Democrats are pressing Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, to use his last days in office to release the second volume of the special counsel’s report about Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents.

The demand comes after the justice department this week published the first part of Jack Smith’s report, which looked at the president-elect’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including inciting a violent mob to attack the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

That report concluded that Trump would have faced probable conviction had he not won the 2024 election, after which Smith – who resigned last week – dropped the case against him.

“It is in the public interest for the Department of Justice to expeditiously release the second volume of special counsel Smith’s report so the American people have as full an accounting as possible of Donald Trump’s lawless and criminal conduct,” said Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee.

The second volume is being withheld on the order of a US federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, on the basis that it would prejudice the case of two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who face charges of conspiring with Trump to hide a trove of documents from his first term as president at his Mar-a-Lago home.

The report is believed to detail Trump’s efforts to illegally withhold and conceal a large number of documents containing highly sensitive national security secrets after he removed them from the White House. They were eventually retrieved by FBI agents in 2022 after the justice department authorised a search of Trump’s home.

Cannon has scheduled a court hearing for Friday to consider the case for releasing or withholding the second volume.

Garland – who has been criticised by Democrats, including Joe Biden, for waiting too long to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump – has said he intends to keep the report secret while waiting for the case against Nauta and De Oliveira to play out – but with that case expected to be shelved after Trump’s incoming administration takes over the justice department next week, that would mean Smith’s charges would be unlikely to ever see the light of day.

Garland has suggested releasing the report just to House and Senate judiciary committee members for review.

But Democrats on the House judicial committee said that was insufficient and that a wider release to put the report in the public domain is essential.

“It is in the very nature of American democracy that the people have a right to know of the public actions of their public officials, and it is essential to the rule of law that Justice Department special counsel reports continue to be available and accessible to the public,” they wrote to Garland.

“As Attorney General, it is incumbent upon you to take all necessary steps to ensure the report is released before the end of your tenure, including, if necessary, by simply dismissing the remaining criminal charges against Mr Trump’s co-conspirators, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.”

Trump’s lawyers will try to persuade Cannon – who was appointed to the bench by Trump and has consistently ruled in his favour in the case – to prohibit even a limited disclosure to Congress, arguing that the report could leak.

Democrats are pressing Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, to use his last days in office to release the second volume of the special counsel’s report about Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents.

The demand comes after the justice department this week published the first part of Jack Smith’s report, which looked at the president-elect’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including inciting a violent mob to attack the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

That report concluded that Trump would have faced probable conviction had he not won the 2024 election, after which Smith – who resigned last week – dropped the case against him.

“It is in the public interest for the Department of Justice to expeditiously release the second volume of special counsel Smith’s report so the American people have as full an accounting as possible of Donald Trump’s lawless and criminal conduct,” said Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee.

The second volume is being withheld on the order of a US federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, on the basis that it would prejudice the case of two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who face charges of conspiring with Trump to hide a trove of documents from his first term as president at his Mar-a-Lago home.

The report is believed to detail Trump’s efforts to illegally withhold and conceal a large number of documents containing highly sensitive national security secrets after he removed them from the White House. They were eventually retrieved by FBI agents in 2022 after the justice department authorised a search of Trump’s home.

Cannon has scheduled a court hearing for Friday to consider the case for releasing or withholding the second volume.

Garland – who has been criticised by Democrats, including Joe Biden, for waiting too long to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump – has said he intends to keep the report secret while waiting for the case against Nauta and De Oliveira to play out – but with that case expected to be shelved after Trump’s incoming administration takes over the justice department next week, that would mean Smith’s charges would be unlikely to ever see the light of day.

Garland has suggested releasing the report just to House and Senate judiciary committee members for review.

But Democrats on the House judicial committee said that was insufficient and that a wider release to put the report in the public domain is essential.

“It is in the very nature of American democracy that the people have a right to know of the public actions of their public officials, and it is essential to the rule of law that Justice Department special counsel reports continue to be available and accessible to the public,” they wrote to Garland.

