Shortly after Mike Johnson appeared to come up two votes shy of retaining the speakership of the House of Representatives on Friday, Marjorie Taylor Greene – the loyal Trump ally and firebrand Republican congresswoman from Georgia – stood in the middle of the House chamber, intently speaking on her mobile phone.

Although she covered the device with her hand, a sharp photographer for Reuters news agency, Evelyn Hockstein, captured the name of the person on the other end of the conversation – incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

It was a tangible sign of the enormous interest President-elect Donald Trump was taking in this vote. Trump had enthusiastically endorsed Johnson to be speaker for the incoming session of Congress earlier this week, and defeat in the first round of balloting would have been an embarrassment.

Behind the scenes, however, wheels were furiously turning – setting up a chaotic interlude in the House after Johnson had initially appeared headed to at least a temporary defeat.

At one point, Johnson walked out of the chamber, followed by two of the men who had opposed him, Ralph Norman of North Carolina and Keith Self of Texas. Meanwhile, other members of the House and their families milled about and chatted, waiting to see what happened next.

When Johnson ultimately returned, he was all smiles.

Trump himself had made a direct appeal to Norman and Self to back Johnson via speakerphone conversation, Republican sources told news outlets including Politico.

Because the vote had not been officially declared to be closed, Norman and Self were able to switch their votes to the Louisianian, putting him at just the 218 mark necessary to retain the speaker’s gavel. Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie was the lone Republican holdout.

Both Norman and Self told reporters after the vote that they had spoken to Trump during the course of the day.

Norman said he conversed with Trump twice on Friday. The first during a several-minute phone call when fellow Republican Nancy Mace handed him her phone and the president-elect was on the other line.

The second time was a longer, 15-minute call that included Norman, Johnson and Self, he said, without confirming the exact timing.

“Trump was exactly right when he told me Mike is the only one who has the likeability factor,” Norman said.

He went on to describe Trump as “enthusiastic” about the Republican trifecta in Washington – control of the House, Senate and presidency.

“I said, ‘Mr President I agree with you, I’m just hoping Mike has got the oomph to pull this off,'” Norman said.

Self also said he spoke with Trump several times on Friday.

“We had a discussion about the entire process,” he said of his conversation with the president-elect.

Ultimately, embarrassment was avoided – even if Trump publicly appeared to be more focused on other things.

In the midst of the voting, as the names of House members were called in alphabetical order, the president-elect was complaining on social media about the possibility that US flags would be at half-staff during his 20 January inauguration – part of the traditional mourning process following the death of former president Jimmy Carter.

Friday afternoon’s proceedings underscored just how tenuous the Republican majority in the House of Representatives will be over the course of the coming months.

Besides the three initial Republican votes against Johnson, another five hard-line conservatives – who have objected to the compromises Johnson has made with Democrats in the past – delayed casting their ballots during the initial roll call. While they ultimately relented, it was a very obvious shot across the speaker’s bow.

After the final vote, the House Freedom Caucus – some of whom were among the temporary holdouts – released a statement explaining that they ultimately backed Johnson because of their support for Trump.

“We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the speaker’s track record over the past 15 months,” they wrote.

For now, the party holds a 219 to 215 edge over Democrats – but that could shrink by two if Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York and Michael Waltz of Florida fill administration jobs Trump has offered them. It will be months until special elections determine their replacements.

That means Trump will have to hold his entire House Republican membership together if he wants to pass key pieces of his legislative agenda early in his presidency, including hardline immigration reforms, new tariffs, and tax and spending cuts.

As Friday demonstrated, this could be a tall task.

The stand-off started long before dawn. By the time we arrived in the dark, an army of police had pushed back suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol’s angry supporters, who’d camped out overnight hoping to stop his arrest. Some of those I spoke to were crying, others wailing, at what they feared was about to unfold.

As dawn broke, the first officers ran up to the house, but were instantly thwarted – blocked by a wall of soldiers protecting the compound. Reinforcements came, but could not help. The doors to Yoon’s house stayed tightly sealed, his security team refusing the police officers entry.

For several hours the investigators waited, the crowds outside growing more agitated – until, after a series of scuffles between the police and security officials, they decided their mission was futile, and gave up.

This is totally uncharted territory for South Korea. It is the first time a sitting president has ever faced arrest, so there is no rule book to follow – but the current situation is nonetheless astonishing.

When Yoon was impeached three weeks ago, he was supposedly stripped of his power. So to have law enforcement officers trying to carry out an arrest – which they have a legal warrant for – only to be blocked by Yoon’s security team raises serious and uncomfortable questions about who is in charge here.

The investigating officers said they abandoned efforts to arrest Yoon not only because it looked impossible, but because they were concerned for their safety. They said 200 soldiers and security officers linked arms, forming a human wall to block the entrance to the presidential residence, with some carrying guns.

This is arguably part of Yoon’s plan, leveraging a system he himself designed. Before he declared martial law last month – a plan we now know he cooked up months earlier – he surrounded himself with close friends and loyalists, injecting them into positions of power.

One of those people is the current head of his security team, who took up the job in September.

But although alarming, this situation is not entirely surprising. Yoon has refused to cooperate with the authorities over this investigation, ignoring every request to come in for questioning.

This is how things reached this point, where investigators felt they had no choice but to bring him in by force. Yoon is being investigated for one of the most serious political crimes there is: inciting an insurrection, which is punishable by life in prison or death.

Yoon has also spurred on his supporters, who have gathered in force outside his residence every day since the arrest warrant was issued. He sent them a letter on New Years’ Day thanking them for “working hard” to defend both him and the country.

Although most people in South Korea are upset and angry at Yoon’s decision to impose martial law, a core of his supporters have stayed loyal. Some even camped overnight, in freezing temperatures, to try and stop police reaching his home.

Many told me this morning they were prepared to die to protect Yoon, and repeated the same unfounded conspiracy theories that Yoon himself has floated – that last year’s election was rigged, and the country had been infiltrated by pro-North Korea forces. They held up signs reading “stop the steal”, a slogan they chanted over and over.

Attention is also now on South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok, and how far his powers extend; whether he could and should sack the president’s security chief and force the team to allow his arrest. The opposition party says police should be arresting anyone who stands in their way.

Although investigators have until 6 January to attempt this arrest again – this is when the warrant runs out – it is unlikely they will go in once more without changing their strategy or negotiating with the security team in advance. They will want to avoid a repeat of today’s failure.

They also have to contend with the throngs of Yoon’s supporters, who now feel victorious and empowered. They believe they are largely responsible for the authorities’ climb down. “We’ve won, we did it,” they have been singing all afternoon.

As their confidence grows, so will their numbers, especially with the weekend approaching.

Stargazers around the globe were treated to a stunning celestial scene on Friday as Venus appeared shining brightly above a crescent Moon.

The planet was visible to the naked eye from the UK to the US, Turkey and China.

Venus is often called the Evening Star or Morning Star because, when it is prominent, it appears like the brightest “star” in the sky.

More astronomical delights are expected this new year, as January 2025 is going to be a good month to spot both Venus and Saturn. Make sure to take a look up into the sky on 18 January, as those planets will be appear just 2.2° apart.

Stargazers may also be able to spot shooting stars blazing across the skies, as the Quadrantid meteor shower continues.

This shower, which is expected to peak on Saturday, has been visible since 26 December and will continue until 12 January.

Dr Robert Massey, deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK, said observers hoping to catch a glimpse of the celestial fireworks after sunset will need to get “as far away from light pollution as possible”.

“If you have the time to look out and the weather is good, then do take a look because it’s a perfect new year treat.”

Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour, U2 frontman Bono and billionaire George Soros are among those who will receive America’s highest civilian honour from outgoing President Joe Biden.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom will be awarded to 19 people this year, spanning cultural icons, politicians and campaigners.

They have been chosen because are they are “good people who have made extraordinary contributions to their country and the world”, the White House said.

Biden will present the medals at the White House in a ceremony on Saturday.

• Vietnam pilot who disregarded direct order gets Medal of Honor

Bono, who’s real name is Paul David Hewson, has already been awarded the highest cultural honour of France and received an honorary knighthood.

He is known for campaigning against poverty and supporting those with HIV/Aids.

Wintour, one of the most significant players in fashion, has been serving as editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988 and among other charities helped raised more than $20m for Aids research.

She also raised money for UK arts organisations following funding cuts in 2022.

Billionaire philanthropist and major Democrat donor George Soros and US politician Hillary Clinton are also among recipients.

In 2018, Soros, a Hungarian-born financier, was one of the high-profile critics of Donald Trump to be targeted by a mail bomber.

Clinton, the former US secretary of state, will receive the award just weeks before her former political rival is sworn in as president. She lost to Trump in the 2016 election.

Cultural luminaries – including actors Denzel Washington and Michael J Fox – will receive the medal alongside football star Lionel Messi, retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Earvin “Magic” Johnson and fashion designer Ralph Lauren.

American Film Institute founder George Stevens Jr and former Kennedy Center chair David Rubinstein are among the cohort receiving medals.

Other recipients include humanitarian and chef José Andrés, whose World Central Kitchen has helped provide food for civilians in war zones and areas hit by natural disasters; acclaimed British conservationist Jane Goodall and science educator Bill Nye.

Former US Attorney General Robert F Kennedy, former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer and former Governor of Michigan George W Romney will receive the award posthumously.

Established under former president John F Kennedy, the medal is awarded at the discretion of the president on the advice of an external advisory panel.

Previous recipients of the award include the most decorated gymnast of all time Simone Biles, Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh and Apple founder Steve Jobs.

There were more than 100 police officers and they were armed with a warrant, but South Korean authorities failed to arrest suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol after a six-hour deadlock outside his home.

That’s how long the confrontation with Yoon’s security team lasted as they formed a human wall and used vehicles to block the arrest team’s path, according to local media.

It has been an unprecedented month for South Korean politics. Yoon’s shocking yet short-lived martial law order was followed by an impeachment vote against him. Then came the criminal investigation, his refusal to appear for questioning and, earlier this week, a warrant for his arrest.

The right-wing leader still has a strong support base. Thousands of them turned up outside his home on Friday morning to oppose his arrest.

But, by many accounts, Yoon is now a disgraced leader – impeached by parliament and suspended from office, he awaits the decision of the constitutional court which can remove him from office.

So why has it proven so difficult for police to arrest him?

Although Yoon has been stripped of his presidential powers – after lawmakers voted to impeach him – he is still entitled to a security detail.

And those men played a key role in blocking the arrest on Friday.

The presidential security service (PSS) could have acted out of loyalty to Yoon or under “a misguided understanding of their legal and constitutional role”, says Mason Richey, an associate professor at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Given that Yoon has been suspended, the PSS should be taking directions from acting President Choi Sang-mok. “They have either not been instructed by acting President Choi to stand down, or they are refusing his orders to do so,” says Assoc Prof Richey.

Some experts believe the security officers were showing “unconditional loyalty” to Yoon, rather than the office itself. They point to the fact that the PSS’s chief Park Jong-joon was appointed to the job by Yoon last September.

And that Park’s predecessor was former defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who is accused of advising Yoon to impose martial law. He is currently being held for questioning as part of the criminal investigation into Yoon.

“It may well be the case that Yoon has seeded the organisation with hardline loyalists in preparation for precisely this eventuality,” says US-based lawyer and Korea expert Christopher Jumin Lee.

The “simplest” solution, Mr Lee says, is for acting president Choi to order the PSS to stand down in the interim.

“If he is unwilling to do so, that may be grounds for his own impeachment by the National Assembly,” he added.

Choi, who is the finance minister, had stepped in to lead the country after lawmakers voted to impeach Yoon’s first successor, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.

This political stalemate also reflects the polarisation in South Korean politics between those who support Yoon, and his decision to impose martial law, and those who oppose it. And the differences don’t necessarily end there.

The vast majority of South Koreans agree that Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 Dec was wrong and that he needs to be held accountable, says Duyeon Kim, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, but they cannot agree on what accountability looks like.

“The actors involved disagree over process, procedure and their legal basis, which is adding to the current political uncertainty,” she explains.

