TikTok is set to be banned in the US on 19 January after the Supreme Court denied a last ditch legal bid from its Chinese owner, ByteDance.

It found the law banning the social media platform did not violate the first amendment rights of TikTok and its 170 million users, as the companies argued.

But will the decision of the country’s highest judicial authority actually stop Americans using it?

President-elect Donald Trump says, simply, the future of TikTok is up to him.

And the White House says “given the sheer fact of timing”, the process of implementing the law will indeed fall to Trump, who will be sworn in on Monday – the day after the ban comes into effect.

So what happens next?

Trump may once have sought to ban TikTok – but he has repeatedly indicated during 2024 that he is now firmly against the law, and tried unsuccessfully to get it delayed.

And despite the court’s ruling, in an interview with CNN, he has insisted TikTok’s future rests with him – even if he gave no indication of what his decision on the future of the social media platform would be.

“Congress has given me the decision, so I’ll be making the decision,” he said.

Before that interview he has made it clear however he would be seeking what he previously called a “political solution.”

On Friday, just before the court released its ruling, he said he spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping about TikTok, as well as issues around trade.

“It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately,” he posted on social media.

And on Thursday Trump’s incoming national security advised Mike Waltz told Fox News the president-elect was looking for ways to “preserve” TikTok, saying Americans’ access to the platform and their data would be preserved.

“I don’t want to get ahead of our executive orders, but we’re going to create the space to put that deal in place,” Mr Waltz said.

The Biden administration has made clear they will not enforce the law – so another option would be for Trump to follow suit and allow the law to stand but tell the Department of Justice to ignore it.

The government would be effectively telling Apple and Google that they won’t be punished for continuing to allow people to download TikTok onto their devices, meaning the law would remain in place but would essentially be redundant.

Obviously, the firms might be uncomfortable about breaking the law even if they’ve been told it’s fine – as it would be effectively requiring them to take the president’s word for it that they won’t face punishment.

If Trump can’t unban TikTok, then what happens?

The most likely way the US would enforce the ban is to order app stores to make it unavailable for download in that region.

If people can no longer use a legitimate means to access TikTok through digital storefronts it won’t impact those who’ve already got it on their phones.

• Why does the US want to ban TikTok?
• Trump urges US Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban

But because the app most likely won’t be publicly available anymore, new updates will no longer be delivered to users in the US – which will make the app buggier and, eventually, unusable.

Not to mention that many updates are provided to fix security holes in apps, so if TikTok stopped getting updates that could present hackers with millions of devices to target.

Of course, there are ways around such a ban.

There are already many videos circulating on TikTok informing users how to use a VPN (virtual private network) – a way of making it appear as if you are in another region.

The region of app stores can also be changed on most devices, so anyone can theoretically access apps from other countries – though this may cause other problems, not to mention likely breaking terms of service agreements.

It is also possible to install apps downloaded from the internet by modifying a device – which may break copyright law – and comes with its own risks.

However the government has also anticipated this so is also proposing to ban “internet hosting services” from giving people access to the app.

So if the ban ends up taking this kind of form it seems likely that those who are determined to use TikTok after it comes into effect will still be able to do so – but it won’t be the experience they are used to.

However there are other routes available to the government down the road – for example, after India banned TikTok in 2020, it ordered internet providers to block access to the app altogether.

TikTok’s own lawyer told the Supreme Court that he believes the app will “go dark” in the US.

Professor Milton L. Mueller of the Georgia Institute of Technology – who filed a legal brief in support of TikTok – said the complexity of the issue means even the experts are unclear about what happens next.

But he said what was clear was the impact it would have on users and the internet itself.

“It would totally legitimise the fragmentation of the internet along national or jurisdictional boundaries,” he said.

Up until now, ByteDance has been resolute that no sale of its prize asset in the US is on the table.

But could that change now that it has actually been banned – and what will happen when a president who prides himself on “the art of the deal” returns to the White House?

Potential buyers continue to line up – with Bloomberg News reporting on Tuesday that the firm was looking at a sale to billionaire Elon Musk, though TikTok has since described this as “pure fiction”.

Trump’s former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt are among those who have previously expressed an interest in buying it.

Mr McCourt, a former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said he had secured $20 billion in verbal commitments from a consortium of investors to bid for TikTok.

There is an even more leftfield – and considerably less serious – proposed owner.

The biggest YouTuber in the world MrBeast has claimed he’s now in the running to make a deal after he had billionaires reaching out to him about it.

Though it may seem like a joke, he has a significant financial incentive to try and save the app – MrBeast has more than 100m followers on TikTok.

TikTok says it has 170 million users in the US who, on average, spent 51 minutes per day on the app in 2024.

Ban TikTok or make it less usable and that creates a huge opportunity for its big tech rivals says Jasmine Enberg, analyst at Insider Intelligence.

“Meta-owned Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, owned by Google, are the most natural fits for displaced users, creators, and advertisers,” she says.

Facebook could benefit too, though Ms Enberg says, in common with all Meta platforms, the controversial policy changes announced by boss Mark Zuckerberg could potentially lessen its appeal.

Users bring advertisers – so a ban could be a big financial boost to those platforms.

“Chief Marketing Officers who we’ve spoken with confirmed that they will divert their media dollars to Meta and Google if they can no longer advertise on TikTok – this is the same behaviour we saw in India when they banned TikTok in 2020”, said Forrester principal analyst Kelsey Chickering.

Lemon8, which is also owned by ByteDance, would have been an obvious place for people to go following a ban – but the law stipulates it also applies to other apps owned or operated by the firm. This means Lemon8 is probably also going to face being made inaccessible in the US.

Other potential winners include Twitch, which made its name on hosting livestreams – a popular feature on TikTok. Twitch is well known particularly to gamers, though it continues to grow with other content.

Other Chinese-owned platforms, such as Xiaohongshu – known as RedNote among its US users – have seen rapid growth in the US and the UK.

Still, some suggest no existing app can truly replace TikTok, in particular its feature TikTok Shop, which lets users purchase products directly from videos, and makes a lot of money for US creators.

Craig Atkinson, CEO of digital marketing agency Code3, said there was no direct competitor that people could easily switch to – and notes his agency was signing new contracts with clients to build TikTok Shop campaigns as late as December.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has upgraded its growth forecast for the UK economy this year, but has also warned about the possible impact of Donald Trump’s economic plans.

The global institution upgraded its prediction for UK growth to 1.6% for this year from its previous estimate of 1.5%.

But it said a threatened wave of tariffs by incoming US president Trump could make trade tensions worse, lower investment, and disrupt supply chains across the world.

The IMF also said although tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation could boost the US economy in the short term, they could ultimately backfire.

The prospect of higher taxes being introduced on imports to the US is concerning many world leaders because they will make it more expensive for companies to sell their goods in the world’s biggest economy.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue – and has threatened to issue tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico on day one of his presidency next week.

He has also said he would impose 100% tariffs on the BRICS bloc of nine nations if they were to create a rival currency to the US dollar.

The IMF said such policies could set the scene for an inflationary boom followed by a bust and could weaken US Treasury bonds as a safe bet.

As well as upgrading its outlook for the UK, the IMF suggested the UK economy would perform better than European economies such as Germany, France and Italy over the next two years.

The improved forecast could be a boost for Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has faced pressure over her policy decisions this week, after figures showed the economy had flatlined.

Labour has made growth its key objective, but Reeves has admitted the government has to “do more to grow our economy”, in order to boost living standards.

The latest IMF figures suggested the UK economy had weaker growth last year than the organisation had expected.

Responding to the IMF’s report, Reeves highlighted that the UK was the only G7 economy, apart from the US, to have its growth forecast upgraded for 2025.

Forecasts are never perfect given the many factors that affect economic growth – from geopolitics to the weather. But such reports can point in the right direction, especially where they align with other predictions.

The IMF predicted “stable, albeit lacklustre” global growth of 3.3% in both 2025 and 2026, below a historical average of 3.7%.

Its 2025 forecast was largely unchanged from a previous one, mainly because it expects higher US growth than previously predicted to offset lower growth in other major economies.

The imminent arrival of Trump in the White House dominates the section on risks in the IMF’s twice-yearly forecast for the world economy.

When he was last in power, Trump launched into a trade war with China, and US policy led to tit-for-tat tariffs with the EU.

This time round, Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on global imports, a 25% duty on imports from Canada and Mexico, and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.

It warns that an inflationary US boom could be followed by a possible bust that would potentially “weaken the role of US Treasuries as the global safe asset”.

Investors see US Treasury securities as one of the safest possible bets, because the bonds – which are kind of like an IOU – are backed by the US government.

In addition, if red tape on business is cut too much, this could lead to a runaway dollar that could suck money out of emerging economies, depressing global growth.

Trump going ahead with deportations of illegal immigrants could “permanently reduce potential output” and also raise inflation, The IMF said.

Its chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, said “tremendous uncertainty” about Trump’s future policies was already affecting stock markets around the world.

On Thursday, the World Bank also warned that US tariffs could hit trade and depress global growth this year.

The bank predicts global growth of 2.7% in 2025, which would be the weakest performance since 2019, aside from the sharp contraction seen at the height of the Covid pandemic.

China is sending Vice-President Han Zheng to US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday – the first time a senior Chinese leader will witness a US president being sworn in.

Trump had invited Chinese President Xi Jinping, among other leaders – a break with tradition given foreign leaders traditionally do not attend US presidential inaugurations.

China has said it wants to work with the new US government to “find the right way for the two countries to get along with each other in the new era”.

But Beijing is also preparing for a Trump presidency that is expected to include new tariffs on Chinese-made imports and more combative rhetoric – Marco Rubio, the nominee for Secretary of State, has described China as “the largest, most advanced adversary America has ever faced”.

As president, Xi has never attended an inauguration or coronation ceremony, choosing instead to send a representative on his behalf. The Chinese ambassador to the US attended the last two presidential inaugurations, in 2017 and 2021.

Beijing has sent vice-presidents to such ceremonies elsewhere, though – Han attended Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s inauguration in October 2023. And his predecessor, Wang Qishan, was present for the inauguration of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in 2022 and Brazil’s President Lula da Silva in 2023.

Xi’s decision to send Han to the US is a sign that he “wants to get Trump into deal-making mode, but [he] does not want to be a supporting actor in the Trump show on January 20,” says Neil Thomas, a fellow in Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Other foreign leaders that have been invited to the inauguration include Argentinian President Javier Milei and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told US media that the invitation to Xi was an “example of Trump creating an open dialogue with leaders of countries that are not just our allies but our adversaries and our competitors”.

It also could be an attempt by Trump to show the world “he has the ability to influence Xi’s decision-making and they have a special relationship”, says Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

Earlier reports suggested that some Trump advisers wanted Cai Qi to attend. Widely seen as Xi’s right-hand man, 66-year-old Cai sits on the Communist Party’s seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, China’s equivalent of a cabinet.

The Financial Times quoted an unnamed insider saying that Trump would be “unhappy” if the Chinese envoy in attendance was “only at the level of Han or [Foreign Minister] Wang Yi”. The BBC has been unable to verify these claims.

But as vice-president, 70-year-old Han occupies a “very senior role in the Chinese state system” and the decision to send him “accords courtesy to Trump”, says Chong Ja-Ian, a non-resident scholar at Carnegie China.

Han, who was appointed vice-president in March 2023, is known as “number eight” – the most senior leader after the seven men in the Politburo Standing Committee.

Han too had been a member until October 2022, when Xi began a historic third term in power and appointed his most trusted deputies to the top jobs.

Prior to that Han spent most of his political career in Shanghai, where he was born. In 2007, he served as Xi’s aide when the latter was the party secretary in Shanghai, before later assuming the post himself in 2012.

Foreign affairs has been a key focus for him in his stint as vice-president. He led a group to promote the Belt and Road initiative – a key Chinese trade and infrastructure project – and headed a steering committee on the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

But the fact that Han no longer sits on the Politburo Standing Committee may have been a key consideration in Beijing’s decision to send him.

“Should US-China relations take a turn for the worse from the party’s perspective, Xi and the party will be able to show that they maintained some distance from Trump,” Prof Chong said.

And it also helps that Han is not considered a part of Xi’s inner circle, according to Mr Thomas.

“Xi trusts Han enough to undertake this mission but Han is not a key ally and could be safely blamed if it goes embarrassingly wrong.”

A looming TikTok ban has connected Chinese and American citizens like never before, as they swap jokes and memes in what one user described as a “historic moment”.

It’s all unfolding on a popular Chinese social media app called RedNote, or Xiaohongshu (literally translates as Little Red Book), which doesn’t have the usual internet firewall that separates China from the rest of the world.

It has been drawing self-professed US “TikTok refugees” seeking a new home on the internet – despite the fact that their own government is seeking a TikTok ban because of national security concerns.

Americans now find themselves in direct contact with 300 million Mandarin speakers in China and elsewhere – while in the real world, Beijing is bracing for a tumultuous Trump presidency that could strain its fragile ties with Washington.

At the heart of the US ban is the fear that China is using TikTok to spy on Americans.

The app has faced accusations that user data is ending up in the hands of the Chinese government – because of a Beijing law that requires local companies to “support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work”. TikTok denies this has ever happened, or that it would happen.

But the possibility doesn’t seem to worry some US users – 700,000 new users have signed on to RedNote in the last two days, making it the most downloaded free app in the US App store.

“The reason that our government is telling us that they are banning TikTok is because they’re insisting that it’s owned by you guys, the Chinese people, government, whatever,” said one new RedNote user, Definitelynotchippy.

She goes on to explain why she is on RedNote: “A lot of us are smarter than that though so we decided to piss off our government and download an actual Chinese app. We call that trolling, so in short we’re here to spite our government and to learn about China and hang out with you guys.”

TikTok, although owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is headquartered in Singapore and says it is run independently. In fact, China’s version of TikTok is another app called Douyin. RedNote, on the other hand, is a Chinese company based in Shanghai and among the few social media apps available both in China and outside.

So Washington’s fears over TikTok would extend to RedNote as well.

That’s why American users on RedNote are referring to themselves as “Chinese spies” – continuing a TikTok trend where people have been bidding farewell to their “personal Chinese spy” who has allegedly been surveilling them over the years.

RedNote is now full of posts where ex-TikTok users are in search of a replacement. One post says: “I’m looking for my Chinese spy. I miss you. Please help me find him.”

And Chinese users have answered: “I’m here!”

The honest, funny conversations on RedNote may not be what Chinese President Xi Jinping had in mind when he spoke about “strengthening people-to-people cultural exchanges” between China and the US.

But that is certainly what is happening as excited Chinese users welcome curious Americans to the app.

“You don’t even need to travel abroad, you can just talk to foreigners here,” said one Chinese RedNote user in a video that has received more than 6,000 likes.

“But it’s honestly insane, no-one would have expected that we could meet like this one day, openly communicate like this.”

Food, streaming shows and jobs have been the most popular topics: “Is life in America similar to how it looks on [the US TV show] Friends?”

Other Chinese users demanded a “tax” for using the platform – cat photos.

“Cat tax from California,” reads one post in response. “Here’s my offering – the shorthair is a boy named Bob and the calico is a girl named Marley.”

Still others are using the platform to ask Americans for help with their English homework.

One post reads: “Dear TikTok refugees, could you please tell me the answer to question 53? Is the answer T (true) or F (false)?”

Help came quickly: some 500 people have since answered.

The flood of new American users appears to have caught RedNote off guard – reports say the company is hiring English moderators.

And others are trying to cash in on RedNote’s new-found US stardom as well: language-learning app Duolingo put out a graph showing a 216% jump in its user base, compared to this time last year.

RedNote’s rising popularity is not guaranteed to last though.

There is no reason to assume it won’t face blowback for the same reasons as TikTok: concerns that it could be used by China to spy on Americans.

It’s unclear how long Beijing would be open to such unfettered exchanges – control of the internet is key to its repressive regime.

The irony of the situation was flagged by one Chinese user, who posted: “Don’t we have a (fire)wall? How come so many foreigners can enter, when clearly I can’t leave?”

Typically, Chinese internet users have been unable to directly interact with foreigners. Global platforms like Twitter and Instagram and search engines like Google are blocked in China, though people use VPNs to circumvent these restrictions. Sensitive topics – from history to dissent – or anything seen as critical of China’s government and ruling Communist party is swiftly censored.

It’s unclear how much RedNote is censored – it’s largely used by younger and middle-aged women in China, where they share images and videos. It’s not like Weibo, another Chinese app, where discussions and airing of grievances is far more common, leading to posts often being taken down.

