online fundraiser she set up for her friend.

The 27-year-old was also a mother to a four-year-old boy.

Ms Usher Fall said Ms Perez used to bring her son into work on his days off from school.

She used to teach him mathematics and the alphabet in the deli’s storage room in between work, Ms Usher Fall told The Washington Post newspaper.

“She really was a good kid, man, she really was,” she said, adding “she was just getting everything going, and she’s gone, just gone.”

The 25-year-old audio-visual technician had a “laid-back spirit and infectious laughter” that brought joy to those around him, according to a fundraiser his family set up in his name.

His mother Cathy Tenedorio, told US broadcaster NBC News, she last saw her son alive at 21:00 local time on New Year’s Eve, adding she remembered hugging and kissing him.

“I must say that the situation is changing dramatically,” Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, declared at his end-of-year news conference in December. “There is movement along the entire front line. Every day.”

In eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s war machine is gradually churning mile by mile through the wide open fields of the Donbas, enveloping and overwhelming villages and towns.

Some civilians are fleeing before the war reaches them. Others wait until the shells start exploding all around them before packing what belongings they can carry and boarding trains and buses to safety further west.

Russia is gaining ground more quickly than at any time since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, despite Kyiv’s impressive record of well-publicised asymmetric attacks against its powerful neighbour.

As the invasion reaches the end of its third year, at an estimated cost of a million people, killed or wounded, Ukraine appears to be losing.

In distant Washington, meanwhile, the unpredictable Donald Trump, not famous for his love of Ukraine or its leader, is about to take over in the White House.

It feels like an inflection point. But could 2025 really be the year when this devastating European conflict finally comes to a close – and if so what could the endgame look like?

Trump’s promise to end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office is a typically grandiose boast, but it comes from a man who has clearly lost patience with the war and America’s costly involvement.

“The numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place are staggering,” he has said. “It’s crazy what’s taking place.”

But the incoming US administration faces twin challenges, according to Michael Kofman, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“First, they’re going to inherit a war on a very negative trajectory, without a tremendous amount of time to stabilise the situation,” he said in December. “Second, they’re going to inherit it without a clear theory of success.”

The president-elect offered some clues during recent interviews about how he intends to approach the war.

He told Time Magazine he disagreed “vehemently” with the Biden administration’s decision, in November, to allow Ukraine to fire US-supplied long-range missiles at targets inside Russia.

“We’re just escalating this war and making it worse,” he said.

On 8 December, he was asked by NBC News if Ukraine should prepare for less aid.

“Possibly,” he replied. “Probably, sure.”

But to those who fear, as many do, that America’s new leader is inclined to walk away from Ukraine, he offered hints of reassurance. “You can’t reach an agreement if you abandon, in my opinion,” he has said.

The truth is: Trump’s intentions are far from clear.

And for now, Ukrainian officials reject all talk of pressure, or the suggestion that Trump’s arrival necessarily means peace talks are imminent.

“There’s a lot of talk about negotiations, but it’s an illusion,” says Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the head of President Zelensky’s office.

“No negotiation process can take place because Russia has not been made to pay a high enough price for this war.”

For all Kyiv’s misgivings about negotiating while Russian forces continue their inexorable advance in the east, it’s clear that President Zelensky is anxious to position himself as the sort of man Trump can do business with.

The Ukrainian leader was quick to congratulate Trump on his election victory and wasted little time sending senior officials to meet the president-elect’s team.

With the help of France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Zelensky also secured a meeting with Trump when the two men visited Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral.

“What we’re seeing now is a very smart strategy exercise by President Zelensky,” his former foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told the US Council on Foreign Relations in December.

Zelensky, he said, was “signalling constructiveness and readiness to engage with President Trump.”

With little obvious sign that the Kremlin is making similar gestures, the government in Kyiv is clearly trying to get ahead of the game.

“Because Trump hasn’t fully explained how he’s going to go about it, Ukrainians are trying to give him some ideas that he may present as his own,” says Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House.

“They know how to work with that ego.”

Even before the US election, there were signs that Zelensky was looking for ways to bolster Ukraine’s appeal as a future partner for a president-elect like Trump who is both instinctively transactional and reluctant to continue underwriting wider European security.

As part of his “Victory Plan”, unveiled in October, Zelensky suggested that battle-hardened Ukrainian troops could replace US forces in Europe after the war with Russia ends. And he offered the prospect of joint investments to exploit Ukraine’s natural resources, including uranium, graphite and lithium.

Such strategic resources, Zelensky warned, “will either strengthen Russia or Ukraine and the democratic world”.

But other elements of the Ukrainian leader’s Victory Plan – Nato membership and its call for a “comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” – seem to have met with a lukewarm response among Kyiv’s allies.

Nato membership in particular remains a sticking point, as it has been since well before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

For Kyiv, it’s the only way to guarantee the country’s future survival, against a rapacious Russian enemy bent on subjugating Ukraine.

But despite declaring last July that Ukraine was on an “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including Nato membership” the alliance is divided, with the US and Germany not yet in favour of issuing an invitation.

President Zelensky has indicated that if an offer of membership was extended to the whole country, within Ukraine’s internationally-recognised borders, he would be willing to accept that it would apply, initially, only to territory under Kyiv’s control.

This, he told Sky News in November, could end the “hot stage” of the war, allowing a diplomatic process to address the question of Ukraine’s final borders.

But, he said, no such offer had yet been made.

If not Nato, then what? With the possibility of Trump-led peace talks looming and Ukraine losing ground on the battlefield, the international debate is all about shoring up Kyiv’s shaky position.

“It’s critical to have strong, legal and practical guarantees,” Andriy Yermak, head of President Zelensky’s office, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster on 12 December.

Ukraine’s recent past, he said, had left a bitter legacy. “Unfortunately, from our experience, all the guarantees we had before did not result in security.”

Without concrete mechanisms akin to the sort of collective defence concept embodied by Article 5 of Nato’s founding treaty, observers fear there will be nothing to prevent another Russian attack.

“Zelensky understands that he cannot just have a naked ceasefire,” Orysia Lutsevych says.

“It has to be a ceasefire plus. It would be suicide for Zelensky just to accept a ceasefire and not to have any answer how Ukraine is protected.”

In European policy forums, experts have been looking at ways in which Europe might help to shoulder this heavy responsibility.

Ideas have included the deployment of peacekeepers in Ukraine (a proposal first floated last February by Macron), or the involvement of the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force, which pulls together forces from eight Nordic and Baltic countries, plus the Netherlands.

But Kofman is sceptical. “Security guarantees that don’t have the United States involved in them as one of the guarantors is like a donut with a giant missing middle in it.”

It’s a view echoed in Kyiv.

“What alternative could there be? There are no alternatives today,” says Mr Podolyak.

Pieces of paper, like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum (about Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders) or 2014-15 Minsk agreements (which sought to end the Donbas War) are worthless, he argues, without the added threat of military deterrence.

“Russia must understand that as soon as they start aggression, they will receive a significant number of strikes in response,” he says.

In the absence of agreement on Ukraine’s long term future, its allies are doing what they can to bolster its defences.

In December, Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said “everything” was being looked at, including the supply of additional air defence systems, in part to protect the country’s battered energy infrastructure from a renewed wave of coordinated Russian missile and drone attacks.

With Ukraine continuing to experience severe shortages of manpower, the UK Defence Secretary John Healey said the government might be willing to send British troops to Ukraine to help with training.

For its part, the departing Biden administration seems determined to deliver as much congressionally approved military assistance as it can to Ukraine before leaving office, although reports suggest it may run out of time to send everything.

On 21 December it was reported that Trump would continue to supply military aid to Ukraine, but would demand that NATO members dramatically increase their defence spending.

Kyiv’s allies have also continued to ratchet up sanctions on Moscow, in the hope that Russia’s war-time economy, which has proved stubbornly resilient, may finally break.

“There’s been deep frustration that sanctions haven’t just shattered the Russian economy beyond repair,” a US congressional source said, on condition of anonymity.

After multiple rounds of sanctions (fifteen from the EU alone), government officials have grown wary of predicting their successful impact.

But recent indicators are increasingly alarming for the Kremlin. With interest rates at 23%, inflation running above 9%, a falling rouble and growth expected to slow dramatically in 2025, the strains on Russia’s economy have rarely seemed more acute.

Putin is putting on a brave face. “The sanctions are having an effect,” he said during his end of year news conference, “but they are not of key importance.”

Along with Russia’s staggering losses on the battlefield – western officials estimate that Moscow is losing an average of 1,500 men, killed and wounded, every day – the cost of this war could yet drive Putin to the negotiating table.

But how much more territory will Ukraine have lost – and how many more people will have been killed – by the time that point is reached?

Rock star Neil Young has announced he will not be performing at this year’s Glastonbury, saying he believes the festival, which is partnered with the BBC, is “now under corporate control”.

The 79-year-old Canadian wrote on his website that he and his band the Chrome Hearts “were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all time favourite outdoor gigs” but will now not be at Worthy Farm in June.

“We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in,” said Young, who headlined Glastonbury in 2009.

“It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”

Young thanked fans on his website for seeing him and his band last time they were at the festival, adding: “We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be.

“Hope to see you at one of the other venues on the tour.”

The BBC has declined to comment on Young’s website post.

The festival has worked closely with the BBC since 1997, and is its exclusive broadcast partner.

Young headlined the Pyramid Stage in 2009 – alongside Bruce Springsteen and Blur – ending his set with an extended version of his track Rockin’ In The Free World and a cover of The Beatles classic A Day In The Life.

His performance came 12 years later than planned, after he’d originally been forced to pull out through injury after cutting his finger making a sandwich.

In 2009, fans left comments on the Glastonbury website asking why the BBC was not showing all of Young’s set on the website or on TV.

The corporation said at the time it had “spent the last couple of months” negotiating with Young’s management about what they could show.

“Neil’s management agreed to let TV and radio broadcast five songs as they watched and listened to his performance. They believe in the live event and retaining its mystery and that of their artist,” the BBC said.

“They have decided to make one song available online over the weekend to give a flavour of his set. That’s Rockin’ In The Free World and that’s their decision.”

BBC News has contacted Glastonbury Festival and Young for further comment about him turning down a potential return for 2025.

The UK’s biggest music festival returns to Somerset from 25 June, with Rod Stewart being the only headliner officially named so far – in the Sunday “legends slot”.

Guitar hero Nile Rodgers appeared to accidentally confirm that he and Chic would also be playing, during an acceptance speech at the Rolling Stone Awards in November.

Tickets sold out in about 35 minutes organisers said in November, adding that any not fully paid for by April will be put up for resale.

The chief of Gaza’s Hamas-run police force and his deputy have been killed in an Israeli strike on a tent camp sheltering displaced families.

The Hamas-run interior ministry condemned what it called the “assassination” of Mahmoud Salah and Hussam Shahwan, who it said had been “performing their humanitarian and national duty”.

