The US markets watchdog has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk alleging he failed to disclose that he had amassed a stake in Twitter, allowing him to buy shares at “artificially low prices.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit alleges that the multi-billionaire Tesla boss saved $150m (£123m) in share purchases as a result.

According to SEC rules, investors whose holdings surpass 5% have 10 days to report that they have crossed that threshold. Musk did so 21 days after the purchase, the filing says.

In a social media post, Musk called the SEC a “totally broken organisation.”

He also accused the regulator of wasting its time when “there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished.”

“Musk’s violation resulted in substantial economic harm to investors,” the SEC complaint said.

In a statement emailed to BBC News, Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, described the lawsuit as a “sham” and “a campaign of harassment” against his client.

Twitter’s share price rose by more than 27% after Musk made his share purchase public on 4 April 2022, the SEC said.

Musk ended up buying Twitter for $44bn in October 2022 and has since changed the platform’s name to X.

The complaint was submitted by the SEC to a federal court in Washington DC on Tuesday.

The lawsuit also asked the court to order Musk to give up “unjust” profits and pay a fine.

The head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, announced in November that he will resign from his role when Donald Trump returns to the White House on 20 January.

That was after Trump said he planned to sack Mr Gensler on “day one” of his new administration.

Under Mr Gensler’s leadership, the SEC clashed with Musk, who is a close ally of the president-elect.

But Musk had run-ins with the SEC long before Mr Gensler took office.

In 2018, the regulator charged Musk with defrauding investors by claiming he had “funding secured” to take Tesla, the electric car company he leads, private.

He later settled the charges, stepping down as chairman of the firm’s board and agreeing to accept what was dubbed a Twitter sitter – limits on what he could write on social media about the company.

Sam Kerr, the Chelsea striker who captains the Australia women’s national football team, has appeared in court charged with racially aggravated harassment of a police officer.

She attended a hearing at Kingston Crown Court in relation to an incident in Twickenham, south-west London, on 30 January 2023.

The all-time leading scorer for her country pleaded not guilty to the charge at the same court in March.

The 31-year-old’s trial is scheduled to take place on 3 February.

Palestinians and Israelis have expressed cautious optimism that a deal on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages held there is close after 15 months of devastating war.

“I can’t believe that I am still alive to witness this moment,” 17-year-old Sanabel said in a voice note sent from Gaza City. “We’ve been waiting for this with bated breath since the first month of [last] year.”

Sharon Lifshitz, whose elderly father is among the remaining hostages, said: “I’m trying to breathe. I’m trying to be optimistic. I’m trying to imagine it’s possible that a deal will happen now and that all the hostages will return.”

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that there were no major issues blocking a deal between Israel and Hamas and that the indirect talks in Doha were focused on “the final details of reaching an agreement”.

An Israeli government official said the talks had made “real progress” and entered a critical and sensitive period, while Hamas said it was satisfied with the status of the negotiations.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a deal was “right on the brink”.

Sanabel, who lives with her family in their partially destroyed home, told the BBC’s OS programme that everyone in northern Gaza was “feeling happy, cheerful, optimistic to see their best friends, to see their families who were displaced to the south of the Gaza Strip, to start over”.

The teenager said she had called her displaced best friend and discussed “what we would do if the war ended”, adding that she would start by trying to “make up for every moment that deprived me of seeing her”.

“But after I called her, there was a huge bomb in my area. This reminded me of the [last ceasefire and hostage release deal] in November 2023. There were huge bombs and missiles [before it started]. I’m really frightened that this will be repeated.”

“In the last hours of this war, I don’t want to lose one of my family members. I don’t want a ceasefire for a year or five months. I want a ceasefire for a long time – for the rest of our lives.”

Asmaa Tayeh, a young graduate who is sheltering with her family at her grandparents’ house in the western Gaza City neighbourhood of al-Nasr, also said people were once again daring to hope.

“You can never imagine how excited and nervous people are here,” she told the BBC. “Everyone is waiting as if they will only survive after the announcement.”

Asmaa is from Jabalia, Gaza’s largest urban refugee camp, whose residents have been forced to evacuate their homes multiple times by the Israeli military.

When the Israeli military launched a new ground offensive in Jabalia in October, Asmaa’s family was forced to flee once more.

Fierce fighting has raged in Jabalia ever since. In December, Asmaa said her whole area had been “wiped out”.

Relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since October 2023 have also been speaking to the BBC about the news that a ceasefire deal could be imminent.

Sharon Lifshitz is a British-Israeli artist and filmmaker whose has had no news about her 84-year-old father Oded since the woman who was being held with him was released during the week-long ceasefire in November 2023.

“For us, we know there will be so much heartbreak. We know quite a few of [the hostages] are not alive anymore. We are desperate for the return first of the living ones so they can come back to their families. Each of them is a whole world,” she told the Today programme.

She said her mother, Yocheved – who was also abducted in the 7 October attack but was released weeks later – was sceptical about the chances of a deal but that “I can feel the cracks of optimism coming through”.

Eyal Kalderon – the cousin of 54-year-old Ofer Kalderon, two of whose children were among the 105 hostages released from captivity in November – said in a voice note sent to BBC OS: “We are hoping that the deal will be closed soon and we will reach the moment that we are hugging Ofer, that his four children are hugging him.”

“We want this deal to include all the hostages, all the 98 hostages. We are demanding that. We are just hoping to see all of them in Israeli [territory].”

Lee Siegel – the brother of Keith Siegel, 64, whose wife Aviva was also released in November – insisted: “All of the hostages must come home – those who are still alive, to work on rebuilding their lives and their families; those who are deceased, for a proper burial in their home country.”

Some families of hostages not included in the initial releases expressed anger that their relatives might be left behind if the deal falters at a later stage.

Ruby Chen’s son, Itay, was killed during the 7 October 2023 attack and his body is being held in Gaza.

“The prime minister unfortunately is moving ahead with a deal that does not include my son and 65 additional hostages, where it is not known how my son is going to come out. And for most of the families this deal is unacceptable,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing opposition from far-right cabinet ministers and some in his own party, who object to prisoner releases and a wider ceasefire deal.

Sharon Lifshitz said a majority of Israelis had supported such a deal for a “very long time”, but that a combined pressure from the administrations of outgoing US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump had finally given Netanyahu’s government the “extra push” it needed.

“It appears that this deal is very much the deal that was on the table in July,” she added. “Many, many hostages died since July. Soldiers, Palestinians. So much suffering.”

Speaking later on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he was confident a majority in the Israeli government would support a deal.

Meanwhile Blinken – approaching the end of his tenure as US secretary of state – laid out for the first time the plan the Biden administration wants to hand over to Trump for post-war Gaza.

It did not envisage immediate full control of Gaza by the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the entity created by the Oslo accords that has limited governance in parts of the occupied West Bank.

Critically, Gaza’s security forces would be comprised of personnel from other countries – most likely Arab states although he didn’t name them – alongside “vetted” Palestinian forces.

Blinken said, as he has before, that Hamas had sought to spark a regional war and derail US-led efforts to integrate Israel and its Arab neighbours.

Meanwhile Israel, he said, had pursued its military campaign “past the point” of destroying Hamas’ military capacity and killing its leaders responsible for the 7 October attack.

He suggested this was self defeating, adding that the US assessed Hamas had recruited almost as many new militants as Israel had killed.

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

More than 46,640 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Most of the 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to an struggle to get aid to those in need.

Israel says 94 of the hostages are still being held by Hamas, of whom 34 are presumed dead. In addition, there are four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.

There is a risk too many people are being diagnosed as obese when “a more accurate” and “nuanced” definition is needed, a report from global experts says.

Doctors should consider the overall health of patients with excess fat, rather than just measuring their body mass index (BMI), it says.

Those with chronic illnesses caused by their weight should be diagnosed with ‘clinical obesity’ – but those with no health problems should be diagnosed with ‘pre-clinical obesity’.

More than a billion people are estimated to be living with obesity worldwide and prescription weight-loss drugs are in high demand.

The report, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, is supported by more than 50 medical experts around the world.

“Obesity is a spectrum,” says Prof Francesco Rubino, from King’s College London, who chaired the group.

“Some have it and manage to live a normal life, function normally.

“Others can’t walk well or breathe well, or are wheelchair bound with significant health issues.”

The report calls for a “reframing” of obesity to distinguish between patients with a disease and those who remain healthy, but at risk of disease in the future.

Currently, in many countries, obesity is defined as having a BMI over 30 – a measurement that estimates body fat based on height and weight.

Access to weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro is often restricted to patients in this category.

In many parts of the UK, the NHS also requires people to have a weight-related health condition.

But BMI reveals nothing about a patient’s overall health, the report says, and fails to distinguish between muscle and body fat or account for the more dangerous fat around the waist and organs.

The experts argue for a new model that looks at signs of obesity affecting organs in the body – such as heart disease, breathlessness, type 2 diabetes or joint pain – and their damaging impact on daily life.

This indicates obesity has become a clinical disease and needs drug treatment.

Those with ‘pre-clinical obesity’, however, instead of drugs and surgery, should be offered weight-loss advice, counselling and monitoring to reduce the chances of health problems developing. Treatment may also be necessary.

“Obesity is a health risk – the difference is it’s also an illness for some,” Prof Rubino said.

Redefining it was sensible, he added, to understand the level of risk in a large population, instead of the current “blurry picture of obesity”.

Waist-height ratios or direct fat measurement, along with a detailed medical history, can give a much clearer picture than BMI, the report says.

Children’s obesity expert Prof Louise Baur, from the University of Sydney, who contributed to the report, said the new approach would allow adults and children with obesity “to receive more appropriate care”, while reducing the numbers being over-diagnosed and given unnecessary treatment.

At a time when drugs that reduce body weight by up to 20% are being prescribed on a large scale, the report says this “reframing” of obesity “is all the more relevant” because it “improves the accuracy of diagnosis”.

The Royal College of Physicians said the report laid a strong foundation “for treating obesity with the same medical rigour and compassion as other chronic illnesses”.

Distinguishing between pre-clinical and clinical obesity would be “a vital step forward” and “highlighted the need to identify and intervene early” while providing the right care to patients whose health was already severely affected, the college said.

But there are concerns that pressure on health budgets could mean less money for those in the ‘pre-obese’ category.

Prof Sir Jim Mann, co-director of the Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre, in Otago, New Zealand, said the emphasis was likely to be “on the needs of those who are defined as clinically obese” and the limited funding was “very likely” to be directed towards them.

The area in Gaza which Israel’s military has told people to go to “for their safety” has been hit by 97 strikes since May, BBC Verify analysis has revealed.

The findings come as negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appear to be nearing a breakthrough. Mediators in Qatar say talks are in their final stages, raising hopes that an agreement could be reached soon.

The “humanitarian zone” was first established by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in October 2023 for the “protection” of residents to “keep innocent civilians out of harms way”.

On 6 May 2024, the IDF significantly expanded the zone to include the cities of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.

The area – much of which is a strip of land along the Mediterranean sea – is densely populated and is estimated to have over a million people living there according to international humanitarian organisations. Many people are living in tents, with limited infrastructure and limited access to aid.

In a statement to BBC Verify, the IDF said it was targeting Hamas fighters operating in the “humanitarian zone” and accused the group of violating international law while “exploiting” civilians as human shields and launching rockets from the area.

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

The conflict has caused widespread damage to infrastructure across Gaza, with satellite images showing areas flattened by Israeli strikes. The Hamas-run health ministry also says more than 46,600 people have been killed within the enclave since the start of the war.

BBC Verify analysis suggests that attacks within the “humanitarian zone” have intensified since May 2024, with at least 22 strikes already recorded so far this month.

Local media reports indicate more than 550 people have been killed in the 97 strikes mapped by BBC Verify.

BBC Verify cannot confirm that all incidents are the result of IDF attacks. Israeli military officials have publicly acknowledged 28 attacks since 6 May, but did not confirm involvement in the others documented by BBC Verify.

Gavin Kelleher, an access manager in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said there were “near daily” strikes within the zone, including from Israeli ships and quadcopters, or small drones.

He added that “heavy fire is recurrent in this area despite its [Israel’s] unilateral ‘humanitarian’ designation.”

“The Israeli military appears keen to maintain the illusion of a Humanitarian Zone that remains a certain size, yet that zone can be subject to ‘evacuation orders’ at any time and be targeted,” Mr Kelleher said.

One resident who lives within the zone, Khaled Abdel Rahman, told the BBC that residents were being subjected to daily bombardments, frequently resulting in injuries and casualties.

“We were displaced to Khan Younis because it was designated as a safe zone, but in fact we find nothing here but insecurity,” Mr Rahman said. “We have been denied the true sense of security, with fear dominating our lives.”

As Israel does not allow foreign reporters access to Gaza – apart from highly controlled, escorted trips with its military – international media, including the BBC, is reliant on imagery gathered by Palestinian journalists and Gaza residents.

To track attacks within the IDF’s “humanitarian area”, BBC Verify monitored Palestinian social media channels and official IDF channels on Instagram, Telegram and X. Reports of strikes that included verified imagery from within the boundaries of the zone were then cross-referenced with local media reports to determine a reported death toll.

It’s important to note that death tolls cannot be verified based solely on videos and social media reports. BBC Verify analysis excluded reports of fatalities where there wasn’t verifiable imagery which confirmed the incident happened within the IDF-defined boundaries of the “humanitarian area”.

BBC Verify reviewed more than 300 videos and photos posted since May in the “humanitarian zone”. While it is not always possible to distinguish between fighters and civilians, the footage shows scores of people, including women and children, being pulled from rubble. Some appeared lifeless, while others were severely burned or had significant limb injuries, alongside collapsed buildings, destroyed tents and burnt-out cars.

Seven of the documented strikes are reported to have killed 20 or more people each, with the most deadly on 13 July resulting in more than 90 deaths, according to the Gaza health ministry, first responders and medics.

The IDF later said Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif, was among the dead. Deif is accused of being one of the figures responsible for planning the 7 October attacks.

Nine strikes occurred within 100m of buildings belonging to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, and four within 150m of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.

The IDF told BBC Verify the strikes were conducted “against terrorists and terror infrastructures including rocket launchers, weapons warehouse and manufacturing sites, operational apartments, underground infrastructure, operational headquarters, and terrorists hideout.”

They also included links to six of their previously published statements about Hamas fighters operating in the “humanitarian zone”.

Residents in the zone also live under constant uncertainty. Including evacuation notices, the boundary of the “humanitarian area” has changed 20 times – and it has varied in size from around 7 km sq (2.7 sq miles) when it was first introduced to 72 km sq (27.8 sq miles) at its largest.

The IDF said evacuation notices “do not constitute as a reduction of the humanitarian zone. Once the danger has passed, the residents return”. But it’s unclear how residents know it’s safe to return, and the IDF has only twice posted to social media to explicitly say so. BBC Verify did not include strikes inside areas where evacuation notices were issued in our tally.

