Nearly a month ago, Kamala Harris appeared on ABC’s The View in what was expected to be a friendly interview aimed at pitching herself to Americans who wanted to know more about her.

But the sit-down was quickly overshadowed by her response to a question on what she would have done differently from incumbent president, Joe Biden: “Not a thing comes to mind.”

Harris’s answer – which became a Republican attack ad on loop – underscored the political headwinds that her jumpstart campaign failed to overcome in her decisive loss to Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Publicly, she conceded the race late on Wednesday afternoon, telling supporters “do not despair”.

But soul-searching over where she went wrong and what else she could have done will likely take longer as Democrats begin finger-pointing and raising questions about the future of the party.

Harris campaign officials were silent in the early Wednesday hours while some aides expressed tearful shock over what they had expected to be a much closer race.

“Losing is unfathomably painful. It is hard,” Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in an email to staff on Wednesday. “This will take a long time to process.”

As the sitting vice-president, Harris was unable to untether herself from an unpopular president and convince voters that she could offer the change they were seeking amid widespread economic anxiety.

After Biden dropped out of the race following a disastrous debate performance, Harris was anointed to the top of the ticket, bypassing the scrutiny of a primary without a single vote being cast.

She began her 100-day campaign promising a “new generation of leadership”, rallying women around abortion rights and vowing to win back working-class voters by focusing on economic issues including rising costs and housing affordability.

With just three months until election day, she generated a wave of initial momentum, which included a flurry of memes on social media, a star-studded endorsement list that included Taylor Swift and a record-setting donation windfall. But Harris couldn’t shake the anti-Biden sentiment that permeated much of the electorate.

The president’s approval rating has consistently hovered in the low 40s throughout his four years in office, while some two-thirds of voters say they believe the US is on the wrong track.

Some allies have privately questioned whether Harris remained too loyal to Biden in her bid to replace him. But Jamal Simmons, the vice-president’s former communication director, called it a “trap”, arguing any distance would have only handed Republicans another attack line for being disloyal.

“You can’t really run away from the president who chooses you,” he said.

Harris tried to walk the fine line of addressing the administration’s record without casting shade on her boss, showing a reluctance to break with any of Biden’s policies while also not outwardly promoting them on the campaign trail.

But she then failed to deliver a convincing argument about why she should lead the country, and how she would handle economic frustrations as well as widespread concerns over immigration.

About 3 in 10 voters said their family’s financial situation was falling behind, an increase from about 2 in 10 four years ago, according to data from AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 US voters conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.

Nine in 10 voters were very or somewhat concerned about the price of groceries.

The same survey found that 4 in 10 voters said immigrants living in the US illegally should be deported to their country of origin, up from around 3 in 10 who said the same in 2020.

And though Harris tried to spend the home stretch of her campaign underlining that her administration would not be a continuation of Biden’s, she failed to clearly outline her own policies, often skirting around issues instead of addressing perceived failures head on.

The Harris campaign had hoped to reassemble the voting base that powered Biden’s 2020 victory, winning over the core Democratic constituencies of black, Latino and young voters as well as making further gains with college-educated suburban voters.

But she underperformed with these key voting blocs. She lost 13 points with Latino voters, two points with black voters, and six points with voters under 30, according to exit polls, which may change as votes are counted, but are considered representative of trends.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who lost the 2016 Democratic presidential primary to Hillary Clinton and the 2020 primary to Biden, said in a statement it was “no great surprise” that working class voters abandoned the party.

“First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” he said. “And they’re right.”

While women largely threw their support behind Harris over Trump, the vice-president’s lead did not exceed the margins that her campaign had hoped her historic candidacy would turn out. And she was unable to deliver on her ambitions of winning over suburban Republican women, losing 53% of white women.

In the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Democrats had hoped her focus on the fight for reproductive rights would deliver a decisive victory.

While some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for Harris, it fell short of the 57% who backed Biden in 2020, according to exit poll data.

Even before she was catapulted to the top of the ticket, Harris had sought to frame the race as a referendum on Trump, not Biden.

The former California prosecutor leaned into her law enforcement record to prosecute the case against the former president.

But her nascent campaign opted to ditch Biden’s core argument that Trump posed an existential threat to democracy, prioritising a forward-looking “joyful” message about protecting personal freedoms and preserving the middle class.

In the final stretch, however, Harris made a tactical decision to again highlight the dangers of a second Trump presidency, calling the president a “fascist” and campaigning with disaffected Republicans fed up with his rhetoric.

After Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, told the New York Times that Trump spoke approvingly about Adolf Hitler, Harris delivered remarks outside her official residence describing the president as “unhinged and unstable”.

• Why Harris moved from ‘joy’ to calling Trump ‘a fascist”

“Kamala Harris lost this election when she pivoted to focus almost exclusively on attacking Donald Trump,” veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said on Tuesday night.

“Voters already know everything there is about Trump – but they still wanted to know more about Harris’ plans for the first hour, first day, first month and first year of her administration.”

“It was a colossal failure for her campaign to shine the spotlight on Trump more than on Harris’s own ideas,” he added.

Ultimately, the winning coalition Harris needed to beat Trump never materialised, and voters’ resounding rejection of Democrats showed that the party has a deeper problem than just an unpopular president.

• GLOBAL: What does Trump victory mean for UK?
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• IN FULL: All our election coverage in one place

Donald Trump is set to return to the White House, having promised action on issues including immigration, the economy and the war in Ukraine.

He looks likely to enjoy plenty of support for his political agenda in Congress after his Republican Party regained control of the Senate.

In his victory speech, Trump vowed he would “govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept. We’re going to keep our promises.”

But in some cases, he has given little detail of how he might achieve his aims.

Asked in 2023 by Fox News whether he would abuse his power or target political opponents, he replied he would not, “except for day one”.

“No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

• Follow live election day updates as Trump wins

While campaigning, Trump promised the biggest mass deportations of undocumented migrants in US history.

He also pledged to complete the building of a wall at the border with Mexico that was started during his first presidency.

The number of crossings at the US southern border hit record levels at the end of last year during the Biden-Harris administration, before falling in 2024.

Experts have told the BBC that deportations on the scale promised by Trump would face huge legal and logistical challenges – and could slow economic growth.

Exit poll data has suggested the economy was a key issue for voters. Trump has promised to “end inflation” – which rose to high levels under President Joe Biden before falling again. But a president’s power to directly influence prices is limited.

He has also promised sweeping tax cuts, extending his overhaul from 2017. He has proposed making tips tax-free, abolishing tax on social security payments and shaving corporation tax.

He has proposed new tariffs of at least 10% on most foreign goods, to cut the trade deficit. Imports from China could bear an additional 60% tariff, he has said. Some economists have warned that such moves could push up prices for ordinary people.

• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance
• Who did each state vote for?
• When does he become US president again?
• What could happen to Trump’s legal cases now

During his first presidency, Trump rolled back hundreds of environmental protections and made America the first nation to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

This time, he has again vowed to cut regulations, particularly as a way to help the American car industry. He has constantly attacked electric vehicles, promising to overturn Biden’s targets encouraging the switch to cleaner cars.