Nine other people, including three children and two women, were also killed in the overnight attack in al-Mawasi, near the southern city of Khan Younis, medics said.

Israel’s military confirmed it had carried out a strike targeting Shahwan, who it alleged was a “terrorist” who had helped Hamas’s military wing plan attacks on Israeli forces in Gaza.

More than 30 people were reportedly killed in other Israeli strikes across Gaza on Thursday, while the military said it intercepted a projectile fired from the south of the territory.

The Gaza interior ministry accused Israel of “spreading chaos” and “deepening the human suffering” in the territory by killing Salah and Shahwan. It insisted that the police force was a “civilian protection agency” that provided services to Palestinians.

There has been increased lawlessness in Gaza since Israel began targeting police officers last year, citing their role in Hamas governance.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the police force had “conducted violent interrogations of the Gazan population, violating human rights and suppressing dissent”.

“Hassam Shahwan was responsible for developing intelligence assessments in coordination with elements of Hamas’s military wing in attacks on the IDF in the Gaza Strip,” it alleged.

The military also said it had taken “numerous steps” to mitigate the risk of harming civilians prior to the strike on al-Mawasi.

Three brothers aged seven, 11 and 13 were among the nine other people who were killed.

Ahmed, Mohammed and Abdul Rahman al-Bardawil were hit by shrapnel as they slept in their family’s tent, their father Walid said.

“I woke up to the sound of the explosion. I called my three sleeping sons, but no-one answered. They were martyred immediately,” he told AFP news agency.

Social media videos showed the boys’ bodies being transported to a local hospital by a tuk-tuk, as well as their blood-stained mattresses inside a damaged tent.

Aida Zanoun, who was living in a neighbouring tent, said she heard an Apache helicopter gunship flying overhead at around 01:00 (23:00 GMT Wednesday).

“Then we saw a very strong [explosion]. It caused an earthquake in the neighbourhood. The shrapnel reached as far as 100m [330ft], they say,” she told Reuters news agency.

“When the morning came, we came to inspect [the scene], and… it is devastation, complete destruction. What have the children done, to be hit?”

The IDF has declared the sandy strip of land along the coast in al-Mawasi to be a “humanitarian zone” for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by its 14-month war with Hamas.

But it has repeatedly attacked the area, accusing Hamas operatives of hiding among civilians.

Later, another six people were killed in an Israeli air strike at the Gaza interior ministry’s headquarters in Khan Younis, medics said.

The IDF said it had conducted a strike on “Hamas terrorists who were operating in a control-and-command centre that was embedded inside the Khan Younis municipality building”.

Palestinian media reported that at least 30 people were killed in Israeli strikes elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday.

Ten were killed in the northern town of Jabalia, which is besieged by Israeli ground forces, while four were killed in Shati refugee camp to the west, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency. Twelve others died at two intersections in nearby Gaza City, it said.

Four people were killed in the central town of Deir al-Balah and several others were killed in nearby Maghazi refugee camp, Wafa added.

Meanwhile, recent cold, wet weather has worsened conditions in makeshift camps for displaced families.

More than 1,500 tents across Gaza have been flooded by rainwater and sewage since Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.

“When we woke up… we were shocked to find that the rain had flooded [our tent], causing us to be submerged in sewage,” Moataz Abu Hatab told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme.

“Everything we had – our mattresses, blankets, and clothes – was lost. All the items we had managed to buy or receive during the war are now gone, and we are left with nothing.”

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 45,580 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Chinese car maker BYD saw its sales jump at the end of last year, as it competes with Tesla to be the world’s best-selling electric vehicle (EV) maker of 2024.

The company says it sold 207,734 EVs in December, taking its annual total to 1.76 million, as subsidies and discounts helped attract customers.

It comes as Tesla is due to announce its own quarterly sales figures later on Thursday.

The US electric car maker maintained a slim lead in EV sales over BYD in the previous quarter but the Shenzhen-based firm has been narrowing the gap.

BYD’s total vehicle sales jumped more than 41% in 2024, year-on-year. The surge was powered mainly by sales of its hybrid cars.

The company has benefited from a rise in car sales in its home market, as intense competition drove down prices and government subsidies encouraged consumers to replace their old cars with EVs or other more fuel efficient options.

BYD sells 90% of its cars in China, where its been extending its lead over foreign brands like Volkswagen and Toyota.

The rise of BYD and other Chinese EV makers contrasts with the challenges faced by some legacy car makers, which have been struggling in major Western markets.

Last month, Honda and Nissan confirmed that they were holding merger talks, as the two Japanese firms seek to fight back against competition from the Chinese car industry.

Also in December, Volkswagen announced it had reached a deal with the IG Metall trade union which will avert plant closures in Germany and avoid immediate compulsory redundancies.

The German motor industry giant had previously warned it might have to shutter plants in the country for the first time in a bid to cut costs.

Earlier in the month, the boss of car making giant Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, quit with immediate effect following a boardroom clash.

His abrupt exit from the company – which owns brands including Vauxhall, Jeep, Fiat, Peugeot and Chrysler – came two months after Stellantis issued a profit warning.

In the third quarter of 2024, BYD saw its revenues soar, beating Tesla’s for the first time.

It posted more than 200bn yuan ($28.2bn, £21.8bn) in revenues between July and September – a 24% jump from the same period last year, and more than Elon Musk’s company whose quarterly revenue was $25.2bn.

However, Tesla still sold more electric vehicle (EVs) than BYD.

Chinese car makers have been trying to boost sales of their EVs outside the country but have faced pushback in some major markets.

In October, European Union tariffs of up to 45.3% on imports of Chinese-made EVs came into force across the bloc.

The US has also imposed a 100% duty on EVs from China and President-elect Donald Trump is expected to impose further tariffs on imports.

Meanwhile, BYD has been expanding its foothold in emerging economies.

Last month, it faced a setback in Brazil – its largest overseas market – with authorities halting the construction of a BYD factory, saying workers lived in conditions comparable to “slavery”.

BYD said it had cut ties with the construction firm involved and remained committed to a “full compliance with Brazilian legislation”.

An eight-year-old boy has been found alive after surviving five days in a game park inhabited by lions and elephants in northern Zimbabwe, according to a member of parliament.

The ordeal began when Tinotenda Pudu wandered 23 km (14 miles) from home into the “perilous” Matusadona Game Park, said Mashonaland West MP Mutsa Murombedzi on X.

He spent five days “sleeping on a rocky perch, amidst roaring lions, passing elephants, eating wild fruits”, she said.

Matusadona game park has about 40 lions. At one point, it had one of the highest lion population densities in Africa, according to African Parks.

Murombedzi said the boy used his knowledge of the wild and survival skills to stay alive.

Tinotenda survived his ordeal by eating wild fruit. He also dug small wells into dry riverbeds with a stick to access drinking water – a skill taught in the drought-prone area.

Members of the local Nyaminyami community started a search party and beat drums each day to try and guide him back home.

But ultimately, it was park rangers who managed to find him.

On his fifth day in the wild, Tinotenda heard a ranger’s car and ran toward it, narrowly missing it, the MP said.

Luckily, the rangers returned, spotted “fresh little human footprints,” and searched the area until they found him.

“This was probably his last chance of being rescued after 5 days in the wilderness,” said the MP.

The park is over 1,470 sq km (570 sq miles) and is home to zebras, elephants, hippos, lions and antelope.

Across social media, people have been praising the young boy for his resilience.

“This is beyond human comprehension,” one person wrote on X.

Another user wrote: “He’s going to have one hell of a story to tell when he gets back to school.”

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Authorities in India have removed hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste from a chemical factory that witnessed one of the world’s deadliest gas leaks 40 years ago.

Thousands of people died in the central city of Bhopal in December 1984 after breathing a poisonous gas leaked from the factory.

On Wednesday, around 337 tonnes of toxic waste was taken from the Union Carbide plant to an incinerator facility around 230km (143 miles) away after a court last month set a four-week deadline for it to be disposed of.

Officials say it will take between three and nine months to treat and destroy the waste but activists have raised concerns about potential damage to people’s health at the new location.

Since the disaster, the toxic material had been lying in the mothballed factory, polluting groundwater in the surrounding areas.

The toxic waste cleared from the factory this week included five types of hazardous materials – including pesticide residue and “forever chemicals” left from its manufacturing process. These chemicals get the name because they retain their toxic properties indefinitely.

Over decades, these chemicals at the abandoned factory site had been slowly seeping into the surrounding environment, creating a persistent health hazard for people who live in nearby areas.

A 2018 study by the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research revealed that high concentrations of metals and chemicals have contaminated groundwater across 42 residential areas near the factory.

After decades of inaction, the Madhya Pradesh state High Court on 3 December set a four-week deadline for authorities to dispose of the toxic waste material from the site.

The court said that authorities were “still in a state of inertia despite 40 years”.

The process of moving the waste began on Sunday when officials started packing it in leak-proof bags. These bags were then loaded onto 12 sealed trucks on Wednesday.

Officials said the waste was transported under tight security.

A police escort, ambulances, fire engines and a quick response team accompanied the convoy of trucks carrying the waste, the Indian Express newspaper reported.

Swatantra Kumar Singh, the head of Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation department, told the PTI news agency that initially, some of the waste would be burnt at the disposal unit in Pithampur and its residue examined for toxic remains.

He said that special arrangements had been made to ensure that fumes from the incinerator or the ash left after do not pollute the air and water.

But activists and people living near the disposal site have been protesting against the move.

They said that a small amount of waste from the Union Carbide factory was destroyed at the plant on a trial basis in 2015, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

It ended up polluting the soil, underground water as well as fresh water bodies in the nearby villages, they said.

Mr Singh has denied these claims, saying that incineration of toxic waste would not have “any adverse impact” on nearby villages.

But Rachna Dhingra, from the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, told BBC World Service that the transfer of waste would “create a slow-motion Bhopal” in the new location.

She adds that the transported waste is only a tiny percentage of the actual contamination that people in Bhopal are still dealing with.

“The 1.1 million tonnes of toxic soil and waste still continues to contaminate the groundwater of hundreds and thousands of people [in Bhopal],” she says, referring to an estimate from a 2010 government study.

Over the years, officials have made several attempts to dispose of the waste from the Bhopal factory but dropped their plans after facing resistance from activists.

In 2005, India’s pollution control board said that the toxic waste would be incinerated in Gujarat but the plan was dropped after protests.

The board later identified sites in Hyderabad and Maharashtra state as well, but faced similar resistance.

The Bhopal gas tragedy is the one of the world’s largest industrial disasters.

According to government estimates, around 3,500 people died within days of the gas leak and more than 15,000 in the years since.

But activists say that the death toll is much higher. Victims continue to suffer from the side-effects of being poisoned even today.