That uncertainty is also creating tense standoffs like the one that unfolded on Friday in and outside Yoon’s presidential residence, where his supporters have been camping out for days, leading to heated speeches and even skirmishes with police.

Law enforcement could return with more agents and use force but that would be “highly dangerous,” Assoc Prof Mason said.

The PSS too is heavily armed, so arresting officers would be looking to avoid any escalation.

“What happens if the police show up with additional warrants calling for the arrest of PSS personnel, [the PSS] defy those warrants as well and then brandish their guns?” Mr Lee asks.

Police have now said they are investigating the PSS director and his deputy for obstructing them – so there could be more charges and arrest warrants coming.

The fallout from Yoon’s martial law order is also a challenge for the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) that is investigating him.

It has only been operating for four years. It was created in response to public anger over former president Park Geun-hye who was impeached, removed from office and later jailed over a corruption scandal.

While South Korean presidents have been jailed before, Yoon is the first one to face arrest before he steps down.

Investigators have until 6 January to arrest Yoon before the current warrant expires.

They may attempt to arrest Yoon again over the weekend, although the weekend could pose a bigger challenge if the crowds of supporters grow. They can also apply for a new warrant and try to detain him again.

Given how far South Korea has now slid into uncharted territory, the uncertainty is likely to continue.

China is now a country where a high-school handyman has a master’s degree in physics; a cleaner is qualified in environmental planning; a delivery driver studied philosophy, and a PhD graduate from the prestigious Tsinghua University ends up applying to work as an auxiliary police officer.

These are real cases in a struggling economy – and it is not hard to find more like them.

“My dream job was to work in investment banking,” says Sun Zhan as he prepares to start his shift as a waiter in a hot pot restaurant in the southern city of Nanjing.

The 25-year-old recently graduated with a master’s degree in finance. He was hoping to “make a lot of money” in a high-paying role but adds, “I looked for such a job, with no good results”.

China is churning out millions of university graduates every year but, in some fields, there just aren’t enough jobs for them.

The economy has been struggling and stalling in major sectors, including real estate and manufacturing.

Youth unemployment had been nudging 20% before the way of measuring the figures was altered to make the situation look better. In August 2024, it was still 18.8%. The latest figure for November has come down to 16.1%.

Many university graduates who’ve found it hard to get work in their area of selected study are now doing jobs well below what they’re qualified for, leading to criticism from family and friends.

When Sun Zhan became a waiter, this was met with displeasure by his parents.

“My family’s opinions are a big concern for me. After all, I studied for many years and went to a pretty good school,” he says.

He says his family is embarrassed by his job choice and would prefer he tried to become a public servant or official, but, he adds, “this is my choice”.

Yet he has a secret plan. He’s going to use his time working as a waiter to learn the restaurant business so he can eventually open his own place.

He thinks if he ends up running a successful business, the critics in his family will have to change their tune.

“The job situation is really, really challenging in mainland China, so I think a lot of young people have to really readjust their expectations,” says Professor Zhang Jun from the City University of Hong Kong.

She says many students are seeking higher degrees in order to have better prospects, but then the reality of the employment environment hits them.

“The job market has been really tough,” says 29-year-old Wu Dan, who is currently a trainee in a sports injury massage clinic in Shanghai.

“For many of my master’s degree classmates, it’s their first time hunting for a job and very few of them have ended up landing one.”

She also didn’t think this was where she would end up with a finance degree from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Prior to this, she worked at a futures trading company in Shanghai, where she was specialising in agricultural products.

When she returned to the mainland after finishing her studies in Hong Kong, she wanted to work in a private equity firm and did get some offers but was not happy with the conditions.

That she didn’t accept any of them and instead started training in sports medicine was not welcomed by her family.

“They thought I had such a good job before, and my educational background is quite competitive. They didn’t understand why I chose a low-barrier job that requires me to do physical work for little money.”

She admits that she couldn’t survive in Shanghai on her current salary, if not for the fact that her partner owns their home.

At first, she didn’t know anyone who supported her current career path, but her mother has been coming around after she recently treated her for her bad back, significantly reducing the pain she had been experiencing.

Now the one-time finance student says she feels that a life working in the investment world actually doesn’t suit her after all.

She says she is interested in sports injuries, likes the job and, one day, wants to open her own clinic.

Chinese graduates are being forced to change their perceptions regarding what might be considered “a good position”, Prof Zhang says.

In what might be seen as “a warning sign” for young people, “many companies in China, including many tech companies, have laid off quite a lot of staff”, she adds.

She also says that significant areas of the economy, which had once been big employers of graduates, are offering sub-standard conditions, and decent opportunities in these fields are disappearing altogether.

While they work out what to do in the future, unemployed graduates have also been turning to the film and television industry.

Big budget movies need lots of extras to fill out their scenes and, in China’s famous film production town of Hengdian, south-west of Shanghai, there are plenty of young people looking for acting work.

“I mainly stand beside the protagonist as eye candy. I am seen next to the lead actors but I have no lines,” says Wu Xinghai, who studied electronic information engineering, and was playing a bodyguard in a drama.

The 26-year old laughs that his good looks have helped him become employed as an extra.

He says people often come to Hengdian and work for just a few months at a time. He says this is a temporary fix for him too, till he finds something permanent. “I don’t make much money but I’m relaxed and feel free.”

“This is the situation in China, isn’t it? The moment you graduate, you become unemployed,” says Li, who didn’t want to give his first name.

He majored in film directing and screenwriting and has also signed up to work as an extra for a few months.

“I’ve come here to look for work while I’m still young. When I get older, I’ll find a stable job.”

But many fear they’ll never land a decent job and may have to settle for a role unlike what they had imagined.

The lack of confidence in the trajectory of the Chinese economy means young people often don’t know what the future will hold for them.

Wu Dan says even her friends who are employed can feel quite lost.

“They are quite confused and feel that the future is unclear. Those with jobs aren’t satisfied with them. They don’t know for how long they can hold onto these positions. And if they lose their current job, what else can they do?”

She says she will just “go with the flow and gradually explore what I really want to do”.

Family members of an Indian nurse who is on death row in war-torn Yemen say they are pinning their hopes on a last-ditch effort to save her.

Nimisha Priya, 34, was sentenced to death for the murder of a local man – her former business partner Talal Abdo Mahdi – whose chopped-up body was discovered in a water tank in 2017.

Lodged in the central jail of capital Sanaa, she is set to be executed soon, with Mahdi al-Mashat, president of the rebel Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, approving her punishment this week.

Under the Islamic judicial system, known as Sharia, the only way to stop the execution now is securing a pardon from the victim’s family. For months, Nimisha’s relatives and supporters have been trying to do this by raising diyah, or blood money, to be paid to Mahdi’s family, and negotiations have been going on.

But with time running out, supporters say their hopes rest entirely on the family’s decision.

With the presidential sanction coming in, the public prosecutor’s office will once again seek consent from Mahdi’s family and ask if they have any objections to the execution, said Samuel Jerome, a Yemen-based social worker who holds a power of attorney on behalf of Nimisha’s mother.

“If they say they do not want to or can pardon her, the sentence would be immediately stopped,” he said.

“Forgiveness is the first step. Whether the family accepts the blood money comes only after that.”

Under Yemen’s laws, Nimisha’s family cannot directly contact the family of the victim and must hire negotiators.

Subhash Chandran, a lawyer who has represented Nimisha’s family in India in the past, told the BBC that the family had already crowdfunded $40,000 (£32,268) for the victim’s family. The money has been given in two tranches to the lawyers hired by the Indian government to negotiate the case (a delay in sending the second tranche affected the negotiations, Mr Jerome says).

“We now need to explore the scope for discussions with the [victim’s] family, which is possible only with the Indian government’s support,” Mr Chandran said.

India’s foreign ministry has said they are aware of Nimisha’s situation and are extending all possible help to the family.

Her family is anxious but also hopeful.

“Nimisha has no knowledge of what is happening beyond the gates of prison,” said her husband Tony Thomas, who spoke to her hours before the approval of the death sentence. “The only thing she wants to know is if our daughter is fine.”

Nimisha’s mother is currently in Sanaa, having travelled there last year after a court in India allowed her to go to the region controlled by Houthi rebels. She has met her daughter twice in prison since then.

The first reunion was very emotional. “Nimisha saw me… she said I had become weak and asked me to keep courage, and that God would save her. She asked me not to be sad,” her mother Prema Kumari told the BBC.

The second time, Ms Kumari was accompanied by two nuns who held prayers for her daughter in prison.

Nimisha was barely 19 when she went to Yemen.

The daughter of a poorly-paid domestic worker, she wanted to change her family’s financial situation, and worked as a nurse in a government-run hospital in Sanaa for some years.

In 2011, she returned home – Kochi city in southern India – and married Mr Thomas, a tuk-tuk driver.

The couple moved to Yemen together shortly afterwards. But financial struggles forced Mr Thomas to return to India with their baby daughter.

Tired of low-paying hospital jobs, Nimisha decided to open her own clinic in Yemen.

As the law there mandated that she have a local partner, she opened the clinic jointly with Mahdi, a store owner.

The two were initially on good terms – when Nimisha briefly visited India for her daughter’s baptism, Mahdi accompanied her.

“He seemed like a nice man when he came to our house, ” Mr Thomas told the BBC.

But Mahdi’s attitude, Mr Thomas alleged, “suddenly changed” when the civil war broke out in Yemen in 2014.

At that time, Nimisha was trying to finalise paperwork so her husband and daughter could join her again.

But after the war broke out, the Indian government banned all travel to Yemen, making it impossible for them to go be with her.

Over the coming days, thousands of Indians were evacuated from the country, but Nimisha chose to stay, as she had taken out huge loans to open her clinic.

It was around then that Nimisha started to complain about Mahdi’s behaviour, including allegations of physical torture, Mr Thomas said.

A petition in court, filed by a group called Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, alleged that Mahdi snatched all her money, seized her passport and even threatened her with a gun.

After Mahdi’s body was discovered in 2017, the police charged Nimisha with killing him by giving him an “overdose of sedatives”, and allegedly chopping up his body.

Nimisha denied the allegations. In court, her lawyer argued that she had tried to anaesthetise Mahdi just to retrieve her passport from him, but that the dose was accidentally increased.

In 2020, a local court sentenced Nimisha to death. Three years later, in 2023, her family challenged the decision in Yemen’s Supreme Court, but their appeal was rejected.

Even with so many twists and turns, the family is not willing to give up hope.

“My heart says that we can arrive at a settlement and save Nimisha’s life,” Mr Thomas said.

More than anything, he said he was worried about their daughter, now 13, who had “never experienced a mother’s love”.

“They speak on the phone every week and my daughter gets upset if she misses the call,” Mr Thomas said.

“She needs her mother. What will she do without her?”

The Prince of Wales has said he and Catherine are “shocked and saddened” by the death of his former nanny’s stepson, Edward Pettifer, who was killed in the New Orleans attack.

The 31-year-old was among 14 people killed in a vehicle attack on New Year’s Day.

His stepmother Alexandra “Tiggy” Pettifer, née Legge-Bourke, cared for Prince William and Prince Harry in the 1990s.

Prince William said: “Our thoughts and prayers remain with the Pettifer family and all those innocent people who have been tragically impacted by this horrific attack.”

This comes after palace sources said King Charles was “deeply saddened” by the death and has been in touch with Mr Pettifer’s family.

The 1 January attack saw a 42-year-old US Army veteran drive a pick-up truck into crowds along New Orleans’s famous Bourbon Street before being shot dead by police.

The New Orleans coroner gave Mr Pettifer’s preliminary cause of death as “blunt force injuries”, PA reports.

In a tribute, Mr Pettifer’s family described him as a “wonderful son, brother, grandson, nephew and friend to so many”.

Prince Harry has also been informed but will not be commenting publicly on the news.

The suspect, named as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, is believed to have acted alone in a “premeditated and evil act”, the FBI said.

It added that a flag of the Islamic State group was found inside the vehicle.

Two improvised explosive devices were also found nearby, according to police.