He has pledged to increase production of US fossil fuels – vowing to “drill, drill, drill” on day one in favour of renewable energy sources such as wind power.

He wants to open areas such as the Arctic wilderness to oil drilling, which he argues would lower energy costs – though analysts are sceptical.

• How America voted in maps and charts
• Donald Trump: A remarkable life in pictures
• The Trump family: A guide to an American dynasty
• Who is the new vice-president-elect, JD Vance?
• At the scene: Jubilation in the room as Trump declared victory
• Images capture high emotions as Americans react to Trump’s victory

Trump has criticised the tens of billions of dollars spent by the US on supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia – and has pledged to end the conflict “within 24 hours” through a negotiated deal.

He has not said what he thinks either side should give up. Democrats say the move would embolden President Vladimir Putin.

Trump wants the US to disentangle itself from foreign conflicts generally. Regarding the war in Gaza – Trump has positioned himself as a staunch supporter of Israel, but has urged the American ally to end its operation.

He has also pledged to end the related violence in Lebanon, but gave no detail on how.

Against the wishes of some of his supporters, Trump said during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris that he would not sign into law a national abortion ban.

In 2022, the nationwide constitutional right to abortion was overturned by the Supreme Court, which had a majority of conservative judges following Trump’s first presidency.

Reproductive rights became a key campaigning topic for Harris, and several states approved measures to protect or expand abortion rights on polling day.

Trump himself has regularly said states should be free to decide their own laws on abortion, but struggled to find a consistent message of his own.

Trump has said he will “free” some of those convicted of offences during the riot in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol building in an effort to thwart the 2020 election victory of Joe Biden.

Several deaths were blamed on the violence, which Trump was accused of inciting.

He has worked to downplay the riot’s significance and recast the hundreds of supporters who were convicted as political prisoners.

He continues to say many of them are “wrongfully imprisoned”, though has acknowledged that “a couple of them, probably they got out of control”.

Trump has vowed to sack “within two seconds” of taking office the veteran prosecutor leading two criminal investigations against him.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has indicted Trump over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Trump denies any wrongdoing, and managed to prevent either case coming to trial before the election. He says Mr Smith has subjected him to a “political witch hunt”.

Trump will return to the White House as the first ever president with a criminal conviction, having been found guilty in New York of falsifying business records.

• GLOBAL: What does Trump victory mean for UK?
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• IN FULL: All our election coverage in one place

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice-weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Donald Trump has won the presidency of the United States, gaining a historic second term.

Votes are still being counted, but a picture is emerging of what tipped the balance in Trump’s favour: relatively small shifts in support in many different places.

The map below shows in red the states where Trump won. Kamala Harris’s victories are shown in blue.

For the data in the map, click here

Trump gathered the 270 electoral college votes needed to win after capturing three battleground states from the Democrats: Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, shown in red stripes.

His margin of victory was slim in all three, but in Wisconsin he won by less than one percentage point – just over 28,000 votes at latest count.

It is difficult to identify a single group or area in the state that moved the needle towards Trump.

Neither party increased its share of the vote by more than 5% in any county across the state, compared with 2020. If you look at the map below the change is almost imperceptible.

Harris did well in her traditional urban strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison. Voters did come out for her in large numbers, yet it was Trump’s small but widespread gains in counties across the state that did the trick.

In 2020, Biden’s wins in Georgia and Pennsylvania were key to clinching the presidency.

This election, Trump took both states. The precise reason is unclear as votes are still being counted, but what is emerging is a similar pattern of slight but widespread shifts towards Trump.

In the western battleground of Nevada, Trump is leading. In the vote tally so far, there has been little change among the largest groups of voters.

Black voters chose Harris in similar numbers as they did Biden, while white voters maintained their support for Trump.

Yet the exit poll suggested Trump saw a substantial increase in support among Hispanic and Asian voters, with Harris losing ground compared with Biden four years ago.

Trump raised his share among Hispanic voters by 13 points compared with 2020, which meant he and Harris ended up in a tie, both securing 48% of that vote.

He also enjoyed a very substantial swing among Nevada’s Asian voters, from 35% in 2020 to 57% in 2024.

While the Asian community accounts for just 4% of voters surveyed, we’ve seen how similarly small shifts made the difference elsewhere.

A picture seems to be forming once again of a divide between rural and urban voters, as shown in the county level map below, although counting continues in many states particularly in the west.

Harris led by tens of thousands of votes in major cities across the country.

But Trump dominated the rural counties that lie between them. His wins may not appear to be as sizeable, but they are pervasive. And those margins add up.

While the picture in the states that flipped will become clearer in the coming days, we can see some emerging trends on how different groups of people voted across the nation from US exit polls.

These cut across demographic groups and regions.

On immigration and the economy, Trump was seen as the overwhelming favourite among voters for whom either was the most important issue.

For voters who felt strongly about abortion or the state of democracy, more than three in four voted for Harris.

This suggests a stark difference in priorities across the two groups of voters.

Both campaigns emphasised these diverging issues in recent weeks, and it’s clear the messaging cut through.

The personalities of the candidates themselves may also have played a role in how ballots were cast.

For those looking for a presidential candidate who would “bring needed change” to the country, a large majority voted for Trump. And two-thirds of those who most valued leadership skills did the same.

A large majority of Harris voters chose her because they felt she had good judgement and “cared about people like me”.

But the desire for change can be a powerful force when it comes to the way voters choose to cast their ballot.

Donald Trump vowed on his campaign that he would tax all goods imported into the US if he won back the White House. Following his victory, businesses and economists around the world are scrambling to work out how serious he is.

In the past, Trump has targeted tariffs at individual countries such as China or certain industries, for example steel.

But his election campaign pledge to impose taxes of 10% to 20% on all foreign goods could affect prices all over the world.

Last month, he appeared to single out Europe.

“The European Union sounds so nice, so lovely, right? All the nice European little countries that get together… They don’t take our cars. They don’t take our farm products,” he said.

“They sell millions and millions of cars in the United States. No, no, no, they are going to have to pay a big price.”

BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen shares all fell between 5% and 7% after Trump’s victory confirmation. The US is the single biggest export market for German carmakers.

During his campaign, Trump said tariffs were the answer to myriad issues, including containing China and preventing illegal immigration.

“Tariff is the most beautiful world in the dictionary,” he said. It is a weapon he clearly intends to use.

While much of this rhetoric and action is aimed at China it does not end there.

Some jurisdictions like the EU are already drawing up lists of pre-emptive retaliatory actions against the US, after ministers did not take seriously enough Trump’s earlier threats of tariffs, which he later imposed.

G7 finance ministers told me last week they would try to remind a Trump-led America of the need for allies in the world economy because “the idea is not to launch a trade war”.

However if “a very strong broad power is used”, Europe would quickly consider its response.

In the past the EU imposed tariffs on iconic American products such as Harley Davidson motorcycles, bourbon whiskey and Levi’s jeans in response to US duties on steel and aluminium.