“As Attorney General, it is incumbent upon you to take all necessary steps to ensure the report is released before the end of your tenure, including, if necessary, by simply dismissing the remaining criminal charges against Mr Trump’s co-conspirators, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.”

Trump’s lawyers will try to persuade Cannon – who was appointed to the bench by Trump and has consistently ruled in his favour in the case – to prohibit even a limited disclosure to Congress, arguing that the report could leak.

Keir Starmer has announced a “historic” 100-year partnership with Ukraine, saying the UK would support the country “beyond this terrible war” and into a future where it is “free and thriving again”.

Speaking during his first trip to Kyiv as prime minister, Starmer said the unprecedented agreement reflected the “huge affection between our two countries”. He added that “right now Putin shows no signs of wanting to stop” his “unrelenting aggression”.

The point was dramatically underscored by a Russian drone flying over Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Mariinskyi Palace in Kyiv while the two leaders were in the middle of talks. Anti-aircraft fire erupted as the drone buzzed overhead.

Loud booms were heard as Ukrainian air defences tried to shoot it down. City officials said there had been no casualties, but that falling debris had damaged a car.

Starmer said the attack was a reminder of what Ukrainians experienced every day. “It makes it real for us,” he said. “It’s an everyday threat Ukraine is facing with incredible resolve and determination.”

Asked by a Ukrainian reporter about the aerial “hello from Moscow”, Zelenskyy told a joint press conference: “We will say hello to them as well.”

The century-long partnership agreement comes at a precarious time for Ukraine as Donald Trump is sworn back into office on Monday. He has vowed to end the war quickly and is expected to meet Vladimir Putin early in his presidency.

Starmer did not comment directly on how the UK may respond if the new White House abandons military support to Ukraine or forces it into a Moscow-friendly deal. Instead he paid tribute to Washington’s “vital” assistance to Kyiv. “We will continue to work with the US on this today, tomorrow and into the future,” he said.

The UK-Ukraine agreement includes £3bn of British support a year, to be continued indefinitely. Starmer said the UK would increase training for Ukrainian soldiers, provide mobile air defence systems and send 150 artillery barrels made by Sheffield Forgemasters – the first to be produced in 20 years.

Ukraine has been losing territory in recent months at the fastest rate since Russia’s full-scale 2022 ground invasion. Starmer conceded that the country was not in the “strongest position” before possible negotiations and that it needed robust security guarantees that would allow it to deter future aggression.

Zelenskyy said he was holding discussions with several European countries, including France, Britain and Poland – which Starmer will visit on Friday – about an international peacekeeping force. But he said it was too early to talk about details before Trump’s return to the Oval Office.

The best security guarantee for Ukraine was membership of Nato, Zelenskyy stressed. He said four countries were opposed to Kyiv’s accession: the US, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary. Starmer said Ukraine was on an “irreversible path” to joining the alliance.

Earlier the two leaders visited Kyiv’s golden-domed St Michael’s monastery. They laid flowers at a wall remembering the thousands of service personnel killed in the war with Russia next to a display of burned-out enemy tanks.

The prime minister also met soldiers at a hospital that specialises in burn injuries, and saw a building where two eminent scientists were killed on 1 January when a drone hit their upper-storey apartment.

The building is down the street from the president’s office. Timur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, told Starmer: “They were sending us a message – no one is safe.”

Before their meeting on Thursday, Starmer described Putin’s ambition to wrench Ukraine from its closest parters as “a monumental strategic failure”. “Instead, we are closer than ever, and this partnership will take that friendship to the next level,” he said.

“The power of our long-term friendships cannot be underestimated. Supporting Ukraine to defend itself from Russia’s barbaric invasion and rebuild a prosperous, sovereign future is vital to this government’s foundation of security and our plan for change.”

Zelenskyy conceded in Thurday’s press conference that his troops were being pushed back in the east of the country, but said he was optimistic the situation could be “stabilised”, as it had been on other parts of the frontline.