In 2010, an Indian court convicted seven former managers at the plant, handing down minor fines and brief prison sentences. But many victims and campaigners say that justice has still not been served, given the magnitude of the tragedy.

Union Carbide paid $470m (£282m) in compensation to the Indian government in an out-of-court settlement in 1989. Another US firm Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 1999, says this settlement resolved all existing and future claims against the company.

A drunken police officer in Zambia freed 13 suspects from custody so that they could go and celebrate the new year, officials say.

Detective inspector Titus Phiri was arrested after releasing the suspects from Leonard Cheelo police station in the capital, Lusaka, before running away himself.

The 13 detainees were accused of crimes such as assault, robbery and burglary.

They are all currently on the run and a manhunt has been launched to find them.

Police spokesperson Rae Hamoonga said that Mr Phiri, “in a state of intoxication, forcibly seized cell keys” from constable Serah Banda on New Year’s Eve.

“Subsequently, detective inspector Phiri unlocked both the male and female cells and instructed the suspects to leave, stating they were free to cross over into the new year,” he said.

“Out of the 15 suspects in custody, 13 escaped. Following the incident, the officer fled the scene.”

Mr Phiri has not yet commented on the allegations.

Reacting to the incident, former presidential spokesperson and lawyer Dickson Jere wrote on Facebook: “I keep laughing each time I picture the scenario – comical! But then, I remembered a similar incident in 1997.”

On New Year’s Eve in 1997, the late, controversial High Court Judge Kabazo Chanda ordered the release of 53 suspects, some of whom were deemed dangerous by the police.

Mr Chanda was annoyed that the suspects had been arrested as long ago as 1992, but had not yet appeared in court.

“Justice delayed, is justice denied,” he said.

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The UK’s biggest ever dinosaur trackway site has been discovered in a quarry in Oxfordshire.

About 200 huge footprints, which were made 166 million years ago, criss-cross the limestone floor.

They reveal the comings and goings of two different types of dinosaurs that are thought to be a long-necked sauropod called Cetiosaurus and the smaller meat-eating Megalosaurus.

The longest trackways are 150m in length, but they could extend much further as only part of the quarry has been excavated.

“This is one of the most impressive track sites I’ve ever seen, in terms of scale, in terms of the size of the tracks,” said Prof Kirsty Edgar, a micropalaeontologist from the University of Birmingham.

“You can step back in time and get an idea of what it would have been like, these massive creatures just roaming around, going about their own business.”

The tracks were first spotted by Gary Johnson, a worker at Dewars Farm Quarry, while he was driving a digger.

“I was basically clearing the clay, and I hit a hump, and I thought it’s just an abnormality in the ground,” he said, pointing to a ridge where some mud has been pushed up as a dinosaur’s foot pressed down into the earth.

“But then it got to another, 3m along, and it was a hump again. And then it went another 3m – hump again.”

Another trackway site had been found nearby in the 1990s, so he realised the regular bumps and dips could be dinosaur footprints.

“I thought I’m the first person to see them. And it was so surreal – a bit of a tingling moment, really,” he told BBC News.

This summer, more than 100 scientists, students and volunteers joined an excavation at the quarry which features on the new series of Digging for Britain.

The team found five different trackways.

Four of them were made by sauropods, plant-eating dinosaurs that walked on four legs. Their footprints look a bit like an elephant’s – only much much bigger – these beasts reached up to 18m in length.

Another track is thought to have been created by a Megalosaurus.

“It’s almost like a caricature of a dinosaur footprint”, explained Dr Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate palaeontologist from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

“It’s what we call a tridactyl print. It’s got these three toes that are very, very clear in the print.”

The carnivorous creatures, which walked on two legs, were agile hunters, she said.

“The whole animal would have been 6-9m in length. They were the largest predatory dinosaurs that we know of in the Jurassic period in Britain.”

The environment they lived in was covered by a warm, shallow lagoon and the dinosaurs left their prints as they ambled across the mud.

“Something must have happened to preserve these in the fossil record,” said Prof Richard Butler, a palaeobiologist from the University of Birmingham.

“We don’t know exactly what, but it might be that there was a storm event that came in, deposited a load of sediments on top of the footprints, and meant that they were preserved rather than just being washed away.”

The team studied the trackways in detail during the dig. As well as making casts of the tracks, they took more than 20,000 photographs to create 3D models of both the complete site and individual footprints.

“The really lovely thing about a dinosaur footprint, particularly if you have a trackway, is that it is a snapshot in the life of the animal,” Prof Butler explained.

“You can learn things about how that animal moved. You can learn exactly what the environment that it was living in was like. So tracks give us a whole different set of information that you can’t get from the bone fossil record.”

One area of the site even reveals where the paths of a sauropod and megalosaurus once crossed.

The prints are so beautifully preserved that the team have been able to work out which animal passed through first – they believe it was the sauropod, because the front edge of its large, round footprint is slightly squashed down by the three-toed megalosaurus walking on top of it.

“Knowing that this one individual dinosaur walked across this surface and left exactly that print is so exhilarating,” said Dr Duncan Murdock from Oxford University.

“You can sort of imagine it making its way through, pulling its legs out of the mud as it was going.”

The future fate of the trackways hasn’t yet been decided but the scientists are working with Smiths Bletchington, who operate the quarry, and Natural England on options for preserving the site for the future.

They believe there could be more footprints, these echoes of our prehistoric past, just waiting to be discovered.

Digging for Britain

At the age of 60, Nigerian businessman and healthcare professional Ken Okoroafor achieved his childhood dream of obtaining the revered title of “Leopard Slayer”.

Jubilant crowds thronged as he was inducted into the prestigious and male-only Igbuu Society in his hometown of Oguta, in south-eastern Nigeria.

In ancient times, slaying a leopard was not just an act of bravery but a ritualistic feat that conferred societal prestige.

To become a “Leopard Slayer”, known as an “Ogbuagu” in the Igbo language, a man had to present a leopard – hunted and killed by himself – to the local king. Its meat was then shared amongst 25 villages around Oguta.

Over time, the practice evolved, and people no longer needed to hunt the leopard themselves.

My mother recalls the carcass of a leopard lying in their living room back in 1955 when her father took the title. It had been captured for him by a professional hunter.

She remembers eating leopard meat twice in the past: “It tastes wild and a bit salty.”

Conservation concerns then ended the use of leopards as they became scarce in the region. The last known leopard sacrifice occurred in 1987.

Once widespread across Nigeria, leopards now tend to be only found in a few national parks, where they are protected.

Today, the financial equivalent – a substantial but undisclosed sum – is distributed among the family heads in the 25 villages, maintaining the communal spirit of the tradition.

“In Oguta when you join this society, you get respect and you join them in most of the decision-making in the town,” said Mr Okoroafor, who has lived in the US for decades but returned to his roots to become an Ogbuagu.

“That attracted me. It’s something I’ve been hoping to join since I was a little boy.”

The first recorded use of money as a substitute goes back to 1942 when a man named Mberekpe Ojirika caught a leopard for the ceremony, but then his mother passed away.

Tradition stipulated that Ojirika had to mourn for six months and could not continue with the ritual. When he later tried to find another leopard, he failed.

Understanding the difficulty, his relative, the Eze Igwe – the traditional king of Oguta – allowed him to pay four shillings instead of providing a leopard.

“From that time, you now had a choice to use money or a leopard,” said 52-year-old Victor Aniche, the current secretary of the Igbuu Society, and a grandson of Ojirika.

“When I did my own [ceremony] in 2012, someone offered to bring me a live leopard from northern Nigeria. They had one to sell to me. But I couldn’t imagine having an endangered animal killed,” said Mr Aniche, a mechanical engineer and graduate of Cambridge University in the UK.

But today the path to becoming an Ogbuagu is still rigorous, involving three elaborate stages.

The Igbuu Society – of which there are around 75 current members – is as old as Oguta itself, tracing its roots back over four centuries to the town’s founding by migrants from the ancient Benin Kingdom.

Despite being classed as part of the Igbo ethnic group, the people of Oguta maintain a distinct identity. Their dialect, customs and traditions set them apart with a local and diaspora population estimated by various sources to be close to 200,000.

Many of those wanting to become an Ogbuagu choose to go through their ceremonies during the festive Christmas season, allowing families and diaspora communities to come together, often drawing large crowds.

On 21 December, Zubby Ndupu, a petrophysicist who works in Nigeria’s oil sector, began the first stage to become a “Leopard Slayer”, known as “Igbu Agu” – when the hunt is re-enacted.

The day started at 09:00, with the Ogbuagu gathering in a large tent at Mr Ndupu’s home. They greeted each other with the clinking of their gold-coloured swords and exchanged pleasantries.

Although the Eze Igwe does not attend public events, he sent a representative to join the ceremony.

The Ogbuagu sat in order of hierarchy, determined by the date they became full members.

Women were not allowed to touch the Ogbuagu, enter the gathering or participate in the ceremony, but I watched from nearby.

The Ogbuagu feasted on traditional dishes such as goat-meat pepper soup, nsala soup – made from catfish – pounded yam and palm wine.

During the ceremony, Mr Ndupu was called forward by the secretary: a palm frond was tied to his wrist, chalk marks were drawn on his hand, and he was given a brand-new gold-coloured sword engraved with his name.

He then moved around the gathering, greeting each Ogbuagu and clinking his sword against theirs four times.

In the afternoon, after the feasting, Mr Ndupu was led in a procession from his home. The “Leopard Slayers” walked in hierarchical order, with the newest initiate, Mr Ndupu, positioned at the end of the line.

The group proceeded to the Eze Igwe’s palace, where they presented money for the leopard to the king.

The second stage, known as “Iga Aji”, is a spiritual segment conducted privately at the initiate’s home – with members of the Igbuu Society in attendance.

During this phase, the initiate is presented with a red sash, symbolising royalty, along with sacred beads and feathers.

After receiving his red sash, Mr Okoroafor went around greeting his kinsfolk, who had gathered in tents outside. They celebrated him with cheers of “Ogbuagu!” as they feasted and drank.

The final stage, “Ipu Afia Agu”, is a grand feast that marks the initiate’s full membership. The celebration begins at the home of the initiate’s mother and later moves to his own residence.

This is the most expensive stage, often involving livestock, basins of fish and crates of liquor to entertain hundreds of guests.

After a recent gathering at his mother’s home, Pascal Okey Adizua, a 60-year-old car dealer from Maryland in the US, was paraded through town with a symbolic, fake leopard skin held high.

Accompanied by the Ogbuagu, chanting women and vibrant music, his new status was celebrated with dancing, singing and feasting shared by all.

Mr Adizua had completed his first stage in 2023 but chose to wait until December 2024 to complete the second and third stages so his daughters – two doctors and a nurse – could attend.

“My children are all done with school. The last boy is the only one in university. A lot of my friends came from the US,” said Mr Adizua, who has lived abroad for 21 years.