A top Eurozone central banker told me US tariffs alone were “not inflationary in Europe but it depends on what Europe’s reaction will be”.

Last month the IMF told me a major trade war could hit the world economy by 7%, or the size of the French and German economies combined.

There are very big questions for the UK government about where exactly the post-Brexit UK should seat itself in a plausible, if not certain, transatlantic trade war.

The direction of travel until now for the UK has been to get closer to the EU, including on food and farm standards. This would make a close trade deal with the US very difficult.

The Biden administration was uninterested in such a deal. Trump’s still highly influential top trade negotiator Bob Lighthizer even said an assumption that the UK would stay close to the EU to help its own businesses had prevented him from pursuing a deal.

“They are a much bigger trade partner to you than we are,” he told me in an interview.

The UK could try and remain neutral, but would struggle to avoid the crossfire, especially for the goods trade in pharmaceuticals and cars.

The rhetoric from the UK government suggests it could try to be a peacemaker in global trade wars, but would anyone listen?

Britain could pick a side, by trying to be exempted from more general Trump tariffs.

Diplomats have been heartened by more pragmatic economic advisers to the President-elect suggesting that friendly allies might get a better deal.

Or would the world benefit more if the UK joined forces with the EU to head off the application of such trade tariffs?

Away from the US, what about the example to the rest of the world?

If the world’s biggest economy is resorting to mass protectionism, it’s going to be difficult to persuade many smaller economies not to do the same.

All of this is very much up for grabs. Trump’s warnings can be taken at face value. Nothing is certain, but this is how very serious trade wars can start.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House will have a hugely negative effect on climate change action in the short-term but the longer term impact is less certain, experts say.

With world leaders meeting next week for the latest UN climate talks, COP29, the Trump victory will be seen as a huge roadblock to progress in both cutting emissions and raising cash for developing countries.

The US president-elect is a known climate sceptic who has called efforts to boost green energy a “scam”.

But with renewable energy gaining a strong foothold in the US and popular support for wind and solar, Trump’s efforts to ramp up oil and gas instead may be less effective.

While climate change did not play much of a role in this year’s campaign, Trump’s likely actions in office this time could be far more significant than in 2017.

Back then, he announced the US would pull out of the Paris climate agreement, the most important UN process to tackle climate change. The agreement saw almost all the world’s nations – for the first time – agree to cut the greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming.

But the shock of Trump’s decision was limited. The treaty’s rules meant the US was not able to withdraw until November 2020, a few months before he left office.

If Trump withdraws again, he will only have to wait a year before the US is completely out. That would give him three years to chart his own course without any need to report to the UN or be bound by its rules.

While President Joe Biden’s negotiators will at next week’s COP talks in Azerbaijan, nothing they agree to will be binding for the Trump administration.

“The US at this COP is not just a lame duck, it’s a dead duck,” said Prof Richard Klein of the Stockholm Environment Institute, an expert on climate change policy.

“They can’t commit to anything and that means that countries like China will not want to commit to anything.”

In recent years, richer countries such as the US, UK and EU states have tried to increase the funds available for developing countries to cope with climate change. But they also insist that big developing economies also contribute.

“The US basically wanted to have China cough up some money for that fund as well. Now they won’t be able to do that. That leaves China off the hook,” Prof Klein said.

Climate scientists say developing countries need billions of dollars of extra investment to become net zero, where they are not contributing to climate change, and stave off the effects of rising temperatures.

While the US might leave the Paris Agreement quite quickly, Trump would still be bound by other global efforts to fight climate change.

There have been reports that some of his supporters also want to turn their backs on these as well. Some have argued for a complete break from UN efforts on climate change, urging the president-elect to leave something called the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty that underpins global collective action to tackle climate change.

This was ratified by the US Senate, almost unanimously, in 1992. Legal experts are unclear on the process of leaving the treaty, but any effort by the US to leave would be seen as a body blow to the principle of multi-lateral action to tackle the world’s greatest threat.

As well as these headline-grabbing international actions, the new Trump administration is likely to push for a major ramp up of oil and gas exploration within the US, roll back environmental protections as well as impose heavy tariffs on electric vehicles and solar panels coming from China.

“You are looking at, overall, a ‘drill baby drill’ philosophy,” Dan Eberhart, chief executive officer of oilfield services company Canary LLC told Bloomberg News.

“You are going to see offshore lease sales, you are going to see pipelines move much quicker, you are going to see fracking on federal lands and a mindset that is focused on lowering energy costs for consumers.”

There was a big drop in the share price of turbine manufacturers on Wednesday, as fears grew that US offshore wind farms would be cancelled by a Trump presidency.

But in the longer term, it is not clear if the new president will turn back the clock for coal, oil and gas, or curtail the growth of sustainable energy sources.

For a start he faces opposition – and notably from within his own party.

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which may ultimately channel $1 trillion of spending into green energy, has been hugely beneficial to Republican districts.

According to one analysis, some 85% of the money has been in areas that elected Republicans.

With energy watchdog the International Energy Agency reporting that global investment in clean technology is running at double the size of coal, oil and gas in 2024, the new US administration might not want to drive this type of green investment into other, more eager countries.

Climate leaders are putting a lot of faith in the fact that the transition to green energy will not be derailed by the new Trump administration.

“The result from this election will be seen as a major blow to global climate action,” said Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief.

“But it cannot and will not halt the changes under way to decarbonise the economy and meet the goals of the Paris agreement.”

News of Donald Trump’s return to power in the White House has made global headlines.

His so-called ‘America First’ foreign policy could see a withdrawal of US involvement in areas of conflict around the world.

Five BBC correspondents assess the effect it could have where they are.

“Do not try to predict Trump’s actions. No one knows how he is going to act.”

The words of one Ukrainian MP reflect the political challenge facing Kyiv. A Trump victory was widely feared here, over what it could mean for future US support.

The Republican once vowed to end the war in a single day, and has repeatedly criticised US military aid for Ukraine. Now, it’s anyone’s guess what he could do.

“He could ask Putin to freeze this war, and he says ‘OK’,” says a front-line soldier. “It’s the worst scenario because in a couple of years the Russians will advance again and might destroy us.”

“The second scenario is if Putin refuses,” he says. “There is a chance Trump will react radically. That is a more promising scenario.”

Ukraine hopes that means the US further upping its military support in the face of a likely Ukrainian defeat.

For those close to the front lines who have had enough of Russian aggression, Trump is seen as a route to respite.

• Follow live updates
• Election weighs on frontline soldiers in Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president once labelled by Trump as “the greatest salesman in history” sent an early message of congratulations.

He talked up the political and economic opportunities a partnership could provide, and wants to be able to keep fighting in return.

There’s also another ingredient.

Trump won’t just have to consider further military support for Ukraine, but also how or whether to respond to North Korea’s growing involvement in Russia’s invasion.

You might expect the Kremlin to be cock-a-hoop at Trump winning back the White House.

After all, out on the campaign trail, he had avoided criticising Vladimir Putin. Kamala Harris meanwhile called the Russian president “a murderous dictator”.

Trump had also questioned the scale of US military assistance to Kyiv.