The Russian president has given no sign he is willing to call an end to the fighting. His demands are as maximalist as ever and include the handover of four Ukrainian regions that he “annexed” in 2022 including territory Moscow does not control; a veto on Kyiv’s Nato membership; and the replacement of Zelenskyy’s government with a pro-Kremlin aministration.

His apparent calculation is that Trump will swiftly end military assistance to Ukraine, which will enable further gains. Russian troops are closing in for the first time on Dnipropetrovsk oblast, a centre for Ukrainian defence production.

Starmer discussed the direction of the conflict after Trump’s return with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, at Chequers last week. The two leaders talked about the importance of offering Ukraine security guarantees.

The “100-year partnership” is also intended to boost economic links in non-military areas such as science, technology and culture. Starmer will announce £40m for economic recovery, which the government said would create opportunities for British companies.

A top Ukrainian official expressed frustration with Starmer’s new government in November and suggested relations with the UK had “gone backwards”. The supply of British long-range Storm Shadow missiles had stopped, the official said, adding that the prime minister had postponed a trip to Kyiv several times.

“It isn’t happening. Starmer isn’t giving us long-range weapons. The situation is not the same as when Rishi Sunak was prime minister. The relationship has got worse,” the official told the Guardian. Downing Street reacted to the comments with irritation and declined to comment on operational matters.

Ukraine has subsequently used Storm Shadow missiles against high-value targets, including in Kursk province. Ukrainian forces launched a small counter-invasion five months ago into the Russian border area and recently captured two North Korean soldiers.

As many as 50 people are thought to have died after a boat bound for the Canary Islands got into difficulties after a 13-day voyage along the perilous Atlantic migration route from west Africa.

The migration NGO Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) said the boat set off from Mauritania on 2 January carrying 86 people. It said it alerted the Moroccan and Spanish authorities after receiving reports that the boat was trouble, and that Moroccan rescuers had managed to save 36 people. But 50 of those onboard, most of them from Pakistan, are feared drowned.

“Fifty people have died on a boat headed for the Canary Islands, 44 of whom were Pakistani,” the charity’s CEO, Helena Maleno, wrote on X. “They spent 13 agonising days at sea without rescuers reaching them.”

The regional president of the Canary Islands offered his condolences and renewed his calls for action as the Spanish archipelago continues to receive record numbers of migrants and refugees who arrive by sea.

“We can’t just be witnesses to all this,” Fernando Clavijo wrote on X. “The state and Europe need to act. The Atlantic can’t carry on being the graveyard of Africa. We can’t keep turning our back on the humanitarian drama.”

Spain’s maritime rescue service, Salvamento Marítimo, said it had no information on the incident, but added that it had conducted an aerial search after receiving an alert on 10 January about a boat that had set out from Nouakchott in Mauritania.

“We cannot say whether that was the same shipwreck,” a spokesperson said.

Last year, 46,843 people reached the Canaries on the increasingly perilous Atlantic route, up from 39,910 in 2023.

According to a recent report from Caminando Fronteras, at least 10,457 people died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain by sea from 1 January to 5 December 2024.

The NGO said the death toll was a 50% increase on 2023 and the highest since its tallies began in 2007. It attributed the rise to the use of ramshackle boats, dangerous waters and a lack of resources for rescuers.

Frontex, the EU border and coastguard agency, said while irregular crossings on the central Mediterranean route dropped by 59% last year because of a decrease in departures from Tunisia and Libya, crossings to the Canaries rose by 18%. It said the rise was “fuelled by departures from Mauritania, even as flows from other departure points declined”.

Mark Carney, the “rock star central banker” who navigated a string of financial crises and became a leading global voice on the economic risks of climate change, has rapidly emerged as a favourite in the race to lead Canada’s Liberal party.

But the steepest challenge for Carney, a fixture at international summits and company boardrooms, may be getting Canadian voters – even those within his own party – to recognize him.