Both Mr Adizua and Mr Okoroafor, who completed their second and third stages in December, can now savour the unmatched prestige that comes with Igbuu membership.

“Leopard Slayers” are addressed by their title “Ogbuagu” throughout Igboland – and beyond.

In Oguta, they alone may stand and greet the king without bowing. Their presence commands respect at all events like weddings where they are given seats of honour.

Ceremonial beads worn on the right wrist distinguish the Ogbuagu, symbolising their status. At traditional events, they must wear specific clothing.

“The title ‘Ogbuagu’ is a name of praise,” explains Mr Aniche. “If you can go into the forest, stalk and kill a leopard, you are a warrior.”

Leadership in Igbuu follows a strict hierarchy, where seniority is based on how long one has been a member, not age. The longest-serving member holds the highest leadership position. The current leader is Emmanuel Udom, now in his early 80s.

In addition to the president, who oversees the group’s affairs and meetings, Igbuu members nominate and elect officials to handle the daily operations and administration. Mr Aniche has served as secretary for the past four years.

“We have members in their mid-40s all the way to their 90s,” said Mr Aniche.

Some prominent Ogbuagu include the late Chukwudifu Oputa, one of Nigeria’s most respected Supreme Court judges. Alban Uzoma Nwapa, a Swedish-Nigerian musician better known by his stage name Dr Alban, and the late Gogo Nwakuche, a successful entrepreneur and husband of the late renowned novelist Flora Nwapa.

The Igbuu Society is highly selective. Applicants must own property, have a verifiable income, be married or have been married, and maintain an unblemished reputation.

Descendants of slaves, known as “ohu”, are not allowed to join. These are people whose ancestors were owned by others, either through war or purchase – a remnant of a social order that some are now working to abolish.

“We are saying now that it is time for this obnoxious, outdated, useless system to be done away with, so that we can be one,” said Oduenyi Nduka, a former secretary of Igbuu who is also the king’s spokesperson.

“If you go to America, some of our sons are married to black Americans, even some Ogbuagu. Those black Americans are products of the same system, so what is the problem at home?”

He explained that the traditional process of abolishing the ohu system had already begun, with consultations taking place between families that once owned slaves. This is expected to lead to the enactment of traditional rituals that will officially declare them free of the ohu status.

“Once that is done, the Igbuu will call a meeting and begin to accept them,” Mr Nduka said.

Despite its prestige, some criticise the Igbuu, claiming it benefits only the ego of its members.

At every ceremony I attended, there was at least one person in the crowd murmuring about how the thousands of dollars spent could be better used for developing the town or funding scholarships.

But Mr Aniche disagrees: “Igbuu is not a society where you come to achieve; it is a society you come to because you have already achieved.

“The Ogbuagu have brought more development to Oguta than others. They are the biggest employers of labour.”

Mr Aniche also pointed out that the money spent on feasting and other ceremony requirements circulates back into the local economy.

Today, the Igbuu Society’s membership spans the globe, with nearly half of its members living abroad. Yet, whether in Europe or the US, Oguta men remain deeply connected to their roots.

“I come back about three times every year because I love the tradition of Oguta,” said Mr Adizua. “With all the stress in the diaspora, I like to come home to unwind.”

For Mr Okoroafor, the journey from a young boy dreaming of the leopard hunt to an esteemed Ogbuagu was well worth the wait.

“Oguta is a beautiful town that has a lot of people who excelled in different areas,” he said, his voice filled with pride.

“The last time I was home was 2016 but now that I am an Ogbuagu, I will come home more regularly.”

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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.

From superhero blockbusters to Netflix romantic comedies, Scotland has become an increasingly familiar location for Hollywood to use.

In the autumn, Twisters star Glen Powell could be seen in Glasgow shooting scenes for sci-fi tale The Running Man, while Edinburgh and Aberdeenshire will be the backdrop for a new version of Frankenstein.

Those productions join a lengthy list of films and TV shows filmed in the country over the past decade.

Tourism bosses hope successful productions can see Scotland follow the likes of New Zealand – where the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films were shot – and Northern Ireland, which saw a tourism upswing from Game of Thrones fans looking to visit locations used in the fantasy series.

For some films, such as Orkney-set drama The Outrun or smash-hit TV show Outlander, filming on location in Scotland is a natural option given the stories themselves are set there.

Scottish scenery and wilderness is distinctive, and can mostly be accessed relatively quickly from major cities, which helps.

However, the past decade has seen cities across the country stand in for other places – something Ray Tallan, the head of film at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, suggests is down to architecture cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh.

He says it “lends itself beautifully” to the big screen.

Mr Tallan also points to the increase in studio provision in the country, with the likes of First Stage Studios in Leith and Wardpark Film and Television Studios in Cumbernauld.

Mr Tallan told BBC Scotland News: “This gives productions the flexibility to not just use Scotland for its scenery but now also its studio facilities.

“As more of these productions shoot here successfully, this provides confidence in the sector and an increase in reputation.”

There is another reason too – money.

Like the rest of the UK, Scotland is able to offer tax breaks to productions, which adds to its appeal, as well as additional funding.

For example, Glasgow City Council gave Warner Bros around £150,000 to shoot DC Comics film Batgirl in the city – only for the finished movie to never see the light of day after bosses at the studio decided not to release it.

Glasgow has been particularly adaptable, with its streets doubling for London in the Fast & Furious spin-off Hobbs & Shaw, as legendary comic book location Gotham City in the opening of comic book adventure The Flash, and as 1960s New York for a parade scene in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Cheryl Conway, the head of Screen Commission at Screen Scotland, told BBC Scotland News the country has “versatility”, which makes it appeal to studios.

Of course, this can work the other way too: cheesy festive romcom A Merry Scottish Christmas used Duns Castle in the Scottish Borders for exterior shots, but nearly the entire film was, despite the title, filmed in Ireland.

A considerable amount. Recent fare includes…

• Frankenstein (Netflix)
• The Rig series 2 (Prime Video), Fear (Prime Video),
• Lockerbie: A Search for Truth (Sky)
• One Day (Netflix),
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Amblin)
• The Outrun (Arcade Pictures)
• Tetris (Apple TV+)
• Andor (Disney+)
• The Batman (Warner Bros.)
• California Schemin’ (James McAvoy)
• Avengers: Infinity War (Marvel Studios)
• Avengers: Endgame (Marvel Studios)
• The Princess Switch Trilogy (Netflix)

This is a more complicated issue.

A regular concern when massive productions take over parts of the city is whether the disruption negatively hits local businesses.

When the Batgirl film was axed, Glasgow City Council told the Daily Record that the production still provided “a very significant economic benefit” for the wider city.

However, businesses in areas where filming occurred were less convinced, telling the BBC at the time that their trade had been adversely affected.

The Social Recluse clothing shop on King Street in the Trongate area was given £1,000 in compensation after having to close for 10 days for filming – something staff said didn’t make up for a “wasted month”.

Other productions, such as Indiana Jones and the Running Man remake, have seen swathes of Glasgow altered and streets and roads blocked off, raising the question of whether those being directly affected are actually seeing any benefits.

Dr Ewelina Lacka, of the Business School at the University of Edinburgh, told BBC Scotland News that economic benefits of films in Scotland were a “mixed perspective”, particularly in regards to tourism.

She explained: “It’s not only the film being made there but whether certain conditions are met, mainly related to destination management and marketing.

“It highlights the importance of something like Visit Scotland, in having a marketing strategy implemented before and after filming.”

The clearest example of a film or TV production boosting Scotland is Outlander, the hugely popular TV show based on books by American author Diana Gabaldon.

Several companies now offer Outlander tours around Scotland, visiting locations used throughout the long-running series.

Dr Lacka said: “It’s a diversion effect – people plan trips, and work in the filming locations as part of a wider visit.”

Mr Tallan agrees, saying: “Outlander has an amazing reach globally and there is no doubt it has had an impact on tourism at locations where the production is shot.”

Screen Scotland believes the local film industry gains advantages from visiting big productions.

Ms Conway said it enabled trainees and Scottish crews to gain “vital experience” and help secure “sustainable careers” in the long term.

Mr Tallan agrees, saying more experienced crew members can move onto big productions, which in turn “gives that opportunity for new blood to come in” on smaller shoots.

Glasgow was recently taken over for The Running Man, based on Stephen King’s book and already adapted once in a 1980s action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This time Glen Powell is the man forced to fight to survive on a ruthless game show, with Glasgow portraying a dystopian, futuristic city.

Edinburgh and Aberdeenshire will be stepping in for 18th Century Germany in a new version of Gothic horror Frankenstein for streaming giant Netflix, directed by Guillermo Del Toro.

The Hellboy director had an interesting experience while in Scotland – he posted on social media saying that he believed his hotel might be haunted.

New Sky drama Lockerbie: A Search For Truth will be shown in January, with shooting having taken place in Linlithgow.

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.”

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.

A number of ceremonies and services will be held to mourn the passing of US President Jimmy Carter, who has died aged 100.

The former president will be honoured at a state funeral on 9 January in Washington before he is buried in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, alongside his wife, Rosalynn, who died last year at age 96.

Carter passed away on Sunday, two years after entering into hospice care.

Here’s what to know about the funeral plans.

A state funeral is a national remembrance event marking the life of Americans who have made a huge contribution to public life.

Most presidents receive the honour if their family agrees.

It usually lasts seven to 10 days and includes ceremonies in the hometown of the deceased, as well as in Washington.

The last president to receive a state funeral was George HW Bush in 2018.

Two years later, former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in state at the US Capitol, 15 years after civil rights icon Rosa Parks became the first woman to receive the honour.

When astronaut Neil Armstrong died in 2012, there were calls for a state funeral, but his family instead chose a private ceremony in Ohio.

The memorial events for Carter – a Democrat who served as president from 1977 to 1981- will be in three parts.

They will start in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, before moving to Washington and then back to the southern state.

On 4 January, a motorcade will drive through Carter’s small hometown of Plains and stop by his childhood home before proceeding to Atlanta, via the state capitol, for a public service at the Carter Presidential Center.

Carter’s remains will be at the presidential library on 5 January and 6 January.

He will be flown to the nation’s capital on 7 January, where the ceremonies will begin at the US Navy Memorial before a horse-drawn procession to the US Capitol.

For two days he will lie in state at the US Capitol Rotunda, where the public will be able to pay their respects.

His life will be commemorated at Washington National Cathedral on 9 January in a service attended by several former presidents.

Biden will be delivering the eulogy at Carter’s Washington DC funeral, after the 39th president asked him to in March 2023, according to Biden.

Former presidents and first ladies typically attend funerals of their predecessors, so First Lady Jill Biden and others like former President Barack Obama could be in attendance. Hillary and Bill Clinton are also expected to be there.

President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed he will attend. He did not go to Rosalynn Carter’s funeral last year, but his wife Melania did, along with other former first ladies.