A well-known American college football player, a young aspiring nurse and a mother of a four-year-old are among the victims.

At least 39 people were also injured during the attack, which took place in the city’s French Quarter – a bustling nightspot popular with locals and tourists – at around 03:15 (09:15 GMT) on Wednesday.

Some of the injured have been discharged from hospital – but more than a dozen remain, with some being treated in the ICU.

Mr Pettifer, of Chelsea, London, was named by the Metropolitan Police as among the victims on Saturday morning.

• List of people who died in New Orleans attack
• ‘No-one deserves this’: Victims’ families seek answers
• What we know about the New Orleans attack and driver
• What CCTV and social media videos reveal about the attack
• The rev of an engine and then screams – how revelry turned to mayhem in New Orleans

His family said in a statement they were “devastated at the tragic news of Ed’s death in New Orleans”.

“We will all miss him terribly. Our thoughts are with the other families who have lost their family members due to this terrible attack.

“We request that we can grieve the loss of Ed as a family in private. Thank you.”

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement that he was “extremely saddened to hear the tragic news that a British man was among those killed during the attack in New Orleans”.

“We are supporting their family and are united with the US against terror threats,” the statement said.

Ms Pettifer joined King Charles’s staff in 1993 when he was the Prince of Wales.

She became a close companion to the young princes following the separation of Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Ms Pettifer often accompanied the two princes on holiday and, following the death of Diana, she helped them adjust to the loss of their mother.

In 1999, Ms Pettifer – née Legge-Bourke – married security consultant Charles Pettifer at a private ceremony in Wales, which was attended by William and Harry.

A Japanese woman, recognised as the world’s oldest person by Guinness World Records, has died aged 116.

Tomiko Itooka died in a nursing home in the city of Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, according to officials.

She became the oldest person in the world after Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera passed away in August 2024 at age 117.

“Ms Itooka gave us courage and hope through her long life,” Ashiya’s 27-year-old mayor Ryosuke Takashima said in a statement.

• World’s oldest man: ‘No special secret to long life’

“We thank her for it.”

Ms Itooka was born in May 1908 – six years before World War One and the same year that the Ford Model T car was launched in the US.

She was verified as the world’s oldest person in September 2024 and was presented with the official GWR certificate on the Respect for the Aged Day, which is a Japanese public holiday celebrated annually to honour the country’s elderly citizens.

Ms Itooka, who was one of three siblings, lived through world wars and pandemics as well as technological breakthroughs.

As a student, she played volleyball and climbed the 3,067-metre (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake twice.

In her older age, she enjoyed bananas and Calpis, a milky soft drink popular in Japan, according to the mayor’s statement.

She married at 20, and had two daughters and two sons, according to Guinness.

During World War Two she managed the office of her husband’s textile factory. She lived alone in Nara after her husband died in 1979.

She is survived by one son and one daughter, and five grandchildren. A funeral service was held with family and friends, according to officials.

As of September, Japan counted more than 95,000 people who were 100 or older – 88% of whom were women.

Of the country’s 124 million people, nearly a third are 65 or older.

Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, who was born 16 days after Itooka and is 116, is now believed to be the world’s oldest person.

A judge has ordered that Donald Trump will be sentenced on 10 January in his hush-money case in New York – less than two weeks before he is set to be sworn in as president.

New York Justice Juan Merchan signalled he would not sentence Trump to jail time, probation or a fine, but instead give him an “unconditional discharge”, and wrote in his order that the president-elect could appear in person or virtually for the hearing.

Trump had attempted to use his presidential election victory to have the case against him dismissed.

The president-elect has posted on social media dismissing the judge’s order as an “illegitimate political attack” and calling the case “nothing but a rigged charade”.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 (£105,000) payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.

The charges related to attempts to cover up reimbursements to his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who in the final days of the 2016 election campaign paid off the adult-film star to remain silent about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

The president-elect has denied all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty, arguing the case was an attempt to harm his 2024 presidential campaign.

In the post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday Trump said the judge’s sentencing order “goes against our Constitution and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it”.

Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung earlier called the order part of a “witch hunt”.

“President Trump must be allowed to continue the presidential transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the witch hunts,” Cheung said.

“There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead.”

In his latest motion against the case, Trump had argued the case would hang over him during his presidency and impede his ability to govern.

Justice Merchan said he had been advised of several measures he could employ that could assuage Trump’s concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as president that fell short of the “extreme remedy” of overturning the jury’s verdict.

His options included delaying the sentencing until Trump, 78, leaves the White House in 2029, or guaranteeing a sentence that would not involve prison time.

Trump had initially, and unsuccessfully, argued the case against him ran afoul of a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

In July, the country’s top court ruled that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for “official actions” they take while in office.

However, last month Justice Merchan ruled Trump’s hush money conviction was valid.

Trump is currently set to be the first convicted felon to serve in the White House.

He may attempt to appeal against the conviction after the sentencing.

While falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison in the US, there is no minimum sentence and incarceration is not required.

Even before his election victory, legal experts thought it was unlikely Trump would face jail time given his age and his legal record.

Trump has also been charged in three other state and federal criminal cases: one involving classified documents and two relating to his alleged efforts to overturn his loss in the election of 2020.

The president-elect was initially scheduled to be sentenced on 26 November, but Justice Merchan pushed the date back after Trump won the presidential election.

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric has become the first leader in the Americas to visit the South Pole, after arriving at a US base there.

The president said his visit to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station reaffirmed Chile’s own claim to sovereignty over part of the Antarctic.

“This is a milestone for us,” Boric said in footage shown on Chilean television, before adding “it’s the first time a Chilean president has come to the South Pole and talked about Chile’s Antarctic mission”.

Boric travelled with a group of scientists and several cabinet members, including ministers for the armed forces and the environment, his office said.

Boric said his visit underlined Chile’s determination to play a key role in scientific projects in the area, especially those involving climate change.

In a statement, the government said research centres, universities, diplomats and the armed forces had united to ensure that Chile becomes the world’s gateway to the Antarctic.

Leftist President Gabriel Boric won Chile’s presidential election in 2021 to become the country’s youngest ever leader, at 35 years of age.

Only two other world leaders had visited the South Pole before Boric: the prime ministers of New Zealand and Norway.

Several countries, including Chile, the UK, France, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina, have laid claim to parts of Antarctica and many more have a presence there.

Antarctica is not a country: it has no government and no indigenous population. Instead, the entire continent is set aside as a scientific preserve.

The Antarctic Treaty, which came into force in 1961, enshrines an ideal of intellectual exchange.

The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is named after Roald Amundsen – the Norwegian explorer who led the first expedition to the South Pole – and also Robert Scott, the UK explorer whom Amundsen beat to the pole in 1911.

Scott and four companions died on the return leg of their trek after being caught in a blizzard.

A former city councillor in Brazil has returned a toilet and two sinks she had removed from her office after losing a bid for re-election.

Footage of one of Janaína Lima’s employees hauling away the facilities was posted online as her tenure as Sao Paulo councilwoman ended.

“I decided to donate the equipment I acquired with my own resources to the chamber,” she said in statement on X, following a social media backlash.

“Obviously, neither I nor my advisers need a toilet.”

CCTV cameras caught employees in her office removing the facilities that were installed when she took office eight years ago.

In a statement posted on social media, Lima said the bathroom renovation was paid for with her own money and therefore not an asset belonging to the council.

Lima said she had followed the guidance of the legal department, that had indicated that all personally installed resources should be removed.

She told Brazilian media outlet G1 the hydraulics in the building are “sensitive”.

She added that other fixtures she had bought for the office – such as a glass partition and industrial-style light fittings – would remain in place for her successor.

Lima served as a counsellor for the New Party until 1 January.

The 41-year-old lost her position to Adrilles Jorge, of the Brazilian Labour Party, in the 2024 elections.

At his inauguration on Monday, Jorge quipped to G1 that his team would “use a communal potty” until the situation is resolved.

“I visited the office and thought the architecture was brilliant. But she took everything out,” he said.

“They even took out the toilet and the sink. She didn’t say [that she was going to take them out]. And it’s something that neither she would say, nor would I ask.”

The new president of the House, Ricardo Teixeira said “appropriate measures” would be taken.

A selection of news photographs from around the world.

South Korea’s month-long political crisis saw another day of high drama with police failing to arrest suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol after a six-hour standoff.

Authorities had sought to arrest Yoon over his short-lived martial law declaration in early December – but they spent half the day locked in confrontation with the presidential security team.

This follows an unprecedented few weeks in which the opposition-dominated parliament voted to impeach Yoon and then the man who succeeded him as acting president.

Although hundreds of Yoon supporters gathered outside the presidential residence to protest the arrest, his future remains uncertain.

Officers were seeking to arrest him as part of a criminal investigation into the martial law declaration. But his fate is also in the hands of the country’s constitutional court, which can remove him from office by upholding the impeachment vote.

It was an hour to midnight on 3 December when South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law – which had never happened since the country became a democracy in 1987.

Yoon said he was protecting the country from “anti-state” forces that sympathised with North Korea – but it soon became clear that he was spurred by his own political troubles.

Ever since he took office in May 2022, Yoon has weathered scandals and low ratings. In 2024, he became a lame-duck president after the main opposition Democratic Party won by a landslide in the general election. He was reduced to vetoing bills passed by the opposition, a tactic that they used with “unprecedented frequency”, says Celeste Arrington, director of The George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies.

Days before 3 Dec, the opposition slashed the budget Yoon’s government had proposed. And they were also moving to impeach cabinet members for failing to investigate first lady Kim Keon Hee, who was embroiled in scandal.

Up against these political challenges, and reportedly under the advice of senior aides, Yoon decided to impose martial law.

But the decison sparked protests and public anger.

MPs voted down the declaration, with many climbing fences and breaking barricades to enter the heavily guarded National Assembly to do so.

Lawmakers across the political spectrum decried the move as unconstitutional. Even the then-leader of Yoon’s conservative People’s Power Party called it “wrong”.

Days and nights of protests followed in the chilly temperatures, with tens of thousands of people calling for Yoon to be removed from office.

“No martial law!” they chanted. “Strike down dictatorship!”

Opposition lawmakers soon filed a motion to impeach Yoon – it needed a two-thirds majority to pass.

With 192 of 300 seats in hand, the oppoition Democratic Party still required eight PPP members to vote for impeachment. But Yoon’s party members toed the line in that first vote, boycotting it to walk out of the chamber en masse.

An undeterred opposition vowed to file an impeachment motion every week until it passed. Their second attempt on 14 Dec was successful, with 12 members of Yoon’s party voting for impeachment, alongside the opposition.

Yoon was suspended from office and is now awaiting the decision of the constitutional court, which has to decide within six months of the impeachment vote. Analysts expect judges to reach a verdict by February.

If Yoon is removed, the country must hold an election within the next 60 days to vote for a new leader. DP’s leader Lee Jae-myung is the frontrunner by a large margin in opinion polls.

Meanwhile, the politcial uncertainty continues.

Yoon’s successor, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo who had stepped in as acting president, has also been impeached – the opposition accused him of stalling Yoon’s impeachment process. Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok is now acting president and acting prime minister.

Several former cabinet ministers and Yoon’s presidential aides have resigned over the events on 3 Dec. Some of them have been detained by the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO), which is investigating Yoon for abusing his power and inciting an insurrection with the martial law order.

Among those detained is former defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who reportedly suggested the martial law declaration to Yoon. Kim had tried to take his own life while in detention.

Yoon has remained defiant throughout, refusing multiple summonses to appear for questioning, leading a Seoul court to issue a warrant for his arrest.

On 3 January, about 100 police and CIO officers went up against the president’s security team at his home in central Seoul.

Finally the CIO suspended its operation after a six-hour standoff, citing safety concerns for its team on the ground.

Investigators have until 6 January to arrest him before the warrant expires – after that they would need to apply for another warrant to detain him.

The acting president has pledged to do all he can to restore stability, but if the opposition finds him uncooperative, they could move to impeach him.

It’s been an unprecedented month in South Korea. Yoon is the first sitting president to face arrest and what comes next remains unclear.