But a handful of new RedNote users say they have already received reports that their posts have violated guidelines, including one who asked in a post if the app was “LGBT friendly”.

Another said they had asked “What [sic] Chinese think about gay people?” and received a similar notification, that they had violated “public moral order” guidelines.

And Chinese users keep reminding Americans on the app “not to mention sensitive topics, such as politics, religion and drugs”.

One Chinese user also advised them to stick to the “One China policy”, the diplomatic pillar of the US-China relationship – according to which the US recognises and has formal ties with China rather than Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its own.

The US government has not commented on RedNote so far, and neither has Beijing.

But Chinese state media seems upbeat about it, with Global Times even interviewing a US user who said she would “love to interact with Chinese users”.

RedNote’s American fate is anyone’s guess – but for now, at least online, the US-China rivalry is taking a break. Thanks to cat pictures.

Police in the Indian city of Mumbai have detained a man in connection with the knife attack on Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, according to media reports

Khan was stabbed during a scuffle at his residence with an unidentified man on Thursday morning. The actor is recovering after surgery.

Police have seized CCTV footage from the actor’s residence in the upscale neighbourhood of Bandra and initial reports suggest the attack may have been intended as a theft.

It is not clear whether the detained man was the intruder.

The BBC has accessed a statement given by a nurse who works in Khan’s home to the police, which provides some details about the events that unfolded on the night of the incident.

Eliyama Philip, who takes care of Khan’s son, said she first noticed the shadow of a man near the bathroom door late at night while she was in the child’s room with the nanny.

Ms Philip said a man appeared holding a wooden object in one hand and a long blade in another and warned the two against making any noise. He demanded 10m rupees ($115,477; £94,511), she said.

A scuffle soon broke out, during which Ms Philip was injured. Meanwhile, the nanny fled the room.

According to the nurse’s statement, Khan and his wife, actress Kareena Kapoor, rushed to the room after hearing the commotion. She said the attacker struck Khan with a blade when he confronted him, then fled the house.

Khan suffered several injuries – including one on the back of his neck – in the attack.

Dr Nitin Dange of Lilavati Hospital, where Khan is being treated, said that when the actor arrived, he was bleeding from his spine with a knife fragment embedded. The fragment was surgically removed, and fluid leakage was controlled. Doctors said that timely treatment prevented severe spinal damage.

Dr Dange said on Friday that Khan is “better now”.

“We made him walk, and he walked well. Looking at his parameters, his wounds and all the other injuries, he is safe to be shifted out of the ICU. He has to take several precautions. He has to take rest and his movement has been restricted for a week,” he said.

Deputy Commissioner of Mumbai police Dixit Gadam said that the weapon used for the attack has not been found and that they have registered a complaint based on the nurse’s statement.

“The accused used the fire escape ladder to enter,” he said. “The investigation is going on to determine how the house’s door was opened or how the intruder gained access.”

Khan, 54, is also a producer, who has appeared in several films and TV shows over the years. He is known for his quick wit and comic timing.

His portrayal of the antagonist in the 2006 critically acclaimed Omkara was widely praised. He has won multiple awards, including the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian honour, in 2010.

Khan is the son of former Indian cricket captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and actor Sharmila Tagore.

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 14 years in prison over a corruption case, in the latest of a series of charges laid against him.

It is the longest valid jail sentence the cricket star-turned-politician, who has been detained since August 2023, has received.

He has faced charges in over 100 cases, ranging from leaking state secrets to selling state gifts – all of which he has decried as politically motivated.

The latest case has been described by Pakistani authorities as the largest the country has seen, though the country has seen huge financial scandals in the past, some of which involved former leaders.

Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi were accused of receiving a parcel of land as a bribe from a real estate tycoon through the Al-Qadir Trust, which the couple had set up while he was in office.

In exchange, investigators said, Khan used £190m ($232m) repatriated by the UK’s National Crime Agency to pay the tycoon’s court fines.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party argued that the land was donated to the trust for a spiritual education centre and was not used for Khan’s personal gain.

In a post on X, PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan said that the former prime minister “has done no wrong” and that this was a “politically motivated unfair trial”.

“But [Imran Khan] will not give in, he will not give up, he will not break,” he wrote.

Friday’s verdict comes after multiple delays as Khan’s party held talks with the government.

After his conviction on Friday, Khan told reporters in the courtroom that he would “neither make any deal nor seek any relief.”

Khan’s prison sentence of 14 years is the maximum that could be given in the case. He has also been fined more than £4,000.

His wife has been sentenced to seven years and fined more than £2,000. Bibi, who has been out on bail since last October, was taken into custody in court after her sentence was announced.

In 2023, Khan was sentenced to three years in prison for not declaring money earned from selling gifts he had received while in office.

Last year, Khan received a 14-year jail sentence over the selling of state gifts, and another 10 years for leaking state secrets. Both those sentences were suspended months later.

Despite being in jail and barred from holding public office, Khan still looms large over Pakistan’s political scene. Last year’s election saw candidates backed by Imran Khan winning the most number of seats out of all the parties.

Khan’s prosecution has triggered large-scale protests by his supporters – which have been met with a crackdown from authorities. Thousands of protesters have been arrested and many injured in clashes with the police.

After lying hidden beneath metres of volcanic rock and ash for 2,000 years, a “once-in-a-century” find has been unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in Italy.

Archaeologists have discovered a sumptuous private bathhouse – potentially the largest ever found there – complete with hot, warm and cold rooms, exquisite artwork, and a huge plunge pool.

The spa-like complex sits at the heart of a grand residence uncovered over the last two years during a major excavation.

“It’s these spaces that really are part of the ‘Pompeii effect’ – it’s almost as if the people had only left a minute ago,” says Dr Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, who has revealed the new find exclusively to BBC News.

Analysis of two skeletons discovered in the house also shows the horror faced by Pompeii’s inhabitants when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79.

The bodies belonged to a woman, aged between 35 and 50, who was clutching jewellery and coins, and a younger man in his teens or early 20s.

They had barricaded themselves into a small room, but were killed as a tsunami of superheated volcanic gas and ash – known as a pyroclastic flow – ripped through the town.

“This is a dramatic place, and everything you find here tells you about the drama,” says Pompeii conservator, Dr Ludovica Alesse.

A third of the ancient city still lies hidden beneath volcanic debris from the disaster, but the new excavation – the most extensive in a generation – provides new insights into ancient Roman life.

The archaeologists have been followed by a documentary team from the BBC and Lion TV, for a series called Pompeii: The New Dig.

An entire block of Pompeii has now been uncovered, revealing a laundry and bakery, as well as the large private house. It’s thought these were all owned by one wealthy individual, possibly Aulus Rustius Verus, an influential Pompeii politician.

The discovery of the bathhouse is further confirmation of his elite status, says Dr Zuchtriegel.

“There are just a few houses that have a private bath complex, so it was something really for the wealthiest of the wealthy,” he says. “And this is so huge – it’s probably the biggest bath complex in a Pompeiian private home.”

Those lucky enough to use the suite of bathing rooms would have undressed in a changing room with vibrant red walls and a mosaic floor dotted with geometric patterns inlaid with marble from across the Roman Empire.

They would then head to the hot room, taking a dip in a bath and enjoying the sauna-like warmth, provided by a suspended floor that allowed hot air to flow underneath and walls with a cavity where the heat could circulate.

Next they would move to the brightly-painted warm room, where oil would be rubbed into the skin, before being scraped off with a curved instrument called a strigil.

Finally, they would enter the largest and most spectacular room of all – the frigidarium, or cold room. Surrounded by red columns and frescoes of athletes, a visitor could cool off in the plunge pool, which is so large 20-30 people could fit in it.

“In the hot summers, you could sit with your feet in the water, chatting with your friends, maybe enjoying a cup of wine,” says Dr Zuchtriegel.

The bathhouse is the latest find to emerge from this extraordinary house.

A huge banqueting room with jet black walls and breathtaking artwork of classical scenes was found last year. A smaller, more intimate room – painted in pale blue – where residents of the house would go and pray to the gods was also unearthed.

The residence was mid-renovation – tools and building materials have been found throughout. In the blue room a pile of oyster shells lie on the floor, ready to be ground up and applied to the walls to give them an iridescent shimmer.

Next door to this beautiful space, in a cramped room with barely any decoration, a stark discovery was made – the remains of two Pompeiians who failed to escape from the eruption.

The skeleton of a woman was found lying on top of a bed, curled up in a foetal position. The body of a man was in the corner of this small room.

“The pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius came along the street just outside this room, and caused a wall to collapse, and that had basically crushed him to death,” explains Dr Sophie Hay, an archaeologist at Pompeii.

“The woman was still alive while he was dying – imagine the trauma – and then this room filled with the rest of the pyroclastic flow, and that’s how she died.”

Analysis of the male skeleton showed that despite his young age, his bones had signs of wear and tear, suggesting he was of lower status, possibly even a slave.

The woman was older, but her bones and teeth were in good condition.

“She was probably someone higher up in society,” says Dr Hay. “She could have been the wife of the owner of the house – or maybe an assistant looking after the wife, we just don’t know.”

An assortment of items were found on a marble table top in the room – glassware, bronze jugs and pottery – perhaps brought into the room where the pair had tucked themselves away hoping to wait out the eruption.

But it’s the items clutched by the victims that are of particular interest. The younger man held some keys, while the older woman was found with gold and silver coins and jewellery.

These are kept in Pompeii’s vault, along with the city’s other priceless finds, and we were given a chance to see them with archaeologist, Dr Alessandro Russo.

The gold coins still gleam as if they were new, and he shows us delicate gold and natural pearl earrings, necklace pendants and intricately etched semi-precious stones.

“When we find this kind of object, the distance from ancient times and modern times disappears,” Dr Russo says, “and we can touch a small piece of the life of these people who died in the eruption.”

Dr Sophie Hay describes the private bathhouse complex as a once-in-a-century discovery, which also sheds more light on a darker side of Roman life.

Just behind the hot room is a boiler room. A pipe brought water in from the street – with some syphoned off into the cold plunge pool – and the rest was heated in a lead boiler destined for the hot room. The valves that regulated the flow look so modern it’s as if you could turn them on and off even today.

With a furnace sitting beneath, the conditions in this room would have been unbearably hot for the slaves who had to keep the whole system going.

“The most powerful thing from these excavations is that stark contrast between the lives of the slaves and the very, very rich. And here we see it,” says Dr Sophie Hay.

“The difference between the sumptuous life of the bathhouse, compared to the furnace room, where the slaves would be feeding the fire toiling all day.

“A wall is all that could divide you between two different worlds.”

The excavation is in its final weeks – but new discoveries continue to emerge from the ash. Limited numbers of visitors are allowed to visit the dig while it’s ongoing, but eventually it will be fully opened to the public.

“Every day here is a surprise,” says Dr Anna Onesti, director of the excavation.

“Sometimes in the morning I come to work thinking that it’s a normal working day – and then I discover we found something exceptional.

“It’s a magic moment for the life of Pompeii, and this excavation work offers us the possibility to share this with the public.”

As protesters gather in Washington DC on Saturday for this year’s Women’s March, Vanessa Wruble, one of its founders, will be 2,500 miles away, at her farm in the Californian desert.

“I didn’t even know it was still a thing,” she told the BBC from her five-acre animal sanctuary near Joshua Tree, which features a zebra, mini cows and horses, peacocks and chickens.

Eight years ago, on the eve of the first Women’s March, Wruble had been consumed by it. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, Wruble, along with a handful of other female activists, scrambled to pull together a mass protest against the newly elected president.

“We basically did not stop, we did not sleep,” Wruble said. “It felt like we were doing something important.”

The January 2017 march became the largest single-day protest in US history, bringing an estimated 500,000 people to DC, and drawing millions to sister marches across the country. And in the months that followed, the Women’s March organisation developed into the most visible arm of the so-called “resistance” – a loose coalition of grassroots progressive groups, never-Trump Republicans and Democratic leaders who opposed the 45th president and his agenda.

The resistance was angry, and it was motivated. The movement was widely credited with helping flip control of the House of Representatives from Republicans to Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections and for mobilising hundreds of women to enter politics across the country.

But in the wake of Trump’s decisive win against Vice-President Kamala Harris in November, much of that energy has dwindled, spurring questions about the resistance movement’s failures as well as its future. Activists and Democrats are also reckoning with the reality that the votes of millions of women helped put Trump back in the White House.

• Democrats had bet on women showing up in force. They didn’t
• After bruising election loss, what next for Kamala Harris?
• Just how big was Donald Trump’s election victory?

The first march had come together at an impressive clip, transforming from a couple of disconnected Facebook posts from women calling for a protest into a blueprint for a national movement within weeks.

By 21 January, hundreds of thousands of people were pouring into the nation’s capital, bringing crowds nearly three times the size of Trump’s inauguration the day before. In Washington and at coordinated events across the US, women carried signs railing against Trump and sported pink knit “pussyhats” – a pointed reference to the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals.

“I had never seen anything this crowded, you could barely move,” said Sharon Baseman, a Democratic activist in Michigan who travelled to DC for the 2017 march. “It was overwhelming and it was inspiring.”

In the years that followed, the Women’s March remained the face of the fight against Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda. The movement helped unite the Democratic Party against Trump, a strategy enabled them to retake the White House in 2020.

The torrent of activists who had been primed by the Women’s March turned out for other causes, too: #MeToo demonstrations, the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence and the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 as well as the nationwide racial justice protests in the summer of 2020 over the police killing of George Floyd.

The first march gave Democrats a sense of solidarity, and a feeling of wanting to do more, said Dana Fisher, a professor of sociology at American University and author of American Resistance, from the Women’s March to the Blue Wave.

“The 2017 march activated a ton of left-leaning people who had never done anything political before. They paid attention, and they went to town hall meetings, and they joined different organisations,” Professor Fisher said. “People got the sense that they weren’t alone.”

And experts say that engagement carried over to the 2018 midterms, when a record number of female candidates – most of them Democrats – ran for Congress.

Women made “monumental gains” after 2017, according to Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.

“There was a record number of women running for and winning office across levels of office,” she said, “that has led to a record level of women’s representation, which largely sustains itself”.

The Women’s March this year has been rebranded as the People’s March, co-hosted with a number of other progressive organisations including Planned Parenthood, National Women’s Law Center and Sierra Club.

Tamika Middleton, the managing director of the Women’s March, said Saturday’s march was focused on building a coalition, adding that those in the progressive movement needed to come together like they did in 2017.

“We’re seeing attacks on women, on reproductive rights, on LGBTQ folks… and we’re realising that we really have to build some coordination across the movement to build the kind of mass movement that can fight back,” she said.

So far, there is no sign that Saturday’s event will match the magnitude of 2017. Organisers say they expect around 50,000 people to show up – a fraction of the attendance at the initial protest.

“I haven’t heard anything about the Women’s March this year, I didn’t know it was happening,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run for Something, a non-profit launched in 2017 that supports first-time progressive candidates running for local and state office.

“There are valuable questions to be asked, like what is the purpose of a march this time around?” she said. “It is a tough case to make right now.”

The march itself has become something of an afterthought. What was once a watershed moment of defiance at the outset of the first Trump administration has seemingly faded from view.

“I think you’ll find there really is not the appetite to march. I also think that it would be ineffective to march,” said Wruble, one of the early founders. “We need to look at what we’re doing and reassess how we go about doing it.”

Wruble was pushed out of the Women’s March soon after its first year, later saying her Jewish heritage played a role in that. Her exit was part of a raft of internal conflict that roiled the organisation from the start. The original co-chairs, Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, and Bob Bland, have since left the group. They did not return the BBC’s request for comment.

But the broader problem, according to activists and Democrats, is that the central premise of the resistance movement went unfulfilled.

After all, as protesters gather this weekend, Donald Trump will arrive in Washington to kick off celebrations for his inauguration. And he will be sworn in as president on Monday on the back of a decisive win (he lost the popular vote in 2016, but narrowly won it last November).

The incoming president will also preside over a government firmly under his party’s control, with Republicans holding narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Trump’s November victory was helped by continued Republican gains among working-class voters, including black and Latino men. And despite pre-election discussion of a possible landslide for Harris among female voters, Trump also made inroads among white women, especially working-class women.

Ms Dittmar said that while the commonly accepted narrative was women would continue to drift away from Trump, in fact, among non-college educated white women “that support for him was just being affirmed, it got stronger”.

Trump has won a majority of white women voters in all three elections he’s contested, following a pattern set by every Republican presidential candidate since at least the 1990s.