Carney, who served as governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, will announce his candidacy to replace Justin Trudeau, at an event in Edmonton late on Thursday. He is the first serious contender to enter the race, the winner of which will replace the outgoing prime minister as the Liberal party leader and, perhaps briefly, the next prime minister of Canada.

Despite his high international profile, Carney – like his rivals in the leadership contest – has little name recognition within Canada.

Polling this month by Abacus Data found that when shown a picture of Carney, 76% of Canadians could not identify him. Chrystia Freeland, the former finance minister, who is seen as Carney’s main competitor, fared much better: 51% recognized her when shown a photo.

Carney could perhaps take comfort in the fact that the dismal result was in fact an improvement on a previous poll in July, when 93% of respondents were not able to name him.

The result suggests Liberals may have much work to do in a short period of time.

“There’s a chance that when the new Liberal leader is announced and they become PM, more Canadians will be familiar with and recognize the Leader of the Opposition than the Prime Minister,” David Coletto, the head of Abacus Data, wrote in a post on social media.

So far, MPs Chandra Arya and Jaime Battiste and the former MP Frank Baylis are the only candidates to have officially joined the contest. Virtually all cabinet members have declined to run, citing the need to focus on tariffs imposed by the United States in the coming days. Freeland is expected to enter the race later this week. Liberal party members who are permanent residents or citizens and above the age of 14 are eligible to vote for the leader, who will be selected on 9 March.

The Alberta capital where Carney will launch his bid is a Conservative stronghold, but it is also where Carney spent his early life, after he was born in the small community of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. That story helps frame him as both a westerner and a northerner – valuable political identities in a country riven by geography.

Carney’s entrance into the race is a coup for Liberals who have for years tried to lure the former central banker to run as a federal party candidate. Trudeau also tried to recruit Carney as his minister of finance as recently as December, a failed gambit that saw him lose his close ally Freeland in the process.

On Wednesday, the Liberal MP George Chahal endorsed the 59-year-old economist, describing Carney not as a “career politician” but instead as a”great public servant who sought elected office after an accomplished career”.

That framing was seen as an attempt to blunt attacks from rival Conservatives, who have painted all the contenders as “Just Like Justin” – carbon copies of the country’s unpopular leader.

But the Tories, who lead in national polls, have focused their attacks on the banker, calling him “Carbon Tax Carney” in an attempt to link him to the country’s carbon levy, which the Conservatives have pledged to scrap.

Carney soft-launched his campaign this week with an appearance on The Daily Show, introducing himself to a United States audience amid an increasingly fractious bilateral relationship.

Carney defended Canada’s independence – a nod to Donald Trump’s threat that the United States would annex its northern neighbour. He joked that the countries could be “friends with benefits” but soberly noted that Canada needed to prepare for a sustained trade dispute.

Carney also defended the carbon tax – a policy that has become increasingly divisive against the backdrop of inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.

“For Canada, what we need to do is make sure that we’re addressing [climate] issues, doing our bit,” said Carney. “But we need to do it in a way that Canadians today are not paying the price.”

Afterwards, some Canadian commentators mused about the decision to appear on a US show.

“Others wonder whether he can perform better on a stage bigger than a New York television set after watching speeches he delivers to conferences in big ballrooms fall flat,” wrote a Toronto Star political columnist. “Since Trudeau announced last week he would resign, Carney has been talking to Liberals but not a broader audience of Canadians, addressed no questions from media in this country, and let his name float unanchored in any firm declaration.”

The moon has been placed on a list of threatened heritage sites, owing to fears of potential looting and destruction caused by planned commercial trips.

The watchlist of the World Monuments Fund (WMF) usually includes vulnerable cultural sites on Earth. This year’s selection – the first since 2022 – includes Qhapaq Ñan, a pre-Hispanic Andean road system. Antakya in Turkey and the Noto peninsula in Japan, which were damaged by earthquakes, also made the list.