While Israel’s military has avoided using the term “safe zone”, its statements have led civilians to interpret the “humanitarian zone” as such. IDF evacuation notices include language that tells civilians – like this one which was issued in mid-December – “for your own safety, move immediately west to the humanitarian area”.

It has also described the zone as being “designated for humanitarian aid and shelters as part of the IDF’s consistent efforts to protect the uninvolved population.”

But the UN and international humanitarian organisations operating in Gaza have said there’s no such thing as a “safe zone” that is unilaterally enforced.

Juliette Touma of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said: “We have said it so so many times. There is no safe zone in Gaza. No place is safe. No-one is safe. No place is spared.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

India’s latest diplomatic outreach to Afghanistan’s Taliban government signals a marked shift in how it sees the geopolitical reality in the region.

This comes more than three years after India suffered a major strategic and diplomatic blow when Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Two decades of investment in Afghanistan’s democracy – through military training, scholarships and landmark projects like building its new parliament – were swiftly undone. The collapse also paved the way for greater influence from regional rivals, particularly Pakistan and China, eroding India’s strategic foothold and raising new security concerns.

Yet, last week signalled a shift. India’s top diplomat Vikram Misri met Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai – the highest level of engagement since Kabul’s fall. The Taliban expressed interest in strengthening political and economic ties with India, calling it a “significant regional and economic power”.

Talks reportedly focused on expanding trade and leveraging Iran’s Chabahar port, which India has been developing to bypass Pakistan’s Karachi and Gwadar ports.

How significant is this meeting? Delhi has now given the Taliban leadership the de facto legitimacy it has sought from the international community since its return to power, Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, an American think-tank, told me.

“The fact that this treatment is coming from India – a nation that never previously had friendly relations with the Taliban, makes this all the more significant, and also a diplomatic triumph for the Taliban,” he says.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, countries have adopted varied approaches toward the regime, balancing diplomatic engagement with concerns over human rights and security. China, for example, has gone far: it has actively engaged with the Taliban, focusing on security and economic interests, and even has an ambassador in the country.

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No country has formally recognised the Taliban government, but up to 40 countries maintain some form of diplomatic or informal relations with it.

That’s why experts like Jayant Prasad, a former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, are more circumspect about India’s outreach.

For the past three years, he says, India has maintained contact with the Taliban through a foreign service diplomat. India had closed its consulates in Afghanistan during the civil war in the 1990s and reopened them in 2002 after the war ended. “We didn’t want this hiatus to develop [again], so we wanted to engage. It is very simply a step up in relations,” he says.

India has “historical and civilisational ties” with Afghanistan, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament in 2023. India has invested more than $3bn (£2.46bn) in over 500 projects across Afghanistan, including roads, power lines, dams, hospitals and clinics. It has trained Afghan officers, awarded thousands of scholarships to students and built a new parliament building.

This reflects a lasting geopolitical reality. “Irrespective of the nature of the regime in Kabul – monarchical, communist, or Islamist – there has been a natural warmth between Delhi and Kabul,” The Indian Express newspaper noted.

Mr Kugelman echoes the sentiment. “India has an important legacy as a development and humanitarian aid donor in Afghanistan, which has translated into public goodwill from the Afghan public that Delhi is keen not to lose,” he says.

Interestingly, relations with Delhi appear to be easing amid rising tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan claims the hardline Pakistani Taliban (TTP) operates from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Last July, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told the BBC that Pakistan would continue attacks on Afghanistan as part of an operation aimed at countering terrorism. Days before talks between India and the Taliban, Pakistani airstrikes killed dozens in eastern Afghanistan, according to the Afghan government. The Taliban government condemned the strikes as violations of its sovereignty.

This marks a sharp decline in relations since the fall of Kabul in 2021, when a top Pakistani intelligence official was among the first foreign guests to meet the Taliban regime. At the time, many saw Kabul’s fall as a strategic setback for India.

“While Pakistan isn’t the only factor driving India’s intensifying outreach to the Taliban, it’s true that Delhi does get a big win in its evergreen competition with Pakistan by moving closer to a critical long-time Pakistani asset that has now turned on its former patron,” says Mr Kugelman.

There are other reasons driving the outreach. India aims to strengthen connectivity and access Central Asia, which it can’t reach directly by land due to Pakistan’s refusal of transit rights. Experts say Afghanistan is key to this goal. One strategy is collaborating with Iran on the Chabahar port development to improve access to Central Asia via Afghanistan.

“It is easier for Delhi to focus on the Afghanistan component of this plan by engaging more closely with the Taliban leadership, which is fully behind India’s plans as they would help enhance Afghanistan’s own trade and connectivity links,” says Mr Kugelman.

Clearly, India’s recent outreach helps advance its core interests in Taliban-led Afghanistan: preventing terrorism threats to India, deepening connectivity with Iran and Central Asia, maintaining public goodwill through aid, and countering a struggling Pakistan.

What about the downsides?

“The main risk of strengthening ties with the Taliban is the Taliban itself. We’re talking about a violent and brutal actor with close ties to international – including Pakistani – terror groups that has done little to reform itself from what it was in the 1990s,” says Mr Kugelman.

“India may hope that if it keeps the Taliban on side, so to speak, the Taliban will be less likely to undermine India or its interests. And that may be true. But at the end of the day, can you really trust an actor like the Taliban? That will be the unsettling question hovering over India as it continues to cautiously pursue this complex relationship.”

Mr Prasad sees no downsides to India’s current engagement with Afghanistan, despite concerns over the Taliban’s treatment of women. “The Taliban is fully in control. Letting the Taliban stew in its own juice won’t help Afghan people. Some engagement with the international community might pressurise the government to improve its behaviour.”

“Remember, the Taliban is craving for recognition,” says Mr Prasad. “They know that will only happen after internal reforms.” Like bringing women back into public life and restoring their rights to education, work and political participation.

President Joe Biden is to remove the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism as part of a prisoner release deal, the White House said on Tuesday.

Shortly afterwards, Cuba announced it would release 553 prisoners detained for “diverse crimes”. It is hoped these will include participants in anti-government protests four years ago.

President-elect Donald Trump reinstated the country’s terror designation in the final days of his first presidency in 2021, banning US economic aid and arms exports to the country.

But on Tuesday, a Biden administration official said an assessment of the situation had presented “no information” that supported the designation.

Cuba said Biden’s move was a step “in the right direction” despite its “limited nature”.

“This decision puts an end to specific coercive measures that, along with many others, cause serious damage to the Cuban economy, with a severe effect on the population,” the country’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.

Hundreds of prisoners will “gradually” be freed following talks brokered by the Catholic Church, a separate statement read a few hours later.

Details about the prisoners have not been announced – it was hoped the deal would prompt the release of some protesters imprisoned after large anti-government protests in Cuba over the nation’s economic decline in 2021.

Cuba currently sits alongside North Korea, Syria and Iran on the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

This means they are deemed by the US to have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”.

Adding Cuba back to the list after its removal in 2015 by President Barack Obama, Trump citied the communist country’s backing of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

At the time Cuba called the move “cynical,” “hypocritical” and an act of “political opportunism”.

Alongside prompting the prisoner release, this decision is also significant because it can be seen as a step towards normalising relations between Cuba and the US.

This could pave the way for dialogue on other contentious issues.

It could also help Cuba’s dire economic situation, as some major banks and foreign investors have struggled to operate there legally.

Biden is to notify Congress of his plans, which also include reversing Trump-era financial restrictions on some Cubans, a White House statement said.

He will also suspend the ability of individuals to make claims to confiscated property in Cuba, the statement read.

It is unclear whether Trump will reverse this latest decision when he returns to office on 20 January.

The president-elect’s nominee as the next US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has long advocated for sanctions on Cuba.

His family left the country in the 1950s before the communist revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

South Korea’s Constitutional Court has held its first hearing to decide if suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol should be removed from office after his shock martial law attempt last month.

The hearing ended within four minutes because of Yoon’s absence – his lawyers had earlier said he would not attend for his own safety, as there is a warrant out for his arrest on separate charges of insurrection.

In December, Yoon was suspended after members of his own party voted with the opposition to impeach him.

However he will only be formally removed from office if at least six of the eight-member Constitutional Court bench votes to uphold the impeachment.

According to South Korean law, the court must set a new date for a hearing before they can proceed without his participation.

The next hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Yoon’s lawyers have indicated that he will show up for a hearing at an “appropriate time”, but they have challenged the court’s “unilateral decision” on trial dates.

The court on Tuesday rejected the lawyers’ request for one of the eight justices to be recused from the proceedings.

Yoon has not commented publicly since parliament voted to impeach him on 14 December and has been speaking primarily through his lawyers.

Investigators are also separately preparing for another attempt to arrest Yoon for alleged insurrection, after an earlier attempt on 3 January ended following an hours-long standoff with his security team.

Yoon is South Korea’s first sitting president to face arrest. The second attempt to take him into custody could happen as early as this week, according to local media.

The suspended leader has not commented publicly since parliament voted to impeach him on 14 December and has been speaking primarily through his lawyers.

Yoon’s short-lived martial law declaration on 3 December has thrown South Korea into political turmoil. He had tried to justify the attempt by saying he was protecting the country from “anti-state” forces, but it soon became clear it was spurred by his own political troubles.

What followed was an unprecedented few weeks which saw the opposition-dominated parliament vote to impeach Yoon and then Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who succeeded him briefly as acting president.

The crisis has hit the country’s economy, with the won weakening and global credit rating agencies warning of weakening consumer and business sentiment.

Former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Park Geun-hye did not attend their impeachment trials in 2004 and 2017 respectively.

In Park’s case, the first hearing ended after nine minutes in her absence.

Roh was reinstated after a two-month review, while Park’s impeachment was upheld.

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for defence secretary, cleared his first hurdle on the way to confirmation: a long – and at times tense – hearing before the Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

For more than four hours on Tuesday, Hegseth faced questions about his ability to run the defence department, including its three million employees and $849bn (£695bn) budget.

And although he was grilled by Democrats over accusations of sexual assault, infidelity and drinking in the workplace, he appears all but certain to be confirmed to the role after no Republicans came out against him.

This was underscored later on Tuesday when Joni Ernst, one Republican who had been seen as a potential roadblock to his nomination, said she would support him.

Here’s a look at the five main takeaways from Hegseth’s testimony.

From the very start of his testimony, Hegseth, a military veteran, emphasised what he called a “warrior culture”, vowing to return the focus of the defence department to the strength of America’s military.

“Warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness. That’s it. That is my job,” he said in his opening statements.

As the hearing continued, Hegseth was critical of policies he felt harmed the efficiency and “lethality” of the military, namely efforts aimed at racial and gender diversity.

“This is not a time for equity,” he said, adding that he opposes quotas, which he claims hurt morale.

In what became an expectedly partisan hearing, Democrats repeatedly grilled Hegseth on his past statements suggesting women were not suited to serve in combat roles in the military.

Questions along these lines from Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Mazie Hirono and Elizabeth Warren provided some of the most heated moments of the morning.

He spoke over Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, as she tried to point to comments about female service members stretching back years.

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“Mr Hegseth, I’m quoting you in a podcast: ‘Women shouldn’t be in combat at all’,” Warren said.

Hegseth remained composed, responding by saying his concern was not women in combat, but simply maintaining “standards” in the military.

Hegseth, who at 44 would be the youngest defence secretary in decades, also answered questions about his preparedness to run the defence department, a sprawling agency.

The former Fox News host described himself as a “change agent”, saying “it’s time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm.”

Some Republicans deemed Hegseth’s lack of experience a strength.

“I just want to say for all the talk of experience and not coming from the same cocktail parties that permanent Washington is used to, you are a breath of fresh air,” Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, said.

A graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, Hegseth was an infantry platoon leader in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Hegseth, also a former Fox News TV host, has military experience in Afghanistan as well.

Still, Democrats pressed Hegseth on his qualifications for the top military job. Reporting from US media found that Hegseth’s tenures at the helm of two non-profit veterans groups ended in financial disarray.

Combat veteran Tammy Duckworth focused on whether Hegseth had ever supervised an audit.

“Senator, in both of the organisations I ran, we were always completely fiscally responsible,” Hegseth began, before Duckworth cut in.

“Yes or no? Did you lead an audit? Do you not know this answer?” Duckworth said.

Some experts told the BBC they were most struck by how little Hegseth talked about how he’d handle the job’s military complexities.

Aside from brief mentions of China and the war in Ukraine and Russia, senators did not ask Hegseth specifically about current conflicts, and other potential military adversaries and strategic rivals.

Those fundamental issues were mostly “crowded out” by the questions about Hegseth’s character and competence, said Mara Karlin, former assistant defence secretary for strategy, plans, and capabilities.

“What’s astonishing about the hearing is just how little focus there has been on the bread and butter of what the secretary of defence has to do, which is protect the nation, and ensure you have a military capable of winning conflicts,” Karlin said.

Senate Armed Services Committee member Tammy Duckworth was also unimpressed with what Hegseth had to say about military strategy.

“He couldn’t answer some of the most basic questions I asked of him,” the Democratic Senator from Illinois told the BBC.

Duckworth said that Hegseth could not name a single country that is in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – “basic questions that any international affairs college student would be able to answer”.

“All he did today was reaffirm to me that he’s not qualified for this job,” she said.

A 2017 accusation of sexual assault in Monterey, California, which surfaced soon after Trump tapped him for the Pentagon role, came up repeatedly.

According to a police report, an unnamed woman said Hegseth took her phone and blocked the door when she tried to leave his hotel room before sexually assaulting her.

Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer acknowledged Hegseth had paid an undisclosed amount to stay quiet about the incident.

On Tuesday, Hegseth mainly went on the offensive, decrying a “coordinated smear campaign” orchestrated by the left-wing media. “They want to destroy me.”

But at other times in the hearing, Hegseth responded to questions about his conduct with passionate references to his Christian faith.

“I am not a perfect person, but redemption is real,” he said.

Senator Tim Kaine, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, found these statements to be unsatisfactorily contradictory.

Referencing the allegations of sexual assault, views on women and drinking, Kaine repeatedly asked Hegseth during the confirmation hearing how Hegseth can be both a changed man and the allegations against him be meritless.

“If all those allegations were false, then what do you mean you changed and reformed,” Kaine told the BBC.

TikTok users in the US are migrating to a Chinese app called RedNote with the threat of a ban just days away.

The move by users who call themselves “TikTok refugees” has made RedNote the most downloaded app on Apple’s US App Store on Monday.

RedNote is a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.

It has about 300 million monthly users and looks like a combination of TikTok and Instagram. It allows users, mostly young urban women, to exchange lifestyle tips from dating to fashion.

Supreme Court justices are due to rule on a law that set a 19 January deadline for TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban in the country.

TikTok has repeatedly said that it will not sell its US business and its lawyers have warned that a ban will violate free speech protections for the platform’s 170 million users in the US.

Meanwhile, RedNote has welcomed its new users with open arms. There are 63,000 posts on the topic “TikTok refugee”, where new users are taught how to navigate the app and how to use basic Chinese phrases.