Publicly, though, the Kremlin is going out of its way to give the impression that it’s not excited by a Trump victory.

“I’m not aware of any plans [for President Putin] to congratulate Trump,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “Don’t forget that [America] is an ‘unfriendly country’ which is directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.”

The dampening down of expectations are the result of how Trump’s first term turned out: the Kremlin had high hopes that a Trump presidency would transform US-Russian relations. It didn’t.

• Moscow more cautious about Trump this time

Nevertheless, at the political discussion club I’m attending in the mountains above Sochi, leading Russian political scientists seem to be looking forward to Trump the sequel.

One pundit told me he thinks that under Trump the US will “retreat” from its global super power status.

Another suggested the US election fitted the Kremlin’s “overall vision of the world”, in which “liberal globalism has depleted its efficiency”.

When dozens of European leaders from the EU and beyond gather in Budapest on Thursday, those on the right will be celebrating Donald Trump’s election victory, but the rest will be asking themselves what happens next.

Hungarian host and Trump ally Viktor Orban was first on to Facebook with his delighted message: “It’s in the bag!”

But for many other EU leaders Trump 2.0 could signal trouble ahead on security, trade and climate change.

Within minutes of congratulating the Republican candidate, France’s Emmanuel Macron said he had agreed with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to work towards a “more united, stronger, more sovereign Europe in this new context”.

• What Trump’s win means for Ukraine, Middle East and China

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock gave an idea of that context. Just back from Ukraine, she said Europeans now had to “think big and make investments in our European security big”, with the US as a partner.

Her Polish and Nato counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski said he had been in touch with Trump’s top team and agreed “Europe must urgently take greater responsibility for its security”.

The prospect of steep US tariffs on EU imports weigh heavily too. EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Trump but gave a timely reminder that “millions of jobs and billions in trade” relied on their transatlantic relationship.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, was one of the first to congratulate Trump and has previously called him Israel’s best ever friend in the White House.

Trump previously won favour here by scrapping a US nuclear deal with Iran that Israel opposed. He also upended decades of US policy by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Trump’s first term in office was “exemplary” as far as Israel is concerned, says Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the US. But he adds: “We have to be very clear-sighted about who Donald Trump is and what he stands for.”

The former president sees wars as expensive, Mr Oren notes, and Trump has urged Israel to finish the war in Gaza quickly.

“If Donald Trump comes into office in January and says, ‘okay, you have a week to finish this war’, Netanyahu is going to have to respect that.”

• How Israelis and Palestinians see the election

In Gaza, where the Israeli military has been battling Palestinian group Hamas, desperation has narrowed the focus of some residents.

Trump “has some strong promises”, says Ahmed, whose wife and son were both killed when their house was destroyed. “We hope he can help, and bring peace.”

Another displaced resident, Mamdouh, said he didn’t care who won the US election – he just wanted someone to help.

China is bracing itself for the return of Donald Trump where there are fears that his presidency will trigger a new trade war.

As president, Trump imposed tariffs on over $300 billion of Chinese imports. This time around he has said the tariffs could be in excess of 60%.

Beijing will not stand by – it will retaliate. But China’s economy is already ailing and it will be in no mood for a second protracted trade war.

However, President Xi may see another four years of Trump as an opportunity.

The Biden administration has spent the last four years building up friendships across Asia with the likes of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam – all in an effort to contain China.

• Why many Chinese people wanted Trump win

Trump’s America First policy favours deals over this kind of diplomacy. For instance, as president, he demanded more money from South Korea to continue to host US troops in the country.

Make no mistake, China wants to challenge the US-led world order. Beijing has already built alliances with emerging economies across the so-called Global South.

There is a risk Trump could alienate US allies in Asia, in the way he did during his last presidency.

If that happens, Xi might see an opening to portray himself as a stable global partner.

• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• When does he become president again?
• What happens to his legal cases now
• How he pulled off an incredible comeback

Donald Trump has soared to a decisive election victory over Kamala Harris, lifted up by some of the very voters that Democrats once relied on.

The Republican president-elect showed strength with the white working-class voters who first propelled him to the White House in 2016, while racking up huge support from Latino voters and putting in a better-than-expected performance among younger Americans, especially men.

Among Latinos, a key part of the Democratic voter base for decades, Trump benefited from a mammoth 14 percentage-point bump compared to the 2020 election, according to exit polls.

Nowhere is Trump’s reshaping of the electorate more apparent than in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the highly coveted “blue wall” that helped propel Joe Biden to victory in 2020.

This time, Trump won all three states, crushing Democrats’ hopes that Harris could find a path to victory despite early election night losses in the southern states of North Carolina and Georgia.

• Follow live election day updates as Trump wins
• Who did each state vote for?
• Watch: How election night unfolded
• What’s next for the Trump agenda?
• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance

In his victory speech in Florida, Trump – who is set to win the popular vote too – credited the result to “the biggest, the broadest, the most unified coalition” in American history.

“They came from all quarters. Union, non-union, African American, Hispanic American,” he told a roaring crowd. “We had everybody, and it was beautiful.”

In Pennsylvania, the prized battleground state, Trump benefited from a huge swell of support from the state’s growing Latino population.

Exit polls suggested Latinos in Pennsylvania amounted to about 5% of the total vote. Trump garnered 42% of that vote, compared to 27% when he ran against Joe Biden in 2020.

The polls will continue to change as votes are counted, but are broadly representative of electoral trends.

In the state’s “Latino belt” – an eastern industrial corridor that has shifted to the right in the last two elections – some voters said they were not surprised by the result.

“It’s simple, really. We liked the way things were four years ago,” said Samuel Negron, a Pennsylvania state constable and member of the large Puerto Rican community in the city of Allentown.

Mr Negron, and other Trump supporters in the now majority-Latino city, listed other reasons that their community was drifting towards Trump, including social issues and a perception that their family values now align more with the Republican Party.

The most common factor, however, was the economy – specifically, inflation.

“Out here, you pay $5 for a dozen eggs. It used to be $1, or even 99 cents,” Mr Negron added. “A lot of us have woken up, in my opinion, from Democratic lies that things have been better. We realised things were better then.”

Ahead of the election, polls also suggested that many Latinos – across the US and in Pennsylvania specifically – were drawn to Trump’s proposals to block migrants at the US-Mexico border and enact much stricter immigration laws.

Daniel Campo, a Venezuelan-American, said that Trump’s claims of creeping “socialism” reminded him of the situation he left in his home country.

“I understand what [migrants] are leaving. But you have to do it the right way. I came the right way,” he said. “Things have to be done legally. Many of us were worried that the borders were just open” under the Biden-Harris administration, he said.

Collectively, the Latino shift towards Trump, his hold on white working-class voters and his increased support among non-college educated voters in general created an insurmountable obstacle for the Harris campaign.

But Trump also improved his position in some surprising corners.

In 2020 Joe Biden had a 24-point advantage with voters under 30. This time, that lead shrank to just 11 points. While nationally black voters still overwhelmingly supported Harris (85%), in Wisconsin Trump’s support among that demographic more than doubled, from 8% in 2020 to 22% this election.