Bénédicte de Montlaur, the president and chief executive of WMF, said the moon was included among the 25 sites because of “mounting risks amidst accelerating lunar activities”, which were, in the WMF’s opinion, “undertaken without adequate preservation protocols”.

SpaceX launched two lunar landers on Wednesday to conduct research for future missions. Only five countries – the US, China, India, Japan and the former Soviet Union – have successfully landed vehicles on the moon since the 1960s.

Private trips to the lunar surface are expected after Nasa’s Artemis III mission, scheduled for mid-2027, makes the first crewed touchdown since the early 1970s. These visits and other government-funded missions are the main cause for concern for the WMF. There is particular anxiety about tourists disturbing sites such as the footprints left by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

“For the first time, the moon is included … to reflect the urgent need to recognise and preserve the artefacts that testify to humanity’s first steps beyond Earth – a defining moment in our shared history,” Montlaur said.

“Items such as the camera that captured the televised moon landing; a memorial disk left by astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin; and hundreds of other objects are emblematic of this legacy … the inclusion of the moon underscores the universal need for proactive and cooperative strategies to protect heritage – whether on Earth or beyond – that reflect and safeguard our collective narrative.”

Montlaur told the Art Newspaper that amid a new era of space exploration, it was important to establish international mechanisms to protect the moon’s cultural landscape.

“Safeguarding lunar heritage will prevent damage from accelerating private and governmental activities in space, ensuring these artefacts endure for future generations,” she said.

The vast majority of the list is made up of sites that are either in conflict zones, such as Ukraine and Gaza, or at risk from the climate crisis.

The Swahili coast of Africa, which includes sites such as Lamu Old Town, Kenya; Fort Jesus, Kenya is listed, as is the Island of Mozambique, which is under threat from coastal erosion. The WMF has also added “Gaza’s historic urban fabric”, which has been devastated by the war with Israel.

There are also sites the organisation thinks could benefit from more sustainable tourism, such as the Orthodox monasteries of Drino Valley in Albania, and it flags that overcrowding at other sites, such as China’s Buddhist grotto sites Maijishan and Yungang, is putting them at risk.

The list in 2022 featured prehistoric cave paintings of Monte Alegre state park in the Brazilian Amazon, the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacán in Mexico and the pre-Columbian archaeological site Garcia Pasture in Texas.

The moon has been placed on a list of threatened heritage sites, owing to fears of potential looting and destruction caused by planned commercial trips.

The watchlist of the World Monuments Fund (WMF) usually includes vulnerable cultural sites on Earth. This year’s selection – the first since 2022 – includes Qhapaq Ñan, a pre-Hispanic Andean road system. Antakya in Turkey and the Noto peninsula in Japan, which were damaged by earthquakes, also made the list.

Bénédicte de Montlaur, the president and chief executive of WMF, said the moon was included among the 25 sites because of “mounting risks amidst accelerating lunar activities”, which were, in the WMF’s opinion, “undertaken without adequate preservation protocols”.

SpaceX launched two lunar landers on Wednesday to conduct research for future missions. Only five countries – the US, China, India, Japan and the former Soviet Union – have successfully landed vehicles on the moon since the 1960s.

Private trips to the lunar surface are expected after Nasa’s Artemis III mission, scheduled for mid-2027, makes the first crewed touchdown since the early 1970s. These visits and other government-funded missions are the main cause for concern for the WMF. There is particular anxiety about tourists disturbing sites such as the footprints left by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

“For the first time, the moon is included … to reflect the urgent need to recognise and preserve the artefacts that testify to humanity’s first steps beyond Earth – a defining moment in our shared history,” Montlaur said.

“Items such as the camera that captured the televised moon landing; a memorial disk left by astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin; and hundreds of other objects are emblematic of this legacy … the inclusion of the moon underscores the universal need for proactive and cooperative strategies to protect heritage – whether on Earth or beyond – that reflect and safeguard our collective narrative.”

Montlaur told the Art Newspaper that amid a new era of space exploration, it was important to establish international mechanisms to protect the moon’s cultural landscape.