But for many who oppose Trump, it is striking that he did so this time despite a series of new factors they hoped might doom his candidacy: his role in ending the national right to abortion; a jury finding him liable in a civil trial for sexually assaulting columnist E Jean Carroll in the 1990s; and a re-election campaign which saw misogynistic attacks on his opponent.

Rebecca Gau, a 53-year-old executive director of an education non-profit in Arizona, had been a loyal Republican until Trump’s ascension, casting her first vote for a Democrat in 2020 for Joe Biden and again in November for Harris.

Ms Gau said she thinks Democrats focused too heavily on abortion rights during the election over kitchen table issues like the economy, which exit polls showed was a primary concern of voters.

Some of the fear and uncertainty about what a Trump administration might do was also missing this time around, she added, giving voters permission to prioritise other concerns, like the grocery prices and border security.

“We’ve been through all that before, and the sky didn’t fall,” she said of Trump’s first administration.

Democrats, too, have been muted in their response to Trump’s election, with the party divided on how to confront the president-elect and his allies after campaigning for months that he was an existential threat to democracy.

Some congressional Democrats have sought to work across the aisle, with dozens joining Republicans last week to support a hardline bill on undocumented immigrants. A group of Democratic senators recently released a video that proclaimed, “we are not here because of who we are against”.

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Even California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has repeatedly clashed with Trump over the years and has already vocalised plans to shield his state from federal intervention, has taken a more conciliatory tone in recent days in the wake of devastating wildfires there.

“We’re a little leaderless right now, which is hard,” said Littman, of Run for Something. “We’re in disarray because there’s nothing to be in array behind.”

For Wruble, a break from politics came long before November’s loss.

In 2022, struggling with burnout after years of organising, Wruble moved west. She gave up her rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn and set up camp in Joshua Tree permanently, slowly constructing her farm, Kaleidoscope Desert.

She shows no signs of wanting back in. The farm takes up most of her focus. During our interview earlier this month, she was interrupted several times by her ranch hand asking questions about the various animals.

“We need more dog food in the house,” Wruble said after one such interlude. “These are the kind of problems I deal with now.”

But for other supporters of the Women’s March who are still in the fight, Saturday’s event brings a sense of optimism in a moment of despair.

“My friends who are super progressive and were devastated after the election are in a mode of, the only thing we can do is show up and not be quiet, and not let people think that all women support Trump,” said Gau.

But, she said, the march itself will do little to pull in the women who did cast a ballot for him.

“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it,” she added, “but it’s not going to draw them back”.

Police in Hungary have raided the offices of the Integrity Authority, a state body that oversees the use of EU funds.

The chief prosecutor has announced that its chairman, Ferenc Biro, is suspected of corruption and abuse of authority.

Police also raided Biro’s home, and took away documents.

He has admitted to “lending his official car to his wife to go shopping” but rejects the allegations and says he is being targeted for political reasons, “from the top”.

That statement alone has raised eyebrows in Hungary.

Ferenc Biro and his wife Judit are insiders in the leading ranks of the governing Fidesz party, with excellent relations at the highest level. His position and salary are equivalent to that of a government minister.

The Integrity Authority was set up in early 2023, to prove to the European Commission that EU funds were correctly spent and audited. Its leaders were appointed by the president of the republic.

The chief prosecutor’s office also accuses him of obstructing the work of his two vice-presidents.

The allegations are rocking the government for three reasons.

They come only 10 days after Antal Rogan, the minister in charge of government communications and the secret services in Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Cabinet, was placed on the sanctions list by the US Treasury, as “a primary architect, implementer and beneficiary of this system of corruption”.

That move was bitterly criticised by the government as the “personal revenge” of outgoing US ambassador David Pressman.

The second reason is that Chief Prosecutor Peter Polt has long been accused by the opposition of failing to investigate corruption in the governing Fidesz party.

The third reason is that Hungary permanently lost €1bn (£845m) in EU funds on 31 December, and billions more are endangered if it does not fulfil strict EU criteria for the release of funds that have already been suspended.

“Throughout my career I have been fighting corruption and fraud, and for ethics and integrity,” Biro wrote in his application letter for the post of president in October 2022.

According to a statement released by the chief prosecutor, in addition to his official vehicle, Biro rented a second luxury car, racking up a 14m Hungarian forint (€34,000; £29,000) bill.

Hungarian media reports allege that office funds were used to renovate his luxury home, and build a fence several hundred metres long around it.

Starved of EU funds, with the Hungarian currency losing value and a sharp rise in annual inflation to 4.6% last month, the Hungarian economy is in trouble.

Critics of the government believe Ferenc Biro may be right – that Viktor Orban is trying to sacrifice one of his chess pieces, in order to access badly needed cash.

Biro has hit back against the investigation in a statement of his own.

“Today they have specifically attacked my person and through this they have sought to make the operation of the Integrity Authority impossible,” he said on Thursday night.

“Our organisation has always operated and continues to operate to the highest ethical and legal standards.”

Toyota subsidiary Hino Motors has agreed to pay $1.6bn (£1.3bn) and plead guilty to deceiving US regulators about the amount of emissions produced by its diesel engines.

The truck company will also be banned from exporting its diesel engines to the country for five years.

It comes after Hino was charged with fraud in a Detroit court for selling 105,000 illegal engines in the US between 2010 and 2022.

The settlement still requires approval by a US court.

According to the US Justice Department, Hino submitted “false and fraudulent” emission testing and fuel consumption data in a “criminal conspiracy” that allowed it to import and sell its engines in the United States.

“Hino Motors engaged in a years-long scheme to alter and fabricate emissions data in order to get a leg up over its competitors and boost their bottom-line,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

“To further this fraudulent scheme, Hino violated laws and regulations intended to protect American’s health and the environment.”

On top of the five-year diesel engine import ban, Hino has also committed to a compliance and ethics plan during that period.

“We take this resolution seriously and will ensure that the field fix, the Environmental Mitigation Program, and further strengthening of our compliance system … are implemented,” said Satoshi Ogiso, Hino’s chief executive and president in a statement.

“We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused to our customers and stakeholders.”

The US Environmental Protection Agency said Hino has also agreed to recall some infringing heavy-duty trucks and to replace marine and locomotive engines across the country to offset excess air emissions.

In order to cover costs resulting from its legal problems, Hino said that in its second quarter financial results announced in October, it reported an extraordinary loss of 230 billion yen (£1.2bn, $1.48bn).

In the last decade, several car makers admitted to lying about the emissions produced by their diesel engines.

In what has become known as the dieselgate scandal, brands throughout the Volkswagen corporate empire were implicated, including Audi, Porsche, Seat and Skoda as well as Volkswagen itself.

Volkswagen has spent more than 30 billion euros (£25bn, $30.9bn) paying fines, issuing recalls and compensating its customers.

A cigarette stub recovered from Mary McLaughlin’s flat provided the first clue to her killer’s identity – more than 30 years after she was strangled.

A matching DNA profile was later discovered hidden in the knot of the dressing gown cord used to murder the mother-of-eleven.

The breakthrough initially baffled cold case detectives as the prime suspect was a prisoner in Edinburgh when Mary, 58, was found dead in the west end of Glasgow.

But a governor’s log book confirmed serial sex offender Graham McGill was on parole when the grandmother was killed.

And it revealed he returned to his cell within hours of leaving Mary’s home in the early hours of 27 September 1984.

A new BBC documentary, Murder Case: The Hunt for Mary McLaughlin’s Killer, tells the story of the cold case investigation – as well as the devastating impact the murder had on Mary’s family.

Senior forensic scientist Joanne Cochrane said: “There are some murders that stay with you.

“Mary’s murder is one of the more disturbing cold cases that I’ve dealt with.”

Mary spent her last night out drinking and playing dominos in the Hyndland Pub, now the Duck Club, which looks onto Mansfield Park.

She left the bar, on Hyndland Street, alone between 22:15 and 22:30 to walk less than a mile home to her flat.

Along the way she called into Armando’s chip shop on Dumbarton Road, where she joked with staff as she bought fritters and cigarettes.

A taxi driver, who knew her as Wee May, later told how he saw a lone man following her as she walked bare foot along the road carrying her shoes.

The sequence of events which led to McGill ending up in Mary’s third-floor flat in Crathie Court is unknown but there was no sign of forced entry.

Once inside, he launched a savage attack on a woman who was more than double his age.

In an era before mobile phones, Mary was not in frequent contact with her large family who lived in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.

Once a week, one of her sons, Martin Cullen, would call in to see her.

But when the then 24-year-old turned up at the flat on 2 October 1984, there was no answer and a “horrible smell” when he opened the letterbox.

Mary was found dead inside, lying on her back on a bare mattress.

Her false teeth were on the floor and a new green dress she had worn to the pub had been put on her back-to-front.

Former senior investigating officer Iain Wishart described the crime scene as “particularly cruel”.

He added: “The tragic thing is that she would have been looking into his eyes when he committed the murder.”

A post-mortem examination concluded that Mary had died after being strangled at least five days earlier.

Detectives gathered more than 1,000 statements in the months that followed but the hunt for Mary’s killer resulted in a series of dead ends.

The following year the family were told the investigation had been closed but one CID officer urged Mary’s daughter, Gina McGavin: “Don’t give up hope.”

Mary had 11 children by two fathers and was well known in the local community.

But daughter Gina told the documentary there were tensions as she left her first six children and the five she had with a second partner.

She said: “I thought that there was a hidden killer within the family.”

Gina, who wrote a book about her mother’s murder, said she shared her suspicions with the police.

She added: “My siblings were of the same thinking as me in 1984.

“It was one of her own children that had been involved or knew something more but we couldn’t prove anything.”

By 2008, four separate reviews had failed to yield a profile of the suspect.

The fifth review was launched in 2014 and the eventual breakthrough was made possible by a new DNA-profiling facility at the Scottish Crime Campus (SCC) in Gartcosh, North Lanarkshire.

Previously experts could look at 11 individual DNA markers but the latest technology was capable of identifying 24.

This dramatically increased the odds of scientists obtaining a result from smaller or lower-quality samples.

Tom Nelson, director of forensics for the Scottish Police Authority, said in 2015 that the technology would make it possible to “reach back in time, with the potential to rekindle justice for those who had all but given up hope”.

The samples gathered in 1984 included locks of Mary’s hair, nail scrapings and cigarette ends.

Ms Cochrane, who is based at the SCC, was asked to review evidence from the scene that had been preserved in paper bags for 30 years.

She said: “They didn’t know about DNA profiling at that time.

“They didn’t know the potential held in these items.

“They couldn’t possibly have known the value that it might have had.”

The senior forensic scientist said the original inquiry team showed “amazing foresight” to preserve evidence.

The breakthrough eventually came from an Embassy cigarette end stubbed out on an ashtray on the living room coffee table.

It was of particular interest to the cold case team as Mary’s preferred brand was Woodbine.

Ms Cochrane said she hoped technological advances would enable her to obtain trace levels of DNA.

She told the documentary: “Then we get this Eureka moment, our Eureka moment, where the cigarette end, which previously didn’t give us a DNA profile is now giving us a full male profile.

“This is something we have never had before and it is the first evidentially significant piece of forensic science in the case.”

It was sent to the Scottish DNA database and compared against thousands of profiles of convicted criminals.

The result was delivered to Ms Cochrane in a form, via email.

She quickly scrolled to the bottom and saw a cross next to the box: “Direct Match”.

The expert said: “It was a real goose bumps moment.

“It identifies a person called Graham McGill and I can see on the form that comes back to me that he has got serious convictions for sexual offences.

“After more than 30 years we had an individual that matched that DNA profile.”

But the long-awaited development created a conundrum when it emerged McGill – who had convictions for rape and attempted rape – was a prisoner when Mary was murdered.

Records also showed he was not released until 5 October 1984 – nine days after the grandmother was last seen alive.

Former Det Sgt Kenny McCubbin was tasked with solving a mystery that did not make sense.

Ms Cochrane was also told more forensic evidence was needed to build a compelling case.

That quest led her to another “time capsule of DNA” – the dressing gown cord used to strangle Mary.

Ms Cochrane believed there was a fair chance the person who tightened the knot may have touched the material now concealed within it.

Under the glare of fluorescent lights in her lab she slowly untied it, piece by piece, to expose the fabric for the first time in more than three decades.

She said: “We found that key piece of evidence – DNA matching Graham McGill – on the knots within the ligature.

“He had tied that ligature around Mary’s neck and had tied those knots to strangle Mary.”

Separately, traces of McGill’s semen were also found on the grandmother’s green dress.

But Mr McCubbin, who has now retired, told the documentary the forensic evidence alone was not enough to secure a conviction.

He said: “It didn’t matter what DNA we had.

“He’s got the perfect alibi. How could he commit the murder if he was in prison?”

Records were hard to find as HMP Edinburgh had been rebuilt at the time of the murder and, in an era before computers, paperwork had been lost.

Mr McCubbin’s quest eventually took him to the National Records of Scotland, in the heart of Edinburgh, where he tracked down the governor’s journals.

And a single entry changed everything.

Next to a prison number was the name “G McGill” and the acronym “TFF”.

The former detective sergeant said: “That was Training For Freedom, which meant weekend home leave.”

The inquiry team discovered McGill was on two days weekend leave, with three days pre-parole leave added on, and returned to the prison on 27 September 1984.

Former senior investigating officer Mark Henderson said: “That was the golden nugget we were looking for.”

McGill was finally arrested on 4 December 2019 .

At the time, he was still being managed as a sex offender, but was working in the Glasgow area as a fabricator for a company based in Linwood, Renfrewshire.

Gina said the news came as a relief and added: “I never thought I would see it in my lifetime.”

McGill finally was found guilty after a four-day trial in April 2021 and jailed for a minimum of 14 years.

The judge, Lord Burns, told the High Court in Glasgow that McGill was 22 when he strangled Mary but stood in the dock as a 59-year-old.

He added: “Her family has had to wait all that time in order to discover who was responsible for that act knowing that whoever did it was probably at large in the community.

“They had never given up the hope that some day they would find out what had happened to her.”

China’s economy rebounded in the last three months of last year, allowing the government to meet its growth target of 5% in 2024, Beijing announced on Friday.

But it is one of the slowest rates of growth in decades as the world’s second largest economy struggles to shake off a protracted property crisis, high local government debt and youth unemployment.

The head of the country’s statistics bureau said China’s economic achievements in 2024 were “hard won,” after the government launched a slew of stimulus measures late last year.

Beijing has rarely missed its growth targets in the past.

Experts had broadly predicted this rate of growth. The World Bank said lower borrowing costs and rising exports would mean China could achieve annual growth of 4.9%.

Investors, however, are bracing themselves: the threat of President-elect Donald Trump’s tariffs on $500bn (£409bn) worth of Chinese goods looms large.

Yet that is not all that stands in the way of China achieving its growth targets next year.

Business and consumer confidence is low, and the Chinese yuan will continue to weaken as Beijing cuts interest rates in a bid to boost growth.

Here are three reasons why Xi has bigger challenges than Trump’s tariffs:

There is a growing chorus of warnings that China’s economy will slow in 2025. One major driving factor of last year’s growth is now at risk: exports.

China has relied on manufacturing to help exit the slowdown – so, it has been exporting a record number of electric vehicles, 3D printers and industrial robots.

The US, Canada and the European Union have accused China of making too many goods and imposed tariffs on Chinese imports to protect domestic jobs and businesses.

Experts say Chinese exporters may now focus on other parts of the world. But those countries are likely to be in emerging markets, which don’t have the same levels of demand as North America and Europe.

That could impact Chinese businesses that are hoping to expand, in turn hitting suppliers of energy and raw materials.

Xi wants to transform China from the world’s factory for cheap goods into a high-tech powerhouse by 2035 but it’s unclear how manufacturing can continue to be such a big growth driver in the face of rising tariffs.

In China, household wealth is largely invested in the property market. Before the real estate crisis, it accounted for almost a third of China’s economy – employing millions of people, from builders and developers to cement producers and interior designers.

Beijing has implemented a slew of policies to stabilise the property market and the the financial markets watchdog, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), has said it will vigorously support reforms.

But there are still too many empty homes and commercial properties, and that oversupply continues to force down prices.

The property market slump is expected to bottom out this year, but Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs says the downturn will be a “multi-year drag” on China’s economic growth.

It’s already hit spending hard – in the last three months of 2024, household consumption contributed just 29% to China’s economic activity, down from 59% before the pandemic.