Some of the most significant battlegrounds in Wisconsin were the three counties surrounding Milwaukee known as the Wow counties – Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. Harris failed to significantly improve upon Biden’s 2020 vote share in these suburban areas, while also slipping in rural, whiter parts of the state dominated by Trump.

Preliminary results also indicate that Harris failed to get as many votes as Biden in Wisconsin’s biggest, most diverse city – Milwaukee.

Michael Wagner, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said her direct appeals to working-class voters may not have made much of a difference given the national political climate.

Ted Dietzler cast his vote in a fire station on the outskirts of the small city of Waukesha.

“I’m voting Trump because of the border, the economy, and no more wars,” he said, wearing a Green Bay Packers hat.

“We saw a huge difference when Trump was president,” Dietzler said, adding that he was drawn to Trump’s embrace of former Democrats like Robert F Kennedy Jr and Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom appear set to have roles in the Trump administration.

“Inflation is a big deal, and I don’t think Harris quite gets it,” he said. “I think we’ll all just be better off with Trump back.”

Trump’s national economic messaging hit home with working-class voters in the Midwestern state of Michigan, too.

With nearly all votes counted, Trump is leading the state that he lost in 2020 by about 85,000 votes. He increased his vote share in rural areas as well as in Macomb County, home to many working-class voters in the Detroit suburbs.

One of them, Nahim Uddin, a delivery driver and former Ford car-worker, cast his ballot for Trump because he said the former president would drive down prices.

“I went to go purchase a car – the interest rates had skyrocketed,” the 34-year-old said. “That’s the whole reason I voted for him.”

The same was true for Yian Yian Shein, a small business owner in the city Warren, who said Trump would lower income taxes and help people like her.

Democrats tried to tailor their economic messages in Michigan, touting their investments in electric car manufacturing while securing an endorsement from United Automobile Workers president Shawn Fain, a frequent Trump critic.

But Republicans were able to “neutralise” those messages by arguing that the transition to electric vehicles would come at the cost of jobs, said Michigan State University professor Matt Grossmann.

Ultimately what cost Democrats among blue-collar voters across demographic groups was the perception that they were to blame for high prices and pinched budgets.

“Largely, voters have felt economic pain due to the post-Covid inflationary period, and they’re taking it out on Biden” and Harris, said University of Michigan professor Jonathan Hanson.

Few nations are as closely tied as the US and Canada. The two share the world’s longest land border and a trade relationship worth more than a trillion dollars.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, was quick to congratulate President-elect Donald Trump on his election victory.

But there is no doubt their relationship has been rocky and there are challenges on the horizon.

Here are the ways Trump’s win could affect America’s northern neighbour.

On Wednesday morning, Canadian political leaders were cautiously laudatory about Trump’s win.

Trudeau congratulated “Donald” on the decisive victory, saying he was looking forward to working with him.

“The world is actually more difficult and more complicated than it was four years ago and I know there’s lots of work for us to do,” he said.

Trump and Trudeau have been counterparts before, notably successfully renegotiating, along with Mexico, the USMCA – the North American trade pact.

But the pair have had strained moments – Trump has referred to Trudeau as a “far-left lunatic” and “two-faced”, while Trudeau once appeared to mock Trump at a meeting of Nato leaders in 2019.

It is also possible that Canada could get a new prime minister and government altogether, with Trudeau facing a possible snap election while his Liberal Party trails badly in the polls.

This could complicate the process of forging a renewed, strong relationship with the incoming Trump administration – at least in the short-term, said Louise Blais, a former Canadian diplomat.

“It’s not an ideal situation to find ourselves politically at the moment,” she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Wednesday that she knew “a lot of Canadians are feeling unsettled today”.

But she touted “enduring relationships – I would even say even friendships” that Canadian officials have with their US counterparts.

“Canada will be prosperous, Canadians will be safe and our sovereign identity will be secure as we work with this newly elected administration,” she said.

Canada and the US have a deeply entwined economic and trade relationship.

Canada exports 75% of its goods and services to the US – and Trump’s promise of blanket 10% tariffs could significantly affect its economy.

“I do worry about what an across-the-board tariff would actually look like,” said Trevor Tombe, a Canadian economist with the University of Calgary.

“This is where details are really important – and we unfortunately don’t have details for what these tariffs would actually look like.”

In July, the Business Development Bank of Canada estimated the move could subtract $7bn from Canada’s GDP in the year it is implemented – mainly from a drop in business investment – and drive down the Canadian dollar.

Mr Tombe warned that Canada’s economic growth is already slowing and in a poor position to absorb shocks.

Also in question is the future of USMCA. The three trade partners will decide in 2026 whether to extend the pact for another 16 years.

John Dickerman, a US-based policy adviser for the Business Council of Canada, said Canada could lean on its previous experience renegotiating that trilateral deal six years ago to meet the challenge.

He said Canada should be consistent in its messaging on the issue, “reminding Americans that this deal has been good for them”.

Analysts say that Canada may have to make some concessions as it tries to navigate this new relationship.

Among them is working out how to address policies already unpopular with the US – such as Canada’s new Digital Services Tax – a 3% tax on major foreign digital services companies like Google and Amazon.

“The previous Trump administration took a really aggressive view on the Digital Services Tax,” said Dickerman. “I wouldn’t expect that to change. If anything, I expect it to amplify a little bit.”

Freeland, the deputy PM, addressed some of these concerns on Wednesday.

She said that Canada being the single biggest export market for the US gives the country “leverage” in future negotiations.

Canada has long been seen as a laggard among allies on Nato and defence spending. Trump is expected to place the most pressure on his northern neighbour.

Trudeau has said his country will reach the alliance’s minimum target of spending 2% of GDP on defence by 2032, up from the current 1.29%.

In an interview with CTV News Kelly Craft, the former US ambassador to Canada under the first Trump administration said that timeline was “not good enough”.

“Donald Trump, when he says he expects people to pay their fair share, they will.”

Ms Blais said Canada has to “get creative” to accelerate the timeline, including leaning on its rich supply of critical minerals for defence purposes.

“We don’t have huge fiscal wiggle room,” she said. “But at the same time, I think we can show a little more commitment.”

Trump’s threat of mass deportations has raised questions in Canada about what it means for the shared northern border.

Terri Givens, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, said even if that threat was not enacted, there was “an issue of perception” that could drive people to cross the Canadian border.

In 2017, thousands of people began entering Canada via Roxham Road – an unofficial access point on the New York-Quebec border – to seek asylum.

The reasons that drove them were diverse, but many cited both concerns of their ability to stay in the US under the first Trump presidency and the belief that they would be welcomed in Canada.

Canada and the US have since closed a loophole in a border pact that allowed people to cross at unofficial border points – but US figures suggest people are still trying to make the attempt.

Asked about the concern, Freeland said there was a plan in place.

“I do want to assure Canadians that we absolutely do recognise the importance of border security and control of the border,” she said.

Solving any potential issue will take close collaboration between Canadian and US officials. The 5,525 miles (8,891km) border is undefended.