Financial markets have reacted badly – at the end of December, the South Korean won plunged to its lowest level against the dollar since the global financial crisis in 2008.

South Korea is one of the world’s most important economies and a crucial US ally – so turmoil on its shores is unwelcome on many fronts.

Plot twists are happening already in season three of the BBC’s The Traitors, as one contestant from London lifted the lid on her charming – but false – Welsh accent.

Charlotte, 33, has lived in London her whole life but has decided to pretend she is from Abergavenny, in Monmouthshire, to maximise her chances of survival.

“I’ve been putting on a Welsh accent because my mum’s from Wales, it’s one of the most trustworthy accents,” she told the camera on New Year’s Day.

But is a Welsh lilt the key to gaining people’s trust as a faithful in the show – and perhaps in life in general?

The reality show centres around traitors selected by host Claudia Winkleman, who must deceive and gain the trust of other contestants, who are faithfuls.

Dr Mercedes Durham, a sociolinguistics professor at Cardiff University, led research into the likeability of the Welsh accent and found people associate the accent with being friendly – but not necessarily clever.

“They genuinely appreciated it, they find it funny, attractive and friendly, but they didn’t take it seriously or associate it with intelligence,” said Dr Durham.

But friendliness and trustworthiness are linked, says Dr Durham, so there could be a method behind the mask.

Inspiration may have come from previous Welsh contestants Andrew Jenkins from Talbot Green, Rhondda Cynon Taf, and Amanda Lovett, from Swansea, who both eliminated faithfuls and narrowly missed out on The Traitors trophy in series one and two.

Amanda sailed through the first series in 2023, with her opponents swearing hand on heart that the humble character could never be a traitor.

“I think the Welsh accent is very relaxing, it definitely played a role in people trusting me in being a motherly figure,” said Amanda.

“Maybe they didn’t think I would be sharp enough, or the type capable of murdering, that I was too naive maybe,” she added.

“But I don’t know if I agree with pinching our Welsh accent,” Amanda laughed, “we are very proud of our Welsh heritage”.

Amanda said Traitors fans may even be wary of Welsh contestants this time, as both her and Andrew took their charming accents to the very end.

Andrew agreed the Welsh accent is trustworthy, but said he would have spotted Charlotte’s fake effort from a mile off.

“Oh, I think it’s terrible, she keeps dipping in and out of her London accent,” he said.

“I just think the Welsh are lovely, friendly, trusting people, I went in and was authentic.

“I tried to make as many friends as I could and be myself to be honest, I think that helped.”

Charlotte is not the only Welsh person in the game this year, as Cardiff-based Elen is from north Wales and Leanne is from Holywell in Flintshire.

There is a lot of variation in Welsh accents, and people tend to relate more to certain regions, according to Dr Durham.

“The main association of people outside of Wales is the south Wales valleys and Barry Island in the Vale of Glamorgan, thanks to Gavin & Stacey,” she said.

“Possibly more than the other two contestants, it’s an accent outsiders will associate the most with Wales.”

The Welsh accent has enticed new contact centres to set up or expand in Wales in recent years, including Starling Bank, Capital on Tap, Veezu and TCH Group.

One firm chose Newport, over Middlesbrough, Teesside, to open its funeral planning business, because of the “consoling” and “empathetic” Welsh accent.

Sandra Busby, chief executive of Cnect Wales, which supports contact centres, said Wales has always been an attractive location for many reasons with accents “playing their part”.

“Over the years the Welsh accent always comes in the top three regional accent surveys for friendliness and for being trustworthy,” she added.

The Welsh accent took top spot for the most relaxing accent across the UK in 2024, in a study by the University of Sheffield and Spa Seekers.

The public have a soft spot for all Celtic accents, Irish and Scottish included, thanks to their friendly connotations, said Dr Durham.

Received pronunciation, also known as Queen’s English, does well to gain people’s trust, but mainly because of its social prestige.

But Birmingham, Liverpudlian and Cockney accents are often not favoured and can be found in the lower half of popularity polls.

Trust in accents can change over time depending on our social circles and daily relationships, according to a study by Ilaria Torre from Plymouth University.

Participants heard either a standard southern English accent or a “lesser trusted” Liverpudlian accent, and attitudes changed depending on first impressions and judgements.

If a person who spoke in a “trusted” accent went on to behave fairly, then this first impression of trustworthiness increased.

Yet if they went on to behave unfairly, they were seen as less trustworthy than those who had both a lesser trusted accent and behaviour.

Participants “were punishing them, so to speak, for not living up to the participants’ expectations”, said Ms Torre.

On the opposite side, those who were seen as sounding “untrustworthy” with a Liverpudlian accent but acted nicely were able to reverse negative preconceptions.

So, while a Welsh lilt might start you off in good stead as a trusted contestant, the odds are still all to play for.

With a mixture of different accents from across the UK, how will the Welsh ones do?

You can find out – the first three episodes of The Traitors are now on BBC iPlayer, and the series airs on BBC One at 21:00 GMT on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

On a chilly December morning, a group of women wrapped in colourful saris, warm shawls and woollen caps huddled outside a three-storey building in a busy neighbourhood in Delhi.

Within the walls of the building ran a unit of one of India’s oldest social enterprises, owned and run by women.

The co-operative – now called Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad – was started in 1959 in Mumbai (then Bombay) by seven housewives who made the humble papad or poppadoms, a crispy, savoury snack that is a staple of Indian meals.

Sixty-five years later, the co-operative – headquartered in Mumbai – has spread across India with more than 45,000 women members. It has an annual turnover of 16bn rupees ($186m; £150m) and exports products to countries including the UK and US.

Working mostly from home, the women in this co-operative produce items including detergents, spices and chapatis (flatbreads), but their most-loved product is the Lijjat brand of poppadoms.

“Lijjat is a temple for us. It helps us earn money and feed our families,” says Lakshmi, 70, who manages the Delhi centre.

Ms Lakshmi, who uses only one name, joined the co-operative about four decades ago after her husband died, which forced her to look for work.

“I hadn’t finished my studies and didn’t know what else to do. That’s when my neighbour told me about Lijjat,” she says.

The decision to join the women’s co-operative transformed her life, she says. She now manages 150 women at the centre.

For women like Ms Lakshmi, the co-operative offers a chance to earn a decent income while balancing their work at home.

Every morning, the women members take a bus hired by the co-operative to the nearest Lijjat centre. There, they collect their share of pre-mixed dough made with lentils and spices, which they take home to roll into poppadoms.

“I used to go home with this dough and do all my housework, feed my children and sit with my chakla [a flat wooden board] and a belan [rolling pin] in the afternoon to make small round thin papads,” says Ms Lakshmi.

Initially, it took her four-five hours to make 1kg of dried lentil papad, but she says she can now produce that amount in just half an hour.

The head office in Mumbai buys raw materials like lentils, spices and oil in bulk, mixes the flour and sends it to Lijjat offices around the country.

Once the women make and dry the poppadoms at home, they deliver them back to the centre for packaging. Lijjat’s distributor network then transports the products to retail shops.

The enterprise has come a long way since it was founded.

In the 1950s, a newly independent India was focusing on rebuilding itself, trying to strike a balance between promoting small-scale, rural industries and pushing for large urban factories.

It was also a time when the government owned most of the factories in the country. Life for women was especially challenging as they had to negotiate a deeply conservative and patriarchal society to get educated and work.

The group of women who founded Lijjat – Jaswantiben Jamnadas Poppat, Parvatiben Ramdas Thodani, Ujamben Narandas Kundalia, Banuben N Tanna, Laguben Amritlal Gokani, Jayaben V Vithalani and Diwaliben Lukka – were in their 20s and 30s, living in a crowded tenement in Mumbai and looking for ways to support their families.

Their idea was simple – work from home and earn money by using the cooking skills passed down to them through generations of women.

But they did not have money to buy ingredients and sought financial assistance from Chhaganlal Karamshi Parekh, a social worker.

He offered them a loan of 80 rupees ($0.93; £0.75 at today’s rates), which was enough to get started at the time.

But the women soon realised that there were no takers for their poppadoms. Narrating the story, Swati Paradkar, the current president of the co-operative, says that the women had to return to Parekh for help.

He again lent them 80 rupees, but this time with the condition that they would repay 200 rupees to him. Parekh – whom the women called Bappa (meaning father) – and other social workers took the poppadoms to local shopkeepers, who agreed to stock them only if they could pay after the products were sold.

Only one shopkeeper agreed to pay the women immediately. “He began purchasing four to six packets daily and gradually the poppadoms became quite popular,” Ms Paradkar says.

As the business grew, more women joined the co-operative – not as employees, but as co-owners with a say in decision-making. The women call each other or sister in Gujarati.

“We are like a co-operative and not a company. Even though I am the president, I am not the owner. We are all co-owners and have equal rights. We all share profits and even losses,” Ms Paradkar says. “I think that’s the secret of our success.”

For decades, the co-operative produced its poppadoms without the iconic Lijjat brand name.

In 1966, the Khadi Development And Village Industries Commission, a government organisation to promote small rural industries, suggested that they come up with a brand name.

The co-operative placed an advertisement in newspapers asking for suggestions. “We received a lot of entries but one of our own sisters suggested Lajjat. We tweaked it to Lijjat, which means taste in Gujarati”, Ms Paradkar says.

Over the decades, the co-operative has allowed generations of women to attain financial independence.

“Today I have put my children through school, built a house and got them married,” says Ms Lakshmi.

“Working here, I have found not just an income but respect.”

New surveillance photos released by the FBI allegedly show the perpetrator of a deadly attack walking the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, before he drove a truck into a crowd, killing fourteen people.

At least 35 more were injured after the man carried out an Islamic State (IS)-inspired attack in New Orleans’ busy French Quarter during the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Here’s what we know so far about what happened and the perpetrator, who was killed in the incident.

At 03:15 local time on New Year’s Day, a pick-up truck ploughed into crowds gathered on Bourbon Street – known globally as one of the largest places for New Year’s Eve parties – in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter.

CCTV footage shows a white Ford pickup truck racing onto the pavement to get around a police car before hitting pedestrians. The attacker then got out of the car and began firing at police officers, injuring two. He died following the gunfight with three responding officers, the FBI said.

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

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.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that Jabbar placed explosive devices in the area before changing clothes and then carrying out the attack. The FBI released a photo that officials say shows a cooler containing an improvised explosive device (IED).

Officials have said it was not clear whether Jabbar ever tried to detonate two explosive devices that he brought in coolers before the vehicle attack or whether they malfunctioned.

• ‘No-one deserves this’: Victims’ families seek answers
• Who were the victims?
• Watch: How day of deadly attack unfolded

The FBI said Jabbar, 42, an Army veteran and US citizen born in Texas, as the attacker.

The vehicle he was driving during the attack was electric and rented from the platform Turo, known as an “Airbnb of cars”. The company confirmed Wednesday, with a “heavy heart”, that the vehicle was one of theirs.

During his drive from Houston to New Orleans, he posted videos online in which he professed his support for IS, authorities said.

Jabbar was brought up in Beaumont, a city in eastern Texas near the Louisiana border. He was raised Muslim but left the religion for many years and only recently returned to his faith, his brother told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News.

“Then he came back into it, maybe just this time around, he was gonna take it a little more seriously,” Abdur Rahem Jabbar told CBS.

According to a now-removed LinkedIn profile, Shamsud-Din Jabbar worked in various roles in the US Army, including in human resources and IT, before he was discharged in 2015. He was deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010. His most recent address was in Houston.

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

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

The suspect was married three times and has children from two relationships. His first marriage ended in 2012, and his second lasted from 2013 to 2016. He married once again in 2017 before divorcing in 2022.

Court records relating to Jabbar’s most recent divorce point to 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 2023. He had a criminal record, relating to traffic offences and theft.

Jabbar’s brother told local Houston news outlet KPRC that his family was shocked by the incident and that their hearts go out to the victims.

“We’re all grieving about this,” he said. “This wasn’t the man I knew. This wasn’t the father, the son, that I knew. And also, this isn’t any representation of Islam, or Muslims or the Muslim community.”