That is one of the reasons Beijing has stepped up exports. It wants to help offset sluggish domestic spending on new cars, luxury items and almost everything else.

The government has even introduced programmes like consumer goods trade-ins, where people can exchange their washing machines, microwaves and rice cookers.

But experts wonder whether these kinds of measures alone are sufficient without addressing deeper issues in the economy.

They say people will need more money in their pockets before pre-Covid levels for spending return.

“China needs to bring back the animal spirit of the population and we are still far from that,” said Shuang Ding, Chief Economist for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Bank.

“If the private sector starts to invest and innovate that could increase income and the job outlook, and people will have more confidence to consume.”

Steep public debt and unemployment have also affected savings and spending.

Official figures suggest the youth jobless rate remains high compared to before the pandemic, and that wage rises have stalled.

President Xi has promised to invest in the cutting-edge industries that the government calls “new productive forces”.

Until now, that has helped China become a leader in goods like renewable energy products such as solar panels and electric vehicle batteries.

Last year, China also overtook Japan as the world’s biggest car exporter.

But the lacklustre economic picture, uncertainty over tariffs and other geopolitical uncertainties mean the appetite of foreign businesses for investment in China is subdued.

It’s not about foreign or domestic investment – it’s that businesses don’t see a bright future, said Stephanie Leung from wealth management platform StashAway.

“They would like to see a more diversified set of investors coming in.”

For all of these reasons, experts believe the measures to support the economy will only partially alleviate the impact of potential new US tariffs.

Beijing must either undertake big, bold measures or accept that the economy is not going to grow so fast, Goldman Sachs’ Chief China Economist Hui Shan wrote in a recent report, adding: “We expect them to choose the former.”

“China needs to stabilise property markets and create sufficient jobs to ensure social stability,” Mr Ding from Standard Chartered Bank said.

According to researcher China Dissent Monitor, there were more than 900 protests in China between June and September 2024 led by workers and property owners – 27% more than the same period a year earlier.

These sort of social strains as a result of economic grievances and an erosion of wealth will be a concern for the Chinese Communist Party.

After all, explosive growth turned China into a global power, and the promise of increased prosperity has largely helped its leaders keep a tight lid on dissent.

• Listen to Jeremy read this article

Donald Trump has made an impact on the Middle East even before he sits down in the Oval Office to start his second term as president.

He cut through the delaying tactics that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in alliance with his ultra-nationalist coalition partners, had used to avoid accepting the ceasefire deal that Joe Biden put on the negotiating table last May.

American pressure on Hamas and other Palestinian groups is a given. Under Biden, pressure on Israel was the lever that was never pulled. Trump starts his second term claiming credit, with reasonable justification, for getting the ceasefire deal in Gaza over the line. He can bask in some glory.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, is dealing with a coalition crisis. The entire principle of doing a deal with Hamas is repugnant to the ultra-nationalist politicians who have supported his government.

One of them, the National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says his party, Jewish Power, will only support the government if it resumes the war, cuts off all aid to Gaza and destroys Hamas. If that does not happen, he will resign.

That will be of no importance to Donald Trump. The push for a Gaza ceasefire demonstrated that Trump would put the interests of his presidency before the political requirements of Israel’s prime minister.

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Joe Biden, on the other hand, was prepared to risk votes in swing states in the US presidential election because of his determination to support Israel, despite his own misgivings about the way that Israel was killing civilians in Gaza and depriving them of food, medical care, shelter and clean water.

Israel’s nationalist right was delighted when Trump won his landslide victory in November. They assumed that Trump would give them even more licence than Biden had. The reality might be more complicated than that.

Just as Israel is not the same country that Trump left behind when he left office in 2021, Trump may not be the president that they encountered the first time around.

The first signs of how Trump would approach the Middle East as president – and the conclusion to draw from it – came on a hot early summer day during Trump’s second year as president.

If you live outside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, you can be forgiven if you don’t remember the events of that day – 14 May 2018. After all the terrible bloodshed since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, specific days that led up to the war in Gaza can be easily forgotten.

But in a world where most people get their news online, it was also declared to be the ultimate split-screen moment.

On one side of the news feeds was the Trump administration’s most photogenic couple, the first daughter Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner who was also the president’s senior adviser. They were opening the new American embassy in Jerusalem.

Moving it from Tel Aviv and recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was one of Trump’s campaign promises, aimed mostly at evangelical Christians who made up a big share of his electoral base.

For the delighted audience of Israeli politicians and wealthy American donors to Donald Trump and Israel, Ivanka and Jared’s presence was the icing on a long overdue cake.

On the other side of the screen Israeli soldiers were shooting into Gaza to kill and wound Palestinians who were trying to break through the border fence.

Between 50 and 60 Palestinians were killed that day. Many more suffered gruesome bullet wounds.

It was the culmination of an event that Hamas, Gaza’s rulers, had called the “Great March of Return”. Thousands were taking part.

Small groups, mostly young men, were advancing on the wire. About a kilometre back were thousands of peaceful demonstrators. Families were picnicking on the sand. They screamed and fled when Israeli drones bombed them with tear gas.

Hamas commanders must have concluded it would take more than mass protest to break into Israel.

On 7 October 2023, in a much bigger and better planned assault that took Israel by surprise, Hamas breached the border. Its men killed around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and took 251 others into Gaza as hostages.

In the war that followed, Israel has exacted a terrible revenge, leaving most of Gaza in ruins and killing almost 50,000 according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel insists that those figures are exaggerated. But a new study in the British medical journal, The Lancet, suggests that the Palestinian ministry of health has “under-reported mortality by 41%”.

All American presidents support Israel. But the lesson Israel’s nationalist right took from their side of the split screen was that Donald Trump would be unusually accommodating.

The embassy move showed Trump was prepared to break with conventional wisdom that he believed was an obstacle to US interests.

He abandoned the long-standing policy of Israel’s Western allies, and most other countries, to keep their embassies in Tel Aviv until a peace deal with the Palestinians decided Jerusalem’s permanent status.

The embassy opening celebration came the week after he pulled the US out of the nuclear deal with Iran, which he called “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into”.

He also had the satisfaction of derailing his predecessor Barack Obama’s biggest foreign policy achievement.

Trump’s ditching of the Iran agreement was the triumphant end to a long campaign for Netanyahu.

In March 2019 Donald Trump went further by accepting Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Syrian territory which Israel had occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.

Recognising Israel’s annexation of the Golan broke with a Western consensus since the aftermath of World War Two that states should not acquire territory through military action.

In 2020 the Trump administration gave Israel another prize. Jared Kushner brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel on one side and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan and Bahrain. The US gave all four countries sweeteners in return for their co-operation.

They were persuaded to abandon the long-standing Arab peace initiative, that promised Israel full recognition in return for allowing Palestinians to establish their own state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. For Israel it amounted to a free gift.

Biden, like Trump in his first term, wanted to extend the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia. Recognition of Israel by the Saudis, the keeper of Islam’s two holiest shrines, the leader of the Sunni Muslim world and the richest and most powerful Arab state, would be hugely significant.

In return, the Saudis would get a comprehensive security pact with the US, which would of course include more arms deals.

It was about more than lucrative business opportunities for all concerned, though they existed and were attractive.

The argument was that it would stabilise the turbulent Middle East. The US-Saudi security deal would also be a good way for Washington to outflank the Chinese, whose rise to global power includes a strong interest in the Gulf, its oil, money and strategic position.

But that left the Palestinians. The Saudis wrote and tabled the Arab peace initiative back at the turn of the century. They insist that they were not prepared to trade Palestinian rights to get a deal with Israel and the US before 7 October. But Hamas, and other Palestinians, believed that was happening.

It was the latest sign, they believed that the Palestinian cause had, as the Hamas leader and chief ceasefire negotiator Khalil al Hayya told me in Doha in October last year, “been forgotten and removed from the table”.

He said they attacked Israel 12 months earlier because “Palestinian rights aren’t being considered by anyone.

“It was necessary to raise an alarm in the world to tell them that here’s a people who have a cause and have demands that must be met. This was a blow to Israel, the Zionist enemy.”

The Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s effective ruler, has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

Even so, the Saudis have made clear they are still interested in a US-brokered deal to normalise relations with Israel. Prince Mohammed’s stipulation, expressed publicly, is that his price is irrevocable progress towards Palestinian independence.

Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has said already that a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a “huge priority” for the president.

In December he told a conservative commentator in the US that it was necessary to “eliminate these terrorist organisations”, release the hostages and move towards a deal with Riyadh.

He indicated that had Trump not lost the 2020 election to Biden, they would have made the deal by forming a common front against Iran, Saudi Arabia’s rival on the other side of the Gulf, rather than “putting the Palestinian issue right in the centre”.

The trouble with that approach is that Saudi Arabia has, very publicly, linked its co-operation with Palestinian rights.

The Biden administration agreed that the key to a grand bargain that could change the Middle East was not just Arab acceptance of Israel, but Israel’s acceptance of Palestinian rights.

On 14 January as he prepared to leave office, Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken made that clear in a speech to the Atlantic Council in Washington. Blinken, a staunch supporter of Israel whose speech was interrupted by hecklers accusing him of genocide in Gaza, also had hard words for Israel.

“Israelis must decide what relationship they want with the Palestinians. That cannot be the illusion that Palestinians will accept being a non-people without national rights.

“Seven million Israeli Jews and some five million Palestinians are rooted in the same land. Neither is going anywhere.”

He added: “Israelis must abandon the myth that they can carry out de-facto annexation without cost and consequence to Israel’s democracy, to its standing, to its security.”

Those de facto, cost-free annexations were exactly what many Israeli hard-right wingers were hoping Trump would allow. Perhaps he will. He is no friend of the Palestinians.

But his Western allies are already hoping that transactional Trump may be more flexible than Joe Biden – a self-proclaimed Zionist – would ever be, especially if he wants the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords.

Peace in the Middle East is perhaps the greatest prize in global diplomacy, because it is so elusive and at the moment so distant.

What price is Donald Trump prepared to accept for a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel?

Prince Mohammed bin Salman has named his – a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the Palestinians will never get an independent state.

Donald Trump is unlikely to be able to bully Mohammed bin Salman into changing his position. The Saudi Arabia of MBS is too assertive for that, and an invitation to Riyadh for the president of China would make the Americans nervous.

It is a time of hard choices. President Trump will have a lot to think about when he re-enters the White House after his inauguration.

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.

Seven years after their baby daughter was killed during a brutal midnight operation by police in Kenya at a time of post-election tension, Joseph Oloo Abanja and Lensa Achieng are still raw with emotion as the case against the alleged officers involved has once again been delayed.

“It is a scar that will never fade away,” Ms Achieng, a hotel worker, tells the BBC about the death of six-month-old Samantha Pendo who died with a broken skull and of internal bleeding.

After each postponement or small development, the couple are swamped with calls. Each moment of expectation leads to disappointment in their search for justice.

The family live in the western city of Kisumu – an opposition stronghold where riots broke out in August 2017 amid anger about the results of an election that was eventually re-run because of irregularities.

Their small home was along a road in the Nyalenda informal settlement that witnessed protests on 11 August where anti-riot police were deployed.

That night the couple locked their wooden door and barricaded it with furniture. At around midnight, they heard their neighbours’ doors being broken down and some of the occupants being beaten.

It was not long before police officers arrived at their door.

“They knocked and kicked it several times [but] I refused to open,” Mr Abanja tells the BBC, adding that he pleaded with them to spare his family of four.

But the battering continued until the officers found a small space through which they threw a tear-gas canister into the one-roomed house, forcing the family out.

Mr Abanja says he was ordered to lie down outside the door and then the beating started.

“They were going for my head so I held my hands up, and they beat my hands until they could not hold any more.”

His wife came out of the house holding Samantha, who was having difficulty breathing because of the tear gas, and was not spared either.

“They went ahead beating me [with clubs] while I was holding my daughter,” Ms Achieng says.

The next thing she felt was her daughter holding her tight “as if she was in pain”.

“I turned her and what was coming outside her mouth? It was foam.”

She shouted that they had killed her daughter and it was at that moment the beatings stopped and Mr Abanja was ordered to administer first aid.

The baby came to but was badly injured.

The couple say officers then swiftly left and neighbours helped them rush Samantha to hospital. She died after three days in intensive care.

Their quest for justice has been long and frustrating, like that of dozens of others caught up in the post-poll violence.

Twelve police officers have been expected to be charged with murder, rape and torture – but the hearing at which this will happen, when they will be asked to enter a plea, has yet to happen.

One of the victims’ lawyers, Willys Otieno, reckons that the delay is due to a lack of political will to deliver justice to victims of election violence.

Uhuru Kenyatta went on to win the election re-run later in 2017 – the opposition candidate withdrew from the contest. His deputy William Ruto, with whom he later fell out, was victorious in the next vote – taking office in September 2022.

“The state is no longer interested in prosecuting the perpetrators, [and] it is now left to victims’ counsels – those of us who work with non-governmental organisations and human rights groups to put pressure for the charges to be registered and the accused persons to go to trial,” Mr Otieno tells the BBC.

He accuses the current director of public prosecutions (DPP) of “acting like an attorney of the accused”.

“It is not even the accused persons who’ve applied to court for adjournment – it is the DPP who has applied to court to adjourn the plea taking,” the lawyer said about two failed attempts at taking a plea last October and November.

The third attempt was meant to happen two days ago but was postponed due to the transfer of the presiding judge – and has been rescheduled for the end of the month.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) told the BBC it could not handle a request for comment, but posted on X that “the case remains one of the most high-profile in recent history, with Baby Pendo’s death symbolising the tragic outcomes of police brutality during the 2017 post-election unrest”.

But those involved in the case find the delays troubling.

“It was the Office of the DPP that initiated this case, and they were the ones that reached out to us several years ago. They asked us to join a victim support group that was essentially established to make sure that they would have witnesses for their case,” Irungu Houghton, head of the rights group Amnesty International Kenya, tells the BBC.

After initial investigations, the DPP at the time, Nurdin’ Hajji, initiated a public inquest into the death of baby Samantha. The judge found the police culpable.

Subsequently, the public prosecutor ordered further investigations into other cases resulting from the police operation of August 2017, and brought in independent constitutional investigative bodies, civil society and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The probe uncovered evidence which the DPP said pointed to “the systematic use of violence, including killing, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, against civilians, all of which constitute serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity”.

In October 2022, the prosecutor then sought to have the suspects charged, for the first time in Kenya’s history under its International Crimes Act.

Those to be charged include commanders deemed liable because of their responsibility as superior officers – another first for Kenya.

In September 2023 a new DPP took office, Renson M Ingonga, but there has been little movement in the case since.

There appears to be “an unwillingness to try to prosecute this case,” says Mr Houghton.

Mr Otieno says the victims’ lawyers may consider seeking justice via a private prosecution or going to the East African Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court (ICC) if the delays continue.

Kisumu governor and opposition leader Peter Anyango’ Nyong’o has now appealed to the chief justice to take up the matter and “find out immediately whether someone or groups of people are sabotaging this case to protect some people”.

If not, he agrees the ICC could be the way to go: “We may be forced to write to the ICC to move in should the local courts continue to delay the cases, because justice delayed is justice denied.”

Samantha’s parents support this idea as without justice they say they cannot heal – each postponement reopens their wounds.

“It doesn’t matter how I’ll do it, but I’ll make sure that I have justice,” says Mr Abanja, who is now 40 and makes a living as a tuk-tuk taxi driver.

“Because they took away something that is so much precious of me – she was everything to me, that little girl I named after my mum.”

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Nepal has been celebrated globally for tripling its tiger population in a decade – but Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli thinks the country may have been too successful.

“In such a small country, we have more than 350 tigers… We can’t have so many tigers and let them eat up humans,” he said last month at an event organised to review the country’s COP29 outcomes.

Attacks by tigers claimed nearly 40 lives and injured 15 people between 2019 and 2023, according to government data. But local communities say the figure is much higher.

“For us, 150 tigers are enough,” Oli declared in December, even suggesting that Nepal could send its prized big cats to other countries as gifts.

There is no one answer, experts say. It depends on the availability of prey in a given area – ideally, each tiger should be in the vicinity of about 500 prey animals, such as deer, antelopes or wild buffalo, tiger biologist Ullas Karanth says.

Experts argue that Oli’s concern with capping tiger numbers is misplaced. Rather, Nepal’s government should focus on “expanding protected areas that have reasonable natural densities of prey and tigers,” Dr Karanth adds.

If wildlife is spilling out of protected areas in search of prey, that might explain why so many attacks have happened in places that border forests, where tigers have always encountered humans.

