Ukraine has launched a fresh offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, the Russian defence ministry says.

In a statement, the ministry said efforts to destroy the Ukrainian attack groups were ongoing. Officials in Ukraine have also suggested an operation is under way.

Ukraine first launched its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August last year, seizing a chunk of territory.

In recent months, Russian forces have made big gains in the area, pushing the Ukrainians back, but failing to eject them entirely.

In a statement posted on Telegram on Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said: “At around 9am Moscow time, in order to stop the offensive by the Russian troops in the Kursk direction, the enemy launched a counter-attack by an assault detachment consisting of two tanks, one counter-obstacle vehicle, and 12 armoured fighting vehicles.”

Several Russian military bloggers gave more details about the attack, saying it was launched from the Ukrainians’ base at Sudzha towards the villages of Berdin and Bolshoye Soldatskoye, a district centre on the way to Kursk city.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said there “was good news from Kursk Region” and that Russia was “getting what it deserves”.

Ukraine’s top counter-disinformation official Andriy Kovalenko said in a Telegram post on Sunday: “The Russians in Kursk are experiencing great anxiety because they were attacked from several directions and it came as a surprise to them.”

It’s unclear whether the offensive is sufficiently large-scale to lead to any significant changes on the frontline.

Russian blogger Yury Podolyaka said the operation may have been diversionary, while another, Alexander Kots, did not rule out that the main attack could be launched somewhere else.

Kyiv’s forces are reportedly suffering from manpower shortages and have been losing ground in the east of Ukraine in recent months, as Russian troops advance.

It comes as the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched another drone attack on Ukraine overnight.

It said it had shot down 61 drones over Kyiv, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, and Khmelnytskyy regions

There were no direct hits, but a few houses were damaged in Kharkiv Region by an intercepted drone, the air force said.

In November, Ukraine reported its troops had engaged in combat with North Korean troops in the Kursk region.

The appearance of North Korean soldiers was in response to a surprise attack launched across the border by Ukrainian troops in August, advancing up to 18 miles (30km) into Russian land.

Moscow evacuated almost 200,000 people from areas along the border and President Vladimir Putin condemned the Ukrainian offensive as a “major provocation”.

After a fortnight, Ukraine’s top commander claimed to control more than 1,200 sq km of Russian territory and 93 villages.

Some of that territory has been regained by Russia.

Rebel forces backed by Rwanda have captured the town of Masisi in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to various reports.

This is the second town seized by the M23 group in as many days in the mineral-rich North Kivu province.

The group has taken control of vast swathes of eastern DR Congo since 2021, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Angola has been attempting to mediate talks between President Félix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame. But these broke down last month.

“It is with dismay that we learn of the capture of Masisi centre by the M23,” Alexis Bahunga, a member of North Kivu provincial assembly, told the AFP news agency.

He said this “plunges the territory into a serious humanitarian crisis” and urged the government to strengthen the capacity of the army in the region.

One resident told AFP that the M23 had held a meeting of the town’s inhabitants, saying they had “come to liberate the country”.

The Congolese authorities have not yet commented on the loss of the town.

It is not clear how many people were killed in the fighting between the M23 and the army and pro-government militias. The town was reported to be quiet on Sunday.

Masisi, which has a population of about 40,000, is the capital of the territory of the same name.

It is about 80km (50 miles) north of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, which the M23 briefly occupied in 2012.

On Friday, the M23 captured the nearby town of Katale.

Last year, there were fears that the M23 would once again march on Goma, a city of about two million people.

However, there was then a lull in fighting until early December when fighting resumed.

In July, Rwanda did not deny a UN report saying it had about 4,000 soldiers fighting alongside the M23 in DR Congo.

It accused the Congolese government of not doing enough to tackle decades of conflict in the east of the country. Rwanda has previously said the authorities in DR Congo were working with some of those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide against ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

The M23, formed as an offshoot of another rebel group, began operating in 2012 ostensibly to protect the Tutsi population in the east of DR Congo which had long complained of persecution and discrimination.

However, Rwanda’s critics accuse it of using the M23 to loot eastern DR Congo’s minerals such as gold, cobalt and tantalum, which are used to make mobile phones and batteries for electric cars.

Last month, DR Congo said it was suing Apple over the use of such “blood minerals”, prompting the tech giant to say it had stopped getting supplies from both countries.

• Rwanda and Uganda backed M23 rebels, UN experts say
• Apple accused of using DR Congo conflict minerals
• WATCH: Refugees fleeing M23 rebels say they ‘feel powerless’
• Why TikTokers are quitting vapes over DR Congo
• A quick guide to DR Congo

It’s the picture of domestic bliss.

The Duchess of Sussex, picking flowers, slicing veggies and decorating cakes in a trailer for her new Netflix show.

There’s also a scene where she harvests honey, and hugs her husband, Prince Harry.

Meghan, it appears, has rebranded herself. Her new look is described by public relations expert Chloe Franses as similar to the “trad wife” social media trend, inspired by 1950s housewives.

In that sense, it is a departure for Meghan, who has been known as a feminist and a Hollywood actress.

But Franses says it’s actually a return to Meghan’s roots, as the duchess used to be a lifestyle blogger before she married Harry.

And as ever with Meghan, it’s proving divisive. Franses praises it as “authentic,” while Alex Silver, a media relations expert, calls it “tone deaf”.

So what’s the reason for her new TV show, With Love, and will it work?

One of the most striking things about the trailer is that it’s Meghan on her own, rather than with Harry.

Since stepping down as senior royals in 2020 and moving to California, the pair have pursued various ventures together, including starting a production company and charitable foundation.

• Where do Harry and Meghan get their money?

But with this new show, it looks like the couple increasingly want to do their own thing professionally – and to create two separate income streams.

“They seem to have separated their brands,” says Pauline Maclaran, professor of marketing and consumer research at Royal Holloway.

“I think it’s likely to be much more successful, because I think the two of them together weren’t really getting any strong recognition.”

The relaunch also signifies a move away from royal life.

Since stepping back as senior royals, Harry and Meghan have continued to talk about the monarchy – including in their 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview and Harry’s book Spare.

But in this new TV show, Meghan “isn’t drawing on her royal connections” anymore, says Maclaran.

Instead, it focuses on lifestyle and wellness – areas she already explored before she met Harry through her lifestyle blog The Tig.

On The Tig, Meghan shared beauty, diet and fashion tips, recipes, travel advice, and words of wisdom about love and life.

• Meghan Markle: The wellness guru she could have been

The Tig was closed in 2017, but PR experts have said that returning to lifestyle could be a smart move.

“This is a well-trodden path for a woman in the public eye who has a lifestyle that straddles aspirational as well as challenging,” Franses says.

Others are more sceptical.

“There are more interesting and significant world events that are happening, which she could be talking about,” Silver says. “She could’ve been raising awareness for charitable work or something.

“I think she is all about herself. As a publicist, I can’t understand how she can’t read a room.”

Experimenting in the world of lifestyle has also backfired for some others in the public eye.

Brooklyn Beckham’s debut photography book was roundly mocked on social media, for instance – with one picture of an elephant receiving particular ire.

This is not Meghan’s first foray into the business world – an industry fraught with risk and reward.

The couple’s previous business initiatives include a multi-million pound deal with Netflix.

They appeared in another Netflix show, called Harry & Meghan, about their relationship. Both were also named as executive producers for the recent Polo documentary, but it drew low ratings from critics including in The Guardian and The Telegraph.

Spotify’s big bet on Meghan also fell flat.

In July 2023, the streaming giant and the Sussexes’s Archewell Audio announced they were parting ways in a mutual decision.

At the time, experts suggested there hadn’t been a big enough audience for Meghan’s Archetypes podcast to justify keeping it going.

Last March, she launched a different lifestyle brand called American Riviera Orchard. It currently has more than 600,000 followers on Instagram, and features nine posts from when it launched – but there have been no posts since then.

With this new venture, some have speculated that Meghan is hoping to open up further business opportunities for herself, such as partnerships with major supermarkets and brands.

If so, she would be following in the path of others such as Hollywood A-lister Gwyneth Paltrow, with her hugely successful lifestyle platform Goop.

“This is clearly all about her own commercial interests,” says Silver.

“They’re aware their income is going to dry up at some stage. Their lifestyles are quite lavish, they’re mixing in upmarket circles and they don’t want to be the poor relation.”

When it comes to the new TV show, royal expert Victoria Murphy says she “[doesn’t] think there’s any doubt that people will watch it initially and it will do well”.

But she says the real test is whether it engages a consistently large following and really builds a strong global brand for Meghan outside the monarchy.

Maclaran agrees, saying she thinks the show will chime with certain groups of people, particularly in the US.

“A lot of the public won’t be interested in this but I don’t think that’s her aim – I think she’ll be trying to get other mothers like herself really.”

Silver, for her part, argues that Meghan may be hoping to “detoxify” her brand with the new show.

But she doesn’t think the show will resonate with the public.

“I can’t imagine this is going to be a well viewed thing,” Silver says.

• I want to stop hate towards Meghan, Harry tells court

Perhaps the reaction to the trailer tells us everything we need to know about how this latest venture is likely to go down.

After it dropped on Thursday, thousands of column inches were dedicated to it.

The Daily Mail, for example, picked apart every single detail of every frame in the trailer, most of it unsympathetic.

The duchess, it seems, is of never ending interest – especially for the British tabloids. But she also has a core fan base on social media.

For her detractors, they will say this is glossy and superficial, Hollywood at its worst.

But for her fans, they will say it’s great to see her back, and that this shows exactly what the Royal Family are missing.

In other words, this is likely to reinforce whatever people already think about Meghan, on either side of the debate.

Elon Musk has called for Nigel Farage to be replaced as leader of Reform UK, just weeks after reports the multi-billionaire was in talks to donate to the party.

In a post on his social media site X, Musk said Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead the party – but did not explain his reasoning.

Farage suggested this was due to a disagreement over Musk’s support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

He said Musk’s comments were “a surprise”, but that he would “never sell out my principles”.

The comment from the tech entrepreneur comes hours after Farage described Musk as a “friend” in an interview on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.

Musk has been a vocal supporter of calls by Reform UK and the Conservative Party for a national inquiry into grooming gangs.

But this week a rift emerged over Musk’s support for Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court.

In a social media post on Sunday in response to Musk’s comments, Farage said: “Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree”.

“My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”

In the interview broadcast earlier on Sunday, Farage told the BBC that the fact that Musk “supports me politically and supports Reform doesn’t mean I have to agree with every single statement he makes on X”.

Farage said he planned to “have a conversation with (Musk) on a variety of things” – including Robinson – at the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Farage has maintained close ties to Trump, who has given Musk a role in his administration.

Farage founded Reform UK in 2018, then called the Brexit Party, and returned as the party’s leader before being elected as an MP in 2024.

Sixty-year-old Chinese grandmother Su Min had no intention of becoming a feminist icon.

She was only trying to escape her abusive husband when she hit the road in 2020 in her white Volkswagen hatchback with a rooftop tent and her pension.

“I felt like I could finally catch my breath,” she says, recalling the moment she drove away from her old life. “I felt like I could survive and find a way of life that I wanted.”

Over the next four years and 180,000 miles, the video diaries she shared of her adventures, while detailing decades of pain, earned her millions of cheerleaders online. They called her the “road-tripping auntie” as she inadvertently turned into a hero for women who felt trapped in their own lives.

Her story is now a hit film that was released in September – Like a Rolling Stone – and she made it to the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women of 2024.

It was a year of big moments, but if she had to describe what 2024 meant to her in a single word, she says that word would be “freedom”.

As soon as Su Min started driving, she felt freer, she told the BBC over the phone from Shenyang – just before she headed south for winter in her new SUV with a caravan.

But it wasn’t until 2024, when she finally filed for divorce, that she experienced “another kind of freedom”.

It took a while to get there: it’s a complicated process in China and her husband refused to divorce her until she agreed to pay him. They settled on 160,000 yuan ($21,900; £17,400) but she is still waiting for the divorce certificate to come through.

But she is resolute that she doesn’t want to look back: “I’m saying goodbye to him.”

In her new life on the road, Su Min’s duty is to herself.

Her videos mostly feature only her. Although she drives alone, she never seems lonely. She chats with her followers as she films her journey, sharing what she has been cooking, how she spent the previous day and where she’s going next.

Her audience travels with her to places they never knew they would long for – Xinjiang’s snow-capped mountains, Yunnan’s ancient river towns, sparkling blue lakes, vast grasslands, endless deserts.

They applaud her bravery and envy the freedom she has embraced. They had rarely heard such a raw first-hand account about the reality of life as a “Chinese auntie”.