Jabbar’s brother also said he has spoken to the FBI and officials asked him how he would describe his brother and the type of person he was. He told them he did not pick up any hints that his brother might commit a terror attack.

The authorities had been investigating whether Jabbar had accomplices, but later clarified that they were confident he acted alone.

FBI deputy assistant director Christopher Raia said officials had recovered three mobile phones and two laptops that belonged to Jabbar, which were being examined by FBI specialists.

President Joe Biden said he had been briefed by the FBI and that the suspect uploaded videos to social media “mere hours before the attack”.

In one of the videos Jabbar posted on the drive, he said he initially intended to harm his family, but decided against it, believing it would not have illustrated the “war between the believers and the disbelievers”.

Jabbar said in the videos that he joined IS before the summer and offered a will and testament, Mr Raia said.

Investigators also are looking at whether the attack in New Orleans is linked to the explosion of a vehicle outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, which killed the car’s driver and injured seven others.

Biden said “they have not found any evidence of such a connection” between the incidents.

Police said 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 playoffs – which was postponed to Thursday following the attack.

Raia clarified that the death toll previously given as 15 included the attacker. It now stands at 14 victims.

Among the dead is former Princeton University American football star Martin “Tiger” Bech, his mother Michelle confirmed to CBS News.

“He was a ‘Tiger’ in every way – a ferocious competitor with endless energy, a beloved teammate and a caring friend,” Bob Surace, Princeton’s 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 18-year-old had snuck out that evening with a cousin and friend, who both survived the attack.

Hubert Gauthreaux, 21, was identified as one of the dead by his former high school, Archbishop Shaw, in Louisiana. Just after ringing in the new year, he texted his family: “I love you.”

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 Mr Hunter had been with another cousin, who was injured in the attack.

Nicole Perez, 27, worked at a deli and was mother to a four-month-old. Her friend and boss, Kimberly Usher Fall, said she 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 wrote that he grieves “alongside family and friends of Kareem in their heart-breaking loss”.

Drew Dauphin‘s mother confirmed his death in a statement to CBS News. The 26-year-old worked at a lab in Auburn University, who said he always bought a “positive attitude.”

Through tears, Billy DiMaio’s father told the Washington Post there was “no one like him” and that the 25-year-old “was one of a kind.” He said he had just earned a promotion in his role at the podcast and radio company Audacy, which also confirmed his death.

New Orleans native Terrence Kennedy, 63, was killed in the attack, according to his wife, Jacqueline, who told CBS News she identified his remains on Thursday.

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 US – 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.

The city’s famous jazz music paused on Thursday afternoon at the rescheduled Sugar Bowl football game. The tens of thousands of fans in the stadium for the annual university game held a moment of silence for the victims before kick-off.

Playwright Banna Desta has brought to life an often-overlooked ancient African civilisation in her latest work – a compelling audio drama about an increasingly tyrannical queen and her scheming twin sons.

“As well as wanting the audience to be entertained – because the play is good fun – I wanted to add another dimension to people’s understanding of Africa,” Desta tells the BBC.

“I wanted to write about a time when the continent wasn’t afflicted by colonialism and there were thriving societies,” she says.

The Abyssinians is set in the 5th Century in the Aksumite Empire, also known as the Kingdom of Aksum.

Aksum was a wealthy and influential monarchy that at its height spanned what is now northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, southern Saudi Arabia and western Yemen. It lasted almost 1,000 years, from approximately 100BC to AD960.

It was where Christianity first came to Africa and the continent’s first coins were minted.

It lay at the heart of a trade network between India and the Mediterranean and its ships controlled the Red Sea trade through the port of Adulis and the inland routes of north-eastern Africa.

In the third century, it was considered one of the world’s four great powers, alongside Persia, Rome and China.

“I feel like Aksum is completely excluded out of that picture. Ethiopia is a cradle of civilisation – and yet I feel that it is never really included in our understanding of global history,” says Desta.

She chose that part of the world and that period of history because of her personal connections. She was born in the US to a mother from Tigray in northern Ethiopia and a father from Eritrea – the very areas that were at the heart of the old Aksumite empire.

“The impulse was really just wanting to learn more about a pre-colonial era – and I thought a wonderful place to start is my own heritage and ancestral lineage.”

The Abyssinians, released by Audible and directed by Shariffa Al, is Desta’s first audio play. It is a tragicomedy that mixes historical fact with the author’s imagination.

The play is “really also about the ways in which people hold on to their humanity in periods of immense change”, Desta says.

It tells the story of a monarchy at a crossroads in history.

Queen Yodit must decide which of her twin sons – Kaleb or Negus – must succeed her to the throne, just as she is contending with social and economic upheaval and clashing beliefs about religion and rights. There is also romance.

“Queen Yodit is… complex, regal, cunning, raw, sensual and compelling,” says Danielle Deadwyler – the Bafta-nominated movie star who played the role.

The character of Yodit was loosely inspired by the real Queen Yodit – or Judith – who reigned at a different time to the period in which the play is set.

She is a figure shrouded in mystery because of the lack of historical records and conflicting folklore about who she was.

She is seen by some as dictatorial and instrumental in Aksum’s downfall, says Desta – who travelled to Ethiopia as part of her research for the play.

“I thought that she was a good jumping-off point for that type of character,” Desta says.

“I think a lot of times the characters of female leaders have to be so ‘on point’ – and I love the idea of a woman being a tyrant in this period of history.”

Writer James Baldwin once said that artists are “emotional or spiritual historians” – and those words resonated profoundly with Desta as she wrote the play.

“I wanted to explore the full spectrum of human emotions – the characters’ private feelings, the things that they struggle with as human beings that have nothing to do with their public roles,” she tells the BBC.

Queen Yodit was a character who Desta felt did not have much love in her life.

“A lot of her reactions to the world are coming from that place of not being cherished as a partner and not really necessarily feeling like she has a place or that she has chosen to be a leader,” Desta says.

Another female character written to break stereotypes is Makeda, played by Arsema Thomas of Bridgerton spin-off Queen Charlotte fame.

She is sent to work as a servant in the royal household to pay off her father’s debts. But she is also someone “who can think for herself, can think bigger than her station in life and is a global thinker”.

Despite being set in a world of antiquity, the dialogue and dry humour in The Abyssinians makes it feel modern and relevant.

Queen Yodit, especially, is fond of dropping a snide comment right in the middle of a serious moment.

The production features an original Ethio-jazz score by DA Mekonnen, an Ethiopian-American musician, and Andrew Orkin – and features the Ethiopian-born multi-instrumentalist Kibrom Birhane.

“The score parallels and complements the tone of the play,” says Desta “because I feel like a lot of Ethiopian music has that ancient quality and then jazz is that sort of contemporary spin.”

Tony-winner André De Shields described being in The Abyssinians as an “opportunity of returning to one’s ancient culture” and an illustration of “the power of art to transform lives”.

It was crucial to Desta that actors of the black diaspora play the characters.

The cast also includes Zainab Jah, who in 2021 won the best actress award for Farewell Amor at Fespaco, Africa’s leading film festival.

Chukwudi Iwuji, who began his acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK, and Phillip James Brannon, best known for his Broadway roles and the movie Contagion, also star.

“The talent was amazing,” Desta says, “I know that that doesn’t really happen for a lot of early playwrights, so I’m especially grateful.”

Desta’s next goal is to get The Abyssinians on to the stage with, she hopes, the same cast.

• The holy city were mosques are banned
• The gold rush endangering frankincense and myrrh
• The country where a year lasts 13 months
• How a massacre in the sacred city of Aksum unfolded

US President Joe Biden has blocked the takeover of US Steel by a bigger Japanese firm, delivering on a political promise despite fears the move could hurt Washington’s relations with Tokyo and scare off other foreign investors.

Biden cited threats to national security in rejecting the Nippon Steel purchase, saying US ownership was important to keeping the US steel industry and its supply chains strong.

His intervention follows pressure from the United Steelworkers union, which had opposed a transaction that was a sensitive political issue in the 2024 US presidential campaign.

The Japanese government has called Biden’s decision “incomprehensible”.

Nippon Steel and US Steel said Biden’s decision showed the review of the deal had been “corrupted” for political gain.

The two companies, which had previously threatened to sue the government if the deal did not happen, on Friday said they would take “appropriate action to protect their legal rights”.

“We believe that President Biden has sacrificed the future of American steelworkers for his own political agenda,” the companies said in a statement, adding that the move sent “a chilling message to any company based in a US allied country contemplating significant investment in the United States”.

Japanese officials also said they were disappointed by the decision.

“There are strong concerns from the economic circles of both Japan and the US, and especially from Japanese industry regarding future investments between Japan and the US, and the Japanese government has no choice but to take this matter seriously,” Japanese industry and trade minister Yoji Muto said in a statement to Reuters.

Biden’s decision comes a year after Nippon Steel first announced the $14.9bn (£12bn) deal to buy its smaller Pennsylvania-based rival.

It raises significant questions about the path forward for the company, a 124-year-old name that was once a symbol of American industrial might but is now much diminished.

It spent months looking for a buyer before announcing the tie-up with Nippon Steel, the world’s fourth largest steelmaker, in December 2023.

US Steel has warned that it might have to close factories without the investment that would come with a new owner, concerns that had been echoed by some workers and local politicians.

The two companies had pledged not to cut jobs and made other concessions in an effort to win support for the deal. Just this week, they offered to fund a workforce training centre – and reportedly give the government the right to veto potential production cuts.

But the arguments failed to convince Biden, who had come out in opposition to the deal early last year, as election season heated up and with the key swing state of Pennsylvania poised to play a key role.

The transaction was also criticised by President-elect Donald Trump and the incoming vice-president, JD Vance, whose appeals to union workers formed a big part of their campaign message.

The US government panel charged with reviewing the deal for national security risks failed to reach a consensus by late December, leaving the decision to Biden, who was required to act within a 15-day deadline.

In his announcement on Friday he said foreign ownership presented a risk and ordered the companies to abandon the deal within 30 days.

“A strong domestically owned and operated steel industry represents an essential national security priority and is critical for resilient supply chains,” he said.

“That is because steel powers our country: our infrastructure, our auto industry, and our defence industrial base. Without domestic steel production and domestic steel workers, our nation is less strong and less secure.”

The United Steelworkers union called the decision the “right move for our members and our national security”, saying its opposition had been driven by concerns about the long-term viability of its industry.

“We’re grateful for President Biden’s willingness to take bold action to maintain a strong domestic steel industry and for his lifelong commitment to American workers,” President David McCall said.

Prof Stephen Nagy, of the Department of Politics International Studies at the International Christian University in Tokyo, called Biden’s decision “political”, noting that the administration from its start promised a foreign policy “for the middle class”.

“This was a direct response and continuation of the Trump MAGA agenda of Making America Great Again,” he said. “The Biden administration couldn’t appear weak on foreign businesses, whether it’s an ally or adversary.”

White House spokesperson John Kirby dismissed suggestions the move could damage American relationships with allies, saying Biden had made clear the decision was not “about Japan”,

“This is about US steel-making and keeping one of the largest steel producers in the United States an American-owned company,” he said at a press conference.

Shares in US Steel fell more than 5% on Friday.

But analysts said the move might not mark the end of the deal. Biden’s order says the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States can extend the 30-day deadline to scrap the transaction.

Prof Nagy said he thought the companies could decide to try again under Trump, potentially offering different terms that would allow the new president to claim he had negotiated a better deal.

Political analyst Terry Haines of Pangaea Policy also said Trump, despite his criticism of the deal, might have reason to revisit the decision.

“One of the things that’s difficult about this decision is that Japan is a very close US ally,” he said. “The government’s got frankly a big evidentiary burden in order to justify what they’re doing today – and it hurts bilateral relations with Japan, something Trump will want to avoid.”

America’s top doctor has called for risk warnings on alcoholic beverages, similar to the labels on cigarettes, following new research that links the drinks to seven types of cancer.

The advisory from US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says the “majority of Americans are unaware of this risk” that leads to about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 deaths annually in the US.