An example is the “buffer zones” that lie between national parks and human settlements. Wildlife sightings are common here, but locals also use the area for cattle-grazing and collecting fodder and firewood.

Forest corridors – strips of land that connect different parks and bio-reserves allowing wildlife to roam between them – have emerged as yet another flashpoint. Roads sometimes run through these areas, and locals also use them for foraging, leaving them vulnerable to attacks.

The rise in human fatalities is a sign that Nepal’s once-successful conservation model is cracking, zoologist Karan Shah says.

“So far, [Nepal’s] focus seems to be on winning international attention, while ignoring the impact on communities living around national parks and protected areas,” Mr Shah adds.

He argues that conservation is not just “an ecological or scientific issue” but also a social one – and that the loss of human lives must be prevented so local communities remain a part of the conservation effort and don’t turn against it. Anger among locals has also been growing as tigers have been preying on livestock.

“A significant portion of our population still live in rural areas and are dependent on forest resources that they help conserve – but they are now increasingly being killed and injured by tigers,” Thakur Bhandari, president of Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal, told the BBC.

“As forest conservationists we cannot be against wildlife, but that does not mean we should ignore its impact on humans and our society.”

A century ago, some 100,000 tigers roamed Asia – but deforestation and rampant poaching pushed them to the brink of extinction. There are now only about 5,600 wild tigers remaining across 13 countries, including Nepal, China, India, Thailand, Indonesia and Russia.

All of these nations had committed to doubling their tiger numbers by 2022, but Nepal was the first to surpass the target – due in part to a zero-poaching initiative and a doubling of the country’s forest cover between 1992 and 2016.

Connecting 16 protected zones in southern Nepal with areas across the border in northern India created forest corridors which helped too.

The growing number of tiger attacks has now tarnished that achievement.

Oli believes Nepal’s tiger population is growing at the cost of human lives. Viable solutions, however, are not easy to come by.

The parks and wildlife department has acknowledged the challenge of managing tigers in Nepal, where those that kill humans are tracked down and taken into captivity.

“Zoos and rescue centres are already overwhelmed with problematic tigers,” the department said in a conservation report published in 2023. “A comprehensive protocol is urgently needed to cope with the rescue, handling, and rehabilitation of problem animals.”

Oli has proposed sending Nepal’s tigers abroad.

“People love to keep birds like falcons and peacocks as pets, so why not tigers?” he suggested. “That would boost their status too.”

Others have different ideas.

Dr Karanth says tigers that have repeatedly taken human lives should be “killed immediately”. Some argue that humans exacerbated the problem by encroaching into the tigers’ natural habitats, using the land for cultivation or infrastructure and reducing the big cats’ prey-base.

The BBC spoke to a wildlife management expert, meanwhile, who claims Oli wants to bring down tiger numbers so that more land can be cleared to build infrastructure.

“It is not about people’s safety,” he said.

For now the situation is at an impasse. It’s unclear whether Oli’s “tiger diplomacy” suggestion will gain traction, or whether over-encroaching humans or tigers are to blame for Nepal’s tiger attack crisis.

What is clear is that humans and tigers are struggling to achieve peaceful co-existence in Nepal – and the country’s conservation success story has brought many of its own thorny problems to reckon with.

Every week, Rajesh PN Rao, a computer scientist, gets emails from people claiming they’ve cracked an ancient script that has stumped scholars for generations.

These self-proclaimed codebreakers – ranging from engineers and IT workers to retirees and tax officers – are mostly from India or of Indian origin living abroad. All of them are convinced they’ve deciphered the script of the Indus Valley Civilisation, a blend of signs and symbols.

“They claim they’ve solved it and that the ‘case is closed’,” says Mr Rao, Hwang Endowed Professor at the University of Washington and author of peer-reviewed studies on the Indus script.

Adding fuel to the race, MK Stalin, the chief minister of southern India’s Tamil Nadu state, recently upped the stakes, announcing a $1m prize for anyone who can crack the code.

The Indus, or Harappan, civilisation – one of the world’s earliest urban societies – emerged 5,300 years ago in present-day northwest India and Pakistan. Its austere farmers and traders, living in walled, baked-brick cities, thrived for centuries. Since its discovery a century ago, around 2,000 sites have been uncovered across the region.

The reasons behind the society’s sudden decline remain unclear, with no apparent evidence of war, famine or a natural disaster. But its greatest mystery is its undeciphered script, leaving its language, governance and beliefs shrouded in secrecy.

For over a century, experts – linguists, scientists and archaeologists – have tried to crack the Indus script. Theories have linked it to early Brahmi scripts, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages, Sumerian, and even claimed it’s just made up of political or religious symbols.

Yet, its secrets remain locked away. “The Indus script is perhaps the most important system of writing that is undeciphered,” says Asko Parpola, a leading Indologist.

These days, the more popular spectacular theories equate the script with content from Hindu scriptures and attribute spiritual and magical meanings to the inscriptions.

Most of these attempts ignore that the script, made up of signs and symbols, mostly appears on stone seals used for trade and commerce, making it unlikely they contain religious or mythological content, according to Mr Rao.

There are many challenges to deciphering the Indus script.

First, the relatively small number of scripts – about 4,000 of them, almost all on small objects such as seals, pottery and tablets.

Then there’s the brevity of each script – average length of about five signs or symbols – with no long texts on walls, tablets or upright stone slabs.

Consider the commonly found square seals: lines of signs run along their top, with a central animal motif – often a unicorn – and an object beside it, whose meaning remains unknown.

There’s also no bilingual artefact like the Rosetta Stone, which helped scholars decode Egyptian hieroglyphs. Such artefacts contain text in two languages, offering a direct comparison between a known and unknown script.

Recent advancements in deciphering the Indus script have used computer science to tackle this ancient enigma. Researchers have used machine learning techniques to analyse the script, trying to identify patterns and structures that could lead to its understanding.

Nisha Yadav, a researcher at the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), is one of them. In collaboration with scientists like Mr Rao, her work has focused on applying statistical and computational methods to analyse the undeciphered script.

Using a digitised data set of Indus signs from the script, they have found interesting patterns. A caveat: “We still don’t know whether the signs are complete words, or part of words or part of sentences,” says Ms Yadav.

Ms Yadav and co-researchers found 67 signs that account for 80% of the writing on the script. A sign which looks like a jar with two handles turned out to be the most frequently used sign. Also, the scripts began with a large number of signs and ended with fewer of them. Some sign patterns appear more often than expected.

Also, a machine-learning model of the script was created to restore the illegible and damaged texts, paving the way for further research.

“Our understanding is that the script is structured and there is an underlying logic in the writing,” says Ms Yadav.

To be sure, several ancient scripts remain undeciphered, facing challenges similar to the Indus script.

Mr Rao cites scripts like Proto-Elamite (Iran), Linear A (Crete), and Etruscan (Italy), whose underlying language is unknown.

Others, like Rongorongo (Easter Island) and Zapotec (Mexico), have known languages, “but their symbols remain unclear”. The Phaistos Disc from Crete – a mysterious, fired clay disc from the Minoan civilisation – “closely mirrors the Indus script’s challenges – its language is unknown, and only one known example exists”.

Back in India, it is not entirely clear why Mr Stalin of Tamil Nadu announced a reward for deciphering the script. His announcement followed a new study linking Indus Valley signs to graffiti found in his state.

K Rajan and R Sivananthan analysed over 14,000 graffiti-bearing pottery fragments from 140 excavated sites in Tamil Nadu, which included more than 2,000 signs. Many of these signs closely resemble those in the Indus script, with 60% of the signs matching, and over 90% of south Indian graffiti marks having “parallels” with those from the Indus civilisation, the researchers claim.

This “suggests a kind of cultural contact” between the Indus Valley and south India, Mr Rajan and Mr Sivananthan say.

Many believe Mr Stalin’s move to announce an award positions him as a staunch champion of Tamil heritage and culture, countering Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules in Delhi.

But researchers are confident that there will be no claimants for Mr Stalin’s prize soon. Scholars have compiled complete, updated databases of all known inscribed artefacts – crucial for decipherment. “But what did the Indus people write? I wish we knew,” says Ms Yadav.

The hiking trail through Temescal Canyon in western Los Angeles is a favourite of locals.

Towering above the twisting roads and manicured homes that make up the Pacific Palisades, urban hikers seeking an escape from America’s famously gridlocked city have a clear view of the pristine waters of the Pacific.

Now the green, brush-lined path in the canyons is grey and burned as far as the eye can see.

Yellow police tape surrounds the path up to the trail. Police guarding this area are calling it a “crime scene” and prevented BBC reporters, including me, from getting any closer.

It’s where investigators think the deadly blaze that destroyed so many homes in the area may have started.

A similar scene is playing out across town in the north of the city. There, the community of Altadena was levelled by a different fire that ignited in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Investigators in both locations are scouring canyons and trails, and examining rocks, bottles, cans – any debris left behind that might hold clues to the origins of these blazes, which are still unknown.

It’s the one thing on-edge and devastated Angelenos are desperate to know: how did these fires start?

Without answers, some in fire-prone California are filling in the gaps themselves. Fingers have been pointed at arsonists, power company utilities or even a blaze days prior in the Pacific Palisades that was snuffed out but may have re-ignited in the face of Santa Ana winds blowing at 80-100mph (128-160 kmph) last week.

Investigators are examining all those theories and more. They’re following dozens of leads in the hopes that clues in burn patterns, surveillance footage and testimony from first responders and witnesses can explain why Los Angeles saw two of the most destructive fire disasters in US history ignite on 7 January, so far killing 27 people and destroying more than 12,000 homes and businesses.

But this tragic mystery will take time to solve – possibly as long as a year.

“It’s just too early,” Ginger Colbrun, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles division of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) told the BBC.

“Everyone wants answers, we want answers, the community wants answers. They deserve an explanation. It just takes time.”

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The first trace of the Palisades Fire may have been spotted by Kai Cranmore and his friends as they hiked in Temescal Canyon, on a trail frequented by nature lovers and California stoners alike.

It’s not uncommon for visitors to bring alcohol and music, relaxing in nature by Skull Rock – a landmark rock formation along the trail.

In a series of videos posted online, Mr Cranmore and his friends are seen running down the canyon on the morning of 7 January. His first videos show a small cloud of smoke billowing from a hill as they navigate through brush and rock formations in a desperate escape. Out of breath, they comment on having smelled fire before seeing smoke rising.

In further clips, that small cloud gets darker and flames can later be seen cresting over the hilltop.

“Dude, that’s right where we were standing,” one person exclaims in the video as flames whip in the distance. “We were literally right there,” another chimes in.

The videos of the hikers are being examined as part of the official investigation into the origin of the Palisades Fire, Ms Colbrun of the ATF confirmed, saying their experience is just one of many tips and potential leads that have been flagged to authorities.

“The investigators, they’re talking to everyone,” she said.

Some on the internet were quick to blame the group for the fire, noting how close they were to the blaze when it erupted. Even actor Rob Schneider posted about the hikers, asking his followers to help identify them.

In interviews with US media outlets, members of the hiking group noted how fearful they became as people started online attacks. One of the men said he deleted his social media accounts.

“It’s scary,” one of the group told the LA Times. “Just knowing as a matter of fact of our experience that we didn’t do it but then seeing the amount of people that have different theories is overwhelming.”

Ms Colbrun said investigators were also speaking to firefighters who responded to a blaze days earlier that sparked nearby in the same canyon. A persistent theory holds that a small fire on 1 January was never fully extinguished and reignited six days later as winds picked up.

The Palisades Fire is thought to have erupted around 10:30 local time on 7 January, but several hikers told US media they’d smelled smoke earlier that morning as they used the trail.

A security guard who works near the trail told the BBC he’d seen smoke or dust for several days in the area. The morning of the blaze he was patrolling the neighbourhood bordering the canyon and called firefighters as a plume of smoke formed.

But Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone was dismissive of speculation the the two fires in the Palisades, nearly a week apart, could be connected.

“I don’t buy it. Personally, I don’t buy it,” he told the BBC. “I believe that a week is too long for a fire to get re-established that wasn’t fully contained.” He acknowledged such incidents do happen but they are rare.

While Chief Marrone’s agency is not leading the probe into the Palisades Fire, he said investigators were also examining the possibility of arson.

“We had numerous fires in the LA County region almost simultaneously, which leads us to believe that these fires were intentionally set by a person,” Chief Marrone said.

He adds that about half of the brushfires the agency typically responds to are intentionally set.

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Chief Marrone has been primarily focused on the other side of town, dousing the Eaton Fire that tore through much of Altadena. It levelled whole neighbourhoods, destroyed blocks of businesses and killed at least 17 people.

The agency is working with Cal Fire, California’s state-wide fire agency, to investigate the cause of that blaze and where it ignited.

The Eaton Fire erupted shortly after sunset on 7 January – hours after firefighters became overwhelmed in the Palisades.

Jeffrey Ku captured what could be some of the earliest footage of the fire.

A Ring doorbell camera on his home captured the moment his wife came to pull him outside. “Hey babe, I need you to come out here right now,” she tells him as her hair whips in the fierce winds. “We have a very big problem.”

“Oh no!” Mr Ku can be heard saying as bright orange flames light up the sky.

At that point, the fire was still small. It was blazing under a large metal utility tower on the mountainside.

In a series of videos, Mr Ku documented how quickly it spread – each update carrying more worry in his voice as he and his wife packed what they could to leave.

“Please God, please God save us, save our house. Please God, please,” he says in one – the whole sky now glowing yellow-orange. Sirens echo around him.

The large metal utility tower Mr Ku recorded is now a focus for fire investigators.

Utility providers have been blamed for some of California’s worst fires, including the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. In 2019, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) agreed a $13.5bn (£10.2bn) settlement with victims of the Camp Fire and other wildfires in the state.

In the week since the Eaton Fire, there have already been at least five lawsuits filed against Southern California Edison, the power provider that operates the tower seen in Mr Ku’s video.

The company says it has not found any evidence that its equipment was responsible for the fire and is reviewing the lawsuits.

In a statement, it said its preliminary analysis of transmission lines across the canyon showed there were “no interruptions or operational/electrical anomalies in the 12 hours prior to the fire’s reported start time until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire”.

Additionally, the company said its distribution lines to the west of Eaton Canyon “were de-energized well before the reported start time of the fire” as part of its fire safety shut-off program.

Chief Marrone told the BBC that investigators were looking into all possibilities, including whether the tower may have been where a spot fire ignited – meaning the initial blaze could have been started elsewhere but then spread to the tower through flying embers.

He explained the tower where the fire was spotted is not like those seen in neighbourhoods. Rather than a wooden pole with a small, easy-to-blow transformer or slim wires, this was a massive metal transmission tower with high voltage lines as thick as a fist.

These types of lines aren’t typically the cause of fires because they’re computerised, he said, and the system automatically turns off power once there is an issue.

He noted, though, that investigators were looking into whether Southern California Edison’s systems operated properly that night and cut power.

Cal Fire cautioned against casting any blame so early in the probe.

“We want to make very sure that we’re not pointing any fingers in any direction because we’ve seen what happens when someone is falsely accused,” Gerry Magaña, deputy chief of operations, told the BBC in an interview.

“It causes chaos.”

In a remote village in western Nepal, thousands of miles from Israel, Mahananda Joshi was sitting restlessly at home on Thursday, his phone in his hand.

The phone is never far from his hand now. And never on silent. He is waiting for news of his son, Bipin Joshi, a 23-year-old Nepalese agriculture student who was kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza.

Any time the phone rings, Mahananda, a local schoolteacher, thinks it might bring news of Bipin, or even – his deepest hope – his son’s voice on the line.

“Sadly, it is always someone else,” Mahananda said.

Bipin was one of dozens of foreign workers kidnapped alongside Israelis when Hamas attacked on 7 October 2023.

Twenty-four were subsequently released – 23 from Thailand and one from the Philippines – but Bipin and nine others remained.

It was never clear why.

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• Analysis: Long-overdue deal may end killings but not the conflict
• History of the Israel-Gaza war explained

The last time Bipin’s mother Padma spoke to him was 6 October, she said, the day before he was kidnapped.

He assured her he was eating well, and showed off the clothes he was wearing.

The next time the family saw him was on video footage taken from the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, shown to them by Israeli officials, who asked them to identify him.

It was the confirmation that he had been taken alive.

The BBC now understands that Bipin is believed to still be alive, but Nepal’s ambassador to Israel, Dhan Prasad Pandit, said he had “no concrete information” yet about Bipin’s condition or whereabouts.