“Safeguarding lunar heritage will prevent damage from accelerating private and governmental activities in space, ensuring these artefacts endure for future generations,” she said.

The vast majority of the list is made up of sites that are either in conflict zones, such as Ukraine and Gaza, or at risk from the climate crisis.

The Swahili coast of Africa, which includes sites such as Lamu Old Town, Kenya; Fort Jesus, Kenya is listed, as is the Island of Mozambique, which is under threat from coastal erosion. The WMF has also added “Gaza’s historic urban fabric”, which has been devastated by the war with Israel.

There are also sites the organisation thinks could benefit from more sustainable tourism, such as the Orthodox monasteries of Drino Valley in Albania, and it flags that overcrowding at other sites, such as China’s Buddhist grotto sites Maijishan and Yungang, is putting them at risk.

The list in 2022 featured prehistoric cave paintings of Monte Alegre state park in the Brazilian Amazon, the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacán in Mexico and the pre-Columbian archaeological site Garcia Pasture in Texas.

Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard has apologised after the film was engulfed in a wave of criticism over its depiction of Mexico.

A Spanish-language musical about a cartel boss who transitions to a woman, starring transgender actor Karla Sofía Gascón opposite Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez premiered in Mexico City on Wednesday before its Mexican release on 23 January.

Speaking to CNN, Audiard suggested the film was an “opera” and therefore not “realistic”, adding: “If there are things that seem shocking in Emilia Pérez then I am sorry … Cinema doesn’t provide answers, it only asks questions. But maybe the questions in Emilia Pérez are incorrect.”

The film, for which Audiard is the sole credited writer and which was shot in a studio near Paris, attracted considerable criticism for its lack of involvement of Mexican cast and crew, as well as for its cartel-related subject matter. Director and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto called it “completely inauthentic” and “troubling” while film critic Gaby Meza suggested it “exploit[ed] a current tragedy in Mexico, of drug trafficking and of those who have disappeared due to violence, in order to generate an entertainment product”.

Emilia Pérez has also attracted criticism for the portrayal of its central character. The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Glaad called it “a profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman”.

However Audiard has been defended by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, who described him as “one of the most amazing film-makers alive today”, while Gascón, who is Spanish, said on social media: “It’s a pity that [critics] use so many profiles to (uselessly) attack a film with such a beautiful message and representation, instead of using them to support Mexican films and creators.”

Audiard is one of France’s most acclaimed directors, whose prize-winning films include The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet and Rust and Bone. He won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2015 for Dheepan, a study of Sri Lankan immigrants in the Paris suburbs.

Emilia Pérez has performed strongly during the current awards season, winning four Golden Globes including for best musical or comedy film, and securing 10 Bafta nominations. Saldaña is widely expected to win the Oscar for best supporting actress, and Gascón is expected to be the first out trans actor to be nominated for best actress.

Neil Gaiman’s ex-partner Amanda Palmer has publicly acknowledged the allegations of sexual misconduct made against the author for the first time.

Posting on her Instagram account, the American singer wrote: “As there are ongoing custody and divorce proceedings, I am not able to offer public comment. Please understand that I am first and foremost a parent. I ask for privacy at this time.” Palmer and Gaiman, who married in 2011, and have one child together, are currently in the process of getting divorced.

NME also reported that, in reply to its request for comment after the most recent allegations against the author of The Sandman in New York Magazine, a representative for Palmer said that she is “profoundly disturbed” by the allegations, but that “at this time her primary concern is, and must remain, the wellbeing of her son and therefore, to guard his privacy, she has no comment on these allegations.”

In July, a podcast investigation by Tortoise media reported sexual assault allegations made against Gaiman by two women. Gaiman denied them at the time, saying that all of his sexual relationships were consensual.

Further allegations were made after the podcast was released, including by a woman who had worked as Gaiman’s caretaker in upstate New York who said that the author had put pressure on her to have sex with him in return for letting her live at his property, then made her sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for a $275,000 payment. Again, Gaiman’s position was that his relationship with her had been consensual.