It would require an act of Congress to change the existing warning labels, which have not been updated since 1988.

Mr Murthy has also called for reassessing recommended limits for alcohol consumption and boosting education efforts regarding alcoholic drinks and cancer.

The Surgeon General, who is the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government, said that alcohol was the third most common preventable cause of cancer after tobacco and obesity.

“The direct link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk is well-established for at least seven types of cancer …regardless of the type of alcohol (e.g., beer, wine, and spirits) that is consumed,” Mr Murthy said in a statement.

This includes increased risk of cancer of the breast (in women), throat, liver, oesophagus, mouth, larynx and colon.

The new report recommends health care providers should encourage alcohol screening and treatment referrals as needed, and efforts to increase general awareness should be expanded.

The warning labels are currently required to state that women who are pregnant should not drink alcohol due to birth defect risks. It also must state that “consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems”.

Over the last two decades, countries have increasingly introduced warning labels to inform consumers about the health risks of alcohol.

The World Health Organization’s Global Status Report for Alcohol and Health in 2018, cited in Mr Murthy’s report, said 47 member states mandated health and safety warnings on alcohol, up from 31 in 2014.

Ireland is the first country in the world to mandate a warning linking any level of alcohol consumption to cancer. From 2026, it will be a legal requirement for all bottles of alcohol in the Republic of Ireland to carry a label.

South Korea also requires cancer-specific warnings on alcohol.

In the US, only Congress can amend the new warning labels recommended by Mr Murthy, and it’s not clear that the incoming Trump administration would support the change.

Many countries have also revised the recommended limits for consumption after new studies pointed that no amount of alcohol is safe to drink.

Canada revised its recommendation from nearly two drinks per day to two per week last year.

The US recommends no more than two drinks a day for men and one for women, while the UK suggests no more than 14 “units” of alcohol – around six glasses of wine, or pints of beer – per week.

Share prices of US-listed alcoholic beverage companies – including Diageo, the world’s biggest spirits manufacturer – fell by up to 4% following the announcement.

A British woman and her South African fiance have been found dead in a holiday villa in Vietnam, local police have said.

Greta Marie Otteson, 33, was discovered by staff dead on a bed in a first-floor room in Hoi An, a coastal city in the central region of the south-east Asian nation, at around 11:18 local time (04:18 GMT) on 26 December, police said in a statement on Monday.

Her fiance Els Arno Quinton, 36, was found dead on a bed in another room in the villa that had reportedly been locked from the inside.

The UK Foreign Office confirmed it was in contact with local authorities and supporting the family of a British woman who had died in Vietnam.

Ms Otteson was a social media manager, and Mr Quinton was a musician and livestreamer.

A video announcing their engagement was posted on Instagram by videography company Red Eye Studios on 11 December.

Both had registered for long-term temporary residence at the Hoa Chuong villa, in the Cam Thanh commune, since last summer.

Police said a preliminary inspection of the bodies had found no signs of external force and that the rooms showed no sign of burglary.

Local media reports that several empty bottles of wine were found at the scene.

An investigation into the cause of the pair’s deaths is ongoing.

A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office said in a statement: “We are supporting the family of a British woman who has died in Vietnam and are in contact with the local authorities.”

A cyber hacker has pleaded guilty to stealing unreleased music from artists including Coldplay, Canadian singer Shawn Mendes and US singer Bebe Rexha.

Skylar Dalziel made about £42,000 by selling the tracks online, according to City of London Police.

Prosecutor Richard Partridge said she “selfishly used their music to make money for herself by selling it on the dark web”.

The 22-year-old, of Winchester Gardens in Luton, admitted 11 copyright offences at Luton Crown Court and was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment, suspended for 24 months.

Det Con Daryl Fryatt, from the force’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, said: “Stealing copyrighted material for your own financial gain is illegal.

“It jeopardises the work of artists and the livelihoods of the people who work with them to create and release their music.”

Dalziel got hold of the music by illegally accessing cloud storage accounts linked to the artists.

The thefts came to light when Sony Music Entertainment discovered a cloud account owned by Upsahl had been compromised and reported it to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in June 2021.

Forty unreleased tracks had been extracted and were being sold online, police said.

The IFPI and the Recording Industry Association of America identified an account on an online forum selling unreleased music from various artists and that account was linked to Dalziel.

Officers said they arrested Dalziel on 9 January 2023 and seized three drives which contained 291,941 music tracks.

They also found a spreadsheet which showed she had sold tracks to customers and her PayPal and bank accounts revealed she had received £42,049 from April 2021 to January 2023.

Some of this money was transferred to bank accounts in the US and City of London Police said it was working with Homeland Security Investigations to identify the people linked to the accounts.

Dalziel pleaded guilty to 11 counts of making for sale an article without licence of the copyright’s owner, one count of transferring criminal property and three counts of acquiring/using/possessing criminal property.

She was also sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid work.

Det Con Fryatt said the sentencing “sends a clear message that we have the ability and tools to locate cyber criminals and hold them to account for their actions”.

The man identified inside the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning had no animosity toward President-elect Donald Trump and likely suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the FBI.

Matthew Livelsberger, an active-duty US army member from Colorado who was found deceased inside the vehicle, also grappled with other family issues or personal grievances, FBI officials said.

Officials also emphasised the deadly truck attack in New Orleans that left 14 dead earlier on New Year’s Day was unrelated to the explosion in Las Vegas.

Police said the Las Vegas blast appeared to be a “tragic case of suicide”.

“There is no evidence that these two events are connected,” Las Vegas FBI agent Spencer Evans told reporters on Friday as officials laid out new information on the incident.

“Investigative steps have discovered, and information of the Army indicates, that he likely suffered from PTSD, and we’re also aware that there were potential other family issues or personal grievances in his own life that may have been contributing factors,” Mr Evans said.

Data uncovered from Mr Livelsberger’s phone, including a series of notes he appeared to have written, suggest that the 37-year-old suffered from PTSD related to his time in combat, officials said.

His body was found inside the charred Tesla, which exploded from fireworks that Mr Livelsberger had purchased on his way to Las Vegas from Colorado.

Mr Livelsberger’s identity had been confirmed via a DNA sample that authorities obtained from a family member.

Police said he also appeared to have suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In the digital notes recovered by police, Livelsberger also mentioned political grievances, calling on his fellow Army officers to criticise military leadership.

In another note, police said he specifically wrote that the incident was “not a terrorist attack” but a “wake-up call”.

Mr Livelsberger was a decorated Special Forces intelligence sergeant who was serving in Germany, but was on approved leave at the time of the blast.

His father told BBC’s US partner CBS News that his son was in Colorado to see his wife and eight-month-old daughter.

He said he last spoke to his son at Christmas and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Mr Livelsberger’s ex-girlfriend told the Washington Post that he had once told her he suffered a traumatic brain injury during his overseas deployment. Alicia Arritt, a 39-year-old nurse who dated Mr Livelsberger on and off from 2018 to 2021, said he admitted to struggling with memory, concentration and intense guilt over his actions on the battlefield.

The Daily Beast reported that Mr Livelsberger was a big supporter of Trump. A senior law enforcement official who spoke with Mr Livelsberger’s family told the outlet that he voted for Trump in November’s election.

Police had been able to track his movements in the days leading up to the incident thanks to surveillance cameras and other data obtained from the Tesla vehicle itself.

They said that Mr Livelsberger had rented the Tesla Cybertruck from a mobile application called Turo in Colorado on 28 December, and had driven it more than 800 miles to Las Vegas. He also legally purchased two firearms during that period, which were recovered inside the car.

Sheriff Kevin McMahill with the Las Vegas Police Department said authorities have not determined why Mr Livelsberger chose the site outside the Trump Hotel for the scene of the explosion, but added that evidence suggests it was one of multiple locations he had considered.

Seven people suffered minor injuries from the blast. All have since been released from hospital, Sheriff McMahill said.

He added that the investigation remains ongoing, and that police “are barely scratching the surface” of data they have recovered from the man’s devices.

Shortly after Mike Johnson appeared to come up two votes shy of retaining the speakership of the House of Representatives on Friday, Marjorie Taylor Greene – the loyal Trump ally and firebrand Republican congresswoman from Georgia – stood in the middle of the House chamber, intently speaking on her mobile phone.

Although she covered the device with her hand, a sharp photographer for Reuters news agency, Evelyn Hockstein, captured the name of the person on the other end of the conversation – incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

It was a tangible sign of the enormous interest President-elect Donald Trump was taking in this vote. Trump had enthusiastically endorsed Johnson to be speaker for the incoming session of Congress earlier this week, and defeat in the first round of balloting would have been an embarrassment.

Behind the scenes, however, wheels were furiously turning – setting up a chaotic interlude in the House after Johnson had initially appeared headed to at least a temporary defeat.

At one point, Johnson walked out of the chamber, followed by two of the men who had opposed him, Ralph Norman of North Carolina and Keith Self of Texas. Meanwhile, other members of the House and their families milled about and chatted, waiting to see what happened next.

When Johnson ultimately returned, he was all smiles.

Trump himself had made a direct appeal to Norman and Self to back Johnson via speakerphone conversation, Republican sources told news outlets including Politico.

Because the vote had not been officially declared to be closed, Norman and Self were able to switch their votes to the Louisianian, putting him at just the 218 mark necessary to retain the speaker’s gavel. Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie was the lone Republican holdout.

Both Norman and Self told reporters after the vote that they had spoken to Trump during the course of the day.

Norman said he conversed with Trump twice on Friday. The first during a several-minute phone call when fellow Republican Nancy Mace handed him her phone and the president-elect was on the other line.

The second time was a longer, 15-minute call that included Norman, Johnson and Self, he said, without confirming the exact timing.

“Trump was exactly right when he told me Mike is the only one who has the likeability factor,” Norman said.

He went on to describe Trump as “enthusiastic” about the Republican trifecta in Washington – control of the House, Senate and presidency.

“I said, ‘Mr President I agree with you, I’m just hoping Mike has got the oomph to pull this off,'” Norman said.

Self also said he spoke with Trump several times on Friday.

“We had a discussion about the entire process,” he said of his conversation with the president-elect.

Ultimately, embarrassment was avoided – even if Trump publicly appeared to be more focused on other things.

In the midst of the voting, as the names of House members were called in alphabetical order, the president-elect was complaining on social media about the possibility that US flags would be at half-staff during his 20 January inauguration – part of the traditional mourning process following the death of former president Jimmy Carter.

Friday afternoon’s proceedings underscored just how tenuous the Republican majority in the House of Representatives will be over the course of the coming months.

Besides the three initial Republican votes against Johnson, another five hard-line conservatives – who have objected to the compromises Johnson has made with Democrats in the past – delayed casting their ballots during the initial roll call. While they ultimately relented, it was a very obvious shot across the speaker’s bow.

After the final vote, the House Freedom Caucus – some of whom were among the temporary holdouts – released a statement explaining that they ultimately backed Johnson because of their support for Trump.

“We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the speaker’s track record over the past 15 months,” they wrote.

For now, the party holds a 219 to 215 edge over Democrats – but that could shrink by two if Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York and Michael Waltz of Florida fill administration jobs Trump has offered them. It will be months until special elections determine their replacements.

That means Trump will have to hold his entire House Republican membership together if he wants to pass key pieces of his legislative agenda early in his presidency, including hardline immigration reforms, new tariffs, and tax and spending cuts.

As Friday demonstrated, this could be a tall task.

The Prince of Wales has said he and Catherine are “shocked and saddened” by the death of his former nanny’s stepson, Edward Pettifer, who was killed in the New Orleans attack.

The 31-year-old was among 14 people killed in a vehicle attack on New Year’s Day.

His stepmother Alexandra “Tiggy” Pettifer, née Legge-Bourke, cared for Prince William and Prince Harry in the 1990s.

Prince William said: “Our thoughts and prayers remain with the Pettifer family and all those innocent people who have been tragically impacted by this horrific attack.”

This comes after palace sources said King Charles was “deeply saddened” by the death and has been in touch with Mr Pettifer’s family.