Mahananda, Bipin’s mother Padma and 18-year-old sister Puspa live in a small white, one-storey home in the village of Bispuri Mahendranagar, close to the border with India.

As of Thursday, they had not heard anything from officials, they said, only the headlines announcing a ceasefire agreement.

The news had given them all renewed hope.

“I feel like he will message me today or tomorrow saying mummy, I am free now and I will return home immediately,” Padma said.

But the Joshi family’s relief, if it comes, will not be that fast.

Along with the nine other foreign workers who remain hostages, Bipin is not expected to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire, which will prioritise the release of elderly men, women and children.

The fear for the family is that, while they wait, everything can change.

“Everything could fall apart,” Padma said, with tears in her eyes.

The family’s ordeal began on the day of the attack.

Bipin was one of several Nepalese students in Kibbutzim in southern Israel that day, and Mahananda, a teacher at a local school, got a call from one of them to say that Bipin had been kidnapped.

At that point, Mahananda did not know anything of Hamas’s attack nor the situation unfolding in Israel, and he struggled to make sense of what he was hearing.

He would later learn that 10 Nepalese students had been killed in the attack, and that one – his son – appeared to have been taken hostage.

That feeling of disconnection has persisted for 15 agonising months, Mahananda and Padma said on Thursday.

Every hostage family’s pain has been great, but for some of those far away from Israel there has been an added sense of isolation.

“It has been a very lonely experience,” Mahananda said.

Mr Pandit, Nepal’s ambassador to Israel, told the BBC that he had been in regular contact with the family and visited the village.

Mahananda painted a slightly different picture, saying that early on in the war the family did receive many visits from officials, but as it dragged on they were increasingly left alone.

“Since the new ceasefire agreement, no-one has come to see us or communicated with us at all,” he said.

“Everything we know comes from the news.”

A spokesperson for the office of the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, who has been working with hostage families over the past 15 months, said that it treated all hostages the same, either Israeli or from abroad, and was working diligently to get them all freed.

For some of the families, the ceasefire news brings hope that their 15-month ordeal is coming to a close and they will see their loved ones again within weeks.

For others, like the Joshis, any hope must be tempered.

The longer they have to wait, the more likely the ceasefire deal could fall apart.

At home in Bispuri Mahendranagar on Thursday, Bipin’s sister Puspa was holding a photo of her brother as she spoke.

Tears filled her eyes when she talked about him coming home. She was confident he would.

“And when I see him again, I’m going to hug him,” she said. “And cry.”

Dame Joan Plowright, one of Britain’s most celebrated stage and screen stars and the widow of Sir Laurence Olivier, has died at the age of 95.

Her career spanned 60 years and included an Oscar nomination for the 1991 film Enchanted April.

She married Olivier in 1961 after starring opposite him as his daughter in The Entertainer, and became a leading member of the National Theatre, which he set up.

In a statement, her family said they were “so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being”.

• Obituary: Acting star whose first love was theatre

Her family said: “It is with great sadness that the family of Dame Joan Plowright, the Lady Olivier, inform you that she passed away peacefully on January 16 2025 surrounded by her family at Denville Hall aged 95.

“She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire.

“She cherished her last 10 years in Sussex with constant visits from friends and family, filled with much laughter and fond memories.”

They added: “She survived her many challenges with Plowright grit and courageous determination to make the best of them, and that she certainly did.

“Rest in peace, Joan…”

She had been retired for a decade, having lost her eyesight and been registered blind.

Born in Scunthorpe, Plowright became a leading lady in London’s West End in the 1950s, and first appeared opposite Olivier in John Osborne’s The Entertainer at the Royal Court in 1957.

He was still married to Gone With The Wind star Vivien Leigh at the time, and Plowright was married to her first husband Roger Gage.

Plowright and Olivier fell in love, and their acting partnership earned them both Bafta nominations for the film version of The Entertainer, which came out in 1960.

That year, Plowright also made her breakthrough in the US in A Taste of Honey on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for her performance.

Her other notable plays included George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, about Joan of Arc, in 1963, which for which she was named best actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

And she won a Society of West End Theatre Award – later renamed the Olivier Awards after her husband – in 1978 for Filumena.

She received another Bafta nomination that same year for her performance in the film version of Equus alongside Richard Burton.

In Enchanted April, her role as the elegant but peevish Mrs Fisher earned her a Golden Globe as well as a nomination for the Oscar for best supporting actress in 1993.

Dame Joan was one of a generation of great acting dames, and appeared opposite Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith in the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini.

More recently, she was famously seen reminiscing and enjoying repartee with Dame Judi, Dame Maggie and Dame Eileen Atkins in the 2018 BBC documentary Nothing Like A Dame.

In a clip from the show, which went viral online, a slightly disguntled Dame Maggie is seen telling Dame Judi she was “always asked first” when acting roles were offered.

The exchange was initially missed by Dame Joan because one of her hearing aids had fallen out, but she then joined in the joke, also recounting a similar story. She was then offered a spare hearing aid by the late Dame Maggie, who died in September 2024.

Dame Joan was part of an “extraordinary” acting company that her husband assembled when the National Theatre began life at the Old Vic theatre in the early 1960s, according to playwright David Hare.

Others included Maggie Smith, Michael Redgrave, Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon.

“She represented, at that point, a new realism in the theatre – a working class background, obviously, like many of her contemporaries,” Hare told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One.

“And she had the not very easy task of being Laurence Olivier’s wife while Laurence Olivier was running the theatre, and she handled that situation extremely well.”

Hare added: “I’ll also remember her as an incredibly wise and witty woman. She was very good fun, and she liked to laugh, and she used humour all the time to defuse some of the tensions that grew up around her husband.”

When he first worked with her at the age of 23, Hare said he was “totally out of my depth, and she never treated me with anything but friendliness, courtesy and wit”.

The National Theatre’s current director, Rufus Norris, said Dame Joan’s “contribution as one of the central pillars of the National Theatre cannot be overstated”.

She delivered “an extraordinary series of celebrated performances” in plays including Uncle Vanya, Saint Joan, The Master Builder, Much Ado About Nothing and Three Sisters, he said.

“In many of these she acted alongside Sir Laurence Olivier, her partner in art and life.

“Joan’s influence offstage on the nascent National Theatre was similarly profound, and her remarkable talent and dedication to her craft have left an enduring legacy as an actor.

“She remained a personal friend to and champion of the National Theatre throughout its history.”

West End theatres will dim their lights for two minutes in tribute to Dame Joan on Tuesday.

UK Theatre and Society Of London Theatre co-chief executive Hannah Essex said: “Dame Joan Plowright was an iconic and deeply respected figure in the world of theatre, leaving an indelible mark on the industry she shaped with her talent and dedication.

“We are honoured to contribute to the celebration of her extraordinary career and extend our heartfelt condolences to her family and loved ones.”

There was also a tribute from the operators of the Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe, which was named after her in the 1990s.

“We are saddened to hear that Dame Joan Plowright, the esteemed British actress whose career spanned over six decades, has passed away at the age of 95,” a statement said.

“Born in Brigg she became one of the most distinguished actors of her generation.”

Plowright’s father Bill founded the Scunthorpe Little Theatre Club, which still performs at the venue.

A leading Cuban dissident and activist has been released from jail as part of a wider prisoner release deal between the Cuban government and the United States.

Jose Daniel Ferrer spent more than three years in prison following anti-government protests that swept through the Communist-run island in 2021.

Under the agreement brokered by the Catholic Church, outgoing US President Joe Biden removed Cuba from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism just days before the end of his term.

In return, Cuba said it would free 553 people, many of whom were detained during the anti-government protests.

The island began releasing the first of hundreds of prisoners on Wednesday, freeing about 20 people, according to local NGOs.

Ferrer is one of the most recognised names among Cuban dissidents and pro-democracy activists. The 54-year-old leader of Cuba’s Patriotic Union (Unpacu), an opposition group in the country, was jailed and charged with public disorder following the 2021 protests.

“I am at home, in fair health, but with the courage to continue fighting for the freedom of Cuba,” Ferrer told Reuters in a phone conversation.

Many of the prisoners released this week were arrested in association with 2021 protests, during which citizens demanded that the Cuban government do more to ease widespread food shortages and lower spiralling prices.

Biden’s move to remove Cuba from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism came just days ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, has been critical of the decision to ease sanctions on Cuba, hinting that it could be reversed.

Speaking at his Senate nomination hearing on Wednesday, Rubio said referring to some of the sanctions on Cuba that the Biden administration rescinded on Tuesday that “the new administration is not bound by that decision”.

Earlier, Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on Fox News that “anything [the Biden administration] are doing right now, we can do back, and no-one should be under any illusion in terms of a change in Cuba policy”.

The Cuban government says the island’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism is deeply unjust and aimed at harming its economy by making it impossible for Cuba to access international banking credits.

Animal rights campaigners in France are celebrating after a wild boar facing the threat of death was allowed to stay with its owner.

The boar, named Rillette, was found in 2023 as a piglet by Elodie Cappé on her horse-breeding smallholding in Chaource, central France, after apparently being abandoned by its mother.

Local authorities had refused Ms Cappé the permission required to keep a wild animal. Unable to find a sanctuary to take Rillette, she faced the possibility of having to get it euthanised.

A French court has now ruled the authority’s decision must be re-examined.

Ms Cappé’s husband thought it was a joke when she came home with the baby boar on 1 April – April Fool’s Day – which she then raised.

She told the BBC she had initially tried to release Rillette back into the wild, but the boar came running back.

“She’s happy here,” Ms Cappé said.

Wild boars can carry diseases and cause a nuisance to farmers because of their size. Weighing between 60-100kg, according to the Woodland Trust, they are capable of knocking down fences, damaging fields and killing livestock.

While attacks on humans are rare, wild boars have increasingly been spotted roaming towns and cities across Europe – prompting officials to authorise culls in several countries.

When Ms Cappé’s local authority refused her permission to keep the wild animal – and unable to find a sanctuary that would take the sizeable beast – she faced two options.

She could give the boar to a woman who trained animals for films for profit, or Rillette would be euthanised – neither of which she wanted to happen.

Ms Cappé described Rillette – whom she cuddles and strokes – as her “best friend”.

“We both play a lot. I learn a lot of things. She knows how to sit [on command], lie down, play with dogs.

“She joins us for horse rides. She sleeps with the dogs. She’s a clown! She spends her days doing silly things to play.”

Keeping the boar, though, meant Ms Cappé risked a three-year jail sentence and a €150,000 (£127,000) fine.

Her appeal to a French court gained worldwide attention. She said she received calls from Germany, Ukraine, Brazil, Canada and the US while fighting the case.

Rillette’s story has drawn comparisons with a case in the US last year, in which a tame squirrel named Peanut that had had a large following on social media was put down by the authorities, sparking outcry.

In France, the animal rights activist and film star, Brigitte Bardot, joined the campaign to save Rillette.

A court in the nearby city of Châlons-en-Champagne has now ruled that the authorities must reconsider Ms Cappé’s original application.

It also ordered them to pay her €15,000 (£12,700) in damages, according to Reuters.

The judge said that “although the capture of live wild boars in the wild is in principle prohibited, the prefect nevertheless still has the power to authorise it”.

Ms Cappé was ecstatic when her lawyer relayed the decision: “I started partying – I screamed very loud as I was very happy.”

She said she was going to buy a cake and drink champagne, explaining that cake, along with apples, are one of her pet’s favourite foods.

Pakistan’s flag carrier has drawn widespread criticism for putting out an advertisement that showed a plane flying towards the Eiffel Tower.

The ad was meant to promote the resumption of Pakistan International Airlines’ flights to the French capital and had the caption “Paris, we’re coming today”.

Some social media users noted the ad’s resemblance to the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001.

“Is this an advertisement or a threat?” one user wrote on X. Another called for the company to “fire your marketing manager”.

The image has been viewed more than 21 million times on X since it was published last week and has drawn swift backlash.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered an investigation into the matter, while Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has also criticised the ad, Pakistan’s Geo News reported.

The 9/11 attacks saw hijackers crash passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, killing nearly 3,000 people.

The alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, was arrested in Pakistan in 2003.

Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaeda extremist network which planned the attacks, was killed by US troops in Pakistan in 2011.

Pakistani journalist Omar Quraishi said PIA’s ad left him “truly speechless”.

“Did the airline management not vet this?

“Do they not know about the 9/11 tragedy – which used planes to attack buildings? Did they not think that this would be perceived in similar fashion,” he wrote on X.

The airline has not commented on the incident.

The PIA, however, is no stranger to controversy.

Some X users pointed out that in 1979, the airline published an advertisement showing a passenger jet’s shadow over the twin towers.

In 2017, the airline was mocked after staff sacrificed a goat to ward off bad luck following one of the country’s worst air disasters.

And in 2019, PIA caused a stir when it told flight attendants to slim down or get grounded. Staff were told they had had six months to shed “excess weight”.

A fare-dodging passenger on a German high-speed train ended up clinging to the outside when it pulled out of the station before he was ready to get on, police say.

The 40-year-old man had boarded the ICE train in Munich without a valid ticket and wanted to take a smoking break at the station in Ingolstadt.

But he lingered too long over his cigarette and the train doors closed, leaving him with the prospect of being stranded.

He then jumped on to a bracket between two carriages and held on to cables while the train powered on towards Nuremberg at up to 282 km/h (175mph), until federal police brought it to a halt about 30km away.

Witnesses alerted officials and they contacted the train driver, who made an unscheduled stop at Kinding in Upper Bavaria. The intercity express was on a six-hour journey to the northern city of Lübeck.

The man, a Hungarian national, told police he had left his luggage on the train during his cigarette break and did not want to be parted from it.

He was “amazingly” unharmed after his daredevil ride, said a police spokesman.

“A police officer from the state police who happened to be travelling with the train found the 40-year-old Hungarian ‘passenger’ and brought him on to the train,” the spokesman said, adding that he was handed over to federal police at Nuremberg central station.

The man is now being investigated for benefit fraud.

He is also expected to face charges for “an act disruptive to operations”, which is classed as a mere administrative offence.

Federal police have warned the public not to risk their lives on Germany’s trains.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has upgraded its growth forecast for the UK economy this year, but has also warned about the possible impact of Donald Trump’s economic plans.

The global institution upgraded its prediction for UK growth to 1.6% for this year from its previous estimate of 1.5%.

But it said a threatened wave of tariffs by incoming US president Trump could make trade tensions worse, lower investment, and disrupt supply chains across the world.

The IMF also said although tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation could boost the US economy in the short term, they could ultimately backfire.

The prospect of higher taxes being introduced on imports to the US is concerning many world leaders because they will make it more expensive for companies to sell their goods in the world’s biggest economy.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue – and has threatened to issue tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico on day one of his presidency next week.

He has also said he would impose 100% tariffs on the BRICS bloc of nine nations if they were to create a rival currency to the US dollar.

The IMF said such policies could set the scene for an inflationary boom followed by a bust and could weaken US Treasury bonds as a safe bet.

As well as upgrading its outlook for the UK, the IMF suggested the UK economy would perform better than European economies such as Germany, France and Italy over the next two years.

The improved forecast could be a boost for Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has faced pressure over her policy decisions this week, after figures showed the economy had flatlined.

Labour has made growth its key objective, but Reeves has admitted the government has to “do more to grow our economy”, in order to boost living standards.

The latest IMF figures suggested the UK economy had weaker growth last year than the organisation had expected.

Responding to the IMF’s report, Reeves highlighted that the UK was the only G7 economy, apart from the US, to have its growth forecast upgraded for 2025.

Forecasts are never perfect given the many factors that affect economic growth – from geopolitics to the weather. But such reports can point in the right direction, especially where they align with other predictions.

The IMF predicted “stable, albeit lacklustre” global growth of 3.3% in both 2025 and 2026, below a historical average of 3.7%.

Its 2025 forecast was largely unchanged from a previous one, mainly because it expects higher US growth than previously predicted to offset lower growth in other major economies.

The imminent arrival of Trump in the White House dominates the section on risks in the IMF’s twice-yearly forecast for the world economy.

When he was last in power, Trump launched into a trade war with China, and US policy led to tit-for-tat tariffs with the EU.

This time round, Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on global imports, a 25% duty on imports from Canada and Mexico, and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.

It warns that an inflationary US boom could be followed by a possible bust that would potentially “weaken the role of US Treasuries as the global safe asset”.

Investors see US Treasury securities as one of the safest possible bets, because the bonds – which are kind of like an IOU – are backed by the US government.