“You’re so brave! You chose to break free,” wrote one follower, while another urged her to “live the rest of your life well for yourself!”. One woman sought advice because she too “dreams of driving alone” and an awe-struck follower said: “Mom, look at her! When I get older, I’ll live a colourful life like hers if I don’t get married!”

For some, the takeaways are more pragmatic yet inspiring: “After watching your videos, I’ve learned this: as women, we must own our own home, cultivate friendships far and wide, work hard to be financially independent, and invest in unemployment insurance!”

Through it all, Su Min processes her own past. A stray cat she encounters on the road reminds her of herself, both of them having “weathered the wind and rain for years but still managing to love this world that dusts our faces”. A visit to the market, where she smells chili peppers, evokes “the smell of freedom” because throughout her marriage spicy food was forbidden by her husband who didn’t like it.

For years Su Min had been the dutiful daughter, wife and mother – even as her husband repeatedly struck her.

“I was a traditional woman and I wanted to stay in my marriage for life,” she says. “But eventually I saw that I got nothing in return for all my energy and effort – only beatings, violence, emotional abuse and gaslighting.”

Her husband, Du Zhoucheng, has admitted to hitting her. “It’s my mistake that I beat you,” he said in a video she recently shared on Douyin, TikTok’s China platform.

A high school graduate, he had a government job in the water resources ministry for 40 years before retiring, according to local media reports. He told an outlet in 2022 that he beat his wife because she “talked back” and that it was “an ordinary thing”: “In a family, how can there not be some bangs and crashes?”

Su Min married Du Zhoucheng “really to avoid my father’s control, and to avoid the whole family”.

She was born and raised in Tibet until 1982, when her family moved to Henan, a bustling province in the valley along the Yellow River. She had just finished high school and found work in a fertiliser factory, where most of her female colleagues, including those younger than 20, already had husbands.

Her marriage was arranged by a matchmaker, which was common at the time. She had spent much of her life cooking for and looking after her father and three younger brothers. “I wanted to change my life,” she says.

The couple met only twice before the wedding. She wasn’t looking for love, but she hoped that love would grow once they married.

Su Min did not find love. But she did have a daughter, and that is one reason she convinced herself she needed to endure the abuse.

“We are always so afraid of being ridiculed and blamed if we divorce, so we all choose to endure, but in fact, this kind of patience is not right,” she says. “I later learned that, in fact, it can have a considerable impact on children. The child really doesn’t want you to endure, they want you to stand up bravely and give them a harmonious home.”

She thought of leaving her husband after her daughter got married, but soon she became a grandmother. Her daughter had twins – and once again duty called. She felt she needed to help care for them, although by now she had been diagnosed with depression.

“I felt that if I didn’t leave, I would get sicker,” she says. She promised her daughter she would care for the two boys until they went to kindergarten, and then she would leave.

The spark of inspiration for her escape came in 2019 while flicking through social media. She found a video about someone travelling while living in their van. This was it, she thought to herself. This was her way out.

Even the pandemic did not stop her. In September 2020, she drove away from her marital home in Zhengzhou and she barely looked back as she made her way through 20 Chinese provinces and more than 400 cities.

It’s a decision that has certainly resonated with women in China. To her millions of followers, Su Min offers comfort and hope. “We women are not just someone’s wife or mother… Let’s live for ourselves!” wrote one follower.

Many of them are mothers who share their own struggles. They tell her that they too feel trapped in suffocating marriages – some say her stories have inspired them to walk out of abusive relationships.

“You are a hero to thousands of women and many now see the possibility of a better life because of you,” reads one of the top comments on one of her most-watched videos.

“When I turn 60, I hope I can be as free as you,” another comment says.

A third woman asks: “Auntie Su, can I travel with you? I’ll cover all the expenses. I just want to take a trip with you. I feel so trapped and depressed in my current life.”

“Can you have the life of your dreams?” Su Min pondered over the call. “I want to tell you that no matter how old you are, as long as you work hard, you will definitely find your answer. Just like me, even though I’m 60 now, I found what I was looking for.”

She admits it wasn’t easy and she had to live frugally on her pension. She thought the video blogs might help raise some money – she had no idea they would go viral.

She talks about what she’s learned over the years and her latest challenge – finalising the divorce.

“I haven’t got my divorce certificate yet, because the law has a cooling-off period and we are now in that period.”

One of her followers wrote that the money she paid her husband was “worth every penny”, adding: “Now it’s your turn to see the world and live a vibrant, unrestrained life. Congratulations, Auntie – here’s to a colourful and fulfilling future!”

She says it’s hard to get a divorce because “many of our laws in China are to protect the family. Women often dare not divorce because of family disharmony”.

At first, she thought that Du Zhoucheng’s behaviour might improve with time and distance, but she said he still threw “pots and pans” at her on her return.

He has only called her twice in the last few years – once because her highway access card was tied to his credit card and he wanted her to return 81 yuan (£8.91). She says she hasn’t used that card since then.

Undeterred by the delay in securing a divorce, Su Min keeps planning more trips and hopes to one day travel abroad.

She’s worried about overcoming language barriers, but is confident her story will resonate around the world – as it has in China.

“Although women in every country are different, I would like to say that no matter what environment you are in, you must be good to yourself. Learn to love yourself, because only when you love yourself can the world be full of sunshine.”

Hamas has posted a video showing a 19-year-old Israeli captive, as indirect talks between the group and Israel on a ceasefire and hostage release deal resume in Qatar.

The footage shows Liri Albag calling for the Israeli government to reach a deal.

She was taken hostage along with six other female conscript soldiers at the Nahal Oz army base on the Gaza border during Hamas’s October 2023 attack. Five of them remain in captivity.

The announcement of renewed talks came as Israel intensified attacks on Gaza, with the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry saying on Sunday that 88 people had been killed in bombardment over the past 24 hours.

One strike on a home in Gaza City on Saturday killed 11 people including seven children, according to the Gaza civil defence agency.

Images showed residents searching through rubble for survivors and the bodies of the dead wrapped in shrouds.

“A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,” neighbour Ahmed Mussa told AFP.

“It was home to children, women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.”

The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had struck more than 100 “terror targets” in the Gaza Strip over the past two days and “eliminated dozens of Hamas terrorists”.

Responding to the video showing their daughter, Liri Albag’s parents said it had torn their hearts to pieces and they appealed to the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “make decisions as if your own children were there”.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters, which represents hostage families, said the sign of life from Liri was “harsh and undeniable proof of the urgency in bringing all the hostages home”.

In a call to Lira Albag’s parents, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said his country’s delegation would remain at the negotiating table until all hostages were returned home.

Israeli officials have previously described the release of such videos by Hamas as psychological warfare.

Last month a senior Palestinian official told the BBC that talks to reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal were mostly complete, but key issues still needed to be bridged.

On Sunday the Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, the latest in a series of such attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi movement.

The Houthis said they had fired a “hypersonic ballistic missile” towards a power station near the Israeli city of Haifa. The group says it began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and firing projectiles at Israel in response to Israeli military actions in Gaza.

The current war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

Israel’s military campaign to destroy Hamas has killed more than 45,800 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

On Saturday the Gaza health ministry said all three government hospitals in northern Gaza were completely out of service and “destroyed” by the Israeli military.

The Israeli military has imposed a blockade on parts of northern Gaza since October, with the UN saying the area has been under “near-total siege” as Israeli forces heavily restrict access of aid deliveries to an area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.

Late last month the Israeli military forced patients and medical staff to leave Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, alleging the facility was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold” and arresting the hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya.

It said it had facilitated the transfer of some medical staff and patients to the Indonesian hospital nearby. But the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday that that hospital had also been taken out of service, along with the hospital in Beit Hanoun.

World Health Organisation chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus again called for an end to attacks on hospitals and health professionals. “People in Gaza need access to health care,” he said.

Israel says its forces operate in accordance with international law and do not target civilians.

On Saturday the Biden administration said it was planning an $8bn (£6.4bn) arms sale to Israel. The weapons consignment, which needs approval from US House and Senate committees, includes missiles, shells and other munitions.

The move comes just over a fortnight before Biden leaves office and Donald Trump takes over as president.

Washington has consistently rejected calls to suspend military backing for Israel because of the number of civilians killed in Gaza.

The fate of two killer whales is uncertain following the closure of a marine zoo on Sunday.

Campaigners and the zoo’s managers have been locked in disagreement about what should happen to the orca whales with the French government already blocking one proposal to rehome them.

Last month Marineland Antibes, located near Cannes in the French Riviera, said it would permanently shut on 5 January following new animal welfare laws.

The legislation, which bans the use of dolphins and whales in marine zoo shows, was passed in 2021 but comes into effect next year.

Marineland, which describes itself as the largest of its kind in Europe, currently keeps two killer whales – Wikie, 23, and her 11-year-old son Keijo.

Managers say shows featuring killer whales and dolphins attract 90% of Marineland’s visitors – and that without it the business isn’t viable.

Several destinations for the whales have been proposed but there is disagreement on where they should go and what should happen to them.

Most experts agree that releasing the two whales, which are Icelandic orcas specifically, into the wild would not be suitable as both were born in captivity and would not have the skills to survive.

“It’s a bit like taking your dog out of the house and sending him into the woods to live freely as a wolf,” says Hanne Strager.

In 2023 the marine biologist published The Killer Whale Journals, which details her decades long interest in the ocean predator and how they behave.

“Those whales, that have spent their entire lives in captivity, their closest relationship is with humans. They are the ones who have provided them with food, care, activities and social relations.

“Killer whales are highly social animals, as social as we [humans] are, and they depend on social bonds. They have established those bonds with their trainers … They depend on humans and that is the only thing they know.”

A deal to send Wikie and Keijo to a marine zoo in Japan, backed by managers at Marineland, caused outcry among campaigners who said they would receive worse treatment.

Last November the French government blocked the deal, saying the animal welfare laws in Japan were relaxed compared to those in Europe and that the 13,000km (8,000 mile) journey would cause stress to the orcas.

Another option is to send them to a Spanish marine zoo in the Canary Islands.

Loro Parque, in Tenerife, complies with European animal welfare standards but campaigners fear Wikie and Keijo will still be made to perform there.

There have also been several orca deaths there in the last few years.

A 29-year-old male called Keto passed away in November and three other orcas died there between March 2021 and September 2022.

Loro Parque say scientific examinations of those three orcas by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria show the deaths were unavoidable.

Katheryn Wise, from the charity World Animal Protection (Wap), tells the BBC: “It would be devastating for Wikie and Keijo to end up in another entertainment venue like Loro Parque – from one whale jail to another.”

Wap want the orcas to be rehomed in an adapted ocean bay.

“[We and] many others have urged the government of France to do everything it can to facilitate the movement of the orcas to a sanctuary off the coast of Nova Scotia.”

The organisation hoping to build the facility in eastern Canada say it would be able to attract funding if it received a commitment from the French government to send the two whales there.

The Whale Sanctuary Project (WSP) proposes to close off an area of seawater measuring 40 hectares (98 acres) with nets.

Wikie and Keijo could then use the large expanse of water, with human support from vets and welfare workers, until the end of their lives.

The average lifespan of a male killer whale is about 30 years, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency. Females usually live about 50 years.

“Life at the sanctuary will be as close as is possible to what they would have experienced growing up in the ocean,” say the WSP. “It will be a new life that will make up for so much of what went before.”

This kind of project has been done before.

Keiko, the orca that starred in the 1993 move Free Willy, was rescued from captivity in 1996 before being taken to a bay in Iceland in 1998.

Unlike Wikie and Keijo, he was born in the wild and was able to relearn some of the necessary survival skills while living in the bay for four years.

He eventually left with a pod of orcas he had joined and swam to Norway where he died in 2003 following an infection.

Strager warns that the proposed sanctuary might feel as alien to Wikie and Keijo as open ocean would.

“We have this conception that animals enjoy freedom in the same sense we do, ‘now they are free and they will love it.’

“We don’t know if they see freedom the same way … Are they going to be scared because it is so different to what they’re used to? I don’t know.”

She tells the BBC: “I don’t think there are any good solutions for animals that have been kept in captivity their whole lives.”

More than 4,000 animals will be moved out of Marineland, which was founded in 1970 by Count Roland de la Poype.

He was a decorated fighter pilot who fought during World War Two before establishing himself in the plastics industry and opening Marineland due to his interest in sea life.

The closure of his passion project is the latest step in a campaign targeting marine zoos that has gained momentum over the last 15 years.

The actress Pamela Anderson called for the closure of Marineland in 2017 and held a protest outside its entrance saying “captivity kills”.

In 2013, the documentary Blackfish detailed how an orca called Tilikum killed trainer Dawn Brancheau after a show at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010.

He grabbed her and dragged her into the water where he tore off her arm and drowned her.

The film also outlines how Tilikum was also involved in the deaths of two other people.