The 1 January attack saw a 42-year-old US Army veteran drive a pick-up truck into crowds along New Orleans’s famous Bourbon Street before being shot dead by police.

The New Orleans coroner gave Mr Pettifer’s preliminary cause of death as “blunt force injuries”, PA reports.

In a tribute, Mr Pettifer’s family described him as a “wonderful son, brother, grandson, nephew and friend to so many”.

Prince Harry has also been informed but will not be commenting publicly on the news.

The suspect, named as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, is believed to have acted alone in a “premeditated and evil act”, the FBI said.

It added that a flag of the Islamic State group was found inside the vehicle.

Two improvised explosive devices were also found nearby, according to police.

A well-known American college football player, a young aspiring nurse and a mother of a four-year-old are among the victims.

At least 39 people were also injured during the attack, which took place in the city’s French Quarter – a bustling nightspot popular with locals and tourists – at around 03:15 (09:15 GMT) on Wednesday.

Some of the injured have been discharged from hospital – but more than a dozen remain, with some being treated in the ICU.

Mr Pettifer, of Chelsea, London, was named by the Metropolitan Police as among the victims on Saturday morning.

• List of people who died in New Orleans attack
• ‘No-one deserves this’: Victims’ families seek answers
• What we know about the New Orleans attack and driver
• What CCTV and social media videos reveal about the attack
• The rev of an engine and then screams – how revelry turned to mayhem in New Orleans

His family said in a statement they were “devastated at the tragic news of Ed’s death in New Orleans”.

“We will all miss him terribly. Our thoughts are with the other families who have lost their family members due to this terrible attack.

“We request that we can grieve the loss of Ed as a family in private. Thank you.”

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement that he was “extremely saddened to hear the tragic news that a British man was among those killed during the attack in New Orleans”.

“We are supporting their family and are united with the US against terror threats,” the statement said.

Ms Pettifer joined King Charles’s staff in 1993 when he was the Prince of Wales.

She became a close companion to the young princes following the separation of Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Ms Pettifer often accompanied the two princes on holiday and, following the death of Diana, she helped them adjust to the loss of their mother.

In 1999, Ms Pettifer – née Legge-Bourke – married security consultant Charles Pettifer at a private ceremony in Wales, which was attended by William and Harry.

Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour, U2 frontman Bono and billionaire George Soros are among those who will receive America’s highest civilian honour from outgoing President Joe Biden.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom will be awarded to 19 people this year, spanning cultural icons, politicians and campaigners.

They have been chosen because are they are “good people who have made extraordinary contributions to their country and the world”, the White House said.

Biden will present the medals at the White House in a ceremony on Saturday.

• Vietnam pilot who disregarded direct order gets Medal of Honor

Bono, who’s real name is Paul David Hewson, has already been awarded the highest cultural honour of France and received an honorary knighthood.

He is known for campaigning against poverty and supporting those with HIV/Aids.

Wintour, one of the most significant players in fashion, has been serving as editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988 and among other charities helped raised more than $20m for Aids research.

She also raised money for UK arts organisations following funding cuts in 2022.

Billionaire philanthropist and major Democrat donor George Soros and US politician Hillary Clinton are also among recipients.

In 2018, Soros, a Hungarian-born financier, was one of the high-profile critics of Donald Trump to be targeted by a mail bomber.

Clinton, the former US secretary of state, will receive the award just weeks before her former political rival is sworn in as president. She lost to Trump in the 2016 election.

Cultural luminaries – including actors Denzel Washington and Michael J Fox – will receive the medal alongside football star Lionel Messi, retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Earvin “Magic” Johnson and fashion designer Ralph Lauren.

American Film Institute founder George Stevens Jr and former Kennedy Center chair David Rubinstein are among the cohort receiving medals.

Other recipients include humanitarian and chef José Andrés, whose World Central Kitchen has helped provide food for civilians in war zones and areas hit by natural disasters; acclaimed British conservationist Jane Goodall and science educator Bill Nye.

Former US Attorney General Robert F Kennedy, former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer and former Governor of Michigan George W Romney will receive the award posthumously.

Established under former president John F Kennedy, the medal is awarded at the discretion of the president on the advice of an external advisory panel.

Previous recipients of the award include the most decorated gymnast of all time Simone Biles, Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh and Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Stargazers around the globe were treated to a stunning celestial scene on Friday as Venus appeared shining brightly above a crescent Moon.

The planet was visible to the naked eye from the UK to the US, Turkey and China.

Venus is often called the Evening Star or Morning Star because, when it is prominent, it appears like the brightest “star” in the sky.

More astronomical delights are expected this new year, as January 2025 is going to be a good month to spot both Venus and Saturn. Make sure to take a look up into the sky on 18 January, as those planets will be appear just 2.2° apart.

Stargazers may also be able to spot shooting stars blazing across the skies, as the Quadrantid meteor shower continues.

This shower, which is expected to peak on Saturday, has been visible since 26 December and will continue until 12 January.

Dr Robert Massey, deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK, said observers hoping to catch a glimpse of the celestial fireworks after sunset will need to get “as far away from light pollution as possible”.

“If you have the time to look out and the weather is good, then do take a look because it’s a perfect new year treat.”

A Japanese woman, recognised as the world’s oldest person by Guinness World Records, has died aged 116.

Tomiko Itooka died in a nursing home in the city of Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, according to officials.

She became the oldest person in the world after Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera passed away in August 2024 at age 117.

“Ms Itooka gave us courage and hope through her long life,” Ashiya’s 27-year-old mayor Ryosuke Takashima said in a statement.

• World’s oldest man: ‘No special secret to long life’

“We thank her for it.”

Ms Itooka was born in May 1908 – six years before World War One and the same year that the Ford Model T car was launched in the US.

She was verified as the world’s oldest person in September 2024 and was presented with the official GWR certificate on the Respect for the Aged Day, which is a Japanese public holiday celebrated annually to honour the country’s elderly citizens.

Ms Itooka, who was one of three siblings, lived through world wars and pandemics as well as technological breakthroughs.

As a student, she played volleyball and climbed the 3,067-metre (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake twice.

In her older age, she enjoyed bananas and Calpis, a milky soft drink popular in Japan, according to the mayor’s statement.

She married at 20, and had two daughters and two sons, according to Guinness.

During World War Two she managed the office of her husband’s textile factory. She lived alone in Nara after her husband died in 1979.

She is survived by one son and one daughter, and five grandchildren. A funeral service was held with family and friends, according to officials.

As of September, Japan counted more than 95,000 people who were 100 or older – 88% of whom were women.

Of the country’s 124 million people, nearly a third are 65 or older.

Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, who was born 16 days after Itooka and is 116, is now believed to be the world’s oldest person.

China is now a country where a high-school handyman has a master’s degree in physics; a cleaner is qualified in environmental planning; a delivery driver studied philosophy, and a PhD graduate from the prestigious Tsinghua University ends up applying to work as an auxiliary police officer.

These are real cases in a struggling economy – and it is not hard to find more like them.

“My dream job was to work in investment banking,” says Sun Zhan as he prepares to start his shift as a waiter in a hot pot restaurant in the southern city of Nanjing.

The 25-year-old recently graduated with a master’s degree in finance. He was hoping to “make a lot of money” in a high-paying role but adds, “I looked for such a job, with no good results”.

China is churning out millions of university graduates every year but, in some fields, there just aren’t enough jobs for them.

The economy has been struggling and stalling in major sectors, including real estate and manufacturing.

Youth unemployment had been nudging 20% before the way of measuring the figures was altered to make the situation look better. In August 2024, it was still 18.8%. The latest figure for November has come down to 16.1%.

Many university graduates who’ve found it hard to get work in their area of selected study are now doing jobs well below what they’re qualified for, leading to criticism from family and friends.

When Sun Zhan became a waiter, this was met with displeasure by his parents.

“My family’s opinions are a big concern for me. After all, I studied for many years and went to a pretty good school,” he says.

He says his family is embarrassed by his job choice and would prefer he tried to become a public servant or official, but, he adds, “this is my choice”.

Yet he has a secret plan. He’s going to use his time working as a waiter to learn the restaurant business so he can eventually open his own place.

He thinks if he ends up running a successful business, the critics in his family will have to change their tune.

“The job situation is really, really challenging in mainland China, so I think a lot of young people have to really readjust their expectations,” says Professor Zhang Jun from the City University of Hong Kong.

She says many students are seeking higher degrees in order to have better prospects, but then the reality of the employment environment hits them.

“The job market has been really tough,” says 29-year-old Wu Dan, who is currently a trainee in a sports injury massage clinic in Shanghai.

“For many of my master’s degree classmates, it’s their first time hunting for a job and very few of them have ended up landing one.”

She also didn’t think this was where she would end up with a finance degree from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Prior to this, she worked at a futures trading company in Shanghai, where she was specialising in agricultural products.

When she returned to the mainland after finishing her studies in Hong Kong, she wanted to work in a private equity firm and did get some offers but was not happy with the conditions.

That she didn’t accept any of them and instead started training in sports medicine was not welcomed by her family.

“They thought I had such a good job before, and my educational background is quite competitive. They didn’t understand why I chose a low-barrier job that requires me to do physical work for little money.”

She admits that she couldn’t survive in Shanghai on her current salary, if not for the fact that her partner owns their home.

At first, she didn’t know anyone who supported her current career path, but her mother has been coming around after she recently treated her for her bad back, significantly reducing the pain she had been experiencing.

Now the one-time finance student says she feels that a life working in the investment world actually doesn’t suit her after all.

She says she is interested in sports injuries, likes the job and, one day, wants to open her own clinic.

Chinese graduates are being forced to change their perceptions regarding what might be considered “a good position”, Prof Zhang says.

In what might be seen as “a warning sign” for young people, “many companies in China, including many tech companies, have laid off quite a lot of staff”, she adds.

She also says that significant areas of the economy, which had once been big employers of graduates, are offering sub-standard conditions, and decent opportunities in these fields are disappearing altogether.

While they work out what to do in the future, unemployed graduates have also been turning to the film and television industry.

Big budget movies need lots of extras to fill out their scenes and, in China’s famous film production town of Hengdian, south-west of Shanghai, there are plenty of young people looking for acting work.

“I mainly stand beside the protagonist as eye candy. I am seen next to the lead actors but I have no lines,” says Wu Xinghai, who studied electronic information engineering, and was playing a bodyguard in a drama.

The 26-year old laughs that his good looks have helped him become employed as an extra.

He says people often come to Hengdian and work for just a few months at a time. He says this is a temporary fix for him too, till he finds something permanent. “I don’t make much money but I’m relaxed and feel free.”

“This is the situation in China, isn’t it? The moment you graduate, you become unemployed,” says Li, who didn’t want to give his first name.

He majored in film directing and screenwriting and has also signed up to work as an extra for a few months.

“I’ve come here to look for work while I’m still young. When I get older, I’ll find a stable job.”

But many fear they’ll never land a decent job and may have to settle for a role unlike what they had imagined.

The lack of confidence in the trajectory of the Chinese economy means young people often don’t know what the future will hold for them.

Wu Dan says even her friends who are employed can feel quite lost.

“They are quite confused and feel that the future is unclear. Those with jobs aren’t satisfied with them. They don’t know for how long they can hold onto these positions. And if they lose their current job, what else can they do?”

She says she will just “go with the flow and gradually explore what I really want to do”.

A judge has ordered that Donald Trump will be sentenced on 10 January in his hush-money case in New York – less than two weeks before he is set to be sworn in as president.

New York Justice Juan Merchan signalled he would not sentence Trump to jail time, probation or a fine, but instead give him an “unconditional discharge”, and wrote in his order that the president-elect could appear in person or virtually for the hearing.

Trump had attempted to use his presidential election victory to have the case against him dismissed.

The president-elect has posted on social media dismissing the judge’s order as an “illegitimate political attack” and calling the case “nothing but a rigged charade”.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 (£105,000) payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.

The charges related to attempts to cover up reimbursements to his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who in the final days of the 2016 election campaign paid off the adult-film star to remain silent about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

The president-elect has denied all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty, arguing the case was an attempt to harm his 2024 presidential campaign.