“To our Chinese hosts, thanks for having us – sorry in advance for the chaos,” a new US user wrote.

But like TikTok, there have also been reports of censorship on RedNote when it comes to criticism of the Chinese government.

In Taiwan, public officials are restricted from using RedNote due to alleged security risks of Chinese software.

As more US users joined RedNote, some Chinese users have also jokingly referred to themselves as “Chinese spies”, a reference to US officials’ concerns that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.

RedNote’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, translates to Little Red Book, but the app says it is not a reference to Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s book of quotations with the same name.

But security concerns have not deterred users from flocking to RedNote.

Sarah Fotheringham, a 37-year-old school canteen worker in Utah, says the move to RedNote is a way to “snub” the government.

“I’m just a simple person living a simple life,” Ms Fotheringham told the BBC in a RedNote message.

“I don’t have anything that China doesn’t, and if they want my data that bad they can have it.”

Marcus Robinson, a fashion designer in Virginia, said he created his RedNote account over the weekend to share his clothing brand and “be ahead of the curve”.

Mr Robinson told the BBC he was was only “slightly hesitant” about accepting the terms and conditions of using the app, which were written in Mandarin.

“I wasn’t able to actually read them so that was a little concerning to me,” he said, “but I took my chance.”

While a ban will not make TikTok disappear immediately, it will require app stores to stop offering it – which could kill it over time.

But even if TikTok dodges a ban, it may prove helpless against users moving to alternative platforms.

Some social media users tell the BBC that they find themselves scrolling on RedNote more than TikTok.

“Even if TikTok does stay I will continue to use my platform I’ve created on RedNote,” Tennessee tech worker Sydney Crawley told the BBC.

Ms Crawley said she got over 6,000 followers within 24 hours of creating her RedNote account.

“I will continue to try to build a following there and see what new connections, friendships, or opportunities it brings me.”

Ms Fotheringham, the canteen worker, said RedNote “opened my world up to China and its people”.

“I am now able to see things I never would have seen,” she said. “Regular Chinese people, finding out about their culture, life, school, everything, it has been so much fun.”

The community so far has been “super welcoming”, said Mr Robinson, the designer.

“I love RedNote so far … I just need to learn how to speak Mandarin!”

For years people have tried – and failed – to uncover details about Bristol’s most famous, yet anonymous, graffiti artist Banksy.

Photos of him and stories of people who have met him are incredibly rare. But now a man who got the secretive artist to work with children at a youth club in the late 1990s has given the BBC an exclusive insight into the man behind the murals, just as he was about to become famous.

Banksy is one of the world’s most famous graffiti artists. His work has sold for millions of pounds and his exhibitions seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

But behind layers of paint, lost in time at a Bristol youth club, there’s a Banksy very few people know about.

On the cusp of international fame, the artist was leaving his mark – not only on the streets of his city, but on young people in Lawrence Weston.

Here, Banksy helped groups of teens in art classes, just as he was about to paint his famous Mild, Mild West mural.

“If you look at the photos, you can see the way he was working with the young people,” said Peter de Boer, the man responsible for getting Banksy in the building.

“They were engaged, having fun and sharing ideas. It was a true collaboration.”

Now all that remains of these unique murals are photographs, capturing the colourful, abstract and lively pieces that stretched across the walls of the youth club. The BBC has been given permission to use these photos on the condition that Banksy remains anonymous.

The artist would return to the club several times to create new worlds, with a revolving door of excitable 11 to 16 year olds – oblivious to who the artist would eventually become.

It was the late 1990s when Peter, a senior youth worker for the area, was looking for local artists to inspire a generation of children in this part of west Bristol.

His friend had a suggestion – someone who went out ‘tagging’ the city with his brother and was starting to make a name for himself. That person was Banksy.

“I got his phone number, so I used to call him up and ask if he’d come and do some art projects. He was really keen,” Peter said.

This was the same year Banksy did his first large stencil mural in Stokes Croft – Mild Mild West – depicting a teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police.

Each time Banksy arrived at the youth club, he was greeted by dozens of eager kids.

The purpose-built youth centre from the 1970s had become a real community hub.

“There would literally be hundreds of young people that would come here over a week,” said Peter, who is passionate about the need for youth clubs in society.

“It was always very vibrant.”

Peter recalled the hype building around Banksy’s work in Bristol, but that “nobody thought twice about who he was” when he was running sessions in Lawrence Weston.

He was just another artist sharing his skills with the community, he said.

“The thing that struck me back then was he didn’t really have an ego. He was doing art with them, rather than doing art for them,” he said.

“In the morning, he sat around a table with the children, talking about their ideas.

“Then they would all just muck in and spray these things that were invented.

“It wasn’t more Banksy than the young people, it was definitely a kind of 50/50 thing.”

And how much did it cost to bring in Banksy?

“For the first one [workshop], I think we paid him £50. Probably only covered the cost of the spray paints back then,” Peter said.

“I don’t think he’s ever been in it for the money. It shows what a deep, kind and caring person he is.”

The murals Banksy created with the children were fun and vivid in colour – but with meaning.

Cows looking up as bombs are dropped above them, which Peter believes was a nod to climate anxiety, while another was more obscure – a circus overrun by robots.

But what happened to these murals? They were painted over. Again and again.

“I personally painted over a Banksy. I threw a Banksy stencil away when I was clearing up,” Peter said.

But he is not one to get sentimental about preserving street art.

“I have no regrets at all [covering them up]. Back then, it was much more about working with and engaging young people.

“And it was just another art project back then.”

For Peter, the value of Banky’s time at the club is not monetary, but based on what these murals did for the community.

He wonders if the children remember creating pieces with a man who is now one of the most famous artists in the world.

“I’m very proud he came here,” he said.

“There will be [those who were] young people in the local community who are parents now who worked with Banksy, and they may not know that.”

Ash-smeared naked Hindu holy men charged into India’s most sacred river Ganges at dawn on the first most significant bathing day of the Kumbh Mela festival (also known as Mahakumbh) in the northern city of Prayagraj.

The ascetics chanted religious slogans, invoking Hindu gods and goddesses as they plunged into the icy waters.

After coming out of the water, some picked up fistfuls of the silver sand and rubbed it over their bodies.

Many carried swords and tridents and one held aloft a silver staff with a snake head.

Alongside these holy men – known as Naga sadhus – millions of Hindu pilgrims from across the globe are in Prayagraj to take part in a festival that can actually be seen from space and is billed as humanity’s biggest gathering.

Tuesday’s bathing spectacle comes on the second day of the Kumbh Mela which is held every 12 years. By noon local time (06:30 GMT), about 16 million bathers had taken a dip in the river. Officials said on the first day on Monday, 16.5 million pilgrims had bathed.

More than 20 million people are expected to take part in the rituals today and around 400 million over the course of 45 days, authorities say.

Hindus believe that this ritual will cleanse them of sins, purify their soul and help them attain salvation by liberating them from the cycle of birth and death.

Police struggled to manage the surging crowds at the festival on Tuesday as thousands managed to come into an arena meant for the ascetics.

Mahant Prayag Puri Ji of Juna Akhara on Tuesday accused the administration of laxity in controlling the crowds.

“We were being shoved and pushed when we went for bathing,” he told me after his dip. “It was very crowded and people were very indisciplined. I fell down and hurt my foot. I had to run away from there to save my life.”

Today, he said, “is the first Shahi snan” .

“I hope the administration gets its act together before the next one which will be on 29 January,” he added.

Tuesday’s bathing rituals, called the Shahi Snan – or the royal bath – see the ascetics arrive in batches at the Sangam – the confluence of India’s most sacred Ganges river with the Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati – in colourful processions.

Their outing is a major draw for people from across India and around the world who come to seek their blessings.

Their presence also holds a special significance for the great masses who believe that the river waters get imbued with the purity of the saints’ thoughts and deeds when they bathe in the river.

There are six auspicious days to bathe this time, decided by astrologers, based on the alignment of specific planets and constellations. They are:

• 13 January: Paush Purnima
• 14 January: Makar Sankranti
• 29 January: Mauni Amavasya
• 3 February: Basant Panchami
• 12 February: Magh Purnima
• 26 February: Maha Shivaratri

Three of these – 14 and 29 January, and 3 February – have been designated as Shahi Snan days when the Naga sadhus will bathe.

The largest gathering is expected on 29 January when 50 to 60 million worshippers are expected to take to the waters.

Authorities have built a sprawling tented city on the river bank spread over 4,000 hectares to accommodate the holy men, pilgrims and tourists visiting the festival.

For the past few days, we have watched groups of saints arriving at the mela grounds in large noisy processions.

One group of ash-smeared holy men, some naked and some dressed in just a loin cloth or marigold garland draped around their necks, marched through the streets, holding tridents, swords and small two-headed drums.

• Millions start bathing in holy rivers at India’s biggest Hindu festival
• In photos: World’s biggest religious festival begins in India

Another group had its leaders on chariots escorted to their campsite in a large procession with music bands, dancers, horses and camels.

The groups – known as akharas – have set up sprawling camps which have been a hive of activity, with tens of thousands of pilgrims visiting to hear religious discourses or attend evening prayers.

The origin of the festival is rooted in the mythological story about a fight between the gods and demons over a Kumbh (a pitcher) of nectar that emerged during the churching of the ocean.

As the two sides fought over the pot of elixir, a few drops spilled over and fell in four cities – Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik.

The Kumbh mela is organised in all the four cities, but the biggest festivals are always held in Prayagraj.

Hindu seer Mahant Ravindra Puri says the rare planetary alignments at present make this year’s festival “extra special” and “a Maha [great] Kumbh”.

Mahant Puri will be leading tens of thousands of holy men from his akhara to Tuesday morning’s bath.

“We believe that during Kumbh Mela, the waters of the sacred river will be imbued with nectar,” he says.

“And those who have faith, Ganga maiyya [the river goddess] will bless them with whatever they want, whatever they need,” he adds.

Besides the saints and ascetics, Tuesday’s bathing will also see millions of ordinary pilgrims making their way to the river.

On Monday, in the mela ground, we met Chitiya Ahirvar who is visiting from her village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

The 60-year-old who is travelling in a group of 20 bathed in the river in the morning and will be going back for a repeat on Tuesday .

“I prayed to the river goddess for my children’s well being and happiness,” she said.

Mavaram Patel, a businessman who is visiting from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, said he had heard a lot about the Kumbh Mela but did not have the opportunity to visit earlier.

“Kumbh Mela is part of our ancient tradition. It’s one of Hinduism’s most important festivals,” he told the BBC.

Mr Patel said he prayed to the river goddess for the “happiness and welfare” of his “family and the wider world” and plans to take a dip in the river on Tuesday morning too before leaving the city.

“Visiting Prayagraj and bathing during Kumbh was on my bucket list for a long time so I’m happy to be here,” he said.

Svitlana says she never considered betraying her country, “not for a second.”

“My husband would’ve never forgiven me,” she says, as we meet in her flat near Kyiv.

The 42-year-old had been waiting for news of her husband Dima, an army medic captured by Russia, for more than two years when she suddenly received a phone call.

The voice at the end of the phone told her that if she committed treason against Ukraine, Dima could be eligible for better treatment in prison, or even early release.

“A Ukrainian number called me. I picked up, and the man introduced himself as Dmitry,” Svitlana explains. “He spoke in a Russian accent.”

“He said, ‘You can either burn down a military enlistment office, set fire to a military vehicle or sabotage a Ukrainian Railways electrical box.'”

There was one other option: to reveal the locations of nearby air defence units — vital military assets that keep Ukraine’s skies safe from Russian drones and missiles.

As Dmitry set out his proposal, Svitlana says she recalled instructions that the Ukrainian authorities had distributed to all families in the event of being approached by Russian agents: buy as much time as possible, record and photograph everything, and report it.

Svitlana did report it, and took screenshots of the messages, which she showed to the BBC.

The Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, told her to stall the Russians while they investigated. So she pretended to agree to firebomb a local railway line.

As we sit in her immaculate sitting room, with air raid sirens periodically wailing outside, she plays me recordings she made on her phone of two of the voice calls with Dmitry, made via the Telegram app. During the call, he gives instructions on how to make and plant a Molotov cocktail.

“Pour in a litre of lighting fluid and add a bit of petrol,” Dmitry explains. “Go to some sort of railway junction. Make sure there are no security cameras. Wear a hat – just in case.”

He also gave Svitlana a tutorial in how to put her phone on airplane mode once she was 1-2km away from her intended target, to avoid her signal being picked up by mobile phone masts that could be used by investigators.

“Do you know what a relay box is? Take a photo of it. This should be the target for her arson attack,” explained Dmitry, who demanded proof of completion of the task.

“Write today’s date on a piece of paper and take a photo with this piece of paper.”

In return, Dmitry said he could arrange a phone call with her husband, or for a parcel to be delivered to him.

Later, the SBU told Svitlana that the man she’d been talking to was indeed in Russia, and she should break off contact. Svitlana told Dmitry she’d changed her mind.

“That’s when the threats began,” says Svitlana, “He said they’d kill my husband, and I’d never see him again.

For days, he kept calling, saying: “Your husband is being tortured, and it’s your fault!”

“How concerned were you that he might go through with the threats to harm Dima?” I ask Svitlana. Her eyes moisten. “My heart ached, and I could only pray: ‘God, please don’t let that happen.'”

“One part of me said ‘this person has no connection with the prisoners.’ The other part asks: ‘What if he really can do it? How would I live with myself?'”

In a statement to the BBC, the SBU said co-operating with Russian agents “will in no way ease the plight of the prisoner; on the contrary, it may significantly complicate their chances of being exchanged.”

The authorities are urging all relatives to come forward immediately if they are approached by Russian agents.

Those who do, they say, will be “protected,” and treated as victims.

But if relatives agree to commit sabotage or espionage, says the SBU, “this may be classified as treason. The maximum punishment is life imprisonment.”

The authorities regularly publicise arrests of Ukrainians who allegedly commit arson or reveal the location of military sites to Russia.

Pro-Kremlin media is awash with videos purporting to show Ukrainians torching army vehicles or railway electrical boxes.

Some of the culprits do it for money, paid by suspected Russian agents, but it is thought there are attacks carried out by desperate relatives, too.

Petro Yatsenko, from the Ukrainian military’s Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, says around 50% of all families of PoWs are contacted by Russian agents.

“They’re in a very vulnerable position and some of them are ready to do anything,” Petro says, “but we are trying to educate them that it won’t help [their loved ones in captivity].”

Petro says an act such as setting fire to a military vehicle isn’t considered a significant material loss to the Ukrainian Armed Forces:

“But it can destabilise the unity of Ukrainian society, so that’s the main problem.

And, of course, if someone shares the location of, for example, air defence systems, that’s a big problem for us too,” he admits.

The authorities don’t publish the numbers of Ukrainians held as prisoners of war, but the number is thought to be more than 8,000.

A source in Ukrainian intelligence told the BBC the number of cases where relatives agree to work with Russia is small.