For New York Magazine’s report on Monday, journalist Lila Shapiro interviewed eight women, six on the record, including the four women who had participated in the Tortoise podcast series. The accusations made by these women included claims of sexual assault, sexual misconduct and coercion.

On Tuesday, Gaiman published a statement on his website, denying all allegations against him, writing: “I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever.”

Since the allegations were first reported by Tortoise, two screen adaptations of Gaiman’s works have been cancelled or had their production paused, including Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives and a Disney adaptation of The Graveyard Book, which was in development. Meanwhile, the third and final season of the Amazon drama Good Omens will now be a feature length episode rather than a full season. None of the streaming services has confirmed that these decisions were made because of the allegations, but Deadline reported that Gaiman had stepped back from his involvement in Good Omens due to the allegations. None of the UK publishers of Gaiman’s books have yet made statements or responded to the Guardian’s requests for comment.

Wendy Williams has spoken out about her court-mandated guardianship in a rare interview on Thursday morning, saying that it makes her “feel like I’m in prison”.

The longtime TV host and personality called into the popular Breakfast Club radio show for an interview, in which she discussed her current situation living in a care facility. Williams has largely been out of the public eye since 2021.

Williams criticized the guardianship system on the show and said that she waas experiencing “emotional abuse”.

“This system is broken, this system that I’m in,” Williams said. “This system has falsified a lot.”

Williams’s niece Alex Finnie also spoke on air and said that while Williams was able to call her family, they could not call her directly and she had no access to personal devices with access to the internet.

“My aunt sounds great,” Finnie said. “I’ve seen her in a very limited capacity, but I’ve seen her and we’re talking to her. This does not match an incapacitated person.”

Her TV show, the Wendy Williams Show, went off-air in 2022, the same year that a New York judge placed Williams, 60, under a guardianship. Wells Fargo, her bank, told the court that she was an “incapacitate person” and had been subject to “undue influence and financial exploitation”.

Last February, Williams’s team shared an update with the public that she had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, which affects her ability to communicate, and frontotemporal dementia, which affects the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes. In a statement, her team said the diagnosis affected Williams’s ability to process information, occasionally losing words and having difficulty understanding financial transactions.

The announcement immediately preceded the release of a four-part Lifetime docuseries that focused on Williams’s life under her guardianship. Attorneys for her guardian filed a lawsuit against Lifetime and other producers of the docuseries, saying that it was exploitive of Williams, who had become “cognitively impaired and impermanently incapacitated”.

But Williams on Thursday pushed back on those claims, saying that she waas not cognitively impaired and was instead “definitely isolated”.

“Do I seem that way, goddammit?” she asked. “I am not cognitively impaired. But I feel like I’m in prison.”

At the end of the show, the hosts of the Breakfast Club expressed their hopes that the interview would lead to greater freedom for Williams.

“Y’all cannot hide Wendy,” the host Charlamagne tha God said. “Do not hear this phone call and see this all in the news and think you’re going to take away her phone and isolate her.”

Saif Ali Khan, one of Bollywood’s most popular actors, is recovering in hospital after a knife became lodged in his spine during an attack by an intruder in his Mumbai home.

Medical officials said Khan sustained six stab wounds in the attack, which took place during a 2am altercation with an intruder who had entered the family home he shares with his wife, the Bollywood superstar Kareena Kapoor, and their two children.

He was taken to hospital in the early hours of Thursday with two deep cuts in his back from being stabbed with a knife, and minor injuries on his neck and hands, and was taken immediately into surgery. By Thursday afternoon, Khan’s representatives said he was “out of danger” and recovering in intensive care.

Niraj Uttamani, the chief operating officer of Mumbai’s Lilavati hospital where Khan was taken, said: “Fortunately, the injuries, while deep, were managed very well by our medical team. Khan is in the ICU but is recovering steadily. We anticipate shifting him to the general ward in a day or two.”