Researchers interviewed in the film argued that orcas captured from the wild and trained to perform become violent in captivity.

Visitor numbers and financial revenues at SeaWorld suffered in the aftermath of the documentary and in 2016 they suspended their captive breeding programme.

They rejected calls to release their remaining orcas into the wild, saying they would likely die if left to fend for themselves.

Eighteen months ago they opened a new marine zoo in the United Arab Emirates, SeaWorld’s first outside the US.

The new facility in Abu Dhabi is a $1.2bn (£966m) venture with state-owned leisure developer Miral and boasts the largest aquarium in the world.

There aren’t any orcas on show here but, to the dismay of campaigners, dolphins still are.

Wap have helped convince Expedia not to sell any more holidays involving performances by dolphins in captivity and want other travel companies to do the same.

“Blackfish was more than a hit – it was a phenomenon,” writes the scientist Naomi Rose in a report by Wap. “I am convinced it pushed western society past the tipping point on the subject of captive cetaceans.”

The first congestion charge scheme for vehicles in the US has come into effect in New York.

Car drivers will pay up to $9 (£7) a day, with varying rates for other vehicles.

The congestion zone covers an area south of central park, taking in well known sites such as the Empire State Building, Times Square and the financial district around Wall Street

The scheme aims to ease New York’s notorious traffic problems and raise billions for the public transport network, but has faced resistance, including from famous New Yorker and President-elect Donald Trump.

New York state Governor Kathy Hochul made the case for a congestion charge two years ago, but it was delayed and revised following complaints from some commuters and businesses.

The new plan revives one scheme that she paused in June, saying there were “too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers”.

Most drivers will be charged $9 once per day to enter the congestion zone at peak hours, and $2.25 at other times.

Small trucks and non-commuter buses will pay $14.40 to enter Manhattan at peak times, while larger trucks and tourist buses will pay a $21.60 fee.

The charge has been met with plenty of opposition, including from taxi drivers’ associations.

But its most high-profile opposition has come from Trump, a native New Yorker who has vowed to kill the scheme when he returns to office this month.

Local Republicans have already asked him to intervene.

Congressman Mike Lawler, who represents a suburban district just north of New York City, asked Trump in November to commit to “ending this absurd congestion pricing cash grab once and for all”.

A judge denied an 11th-hour effort Friday by neighbouring New Jersey state officials to block the scheme on grounds of its environmental impact on adjoining areas.

Last year, New York City was named the world’s most-congested urban area for the second year in a row, according to INRIX, a traffic-data analysis firm.

Vehicles in downtown Manhattan drove at a speed of 11mph (17km/h) during peak morning periods in the first quarter of last year, the report said.

Sushi restaurateurs in Tokyo say they have paid 207m yen ($1.3m; £1m) for a bluefin tuna which is about the size and weight of a motorbike.

The sale is the second highest price ever paid at the annual new year auction at Toyosu Fish Market in the Japanese capital.

Onodera Group, which had the winning bid, said the tuna – which weighs in at 276kg (608lb) – would be served at its Michelin-starred Ginza Onodera restaurants, as well as Nadaman restaurants across the country.

“The first tuna is something meant to bring in good fortune,” Onodera official Shinji Nagao told reporters after the auction, news agency AFP reported.

Mr Nagao added that he hoped people would eat the tuna – caught off the Aomori region in northern Japan – and “have a wonderful year”.

The group has paid the top price in the Ichiban Tuna auction for five years straight.

Last year, it forked out 114m yen for the top tuna.

The highest auction price since comparable records began in 1999 was 333.6m yen in 2019 for a 278kg bluefin.

It was paid by self-styled Japanese “Tuna King” and sushi restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura.

Toyosu fish market, which opened in 1935, claims to be the biggest fish market in the world, and is known for pre-dawn daily tuna auctions.

But tuna was not the only catch on offer on Sunday, with Hokkaido sea urchins also fetching a record-breaking 7m yen according to the Japan Times.

Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer says he will resign in the coming days, both as chancellor and party leader, after talks about forming a coalition government collapsed.

The chancellor said his party – the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) – and the Social Democrats had failed to agree on key issues.

The liberal Neos, another party involved in the talks, also pulled out on Friday.

In September the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) won an unprecedented victory in Austria’s general election, but the other parties ruled out forming a coalition with the FPÖ’s leader Herbert Kickl.

The collapse of the talks could lead to the conservatives negotiating with the far-right, or to a new election taking place, analysts have said.

The Russia-friendly FPÖ has been in a ruling coalition before. It would likely welcome a new election as opinion polls suggest its popularity has grown further since September.

The FPÖ has said in a statement on X that three months have been lost by the coalition talks and adds that “instead of stability, we have chaos”.

The party has called for Social Democrat leader Andreas Babler to also resign and said President Alexander Van der Bellen bears “a significant share of responsibility for the chaos that has arisen and the lost time”.

The FPÖ won almost 29% of the vote in September’s election, the People’s Party came second with 26.3% and the Social Democrats third, with 21%.

There was a high turnout of 77.3% as Austrian voters took part in an election dominated by the twin issues of migration and asylum, as well as a flagging economy and the war in Ukraine.

The FPÖ’s Kickl promised to build “Fortress Austria”, to restore Austrians’ security and prosperity.

The party wants firm rules on legal immigration and it has promoted the idea of remigration, which involves sending asylum seekers to their original countries.

The FPÖ was founded by former Nazis in the 1950s.

Two days before last year’s general election vote some of its candidates were caught on video at a funeral where an SS song was sung.

The party later denied the song, dating back to 1814, had any link to “National Socialist sentiments”.

Russian state newspaper Izvestia says one of its freelance reporters has been killed in a drone strike near the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow has accused Ukraine’s military of deliberately targeting Alexander Martemyanov. Ukraine has not commented.

Izvestia said a civilian vehicle carrying Martemyanov was struck as it travelled on a highway in a Russian-occupied zone.

Five other media workers were reportedly injured in the same attack.

“The Ukrainian army launched a drone strike on a civilian car carrying Izvestia’s freelance correspondent Alexander Martemyanov,” the news outlet reported on its Telegram channel.

“The car was located far from the line of contact.”

The vehicle was returning from covering shelling in the Russian-held city of Gorlivka when it was hit, Russia’s state RIA news agency said.

Two RIA journalists were wounded in the attack, the agency added.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the incident “deliberate murder”.

In a statement, she described it as “another brutal crime in a series of bloody atrocities” carried out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government.

The EU blocked Russian outlets – including Izvestia and RIA – in May, accusing them of enabling the “spread and support the Russian propaganda and war of aggression against Ukraine”.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 15 journalists have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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?”

Snow and freezing rain have swept parts of the UK as amber weather warnings remain in place for northern England and Wales on Sunday.

Parts of the south saw snow on Saturday night, which has now turned back to rain – but heavy snow is set to continue further north.

Frosty conditions are expected to return next week, with forecasters warning of a risk of ice causing treacherous conditions.

• Follow our weather updates
• How to drive in snow and icy weather

Find yourself in a marquee on a Saturday afternoon where there’s a bar with wine and beer, gags being cracked, and speeches being made and you might think it’s a wedding.

But the marquee at Chelmsford City Racecourse on Saturday was packed with more than 1,000 people who had turned up to a Reform UK rally, where the best man’s speech and jokes were provided by the MP Lee Anderson, the crowd sang ‘Here We Go’ as he took the stage and the star turn who arrived to his own thumping sound track was Nigel Farage.

The crowd seemed to be having fun, even though it is plain some of those gathered there have been drawn in because they are deeply disgruntled with the status quo in the UK.

One grandfather told me he felt “emotionally angry even talking to you and keeping my composure”, citing illegal immigration and the grooming scandal as the reason for his unhappiness.

A newly joined party member said he was there because Farage “is a breath of fresh air” and current politicians were failing to give younger generations a chance to get on.

And a Reform councillor from Suffolk said people were cross about the idea of pylons going everywhere as the government plans more green energy. They might have listed different reasons. But that obvious unhappiness is what seems to be driving the rapid growth of Reform UK.

As if by magic, when Farage was on stage the party’s membership passed 170,000, and two hours later the party told me they had added another 1,000.

With new financial backers and a rapidly growing base, Reform UK does, at this moment, seem to have what they brag is the big momentum. Farage claims he’s putting the party on the path to win the next election.

The Reform leader has never been short on ambition – it goes far beyond his obvious desire to be a political celebrity, which he achieved long ago, and beyond the UK leaving the EU, in which his decades of agitating played a huge part.

The mood in a packed room in Chelmsford made it clear Farage and his growing party reckon they can shake everything up.

And he’s not hanging around in 2025. He has made two big speeches over the past few days, is the first UK political leader of the year to appear on a public platform – and he’ll be appearing on our Sunday programme this week.

But how realistic is that ambition to win power – and when will we know whether Reform’s growing support is here to stay?

Since the election, Labour’s sagging popularity and the Tories’ doldrums have made space that Farage, and his four fellow Reform MPs, have stepped into. The party has used his tried and tested techniques, talking about issues in a way that other politicians just won’t. He would say those politicians are too cautious or politically correct – they’d say they have a responsibility not to stir up tensions.

I’ll always remember intakes of breath around Westminster when he unveiled his poster depicting refugees on the continent and claiming immigration was at “breaking point” during the EU referendum in 2016. Some other Leave campaigners said it made them “shudder” and it was even reported to the police. But did it stir up a conversation about the EU that Farage wanted? It certainly did.

Years later, now with a perch in Parliament, Mr Farage was met with howls of criticism when he questioned the police’s assessment of what had gone on in the Southport attacks. His willingness to jump into controversy is part of the brand – and for his backers, part of the appeal.

Who’d know a thing or two about that? Enter Farage’s two pals across the Atlantic – one of them, Donald Trump, will in two weeks again be the most powerful man in the Western world, and the other is a tech billionaire, Elon Musk.

From the outside it’s hard to tell how deep these friendships are – whether the Reform gang lurk on the fringes waiting to be invited for brief chats, or whether over time Musk and Trump will donate political fire power (or even cash through Musk’s UK business).

But without question, these unusual bromances give more oxygen to Reform UK, and for the leader of a small UK party to have a direct line to the White House and the richest man in the world is hard to ignore. Can you imagine Ed Davey hanging out with Jeff Bezos? Or John Swinney spending time with Mark Zuckerberg?

Making headlines is not, of course, the same as getting people on side, and while these high-wattage friendships are a draw for some voters, they risk hurting Reform with others.

Musk, who appears to have a fixation with the UK, on Friday accused PM Sir Keir Starmer of being complicit in the “rape of Britain” by not going after gangs grooming and abusing vulnerable young girls – it’s hard to think of a more offensive charge, and Labour’s Wes Streeting branded it “misjudged and certainly misinformed”.

Musk also suggested safeguarding minister Jess Phillips “deserves to be in prison” after she rejected a request for the Home Office to order a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham. Phillips had said the council should commission a local inquiry instead, as happened in Rotherham and Telford. In a further post on X on Saturday, Musk said “what an evil human” in response to a video showing a previous appearance by Phillips on Question Time.

And in the last couple of days Musk has been tweeting support for right-wing activist Tommy Robinson, a man with criminal convictions who Nigel Farage tried incredibly hard to distance himself from. Farage described Musk as a “hero” for buying Twitter, but conceded he has “a whole range of opinions, some of which I agree with very strongly, and others of which I am more reticent about”.

So Farage has new friends and new energy – and what has also changed since the election is Reform’s potentially bulging bank balance.

Whether you like it or not, money matters in politics. It’s needed to pay for a lot of the unglamorous but vital work, such as hiring political organisers, opening local branches, and managing Farage’s burgeoning social media accounts. Since the recruitment of Nick Candy, a billionaire and former Conservative donor, as the party’s new treasurer, Farage has an ally who can write big cheques to support all that – he has promised to give Reform a seven-figure sum.

The latest recorded donation figures show donations of only £70,000 for the third quarter of 2024, but that seems set to change. The party’s website is advertising jobs, and Reform is putting on regular events and building its membership around the country, which it says is now bigger than the Conservatives’ rank and file.

Over the next week Farage is appearing in Leicester, Chelmsford, Esher, and Chester. The party is yet to make a huge amount of noise in the Commons with their tiny band of MPs, but their whole persona is to do politics in a new way, outside Parliament.

As they grow, so too will the scrutiny they face.

There is likely to be more checking back over what they branded their “contract with the people” in the general election. They promised to cut £5 out of every £100 in government spending within a hundred days, end shortages of doctors and nurses over the same time and give tax breaks to anyone who wanted to pay to go private in the NHS. They promised a freeze on non-essential immigration, more police, big changes to education, massive changes to the benefit system, and cutting tax while increasing spending on defence.