The Russian government told the BBC in a statement that the allegations it uses prisoners’ families as leverage are “groundless,” and Russia treats “Ukrainian combatants humanely and in full compliance with the Geneva Convention.”

The statement goes on to accuse Ukraine of using the same methods:

“Ukrainian handlers are actively attempting to coerce residents of Russia to commit acts of sabotage and arson within Russian territory, targeting critical infrastructure and civilian facilities.”

Svitlana’s husband Dima was released from captivity just over three months ago.

The couple are now happily back together, and enjoy playing with their four-year-old son, Vova.

How did Svitlana feel when her husband was finally set free?

“There were tears of joy like I’ve never cried before,” she says, beaming. “It felt like I had snatched my love from the jaws of death.”

Dima told his wife the Russians didn’t act on their threats to punish him for her refusal to co-operate.

When Svitlana told him about the calls, he was shocked.

“He asked me how I held up,” she says, and winks. “Well, as I always say, I’m an officer’s wife.”

It was late at night, and Darim’s animation studio had just finished designing a new look for a character in one of South Korea’s most popular video games, MapleStory.

Darim was proud of her work. So, sitting alone on the floor of her small studio apartment, she posted the trailer on social media. Almost immediately, she was flooded with thousands of abusive messages, including death and rape threats.

Young male gamers had taken issue with a single frame in the trailer, in which the female character could be seen holding her thumb and forefinger close together.

They thought it resembled a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago to poke fun at the size of Korean men’s penises.

“There were insults I’d never heard before, they were disgusting and inhumane,” said Darim, which is not her real name. One read: “You’ve just sabotaged your job.”

Messages then started piling into Darim’s studio and the game developer claiming she was a feminist and demanding she be fired. Within hours, the company pulled the promotional video.

Darim had become the latest victim in a series of vicious online witch hunts, in which men in South Korea attack women they suspect of having feminist views. They bombard them with abuse and try to get them sacked.

This is part of a growing backlash to feminism, in which feminists have been branded man-haters who deserve to be punished. The witch hunts are having a chilling effect on women, with many now scared to admit they are feminists.

This is forcing the movement underground, in a country where gender discrimination is still deeply entrenched. South Korea has the largest gender pay gap in the OECD, a group of the world’s rich countries.

The hunts are often spearheaded by young male video gamers, and target women who work in the industry, like Darim, though recently they have spread to other professions.

They look for anything that resembles what they term the ‘finger-pinching gesture’ and use it as proof that men-hating women are surreptitiously mocking them.

Once they spot a supposed sign, the hunt begins. “They decide that a dark, evil feminist is hiding in the company, and her life should be ruined,” explained Minsung Kim, a 22-year-old male gamer who, concerned by these witch hunts, set up an organisation to support the victims.

The witch hunters track down all female employees at the company in question, and trawl their social media accounts, searching for any evidence of feminism. Way back on Darim’s timeline, they found an ‘offending’ post.

Darim in fact had nothing to do with the disputed part of the animation, but her studio was rattled by the torrent of abuse – especially after Nexon, the gaming company, suddenly removed all the studio’s artwork from their roster and issued an apology to customers.

“My company and CEO were in a panic,” said Darim. “I thought I was going to be fired, and I’d never be able to work in animation again.”

Then Minsung’s organisation stepped in. They urged her studio to ignore the gamers and offered to pay Darim’s legal fees so she could report the abuse. “We said these demands will never end, you need to nip this in the bud now,” he said. The studio listened, and Darim kept her job.

But similar witch hunts have worked, in the gaming industry and beyond, and they are becoming more frequent. In one case, a young illustrator lost her job after a handful of disgruntled gamers stormed the company’s office demanding she be removed.

And it is not just Korean companies that have capitulated. Last year, the international car maker Renault suspended one of its female employees after she was accused of making the finger-pinching gesture while moving her hands in a promotional presentation.

“These anti-feminists are getting more organised; their playbook is getting more specific,” said Minsung. “By taking a hand gesture that everyone makes and turning it into a scarlet letter they can brand literally anyone an evil feminist,” he said.

Because the companies are folding to these baseless accusations, the instigators of these hunts have become emboldened, he said. “They are confident now that when you accuse someone of feminism, you can ruin their career.”

Minsung knows, because not long ago he was one of these men. He used to belong to the anti-feminist forums. “We are exposed to the uncensored internet unimaginably young,” he said, having joined the forums aged nine.

It was only when Minsung traded video games for playing real-life games, including Dungeons and Dragons, that he met women, and his views shifted. He became, in his words, an “ardent feminist”.

In South Korea, women commonly suffer discrimination and misogyny both at work and at home. But as they have fought to improve their rights, many young men have started to believe they are the ones being discriminated against.

The backlash began in the mid-2010s, following a surge of feminist activism. During this time, women took to the streets in protest at sexual violence and the widespread use of hidden cameras that secretly film women using toilets and changing rooms – around 5,000 to 6,000 cases are reported annually.

“Young men saw women becoming vocal and were threatened by their rise,” said Myungji Yang, a professor of sociology at the University of Hawai’i Manoa, who has interviewed dozens of young Korean men. “They learn about feminism from online forums, which carry the most radical caricature of feminists,” she said. “This has given them a distorted idea of what feminism is.”

One of their grievances is the 18-month military service men must complete. Once they leave the military they often “feel entitled” to a good job, said Hyun Mee Kim, a professor of cultural anthropology at Yonsei University in Seoul, who studies feminism.

As more women have entered the workforce, and jobs have become harder to get, some men feel their opportunities are being unfairly taken away.

These feelings have been validated by South Korea’s now disgraced and suspended President, Yoon Suk Yeol, who came to power in 2022 on an anti-feminist platform, claiming gender discrimination no longer existed, and has since tried to dismantle the government’s gender equality ministry.

More surprising than these views themselves, is that the men who hold them have such power over major companies.

I travelled to Pangyo, the Silicon Valley of South Korea, to meet a woman who has worked in the gaming industry for 20 years. After Darim’s case, her company started to edit all its games, removing the fingers from characters’ hands, turning them into fists, to avoid complaints.

“It’s exhausting and frustrating” to work like this, she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The idea that a hand gesture can be seen as an attack on men is absurd and companies should be ignoring it.”

When I asked why they were not, she told me that many developers share the gamers’ anti-feminist views. “For all those outside yelling, there are those on the inside who also believe things are bad.”

Then there is the financial cost. The men threaten to boycott the games unless the companies act.

“The gaming companies think the anti-feminists are the largest source of their revenue,” said Minsung. After Darim’s company, Studio Ppuri, was targeted, it said it lost nearly two thirds of its contracts with gaming companies.

Studio Ppuri, did not respond to our questions, but both Nexon, the game developer, and Renault Korea told us they stood against all forms of discrimination and prejudice.

There is evidence the authorities are also capitulating to the anti-feminists’ demands. When Darim reported her abuse to the police, they refused to take her case.

They said because the finger-pinching gesture was taboo, it was “logical” that she, as a feminist, had been attacked. “I was astonished,” she said. “Why would the authorities not protect me?”

Following outrage from feminist organisations, the police backtracked and are now investigating. In a statement, Seocho district police told the BBC their initial decision to close the case had been “insufficient” and they were “making all efforts to identify the suspects”.

The case left Darim’s lawyer, Yu-kyung Beom, dumbfounded. “If you want to say that you’re a feminist in South Korea, you have to be very brave or insane,” she said.

In November 2023, the violence spilled offline and into real life. A young woman, who we are calling Jigu, was working alone in a convenience store late at night, when a man walked in and started attacking her.

“He said ‘hey, you’re a feminist, right? You look like a feminist with your short hair’,” Jigu told me as she apprehensively recounted the night. The man pushed her to the ground and started kicking her. “I kept going in and out of consciousness. I thought I could die.”

Jigu did not consider herself a feminist. She just liked having short hair and thought it suited her. The attack has left her with permanent injuries. Her left ear is damaged, and she wears a hearing aid.

“I feel like I’ve become a completely different person,” she said. “I don’t smile as much. Some days it is agony just to stay alive, the memory of that day is still so clear.”

Her assailant was sent to prison for three years, and for the first time a South Korean court ruled this was a misogynistically motivated crime: in effect, that Jigu had been attacked for looking like a feminist.

During the attack, the man said he belonged to an extreme anti-feminist group, New Men’s Solidarity. Its leader, In-kyu Bae, has called on men to confront feminists. So, one evening, as he held a live-streaming event in Gangnam, a flashy neighbourhood in Seoul, I went to try to talk to him.

“I’m here to tell you these feminists are staining the country with hatred,” he shouted from the roof of a black van kitted out with loudspeakers.

“That psychopath [who attacked Jigu] was not a member of our group. We don’t have members, we are a YouTube channel,” he told me as he simultaneously broadcast to thousands of subscribers. A small group of young men who had come to watch in person were cheering along.

“We’ve never encouraged anyone to use violence. In fact, the violent ones are the feminist groups. They’re shaming men’s genitals,” he added.

Last year, Mr Bae and several of his supporters were convicted of defaming and insulting a feminist activist after harassing her for more than two years.

Anti-feminist views have become so widespread that Yuri Kim, the director of Korea Women’s Trade Union, recently established a committee to track cases of what she describes as “feminism censorship”. She found that some women have been questioned about their stance on feminism in job interviews, while at work women commonly face comments like “all feminists need to die”.

According to Prof Kim, the feminism academic, men are using now feminist threats in the office as a way to harass and control their female colleagues – it is their way of saying ‘we are watching you; you should behave yourself’.

Such harassment is proving effective. Last year, a pair of scholars coined the phrase “quiet feminism”, to describe the impact of what they say is a “pervasive everyday backlash”.

Gowoon Jung and Minyoung Moon found that although women held feminist beliefs they did not feel safe disclosing them in public. Women I spoke to said they were even afraid to cut their hair short, while others said feminism had become so synonymous with hating men they did not associate with the cause.

A 2024 IPSOS poll of 31 countries found only 24% of women in South Korea defined themselves as feminist, compared to an average of 45%, and down from 33% in 2019.

Prof Kim worries the consequences will be severe. By being forced to conceal their feminist values, she argues women are being stripped of their ability to fight against gender inequality, which penetrates workplaces, politics and public life.

Feminists are now busy brainstorming ways to put an end to the witch hunts. One clear answer is legal change. In South Korea there is no blanket anti-discrimination law to protect women and prevent them being fired for their views.

It has been repeatedly blocked by politicians, largely because it would support gay and transgender people, with anti-feminists, and even some trans-exclusionary feminists, now lobbying against it.

Minsung believes the only way to strip the witch hunters of their powers is for the companies and the authorities to stand up to them. They make up a small fraction of men in South Korea, they just have loud voices and a bizarrely oversized influence, he argues.

Since her attack, Jigu now proudly calls herself a feminist. “I want to reach out to other victims like me, and if even one woman has the strength to grab my hand, I want to help.”

A New York building made famous by the iconic show Sex and the City may soon be blocked off for intrusive fans if its owner gets her way.

“At any hour of the day or night, there are groups of visitors in front of the house taking flash photos, engaging in loud chatter, posting on social media, making TikToc [sic] videos, or just celebrating the moment,” she wrote to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The building, 66 Perry Street in Greenwich Village, was used in the popular HBO show, as the exterior of character Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment.

The owner currently has a chain link barrier in place to keep fans away, she now wants a cast iron gate for further deterrence.

Because the owner, who remains unnamed in her application, lives in a historic neighbourhood she needs permission before installing the iron gate to keep crowds away from her home.

The application requesting the iron fence was first reported in the Substack newsletter FeedMe.

The owner said some fans respected the chain – which has a “No Trespassing-Private Property” sign attached – currently in place, but “many” did not.

“They climb over the chain, pose, dance or lie down on the steps, climb to the top to stare in the Parlor windows, try to open the main entrance door, or, when drunk late at night, ring the doorbells,” she wrote.

There have also been instances of graffiti painted on the steps and initials carved in the main door frame, she said.

“After 20 plus years of hoping the fascination with my stoop would die away and fans would find a new object for their devotion, I have acknowledged we need something more substantial,” she wrote in her application. “In order to regain a reasonable quality of life for our tenants and ourselves: we need to install a proper gate.”

Sex and the City aired on HBO from 1998 to 2004 and won 7 Emmy’s during its tenure.

It follows the dating and sex lives of four New York City women and has grown a loyal following in recent years since younger women have found the show on streaming platforms such as Netflix.

Since it first aired, there have been two Sex and the City movies that continue to follow the women, as well as a sequel show called And Just Like That.

India’s latest diplomatic outreach to Afghanistan’s Taliban government signals a marked shift in how it sees the geopolitical reality in the region.

This comes more than three years after India suffered a major strategic and diplomatic blow when Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Two decades of investment in Afghanistan’s democracy – through military training, scholarships and landmark projects like building its new parliament – were swiftly undone. The collapse also paved the way for greater influence from regional rivals, particularly Pakistan and China, eroding India’s strategic foothold and raising new security concerns.

Yet, last week signalled a shift. India’s top diplomat Vikram Misri met Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai – the highest level of engagement since Kabul’s fall. The Taliban expressed interest in strengthening political and economic ties with India, calling it a “significant regional and economic power”.

Talks reportedly focused on expanding trade and leveraging Iran’s Chabahar port, which India has been developing to bypass Pakistan’s Karachi and Gwadar ports.

How significant is this meeting? Delhi has now given the Taliban leadership the de facto legitimacy it has sought from the international community since its return to power, Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, an American think-tank, told me.

“The fact that this treatment is coming from India – a nation that never previously had friendly relations with the Taliban, makes this all the more significant, and also a diplomatic triumph for the Taliban,” he says.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, countries have adopted varied approaches toward the regime, balancing diplomatic engagement with concerns over human rights and security. China, for example, has gone far: it has actively engaged with the Taliban, focusing on security and economic interests, and even has an ambassador in the country.

• Taliban welcomes first new Chinese ambassador since takeover

No country has formally recognised the Taliban government, but up to 40 countries maintain some form of diplomatic or informal relations with it.

That’s why experts like Jayant Prasad, a former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, are more circumspect about India’s outreach.

For the past three years, he says, India has maintained contact with the Taliban through a foreign service diplomat. India had closed its consulates in Afghanistan during the civil war in the 1990s and reopened them in 2002 after the war ended. “We didn’t want this hiatus to develop [again], so we wanted to engage. It is very simply a step up in relations,” he says.

India has “historical and civilisational ties” with Afghanistan, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament in 2023. India has invested more than $3bn (£2.46bn) in over 500 projects across Afghanistan, including roads, power lines, dams, hospitals and clinics. It has trained Afghan officers, awarded thousands of scholarships to students and built a new parliament building.

This reflects a lasting geopolitical reality. “Irrespective of the nature of the regime in Kabul – monarchical, communist, or Islamist – there has been a natural warmth between Delhi and Kabul,” The Indian Express newspaper noted.