“How do you actually enforce that border?” said Julie Young, the Canada Research Chair in Critical Border Studies and an assistant professor at the University of Lethbridge.

• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• When does he become president again?
• What happens to his legal cases now
• How he pulled off an incredible comeback

Defeated Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has urged her supporters to accept Donald Trump’s White House victory, while telling them to “never give up” fighting for their ideals.

At a concession speech in Washington DC, the US vice-president acknowledged “the outcome of this election is not what we wanted”, but insisted there must be a peaceful transfer of power.

Harris, who cancelled a victory speech that had been planned at the same venue one night earlier, also told the crowd not to despair.

Trump has won enough key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin, to secure the presidency, with several states left to declare.

• Follow live election day updates as Donald Trump wins

Harris said in Wednesday’s remarks from her alma mater, Howard University: “Hear me when I say, the light of America’s promise will always burn bright. As long as we never give up, and as long as we keep fighting.”

She took the stage to her campaign song Freedom by Beyoncé before thanking her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, her campaign staff, supporters, poll workers and election officials. Many in the audience wiped away tears during her remarks.

“I know folks are experiencing a range of emotions right now,” she said with a chuckle. “I get it. But we must respect the results of this election.”

Her supporters responded with loud boos when she noted that she had had a phone call with President-elect Trump, and “I told him we will help him and his team with his transition. And we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”

“While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign,” she added. Her speech referenced “fight” or “fighting” 19 times.

During the campaign the rivals often traded insults, with Harris calling Trump a “fascist” and a threat to American democracy.

Harris told her supporters on Wednesday: “I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time. But for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case.”

The former California senator was running to become the first woman, black woman and South-Asian American to win the presidency.

• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance
• Who did each state vote for?
• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• How he pulled off an incredible comeback

Harris and Trump spoke by phone on Wednesday, and discussed “the importance of a peaceful transfer of power and being a president for all Americans”, a Harris aide told journalists.

A spokesman for Trump said that on the call, the president-elect “acknowledged Vice-President Harris on her strength, professionalism, and tenacity throughout the campaign, and both leaders agreed on the importance of unifying the country”.

In a separate call with Biden, the president “congratulated the Vice-President on her historic campaign”, according to a White House readout of the call.

Biden watched Harris’s speech live at the White House, one of his aides said.

One Harris supporter, Charles Collins, flew in from San Francisco to be at Howard University on Wednesday.

“I’m moving through the process of grief,” he told the BBC. “But Kamala asked us to heal, so we can get to work.”

The crowd at Howard University was noticeably smaller than it was on Tuesday night, and the atmosphere was sombre. Many supporters wore black, instead of the bright pink colours of Harris’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

“I feel pretty hopeless right now,” said Howard law student Najah Lorde. “I think a lot of us are lost right now.”

A young woman who declined to give her name, saying she could not speak to media as an employee of the federal government, told the BBC: “I cannot grapple with the fact that people have put economics over my body, over my rights.

“I really am at a loss.”

Exit poll data suggests that the Democratic nominee may have under-performed with women. Some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for her, below the 57% of women Joe Biden won in 2020.

Black and Latino voters also appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago, exit poll data suggested.

The campaign faced criticism at times for its failure to expand on a clear economic message, an issue which was extremely important to Americans who have faced several years of rising inflation.

• GLOBAL: How this election could change the world
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• IN FULL: All our election coverage in one place

Donald Trump will be the first president to take office while several criminal cases against him are pending.

His ascent to the highest office in the US while facing dozens of criminal charges has left the country in uncharted territory.

Many of his legal problems will go away when he steps into the White House. Discussions already have started between Trump’s team and the office overseeing federal cases about how to wind those down, according to the BBC’s US news partner CBS.

Here’s a look at what could happen with each of the four legal challenges he faces.

• Follow live election day updates as Donald Trump wins

Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in May in New York.

A jury of New Yorkers found him guilty of all counts in connection with a hush-money payment made to an adult film star.

Judge Juan Merchan pushed back Trump’s sentencing from September to 26 November, after the election.

He could still go forward with the sentencing as planned despite Trump’s win, said former Brooklyn prosecutor Julie Rendelman.

But legal experts said it is unlikely that Trump would be sentenced to prison as an older, first-time offender.

If he was, his lawyers would appeal the sentence immediately, arguing that jail time would prevent him from conducting official duties and that he should remain free pending the appeal, Ms Rendelman said.

“The appellate process in that scenario could go on for years,” she said.

Special counsel Jack Smith filed criminal charges against Trump last year over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Trump pleaded not guilty.

The case has been in legal limbo since the Supreme Court ruled this summer that Trump was partially immune from criminal prosecution over official acts committed while in office.

Smith has since refiled his case, arguing Trump’s attempts to overturn the election were not related to his official duties.

This is one of the cases which could be wound down under current discussions.

• Who did each state vote for?
• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance
• When does he become US president?

As president-elect, Trump’s criminal problems from the case now “go away”, according to former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.

“It’s well established that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, so the election fraud case in DC District Court will be dismissed,” he said.

Mr Rahmani said that if Smith refuses to dismiss the case, Trump can simply get rid of him, as he has pledged to do already.

“I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said during a radio interview in October.

Smith also is leading a case against Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House, charges Trump denies.

He is accused of storing sensitive documents in his Mar-a-Lago home and obstructing Justice Department efforts to retrieve the files.

The judge assigned to the case, Trump-appointee Aileen Cannon, dismissed the charges in July, arguing Smith was improperly appointed by the Justice Department to lead the case.

Smith appealed the ruling, but with Trump set to take office, talks are now underway about ending the case.

Mr Rahmani said he expects the classified documents case will meet the same fate as the election case.

“The DOJ will abandon its Eleventh Circuit appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case,” he said.

Trump is also facing criminal charges in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

That case has faced a number of hurdles, including efforts to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis over her relationship with a lawyer she hired to work on the case.

An appeals court is in the process of weighing whether Willis should be allowed to stay on the case.

But now that Trump is the next president, the case could face even more delays, or possibly dismissal.

It is expected to be paused during Trump’s time in office, according to legal experts.

Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow said as much when asked by the judge if Trump could still stand trial if elected.

“The answer to that is I believe that under the supremacy clause and his duties as president of the United States, this trial would not take place at all until after he left his term in office,” he said.

Hours after the polls closed, Donald Trump took the stage in Florida to declare victory, surrounding himself with a huge group of family, allies, campaign advisers – and sports figures.

All five of his children were there, some of whom played key roles in his last administration, alongside their four partners, and two of his 10 grandchildren.

There were also campaign advisers and political allies, both well-known and behind-the-scenes figures who were instrumental to Trump’s campaigns in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

And among the more unpredictable appearances were martial arts boss Dana White and pro-golfer Bryson DeChambeau.

Here’s what we know about the entourage that could offer some clues as to what we can expect from Trump’s second administration.

Trump’s family have supported him politically and professionally for years – working in his real-estate business, rallying in his campaigns and even joining his previous administration from 2017 to 2021.