To some voters their plans might sound like an appealing pick and mix, but there are big questions over whether many of the plans are remotely workable.

And it’s not just their policies they need people to get behind – it’s their personnel, too. In the general election, as we revealed, candidates who wanted to stand for the party had expressed offensive views Reform found hard to defend. As they seek to expand, have they come up with a cast of characters the general public could get behind?

Voters attracted to Reform don’t come from any one political tribe, but ask pollsters and they share a sentiment – they’re pretty peeved with the UK in 2025.

Luke Tryl from the research group More In Common says the party has prospered because of dissatisfaction with the Conservatives and disappointment with the early signs from Labour.

He says their ratings have bumped up from around 15 to 20% thanks to people who previously would have said they liked Farage but were worried about him as PM, but are now saying, “well we’ve tried the Tories they didn’t work, Labour have taken away my mum’s winter fuel allowance, so we may as well try Reform”.

Their current polling suggests they could, theoretically, nab dozens of seats from Labour, although their actual backers are mainly former Conservative voters – and a general election is years away.

And unlike the other main political parties the chance someone would vote Reform does not change that much on the age you are. Their average voter is a Gen X man – born between the mid-sixties and 1980. It’s only among older pensioners that research suggests the level of support falls away. The pattern doesn’t seem to follow the cliché that parties on the right grab elderly traditional ‘small c’ conservatives.

In other words, the environment is ripe for Farage to thrive. But as his own political career demonstrates very vividly, political fashions come and go.

Labour hopes desperately that doing the hard yards will pay off, restore their popularity, and they will be able to improve the country in at least some of the ways they promised you back in July. The Conservatives fervently hope that before too long their new leader Badenoch can make some progress.

In 2025, the public will decide whether the party continues its march – or mucks up the opportunity it has. There will be tests during important elections in Wales, and contests for local mayors and local councils in May.

A senior government figure told me “we shouldn’t over think” the threat from Reform. But not to think hard about the party could prove foolish indeed.

Farage’s dream of a general election victory is years away and politically distant too. But he hopes in 2025 to prove that by the end of this year, it’s an ambition that will look less far-fetched.

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Exactly two months after her election loss to Donald Trump, Vice-President Kamala Harris will preside over the certification of her own defeat.

As president of the Senate, on Monday she will stand at the House Speaker’s rostrum to lead the counting of Electoral College votes, officially cementing her rival’s triumph two weeks before he returns to the White House.

The circumstances are painful and awkward for a candidate who decried her opponent as an urgent threat to American democracy, but Harris aides insist she will conduct her constitutional and legal duty with seriousness and grace.

It is not the first time a losing candidate will lead the joint session of Congress to count their opponent’s presidential electors – Al Gore endured the indignity in 2001 and Richard Nixon in 1961.

But it’s a fitting coda to an improbable election that saw Harris elevated from a back-up to the nation’s oldest president to the Democratic standard bearer – whose fleeting campaign provided a jolt of hope to her party before a crushing loss exposed deep internal faultlines.

Harris and her team are now deliberating her second act, and weighing whether it includes another run for the White House in 2028 or pursuing a bid for the governor’s mansion in her home state of California.

While recent Democratic candidates who lost elections – Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton – have decided against seeking the presidency again, aides, allies and donors argue that the groundswell of support Harris captured in her unsuccessful bid and the unusual circumstances of her condensed campaign proves there’s still scope for her to seek the Oval Office.

They even point to Donald Trump’s own circuitous political path – the former and future president’s bookend wins in 2016 and 2024, despite losing as the incumbent in 2020.

But while many Democrats do not blame Harris for Trump’s win, some – stung by a bruising loss that has called the party’s strategy into question – are deeply sceptical of giving her another shot at the White House. A host of Democratic governors who coalesced behind the vice-president in 2024 but have ambitions of their own are seen by some strategists as fresher candidates with a much better chance of winning.

Harris herself is said to be in no rush to make any decisions, telling advisers and supporters she is open to all the possibilities that await her after Inauguration Day on 20 January.

She is assessing the last few months, which saw her launch an entirely new White House campaign, vet a running-mate, lead a party convention and barnstorm the country in just 107 days. And aides point out that she remains the US vice-president, at least for another two weeks.

“She has a decision to make and you can’t make it when you’re still on the treadmill. It may have slowed down – but she’s on the treadmill until 20 January,” said Donna Brazile, a close Harris ally who advised the campaign.

“You can’t put anyone in a box. We didn’t put Al Gore in a box and it was obvious the country was very divided after the 2000 election,” said Brazile, who ran Gore’s campaign against George W Bush and pointed to his second life as an environmental activist. “All options are on the table because there’s an appetite for change and I do believe that she can represent that change in the future.”

But the nagging question that shadows any potential 2028 run is whether the 60-year-old can separate herself from Joe Biden – something she failed to do in the election campaign.

Her allies in the party say that Biden’s choice to seek re-election despite worries about his age, only then to ultimately drop out of the race with months to go, doomed her candidacy.

Though Trump swept all seven battleground states and is the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, his margin of victory was relatively narrow while Harris still won 75 million votes, an outcome her supporters argue can’t be ignored as a currently faceless Democratic party rebuilds over the next four years.

On the other side, those close to Biden remain convinced he could have defeated Trump again, despite surveys showing he had been bleeding support from key Democratic voting blocs.

They point out that Harris fell short where the president didn’t in 2020, underperforming with core Democratic groups like black and Latino voters. Critics continue to bring up her 2019 campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee, which sputtered out in less than a year.

“People forget that had there been a real primary [in 2024], she never would have been the nominee. Everyone knows that,” said one former Biden adviser.

The adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, applauded Harris for reviving the Democratic base and helping key congressional races, but said Trump’s campaign successfully undercut her on critical campaign issues including the economy and the border.

Members of Trump’s team, however, including his chief pollster, have acknowledged that Harris performed stronger as a candidate than Biden on certain issues like the economy among voters.

Yet there’s no escaping that any Democratic primary contest for 2028 would be a tough fight, with rising stars like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and California Governor Gavin Newsom already weighing presidential runs.

Some Democrats say that Harris would nonetheless start ahead of the pack, with national name recognition, a much-coveted mailing list and a deep bench of volunteers.

“What state party would not want her to come help them set the table for the 2026 midterm elections?” Brazile said. “She’s going to have plenty opportunities not only to rebuild, but to strengthen the coalition that came together to support her in 2024.”

Others have suggested she could step out of the political arena entirely, running a foundation or establishing an institute of politics at her alma mater, Howard University, the Washington-based historically black college where she held her election night party.

The former top state prosecutor could also be a contender for secretary of state or attorney general in a future Democratic administration. And she’ll need to decide if she wants to write another book.

For all of her options, Harris has told aides, she wants to remain visible and be seen as a leader in the party. One adviser suggested that she could exist outside the domestic political fray, taking on a more global role on an issue that matters to her, but that’s a difficult perch without a platform as large as the vice-presidency.

In the waning days of the Biden-Harris administration, she plans to embark on an international trip to multiple regions, according to a source familiar with the plans, signalling her desire to maintain a role on the world stage and build a legacy beyond being Biden’s number two.

For Harris and her team, the weeks since the election have been humbling, a mix of grief and resolve. Several aides described the three-month sprint that began when Biden dropped out as having begun with the campaign “digging out of a hole” and ending with their candidate more popular than when she began, even if she didn’t win.

“There’s a sense of peace knowing that given the hand we were dealt, we ran through the tape,” said one senior aide.

Following the election, Harris and her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, spent a week in Hawaii with a small group of aides to relax and discuss her future.

During a staff holiday party at her official residence before Christmas, Harris recounted election night and how she delivered a pep talk to her family as the results became clear.

“We are not having a pity party!” she told the crowd of her reaction that night.

Advisers and allies say she is still processing what happened, and wants to wait and see how the new administration unfolds in January before staking out any position, let alone seeking to become the face of any so-called Trump “resistance”.

Democrats have found the resistance movement that took off among liberals in the wake of his 2016 win no longer resonates in today’s political climate, where the Republican has proven that his message and style appeals to a huge cross-section of Americans.

They have adopted a more conciliatory approach in confronting the incoming president’s agenda. As several Democrats put it: “What resistance?”

Though she’s kept a relatively low profile since her loss, Harris provided a glimpse of her mindset at an event for students at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland in December.

“The movements for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the United States of America itself, would never have come to be if people had given up their cause after a court case, or a battle, or an election did not go their way,” she said.

“We must stay in the fight,” she added, a refrain she has repeated since her 2016 Senate win. “Everyone of us.”

What that means is less clear. For some donors and supporters, staying “in the fight” could translate to a run for California governor in 2026, when a term-limited Gavin Newsom will step down and potentially pursue his own White House ambitions. The job, leading the world’s fifth-largest economy, would also put Harris in direct conflict with Trump, who has regularly assailed the state for its left-leaning policies.

But governing a major state is no small feat, and would derail any presidential run, as she would be sworn into office about the same time she would need to launch a national campaign.

Those who have spoken to Harris said she remains undecided about the governor’s race, which some allies have described as a potential “capstone” to her career.

She has won statewide office three times as California’s attorney general and later as a US senator. But a gubernatorial win would give her another historic honour – becoming the nation’s first black female governor.

Still, some allies acknowledge it would be difficult to transition from being inside a 20-car motorcade and having a seat across the table from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the governor’s mansion.

The private sector is another option.

“For women at other levels of office, when they lose an election, sometimes options are not as available to them compared to men, who get a soft landing at a law firm or insurance business, and it gives them a place to take a beat, make some money and then make decisions about what’s next,” said Debbie Walsh, director for the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for Kamala Harris. I think doors will open for her if she wants to open them.”

But for Harris, who has been in elected office for two decades, and worked as a public prosecutor before that, an afterlife as governor may be the most fitting option.

“When you’ve had one client – the people – for the entirety of your career,” said one former adviser, “where do you go from here?”

When you think of new year’s resolutions, a 75-day workout might not top the list.

But that’s what’s going viral this year as people take to TikTok to document their progress.

First, the ground rules: you stick to a healthy diet with no cheat meals or alcohol.

Plus on each of the 75 days, you do two 45-minute workouts, one of them outside, drink more than three litres of water and read 10 pages of a non-fiction book.

Easy, right? Well in case you fancy your chances, two people who have finished the challenge told us what it’s really like – and experts have cautioned that if it sounds a bit strict, something more relaxed might work better for you.

Meet 29-year-old Devamsha Gunput, who completed 75 Hard last March whilst working full-time as a digital consultant for a large corporation.

“It was definitely hard,” she tells the BBC. “Also living in Edinburgh, it was dark, wet and cold and you had to do one of the workouts outside.”

Devamsha says one of the most challenging aspects of 75 Hard was “setting boundaries” when visiting her South Asian family so that she could be strict with her diet.

“Having to exercise twice a day and be strict on my diet were really uncomfortable and new areas for me to tackle, because I hadn’t had that conversation before,” she says.

But since completing the challenge, she’s noticing the lasting impacts so far.

“I exercise a lot more regularly, my reading habits and my relationship with food have transformed,” she says.

While 75 Hard has turned into a viral craze over the last few weeks, it was actually invented back in 2019 by author and podcaster Andy Frisella.

He said on his podcast that he’s spent “20 years figuring out how to master mental toughness” and has used this knowledge to create the plan.

He is not a qualified personal trainer or doctor and does not give guidance over what classifies as a healthy diet in the plan, but it’s understood to mean balanced and nutrient-rich.

More relaxed variations of the challenge have been popping up on social media recently, called 75 Soft and 75 Medium, in which participants can have the odd alcoholic drink and unhealthy meal while still doing exercise and reading.

Sophie Deakins, 27, also completed 75 Hard last year while working as an assistant manager at a London cinema.

She says she undertook the challenge after struggling “with discipline and consistency” with other plans.

She overhauled her diet, cutting out chocolate and sweets but allowing for anything with naturally occurring sugar, like fruit and honey.

Sophie also made all her meals at home and tracked her protein and water consumption using an app.

She found it useful to give herself small rewards like getting her nails done or buying a new book, but the hardest part was socialising for her, as this would revolve around eating out and drinking alcohol.

To solve this, she explains: “I was very vocal about what I was doing, so there was no pressure when I got there [to social events] but there was still real self-discipline to do it.”

Since completing it, she’s stuck to some part of the plan such as not eating out or buying unnecessary coffees and cakes, helping her “save so much money”.

“But the biggest thing is probably a mindset shift – the encouragement I got from knowing I can do it, the excuses about time and self-doubt are all gone,” she says.

But the challenge isn’t for everyone, which is something strength and conditioning coach Tana von Zitzewitz wants those who are considering it to bear in mind.