Trump did attend the Washington service for Republican George HW Bush. There were five living presidents, including Carter, in attendance.

• Four president sat (awkwardly) in one row

The US federal government will be closed on 9 January for a national day of mourning, President Biden said in an executive order.

Financial markets will be closed that day too, including the New York Stock Exchange.

US flags are flying at half-mast on all federal buildings for 30 days.

YouTuber MrBeast has announced his engagement to girlfriend Thea Booysen.

The 26-year-old revealed that he’d proposed on Christmas Day, sharing photos of the moment he went down on one knee.

Mr Beast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, is the world’s most popular YouTuber with 340m subscribers.

Fiancée Thea, originally from South Africa, also has her own channel, TheaBeasty, with almost 40,000 subscribers.

Now living in the US, the 27-year-old also streams games on Twitch and is a published author.

In an interview with People magazine, MrBeast said he asked Thea to marry him while her family were visiting.

Although he’s known for his elaborate stunts online, he told the magazine he wanted a “really private and intimate” proposal.

The couple shared photos and footage of themselves and their dog wearing matching MrBeast-branded festive jumpers.

According to People, the couple say they’re not planning a big wedding.

“We’re thinking of doing it somewhere on an island where we’re far away from just about everybody,” Thea told the magazine.

“We’re not going to try and have a big, extravagant wedding. It’s going to be nice, but it’s certainly going to be intimate [with] close family and friends.”

Thea has reportedly previously come to the YouTuber’s defence following a number of allegations made against him last year.

When he was forced to investigate allegations of grooming made against his former co-host Ava Kris Tyson – which MrBeast later said were “baseless” – Thea reportedly wrote on her channel that she “wouldn’t be with him” if the allegations were true.

The pair were recently photographed together at a red carpet event for MrBeast’s new series, Beast Games.

Inspired by the Netflix hit Squid Game, the series promised to be the biggest live game show in the world with 1,000 players competing for a cash prize of $5m (£3.5m).

However the show, which MrBeast made for Amazon Prime rather than his YouTube channel, has been mired in controversy.

In September he was named in legal documents filed in the US on behalf of contestants, who alleged they’d been “shamelessly exploited” and experienced sexual harassment.

While neither MrBeast nor Amazon have formally responded to the allegations, in November he posted on X that the claims had been “blown out of proportion”.

The series, which began releasing weekly episodes on 19 December, has also been heavily criticised by reviewers.

In a two-star review, The Guardian slammed it as “ugly and tasteless”, Decider said it “takes advantage of people’s greed”, while gaming site IGN said the show was “shallow”, “dull” and “almost entirely devoid of anything to get invested in”.

In a post responding to IGN’s review on X, MrBeast said it was “sad one person who doesn’t like me can just label something a thousand people poured their lives into a 2/10 when it’s clearly not”.

He’s said the series continues to be popular on Amazon around the world.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

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.

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”.

On New Year’s Day, Russian gas stopped flowing through Ukraine.

Kyiv is calling it a “historic” day as its refusal to extend a transit agreement with Russia’s Gazprom has halted the return flow of cash to fund the full-scale invasion of Ukraine

But in neighbouring Moldova, the move threatens to cause a crisis.

In Transnistria, a separatist region of eastern Moldova loyal to Moscow, the year began with only hospitals and critical infrastructure being heated, not houses.

“The hot water was on until about 2am, I checked. Now it’s off and the radiators are barely warm,” Dmitry told the BBC by phone from his flat in the enclave.

“We still have gas, but the pressure is very low – just what’s left in the pipes.”

“It’s the same everywhere.”

Transnistria split from the rest of Moldova in a short war as the Soviet Union fell apart. It still has Russian troops on its soil and an economy that’s fully dependent on Russian gas, for which the authorities in Tiraspol pay nothing.

“They just have a file, where it says how much the debt is each month,” explains Jakub Pieńkowski, of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, PSIM. “But Russia is not interested in asking for this money.”

Suddenly, that lifeline via Ukraine has been cut.

In some Transnistrian towns, the authorities are setting up “heating points” and there are hotlines for help finding firewood. Families have been advised to gather in one room for warmth and seal cracks in the windows and doors with blankets.

New Year’s Day in the enclave brought sunshine but the temperature overnight is forecast to fall below 0C.

“It’s chilly now inside the flat,” local resident Dmitry says. “And we don’t know what frost January will bring.”

The electricity is still flowing, for now.

But Transnistria’s main power plant in Kurchugan is already being fuelled by coal instead of Russian gas and the authorities say there’s only enough of that for 50 days.

That means problems for the rest of Moldova, which gets 80% of its electricity from Kurchugan.

The government in Chisinau says it has enough gas to heat the country until spring and it will switch to buying electricity from Europe, but that means a giant hike in costs.

A state of emergency was introduced last month and businesses and citizens have been told to reduce consumption with the country braced for power cuts.

The abrupt halt in gas via Ukraine affects Slovakia and Hungary, too.

Both have governments sympathetic to Moscow that have been far slower than others in the EU to wean themselves off Russian fuel and stop funding Russia’s war. Paying more for alternative supplies will squeeze their budgets.

But Moldova is poorer and less stable – a prolonged crisis could have serious economic and political consequences.

That may well be what Moscow wants.

Russia could supply its allies in Transnistria via Turkey, albeit at a higher cost, which would mean electricity for all Moldova.

Instead, Gazprom claims it has halted supplies because Chisinau is almost $700m in debt. The Moldovan government says an international audit put the true amount at around $9m which has mostly been repaid.

“We’re treating this not as an energy crisis but a security crisis, induced by Russia to destabilise Moldova both economically and socially,” Olga Rosca, foreign policy adviser to Moldova’s president, told the BBC.

“This clearly is a shaping operation ahead of parliamentary elections in 2025, to create demand for a return of pro-Russian forces to power.”

Relations between Moldova and Moscow are tense.

Once part of the USSR, the country has begun talks to join the EU and turned even more firmly away from Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

President Maia Sandu was re-elected last year despite evidence of a massive campaign against her led from Moscow.

It hasn’t stopped.

Before her inauguration, Russia’s external SVR intelligence agency issued a bizarre statement falsely claiming she planned to take back Transnistria by force to restore energy supplies. It painted the president as “frenzied” and “emotionally unstable”.

Analyst Jakub Pieńkowski agrees that the Kremlin is exploiting Kyiv’s decision to ban the transit of Russian gas.

“It’s a reason to make some political and social issues in Moldova,” he argues. “Electricity prices have already risen about six times in three years and people are angry.”

As the humanitarian situation in Transnistria worsens, pressure on Chisinau will grow. But Tiraspol is refusing all help, even generators.

“They will create a narrative of Chisinau freezing Transnistria into submission,” Olga Rosca believes.

And even if Tiraspol opts to buy gas from elsewhere, the hit to its economy could be disastrous.

“The prices here would shoot up, including for heating and food. But pensions here are tiny, and there’s no work,” Dmitry told me, from Bendery in the buffer zone on the edge of Transnistria.

He says people there are barely “clinging on” as it is. Now life elsewhere in Moldova will also get harder.

“Russia can wait for the elections and then parties who are not pro-EU will probably win,” Jakub Pieńkowski predicts.

“Because Maia Sandu can talk about EU accession, but what use is that if people don’t have money for electricity or gas?”

“This is the aim for Russia.”

Dandy Krazy, one of Zambia’s most popular musicians, has died from injuries caused by a road collision on New Year’s Eve.

The 47-year-old – real name Wesley Chibambo – was travelling in Zambia’s Kapiri Mposhi region when his car collided with a truck and a second car.

Three people died at the scene. Dandy Krazy passed away in the early hours of Thursday despite being transported to the University Teaching Hospital in capital city Lusaka for emergency surgery.

President Hakainde Hichilema was among those who paid tribute to the musician, calling him an “extraordinary artist”.

“His music and charisma touched lives far and wide, crossing all boundaries and bringing people together,” Hichilema wrote in a Facebook post.

Dandy Krazy’s daughter, Comfort, said: “Daddy you have answered the Lord’s call on Shanice’s birthday, your third born. Even in death, we will always love you Papa. I have no time to question God but agree to his will but Lord, your will hurts.”

Dandy Krazy was known for using music as a tool for political commentary.

His song Donchi Kubeba is credited with helping the Patriotic Front (PF) win the 2011 elections, ending the Movement for Multiparty Democracy’s 20-year run in power.

The song, whose title means Don’t Tell Them, lamented the unequal distribution of wealth and lack of opportunities in the country.

Former President Michael Sata, from the PF, later bestowed Dandy Krazy with the Grand Commander of the Order of Freedom.

His other songs include the hit Chintelelwe. Dandy Krazy also popularised tracks he featured on, such as Chipuba Chandi by Indi K and Temperature by Uniq.

In mourning Dandy Krazy, politician and lawyer Sakwiba Sikota wrote on his Facebook page: “There is no doubt that Dandy Crazy was a giant in the Zambian musical industry. His innovation and natural charm touched many.

He praised Dandy Krazy’s “social and political commentaries”, comparing them to artists like Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon.

The government has announced it will assist with funeral expenses for Dandy Krazy and the others who died in the collision.

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“I must say that the situation is changing dramatically,” Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, declared at his end-of-year news conference in December. “There is movement along the entire front line. Every day.”

In eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s war machine is gradually churning mile by mile through the wide open fields of the Donbas, enveloping and overwhelming villages and towns.

Some civilians are fleeing before the war reaches them. Others wait until the shells start exploding all around them before packing what belongings they can carry and boarding trains and buses to safety further west.

Russia is gaining ground more quickly than at any time since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, despite Kyiv’s impressive record of well-publicised asymmetric attacks against its powerful neighbour.

As the invasion reaches the end of its third year, at an estimated cost of a million people, killed or wounded, Ukraine appears to be losing.

In distant Washington, meanwhile, the unpredictable Donald Trump, not famous for his love of Ukraine or its leader, is about to take over in the White House.

It feels like an inflection point. But could 2025 really be the year when this devastating European conflict finally comes to a close – and if so what could the endgame look like?

Trump’s promise to end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office is a typically grandiose boast, but it comes from a man who has clearly lost patience with the war and America’s costly involvement.

“The numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place are staggering,” he has said. “It’s crazy what’s taking place.”

But the incoming US administration faces twin challenges, according to Michael Kofman, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“First, they’re going to inherit a war on a very negative trajectory, without a tremendous amount of time to stabilise the situation,” he said in December. “Second, they’re going to inherit it without a clear theory of success.”

The president-elect offered some clues during recent interviews about how he intends to approach the war.

He told Time Magazine he disagreed “vehemently” with the Biden administration’s decision, in November, to allow Ukraine to fire US-supplied long-range missiles at targets inside Russia.

“We’re just escalating this war and making it worse,” he said.

On 8 December, he was asked by NBC News if Ukraine should prepare for less aid.

“Possibly,” he replied. “Probably, sure.”