By his side was his wife Melania, who was largely absent from the campaign trail this election cycle.

Trump hailed her for writing the “number-one bestselling book in the country” – a memoir in which she advocates for a woman’s right to abortion, a stance at odds with many in the Republican Party.

Trump was also joined by his youngest child, Barron Trump, 18, a first-year university student, and Melania’s father Viktor Knavs, a Slovenian who became a US citizen in 2018.

Trump’s third child, Eric Trump, was joined by his wife Lara, who Trump appointed as co-chair of the Republican Party and who spoke at the Republican National Convention (RNC) this year.

Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr, a political adviser after Trump left the White House, was also there, joined by his fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle. She was previously married to now-California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and has given passionate speeches at the RNC.

Donald Trump Jr also brought along two of his five children. His 17-year-old daughter Kai spoke publicly for the first time during the RNC, describing Trump as “very caring and loving” and “a normal grandpa”.

Trump’s second child Ivanka Trump appeared with her husband Jared Kushner. Both held key roles under the Trump administration, with Kushner advising on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and relations with China, Mexico and Canada. The couple did not participate in this campaign.

Trump’s fourth child, Tiffany Trump, who has been less active in her father’s political career but urged a rally this week to get out and vote, stood with her husband, Michael Boulos.

Vice-president-elect JD Vance, a senator from Ohio, hailed Trump’s victory as the “greatest political comeback” in US history. Vance is also the author of the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, about his childhood in the white working-class Rust Belt.

“He turned out to be a good choice,” Trump remarked. “I took a little heat at the beginning, but I knew the brain was a good one – as good as it gets.”

Vance celebrated with his wife Usha Vance. Born in California to Indian immigrants, she worked as a lawyer until her husband’s campaign.

Key members of Trump’s campaign team and allies, including officials from his previous administration, savoured their victory on stage.

The line-up included campaign co-managers Susan Wiles and Chris LaCivita, RNC chair Michael Whatley, speechwriter Vince Haley, communications strategist Jason Miller, chief pollster Tony Fabrizio and senior adviser Dan Scavino.

Best-known was senior adviser Stephen Miller, one of the architects of the 2017 travel ban that initially barred nationals of several Muslim-majority countries from the US.

Also present were adviser Boris Epshteyn, as well as former administrator of the US Small Business Administration Linda McMahon, who is the current chairwoman of the board at the America First Policy Institute.

They stood beside two elected officials: New York Representative Elise Stefanik and Louisiana Representative and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was flanked by his wife Kelly Johnson.

Billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick also appeared as chairman of the Trump transition team.

While not on stage, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk was referenced in Trump’s speech, with the president-elect calling him an “amazing guy” and praising the recent successes of his space travel company SpaceX.

“That’s why I love you, Elon,” Trump said.

The founder of Tesla has emerged as a key Trump supporter and recently came under fire for handing a million-dollar prize to some voters in swing states.

Dana White, boss of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), took to the podium to declare that “nobody deserves this more” than Trump and his family.

“Couldn’t stop him, he keeps going forward, he doesn’t quit, he’s the most resilient, hard-working man I’ve ever met in my life,” he said. White also thanked “the mighty and powerful” podcast host Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump.

Trump – a golf lover who faced an apparent attempt on his life at his Florida golf course two months ago – later pulled on-stage US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau.

• GLOBAL: How this election could change the world

• IN PICS: Emotions high as America reacts to Trump’s victory

Australia’s government says it will introduce “world-leading” legislation to ban children under 16 from social media.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the proposed laws, to be tabled in parliament next week, were aimed at mitigating the “harm” social media was inflicting on Australian children.

“This one is for the mums and dads… They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online. I want Australian families to know that the government has your back,” he said.

While many of the details are yet to be debated, the government said the ban will not apply to young people already on social media.

There will be no exemptions on the age limit for children who have consent from their parents. The government says that the onus will be on social media platforms to show they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access.

Albanese said there would be no penalties for users, and that it would be up to Australia’s online regulator – the eSafety Commissioner – to enforce the laws.

The legislation would come into force 12 months after it passes and be subject to a review after it’s in place.

While most experts agree that social media platforms can harm the mental health of adolescents, many are split over the efficacy of trying to outlaw them all together.

Some experts argue that bans only delay young people’s exposure to apps such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, instead of teaching them how to navigate complex online spaces.

Previous attempts at restricting access, including by the European Union, have failed or found the implementation challenging given that there are tools which can circumvent age-verification requirements.

One of Australia’s largest advocacy groups for child rights has criticised the proposed ban as “too blunt an instrument”.

In an open letter sent to the government in October, signed by over 100 academics and 20 civil society organisations, the Australian Child Rights Taskforce called on Albanese to instead look at imposing “safety standards” on social media platforms.

The group also pointed to UN advice that “national policies” designed to regulate online spaces “should be aimed at providing children with the opportunity to benefit from engaging with the digital environment and ensuring their safe access to it”.

But other grassroots campaigners have lobbied Australia’s government for the laws, saying bans are needed to protect children from harmful content, misinformation, bullying and other social pressures.

A petition by the 36Months initiative, which has over 125,000 signatures, argues children are “not yet ready to navigate online social networks safely” until at least 16, and that currently “excessive social media use is rewiring young brains within a critical window of psychological development, causing an epidemic of mental illness”.

When asked whether there should be broader efforts to educate children about how to navigate the benefits and risks of being online, Albanese said that such an approach would be insufficient because it “assumes an equal power relationship”.

“I don’t know about you, but I get things popping up on my system that I don’t want to see. Let alone a vulnerable 14-year-old,” he told reporters on Thursday.

“These tech companies are incredibly powerful. These apps have algorithms that drive people towards certain behaviour.”

Germany’s governing coalition is in crisis after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired a key minister and said he would call a vote of confidence in his government early next year.

Scholz said he had no trust in Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who leads a rival party that has been part of the coalition along with Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens.

The move means Scholz’s government no longer has a majority in parliament. The confidence vote could lead to early elections by March.

The so-called “traffic light” coalition led by the chancellor has governed Germany since 2021.

But internal tensions had been bubbling for weeks before exploding into the open on Wednesday night.

Scholz said his former finance minister had “betrayed my confidence” and had put the interests of his party base over those of the country.

He added that Germany needed to show it could be relied upon by other countries, particularly following the election of Donald Trump in the US.

Lindner accused Scholz of “leading Germany into a phase of uncertainty”.

The crisis inside the coalition plunged Europe’s largest economy into political chaos, hours after Trump’s election triggered deep uncertainty about the future of the continent’s economy and security.

When the coalition between the chancellor’s centre-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and economically liberal FDP was formed in 2021, each party planned to spend big on its own individual core interest groups.

However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sent energy prices surging, and left Germany facing a increase in defence spending – and the cost of taking in 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees.

Germany is now facing its second year without economic growth.

Scholz and his Green partners want tackle this by loosening constitutional rules on public debt to allow more spending. Lindner wants to pay for tax cuts by slashing welfare and social budgets and pushing back environmental targets.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens said the party would not quit the government and that its ministers would remain in office.