“You need a lot of time, not only for the workouts, but for reading the book – it seems a lot to try and cram into one day,” she tells the BBC.

“I definitely think there are elements people can implement, committing to 45 minutes of daily movement, being conscious of drinking more water and reducing screen time, but you need to be aware of what’s involved,” Tana adds.

Another aspect is motivation. “There is so much pressure for people to transform their lives at this time of year,” she says.

She suggests finding a way to “challenge yourself while also being kind”, so that you add fun and value to every day, without exercise and food feeling like a punishment.

From a medical perspective, it is difficult to determine whether 75 Hard is beneficial.

NHS GP Sam Whiteman points out that, because “it has not been studied” in a clinical setting, it cannot claim to change your life in any way.

He also says that it would need to be compared to a more basic regime, to see if that could achieve the same results.

“If it’s a way for people to get out and be active then I am all for it, but if it’s a question of whether this is better than going to the gym three times a week or going for a run once a week and eating healthily, then I am not sure,” he adds.

Hitting certain criteria isn’t the intention of 75 Hard’s founder, Mr Frisella. He doesn’t set any rules that involve losing a certain amount of weight, for example.

While the challenge encourages people to take progress pictures each day, much of the TikTok content around it focuses on how the person feels at the end rather than how they look, helping to avoid unhealthy fixations with appearance.

Dr Whiteman recommends visiting the NHS Live Well website, which has tips on what constitutes a healthy weight, diet and exercise regime, along with mental health and sleep advice.

A revolution in vehicle fuel is gaining momentum in Tanzania, but a lack of filling stations means it is stuck in second gear.

Like Nigeria and some other countries on the continent, Tanzania is beginning to embrace compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative to petrol and diesel.

It is seen as cleaner and better for the environment than those fossil fuels, but its relative cheapness is the biggest draw for the 5,000 or so motorists in the East African state who have embraced the change – particularly commercial drivers.

This represents a small fraction of Tanzania’s vehicles, but the early adopters are paving the way for a wider acceptance of CNG – the government reportedly wants near total adoption by the middle of the century.

Tanzania has large reserves of gas under the sea and for those filling up, CNG can cost less than half its petrol equivalent.

The potential saving was enough to persuade taxi owner Samuel Amos Irube to part with about 1.5m Tanzanian shillings ($620; £495) to convert his three-wheeled vehicle – known locally as a bajaji – to CNG.

But now, having to get the gas twice a day, he often spends more time waiting at a filling station in the largest city, Dar es Salaam, than he does earning money.

There are only four places in Tanzania’s commercial hub where he can fill up.

Quietly frustrated, he says he has to wait for at least three hours every time he wants to refuel, but the savings make it worth it, as he spends just 40% of what he would on the equivalent amount of petrol.

The slow-moving queues of vehicles at the Ubungo CNG station snake down the road. Things are orderly – there are three clear lines, one for cars and two for bajajis – but the irritation is palpable.

Medadi Kichungo Ngoma, in the queue for two hours already, stares at the vehicles ahead of him as he waits by his silver pick-up truck.

He tells the BBC that he was among the first people in the city to convert his vehicle, which involved installing a large cylinder in the back of the pick-up, and reminisces about the short queues.

“Sometimes the attendant would have to be called to serve us,” he says.

He complains that the infrastructure has not expanded to accommodate the increasing demand.

This is also the refrain heard at the largest of the city’s CNG filling stations near the airport.

Sadiki Christian Mkumbuka has waited here for three hours with his bajaji.

“The queue is very long,” he says, adding that “we should have as many stations as there are for petrol vehicles”.

But the price consideration will keep people coming back.

“I pay 15,000 shillings ($6; £5) to fill my 11kg gas tank, which goes for about 180km,” says another motorist who introduces himself as Juma, adding that this is less than half the cost for petrol to cover the same distance.

The push to encourage motorists to adopt CNG-powered vehicles in Tanzania was hatched over a decade ago but did not begin in earnest until 2018.

Those in charge of the project acknowledge that they did not foresee the rapid rise in demand.

Aristides Kato, the CNG project manager at the state-oil firm, the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), tells the BBC that there “has been a very drastic increase” recently in the use of natural gas by vehicle owners.

“We found ourselves not having enough infrastructure to support the demand for gas-using vehicles,” he admits.

The authorities, though, want more people to switch to CNG because it is a relatively clean-burning fossil fuel that results in fewer emissions of nearly all types of air pollutants, according to the UN.

Plus the locally available natural gas should allow for cheaper prices than petrol. But the cost of converting a vehicle plus the lower mileage that a full tank gives a motorist compared to petrol or diesel may be putting some people off.

However, the country manager of Taqa Arabia, an Egyptian company that runs the filling station near the airport, sees the growing demand as a “positive sign that CNG use has started to develop in Tanzania”.

Amr Aboushady says his firm plans to build more stations and hopes to “replicate our success story in Egypt by helping the [Tanzanian] government best utilise natural gas as an affordable, reliable, cleaner source of energy”.

Egypt has pioneered the use of CNG on the continent, with about half a million vehicles converted to a dual-fuel system since the 1990s.

Other African countries that have approved CNG use for vehicles include South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

The authorities in Tanzania are committed to rolling out more infrastructure and hope to encourage more private investors to get involved.

A central CNG “mother station” is being built in Dar es Salaam by TPDC, which will supply gas to smaller stations around the country.

In addition, TPDC is acquiring five mobile CNG units that will be located in Dar es Salaam as well as the capital, Dodoma, and Morogoro.

These measures should in the medium-term lead to shorter queues, but for the time being the lack of filling stations will continue to frustrate Tanzania’s CNG pioneers.

• Africa Daily podcast – Is natural gas the new gold in Tanzania?
• Africa’s dash for gas sparks debate at climate summit in Egypt
• Can Africa replace Russian gas supplies to Europe?
• New East African oil pipeline sparks climate row

The Golden Globe Awards take place later, with Emilia Pérez, Conclave, Anora and The Brutalist in the running for the top prizes.

Film acting nominees include Zendaya, for tennis drama Challengers, and Timothée Chalamet for his starring role in Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are both up for their roles as sorcery students in Wicked, the musical adaptation of the hit stage show, while Daniel Craig is nominated for 1950s romance Queer, Demi Moore is up for body horror The Substance, and Nicole Kidman for erotic drama Babygirl.

Kate Winslet has two nominations – for Lee, a film about war photojournalist Lee Miller, and for her leading TV role in political satire The Regime. Selena Gomez is also up for two – for the film Emilia Pérez, about a Mexican drug lord who changes gender, and TV mystery comedy Only Murders in the Building.

The event marks the first major ceremony of the film awards season, which culminates with the Oscars on 2 March.

The Globes will be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, beginning at 01:00 GMT on Monday for UK audiences.

A win at the Globes can help boost a film’s profile at a crucial time, when Bafta and Oscar voters are preparing to fill in their nomination ballots.

But the Globes is a much less formal event than the Academy Awards, with celebrities generally in a good mood after the Christmas break, ready to mingle over a few drinks and have fun with their acceptance speeches.

The main film contenders:

• 10 nominations – Emilia Pérez
• 7 – The Brutalist
• 6 – Conclave
• 5 – Anora, The Substance
• 4 – Challengers, A Real Pain, Wicked, The Wild Robot
• The Golden Globe nominees in full

Baby Reindeer, Shogun and The Bear are among the shows competing in the TV categories.

In recent years, the voting body behind the Globes has expanded and diversified its membership and brought in a new code of conduct.

The changes follow a scathing investigation by the LA Times in 2021 which exposed various ethical lapses, such as voters accepting “freebies” from studios and PR agencies lobbying for nominations.

The Golden Globes split their film categories by drama and comedy/musical, which allows them to nominate more movies and hand out more prizes than other ceremonies.

The film with the most nominations is Emilia Pérez, a largely Spanish-language musical about a dangerous cartel leader who wants to quit the world of crime and live a new life as a woman.

However, several of its 10 nominations are in the same categories – with two nods in best original song and two in best supporting actress.

Other contenders in the musical/comedy category include Anora, the story of a New York stripper who falls for the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.

The Substance, which sees a woman trade her body for a younger, more beautiful version of herself is also nominated, along with A Real Pain, about two cousins travelling across Poland after the death of their grandmother.

In the drama category, acclaimed historical epic The Brutalist follows a Hungarian architect who tries to build a new life for himself in America following World War Two.

It’s up against Conclave, based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, which depicts a group of gossipy and scheming cardinals who gather in Rome to select the new Pope.

Nickel Boys, about two young men forced to attend a reform school in 1960s Florida, and September 5, which dramatises the terror attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics from the perspective of the sports journalists who covered it, are also in the running.

The other drama contenders include the sandy sci-fi sequel Dune: Part Two and A Complete Unknown, about Bob Dylan’s rise to fame in the 1960s.

Blockbusters including Deadpool & Wolverine, Twisters, Inside Out 2, Gladiator II and The Wild Robot will compete for the cinematic and box office achievement award, which was introduced last year to recognise more mainstream films.

Dune: Part Two was not submitted in that category despite its huge financial success, reportedly because the film’s producers wanted Globe voters to focus on its artistic merits.

That means if members want to vote for the film, they will have to do so in the main categories.

There’s a much higher chance of an actor being nominated at the Globes, where there are 36 slots available, than at the Oscars, which have 20.

As a result, the Globes are able to lean in to big celebrity names, ensuring their ceremony is well attended by A-listers, not all of whom will necessarily go on to score an Oscar nomination.

British acting nominees this year include Daniel Craig (Queer) Kate Winslet (Lee), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), Cynthia Erivo (Wicked) Hugh Grant (Heretic), Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door) and Felicity Jones (The Brutalist).

They are joined by stars including Angelina Jolie (Maria), Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), Demi Moore (The Substance), Glen Powell (Hit Man), Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) and Zendaya (Challengers).

There are two pop stars in the race – with Ariana Grande (Wicked) and Selena Gomez (Emilia Pérez) both in the running for best supporting actress.

Other well-known nominees include Amy Adams (Nightbitch), Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) and Denzel Washington (Gladiator II).

The supporting actor category will see two former Succession stars go head to head – Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) and Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice).

Strong’s co-star Sebastian Stan has two nominations – one for playing Donald Trump in The Apprentice and one for A Different Man.

But some of the strongest contenders this awards season aren’t necessarily Hollywood A-listers, such as relative newcomer Mikey Madison (Anora), Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Brazil’s Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) and Russian actor Yura Borisov (Anora).

Away from the top categories, other notable nominees include singer Robbie Williams in the best original song category, for Forbidden Road, from his biopic Better Man.

Two of this year’s winners have already been announced: Viola Davis will take home the Cecil B DeMille Award, for outstanding contribution to film, while Ted Danson will be honoured with the Carol Burnett Award, for excellence in television.

The Globes have traditionally had excellent taste in hosts, regularly enlisting an acerbic personality to make cutting jokes about the A-list guests.

They are continuing that model this year with US comic Nikki Glaser, who gave a barnstorming performance at The Roast of Tom Brady last summer.

Glaser said she was “absolutely thrilled” to be hosting the Globes, adding she was looking forward to getting a “front row seat” at “one of my favourite nights in television”.

“It’s one of the few times that show business not only allows, but encourages itself to be lovingly mocked (at least I hope so). (God I hope so),” she said in a statement.

“Some of my favourite jokes of all time have come from past Golden Globes opening monologues when Tina [Fey], Amy [Poehler] or Ricky [Gervais] have said exactly what we all didn’t know we desperately needed to hear.

“I just hope to continue in that time-honoured tradition (that might also get me cancelled). This is truly a dream job.”

US viewers can watch the show live on the CBS network, which is airing the Globes as part of a five-year deal.

It will also stream on Paramount+ with Showtime. The ceremony starts at 01:00 GMT and usually lasts between three and four hours.

UK viewers without a VPN can expect to see highlights on social media, YouTube and news bulletins on Monday morning.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist has resigned from the Washington Post after the newspaper refused to publish a cartoon satirical of its billionaire owner Jeff Bezos.

Ann Telnaes, a long-time Washington Post cartoonist, created a cartoon of Mr Bezos and other tycoons kneeling before a statue of President-elect Donald Trump.

She said the paper’s refusal to run the cartoon was a “game changer” and described it as “dangerous for a free press”.

But David Shipley, the editorial page editor at the paper, said he decided not to run the cartoon in order to avoid repetition, not because it mocked the paper’s owner.

In the cartoon, Mr Bezos, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are depicted on their knees giving bags of cash to a statue of Trump.

Mickey Mouse is also depicted prostrate in the cartoon. ABC News – which is owned by Disney – last month agreed to pay $15m to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump.

Ms Telnaes announced her resignation in a Substack post on Friday, saying she had worked for the newspaper since 2008.