Mr Kugelman echoes the sentiment. “India has an important legacy as a development and humanitarian aid donor in Afghanistan, which has translated into public goodwill from the Afghan public that Delhi is keen not to lose,” he says.

Interestingly, relations with Delhi appear to be easing amid rising tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan claims the hardline Pakistani Taliban (TTP) operates from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Last July, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told the BBC that Pakistan would continue attacks on Afghanistan as part of an operation aimed at countering terrorism. Days before talks between India and the Taliban, Pakistani airstrikes killed dozens in eastern Afghanistan, according to the Afghan government. The Taliban government condemned the strikes as violations of its sovereignty.

This marks a sharp decline in relations since the fall of Kabul in 2021, when a top Pakistani intelligence official was among the first foreign guests to meet the Taliban regime. At the time, many saw Kabul’s fall as a strategic setback for India.

“While Pakistan isn’t the only factor driving India’s intensifying outreach to the Taliban, it’s true that Delhi does get a big win in its evergreen competition with Pakistan by moving closer to a critical long-time Pakistani asset that has now turned on its former patron,” says Mr Kugelman.

There are other reasons driving the outreach. India aims to strengthen connectivity and access Central Asia, which it can’t reach directly by land due to Pakistan’s refusal of transit rights. Experts say Afghanistan is key to this goal. One strategy is collaborating with Iran on the Chabahar port development to improve access to Central Asia via Afghanistan.

“It is easier for Delhi to focus on the Afghanistan component of this plan by engaging more closely with the Taliban leadership, which is fully behind India’s plans as they would help enhance Afghanistan’s own trade and connectivity links,” says Mr Kugelman.

Clearly, India’s recent outreach helps advance its core interests in Taliban-led Afghanistan: preventing terrorism threats to India, deepening connectivity with Iran and Central Asia, maintaining public goodwill through aid, and countering a struggling Pakistan.

What about the downsides?

“The main risk of strengthening ties with the Taliban is the Taliban itself. We’re talking about a violent and brutal actor with close ties to international – including Pakistani – terror groups that has done little to reform itself from what it was in the 1990s,” says Mr Kugelman.

“India may hope that if it keeps the Taliban on side, so to speak, the Taliban will be less likely to undermine India or its interests. And that may be true. But at the end of the day, can you really trust an actor like the Taliban? That will be the unsettling question hovering over India as it continues to cautiously pursue this complex relationship.”

Mr Prasad sees no downsides to India’s current engagement with Afghanistan, despite concerns over the Taliban’s treatment of women. “The Taliban is fully in control. Letting the Taliban stew in its own juice won’t help Afghan people. Some engagement with the international community might pressurise the government to improve its behaviour.”

“Remember, the Taliban is craving for recognition,” says Mr Prasad. “They know that will only happen after internal reforms.” Like bringing women back into public life and restoring their rights to education, work and political participation.

Queen Elizabeth II was not officially informed for almost a decade that one of her most senior courtiers had confessed to being a Soviet spy, according to newly released MI5 files.

Art historian Anthony Blunt was for decades Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, overseeing the official Royal Art Collection, and in 1964 admitted he had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s.

Papers released by MI5 show that although Blunt confessed to them he had spied for the Russians during World War Two, the late queen herself was not officially told for nearly nine years.

When she was informed of the full story in the 1970s, she was characteristically unflappable, taking it “all very calmly and without surprise”, according to the declassified files released to the National Archives.

The decision to formally inform the queen came amid growing concerns in Whitehall that the truth would inevitably come out after Blunt, who had been seriously ill with cancer, died. Journalists were already investigating the story and they were no longer constrained by concerns of libel.

Suspicion first fell on Blunt in 1951, when his fellow spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the Soviet Union.

He had been a close friend of Burgess since their time at Cambridge together in the 1930s – part of the so-called Cambridge Five group of spies.

During World War Two Blunt had worked for MI5, after 1951 he was interviewed 11 times by the Security Service, but always denied espionage.

Then the American Michael Straight told the FBI he’d been recruited by Blunt himself as a Russian agent.

In April 1964 the MI5 interrogator Arthur Martin confronted Blunt, and promised him immunity from prosecution.

His full confession is included for the first time in these files. As well as acknowledging his wartime work, he admitted to being in touch with the Russian Intelligence Service after the war.

Blunt said he met a Russian named Peter before the departure of Burgess and Maclean, but he could not recall exactly why. He said the so-called Peter encouraged him to flee too, but he declined.

The interrogator said Blunt was not “at ease” as he spoke, and every question “was followed by a long pause” while he “seemed to be debating with himself how to answer it”.

Despite Blunt’s prominent position, few outside MI5 were told of this confession. The home secretary and his most senior civil servant were informed.

The queen’s private secretary was told only that Blunt had been implicated and that MI5 intended to interrogate him.

It was agreed that if Blunt became seriously ill, she would be officially informed, because that might prompt press coverage of his past.

In March 1973 another file note records that the queen’s private secretary had spoken to her about the Blunt case. It reads: “She took it all very calmly and without surprise: she remembered that he had been under suspicion way back in the aftermath of the Burgess/Maclean case”.

Miranda Carter, Blunt’s biographer said her “hunch” was Elizabeth II was told informally some time after 1965.

She believes officials “wanted to keep a curtain of plausible deniability”. That the monarch took the news “calmly and without surprise” suggests to Carter that she must have known.

Blunt’s past was finally exposed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a Commons statement in 1979. He died in 1983 aged 75 having been stripped of his knighthood.

• Cambridge spy Kim Philby declared he would have done it all again after he finally confessed that he had been for years a Russian agent

• Blunt feared that his KGB handler would turn violent when he refused to join his fellow spies Burgess and Maclean and flee to Russia

• Film star Dirk Bogarde was warned by MI5 that he could be the target of a gay “entrapment” attempt by the KGB

• MI5’s top interrogator was baffled by Philby, admitting he could not determine whether he was a Soviet spy

Unlike government departments, MI5 is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. It releases its archives as it chooses and some files are partially redacted.

Some of the documents released today will feature in a forthcoming exhibition at the National Archives.

The Director General of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, said: “While much of our work must remain secret, this exhibition reflects our ongoing commitment to being open wherever we can.”

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At least 100,000 scores by the pioneering 20th century Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg have been destroyed in the Los Angeles wildfires.

The sheet music was kept at his family’s music production company – which burnt down in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood last week.

While no original manuscripts were lost, the music owned by Belmont Music Publishing had been the main collection of scores rented out to orchestras and musicians.

The director of the American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, said these had been an “indispensable resource” for performing musicians.

Schoenberg’s son, Larry, 83, said the sheet music had been kept in a building behind his house. Both buildings were razed in the fires last week.

Other Schoenberg memorabilia was also destroyed, including photographs, letters and posters.

“For a company that focused exclusively on the works of Schoenberg, this loss represents not just a physical destruction of property but a profound cultural blow,” said Larry in a statement.

He described the collection as “essential” for musicians who rely on the “meticulously curated editions” of his father’s back catalogue.

Arnold Schoenberg was born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1874. He went on to find huge success as a composer in Berlin before fleeing to the US in 1933 to avoid persecution from the Nazis.

He eventually settled in Los Angeles where he continued his groundbreaking compositions. He was known for atonality and his 12-tones technique which departed from conventional harmonies. He died in 1951 at the age of 76 in Los Angeles.

In a statement Belmont said it was hoping to create digital copies of the scores.

“We hope that in the near future we will be able to ‘rise from the ashes’ in a completely digital form,” the statement said.

Most of Schoenberg’s original manuscripts are held at a museum in Vienna, Austria.

Firefighters are still battling to control the huge wildfires in Los Angeles which began in early January. So far they have killed at least 24 people, destroyed thousands of buildings and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Two major blazes are still raging in Los Angeles including the largest fire at the Palisades which has burned through more than 24,000 acres.

President-elect Donald Trump would have been convicted of illegally trying to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election – which he lost – if he had not successfully been re-elected in 2024, according to the man who led US government investigations into him.

The evidence against Trump was “sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Special Counsel Jack Smith wrote in a partially released report.

Trump hit back, saying Smith was “deranged” and his findings were “fake”.

Trump was accused of pressuring officials to reverse the 2020 result, knowingly spreading lies about election fraud and seeking to exploit the riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. He denied any wrongdoing.

Trump, who was president at the time of the alleged crimes, subsequently spent four years out of office – but was successfully re-elected to the White House in November. He will return to the presidency next week.

• Five things in final 2020 election report into Trump

After his success in the 2024 vote, the various legal issues that he had been battling have largely evaporated. The interference case has now been dismissed.

Smith says in the report he “stands fully behind” the merits of bringing the prosecution and the strength of the case.

He went on to say it was only the fact the US Constitution forbids the prosecution of a sitting president that ended it.

“But for Mr Trump’s election [in 2024] and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”

Some of the material in Smith’s report was already known thanks to a public filing in October, which gave details of Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn his defeat.

But the report, which was released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) to Congress, gives further detail on why Smith pursued the case, and ultimately closed it.

• It justifies the case against Trump by accusing him of “unprecedented efforts to unlawfully retain power” through “threats and encouragement of violence against his perceived opponents”
• Running through Mr Trump’s “criminal efforts” were election fraud claims he knew to be false, it says
• The report details “significant challenges” faced by investigators, including Trump’s use of social media to target witnesses, courts, and justice department employees
• Denying the case was politically motivated, Smith says: “The claim from Mr Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the [President Joe] Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable”
• Smith further reflects in the accompanying letter: “While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters”

The 137-page document was sent to Congress after midnight on Tuesday, after a period of legal jostling that culminated in a judge clearing the way for the first part of Smith’s report to be released.

The judge, Aileen Cannon, ordered a hearing later in the week on whether to release the second part of the report – which focuses on separate allegations that Trump illegally kept classified government documents at his home in Florida.

Posting on his Truth Social website, Trump maintained his innocence, taunting Smith by writing that the prosecutor “was unable to get his case tried before the election, which I won in a landslide”.

Trump added: “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”

• Jack Smith resigns from Justice Department
• Trump avoids prison or fine in hush-money case sentencing

Smith was appointed in 2022 to oversee the US government investigations into Trump. Special counsels are chosen by the DoJ in cases where there is a potential conflict of interest.

In the interference case, Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the result of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.

Both this case and the separate classified documents case resulted in criminal charges against Trump, who pleaded not guilty and sought to cast the prosecutions as politically motivated.

But Smith closed the cases after Trump’s election in November, in accordance with DoJ regulations that forbid the prosecution of a sitting president.

The report explains: “The department’s view that the [US] Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind.”

It adds that prosecutors found themselves at a crossroads: “The [2024] election results raised for the first time the question of the lawful course when a private citizen who has already been indicted is then elected president.”

Tuesday’s release comes after a period of legal back-and-forth, during which Judge Cannon put a temporary stop on releasing the whole Smith report, over concerns that it could affect the cases of two Trump associates charged with him in the separate classified documents case.

Walt Nauta, Trump’s personal aide, and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, are accused of helping Trump hide the documents.

Unlike Trump’s, their cases are still pending – and their lawyers argued that the release of Smith’s report could prejudice a future jury and trial.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of US politics in his US Election Unspun newsletter.

Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Controversial online influencer Andrew Tate has been released from house arrest by a Romanian court, pending the outcome of a criminal investigation, his spokesman has said.

He has instead been put under judicial control, meaning he can travel through Romania “while adhering to the required legal conditions”, the spokesman added.

Tate, 38, is facing allegations of trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering, alongside his brother Tristan. Both have strongly denied the charges.

The spokesman added: “Andrew Tate and his team remain committed to full cooperation and the pursuit of justice.”

Tate was put under house arrest in August when prosecutors launched a second criminal investigation against himself and Tristan Tate, as well as four other suspects, over allegations of trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering. They all deny wrongdoing.

A first, separate case against the brothers was sent back to prosecutors by the Court of Appeals in Bucharest in December for the second time, saying it could not proceed in its current form.

In this case, Andrew and Tristan Tate were accused of human trafficking and forming an organised group to sexually exploit women.

They deny these allegations too, as well as those of rape and human trafficking that have been made against them in the UK, where police are seeking to extradite the dual UK-US nationals.

A judge in Bucharest has previously said that extradition request will be dealt with after the conclusion of the case in Romania.

The brothers have also been accused of tax evasion in the UK. Last month, a British court ruled that police could seize more than £2m ($2.4m) from them for failing to pay tax on £21m in revenue from their online businesses.

Andrew Tate said the ruling was “not justice” and called it a “co-ordinated attack”.

He is a self-described misogynist and has previously been banned from social media platforms for expressing those views.

A former kickboxer, he has gained millions of followers online and has lived in Romania for a number of years, having previously been based in the UK.

Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is preparing to cut about 5% of its global workforce, as the company looks to drop “low performers faster”.

In a memo to staff, boss Mark Zuckerberg said he had made the decision to speed up the firm’s regular performance-based cuts in anticipation of an “intense year”.

He said the company would “backfill” the roles later in 2025.

The company, which employs about 72,000 people globally, did not say how the cuts would be distributed around the world.

Workers in the US who are affected will know by 10 February, according to Mr Zuckerberg’s memo. Those outside the US will be informed “later”.

“This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams,” he wrote.

“I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster.”

The move comes on the heels of other big decisions by Mr Zuckerberg, including moves to end the company’s fact-checking and diversity programmes.

Performance-based job cuts are common in corporate America. At Meta, they would normally unfold over the course of a year, Mr Zuckerberg said, but the process is being accelerated this year.

Roughly 3,600 people could be affected this move. They will receive “generous severance”, he said.

The last big cuts at Meta came in 2023, when the company cut about 10,000 positions in a cost-cutting drive after Mr Zuckerberg declared it the “year of efficiency”. It cut about 11,000 roles in 2022.

Mr Zuckerberg also appears to be overhauling his own public image.

On a recent podcast with Joe Rogan, Mr Zuckerberg said he thought companies needed more “masculine energy” and discussed taking up martial arts, which he said he enjoyed because he felt he could more fully express himself, than in his corporate role.

“When you’re running a company, people typically don’t wanna see you being like this ruthless person who’s just like I’m gonna crush the people I’m competing with,” he said. “But when you’re fighting, it’s like no.”

“I think in some ways when people see me competing in the sport they’re like oh no, ‘That’s the real Mark.”

A “national strike” is being threatened as Mozambique’s president-elect is sworn in on Wednesday, more than three months since disputed elections.

Daniel Chapo, who is 48, took 65% of votes in a poll that opposition leaders, electoral observers and the public at large said was doctored.

The outcome sparked a wave of demonstrations – some peaceful but others violent – leading to chaos, including killings and vandalism.

Chapo’s biggest rival is Venâncio Mondlane. Last week, he returned from self-imposed exile. He spent time in South Africa where he says he survived an assassination attempt.

He is now calling on Mozambicans to take to the streets, once more, on inauguration day “against the thieves of the people”.