In addition, if red tape on business is cut too much, this could lead to a runaway dollar that could suck money out of emerging economies, depressing global growth.

Trump going ahead with deportations of illegal immigrants could “permanently reduce potential output” and also raise inflation, The IMF said.

Its chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, said “tremendous uncertainty” about Trump’s future policies was already affecting stock markets around the world.

On Thursday, the World Bank also warned that US tariffs could hit trade and depress global growth this year.

The bank predicts global growth of 2.7% in 2025, which would be the weakest performance since 2019, aside from the sharp contraction seen at the height of the Covid pandemic.

After lying hidden beneath metres of volcanic rock and ash for 2,000 years, a “once-in-a-century” find has been unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in Italy.

Archaeologists have discovered a sumptuous private bathhouse – potentially the largest ever found there – complete with hot, warm and cold rooms, exquisite artwork, and a huge plunge pool.

The spa-like complex sits at the heart of a grand residence uncovered over the last two years during a major excavation.

“It’s these spaces that really are part of the ‘Pompeii effect’ – it’s almost as if the people had only left a minute ago,” says Dr Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, who has revealed the new find exclusively to BBC News.

Analysis of two skeletons discovered in the house also shows the horror faced by Pompeii’s inhabitants when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79.

The bodies belonged to a woman, aged between 35 and 50, who was clutching jewellery and coins, and a younger man in his teens or early 20s.

They had barricaded themselves into a small room, but were killed as a tsunami of superheated volcanic gas and ash – known as a pyroclastic flow – ripped through the town.

“This is a dramatic place, and everything you find here tells you about the drama,” says Pompeii conservator, Dr Ludovica Alesse.

A third of the ancient city still lies hidden beneath volcanic debris from the disaster, but the new excavation – the most extensive in a generation – provides new insights into ancient Roman life.

The archaeologists have been followed by a documentary team from the BBC and Lion TV, for a series called Pompeii: The New Dig.

An entire block of Pompeii has now been uncovered, revealing a laundry and bakery, as well as the large private house. It’s thought these were all owned by one wealthy individual, possibly Aulus Rustius Verus, an influential Pompeii politician.

The discovery of the bathhouse is further confirmation of his elite status, says Dr Zuchtriegel.

“There are just a few houses that have a private bath complex, so it was something really for the wealthiest of the wealthy,” he says. “And this is so huge – it’s probably the biggest bath complex in a Pompeiian private home.”

Those lucky enough to use the suite of bathing rooms would have undressed in a changing room with vibrant red walls and a mosaic floor dotted with geometric patterns inlaid with marble from across the Roman Empire.

They would then head to the hot room, taking a dip in a bath and enjoying the sauna-like warmth, provided by a suspended floor that allowed hot air to flow underneath and walls with a cavity where the heat could circulate.

Next they would move to the brightly-painted warm room, where oil would be rubbed into the skin, before being scraped off with a curved instrument called a strigil.

Finally, they would enter the largest and most spectacular room of all – the frigidarium, or cold room. Surrounded by red columns and frescoes of athletes, a visitor could cool off in the plunge pool, which is so large 20-30 people could fit in it.

“In the hot summers, you could sit with your feet in the water, chatting with your friends, maybe enjoying a cup of wine,” says Dr Zuchtriegel.

The bathhouse is the latest find to emerge from this extraordinary house.

A huge banqueting room with jet black walls and breathtaking artwork of classical scenes was found last year. A smaller, more intimate room – painted in pale blue – where residents of the house would go and pray to the gods was also unearthed.

The residence was mid-renovation – tools and building materials have been found throughout. In the blue room a pile of oyster shells lie on the floor, ready to be ground up and applied to the walls to give them an iridescent shimmer.

Next door to this beautiful space, in a cramped room with barely any decoration, a stark discovery was made – the remains of two Pompeiians who failed to escape from the eruption.

The skeleton of a woman was found lying on top of a bed, curled up in a foetal position. The body of a man was in the corner of this small room.

“The pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius came along the street just outside this room, and caused a wall to collapse, and that had basically crushed him to death,” explains Dr Sophie Hay, an archaeologist at Pompeii.

“The woman was still alive while he was dying – imagine the trauma – and then this room filled with the rest of the pyroclastic flow, and that’s how she died.”

Analysis of the male skeleton showed that despite his young age, his bones had signs of wear and tear, suggesting he was of lower status, possibly even a slave.

The woman was older, but her bones and teeth were in good condition.

“She was probably someone higher up in society,” says Dr Hay. “She could have been the wife of the owner of the house – or maybe an assistant looking after the wife, we just don’t know.”

An assortment of items were found on a marble table top in the room – glassware, bronze jugs and pottery – perhaps brought into the room where the pair had tucked themselves away hoping to wait out the eruption.

But it’s the items clutched by the victims that are of particular interest. The younger man held some keys, while the older woman was found with gold and silver coins and jewellery.

These are kept in Pompeii’s vault, along with the city’s other priceless finds, and we were given a chance to see them with archaeologist, Dr Alessandro Russo.

The gold coins still gleam as if they were new, and he shows us delicate gold and natural pearl earrings, necklace pendants and intricately etched semi-precious stones.

“When we find this kind of object, the distance from ancient times and modern times disappears,” Dr Russo says, “and we can touch a small piece of the life of these people who died in the eruption.”

Dr Sophie Hay describes the private bathhouse complex as a once-in-a-century discovery, which also sheds more light on a darker side of Roman life.

Just behind the hot room is a boiler room. A pipe brought water in from the street – with some syphoned off into the cold plunge pool – and the rest was heated in a lead boiler destined for the hot room. The valves that regulated the flow look so modern it’s as if you could turn them on and off even today.

With a furnace sitting beneath, the conditions in this room would have been unbearably hot for the slaves who had to keep the whole system going.

“The most powerful thing from these excavations is that stark contrast between the lives of the slaves and the very, very rich. And here we see it,” says Dr Sophie Hay.

“The difference between the sumptuous life of the bathhouse, compared to the furnace room, where the slaves would be feeding the fire toiling all day.

“A wall is all that could divide you between two different worlds.”

The excavation is in its final weeks – but new discoveries continue to emerge from the ash. Limited numbers of visitors are allowed to visit the dig while it’s ongoing, but eventually it will be fully opened to the public.

“Every day here is a surprise,” says Dr Anna Onesti, director of the excavation.

“Sometimes in the morning I come to work thinking that it’s a normal working day – and then I discover we found something exceptional.

“It’s a magic moment for the life of Pompeii, and this excavation work offers us the possibility to share this with the public.”

The official portraits of US President-elect Donald Trump and his second-in-command JD Vance have been released ahead of their inauguration on Monday.

Both Trump and Vance are pictured in blue suits, white collared shirts and blue ties, with Trump wearing a small US flag pin on his lapel.

Trump’s expression contrasts with Vance’s, with the president-elect’s head tilted slightly downward, one eyebrow raised and his lips pressed together.

Vance smiles at the camera, with his arms crossed, in a more relaxed pose.

The new image of Trump has drawn comparisons to his 2023 mugshot, which was taken in Fulton County Jail after he was charged with attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden in the state of Georgia – a charge Trump denied.

The now-famous image was used by Trump to fundraise for his campaign.

The Trump-Vance transition said in a press release that the portraits “go hard”.

The portrait Trump opted for this time differs markedly with the image used in 2017, when he first became president.

While he wears similar attire, he smiles broadly at the camera in the earlier portrait.

“Trump may be embracing a defiant image, transforming a moment of legal adversity into a symbol of resilience and strength,” Quardricos Driskell, a political science professor at George Washington University, told the BBC.

“The stark contrast to his earlier, more traditional portrait could also signify a shift in his public persona, emphasizing a tougher, more combative stance as he prepares to assume office for a second time.”

The portraits were released by the Trump transition team just days before Trump and Vance’s inauguration on 20 January.

The official portraits of Trump and his former Vice-President Mike Pence were not released until nine months after they were both sworn in.

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.

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 14 years in prison over a corruption case, in the latest of a series of charges laid against him.

It is the longest valid jail sentence the cricket star-turned-politician, who has been detained since August 2023, has received.

He has faced charges in over 100 cases, ranging from leaking state secrets to selling state gifts – all of which he has decried as politically motivated.

The latest case has been described by Pakistani authorities as the largest the country has seen, though the country has seen huge financial scandals in the past, some of which involved former leaders.

Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi were accused of receiving a parcel of land as a bribe from a real estate tycoon through the Al-Qadir Trust, which the couple had set up while he was in office.

In exchange, investigators said, Khan used £190m ($232m) repatriated by the UK’s National Crime Agency to pay the tycoon’s court fines.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party argued that the land was donated to the trust for a spiritual education centre and was not used for Khan’s personal gain.

In a post on X, PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan said that the former prime minister “has done no wrong” and that this was a “politically motivated unfair trial”.

“But [Imran Khan] will not give in, he will not give up, he will not break,” he wrote.

Friday’s verdict comes after multiple delays as Khan’s party held talks with the government.

After his conviction on Friday, Khan told reporters in the courtroom that he would “neither make any deal nor seek any relief.”

Khan’s prison sentence of 14 years is the maximum that could be given in the case. He has also been fined more than £4,000.

His wife has been sentenced to seven years and fined more than £2,000. Bibi, who has been out on bail since last October, was taken into custody in court after her sentence was announced.

In 2023, Khan was sentenced to three years in prison for not declaring money earned from selling gifts he had received while in office.

Last year, Khan received a 14-year jail sentence over the selling of state gifts, and another 10 years for leaking state secrets. Both those sentences were suspended months later.

Despite being in jail and barred from holding public office, Khan still looms large over Pakistan’s political scene. Last year’s election saw candidates backed by Imran Khan winning the most number of seats out of all the parties.

Khan’s prosecution has triggered large-scale protests by his supporters – which have been met with a crackdown from authorities. Thousands of protesters have been arrested and many injured in clashes with the police.

A cigarette stub recovered from Mary McLaughlin’s flat provided the first clue to her killer’s identity – more than 30 years after she was strangled.

A matching DNA profile was later discovered hidden in the knot of the dressing gown cord used to murder the mother-of-eleven.

The breakthrough initially baffled cold case detectives as the prime suspect was a prisoner in Edinburgh when Mary, 58, was found dead in the west end of Glasgow.

But a governor’s log book confirmed serial sex offender Graham McGill was on parole when the grandmother was killed.

And it revealed he returned to his cell within hours of leaving Mary’s home in the early hours of 27 September 1984.

A new BBC documentary, Murder Case: The Hunt for Mary McLaughlin’s Killer, tells the story of the cold case investigation – as well as the devastating impact the murder had on Mary’s family.

Senior forensic scientist Joanne Cochrane said: “There are some murders that stay with you.

“Mary’s murder is one of the more disturbing cold cases that I’ve dealt with.”

Mary spent her last night out drinking and playing dominos in the Hyndland Pub, now the Duck Club, which looks onto Mansfield Park.

She left the bar, on Hyndland Street, alone between 22:15 and 22:30 to walk less than a mile home to her flat.

Along the way she called into Armando’s chip shop on Dumbarton Road, where she joked with staff as she bought fritters and cigarettes.

A taxi driver, who knew her as Wee May, later told how he saw a lone man following her as she walked bare foot along the road carrying her shoes.

The sequence of events which led to McGill ending up in Mary’s third-floor flat in Crathie Court is unknown but there was no sign of forced entry.

Once inside, he launched a savage attack on a woman who was more than double his age.

In an era before mobile phones, Mary was not in frequent contact with her large family who lived in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.

Once a week, one of her sons, Martin Cullen, would call in to see her.

But when the then 24-year-old turned up at the flat on 2 October 1984, there was no answer and a “horrible smell” when he opened the letterbox.

Mary was found dead inside, lying on her back on a bare mattress.

Her false teeth were on the floor and a new green dress she had worn to the pub had been put on her back-to-front.

Former senior investigating officer Iain Wishart described the crime scene as “particularly cruel”.

He added: “The tragic thing is that she would have been looking into his eyes when he committed the murder.”

A post-mortem examination concluded that Mary had died after being strangled at least five days earlier.

Detectives gathered more than 1,000 statements in the months that followed but the hunt for Mary’s killer resulted in a series of dead ends.

The following year the family were told the investigation had been closed but one CID officer urged Mary’s daughter, Gina McGavin: “Don’t give up hope.”

Mary had 11 children by two fathers and was well known in the local community.

But daughter Gina told the documentary there were tensions as she left her first six children and the five she had with a second partner.

She said: “I thought that there was a hidden killer within the family.”

Gina, who wrote a book about her mother’s murder, said she shared her suspicions with the police.

She added: “My siblings were of the same thinking as me in 1984.

“It was one of her own children that had been involved or knew something more but we couldn’t prove anything.”

By 2008, four separate reviews had failed to yield a profile of the suspect.

The fifth review was launched in 2014 and the eventual breakthrough was made possible by a new DNA-profiling facility at the Scottish Crime Campus (SCC) in Gartcosh, North Lanarkshire.

Previously experts could look at 11 individual DNA markers but the latest technology was capable of identifying 24.

This dramatically increased the odds of scientists obtaining a result from smaller or lower-quality samples.

Tom Nelson, director of forensics for the Scottish Police Authority, said in 2015 that the technology would make it possible to “reach back in time, with the potential to rekindle justice for those who had all but given up hope”.

The samples gathered in 1984 included locks of Mary’s hair, nail scrapings and cigarette ends.

Ms Cochrane, who is based at the SCC, was asked to review evidence from the scene that had been preserved in paper bags for 30 years.

She said: “They didn’t know about DNA profiling at that time.

“They didn’t know the potential held in these items.

“They couldn’t possibly have known the value that it might have had.”

The senior forensic scientist said the original inquiry team showed “amazing foresight” to preserve evidence.

The breakthrough eventually came from an Embassy cigarette end stubbed out on an ashtray on the living room coffee table.

It was of particular interest to the cold case team as Mary’s preferred brand was Woodbine.

Ms Cochrane said she hoped technological advances would enable her to obtain trace levels of DNA.

She told the documentary: “Then we get this Eureka moment, our Eureka moment, where the cigarette end, which previously didn’t give us a DNA profile is now giving us a full male profile.

“This is something we have never had before and it is the first evidentially significant piece of forensic science in the case.”

It was sent to the Scottish DNA database and compared against thousands of profiles of convicted criminals.

The result was delivered to Ms Cochrane in a form, via email.

She quickly scrolled to the bottom and saw a cross next to the box: “Direct Match”.

The expert said: “It was a real goose bumps moment.

“It identifies a person called Graham McGill and I can see on the form that comes back to me that he has got serious convictions for sexual offences.

“After more than 30 years we had an individual that matched that DNA profile.”

But the long-awaited development created a conundrum when it emerged McGill – who had convictions for rape and attempted rape – was a prisoner when Mary was murdered.

Records also showed he was not released until 5 October 1984 – nine days after the grandmother was last seen alive.

Former Det Sgt Kenny McCubbin was tasked with solving a mystery that did not make sense.

Ms Cochrane was also told more forensic evidence was needed to build a compelling case.

That quest led her to another “time capsule of DNA” – the dressing gown cord used to strangle Mary.

Ms Cochrane believed there was a fair chance the person who tightened the knot may have touched the material now concealed within it.

Under the glare of fluorescent lights in her lab she slowly untied it, piece by piece, to expose the fabric for the first time in more than three decades.

She said: “We found that key piece of evidence – DNA matching Graham McGill – on the knots within the ligature.

“He had tied that ligature around Mary’s neck and had tied those knots to strangle Mary.”

Separately, traces of McGill’s semen were also found on the grandmother’s green dress.

But Mr McCubbin, who has now retired, told the documentary the forensic evidence alone was not enough to secure a conviction.

He said: “It didn’t matter what DNA we had.

“He’s got the perfect alibi. How could he commit the murder if he was in prison?”

Records were hard to find as HMP Edinburgh had been rebuilt at the time of the murder and, in an era before computers, paperwork had been lost.

Mr McCubbin’s quest eventually took him to the National Records of Scotland, in the heart of Edinburgh, where he tracked down the governor’s journals.

And a single entry changed everything.

Next to a prison number was the name “G McGill” and the acronym “TFF”.

The former detective sergeant said: “That was Training For Freedom, which meant weekend home leave.”

The inquiry team discovered McGill was on two days weekend leave, with three days pre-parole leave added on, and returned to the prison on 27 September 1984.