“In all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at,” she wrote. “Until now.

“The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.”

She said the cartoon was satirising “these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations”.

But Mr Shipley told the BBC his decision not to publish the cartoon was because of repetition of another piece set to publish.

“I respect Ann Telnaes and all she has given to The Post. But I must disagree with her interpretation of events,” he said in a statement. “Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force.”

He added: “My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column – this one a satire – for publication.”

This is not the first time one of Ms Telnaes’ cartoons has been spiked by the Washington Post.

In 2015, the newspaper retracted one of her sketches that depicted the young daughters of Texas Senator Ted Cruz as monkeys.

Explaining its decision at the time, the newspaper said its editorial policy was to leave children “out of it”.

Last month, Mr Bezos announced Amazon would donate $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund and make a $1m in-kind contribution.

Mr Bezos also described Trump’s re-election victory as “an extraordinary political comeback” and dined with him at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

The newspaper faced a liberal backlash weeks before the November presidential election after Mr Bezos interceded to prevent the editorial board endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Mr Bezos defended the move, but the newspaper reported it lost more than 250,000 subscribers following the decision.

The Los Angeles Times, whose owner Patrick Soon-Shiong is also depicted in the now-killed cartoon, made a similar move and said the newspaper would not publish its endorsement of Harris in October.

Filmmaker Jeff Baena, the husband of actress Aubrey Plaza, has taken his own life at the age of 47.

His body was discovered by an assistant at his Los Angeles home on Friday morning, where he was later pronounced dead, media reports say.

The medical examiner for the County of Los Angeles gave the cause of death as suicide.

The American director, best known for films The Little Hours, Life After Beth and Joshy, married Ms Plaza in 2021.

The family told Deadline they were “devastated” and asked for privacy at this difficult time.

Ms Plaza, 40, star of TV series The White Lotus and Parks and Recreation, has not yet commented publicly on the death of her husband.

Mr Baena graduated from New York University with a degree in film before moving to LA to pursue directing.

He worked in production under filmmakers Robert Zemeckis and David O’Russell, before breaking away to make his own films.

He made his directorial debut in 2014 with the release of the zombie comedy film Life After Beth, which featured Plaza.

The pair would go on to collaborate on several projects.

Help and support

A contingent of 150 Guatemalan soldiers has arrived in Haiti, tasked with helping to restore order amid the chaos wrought by armed gangs.

A first group of 75 soldiers arrived on Friday and another 75 on Saturday, all drafted from the military police, according to Guatemala’s government.

A state of emergency has been in place across the Caribbean nation for months as the government battles violent gangs that have taken control of much of the capital Port-au-Prince.

The forces are in Haiti to boost a United Nations-backed security mission led by Kenya that has so far failed to prevent violence from escalating.

Kenya sent nearly 400 police officers in June and July last year to help combat the gangs.

This was the first tranche of a UN-approved international force that will be made up of 2,500 officers from various countries.

A small number of forces from Jamaica, Belize and El Salvador are also in Haiti as part of the mission and the US is the operation’s largest funder.

In March 2024, armed gangs stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, freeing around 3,700 inmates.

The Ouest Department – a region including Port-au-Prince – was originally put under a state of emergency on 3 March, after escalating violence gripped the capital.

Chronic instability, dictatorships and natural disasters in recent decades have left Haiti the poorest nation in the Americas.

In 2021, President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in Port-au-Prince.

Since then the country has been wracked by economic chaos, little functioning political control and increasingly violent gang warfare.

A woman who had eight organs removed after being diagnosed with a rare cancer has returned to work.

Faye Louise, from Horsham, West Sussex, began planning her own funeral after doctors found a tumour in her appendix in 2023.

But after “the mother of all surgeries”, she said she was cancer free and able to return to work as a flight dispatcher at Gatwick Airport.

“To have been told there is no evidence of disease, it was the greatest Christmas gift that I could have got,” she said.

Ms Louise added that she was unsure if she’d be able to work again this time last year.

“The job is very physical, but I love aviation and I’m happy that I’m back in the role,” she told BBC Radio Sussex.

The former model began to have pains in spring 2023, which she initially put down to period problems, before an ultrasound revealed an ovarian cyst.

However, after an operation to rectify the problems, she said she “heard the dreaded C-word” and was diagnosed with pseudomyxoma peritonei – a rare tumour that causes a build-up of a jelly-like substance in the abdomen.

As the tumour had ruptured, spreading cancer cells around her body, Ms Louise needed an operation which involved removing eight of her organs.

The surgery included the removal of her spleen, gallbladder, appendix, ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes, belly button, greater and lesser omentum – which connect the stomach and duodenum to other abdominal organs – and part of her liver, as well as the scraping of her diaphragm and pelvis.

She will continue to have yearly scans every November as a result.

“Waiting for the results will sadly make or break every Christmas for me. But you just have to keep pushing forward and never give up,” she said.

“Some days I have been down to the depths of despair, but more often than not now, I’m having more positive days.”

She has since returned to work, and fundraised for Cancer Research UK – including being gunged with 15 litres of orange gloop in the garden of the Red Lyon pub in Slinfold.

She has also completed the Race for Life in Stanmer Park, Brighton, to raise funds for the charity.

Americans have been gathering to remember Jimmy Carter as a nearly week-long state funeral gets under way for the 39th US president.

Saturday’s procession from Carter’s home in Plains, Georgia, to Atlanta marked the beginning of the six-day public goodbye for the statesman, who passed away last month aged 100.

Carter will be flown to Washington DC on Tuesday where he will lie in state at the US Capitol before a service on Thursday that will feature remarks from former American presidents.

Mourners from the state of Georgia and around the world have gathered in Atlanta to pay their respects.

Among those who came on Saturday was Heather Brooks, an Atlanta resident and “great admirer” of the Democrat.

“[I] found him to be always kind, relatable, just an awesome individual who has done so much for the world, not just America,” Ms Brooks told the BBC.

She said she had met Carter a handful of times and described him as “powerful yet so humble”.

• What is a state funeral and who will attend Jimmy Carter’s?

High school student Ethan Cyganiewicz’s family drove five hours overnight, arriving in Atlanta at four in the morning on Sunday. He described the gravity he felt while paying his respects to President Carter.

“You just feel the majesty of the moment. You’re like in the presence of a man who sat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. It surely is something,” the 15-year-old told the BBC.

Ethan said he thought Carter was “average” as president, but valued his humanitarian work and humility.

“He was the last president that actually cared about the American people,” Ethan said.

Paige Alexander, the head of the Carter Center, told the BBC that the ex-president should be remembered for his “sincerity and integrity”.

“I mean, at the end of the day, you have a politician who would say during a debate, you know, ‘the Honourable President [Gerald] Ford and I disagree on these issues’,” Ms Alexander said. “You don’t hear that now.”

The grassy area outside the Carter Center has been overflowing with flowers, handwritten tributes and bags of peanuts, a reference to Carter’s early years as a peanut farmer in Plains.

Those who knew the former president well, like Jill Stuckey, a long-time friend of the Carter family, said she will miss his – and his wife Rosalynn’s – commitment to helping others.

That’s something Ms Stuckey said the couple was committed to “until the day they passed”.

“I don’t know how we’re going to get used to a world without President Carter,” she told the BBC.

On Saturday the motorcade passed the Methodist church where the Carters married in 1946, and the home where they lived and died.

The former president will be buried there alongside Rosalynn, who died in late 2023 aged 96.

The procession also stopped in front of Carter’s boyhood home and family farm just outside Plains. The site is now part of Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, which rang the old farm bell on Saturday 39 times to honour the 39th president.

The motorcade then stopped at the Georgia state capitol building for a moment of silence led by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.

Mourners will be able to visit Carter at the presidential library on 5 January and 6 January before he is flown to Washington DC on 7 January.

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

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

On top of the political praise Carter is expected to receive in the coming days will be the personal tributes from his extended family.

For Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, it is the personal connection he had with people that he will especially miss.

“I think for many people in the country he was a beacon of love and respect and I think that’s worth celebrating,” the former Georgia state senator told the BBC.

Elon Musk has called for Nigel Farage to be replaced as leader of Reform UK, just weeks after reports the multi-billionaire was in talks to donate to the party.

In a post on his social media site X, Musk said Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead the party – but did not explain his reasoning.

Farage suggested this was due to a disagreement over Musk’s support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

He said Musk’s comments were “a surprise”, but that he would “never sell out my principles”.

The comment from the tech entrepreneur comes hours after Farage described Musk as a “friend” in an interview on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.

Musk has been a vocal supporter of calls by Reform UK and the Conservative Party for a national inquiry into grooming gangs.

But this week a rift emerged over Musk’s support for Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court.

In a social media post on Sunday in response to Musk’s comments, Farage said: “Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree”.

“My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”

In the interview broadcast earlier on Sunday, Farage told the BBC that the fact that Musk “supports me politically and supports Reform doesn’t mean I have to agree with every single statement he makes on X”.

Farage said he planned to “have a conversation with (Musk) on a variety of things” – including Robinson – at the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Farage has maintained close ties to Trump, who has given Musk a role in his administration.

Farage founded Reform UK in 2018, then called the Brexit Party, and returned as the party’s leader before being elected as an MP in 2024.

Ukraine has launched a fresh offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, the Russian defence ministry says.

In a statement, the ministry said efforts to destroy the Ukrainian attack groups were ongoing. Officials in Ukraine have also suggested an operation is under way.

Ukraine first launched its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August last year, seizing a chunk of territory.

In recent months, Russian forces have made big gains in the area, pushing the Ukrainians back, but failing to eject them entirely.

In a statement posted on Telegram on Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said: “At around 9am Moscow time, in order to stop the offensive by the Russian troops in the Kursk direction, the enemy launched a counter-attack by an assault detachment consisting of two tanks, one counter-obstacle vehicle, and 12 armoured fighting vehicles.”

Several Russian military bloggers gave more details about the attack, saying it was launched from the Ukrainians’ base at Sudzha towards the villages of Berdin and Bolshoye Soldatskoye, a district centre on the way to Kursk city.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said there “was good news from Kursk Region” and that Russia was “getting what it deserves”.

Ukraine’s top counter-disinformation official Andriy Kovalenko said in a Telegram post on Sunday: “The Russians in Kursk are experiencing great anxiety because they were attacked from several directions and it came as a surprise to them.”

It’s unclear whether the offensive is sufficiently large-scale to lead to any significant changes on the frontline.

Russian blogger Yury Podolyaka said the operation may have been diversionary, while another, Alexander Kots, did not rule out that the main attack could be launched somewhere else.

Kyiv’s forces are reportedly suffering from manpower shortages and have been losing ground in the east of Ukraine in recent months, as Russian troops advance.

It comes as the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched another drone attack on Ukraine overnight.

It said it had shot down 61 drones over Kyiv, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, and Khmelnytskyy regions

There were no direct hits, but a few houses were damaged in Kharkiv Region by an intercepted drone, the air force said.

In November, Ukraine reported its troops had engaged in combat with North Korean troops in the Kursk region.

The appearance of North Korean soldiers was in response to a surprise attack launched across the border by Ukrainian troops in August, advancing up to 18 miles (30km) into Russian land.

Moscow evacuated almost 200,000 people from areas along the border and President Vladimir Putin condemned the Ukrainian offensive as a “major provocation”.

After a fortnight, Ukraine’s top commander claimed to control more than 1,200 sq km of Russian territory and 93 villages.

Some of that territory has been regained by Russia.

Exactly two months after her election loss to Donald Trump, Vice-President Kamala Harris will preside over the certification of her own defeat.

As president of the Senate, on Monday she will stand at the House Speaker’s rostrum to lead the counting of Electoral College votes, officially cementing her rival’s triumph two weeks before he returns to the White House.

The circumstances are painful and awkward for a candidate who decried her opponent as an urgent threat to American democracy, but Harris aides insist she will conduct her constitutional and legal duty with seriousness and grace.

It is not the first time a losing candidate will lead the joint session of Congress to count their opponent’s presidential electors – Al Gore endured the indignity in 2001 and Richard Nixon in 1961.

But it’s a fitting coda to an improbable election that saw Harris elevated from a back-up to the nation’s oldest president to the Democratic standard bearer – whose fleeting campaign provided a jolt of hope to her party before a crushing loss exposed deep internal faultlines.

Harris and her team are now deliberating her second act, and weighing whether it includes another run for the White House in 2028 or pursuing a bid for the governor’s mansion in her home state of California.

While recent Democratic candidates who lost elections – Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton – have decided against seeking the presidency again, aides, allies and donors argue that the groundswell of support Harris captured in her unsuccessful bid and the unusual circumstances of her condensed campaign proves there’s still scope for her to seek the Oval Office.