In the post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday Trump said the judge’s sentencing order “goes against our Constitution and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it”.

Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung earlier called the order part of a “witch hunt”.

“President Trump must be allowed to continue the presidential transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the witch hunts,” Cheung said.

“There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead.”

In his latest motion against the case, Trump had argued the case would hang over him during his presidency and impede his ability to govern.

Justice Merchan said he had been advised of several measures he could employ that could assuage Trump’s concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as president that fell short of the “extreme remedy” of overturning the jury’s verdict.

His options included delaying the sentencing until Trump, 78, leaves the White House in 2029, or guaranteeing a sentence that would not involve prison time.

Trump had initially, and unsuccessfully, argued the case against him ran afoul of a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

In July, the country’s top court ruled that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for “official actions” they take while in office.

However, last month Justice Merchan ruled Trump’s hush money conviction was valid.

Trump is currently set to be the first convicted felon to serve in the White House.

He may attempt to appeal against the conviction after the sentencing.

While falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison in the US, there is no minimum sentence and incarceration is not required.

Even before his election victory, legal experts thought it was unlikely Trump would face jail time given his age and his legal record.

Trump has also been charged in three other state and federal criminal cases: one involving classified documents and two relating to his alleged efforts to overturn his loss in the election of 2020.

The president-elect was initially scheduled to be sentenced on 26 November, but Justice Merchan pushed the date back after Trump won the presidential election.

There were more than 100 police officers and they were armed with a warrant, but South Korean authorities failed to arrest suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol after a six-hour deadlock outside his home.

That’s how long the confrontation with Yoon’s security team lasted as they formed a human wall and used vehicles to block the arrest team’s path, according to local media.

It has been an unprecedented month for South Korean politics. Yoon’s shocking yet short-lived martial law order was followed by an impeachment vote against him. Then came the criminal investigation, his refusal to appear for questioning and, earlier this week, a warrant for his arrest.

The right-wing leader still has a strong support base. Thousands of them turned up outside his home on Friday morning to oppose his arrest.

But, by many accounts, Yoon is now a disgraced leader – impeached by parliament and suspended from office, he awaits the decision of the constitutional court which can remove him from office.

So why has it proven so difficult for police to arrest him?

Although Yoon has been stripped of his presidential powers – after lawmakers voted to impeach him – he is still entitled to a security detail.

And those men played a key role in blocking the arrest on Friday.

The presidential security service (PSS) could have acted out of loyalty to Yoon or under “a misguided understanding of their legal and constitutional role”, says Mason Richey, an associate professor at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Given that Yoon has been suspended, the PSS should be taking directions from acting President Choi Sang-mok. “They have either not been instructed by acting President Choi to stand down, or they are refusing his orders to do so,” says Assoc Prof Richey.

Some experts believe the security officers were showing “unconditional loyalty” to Yoon, rather than the office itself. They point to the fact that the PSS’s chief Park Jong-joon was appointed to the job by Yoon last September.

And that Park’s predecessor was former defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who is accused of advising Yoon to impose martial law. He is currently being held for questioning as part of the criminal investigation into Yoon.

“It may well be the case that Yoon has seeded the organisation with hardline loyalists in preparation for precisely this eventuality,” says US-based lawyer and Korea expert Christopher Jumin Lee.

The “simplest” solution, Mr Lee says, is for acting president Choi to order the PSS to stand down in the interim.

“If he is unwilling to do so, that may be grounds for his own impeachment by the National Assembly,” he added.

Choi, who is the finance minister, had stepped in to lead the country after lawmakers voted to impeach Yoon’s first successor, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.

This political stalemate also reflects the polarisation in South Korean politics between those who support Yoon, and his decision to impose martial law, and those who oppose it. And the differences don’t necessarily end there.

The vast majority of South Koreans agree that Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 Dec was wrong and that he needs to be held accountable, says Duyeon Kim, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, but they cannot agree on what accountability looks like.

“The actors involved disagree over process, procedure and their legal basis, which is adding to the current political uncertainty,” she explains.

That uncertainty is also creating tense standoffs like the one that unfolded on Friday in and outside Yoon’s presidential residence, where his supporters have been camping out for days, leading to heated speeches and even skirmishes with police.

Law enforcement could return with more agents and use force but that would be “highly dangerous,” Assoc Prof Mason said.

The PSS too is heavily armed, so arresting officers would be looking to avoid any escalation.

“What happens if the police show up with additional warrants calling for the arrest of PSS personnel, [the PSS] defy those warrants as well and then brandish their guns?” Mr Lee asks.

Police have now said they are investigating the PSS director and his deputy for obstructing them – so there could be more charges and arrest warrants coming.

The fallout from Yoon’s martial law order is also a challenge for the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) that is investigating him.

It has only been operating for four years. It was created in response to public anger over former president Park Geun-hye who was impeached, removed from office and later jailed over a corruption scandal.

While South Korean presidents have been jailed before, Yoon is the first one to face arrest before he steps down.

Investigators have until 6 January to arrest Yoon before the current warrant expires.

They may attempt to arrest Yoon again over the weekend, although the weekend could pose a bigger challenge if the crowds of supporters grow. They can also apply for a new warrant and try to detain him again.

Given how far South Korea has now slid into uncharted territory, the uncertainty is likely to continue.

Family members of an Indian nurse who is on death row in war-torn Yemen say they are pinning their hopes on a last-ditch effort to save her.

Nimisha Priya, 34, was sentenced to death for the murder of a local man – her former business partner Talal Abdo Mahdi – whose chopped-up body was discovered in a water tank in 2017.

Lodged in the central jail of capital Sanaa, she is set to be executed soon, with Mahdi al-Mashat, president of the rebel Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, approving her punishment this week.

Under the Islamic judicial system, known as Sharia, the only way to stop the execution now is securing a pardon from the victim’s family. For months, Nimisha’s relatives and supporters have been trying to do this by raising diyah, or blood money, to be paid to Mahdi’s family, and negotiations have been going on.

But with time running out, supporters say their hopes rest entirely on the family’s decision.

With the presidential sanction coming in, the public prosecutor’s office will once again seek consent from Mahdi’s family and ask if they have any objections to the execution, said Samuel Jerome, a Yemen-based social worker who holds a power of attorney on behalf of Nimisha’s mother.

“If they say they do not want to or can pardon her, the sentence would be immediately stopped,” he said.

“Forgiveness is the first step. Whether the family accepts the blood money comes only after that.”

Under Yemen’s laws, Nimisha’s family cannot directly contact the family of the victim and must hire negotiators.

Subhash Chandran, a lawyer who has represented Nimisha’s family in India in the past, told the BBC that the family had already crowdfunded $40,000 (£32,268) for the victim’s family. The money has been given in two tranches to the lawyers hired by the Indian government to negotiate the case (a delay in sending the second tranche affected the negotiations, Mr Jerome says).

“We now need to explore the scope for discussions with the [victim’s] family, which is possible only with the Indian government’s support,” Mr Chandran said.

India’s foreign ministry has said they are aware of Nimisha’s situation and are extending all possible help to the family.

Her family is anxious but also hopeful.

“Nimisha has no knowledge of what is happening beyond the gates of prison,” said her husband Tony Thomas, who spoke to her hours before the approval of the death sentence. “The only thing she wants to know is if our daughter is fine.”

Nimisha’s mother is currently in Sanaa, having travelled there last year after a court in India allowed her to go to the region controlled by Houthi rebels. She has met her daughter twice in prison since then.

The first reunion was very emotional. “Nimisha saw me… she said I had become weak and asked me to keep courage, and that God would save her. She asked me not to be sad,” her mother Prema Kumari told the BBC.

The second time, Ms Kumari was accompanied by two nuns who held prayers for her daughter in prison.

Nimisha was barely 19 when she went to Yemen.

The daughter of a poorly-paid domestic worker, she wanted to change her family’s financial situation, and worked as a nurse in a government-run hospital in Sanaa for some years.

In 2011, she returned home – Kochi city in southern India – and married Mr Thomas, a tuk-tuk driver.

The couple moved to Yemen together shortly afterwards. But financial struggles forced Mr Thomas to return to India with their baby daughter.

Tired of low-paying hospital jobs, Nimisha decided to open her own clinic in Yemen.

As the law there mandated that she have a local partner, she opened the clinic jointly with Mahdi, a store owner.

The two were initially on good terms – when Nimisha briefly visited India for her daughter’s baptism, Mahdi accompanied her.

“He seemed like a nice man when he came to our house, ” Mr Thomas told the BBC.

But Mahdi’s attitude, Mr Thomas alleged, “suddenly changed” when the civil war broke out in Yemen in 2014.

At that time, Nimisha was trying to finalise paperwork so her husband and daughter could join her again.

But after the war broke out, the Indian government banned all travel to Yemen, making it impossible for them to go be with her.

Over the coming days, thousands of Indians were evacuated from the country, but Nimisha chose to stay, as she had taken out huge loans to open her clinic.

It was around then that Nimisha started to complain about Mahdi’s behaviour, including allegations of physical torture, Mr Thomas said.

A petition in court, filed by a group called Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, alleged that Mahdi snatched all her money, seized her passport and even threatened her with a gun.

After Mahdi’s body was discovered in 2017, the police charged Nimisha with killing him by giving him an “overdose of sedatives”, and allegedly chopping up his body.

Nimisha denied the allegations. In court, her lawyer argued that she had tried to anaesthetise Mahdi just to retrieve her passport from him, but that the dose was accidentally increased.

In 2020, a local court sentenced Nimisha to death. Three years later, in 2023, her family challenged the decision in Yemen’s Supreme Court, but their appeal was rejected.

Even with so many twists and turns, the family is not willing to give up hope.

“My heart says that we can arrive at a settlement and save Nimisha’s life,” Mr Thomas said.

More than anything, he said he was worried about their daughter, now 13, who had “never experienced a mother’s love”.

“They speak on the phone every week and my daughter gets upset if she misses the call,” Mr Thomas said.

“She needs her mother. What will she do without her?”

There is concern growing in Syria that the new Islamist-led authorities have already decided on changes to the school curriculum, without the input of the rest of society.

The Facebook page of the transitional government’s education ministry has posted the new curriculum for all age groups, which will take on a more Islamic slant, as well as dropping any reference to the Assad era across all subjects.

The phrase “Defending the nation” has been replaced by “Defending Allah”, among other changes.

The Education Minister, Nazir al-Qadri, downplayed the move, saying the curriculum is essentially unchanged and will remain so until specialised committees have been set up to review and revise it.

Other proposed changes include Evolution and the Big Bang theory being dropped from science teaching.

References to the gods worshipped in Syria before Islam, as well as images of their statues, are also being dropped.

The significance of the great Syrian heroine Queen Zenobia, who once ruled Palmyra in the Roman era, seems to have been downplayed.

The Assad era has essentially been excised from the curriculum, including poems celebrating both Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, in Arabic language courses.

In a statement, al-Qadri said the only instructions he had issued were related to the removal of content that he described as glorifying the “defunct Assad regime” and the instatement of the Syrian revolutionary flag in all textbooks.

The minister also said that “inaccuracies” in the Islamic education curriculum had been corrected.

The changes have been welcomed by some Syrians.

But the move has set off alarm bells among resurgent civil society activists, many of whom have returned to Syria for the first time in many years.

They fear it is a sign that their voices – and those of groups and communities across the country – may not be listened to as the country develops under its new leadership.

There have already been calls for protests ahead of the start of the new school term on Sunday.

Activists want to make clear their opposition to any moves by the transitional government to bring in changes to the education system – or any other state institution – without the participation of all sections of Syrian society.

The new authorities have made much of the fact that they are to hold a National Dialogue Conference.

Officials have been holding meetings with many different communities – from Christians to Kurds, to artists and intellectuals.

The message has been that they want to create a new Syria with the involvement of all sections of society so that all will have a stake in the country’s future.

But activists believe the unilateral changes in the school curriculum undercut such promises and want to make a stand right from the start for the values of freedom and inclusion that the removal of Bashar al-Assad has now made possible.