Both of Mozambique’s leading opposition parties – Renamo and MDM – say they are boycotting Wednesday’s swearing-in ceremony because they too do not recognise Chapo as the rightful winner.

Even those in Mozambique who do wish the president-elect well openly question his legitimacy.

“Chapo is someone I admire greatly,” civil society activist Mirna Chitsungo tells the BBC.

“I worked with him for four years – I am familiar with his willingness to act, his openness to dialogue, and his readiness to follow recommendations from civil society on the ground.

“However, he is assuming an illegitimate power. This stems from a fraudulent electoral process… He is taking power in a context where the people do not accept him.”

In addition to winning over a hostile public, Chapo will also have to deliver the economic turnaround and halt to corruption that he promised on the campaign trail.

“Chapo will face many enemies because it looks like Mozambique is run by cartels, including cartels of books, cartel of medicines, cartel of sugar, cartel of drugs, cartel of kidnappings, mafia groups,” says analyst and investigative journalist Luis Nhanchote.

“He needs to have a strong team of experts, willing to join him in this crusade of dismantling the groups meticulously,” he adds.

“But first, he has to calm down Mozambicans and do all in his power to restore peace in the country.”

Daniel Francisco Chapo was born on 6 January 1977 in a place called Inhaminga, Sofala province, the sixth of 10 siblings. These were the years of Mozambique’s civil war, and the armed conflict forced his family to move to another nearby district.

His secondary schooling in the coastal city of Beira was followed by a law degree from Eduardo Mondlane University then a master’s degree in development management from the Catholic University of Mozambique.

Now married to Gueta Sulemane Chapo, with whom he has three children, Chapo is also said to be a churchgoing Christian and enthusiast of basketball and football.

Many current and former colleagues describe Chapo as humble, hardworking and a patient leader.

Ahead of becoming the ruling Frelimo party’s presidential candidate he had been a radio and television host, a legal notary, university lecturer and provincial governor before rising to the post of general secretary in Frelimo.

Speaking at his recent birthday celebrations, Chapo himself acknowledged the daunting challenge awaiting him as president.

“We must recover our country economically… it’s easy to destroy, but building is not an easy task.”

National reconciliation, creating more jobs, reforming electoral law and decentralising power are top of his agenda, he said.

But how successful can he be without the country behind him?

At the very least he will mark a change from outgoing President Felipe Nyusi, whom Ms Chitsungo says many Mozambicans will be happy to see the back of.

“Chapo is a figure of dialogue and consensus, not one to perpetuate Nyusi’s violent governance style. He has the potential to negotiate with Mondlane.

“While Chapo may not fully satisfy all of Mondlane’s demands, I believe he could meet at least 50% of them,” adds Ms Chitsungo.

Mondlane – a part-time pastor and independent candidate who insists he was the true winner of the polls – is reported to be sheltering in one of the capital city’s hotels. It is not known what security protection he has there, nor who is paying for it.

He alleges that last week while touring a market in Maputo a vendor in his vicinity was shot, echoing the murder of two of his close aides in October.

As the mastermind of nationwide protests against the disputed election result, he has come to be seen by many as a voice for the voiceless. Yet, at present, the president-elect’s camp is not engaging him publicly.

Nonetheless, listening to the public’s grievances and demands, and sometimes ignoring the commands of his ruling Frelimo party, will be key to Chapo’s success, analysts have told the BBC.

Finding some way of engaging constructively with Mondlane would undoubtedly provide a boost, it seems.

Winning the public over may also require Chapo to say no to “fat salaries for the elite and fringe benefits, some of which are 10 times higher than Mozambique’s minimum wage”, argues Mr Nhachote.

Plus, if Chapo is to have any chance at bringing an end to the broader political crisis, he will require support from others to make lasting, structural change, argues prominent clergymen Rev Anastacio Chembeze.

“Perhaps we should remain sceptical of one single person to solve the challenges of Mozambique – change must start within the system itself.

“We should strive for a separation of powers within the state apparatus, the international monopolies have huge interests in the country, and we have serious ethical issues within the political elites to address it.”

Once in the office Chapo is advised to sack the country’s Police Chief Bernadino Rafael, analysts have told the BBC. He denies any wrongdoing but is regarded by some as the mastermind of the brutal response to the post-election protests.

They say they want him replaced with a successor who “respects human rights” and follows legal and international standards. Another suggestion analysts have touted is for a new attorney-general to be brought in.

Notably, Chapo will be the first president of Mozambique who did not fight in the independence war.

“He is part of the new generation. Part of his background is completely different from his predecessors – he was born in a country liberated by them,” says Mr Nhachote.

“If he wants to make a real mark on history, he has to challenge those past icons. If he can’t [manage that], I am sure that he will only run for one term.”

• Children shot dead after joining pot-banging protests in Mozambique
• Why Africa’s governing parties are having a tough time in elections
• Fresh faces in Mozambique’s poll as independence-era leaders bow out
• The poet who caught the eye of Mozambique’s freedom fighters

Nato has launched a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year.

Nato chief Mark Rutte said the mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”, would involve more patrol aircraft, warships and drones.

His announcement was made at a summit in Helsinki attended by all Nato countries perched on the Baltic Sea – Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden.

While Russia was not directly singled out as a culprit in the cable damage, Rutte said Nato would step up its monitoring of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” – ships without clear ownership that are used to carry embargoed oil products.

Tensions between Nato countries and Russia have been mounting relentlessly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“There is reason for grave concern” over infrastructure damage, Rutte said. He added that Nato would respond to such accidents robustly, with more boarding of suspect vessels and, if necessary, their seizure.

He declined to share more details on the number of assets that will take part in the Baltic Sentry initiative, as he said this could change regularly and that he did not wish to make “the enemy any wiser than he or she is already”.

Undersea infrastructure is essential not only for electricity supply but also because more than 95% of internet traffic is secured via undersea cables, Rutte said, adding that “1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles) of cables guarantee an estimated 10 trillion-dollar worth of financial transactions every day”.

In a post on X, he said Nato would do “what it takes to ensure the safety and security of our critical infrastructure and all that we hold dear”.

There has been an uptick in unexplained damage to undersea infrastructure in the Baltic in recent months.

The most recent accident to undersea infrastructure saw an electricity cable running between Finland and Estonia be cut in late December.

Finnish coast guard crew boarded the oil tanker Eagle S – which was sailing under a Cook Islands flag – and steered it into Finnish waters, while Estonia deployed a patrol ship to protect its undersea power cable.

On Monday, Risto Lohi of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation told Reuters that the Eagle S was threatening to cut a second power cable and a gas pipe between Finland and Estonia at the time it was seized.

Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in December that damage to submarine infrastructure had become “so frequent” that it cast doubt on the idea the damage could be considered “accidental” or “merely poor seamanship”.

Tsahkna did not accuse Russia directly. Neither did Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who on Sunday said that while Sweden was not jumping to conclusions or “accusing anyone of sabotage without very strong reasons”, it was also “not naive”.

“The security situation and the fact that strange things happen time and time again in the Baltic Sea also lead us to believe that hostile intent cannot be ruled out.”

“There is little evidence that a ship would accidentally and without noticing it… without understanding that it could cause damage,” he said.

India’s latest diplomatic outreach to Afghanistan’s Taliban government signals a marked shift in how it sees the geopolitical reality in the region.

This comes more than three years after India suffered a major strategic and diplomatic blow when Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Two decades of investment in Afghanistan’s democracy – through military training, scholarships and landmark projects like building its new parliament – were swiftly undone. The collapse also paved the way for greater influence from regional rivals, particularly Pakistan and China, eroding India’s strategic foothold and raising new security concerns.

Yet, last week signalled a shift. India’s top diplomat Vikram Misri met Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai – the highest level of engagement since Kabul’s fall. The Taliban expressed interest in strengthening political and economic ties with India, calling it a “significant regional and economic power”.

Talks reportedly focused on expanding trade and leveraging Iran’s Chabahar port, which India has been developing to bypass Pakistan’s Karachi and Gwadar ports.

How significant is this meeting? Delhi has now given the Taliban leadership the de facto legitimacy it has sought from the international community since its return to power, Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, an American think-tank, told me.

“The fact that this treatment is coming from India – a nation that never previously had friendly relations with the Taliban, makes this all the more significant, and also a diplomatic triumph for the Taliban,” he says.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, countries have adopted varied approaches toward the regime, balancing diplomatic engagement with concerns over human rights and security. China, for example, has gone far: it has actively engaged with the Taliban, focusing on security and economic interests, and even has an ambassador in the country.

• Taliban welcomes first new Chinese ambassador since takeover

No country has formally recognised the Taliban government, but up to 40 countries maintain some form of diplomatic or informal relations with it.

That’s why experts like Jayant Prasad, a former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, are more circumspect about India’s outreach.

For the past three years, he says, India has maintained contact with the Taliban through a foreign service diplomat. India had closed its consulates in Afghanistan during the civil war in the 1990s and reopened them in 2002 after the war ended. “We didn’t want this hiatus to develop [again], so we wanted to engage. It is very simply a step up in relations,” he says.

India has “historical and civilisational ties” with Afghanistan, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament in 2023. India has invested more than $3bn (£2.46bn) in over 500 projects across Afghanistan, including roads, power lines, dams, hospitals and clinics. It has trained Afghan officers, awarded thousands of scholarships to students and built a new parliament building.

This reflects a lasting geopolitical reality. “Irrespective of the nature of the regime in Kabul – monarchical, communist, or Islamist – there has been a natural warmth between Delhi and Kabul,” The Indian Express newspaper noted.

Mr Kugelman echoes the sentiment. “India has an important legacy as a development and humanitarian aid donor in Afghanistan, which has translated into public goodwill from the Afghan public that Delhi is keen not to lose,” he says.

Interestingly, relations with Delhi appear to be easing amid rising tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan claims the hardline Pakistani Taliban (TTP) operates from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Last July, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told the BBC that Pakistan would continue attacks on Afghanistan as part of an operation aimed at countering terrorism. Days before talks between India and the Taliban, Pakistani airstrikes killed dozens in eastern Afghanistan, according to the Afghan government. The Taliban government condemned the strikes as violations of its sovereignty.

This marks a sharp decline in relations since the fall of Kabul in 2021, when a top Pakistani intelligence official was among the first foreign guests to meet the Taliban regime. At the time, many saw Kabul’s fall as a strategic setback for India.

“While Pakistan isn’t the only factor driving India’s intensifying outreach to the Taliban, it’s true that Delhi does get a big win in its evergreen competition with Pakistan by moving closer to a critical long-time Pakistani asset that has now turned on its former patron,” says Mr Kugelman.

There are other reasons driving the outreach. India aims to strengthen connectivity and access Central Asia, which it can’t reach directly by land due to Pakistan’s refusal of transit rights. Experts say Afghanistan is key to this goal. One strategy is collaborating with Iran on the Chabahar port development to improve access to Central Asia via Afghanistan.

“It is easier for Delhi to focus on the Afghanistan component of this plan by engaging more closely with the Taliban leadership, which is fully behind India’s plans as they would help enhance Afghanistan’s own trade and connectivity links,” says Mr Kugelman.

Clearly, India’s recent outreach helps advance its core interests in Taliban-led Afghanistan: preventing terrorism threats to India, deepening connectivity with Iran and Central Asia, maintaining public goodwill through aid, and countering a struggling Pakistan.

What about the downsides?

“The main risk of strengthening ties with the Taliban is the Taliban itself. We’re talking about a violent and brutal actor with close ties to international – including Pakistani – terror groups that has done little to reform itself from what it was in the 1990s,” says Mr Kugelman.

“India may hope that if it keeps the Taliban on side, so to speak, the Taliban will be less likely to undermine India or its interests. And that may be true. But at the end of the day, can you really trust an actor like the Taliban? That will be the unsettling question hovering over India as it continues to cautiously pursue this complex relationship.”

Mr Prasad sees no downsides to India’s current engagement with Afghanistan, despite concerns over the Taliban’s treatment of women. “The Taliban is fully in control. Letting the Taliban stew in its own juice won’t help Afghan people. Some engagement with the international community might pressurise the government to improve its behaviour.”

“Remember, the Taliban is craving for recognition,” says Mr Prasad. “They know that will only happen after internal reforms.” Like bringing women back into public life and restoring their rights to education, work and political participation.

Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq has resigned after growing pressure over an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh.

She had referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, after questions about links to her aunt, who was ousted last year as Bangladesh’s prime minister.

Sir Laurie said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but it was “regrettable” that Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.

Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.

• Bangladesh issues arrest warrant for ex-leader Sheikh Hasina

• Who is Tulip Siddiq?

Before her resignation was announced, Siddiq had been named in a second investigation in Bangladesh.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said the prime minister “dithered and delayed to protect” her.

Writing on X, she said: “It was clear at the weekend that the anti-corruption minister’s position was completely untenable. Yet Keir Starmer dithered and delayed to protect his close friend.

“Even now, as Bangladesh files a criminal case against Tulip Siddiq, he expresses ‘sadness’ at her inevitable resignation.

“Weak leadership from a weak prime minister.”

In a letter accepting Siddiq’s resignation, Sir Keir said the “door remains open” for her.

Siddiq, whose role as Economic Secretary to the Treasury included tackling corruption in UK financial markets, was named last month in an investigation into claims her family embezzled up to £3.9bn from infrastructure spending in Bangladesh.

Her aunt is the former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, head of the Awami League, who fled into exile after being deposed last year.

Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, also came under intense scrutiny over her use of properties in London linked to her aunt’s allies.

The Financial Times reported that one of the properties, a flat in King’s Cross, had been given to her by a person connected with the recently ousted Bangladeshi government.

According to the Mail on Sunday, in 2022 Siddiq had denied the flat was a gift and insisted her parents had bought it for her and had threatened the paper with legal action preventing publication of a story.

Labour sources subsequently told the newspaper the flat had been gifted to Siddiq by a property developer with alleged links to her aunt.

Sir Laurie spent eight days investigating the allegations after Siddiq referred herself to the standards watchdog.

In his letter, Sir Laurie said Siddiq “acknowledges that, over an extended period, she was unaware of the origins of her ownership of her flat in Kings Cross, despite having signed a Land Registry transfer form relating to the gift at the time”.

He said the MP “remained under the impression that her parents had given the flat to her, having purchased it from the previous owner”.

This had led to the public being “inadvertently misled” about the identity of the donor of the flat, added Sir Laurie.

Sir Laurie said this was an “unfortunate misunderstanding” which had led to Siddiq issuing a public correction of “the origins of her ownership after she became a minister”.

In the letter, Sir Laurie said: “A lack of records and lapse of time has meant that, unfortunately, I have not been able to obtain comprehensive comfort in relation to all the UK property-related matters referred to in the media.

“However, I have not identified evidence of improprieties connected with the actions taken by Ms Siddiq and/or her husband in relation to their ownership or occupation of the London properties that have been the subject of press attention.

“Similarly, I have found no suggestion of any unusual financial arrangements relating to Ms Siddiq’s ownership or occupation of the properties in question involving the Awami League (or its affiliated organisations) or the state of Bangladesh.