They even point to Donald Trump’s own circuitous political path – the former and future president’s bookend wins in 2016 and 2024, despite losing as the incumbent in 2020.

But while many Democrats do not blame Harris for Trump’s win, some – stung by a bruising loss that has called the party’s strategy into question – are deeply sceptical of giving her another shot at the White House. A host of Democratic governors who coalesced behind the vice-president in 2024 but have ambitions of their own are seen by some strategists as fresher candidates with a much better chance of winning.

Harris herself is said to be in no rush to make any decisions, telling advisers and supporters she is open to all the possibilities that await her after Inauguration Day on 20 January.

She is assessing the last few months, which saw her launch an entirely new White House campaign, vet a running-mate, lead a party convention and barnstorm the country in just 107 days. And aides point out that she remains the US vice-president, at least for another two weeks.

“She has a decision to make and you can’t make it when you’re still on the treadmill. It may have slowed down – but she’s on the treadmill until 20 January,” said Donna Brazile, a close Harris ally who advised the campaign.

“You can’t put anyone in a box. We didn’t put Al Gore in a box and it was obvious the country was very divided after the 2000 election,” said Brazile, who ran Gore’s campaign against George W Bush and pointed to his second life as an environmental activist. “All options are on the table because there’s an appetite for change and I do believe that she can represent that change in the future.”

But the nagging question that shadows any potential 2028 run is whether the 60-year-old can separate herself from Joe Biden – something she failed to do in the election campaign.

Her allies in the party say that Biden’s choice to seek re-election despite worries about his age, only then to ultimately drop out of the race with months to go, doomed her candidacy.

Though Trump swept all seven battleground states and is the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, his margin of victory was relatively narrow while Harris still won 75 million votes, an outcome her supporters argue can’t be ignored as a currently faceless Democratic party rebuilds over the next four years.

On the other side, those close to Biden remain convinced he could have defeated Trump again, despite surveys showing he had been bleeding support from key Democratic voting blocs.

They point out that Harris fell short where the president didn’t in 2020, underperforming with core Democratic groups like black and Latino voters. Critics continue to bring up her 2019 campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee, which sputtered out in less than a year.

“People forget that had there been a real primary [in 2024], she never would have been the nominee. Everyone knows that,” said one former Biden adviser.

The adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, applauded Harris for reviving the Democratic base and helping key congressional races, but said Trump’s campaign successfully undercut her on critical campaign issues including the economy and the border.

Members of Trump’s team, however, including his chief pollster, have acknowledged that Harris performed stronger as a candidate than Biden on certain issues like the economy among voters.

Yet there’s no escaping that any Democratic primary contest for 2028 would be a tough fight, with rising stars like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and California Governor Gavin Newsom already weighing presidential runs.

Some Democrats say that Harris would nonetheless start ahead of the pack, with national name recognition, a much-coveted mailing list and a deep bench of volunteers.

“What state party would not want her to come help them set the table for the 2026 midterm elections?” Brazile said. “She’s going to have plenty opportunities not only to rebuild, but to strengthen the coalition that came together to support her in 2024.”

Others have suggested she could step out of the political arena entirely, running a foundation or establishing an institute of politics at her alma mater, Howard University, the Washington-based historically black college where she held her election night party.

The former top state prosecutor could also be a contender for secretary of state or attorney general in a future Democratic administration. And she’ll need to decide if she wants to write another book.

For all of her options, Harris has told aides, she wants to remain visible and be seen as a leader in the party. One adviser suggested that she could exist outside the domestic political fray, taking on a more global role on an issue that matters to her, but that’s a difficult perch without a platform as large as the vice-presidency.

In the waning days of the Biden-Harris administration, she plans to embark on an international trip to multiple regions, according to a source familiar with the plans, signalling her desire to maintain a role on the world stage and build a legacy beyond being Biden’s number two.

For Harris and her team, the weeks since the election have been humbling, a mix of grief and resolve. Several aides described the three-month sprint that began when Biden dropped out as having begun with the campaign “digging out of a hole” and ending with their candidate more popular than when she began, even if she didn’t win.

“There’s a sense of peace knowing that given the hand we were dealt, we ran through the tape,” said one senior aide.

Following the election, Harris and her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, spent a week in Hawaii with a small group of aides to relax and discuss her future.

During a staff holiday party at her official residence before Christmas, Harris recounted election night and how she delivered a pep talk to her family as the results became clear.

“We are not having a pity party!” she told the crowd of her reaction that night.

Advisers and allies say she is still processing what happened, and wants to wait and see how the new administration unfolds in January before staking out any position, let alone seeking to become the face of any so-called Trump “resistance”.

Democrats have found the resistance movement that took off among liberals in the wake of his 2016 win no longer resonates in today’s political climate, where the Republican has proven that his message and style appeals to a huge cross-section of Americans.

They have adopted a more conciliatory approach in confronting the incoming president’s agenda. As several Democrats put it: “What resistance?”

Though she’s kept a relatively low profile since her loss, Harris provided a glimpse of her mindset at an event for students at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland in December.

“The movements for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the United States of America itself, would never have come to be if people had given up their cause after a court case, or a battle, or an election did not go their way,” she said.

“We must stay in the fight,” she added, a refrain she has repeated since her 2016 Senate win. “Everyone of us.”

What that means is less clear. For some donors and supporters, staying “in the fight” could translate to a run for California governor in 2026, when a term-limited Gavin Newsom will step down and potentially pursue his own White House ambitions. The job, leading the world’s fifth-largest economy, would also put Harris in direct conflict with Trump, who has regularly assailed the state for its left-leaning policies.

But governing a major state is no small feat, and would derail any presidential run, as she would be sworn into office about the same time she would need to launch a national campaign.

Those who have spoken to Harris said she remains undecided about the governor’s race, which some allies have described as a potential “capstone” to her career.

She has won statewide office three times as California’s attorney general and later as a US senator. But a gubernatorial win would give her another historic honour – becoming the nation’s first black female governor.

Still, some allies acknowledge it would be difficult to transition from being inside a 20-car motorcade and having a seat across the table from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the governor’s mansion.

The private sector is another option.

“For women at other levels of office, when they lose an election, sometimes options are not as available to them compared to men, who get a soft landing at a law firm or insurance business, and it gives them a place to take a beat, make some money and then make decisions about what’s next,” said Debbie Walsh, director for the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for Kamala Harris. I think doors will open for her if she wants to open them.”

But for Harris, who has been in elected office for two decades, and worked as a public prosecutor before that, an afterlife as governor may be the most fitting option.

“When you’ve had one client – the people – for the entirety of your career,” said one former adviser, “where do you go from here?”

Sixty-year-old Chinese grandmother Su Min had no intention of becoming a feminist icon.

She was only trying to escape her abusive husband when she hit the road in 2020 in her white Volkswagen hatchback with a rooftop tent and her pension.

“I felt like I could finally catch my breath,” she says, recalling the moment she drove away from her old life. “I felt like I could survive and find a way of life that I wanted.”

Over the next four years and 180,000 miles, the video diaries she shared of her adventures, while detailing decades of pain, earned her millions of cheerleaders online. They called her the “road-tripping auntie” as she inadvertently turned into a hero for women who felt trapped in their own lives.

Her story is now a hit film that was released in September – Like a Rolling Stone – and she made it to the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women of 2024.

It was a year of big moments, but if she had to describe what 2024 meant to her in a single word, she says that word would be “freedom”.

As soon as Su Min started driving, she felt freer, she told the BBC over the phone from Shenyang – just before she headed south for winter in her new SUV with a caravan.

But it wasn’t until 2024, when she finally filed for divorce, that she experienced “another kind of freedom”.

It took a while to get there: it’s a complicated process in China and her husband refused to divorce her until she agreed to pay him. They settled on 160,000 yuan ($21,900; £17,400) but she is still waiting for the divorce certificate to come through.

But she is resolute that she doesn’t want to look back: “I’m saying goodbye to him.”

In her new life on the road, Su Min’s duty is to herself.

Her videos mostly feature only her. Although she drives alone, she never seems lonely. She chats with her followers as she films her journey, sharing what she has been cooking, how she spent the previous day and where she’s going next.

Her audience travels with her to places they never knew they would long for – Xinjiang’s snow-capped mountains, Yunnan’s ancient river towns, sparkling blue lakes, vast grasslands, endless deserts.

They applaud her bravery and envy the freedom she has embraced. They had rarely heard such a raw first-hand account about the reality of life as a “Chinese auntie”.

“You’re so brave! You chose to break free,” wrote one follower, while another urged her to “live the rest of your life well for yourself!”. One woman sought advice because she too “dreams of driving alone” and an awe-struck follower said: “Mom, look at her! When I get older, I’ll live a colourful life like hers if I don’t get married!”

For some, the takeaways are more pragmatic yet inspiring: “After watching your videos, I’ve learned this: as women, we must own our own home, cultivate friendships far and wide, work hard to be financially independent, and invest in unemployment insurance!”

Through it all, Su Min processes her own past. A stray cat she encounters on the road reminds her of herself, both of them having “weathered the wind and rain for years but still managing to love this world that dusts our faces”. A visit to the market, where she smells chili peppers, evokes “the smell of freedom” because throughout her marriage spicy food was forbidden by her husband who didn’t like it.

For years Su Min had been the dutiful daughter, wife and mother – even as her husband repeatedly struck her.

“I was a traditional woman and I wanted to stay in my marriage for life,” she says. “But eventually I saw that I got nothing in return for all my energy and effort – only beatings, violence, emotional abuse and gaslighting.”

Her husband, Du Zhoucheng, has admitted to hitting her. “It’s my mistake that I beat you,” he said in a video she recently shared on Douyin, TikTok’s China platform.

A high school graduate, he had a government job in the water resources ministry for 40 years before retiring, according to local media reports. He told an outlet in 2022 that he beat his wife because she “talked back” and that it was “an ordinary thing”: “In a family, how can there not be some bangs and crashes?”

Su Min married Du Zhoucheng “really to avoid my father’s control, and to avoid the whole family”.

She was born and raised in Tibet until 1982, when her family moved to Henan, a bustling province in the valley along the Yellow River. She had just finished high school and found work in a fertiliser factory, where most of her female colleagues, including those younger than 20, already had husbands.

Her marriage was arranged by a matchmaker, which was common at the time. She had spent much of her life cooking for and looking after her father and three younger brothers. “I wanted to change my life,” she says.

The couple met only twice before the wedding. She wasn’t looking for love, but she hoped that love would grow once they married.

Su Min did not find love. But she did have a daughter, and that is one reason she convinced herself she needed to endure the abuse.

“We are always so afraid of being ridiculed and blamed if we divorce, so we all choose to endure, but in fact, this kind of patience is not right,” she says. “I later learned that, in fact, it can have a considerable impact on children. The child really doesn’t want you to endure, they want you to stand up bravely and give them a harmonious home.”

She thought of leaving her husband after her daughter got married, but soon she became a grandmother. Her daughter had twins – and once again duty called. She felt she needed to help care for them, although by now she had been diagnosed with depression.

“I felt that if I didn’t leave, I would get sicker,” she says. She promised her daughter she would care for the two boys until they went to kindergarten, and then she would leave.

The spark of inspiration for her escape came in 2019 while flicking through social media. She found a video about someone travelling while living in their van. This was it, she thought to herself. This was her way out.

Even the pandemic did not stop her. In September 2020, she drove away from her marital home in Zhengzhou and she barely looked back as she made her way through 20 Chinese provinces and more than 400 cities.

It’s a decision that has certainly resonated with women in China. To her millions of followers, Su Min offers comfort and hope. “We women are not just someone’s wife or mother… Let’s live for ourselves!” wrote one follower.

Many of them are mothers who share their own struggles. They tell her that they too feel trapped in suffocating marriages – some say her stories have inspired them to walk out of abusive relationships.

“You are a hero to thousands of women and many now see the possibility of a better life because of you,” reads one of the top comments on one of her most-watched videos.

“When I turn 60, I hope I can be as free as you,” another comment says.

A third woman asks: “Auntie Su, can I travel with you? I’ll cover all the expenses. I just want to take a trip with you. I feel so trapped and depressed in my current life.”

“Can you have the life of your dreams?” Su Min pondered over the call. “I want to tell you that no matter how old you are, as long as you work hard, you will definitely find your answer. Just like me, even though I’m 60 now, I found what I was looking for.”

She admits it wasn’t easy and she had to live frugally on her pension. She thought the video blogs might help raise some money – she had no idea they would go viral.

She talks about what she’s learned over the years and her latest challenge – finalising the divorce.

“I haven’t got my divorce certificate yet, because the law has a cooling-off period and we are now in that period.”