But to those who fear, as many do, that America’s new leader is inclined to walk away from Ukraine, he offered hints of reassurance. “You can’t reach an agreement if you abandon, in my opinion,” he has said.

The truth is: Trump’s intentions are far from clear.

And for now, Ukrainian officials reject all talk of pressure, or the suggestion that Trump’s arrival necessarily means peace talks are imminent.

“There’s a lot of talk about negotiations, but it’s an illusion,” says Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the head of President Zelensky’s office.

“No negotiation process can take place because Russia has not been made to pay a high enough price for this war.”

For all Kyiv’s misgivings about negotiating while Russian forces continue their inexorable advance in the east, it’s clear that President Zelensky is anxious to position himself as the sort of man Trump can do business with.

The Ukrainian leader was quick to congratulate Trump on his election victory and wasted little time sending senior officials to meet the president-elect’s team.

With the help of France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Zelensky also secured a meeting with Trump when the two men visited Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral.

“What we’re seeing now is a very smart strategy exercise by President Zelensky,” his former foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told the US Council on Foreign Relations in December.

Zelensky, he said, was “signalling constructiveness and readiness to engage with President Trump.”

With little obvious sign that the Kremlin is making similar gestures, the government in Kyiv is clearly trying to get ahead of the game.

“Because Trump hasn’t fully explained how he’s going to go about it, Ukrainians are trying to give him some ideas that he may present as his own,” says Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House.

“They know how to work with that ego.”

Even before the US election, there were signs that Zelensky was looking for ways to bolster Ukraine’s appeal as a future partner for a president-elect like Trump who is both instinctively transactional and reluctant to continue underwriting wider European security.

As part of his “Victory Plan”, unveiled in October, Zelensky suggested that battle-hardened Ukrainian troops could replace US forces in Europe after the war with Russia ends. And he offered the prospect of joint investments to exploit Ukraine’s natural resources, including uranium, graphite and lithium.

Such strategic resources, Zelensky warned, “will either strengthen Russia or Ukraine and the democratic world”.

But other elements of the Ukrainian leader’s Victory Plan – Nato membership and its call for a “comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” – seem to have met with a lukewarm response among Kyiv’s allies.

Nato membership in particular remains a sticking point, as it has been since well before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

For Kyiv, it’s the only way to guarantee the country’s future survival, against a rapacious Russian enemy bent on subjugating Ukraine.

But despite declaring last July that Ukraine was on an “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including Nato membership” the alliance is divided, with the US and Germany not yet in favour of issuing an invitation.

President Zelensky has indicated that if an offer of membership was extended to the whole country, within Ukraine’s internationally-recognised borders, he would be willing to accept that it would apply, initially, only to territory under Kyiv’s control.

This, he told Sky News in November, could end the “hot stage” of the war, allowing a diplomatic process to address the question of Ukraine’s final borders.

But, he said, no such offer had yet been made.

If not Nato, then what? With the possibility of Trump-led peace talks looming and Ukraine losing ground on the battlefield, the international debate is all about shoring up Kyiv’s shaky position.

“It’s critical to have strong, legal and practical guarantees,” Andriy Yermak, head of President Zelensky’s office, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster on 12 December.

Ukraine’s recent past, he said, had left a bitter legacy. “Unfortunately, from our experience, all the guarantees we had before did not result in security.”

Without concrete mechanisms akin to the sort of collective defence concept embodied by Article 5 of Nato’s founding treaty, observers fear there will be nothing to prevent another Russian attack.

“Zelensky understands that he cannot just have a naked ceasefire,” Orysia Lutsevych says.

“It has to be a ceasefire plus. It would be suicide for Zelensky just to accept a ceasefire and not to have any answer how Ukraine is protected.”

In European policy forums, experts have been looking at ways in which Europe might help to shoulder this heavy responsibility.

Ideas have included the deployment of peacekeepers in Ukraine (a proposal first floated last February by Macron), or the involvement of the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force, which pulls together forces from eight Nordic and Baltic countries, plus the Netherlands.

But Kofman is sceptical. “Security guarantees that don’t have the United States involved in them as one of the guarantors is like a donut with a giant missing middle in it.”

It’s a view echoed in Kyiv.

“What alternative could there be? There are no alternatives today,” says Mr Podolyak.

Pieces of paper, like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum (about Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders) or 2014-15 Minsk agreements (which sought to end the Donbas War) are worthless, he argues, without the added threat of military deterrence.

“Russia must understand that as soon as they start aggression, they will receive a significant number of strikes in response,” he says.

In the absence of agreement on Ukraine’s long term future, its allies are doing what they can to bolster its defences.

In December, Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said “everything” was being looked at, including the supply of additional air defence systems, in part to protect the country’s battered energy infrastructure from a renewed wave of coordinated Russian missile and drone attacks.

With Ukraine continuing to experience severe shortages of manpower, the UK Defence Secretary John Healey said the government might be willing to send British troops to Ukraine to help with training.

For its part, the departing Biden administration seems determined to deliver as much congressionally approved military assistance as it can to Ukraine before leaving office, although reports suggest it may run out of time to send everything.

On 21 December it was reported that Trump would continue to supply military aid to Ukraine, but would demand that NATO members dramatically increase their defence spending.

Kyiv’s allies have also continued to ratchet up sanctions on Moscow, in the hope that Russia’s war-time economy, which has proved stubbornly resilient, may finally break.

“There’s been deep frustration that sanctions haven’t just shattered the Russian economy beyond repair,” a US congressional source said, on condition of anonymity.

After multiple rounds of sanctions (fifteen from the EU alone), government officials have grown wary of predicting their successful impact.

But recent indicators are increasingly alarming for the Kremlin. With interest rates at 23%, inflation running above 9%, a falling rouble and growth expected to slow dramatically in 2025, the strains on Russia’s economy have rarely seemed more acute.

Putin is putting on a brave face. “The sanctions are having an effect,” he said during his end of year news conference, “but they are not of key importance.”

Along with Russia’s staggering losses on the battlefield – western officials estimate that Moscow is losing an average of 1,500 men, killed and wounded, every day – the cost of this war could yet drive Putin to the negotiating table.

But how much more territory will Ukraine have lost – and how many more people will have been killed – by the time that point is reached?

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.

The UK’s biggest ever dinosaur trackway site has been discovered in a quarry in Oxfordshire.

About 200 huge footprints, which were made 166 million years ago, criss-cross the limestone floor.

They reveal the comings and goings of two different types of dinosaurs that are thought to be a long-necked sauropod called Cetiosaurus and the smaller meat-eating Megalosaurus.

The longest trackways are 150m in length, but they could extend much further as only part of the quarry has been excavated.

“This is one of the most impressive track sites I’ve ever seen, in terms of scale, in terms of the size of the tracks,” said Prof Kirsty Edgar, a micropalaeontologist from the University of Birmingham.

“You can step back in time and get an idea of what it would have been like, these massive creatures just roaming around, going about their own business.”

The tracks were first spotted by Gary Johnson, a worker at Dewars Farm Quarry, while he was driving a digger.

“I was basically clearing the clay, and I hit a hump, and I thought it’s just an abnormality in the ground,” he said, pointing to a ridge where some mud has been pushed up as a dinosaur’s foot pressed down into the earth.

“But then it got to another, 3m along, and it was a hump again. And then it went another 3m – hump again.”

Another trackway site had been found nearby in the 1990s, so he realised the regular bumps and dips could be dinosaur footprints.

“I thought I’m the first person to see them. And it was so surreal – a bit of a tingling moment, really,” he told BBC News.

This summer, more than 100 scientists, students and volunteers joined an excavation at the quarry which features on the new series of Digging for Britain.

The team found five different trackways.

Four of them were made by sauropods, plant-eating dinosaurs that walked on four legs. Their footprints look a bit like an elephant’s – only much much bigger – these beasts reached up to 18m in length.

Another track is thought to have been created by a Megalosaurus.

“It’s almost like a caricature of a dinosaur footprint”, explained Dr Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate palaeontologist from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

“It’s what we call a tridactyl print. It’s got these three toes that are very, very clear in the print.”

The carnivorous creatures, which walked on two legs, were agile hunters, she said.

“The whole animal would have been 6-9m in length. They were the largest predatory dinosaurs that we know of in the Jurassic period in Britain.”

The environment they lived in was covered by a warm, shallow lagoon and the dinosaurs left their prints as they ambled across the mud.

“Something must have happened to preserve these in the fossil record,” said Prof Richard Butler, a palaeobiologist from the University of Birmingham.

“We don’t know exactly what, but it might be that there was a storm event that came in, deposited a load of sediments on top of the footprints, and meant that they were preserved rather than just being washed away.”

The team studied the trackways in detail during the dig. As well as making casts of the tracks, they took more than 20,000 photographs to create 3D models of both the complete site and individual footprints.

“The really lovely thing about a dinosaur footprint, particularly if you have a trackway, is that it is a snapshot in the life of the animal,” Prof Butler explained.

“You can learn things about how that animal moved. You can learn exactly what the environment that it was living in was like. So tracks give us a whole different set of information that you can’t get from the bone fossil record.”

One area of the site even reveals where the paths of a sauropod and megalosaurus once crossed.

The prints are so beautifully preserved that the team have been able to work out which animal passed through first – they believe it was the sauropod, because the front edge of its large, round footprint is slightly squashed down by the three-toed megalosaurus walking on top of it.

“Knowing that this one individual dinosaur walked across this surface and left exactly that print is so exhilarating,” said Dr Duncan Murdock from Oxford University.

“You can sort of imagine it making its way through, pulling its legs out of the mud as it was going.”

The future fate of the trackways hasn’t yet been decided but the scientists are working with Smiths Bletchington, who operate the quarry, and Natural England on options for preserving the site for the future.

They believe there could be more footprints, these echoes of our prehistoric past, just waiting to be discovered.

Digging for Britain

A well-known American college football player, a young aspiring nurse and a mother of a four-year-old are among the victims of the New Year’s day attack in New Orleans in which at least 15 people were killed.

Their names are being released by families and relatives before authorities complete post-mortem examinations.

Here’s what we know so far.

Martin “Tiger” Bech, who was in his late twenties, was a former football player at Princeton University.

His death was confirmed in a statement by the university.

“There was no more appropriate nickname of a Princeton player I coached,” Princeton football coach Bob Surace said in a statement.

“He was a ‘Tiger’ in every way – a ferocious competitor with endless energy, a beloved teammate and a caring friend.”

Martin Bech’s brother, Jack Bech, posted a tribute on X alongside a news article reporting his death.

“Love you always brother!” he wrote. “You inspired me everyday now you get to be with me in every moment. I got this family T, don’t worry. This is for us.”

Saint Thomas Moore Principal Marty Cannon, Mr Bech’s coach senior year of high school, said he was special.

“I don’t think there was, there’s ever been anybody like Tiger,” he said.