“In addition, I have found no evidence to suggest that Ms Siddiq’s and/or her husband’s financial assets, as disclosed to me, derive from anything other than legitimate means.”

In Bangladesh, there is an ongoing anti-corruption probe based on a series of allegations made by Bobby Hajjaj, a senior political opponent of Siddiq’s aunt Hasina.

Court documents seen by the BBC show that Hajjaj accused Siddiq of helping her aunt to broker a deal with Russia in 2013 that over-inflated the price of a new nuclear power plant in Bangladesh.

She attended the power plant’s signing ceremony and was pictured with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sir Laurie said Siddiq had “explained the context” of that visit as “solely for the social purpose of joining family and enjoying the tourist access to the city facilitated as a result of her aunt’s official visit as head of state”.

He said Siddiq had been clear that she had “no involvement in any inter-governmental discussions between Bangladesh and Russia or any form of official role”.

“I accept this at face value,” he said, “but should note that this visit may form part of investigations in Bangladesh.”

Sir Laurie added that Siddiq was a “prominent member of one of the principal families involved in Bangladesh politics” which had “exposed her to allegations of misconduct by association”.

“Given the nature of Ms Siddiq’s ministerial responsibilities… it is regrettable that she was not more alert to the potential reputational risks – both to her and the government – arising from her close family’s association with Bangladesh,” he said.

In a letter responding to Siddiq, Sir Keir said he accepted her resignation “with sadness” and thanked her for her “commitment” during her time as a minister.

He said Sir Laurie had assured him that “he found no breach of the ministerial code and no evidence of financial improprieties on [Siddiq’s] part”.

Sir Keir’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency is next door to Tulip Siddiq’s Hampstead and Highgate seat.

They were both elected MPs for the first time in 2015 and have enjoyed a close working relationship.

Labour MP Emma Reynolds has been appointed the new Economic Secretary to the Treasury to replace Siddiq.

Reynolds first became an MP in 2010, before losing her seat in 2019. She returned to parliament in 2024’s general election after a stint as managing director at a financial and professional services lobbying firm.

Ahead of her resignation, Siddiq had been named in a second investigation in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission filed a “First Information Report”, which the BBC has seen. The document names Tulip Siddiq as part of allegations against Sheikh Hasina and her administration.

The Anti-Corruption Commission alleges that Siddiq assisted her mother, Rehana Siddique, in influencing Hasina to “misuse her power and secure a plot in the highly valuable diplomatic area of East-Purachal New Town”.

The document says that Rehana Siddique “concealed her ownership of properties within the RAJUK area in Dhaka city”.

In relation to Tulip Siddiq, the document says: “Ms. Tulip Rizwana Siddique…used her special powers, to directly influence and assist Ms. Sheikh Hasina, the former Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh…influencing her to misuse her power as the highest official and public servant of the government to breach the trust criminally and, through her, influenced the public servants in charge of the project allocation.”

A spokesperson for Tulip Siddiq said: “No evidence has been presented for these allegations. Tulip Siddiq has not been contacted by anyone on the matter and totally denies the claims.”

The US markets watchdog has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk alleging he failed to disclose that he had amassed a stake in Twitter, allowing him to buy shares at “artificially low prices.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit alleges that the multi-billionaire Tesla boss saved $150m (£123m) in share purchases as a result.

According to SEC rules, investors whose holdings surpass 5% have 10 days to report that they have crossed that threshold. Musk did so 21 days after the purchase, the filing says.

In a social media post, Musk called the SEC a “totally broken organisation.”

He also accused the regulator of wasting its time when “there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished.”

“Musk’s violation resulted in substantial economic harm to investors,” the SEC complaint said.

In a statement emailed to BBC News, Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, described the lawsuit as a “sham” and “a campaign of harassment” against his client.

Twitter’s share price rose by more than 27% after Musk made his share purchase public on 4 April 2022, the SEC said.

Musk ended up buying Twitter for $44bn in October 2022 and has since changed the platform’s name to X.

The complaint was submitted by the SEC to a federal court in Washington DC on Tuesday.

The lawsuit also asked the court to order Musk to give up “unjust” profits and pay a fine.

The head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, announced in November that he will resign from his role when Donald Trump returns to the White House on 20 January.

That was after Trump said he planned to sack Mr Gensler on “day one” of his new administration.

Under Mr Gensler’s leadership, the SEC clashed with Musk, who is a close ally of the president-elect.

But Musk had run-ins with the SEC long before Mr Gensler took office.

In 2018, the regulator charged Musk with defrauding investors by claiming he had “funding secured” to take Tesla, the electric car company he leads, private.

He later settled the charges, stepping down as chairman of the firm’s board and agreeing to accept what was dubbed a Twitter sitter – limits on what he could write on social media about the company.

The Princess of Wales has revealed she is in remission from cancer after making an emotional return to the hospital where she received treatment.

In a message posted on social media, Catherine spoke of her “relief” and said she remained “focused on recovery”.

“As anyone who has experienced a cancer diagnosis will know, it takes time to adjust to a new normal. I am however looking forward to a fulfilling year ahead,” the princess wrote in the post, which she signed off as “C”.

Earlier, on a visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital in west London, Catherine thanked staff and empathised with cancer patients about the “tough” treatment but reassured them there was “light at the end of that tunnel”.

It is the first time it has been confirmed the princess is in remission from cancer.

She announced her diagnosis last March before she revealed in September she had completed her chemotherapy, saying: “Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus.”

Cancer Research UK says the word “remission” means that after treatment there is no sign of the cancer.

The charity says some cancers can come back so doctors tend to use the word remission not “cure”.

In her message on social media, Catherine thanked the Royal Marsden Hospital for its “exceptional” care and for looking after her “so well”.

She added: “My heartfelt thanks goes to all those who have quietly walked alongside William and me as we have navigated everything. We couldn’t have asked for more.”

On Tuesday morning, the princess had spoken to cancer patients at the Royal Marsden with the empathy of her own first-hand experiences, in her most significant solo royal engagement since her treatment ended.

Catherine told a woman who was having chemotherapy: “It’s really tough… It’s such a shock… Everyone said to me, ‘please keep a positive mindset, it makes such a difference’.”

Arriving as a visitor now rather than as a patient, the princess sympathised with those undergoing treatment – and described how she was still feeling the long-term effects.

“You think the treatment has finished and you can crack on and get back to normal, but that’s still a real challenge,” she said.

“The words totally disappear. And understanding that as a patient – yes, there are side effects around treatment, but actually there are more long-term side effects.”

Asked how she was feeling, Catherine said she was doing well, but added: “Sometimes from the outside we all think you’ve finished treatment and you go back to things. But it’s hard to get back to normal.”

The princess hugged Tina Adumou, who broke down in tears as she told how her 19-year-old daughter is in the intensive care unit.

Putting an arm around her, Catherine looked emotional and told her she was in the best possible place.

The princess said: “I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could do to help. I wanted to come and show my support for the amazing work that’s going on here, and for those who are going through treatment and having such a hard time.”

Catherine added: “Are you okay? Yes?”, then said, smiling: “There is light at the end of that tunnel. Very nice to meet you and best of luck. You are in the best of hands.”

The princess’s visit was the first time it had been disclosed that the Royal Marsden was the hospital where she had cancer treatment.

It is almost a year since the princess’s health problems were first revealed – with an announcement last January that she had undergone abdominal surgery.

Catherine then announced in a video statement in March that she was in the early stages of receiving cancer treatment – and in September released a video saying that her chemotherapy had ended.

Since the end of her treatment she has gradually returned to more public events, including Remembrance Sunday and her Christmas carol concert at Westminster Abbey, which were seen as positive signs of her recovery.

The princess has now made her first big engagement of 2025 – a return to the hospital where she was treated, going to see those who helped her at the Royal Marsden, which specialises in cancer treatment and research.

Catherine has become the hospital’s joint royal patron, with Prince William already a patron.

Diana, Princess of Wales, had been a previous royal patron.

The Royal Marsden, which treats 59,000 patients each year, was founded as a specialist cancer hospital in 1851.

• William wishes ‘incredible’ wife Kate happy birthday
• Kate at first work meeting since cancer treatment
• Princess makes surprise public visit in Southport

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Ukraine struck several targets deep inside Russia on Tuesday in what it says is its “most massive” attack of the war so far.

Ammunition depots and chemical plants were hit across several regions, some of which were hundreds of kilometres from the border, according to the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

Sources in Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency told the BBC the overnight attack was a “painful blow” to Russia’s ability to wage war.

Russia said it had shot down US-supplied Atacms missiles as well as UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and vowed to respond to the attack.

• The endgame in Ukraine: How the war could come to a close in 2025
• Tears as families reunited in Russia-Ukraine prisoner exchange

At least nine airports in central and western Russia temporarily halted traffic, while the strikes prompted schools in the southwestern Saratov region to close.

Strikes in the border region of Bryansk caused explosions at a refinery, ammunition depots and a chemical plant said to produce gunpowder and explosives, a Ukrainian security source told the BBC.

But Kyiv also struck far deeper into the country, with the General Staff claiming to have hit targets up to 1,100km (700 miles) from the border.

In the western region of Saratov, officials reported a “massive” drone attack.

Two industrial plants in the cities of Engels and Saratov were damaged, regional governor Roman Busargin wrote on Telegram.

Students were taught online on Tuesday after local schools were closed.

Last week, Kyiv said it had struck an oil storage facility in Engels – prompting a days-long effort to tackle the blaze and Busargin to declare a state of emergency.

Officials in the western region of Tula also reported an overnight attack, where regional governor Dmitry Milyaev Russian said air defences had shot down 16 drones.

There were no casualties, he said, although falling debris had damaged some cars and buildings.

Elsewhere, a gas storage site near Kazan was struck in a drone attack in the southwestern region of Tatarstan, local officials said, without reporting any casualties.

Ukraine said Russia also launched dozens of drones across Ukraine overnight, with multiple air raid alerts in and around Kyiv.

According to its tally, all but one were shot down or lost.

Some were dummy, or decoy, drones – used to try to overwhelm air defences.

As air raid alarms sounded over Kyiv last night, one drone flew back and forth for some time, its movement tracked on various Telegram groups.

One user joked that it had been a “great idea” to send troops from the air force – who operate the air defence systems – to the front line as infantry.

Today, the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper quoted a source saying more than 5,000 troops were to be transferred from air to ground forces, following an order by General Oleksandr Syrskyi.

The acting commander of the Air Force responded by insisting that specialists “who are objectively difficult to replace” would not be moved, especially those trained on foreign-supplied weaponry and equipment. That presumably includes F16 planes and Patriot air defence systems.

The General Staff also commented, conceding that the situation on the frontline “is not easy” with a shortage of infantry “in many areas.”

“The decision to strengthen the ground brigades on the front line at the expense of servicemen from units of other types and branches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is a forced step of the military leadership to strengthen our defence,” a statement read.

It was, Ukraine says, a fiery night in Russia.

Videos posted online seem to confirm at least some of the claims – although the defence ministry in Moscow says US- and British-made missiles were shot down over Bryansk and the Black Sea.

The BBC asked Ukraine’s General Staff to comment on Russian claims that they shot down 14 of these Western-made missiles overnight.

A spokesman, Bohdan Senyk, said his office had “no knowledge of the information you are asking about”.

Ukraine is trying to push back, however it can, against Russian military advances on the ground, with a week to go until President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The authorities in Kyiv have come under pressure from the US administration to lower the conscription age and enable it to send more soldiers to the frontlines.

Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz recently told ABC News that Ukraine should address its shortage of troops and needed to be “all in for democracy” if it wants the US to be “all in” for Ukraine.

They were stark words, given the immense price Ukraine has already paid to defend itself and Nato’s eastern flank, and they seemed to herald a change of tone from Washington as Trump returns to the White House.

On Tuesday in Kyiv, Zelensky said again that there was no point lowering the age of conscription from 25 to 18 when those Ukrainian troops already deployed are short on weapons.

“We have more than 100 brigades on the battlefield, and each of them requires daily replenishment and equipment,” Zelensky said.

Kyiv often claims its allies are slow to send the weapons it has promised, including air defence systems and missiles.

Trump has said he is preparing to meet Vladimir Putin upon his return to the White House – and to make ending the war in Ukraine a priority.

He has not made clear how he plans to do that.

Palestinians and Israelis have expressed cautious optimism that a deal on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages held there is close after 15 months of devastating war.

“I can’t believe that I am still alive to witness this moment,” 17-year-old Sanabel said in a voice note sent from Gaza City. “We’ve been waiting for this with bated breath since the first month of [last] year.”

Sharon Lifshitz, whose elderly father is among the remaining hostages, said: “I’m trying to breathe. I’m trying to be optimistic. I’m trying to imagine it’s possible that a deal will happen now and that all the hostages will return.”

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that there were no major issues blocking a deal between Israel and Hamas and that the indirect talks in Doha were focused on “the final details of reaching an agreement”.

An Israeli government official said the talks had made “real progress” and entered a critical and sensitive period, while Hamas said it was satisfied with the status of the negotiations.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a deal was “right on the brink”.

Sanabel, who lives with her family in their partially destroyed home, told the BBC’s OS programme that everyone in northern Gaza was “feeling happy, cheerful, optimistic to see their best friends, to see their families who were displaced to the south of the Gaza Strip, to start over”.

The teenager said she had called her displaced best friend and discussed “what we would do if the war ended”, adding that she would start by trying to “make up for every moment that deprived me of seeing her”.

“But after I called her, there was a huge bomb in my area. This reminded me of the [last ceasefire and hostage release deal] in November 2023. There were huge bombs and missiles [before it started]. I’m really frightened that this will be repeated.”

“In the last hours of this war, I don’t want to lose one of my family members. I don’t want a ceasefire for a year or five months. I want a ceasefire for a long time – for the rest of our lives.”

Asmaa Tayeh, a young graduate who is sheltering with her family at her grandparents’ house in the western Gaza City neighbourhood of al-Nasr, also said people were once again daring to hope.

“You can never imagine how excited and nervous people are here,” she told the BBC. “Everyone is waiting as if they will only survive after the announcement.”

Asmaa is from Jabalia, Gaza’s largest urban refugee camp, whose residents have been forced to evacuate their homes multiple times by the Israeli military.

When the Israeli military launched a new ground offensive in Jabalia in October, Asmaa’s family was forced to flee once more.

Fierce fighting has raged in Jabalia ever since. In December, Asmaa said her whole area had been “wiped out”.

Relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since October 2023 have also been speaking to the BBC about the news that a ceasefire deal could be imminent.

Sharon Lifshitz is a British-Israeli artist and filmmaker whose has had no news about her 84-year-old father Oded since the woman who was being held with him was released during the week-long ceasefire in November 2023.

“For us, we know there will be so much heartbreak. We know quite a few of [the hostages] are not alive anymore. We are desperate for the return first of the living ones so they can come back to their families. Each of them is a whole world,” she told the Today programme.