One of her followers wrote that the money she paid her husband was “worth every penny”, adding: “Now it’s your turn to see the world and live a vibrant, unrestrained life. Congratulations, Auntie – here’s to a colourful and fulfilling future!”

She says it’s hard to get a divorce because “many of our laws in China are to protect the family. Women often dare not divorce because of family disharmony”.

At first, she thought that Du Zhoucheng’s behaviour might improve with time and distance, but she said he still threw “pots and pans” at her on her return.

He has only called her twice in the last few years – once because her highway access card was tied to his credit card and he wanted her to return 81 yuan (£8.91). She says she hasn’t used that card since then.

Undeterred by the delay in securing a divorce, Su Min keeps planning more trips and hopes to one day travel abroad.

She’s worried about overcoming language barriers, but is confident her story will resonate around the world – as it has in China.

“Although women in every country are different, I would like to say that no matter what environment you are in, you must be good to yourself. Learn to love yourself, because only when you love yourself can the world be full of sunshine.”

The first congestion charge scheme for vehicles in the US has come into effect in New York.

Car drivers will pay up to $9 (£7) a day, with varying rates for other vehicles.

The congestion zone covers an area south of central park, taking in well known sites such as the Empire State Building, Times Square and the financial district around Wall Street

The scheme aims to ease New York’s notorious traffic problems and raise billions for the public transport network, but has faced resistance, including from famous New Yorker and President-elect Donald Trump.

New York state Governor Kathy Hochul made the case for a congestion charge two years ago, but it was delayed and revised following complaints from some commuters and businesses.

The new plan revives one scheme that she paused in June, saying there were “too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers”.

Most drivers will be charged $9 once per day to enter the congestion zone at peak hours, and $2.25 at other times.

Small trucks and non-commuter buses will pay $14.40 to enter Manhattan at peak times, while larger trucks and tourist buses will pay a $21.60 fee.

The charge has been met with plenty of opposition, including from taxi drivers’ associations.

But its most high-profile opposition has come from Trump, a native New Yorker who has vowed to kill the scheme when he returns to office this month.

Local Republicans have already asked him to intervene.

Congressman Mike Lawler, who represents a suburban district just north of New York City, asked Trump in November to commit to “ending this absurd congestion pricing cash grab once and for all”.

A judge denied an 11th-hour effort Friday by neighbouring New Jersey state officials to block the scheme on grounds of its environmental impact on adjoining areas.

Last year, New York City was named the world’s most-congested urban area for the second year in a row, according to INRIX, a traffic-data analysis firm.

Vehicles in downtown Manhattan drove at a speed of 11mph (17km/h) during peak morning periods in the first quarter of last year, the report said.

Hamas has posted a video showing a 19-year-old Israeli captive, as indirect talks between the group and Israel on a ceasefire and hostage release deal resume in Qatar.

The footage shows Liri Albag calling for the Israeli government to reach a deal.

She was taken hostage along with six other female conscript soldiers at the Nahal Oz army base on the Gaza border during Hamas’s October 2023 attack. Five of them remain in captivity.

The announcement of renewed talks came as Israel intensified attacks on Gaza, with the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry saying on Sunday that 88 people had been killed in bombardment over the past 24 hours.

One strike on a home in Gaza City on Saturday killed 11 people including seven children, according to the Gaza civil defence agency.

Images showed residents searching through rubble for survivors and the bodies of the dead wrapped in shrouds.

“A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,” neighbour Ahmed Mussa told AFP.

“It was home to children, women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.”

The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had struck more than 100 “terror targets” in the Gaza Strip over the past two days and “eliminated dozens of Hamas terrorists”.

Responding to the video showing their daughter, Liri Albag’s parents said it had torn their hearts to pieces and they appealed to the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “make decisions as if your own children were there”.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters, which represents hostage families, said the sign of life from Liri was “harsh and undeniable proof of the urgency in bringing all the hostages home”.

In a call to Lira Albag’s parents, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said his country’s delegation would remain at the negotiating table until all hostages were returned home.

Israeli officials have previously described the release of such videos by Hamas as psychological warfare.

Last month a senior Palestinian official told the BBC that talks to reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal were mostly complete, but key issues still needed to be bridged.

On Sunday the Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, the latest in a series of such attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi movement.

The Houthis said they had fired a “hypersonic ballistic missile” towards a power station near the Israeli city of Haifa. The group says it began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and firing projectiles at Israel in response to Israeli military actions in Gaza.

The current war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

Israel’s military campaign to destroy Hamas has killed more than 45,800 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

On Saturday the Gaza health ministry said all three government hospitals in northern Gaza were completely out of service and “destroyed” by the Israeli military.

The Israeli military has imposed a blockade on parts of northern Gaza since October, with the UN saying the area has been under “near-total siege” as Israeli forces heavily restrict access of aid deliveries to an area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.

Late last month the Israeli military forced patients and medical staff to leave Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, alleging the facility was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold” and arresting the hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya.

It said it had facilitated the transfer of some medical staff and patients to the Indonesian hospital nearby. But the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday that that hospital had also been taken out of service, along with the hospital in Beit Hanoun.

World Health Organisation chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus again called for an end to attacks on hospitals and health professionals. “People in Gaza need access to health care,” he said.

Israel says its forces operate in accordance with international law and do not target civilians.

On Saturday the Biden administration said it was planning an $8bn (£6.4bn) arms sale to Israel. The weapons consignment, which needs approval from US House and Senate committees, includes missiles, shells and other munitions.

The move comes just over a fortnight before Biden leaves office and Donald Trump takes over as president.

Washington has consistently rejected calls to suspend military backing for Israel because of the number of civilians killed in Gaza.

Sushi restaurateurs in Tokyo say they have paid 207m yen ($1.3m; £1m) for a bluefin tuna which is about the size and weight of a motorbike.

The sale is the second highest price ever paid at the annual new year auction at Toyosu Fish Market in the Japanese capital.

Onodera Group, which had the winning bid, said the tuna – which weighs in at 276kg (608lb) – would be served at its Michelin-starred Ginza Onodera restaurants, as well as Nadaman restaurants across the country.

“The first tuna is something meant to bring in good fortune,” Onodera official Shinji Nagao told reporters after the auction, news agency AFP reported.

Mr Nagao added that he hoped people would eat the tuna – caught off the Aomori region in northern Japan – and “have a wonderful year”.

The group has paid the top price in the Ichiban Tuna auction for five years straight.

Last year, it forked out 114m yen for the top tuna.

The highest auction price since comparable records began in 1999 was 333.6m yen in 2019 for a 278kg bluefin.

It was paid by self-styled Japanese “Tuna King” and sushi restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura.

Toyosu fish market, which opened in 1935, claims to be the biggest fish market in the world, and is known for pre-dawn daily tuna auctions.

But tuna was not the only catch on offer on Sunday, with Hokkaido sea urchins also fetching a record-breaking 7m yen according to the Japan Times.

The fate of two killer whales is uncertain following the closure of a marine zoo on Sunday.

Campaigners and the zoo’s managers have been locked in disagreement about what should happen to the orca whales with the French government already blocking one proposal to rehome them.

Last month Marineland Antibes, located near Cannes in the French Riviera, said it would permanently shut on 5 January following new animal welfare laws.

The legislation, which bans the use of dolphins and whales in marine zoo shows, was passed in 2021 but comes into effect next year.

Marineland, which describes itself as the largest of its kind in Europe, currently keeps two killer whales – Wikie, 23, and her 11-year-old son Keijo.

Managers say shows featuring killer whales and dolphins attract 90% of Marineland’s visitors – and that without it the business isn’t viable.

Several destinations for the whales have been proposed but there is disagreement on where they should go and what should happen to them.

Most experts agree that releasing the two whales, which are Icelandic orcas specifically, into the wild would not be suitable as both were born in captivity and would not have the skills to survive.

“It’s a bit like taking your dog out of the house and sending him into the woods to live freely as a wolf,” says Hanne Strager.

In 2023 the marine biologist published The Killer Whale Journals, which details her decades long interest in the ocean predator and how they behave.

“Those whales, that have spent their entire lives in captivity, their closest relationship is with humans. They are the ones who have provided them with food, care, activities and social relations.

“Killer whales are highly social animals, as social as we [humans] are, and they depend on social bonds. They have established those bonds with their trainers … They depend on humans and that is the only thing they know.”

A deal to send Wikie and Keijo to a marine zoo in Japan, backed by managers at Marineland, caused outcry among campaigners who said they would receive worse treatment.

Last November the French government blocked the deal, saying the animal welfare laws in Japan were relaxed compared to those in Europe and that the 13,000km (8,000 mile) journey would cause stress to the orcas.

Another option is to send them to a Spanish marine zoo in the Canary Islands.

Loro Parque, in Tenerife, complies with European animal welfare standards but campaigners fear Wikie and Keijo will still be made to perform there.

There have also been several orca deaths there in the last few years.

A 29-year-old male called Keto passed away in November and three other orcas died there between March 2021 and September 2022.

Loro Parque say scientific examinations of those three orcas by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria show the deaths were unavoidable.

Katheryn Wise, from the charity World Animal Protection (Wap), tells the BBC: “It would be devastating for Wikie and Keijo to end up in another entertainment venue like Loro Parque – from one whale jail to another.”

Wap want the orcas to be rehomed in an adapted ocean bay.

“[We and] many others have urged the government of France to do everything it can to facilitate the movement of the orcas to a sanctuary off the coast of Nova Scotia.”

The organisation hoping to build the facility in eastern Canada say it would be able to attract funding if it received a commitment from the French government to send the two whales there.

The Whale Sanctuary Project (WSP) proposes to close off an area of seawater measuring 40 hectares (98 acres) with nets.

Wikie and Keijo could then use the large expanse of water, with human support from vets and welfare workers, until the end of their lives.

The average lifespan of a male killer whale is about 30 years, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency. Females usually live about 50 years.

“Life at the sanctuary will be as close as is possible to what they would have experienced growing up in the ocean,” say the WSP. “It will be a new life that will make up for so much of what went before.”

This kind of project has been done before.

Keiko, the orca that starred in the 1993 move Free Willy, was rescued from captivity in 1996 before being taken to a bay in Iceland in 1998.

Unlike Wikie and Keijo, he was born in the wild and was able to relearn some of the necessary survival skills while living in the bay for four years.

He eventually left with a pod of orcas he had joined and swam to Norway where he died in 2003 following an infection.

Strager warns that the proposed sanctuary might feel as alien to Wikie and Keijo as open ocean would.

“We have this conception that animals enjoy freedom in the same sense we do, ‘now they are free and they will love it.’

“We don’t know if they see freedom the same way … Are they going to be scared because it is so different to what they’re used to? I don’t know.”

She tells the BBC: “I don’t think there are any good solutions for animals that have been kept in captivity their whole lives.”

More than 4,000 animals will be moved out of Marineland, which was founded in 1970 by Count Roland de la Poype.

He was a decorated fighter pilot who fought during World War Two before establishing himself in the plastics industry and opening Marineland due to his interest in sea life.

The closure of his passion project is the latest step in a campaign targeting marine zoos that has gained momentum over the last 15 years.

The actress Pamela Anderson called for the closure of Marineland in 2017 and held a protest outside its entrance saying “captivity kills”.

In 2013, the documentary Blackfish detailed how an orca called Tilikum killed trainer Dawn Brancheau after a show at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010.

He grabbed her and dragged her into the water where he tore off her arm and drowned her.

The film also outlines how Tilikum was also involved in the deaths of two other people.

Researchers interviewed in the film argued that orcas captured from the wild and trained to perform become violent in captivity.

Visitor numbers and financial revenues at SeaWorld suffered in the aftermath of the documentary and in 2016 they suspended their captive breeding programme.

They rejected calls to release their remaining orcas into the wild, saying they would likely die if left to fend for themselves.

Eighteen months ago they opened a new marine zoo in the United Arab Emirates, SeaWorld’s first outside the US.

The new facility in Abu Dhabi is a $1.2bn (£966m) venture with state-owned leisure developer Miral and boasts the largest aquarium in the world.

There aren’t any orcas on show here but, to the dismay of campaigners, dolphins still are.

Wap have helped convince Expedia not to sell any more holidays involving performances by dolphins in captivity and want other travel companies to do the same.

“Blackfish was more than a hit – it was a phenomenon,” writes the scientist Naomi Rose in a report by Wap. “I am convinced it pushed western society past the tipping point on the subject of captive cetaceans.”

Snow and freezing rain have swept parts of the UK as amber weather warnings remain in place for northern England and Wales on Sunday.

Parts of the south saw snow on Saturday night, which has now turned back to rain – but heavy snow is set to continue further north.

Frosty conditions are expected to return next week, with forecasters warning of a risk of ice causing treacherous conditions.

• Follow our weather updates
• How to drive in snow and icy weather

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”.