“We could go on and on about how great of an athlete he was, but he was way more than that. He was a complete guy and he was a, he was a stand-up guy that we really respected and honored, and we really liked.”

Mr Bech was a member of the 2016 and 2018 Ivy League Championship teams.

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The 18-year-old was an aspiring nurse.

Her death was confirmed by her mother, Melissa Dedeaux, on social media.

“I lost my baby just pray for me and my family pleaseeeeee!!! God I need you now!!,” the mother pleaded, along with a photograph of her daughter wearing a red graduation cap and gown from this year.

Ms Dedeaux – who is also a nurse – told local media outlet Nola that her daughter had been due to start her nurse training later this month.

She added that Nikyra had snuck out with a cousin and friend, who both survived.

Nikyra’s school friend, Dante Reed, told the New York Times he had received a frantic call from her cousin, saying they had run when they heard gunshots, and that she – Nikyra – was missing.

Her grandmother, Jennifer Smith, told the paper “she was a joy for the little time we had her.”

“I’m very proud of all of my grandchildren, and that one especially.”

The death of the store manager and father of two was confirmed to CBS News, the BBC News’ US partner, by his cousin Shirell Robinson Jackson.

Ms Jackson described him as “full of life”, and said the 37-year-old had messaged the family minutes after midnight to wish them a Happy New Near.

He was with another cousin who was injured in the attack.

Mr Hunter’s younger sister, Courtney Hunter, told the NY Times her brother loved to be around the family and was competitive when it came to playing games.

His father, Belal Badawi, confirmed Kareem’s death, expressing “great sadness and grief”.

Mr Badawi said: “We ask Allah Almighty to shower his mercy on him, and give us patience and strength to overcome this”.

“We belong to Allah, and to him we shall return”, he added in an expression commonly recited by Muslims when hearing of another Muslim’s death.

Last year, a Facebook post by Mr Badawi congratulated Kareem after he graduated from high school.

Kareem was a student at the University of Alabama, whose president, Stuart R Bell, said: “I grieve alongside family and friends of Kareem in their heartbreaking loss.”

Mr Bell’s message – which was shared by the faculty on Facebook – also asked people to “take a moment to pray for those impacted by this tragedy.”

The 21-year-old’s death has been confirmed by his former high school, Archbishop Shaw, on social media.

“We are asking the entire Archbishop Shaw family to pray for the repose of Hubert’s soul, his family and friends during this difficult time, and all those affected by this tragedy.

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”

Kimberly Usher Fall, Ms Perez’s friend and boss at the deli store she managed, called her a dedicated, smart and a “good-hearted person”, according to CBS.

“She was beautiful and full of life,” she wrote on an online fundraiser she set up for her friend.

The 27-year-old was also a mother to a four-year-old boy.

Ms Usher Fall said Ms Perez used to bring her son into work on his days off from school.

She used to teach him mathematics and the alphabet in the deli’s storage room in between work, Ms Usher Fall told The Washington Post newspaper.

“She really was a good kid, man, she really was,” she said, adding “she was just getting everything going, and she’s gone, just gone.”

The 25-year-old audio-visual technician had a “laid-back spirit and infectious laughter” that brought joy to those around him, according to a fundraiser his family set up in his name.

His mother Cathy Tenedorio, told US broadcaster NBC News, she last saw her son alive at 21:00 local time on New Year’s Eve, adding she remembered hugging and kissing him.

Temperatures have dropped as colder arctic air spreads across the UK, with amber cold weather health alerts in place ahead of a weekend of snow forecast for much of the country.

Met Office yellow warnings for snow and ice have been issued for much of England and Wales and parts of Scotland over the course of three days, with cold conditions forecast to continue into Monday.

Separate warnings for ice are in force on Thursday and Friday after much of the UK was lashed by strong winds and heavy rain, which led to widespread flooding across the north-west of England.

A number of flood warnings and alerts stay in place in north-west England as a major clean-up operation continues after hundreds were evacuated from their homes.

• How to keep babies warm during cold weather and other winter tips

• How to drive in snow and icy weather

• How do cold weather health alerts work?

Colder conditions bring to an end a run of unseasonably mild weather over the festive period, which saw highs of between 11C and 13C on Christmas Day.

Temperatures are set to be around 5C below the early January average, with a wind chill making it feel even colder.

Amber cold health alerts cover the whole of England but are not in place for the rest of the UK.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issues the alerts when temperatures are likely to affect people’s wellbeing, in particular those who are elderly or have health conditions.

The alerts provide early warning to healthcare providers, and suggest actions such as actively monitoring individuals at a high risk, and checking that people most vulnerable to cold-related illnesses have visitor or phone call arrangements in place.

A yellow warning for ice is in place across north-west England, western Scotland and Northern Ireland from 17:00 GMT on Thursday until Friday morning as temperatures drop through the night.

The Met Office also warns of snow in north-east Scotland, including the Orkney and Shetland Islands, into Friday.

Over the weekend, conditions will remain cold.

• On Saturday from noon until midnight, a yellow warning for snow and ice is in place covering all of England apart from the south-west, and the majority of Wales
• A separate yellow warning for snow covers Scotland from midnight on Sunday until 12:00 GMT on Monday
• Saturday is likely to be the coldest day as most areas will see top temperatures of around -1C to 2C
• While we are now in a chillier spell with wintry showers and potential for significant snow over the weekend for some, this is nothing unusual for winter in the UK

Age UK’s director Caroline Abrahams said the cold weather would bring the government’s decision to limit winter fuel payments “into sharp relief”, and added that the charity had already been contacted by people “worrying about what to do”.

She urged older people “to do everything they can to stay warm” including risking spending more on their heating. Ms Abrahams added that energy companies had “an obligation to help” those struggling and there may be support from local councils too.

The prime minister previously said it was important to protect pensioners who most needed the allowance, but many did not need it because they were “relatively wealthy”. The cut aims to save £1.5bn a year.

As a weather system approaches the UK late on Saturday, rain will bump into the colder Arctic air and turn to snow.

Snow will temporarily fall in parts of southern England before quickly turning back to rain on Saturday night with milder air moving in.

For Wales, the Midlands and northern England there could be as much as 5cm of snow falling to low levels and for a time, freezing rain which brings icy conditions.

As much as 20 to 30cm (8 to 12ins) of accumulating snow is possible over higher ground in parts of Wales and the Pennines. Strengthening wind blizzards and drifting snow could lead to depths of snow up to 40cm over these areas too.

There is potential for travel disruption, power cuts and some rural communities being cut off.

By Sunday and overnight into Monday, the focus of heavy snow will transfer to Scotland with an additional Met Office yellow warning in force suggesting 2-3cm of snow at low levels and as much as 20cm over higher ground.

This weather set up, where you have cold air sitting across the UK with a rain-bearing weather system from the Atlantic moving through, is a tricky one for forecasters.

How much snow and the exact locations where it will fall can be difficult to pin down more than a day ahead, leading to uncertainties in the forecast.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said on Thursday that no fresh postcodes had been triggered for cold weather payments.

Payments of £25 are made to eligible households when an area’s average temperature has been recorded as, or is forecast to be, 0C or below for seven consecutive days.

Many Britons had their new year’s celebrations accompanied by heavy rain and extensive flooding, including in Greater Manchester where a major incident was declared on New Year’s Day.

Emergency services stood down the major incident on Thursday afternoon, having evacuated nearly 1,000 people during the previous 36 hours. Flood warnings remain in place and evacuation centres have opened.

In Cheshire, the banks of the Bridgewater Canal collapsed with water pouring into surrounding fields at Little Bollington, prompting road closures and property evacuations.

The cold weather is a sharp change from December which was the fifth warmest on record, according to Met Office figures released on Thursday.

This was the general trend across the whole of 2024, which it confirmed was the fourth hottest year for the UK.

“With 2024 joining the top 10 warmest years for the UK’s annual temperature series, once again this is a clear illustration that our climate is changing, right now, and we continue to head up this warming curve,” said Met Office Senior Scientist Mike Kendon.

A warming climate also brought more rain to the country – the 2023-2024 winter was the wettest ever for England and Wales, bringing with it a record number of named storms.

Fifteen people were killed and at least 35 injured after a man apparently inspired by the Islamic State group (IS) drove into large crowds in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Here’s what we know so far about what happened and the perpetrator.

At 03:15 local time on New Year’s Day, a pick-up truck rammed into crowds gathered on Bourbon Street in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter.

CCTV footage shows a white, Ford F-150 Lightning vehicle driving on to the pavement to get around a police car before hitting pedestrians.

Police described the act as “very intentional”, adding that the attacker – identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar – was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did”.

“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could,” said New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick.

Jabbar was also armed and fired on law enforcement, injuring two officers. He was then killed by police gunfire.

Whit Davis, from Shreveport, Louisiana, told the BBC that he was held in a bar with a large group in the aftermath of the attack while police secured the scene.

When they left, they “were walking past dead and injured bodies all over the street”, he said.

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The FBI said Jabbar, 42, was an Army veteran and US citizen from Texas.

The pick-up truck he was driving during the attack was electric and is believed to have been rented in the state via an app called Turo.

According to a now-removed LinkedIn profile, Jabbar worked in various roles in the US Army, including in human resources and IT, before he was discharged. He was deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010.

In a YouTube video posted in 2020, Jabbar said his time in the military had taught him “the meaning of great service and what it means to be responsive and take everything seriously, dotting i’s and crossing t’s to make sure that things go off without a hitch”.

More on the New Orleans attack

• LIVE: Several people involved in IS-inspired attack
• The victims: Former college football player, aspiring nurse
• Watch: How day of deadly attack unfolded

He studied at Georgia State University from 2015 to 2017, graduating with a degree in computer information systems.

Accountancy firm Deloitte has confirmed that Jabbar was hired by them in 2021 and he also reportedly worked for Ernst & Young.

He was married twice and has children from both relationships. His first marriage ended in 2012 and his second lasted from 2017 to 2022.

Court records relating to Jabbar’s most recent divorce, which have been obtained by CBS, point to him having experienced financial difficulties – with his monthly expenses, including child support, exceeding his income.

Separate documents reveal that his then-wife had accused him of financial mismanagement and had obtained a temporary restraining order against him.

Jabbar also appears to have worked in real estate – holding a licence that expired in 2021. He had a criminal record, relating to traffic offences and theft.

The authorities are looking into the possibility that Jabbar may not have acted alone.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said information about the placement of improvised explosive devices found in the area meant there was “good reason to believe there were multiple people involved” in the attack.

A long gun with a “suppressive device” on it – acting as a silencer – was also found in the area.

However, Murrill added that there was “still very little information about the other perpetrators”.

New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told NBC that it had “people of interest” that were not currently being treated as suspects.

A flag associated with IS was found in the vehicle he was driving and the FBI said it was investigating what affiliations Jabbar may have had with terrorist groups.