She said her mother, Yocheved – who was also abducted in the 7 October attack but was released weeks later – was sceptical about the chances of a deal but that “I can feel the cracks of optimism coming through”.

Eyal Kalderon – the cousin of 54-year-old Ofer Kalderon, two of whose children were among the 105 hostages released from captivity in November – said in a voice note sent to BBC OS: “We are hoping that the deal will be closed soon and we will reach the moment that we are hugging Ofer, that his four children are hugging him.”

“We want this deal to include all the hostages, all the 98 hostages. We are demanding that. We are just hoping to see all of them in Israeli [territory].”

Lee Siegel – the brother of Keith Siegel, 64, whose wife Aviva was also released in November – insisted: “All of the hostages must come home – those who are still alive, to work on rebuilding their lives and their families; those who are deceased, for a proper burial in their home country.”

Some families of hostages not included in the initial releases expressed anger that their relatives might be left behind if the deal falters at a later stage.

Ruby Chen’s son, Itay, was killed during the 7 October 2023 attack and his body is being held in Gaza.

“The prime minister unfortunately is moving ahead with a deal that does not include my son and 65 additional hostages, where it is not known how my son is going to come out. And for most of the families this deal is unacceptable,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing opposition from far-right cabinet ministers and some in his own party, who object to prisoner releases and a wider ceasefire deal.

Sharon Lifshitz said a majority of Israelis had supported such a deal for a “very long time”, but that a combined pressure from the administrations of outgoing US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump had finally given Netanyahu’s government the “extra push” it needed.

“It appears that this deal is very much the deal that was on the table in July,” she added. “Many, many hostages died since July. Soldiers, Palestinians. So much suffering.”

Speaking later on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he was confident a majority in the Israeli government would support a deal.

Meanwhile Blinken – approaching the end of his tenure as US secretary of state – laid out for the first time the plan the Biden administration wants to hand over to Trump for post-war Gaza.

It did not envisage immediate full control of Gaza by the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the entity created by the Oslo accords that has limited governance in parts of the occupied West Bank.

Critically, Gaza’s security forces would be comprised of personnel from other countries – most likely Arab states although he didn’t name them – alongside “vetted” Palestinian forces.

Blinken said, as he has before, that Hamas had sought to spark a regional war and derail US-led efforts to integrate Israel and its Arab neighbours.

Meanwhile Israel, he said, had pursued its military campaign “past the point” of destroying Hamas’ military capacity and killing its leaders responsible for the 7 October attack.

He suggested this was self defeating, adding that the US assessed Hamas had recruited almost as many new militants as Israel had killed.

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

More than 46,640 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Most of the 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to an struggle to get aid to those in need.

Israel says 94 of the hostages are still being held by Hamas, of whom 34 are presumed dead. In addition, there are four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for defence secretary, cleared his first hurdle on the way to confirmation: a long – and at times tense – hearing before the Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

For more than four hours on Tuesday, Hegseth faced questions about his ability to run the defence department, including its three million employees and $849bn (£695bn) budget.

And although he was grilled by Democrats over accusations of sexual assault, infidelity and drinking in the workplace, he appears all but certain to be confirmed to the role after no Republicans came out against him.

This was underscored later on Tuesday when Joni Ernst, one Republican who had been seen as a potential roadblock to his nomination, said she would support him.

Here’s a look at the five main takeaways from Hegseth’s testimony.

From the very start of his testimony, Hegseth, a military veteran, emphasised what he called a “warrior culture”, vowing to return the focus of the defence department to the strength of America’s military.

“Warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness. That’s it. That is my job,” he said in his opening statements.

As the hearing continued, Hegseth was critical of policies he felt harmed the efficiency and “lethality” of the military, namely efforts aimed at racial and gender diversity.

“This is not a time for equity,” he said, adding that he opposes quotas, which he claims hurt morale.

In what became an expectedly partisan hearing, Democrats repeatedly grilled Hegseth on his past statements suggesting women were not suited to serve in combat roles in the military.

Questions along these lines from Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Mazie Hirono and Elizabeth Warren provided some of the most heated moments of the morning.

He spoke over Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, as she tried to point to comments about female service members stretching back years.

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“Mr Hegseth, I’m quoting you in a podcast: ‘Women shouldn’t be in combat at all’,” Warren said.

Hegseth remained composed, responding by saying his concern was not women in combat, but simply maintaining “standards” in the military.

Hegseth, who at 44 would be the youngest defence secretary in decades, also answered questions about his preparedness to run the defence department, a sprawling agency.

The former Fox News host described himself as a “change agent”, saying “it’s time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm.”

Some Republicans deemed Hegseth’s lack of experience a strength.

“I just want to say for all the talk of experience and not coming from the same cocktail parties that permanent Washington is used to, you are a breath of fresh air,” Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, said.

A graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, Hegseth was an infantry platoon leader in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Hegseth, also a former Fox News TV host, has military experience in Afghanistan as well.

Still, Democrats pressed Hegseth on his qualifications for the top military job. Reporting from US media found that Hegseth’s tenures at the helm of two non-profit veterans groups ended in financial disarray.

Combat veteran Tammy Duckworth focused on whether Hegseth had ever supervised an audit.

“Senator, in both of the organisations I ran, we were always completely fiscally responsible,” Hegseth began, before Duckworth cut in.

“Yes or no? Did you lead an audit? Do you not know this answer?” Duckworth said.

Some experts told the BBC they were most struck by how little Hegseth talked about how he’d handle the job’s military complexities.

Aside from brief mentions of China and the war in Ukraine and Russia, senators did not ask Hegseth specifically about current conflicts, and other potential military adversaries and strategic rivals.

Those fundamental issues were mostly “crowded out” by the questions about Hegseth’s character and competence, said Mara Karlin, former assistant defence secretary for strategy, plans, and capabilities.

“What’s astonishing about the hearing is just how little focus there has been on the bread and butter of what the secretary of defence has to do, which is protect the nation, and ensure you have a military capable of winning conflicts,” Karlin said.

Senate Armed Services Committee member Tammy Duckworth was also unimpressed with what Hegseth had to say about military strategy.

“He couldn’t answer some of the most basic questions I asked of him,” the Democratic Senator from Illinois told the BBC.

Duckworth said that Hegseth could not name a single country that is in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – “basic questions that any international affairs college student would be able to answer”.

“All he did today was reaffirm to me that he’s not qualified for this job,” she said.

A 2017 accusation of sexual assault in Monterey, California, which surfaced soon after Trump tapped him for the Pentagon role, came up repeatedly.

According to a police report, an unnamed woman said Hegseth took her phone and blocked the door when she tried to leave his hotel room before sexually assaulting her.

Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer acknowledged Hegseth had paid an undisclosed amount to stay quiet about the incident.

On Tuesday, Hegseth mainly went on the offensive, decrying a “coordinated smear campaign” orchestrated by the left-wing media. “They want to destroy me.”

But at other times in the hearing, Hegseth responded to questions about his conduct with passionate references to his Christian faith.

“I am not a perfect person, but redemption is real,” he said.

Senator Tim Kaine, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, found these statements to be unsatisfactorily contradictory.

Referencing the allegations of sexual assault, views on women and drinking, Kaine repeatedly asked Hegseth during the confirmation hearing how Hegseth can be both a changed man and the allegations against him be meritless.

“If all those allegations were false, then what do you mean you changed and reformed,” Kaine told the BBC.

President Joe Biden is to remove the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism as part of a prisoner release deal, the White House said on Tuesday.

Shortly afterwards, Cuba announced it would release 553 prisoners detained for “diverse crimes”. It is hoped these will include participants in anti-government protests four years ago.

President-elect Donald Trump reinstated the country’s terror designation in the final days of his first presidency in 2021, banning US economic aid and arms exports to the country.

But on Tuesday, a Biden administration official said an assessment of the situation had presented “no information” that supported the designation.

Cuba said Biden’s move was a step “in the right direction” despite its “limited nature”.

“This decision puts an end to specific coercive measures that, along with many others, cause serious damage to the Cuban economy, with a severe effect on the population,” the country’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.

Hundreds of prisoners will “gradually” be freed following talks brokered by the Catholic Church, a separate statement read a few hours later.

Details about the prisoners have not been announced – it was hoped the deal would prompt the release of some protesters imprisoned after large anti-government protests in Cuba over the nation’s economic decline in 2021.

Cuba currently sits alongside North Korea, Syria and Iran on the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

This means they are deemed by the US to have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”.

Adding Cuba back to the list after its removal in 2015 by President Barack Obama, Trump citied the communist country’s backing of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

At the time Cuba called the move “cynical,” “hypocritical” and an act of “political opportunism”.

Alongside prompting the prisoner release, this decision is also significant because it can be seen as a step towards normalising relations between Cuba and the US.

This could pave the way for dialogue on other contentious issues.

It could also help Cuba’s dire economic situation, as some major banks and foreign investors have struggled to operate there legally.

Biden is to notify Congress of his plans, which also include reversing Trump-era financial restrictions on some Cubans, a White House statement said.

He will also suspend the ability of individuals to make claims to confiscated property in Cuba, the statement read.

It is unclear whether Trump will reverse this latest decision when he returns to office on 20 January.

The president-elect’s nominee as the next US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has long advocated for sanctions on Cuba.

His family left the country in the 1950s before the communist revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

At least 25 people have died in the Los Angeles fires as two major blazes continue to burn across the sprawling US city.

Firefighters made progress over the weekend in containing the Palisades and Eaton fires but warn that the return of high winds – forecast until Wednesday – could see these two spread again, or fuel new ones.

The fires are already among the most destructive in LA’s history when measured by the number of buildings destroyed. Rebuilding work will cost “tens of billions” of dollars, US President Joe Biden has said.

An area to the north-west of the city centre is described by officials as “particularly dangerous”.

A red flag warning – indicating a high level of fire danger – is in place until 18:00 (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday, with the strongest Santa Ana winds expected on Tuesday.

Nearby, the largest fire is in the Palisades area, and has burnt through more than 23,000 acres. It is still only about 14% contained, despite the efforts of thousands of firefighters.

The blaze is moving east, threatening the exclusive neighbourhood of Brentwood, home to the Getty Center, a world-famous art museum that has evacuated its staff.

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Another fire, Eaton, is more deadly than Palisades so far – responsible for 16 of the deaths.

The overall destruction is immense, with more than 12,000 structures – homes, outbuildings, sheds, mobile homes and cars – destroyed. Celebrities Mel Gibson and Paris Hilton are among those who have lost their homes.

Tens of thousands of homes are also without power.

The fires could turn out to be the costliest in US history, with damage projected at up to $150bn, according to a preliminary estimate by AccuWeather.

There are three active fires in the wider area, while a smaller fire is nearly contained, say California fire officials:

• Palisades: The first fire to erupt a week ago and the biggest in the region. It has scorched more than 23,000 acres as of Tuesday, including the upmarket Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, and is only 14% contained
• Eaton: Affecting the northern part of LA, blazing through areas such as Altadena. It is the second biggest fire in the area, burning more than 14,000 acres. It is now 33% contained
• Hurst: Located just north of San Fernando, it began burning last Tuesday. It has grown to 799 acres, but is almost fully contained
• Auto: Broke out on Monday. It has reportedly been stopped from moving forwards after spanning 56 acres, according to Ventura County officials

The earlier Kenneth, Archer, Sunset, Lidia, Woodley and Olivas fires have been contained.

Containment describes the progress firefighters make in controlling the spread of flames. It is often listed as a percentage. For example, if a fire is 14% contained, that means fire crews have established barriers around 14% of the fire’s perimeter.

Natural barriers include roads, rivers and oceans. Firefighters can also create barriers using equipment such as bulldozers, hoses and shovels to remove vegetation down to the bare soil, meaning there is nothing for the fire to burn.

A fire being 100% contained doesn’t mean it has been extinguished, but rather that the flames have been fully encircled and the spread has been effectively stopped.

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Detectives continue to investigate the possible causes.

Lightning – the most common source of fires in the US – has been ruled out as a cause for the Palisades and Eaton fires.

There has been no official indication so far that arson or utility lines – the next two biggest culprits in sparking fires – caused any of the conflagrations.

However, in the case of the Eaton fire, legal cases have been filed against the electrical company, Southern California Edison Company (SCE), claiming there is evidence that the blaze – one of the largest – was ignited due to negligence of the firm’s overhead wires.

SCE has vowed to “review the complaint when it is received”, pointing out that “the cause of the fire continues to be under investigation”.

A spokeswoman added that the company “remains committed” to supporting communities affected by the fires.

On Friday, SCE said authorities were investigating whether its infrastructure was involved in the ignition of the separate Hurst fire.

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California’s very wet years of 2022-23 brought about a huge growth of vegetation, which dried out in the drought of last year, creating abundant kindling.

Conditions have been ripe for wildfires thanks to a combination of an exceptionally dry period – downtown LA has only received 0.16 inches (0.4cm) of rain since October – and powerful offshore gusts known as the Santa Ana winds.

A political row about the city’s preparedness has erupted after it emerged some fire crews’ hoses ran dry.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has called for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to hydrants and why the Santa Ynez Reservoir was closed for maintenance and empty when the fire broke out.

“Losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors,” he wrote.

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LA Mayor Karen Bass, who was on a previously arranged trip to Ghana when the fires began, has faced intense questions about the region’s preparedness and the water issues. On Saturday, she deflected questions about her handling of the emergency.

Before the fires broke out, the city of LA’s fire chief warned in a memo that budget cuts were hampering the department’s ability to respond to emergencies. But another official, the LA County fire chief, denied his department had been unprepared.

Although strong winds and lack of rain are driving the blazes, experts say climate change is altering the background conditions and increasing the likelihood of such fires.

Much of the western United States including California experienced a decades-long drought that ended just two years ago, making the region vulnerable.

“Whiplash” swings between dry and wet periods in recent years created a massive amount of tinder-dry vegetation that was ready to burn.

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US government research is unequivocal in linking climate change to larger and more severe wildfires in the western US.

“Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.

Fire season in southern California is generally thought to stretch from May to October – but the Governor Newsom has pointed out earlier that blazes are now a perennial issue. “There’s no fire season,” he said. “It’s fire year.”

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No one can say when the Los Angeles fires will finally go out. The city is bracing for continued burning and a possible spread amid the latest wind warnings.

The Santa Ana winds that fanned the flames are set to strengthen, with strong gusts on Tuesday before the severity is expected to drop. There are now new red flag warnings for dangerous wind storms.

The other conditions that fed the fire – dry brush and lack of precipitation – continue as well.

Have you been affected by the fires in California? Get in touch here.

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Sam Kerr, the Chelsea striker who captains the Australia women’s national football team, has appeared in court charged with racially aggravated harassment of a police officer.

She attended a hearing at Kingston Crown Court in relation to an incident in Twickenham, south-west London, on 30 January 2023.

The all-time leading scorer for her country pleaded not guilty to the charge at the same court in March.

The 31-year-old’s trial is scheduled to take place on 3 February.