Nitin Dange, the neurosurgeon who operated on Khan, said it had been a “delicate operation” to remove a knife that had been lodged in the middle section of his spine. “We successfully removed the foreign object and repaired the spinal damage to prevent further complications,” said Dange.

Mumbai police said they believed a staff member had let the intruder into the home, a penthouse apartment in Mumbai’s affluent Bandra district, and helped them circumvent the security and CCTV systems for the purposes of theft.

The whole family, including the couple’s two sons, had been home and asleep, but were woken by another member of staff who raised the alarm. According to police, the intruder had been locked in a room by staff but managed to escape and has yet to be apprehended.

Khan and his wife are often referred to as “Bollywood royalty”. He is known for playing romantic roles in hit films such as Hum Tum and action roles, most recently in Devara: Part 1, as well as starring in the hit Netflix thriller series Sacred Games. In a statement on Thursday evening, Kapoor said it had been an “incredibly challenging day for our family”.

As Philip Larkin once noted, your mum and dad have a lasting effect on you. Now, researchers have revealed which siblings in a family are more likely to be favoured: it is bad news for sons.

Researchers have found daughters, older children and those who are more conscientious or agreeable are likely to receive preferential treatment.

The authors of the study say the findings have important implications, adding that previous work has suggested differential treatment of siblings can have negative consequences for children’s development, especially for those who are less favoured.

“Parents and clinicians should be aware of which children in a family tend to be favoured as a way of recognising potentially damaging family patterns,” they write.

Writing in the journal Psychological Bulletin, Alexander Jensen and McKell Jorgensen-Wells from Brigham Young University in the US and Western University in Canada respectively, report how they analysed data from a host of sources – including 30 peer-reviewed journal articles – encompassing 19,469 different participants from the US, western Europe and Canada.

The pair considered the birth order of siblings, their self-reported gender, their temperaments and their personalities, and explored whether these were associated with various aspects of parental favouritism.

In most cases, the sources used only the children’s reports of parental favouritism, although some included reports from the parents.

When the researchers took into account whether the data had come from a peer-reviewed source, they found older siblings tended to be favoured by parents, at least when it came to areas of control, with such offspring tending to be given greater autonomy and be controlled less than their younger siblings.

Such differences, they note, could have important implications.

“A challenge that parents face is that differential control, regardless of whether it is developmentally appropriate or not, has been linked to lower self-worth and more problem behaviors among less favored siblings in both childhood and adolescence,” they write.

In addition, parents reported favouring daughters, although this was not noted by the children – with the authors noting this may suggest girls are easier to parent, on average.

The results also suggest conscientious children were slightly more favoured by parents, while a small bias was seen towards more agreeable children.

However, the study has limitations, not least that the team were unable to take into account the role of perceived fairness around differences in parenting.

In addition, further work is needed to explore whether the patterns suggested by the study are the same across different life stages.

The researchers add the sizes of the effects were small, noting “the reasons why parents treat their children differently are likely more complex and extend beyond the factors explored in this study.”

Laurie Kramer, a professor of applied psychology at Northeastern University in Boston, cautioned that the data was collected in different ways among the different sources, and the analysis does not take into account potential shifts in cultural norms over decades.

But, she added, a key finding is that the characteristics and behaviours of the children themselves may influence parents’ attitudes.

“The idea that children can make it more or less easy for parents to parent them is really important,” she said, although she noted further research should explore if parental preferences influence their children’s temperaments as well.

Karl Pillemer, professor of human development at Cornell University, said the findings are enlightening, but he noted different children may be favoured for different things.

“Parents do differentiate among their children, but it doesn’t necessarily meant that they like or love one more than the other,” he said.

Pillemer added that his own work has found parents try hard not to show or act on their preferences.

“The problems occur when nearly universal feelings of preference among children translate into treating them differently,” he said. “We can’t help how we feel, but we can definitely help how we act towards our children.”