Former senior investigating officer Mark Henderson said: “That was the golden nugget we were looking for.”

McGill was finally arrested on 4 December 2019 .

At the time, he was still being managed as a sex offender, but was working in the Glasgow area as a fabricator for a company based in Linwood, Renfrewshire.

Gina said the news came as a relief and added: “I never thought I would see it in my lifetime.”

McGill finally was found guilty after a four-day trial in April 2021 and jailed for a minimum of 14 years.

The judge, Lord Burns, told the High Court in Glasgow that McGill was 22 when he strangled Mary but stood in the dock as a 59-year-old.

He added: “Her family has had to wait all that time in order to discover who was responsible for that act knowing that whoever did it was probably at large in the community.

“They had never given up the hope that some day they would find out what had happened to her.”

All websites on which pornographic material can be found, including social media platforms, must introduce “robust” age-checking techniques such as demanding photo ID or running credit card checks for UK users by July.

The long-awaited guidance, issued by regulator Ofcom, has been made under the Online Safety Act (OSA), and is intended to prevent children from easily accessing pornography online.

Research indicates the average age at which young people first see explicit material online in the UK is 13 – with many being exposed to it much earlier.

“For too long, many online services which allow porn and other harmful material have ignored the fact that children are accessing their services”, said Ofcom boss Melanie Dawes, adding: “today, this starts to change.”

Ofcom confirmed to the BBC this meant user-to-user services such as social media platforms must implement “highly effective checks” – which in some cases might mean “preventing children from accessing the entire site”.

However, some porn sites and privacy campaigners have warned the move will be counterproductive, saying introducing beefed-up age verification will only push people to “darker corners” of the internet.

The media regulator estimates that approximately 14 million people watch online pornography in the UK.

But it is so readily available that campaign groups have raised concerns that children see it at a young age – with one in 10 children seeing it by age nine, according to a survey by the Children’s Commissioner.

“As age checks start to roll out in the coming months, adults will start to notice a difference in how they access certain online services,” said Dame Melanie.

The rules also require services which publish their own pornographic content – including with generative AI tools – to begin introducing age checks immediately.

Age verification platform Yoti called such technology “essential” for creating safe spaces online.

“It is important that age assurance is enforced across pornographic sites of all sizes, creating a level playing field, and providing age-appropriate access for adults,” said chief regulatory and policy officer Julie Dawson.

However Aylo, parent company of the website Pornhub, told the BBC this sort of age verification was “ineffective, haphazard and dangerous”.

It claimed pornography use changed significantly in US state Louisiana after similar age verification controls came into force, with its website’s traffic dropping 80% in the state.

“These people did not stop looking for porn, they just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age,” it claimed.

“In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.”

Ofcom has published what it calls a “non-exhaustive” list of technologies that may be used to verify ages, which includes:

• Open banking
• Photo ID matching
• Facial age estimation
• Mobile network operator age checks
• Credit card checks
• Digital identity services
• Email-based age estimation

The rules specifically state that “self-declaration of age” is no longer considered a “highly effective” method of checking ages – and therefore is not acceptable.

It also states that pornographic content should not be accessible to users before they have completed an age check.

Other age verification firms have responded positively to the news.

“The regulator’s long-awaited guidance on age assurance means adult content providers now have the clarity they need to get their houses in order and put in place robust and reliable methods to keep explicit material well away from underage users,” said Lina Ghazal, head of regulatory and public affairs at Verifymy.

But privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch warned that many age-checking methods could be circumvented, and should not be seen as a panacea.

“Children must be protected online, but many technological age checking methods are ineffective and introduce additional risks to children and adults alike including security breaches, privacy intrusion, errors, digital exclusion and censorship,” said boss Silkie Carlo.

“We must avoid anything like a digital ID system for the internet that would both eradicate privacy online and fail to keep children safe,” she added.

Every week, Rajesh PN Rao, a computer scientist, gets emails from people claiming they’ve cracked an ancient script that has stumped scholars for generations.

These self-proclaimed codebreakers – ranging from engineers and IT workers to retirees and tax officers – are mostly from India or of Indian origin living abroad. All of them are convinced they’ve deciphered the script of the Indus Valley Civilisation, a blend of signs and symbols.

“They claim they’ve solved it and that the ‘case is closed’,” says Mr Rao, Hwang Endowed Professor at the University of Washington and author of peer-reviewed studies on the Indus script.

Adding fuel to the race, MK Stalin, the chief minister of southern India’s Tamil Nadu state, recently upped the stakes, announcing a $1m prize for anyone who can crack the code.

The Indus, or Harappan, civilisation – one of the world’s earliest urban societies – emerged 5,300 years ago in present-day northwest India and Pakistan. Its austere farmers and traders, living in walled, baked-brick cities, thrived for centuries. Since its discovery a century ago, around 2,000 sites have been uncovered across the region.

The reasons behind the society’s sudden decline remain unclear, with no apparent evidence of war, famine or a natural disaster. But its greatest mystery is its undeciphered script, leaving its language, governance and beliefs shrouded in secrecy.

For over a century, experts – linguists, scientists and archaeologists – have tried to crack the Indus script. Theories have linked it to early Brahmi scripts, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages, Sumerian, and even claimed it’s just made up of political or religious symbols.

Yet, its secrets remain locked away. “The Indus script is perhaps the most important system of writing that is undeciphered,” says Asko Parpola, a leading Indologist.

These days, the more popular spectacular theories equate the script with content from Hindu scriptures and attribute spiritual and magical meanings to the inscriptions.

Most of these attempts ignore that the script, made up of signs and symbols, mostly appears on stone seals used for trade and commerce, making it unlikely they contain religious or mythological content, according to Mr Rao.

There are many challenges to deciphering the Indus script.

First, the relatively small number of scripts – about 4,000 of them, almost all on small objects such as seals, pottery and tablets.

Then there’s the brevity of each script – average length of about five signs or symbols – with no long texts on walls, tablets or upright stone slabs.

Consider the commonly found square seals: lines of signs run along their top, with a central animal motif – often a unicorn – and an object beside it, whose meaning remains unknown.

There’s also no bilingual artefact like the Rosetta Stone, which helped scholars decode Egyptian hieroglyphs. Such artefacts contain text in two languages, offering a direct comparison between a known and unknown script.

Recent advancements in deciphering the Indus script have used computer science to tackle this ancient enigma. Researchers have used machine learning techniques to analyse the script, trying to identify patterns and structures that could lead to its understanding.

Nisha Yadav, a researcher at the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), is one of them. In collaboration with scientists like Mr Rao, her work has focused on applying statistical and computational methods to analyse the undeciphered script.

Using a digitised data set of Indus signs from the script, they have found interesting patterns. A caveat: “We still don’t know whether the signs are complete words, or part of words or part of sentences,” says Ms Yadav.

Ms Yadav and co-researchers found 67 signs that account for 80% of the writing on the script. A sign which looks like a jar with two handles turned out to be the most frequently used sign. Also, the scripts began with a large number of signs and ended with fewer of them. Some sign patterns appear more often than expected.

Also, a machine-learning model of the script was created to restore the illegible and damaged texts, paving the way for further research.

“Our understanding is that the script is structured and there is an underlying logic in the writing,” says Ms Yadav.

To be sure, several ancient scripts remain undeciphered, facing challenges similar to the Indus script.

Mr Rao cites scripts like Proto-Elamite (Iran), Linear A (Crete), and Etruscan (Italy), whose underlying language is unknown.

Others, like Rongorongo (Easter Island) and Zapotec (Mexico), have known languages, “but their symbols remain unclear”. The Phaistos Disc from Crete – a mysterious, fired clay disc from the Minoan civilisation – “closely mirrors the Indus script’s challenges – its language is unknown, and only one known example exists”.

Back in India, it is not entirely clear why Mr Stalin of Tamil Nadu announced a reward for deciphering the script. His announcement followed a new study linking Indus Valley signs to graffiti found in his state.

K Rajan and R Sivananthan analysed over 14,000 graffiti-bearing pottery fragments from 140 excavated sites in Tamil Nadu, which included more than 2,000 signs. Many of these signs closely resemble those in the Indus script, with 60% of the signs matching, and over 90% of south Indian graffiti marks having “parallels” with those from the Indus civilisation, the researchers claim.

This “suggests a kind of cultural contact” between the Indus Valley and south India, Mr Rajan and Mr Sivananthan say.

Many believe Mr Stalin’s move to announce an award positions him as a staunch champion of Tamil heritage and culture, countering Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules in Delhi.

But researchers are confident that there will be no claimants for Mr Stalin’s prize soon. Scholars have compiled complete, updated databases of all known inscribed artefacts – crucial for decipherment. “But what did the Indus people write? I wish we knew,” says Ms Yadav.

Popular Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan has undergone surgery and is out of danger after he was stabbed by an intruder in his home overnight, his team has said.

The attack took place early on Thursday morning in an upscale neighbourhood in the Indian city of Mumbai, where Khan lives with his family.

City police told BBC Marathi that the actor was injured after a scuffle broke out between him and an unidentified man who entered his house sometime after midnight.

Police have formed teams to investigate the matter.

“Khan has come out of surgery and is out of danger. He is currently in recovery and the doctors are monitoring his progress,” Khan’s team said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters after the surgery, Dr Nitin Dange of Lilavati Hospital, where Khan is admitted, said that the actor “sustained a major injury to the thoracic spinal cord due to a lodged knife in the spine”.

“A surgery was performed to remove the knife and repair leaking spinal fluid. Two other deep wounds on his left hand and one other on his neck were repaired by the plastic surgery team,” he said.

Khan is married to Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor Khan and the couple have two children. His team said they were safe.

His wife said afterwards on Instagram stories that it had been “an incredibly challenging day for our family”, and that they were still “trying to process” it.

She “respectfully and humbly” asked the media and paparazzi to “refrain from the relentless speculation and coverage”.

“While we appreciate the concern and support, the constant scrutiny and attention are not only overwhelming but also pose a significant risk to our safety,” she added.

“I kindly request that you respect our boundaries and give us the space we need to heal and cope as a family.”

The exact details of the assault are not clear yet. Police have said that “an unknown person” had entered the actor’s home.

“After that, an argument broke out between Khan and the intruder,” Mumbai’s Deputy Commissioner of Police Dixit Gedam told BBC Marathi.

Khan’s team said it was a case of “attempted burglary” but did not share more details.

“We request the media and fans to be patient. It is a police matter,” they said.

Khan, who made his Bollywood debut in 1993, primarily works in Hindi cinema and is known for his quick wit and comic timing.

Among his popular movies are romantic comedies such as Dil Chahta Hai and Kal Ho Naa Ho and recent action dramas such as Tanhaji and Devara: Part 1.

His role as an antagonist in Omkara, a 2006 critically acclaimed adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello, was widely appreciated.

Khan comes from a family of erstwhile Nawabs who ruled Pataudi, a small princely state on the outskirts of Delhi, and is married into a family of film stars.

His father Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi was a cricketer who captained the Indian team in the 1960s. His mother Sharmila Tagore is a veteran actress who has featured in prominent Hindi and Bengali films from the age of 14.

His sister Soha Ali Khan also acted in films for some years.

Khan’s wife Kareena comes from a family of celebrated actors, directors and producers who have been active in Bollywood for almost a century.

A white supremacist who stabbed an asylum seeker at a hotel in what a judge said was “undoubtedly a terrorist attack” has been jailed for life.

Callum Parslow, 32, stabbed Nahom Hagos in the chest and hand at the Pear Tree Inn at Smite near Worcester.

At Woolwich Crown Court, Parslow was given a minimum term of 22 years and eight months for attempted murder.

Sentencing Parslow, Mr Justice Dove said his attack on Mr Hagos was motivated by his adoption of a “far right neo-Nazi mindset, which fuelled your warped, violent and racist views.”

During his trial Parslow, of Bromyard Terrace, Worcester, told the jury he travelled to the hotel to stab “one of the Channel migrants” because he was “angry and frustrated”.

He was convicted of attempted murder following a three-week trial at Leicester Crown Court last year.

He also pleaded guilty to an unconnected sexual offence and two charges of sending electronic communications with intent to cause distress and anxiety.

The judge told him his victim suffered “devastating injuries” in “a vicious and unprovoked assault on a complete stranger”.

Mr Hagos is a 25-year-old Eritrean national who has been granted leave to remain in the UK until November 2028.

He had previously been a resident at the hotel, and had returned to borrow a bicycle when the attack took place.

Parslow stabbed Mr Hagos in the chest and hand with a “specialist” knife he had bought online for £770, which the judge said had an “especially hard and sharp blade”.

Mr Justice Dove said a clinical psychologist had diagnosed Mr Hagos as having depression and PTSD as a direct result of the attack.

In a victim impact statement read in court by the prosecution, he said he continued to suffer “excruciating pain” in his hand and struggled to sleep.

“I had been living and pursuing a happy life before the incident,” he said. “This is now a distant memory.

“I feel lonely and don’t feel safe on the street. My life has been turned upside down.”

During his trial a jury heard that Parslow, who has a tattoo of Adolf Hitler’s signature on his arm, tried to post a “manifesto” on X before his arrest, which claimed he did his “duty to England” by trying to “exterminate” his victim.

But the message failed to send.

In the failed post, Parslow railed against what he called the “evil enemies of nature and of England” who he identified as “the Jews, the Marxists and the globalists” that he said were responsible for demonising Christianity, white people and European culture.

A police search of Parslow’s flat found a second knife in a sheath, an axe, a metal baseball bat, a red armband bearing a swastika, a Nazi-era medallion and copies of Mein Kampf.

Parslow carried out the attack while he was being investigated for malicious communication and exposure.

Between July and August 2023, Parslow used social media to send “grossly offensive” messages “of a sexual and racist nature”, as well as a sexually explicit video, to a woman who was a prominent TV journalist at the time.

The woman’s daughter was also targeted in the messages.

The judge said Parslow’s actions were motivated by his “extreme right-wing mindset” and his “racist and misogynist attitude”.

He had been convicted of similar offences in 2018, when he was jailed for 30 months for seven counts of stalking causing fear of violence and three counts of sending indecent or offensive communications.

Parslow sent messages to 13 different women from Facebook accounts with false names which were “sexually graphic and extremely violent”.

Police in the Indian city of Mumbai have detained a man in connection with the knife attack on Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, according to media reports

Khan was stabbed during a scuffle at his residence with an unidentified man on Thursday morning. The actor is recovering after surgery.

Police have seized CCTV footage from the actor’s residence in the upscale neighbourhood of Bandra and initial reports suggest the attack may have been intended as a theft.

It is not clear whether the detained man was the intruder.

The BBC has accessed a statement given by a nurse who works in Khan’s home to the police, which provides some details about the events that unfolded on the night of the incident.

Eliyama Philip, who takes care of Khan’s son, said she first noticed the shadow of a man near the bathroom door late at night while she was in the child’s room with the nanny.

Ms Philip said a man appeared holding a wooden object in one hand and a long blade in another and warned the two against making any noise. He demanded 10m rupees ($115,477; £94,511), she said.

A scuffle soon broke out, during which Ms Philip was injured. Meanwhile, the nanny fled the room.

According to the nurse’s statement, Khan and his wife, actress Kareena Kapoor, rushed to the room after hearing the commotion. She said the attacker struck Khan with a blade when he confronted him, then fled the house.

Khan suffered several injuries – including one on the back of his neck – in the attack.

Dr Nitin Dange of Lilavati Hospital, where Khan is being treated, said that when the actor arrived, he was bleeding from his spine with a knife fragment embedded. The fragment was surgically removed, and fluid leakage was controlled. Doctors said that timely treatment prevented severe spinal damage.

Dr Dange said on Friday that Khan is “better now”.

“We made him walk, and he walked well. Looking at his parameters, his wounds and all the other injuries, he is safe to be shifted out of the ICU. He has to take several precautions. He has to take rest and his movement has been restricted for a week,” he said.

Deputy Commissioner of Mumbai police Dixit Gadam said that the weapon used for the attack has not been found and that they have registered a complaint based on the nurse’s statement.

“The accused used the fire escape ladder to enter,” he said. “The investigation is going on to determine how the house’s door was opened or how the intruder gained access.”

Khan, 54, is also a producer, who has appeared in several films and TV shows over the years. He is known for his quick wit and comic timing.

His portrayal of the antagonist in the 2006 critically acclaimed Omkara was widely praised. He has won multiple awards, including the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian honour, in 2010.

Khan is the son of former Indian cricket captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and actor Sharmila Tagore.