President Joe Biden said the FBI had briefed him on the attack. The suspect uploaded videos to social media “mere hours before the attack” indicating that he was inspired by IS and expressing a “desire to kill”, Biden said.

A person familiar with the investigation told CBS that no foreign terrorist organisation had yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier reports said authorities were reviewing video footage to try and trace possible suspects, but CBS reported that the footage had been determined to only show bystanders.

Investigators are also looking at whether the attack in New Orleans is linked to the explosion of the vehicle outside the Trump Hotel. Joe Biden said no link has been identified yet.

Police say it appears that the victims were mainly locals from New Orleans, even though many tourists were visiting for New Year celebrations and the Sugar Bowl – part of the American football college play-offs – which was postponed as a result of the attack.

Among the dead is former Princeton University football star Martin “Tiger” Bech, according to the college’s athletics department.

“He was a ‘Tiger’ in every way – a ferocious competitor with endless energy, a beloved teammate and a caring friend,” Bob Surace, head football coach, said in a statement.

Aspiring nurse Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux‘s death was confirmed by her mother, Melissa, on social media.

She told local media that the 19-year-old had snuck out with a cousin and friend, who both survived the attack.

Hubert Gauthreaux, 21, was identified in a post on Facebook shared by his former high school, which said that he was killed in a “senseless act of violence”.

Store manager and father of two Reggie Hunter, 37, was described by his cousin Shirell Robinson Jackson as “full of life”.

Ms Jackson told CBS that Reggie had been with another cousin, who was injured in the attack.

Nicole Perez worked at a deli store and was mother to a four-month-old son. Her friend and boss, Kimberly Usher Fall, said Nicole was a dedicated, smart and “good-hearted person”.

Audio-visual technician Matthew Tenedorio, 25, had a “laid-back spirit and infectious laughter” that brought joy to those around him, according to a fundraiser his family set up in his name.

Kareem Badawi, a University of Alabama student, was identified by his school. On Facebook, the university’s president Stuart Bell writes that he grieves “alongside family and friends of Kareem in their heart-breaking loss”.

Bourbon Street is a well-known nightlife and tourist hotspot that is filled with restaurants, bars and clubs with live music.

It is within New Orleans’ French Quarter, a lively area that attracts tourists and locals, especially to celebrate New Year.

It was established by the French – who colonised the state of Louisiana before the founding of the USA – in 1718. The original grid of streets designed back then is at the heart of what draws visitors to the city.

Every year, upwards of a million people flock to its famous Mardi Gras carnival and parade in the spring, famous for the strings of colourful beads worn by partygoers.

Questions have been raised about whether repairs to the city’s bollard system – introduced to block vehicles’ access in the middle of busy pedestrian streets – may have been a factor in the attack.

The vice president of the New Orleans City Council told the BBC’s Newsday programme that the use of the short, vertical posts was part of wider efforts to try and prevent potential attacks in the wake of 9/11.

However, JP Morrell said that the system was in the process of being repaired ahead of February’s Super Bowl when the attack happened.

According to a notice on the city’s website, work to replace the old bollards on Bourbon Street with “new removable stainless-steel” ones began in November.

Authorities have not confirmed whether the intersection the truck sped through was actively under construction or said if the replacement project created a vulnerability.

Chinese car maker BYD saw its sales jump at the end of last year, as it competes with Tesla to be the world’s best-selling electric vehicle (EV) maker of 2024.

The company says it sold 207,734 EVs in December, taking its annual total to 1.76 million, as subsidies and discounts helped attract customers.

It comes as Tesla is due to announce its own quarterly sales figures later on Thursday.

The US electric car maker maintained a slim lead in EV sales over BYD in the previous quarter but the Shenzhen-based firm has been narrowing the gap.

BYD’s total vehicle sales jumped more than 41% in 2024, year-on-year. The surge was powered mainly by sales of its hybrid cars.

The company has benefited from a rise in car sales in its home market, as intense competition drove down prices and government subsidies encouraged consumers to replace their old cars with EVs or other more fuel efficient options.

BYD sells 90% of its cars in China, where its been extending its lead over foreign brands like Volkswagen and Toyota.

The rise of BYD and other Chinese EV makers contrasts with the challenges faced by some legacy car makers, which have been struggling in major Western markets.

Last month, Honda and Nissan confirmed that they were holding merger talks, as the two Japanese firms seek to fight back against competition from the Chinese car industry.

Also in December, Volkswagen announced it had reached a deal with the IG Metall trade union which will avert plant closures in Germany and avoid immediate compulsory redundancies.

The German motor industry giant had previously warned it might have to shutter plants in the country for the first time in a bid to cut costs.

Earlier in the month, the boss of car making giant Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, quit with immediate effect following a boardroom clash.

His abrupt exit from the company – which owns brands including Vauxhall, Jeep, Fiat, Peugeot and Chrysler – came two months after Stellantis issued a profit warning.

In the third quarter of 2024, BYD saw its revenues soar, beating Tesla’s for the first time.

It posted more than 200bn yuan ($28.2bn, £21.8bn) in revenues between July and September – a 24% jump from the same period last year, and more than Elon Musk’s company whose quarterly revenue was $25.2bn.

However, Tesla still sold more electric vehicle (EVs) than BYD.

Chinese car makers have been trying to boost sales of their EVs outside the country but have faced pushback in some major markets.

In October, European Union tariffs of up to 45.3% on imports of Chinese-made EVs came into force across the bloc.

The US has also imposed a 100% duty on EVs from China and President-elect Donald Trump is expected to impose further tariffs on imports.

Meanwhile, BYD has been expanding its foothold in emerging economies.

Last month, it faced a setback in Brazil – its largest overseas market – with authorities halting the construction of a BYD factory, saying workers lived in conditions comparable to “slavery”.

BYD said it had cut ties with the construction firm involved and remained committed to a “full compliance with Brazilian legislation”.

Authorities in India have removed hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste from a chemical factory that witnessed one of the world’s deadliest gas leaks 40 years ago.

Thousands of people died in the central city of Bhopal in December 1984 after breathing a poisonous gas leaked from the factory.

On Wednesday, around 337 tonnes of toxic waste was taken from the Union Carbide plant to an incinerator facility around 230km (143 miles) away after a court last month set a four-week deadline for it to be disposed of.

Officials say it will take between three and nine months to treat and destroy the waste but activists have raised concerns about potential damage to people’s health at the new location.

Since the disaster, the toxic material had been lying in the mothballed factory, polluting groundwater in the surrounding areas.

The toxic waste cleared from the factory this week included five types of hazardous materials – including pesticide residue and “forever chemicals” left from its manufacturing process. These chemicals get the name because they retain their toxic properties indefinitely.

Over decades, these chemicals at the abandoned factory site had been slowly seeping into the surrounding environment, creating a persistent health hazard for people who live in nearby areas.

A 2018 study by the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research revealed that high concentrations of metals and chemicals have contaminated groundwater across 42 residential areas near the factory.

After decades of inaction, the Madhya Pradesh state High Court on 3 December set a four-week deadline for authorities to dispose of the toxic waste material from the site.

The court said that authorities were “still in a state of inertia despite 40 years”.

The process of moving the waste began on Sunday when officials started packing it in leak-proof bags. These bags were then loaded onto 12 sealed trucks on Wednesday.

Officials said the waste was transported under tight security.

A police escort, ambulances, fire engines and a quick response team accompanied the convoy of trucks carrying the waste, the Indian Express newspaper reported.

Swatantra Kumar Singh, the head of Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation department, told the PTI news agency that initially, some of the waste would be burnt at the disposal unit in Pithampur and its residue examined for toxic remains.

He said that special arrangements had been made to ensure that fumes from the incinerator or the ash left after do not pollute the air and water.

But activists and people living near the disposal site have been protesting against the move.

They said that a small amount of waste from the Union Carbide factory was destroyed at the plant on a trial basis in 2015, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

It ended up polluting the soil, underground water as well as fresh water bodies in the nearby villages, they said.

Mr Singh has denied these claims, saying that incineration of toxic waste would not have “any adverse impact” on nearby villages.

But Rachna Dhingra, from the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, told BBC World Service that the transfer of waste would “create a slow-motion Bhopal” in the new location.

She adds that the transported waste is only a tiny percentage of the actual contamination that people in Bhopal are still dealing with.

“The 1.1 million tonnes of toxic soil and waste still continues to contaminate the groundwater of hundreds and thousands of people [in Bhopal],” she says, referring to an estimate from a 2010 government study.

Over the years, officials have made several attempts to dispose of the waste from the Bhopal factory but dropped their plans after facing resistance from activists.

In 2005, India’s pollution control board said that the toxic waste would be incinerated in Gujarat but the plan was dropped after protests.

The board later identified sites in Hyderabad and Maharashtra state as well, but faced similar resistance.

The Bhopal gas tragedy is the one of the world’s largest industrial disasters.

According to government estimates, around 3,500 people died within days of the gas leak and more than 15,000 in the years since.

But activists say that the death toll is much higher. Victims continue to suffer from the side-effects of being poisoned even today.

In 2010, an Indian court convicted seven former managers at the plant, handing down minor fines and brief prison sentences. But many victims and campaigners say that justice has still not been served, given the magnitude of the tragedy.

Union Carbide paid $470m (£282m) in compensation to the Indian government in an out-of-court settlement in 1989. Another US firm Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 1999, says this settlement resolved all existing and future claims against the company.

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.

A gunman has killed 12 people, including two children, in a series of shootings in southern Montenegro.

Authorities said the man – later identified as Aco Martinovic, 45 – had been drinking heavily all day when got into an altercation with another guest at a restaurant in the Cetinje area around 17.30 (16.30 GMT) on New Year’s Day.

After the argument, Martinovic went home to retrieve a weapon, then returned to the restaurant and began his rampage, killing several customers.

Martinovic then drove to five other locations and shot several more people, including members of his immediate and extended family. The restaurant owner and his children, aged 10 and 13, were also killed.

Police tracked Martinovic down after an hours-long manhunt. When they ordered him to drop his weapon during a stand-off, he fatally injured himself and died as he was being transported to hospital.

The government has declared three days of national mourning from Thursday, with Prime Minister Milojko Spajic saying the shooting had “shrouded our country in black”.

Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic called the incident a “consequence of disturbed interpersonal relations”, according to AFP news agency.

Four people were taken to hospital after being seriously wounded in the shooting. Three of them were in a stable but life-threatening condition, authorities said, while one was in critical condition.

Writing on social media, the prime minister said: “This senseless act has caused immeasurable sadness and bitterness in each of us. There are no words of comfort.”

Milojko Spajic said the country’s security council would hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to “urgently consider all options” to protect the public, including a complete ban on the possession of weapons.

Mass shootings are comparatively rare in the small Balkan nation.

In 2022, a man killed several people, including children, in Cetinje following a family dispute.