Scholz announced that a vote of confidence would be held in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, on 15 January.

If MPs vote down the government, the country would hold fresh elections within weeks, instead of the scheduled date in September.

At least 40 people were killed in Israeli strikes in eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

An Israeli official said the strikes, in the governorates of Baalbek and Bekaa, targeted operatives of the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s culture minister said one of the strikes also seriously damaged an Ottoman-era building in the vicinity of the Roman ruins in the city of Baalbek, which is a Unesco World Heritage site.

Israeli strikes also hit southern Beirut on Wednesday, after the IDF issued evacuation warnings. The military said it struck Hezbollah command centres, weapons stores and other infrastructure.

A later IDF warning covered four neighbourhoods in southern Beirut including an area near Lebanon’s international airport, which has continued to operate despite Israel’s air strikes on the capital city.

Soon after, pictures showed a large fireball and thick black smoke rising into the night sky above Beirut.

Meanwhile, a rocket fired by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon killed an Israeli man near a kibbutz in northern Israel, paramedics said.

Lebanon’s Civil Defence agency has also said the bodies of 30 people were recovered from a four-storey apartment building hit by an Israeli strike on Tuesday evening that destroyed one side of the building and sparked a fire.

The building, in Barja, a predominantly Sunni Muslim coastal town south of Beirut, was reportedly housing displaced people.

The Israeli military said it had struck “terror infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah.

A man who lived on one of the upper floors of the apartment building that was hit said his son and wife were injured by falling masonry.

“These rocks that you see here weigh 100kg, they fell on a 13kg kid,” Moussa Zahran told Reuters news agency as he surveyed the damage.

“I removed [the rocks] and… handed my son to the civil defence through the window. I carried my wife and came downstairs and got out behind the building… I thank God, glory be to Him, for this miracle.”

An Irish Times correspondent cited a member of the civil defence at the scene as saying that those killed whose bodies were found complete included seven women and three children – a seven-month-old baby and two girls aged seven and 12.

Neighbours also said the building was housing displaced people who had fled from other areas, she added.

There was no evacuation warning ahead of the strike, according to Reuters.

The Lebanese health ministry gave a preliminary death toll of 20 from the strike on Barja late on Tuesday but did not provide an updated figure on Wednesday.

On Wednesday evening, the ministry said 40 people had been killed and 53 others injured in a series of Israeli strikes in Bekaa and Baalbek governorates, which make up most of the eastern Bekaa Valley. They included 16 people killed in the village of Nasriyah and 11 in Baalbek city, it added.

Lebanese Culture Minister Mohammad Mortada also told the director-general of Unesco that one of the strikes had “caused serious damage to the ancient Manshiya building” in Baalbek city, which he said dated back to the Ottoman period and was located in the vicinity of the ruins of several Roman temples.

“The destruction of this exceptional monument next to a Unesco World Heritage site is an irremediable loss for Lebanon and for world heritage,” he warned.

An AFP news agency correspondent also reported that the famous 19th Century Palmyra Hotel near the Roman ruins was damaged by nearby strikes, which the health ministry said killed two people.

An Israeli military official said its aircraft had carried out strikes based on precise intelligence indicating the presence of Hezbollah operatives in the Baalbek area.

The military also said it had killed the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the southern border region of Khiam, and that a number of other Hezbollah fighters had been killed by air strikes and by troops operating inside southern Lebanon over the past day.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s new secretary general, Naim Qassem, said in a speech that the group had “tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight and that nowhere in Israel was “beyond the reach of our drones and missiles”.

“I will tell you very clearly, our conviction is that only one thing can stop this war of aggression, and that is the battlefield,” he declared, adding that he did not believe “political action” would end the conflict.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired about 170 rockets into northern and central Israel on Wednesday.

In the evening, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said a man was killed by a rocket near the kibbutz of Kfar Masaryk, which is south of the coastal town of Acre.

Paramedics said the man was found in a field with severe shrapnel wounds and that he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Later, Israeli media identified him as Sivan Sade, an 18-year-old resident of Kfar Masaryk who had been working in the field.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli media said one rocket hit a car park near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, but the Israel Airport Authority said its operations were not affected. Hezbollah said it targeted the Tzrifin military base near the airport.

A large section of a rocket also hit a parked car in the town of Raanana, just north of Tel Aviv.

Since the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah six weeks ago, at least 2,400 people have been killed and more than 1.2 million displaced across Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israeli air strikes have eliminated most of the group’s leadership, including Qassem’s predecessor Hassan Nasrallah, and caused widespread destruction in parts of southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs – areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

It says it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of northern Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of Palestinians the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Israeli authorities say more than 70 people have been killed by Hezbollah attacks in Israel and the occupied Golan Heights over the past year.

North Korean soldiers have clashed with Ukrainian troops for the first time, Ukraine’s top officials have revealed.

In an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said a “small group” of North Korean soldiers were attacked.

US officials told the Reuters news agency that North Korean troops were engaged in combat in the Kursk region of Russia on 4 November.

Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who had earlier condemned the West’s lack of response to the North Korean troops, said these “first battles with North Korea open a new chapter of instability in the world”.

Seoul, however, said it “does not believe [troops on both sides] engaged in direct combat”, but that there was an “incident” involving a small number of North Korean soldiers “near the frontline”.

Ukraine says an estimated 11,000 North Korean soldiers were in the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian troops have a foothold.

In recent weeks, South Korean and US intelligence as well as Nato have said that they have seen evidence of North Korean troops being involved in Russia’s war.

But Moscow and Pyongyang have so far not responded directly to any of the allegations.

Ukraine’s top counter-disinformation official Andriy Kovalenko first said in a Telegram post on Monday that North Korea’s “first military units… [had] already come under fire in Kursk”.

In an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS, Rustem Umerov confirmed this, saying he expects a “significant number” of the North Korean troops to be engaged in combat, though he added it was “so far just small contacts, not full-scale engagement”.

Most of them are still undergoing training, he added.

“They’re wearing Russian uniforms, they’re undergoing tactical training, and they’re being deployed under various commands of the Russian army on the front lines,” Umerov said.

He said it was likely that five units, each consisting of around 3,000 soldiers, would be deployed across the battlefield.

He did not mention if there were any casualties.

In a daily video address on Wednesday, Zelensky called on Ukraine “together with the world… [to do] everything to make this Russian step toward expanding the war… a failure. Both for them, and for North Korea.”

Reports of such a move by North Korea have also alarmed the South, raising tensions between the two sides.

Late last month, Seoul had summoned Russia’s ambassador, seeking the “immediate withdrawal” of North Korean troops from Ukraine. It also warned that it was considering directly supplying arms to Ukraine.

Analysts have said that Pyongyang could be paid, or may be given access to Russian military technology in exchange for the troops.

On Wednesday, Russian lawmakers will vote to ratify a mutual defence treaty with North Korea, first proposed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lavish visit to Pyongyang in June.

It pledges that Russia and North Korea will help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.

Australian scientists have solved a mystery which has gripped Sydney: what were the sticky dark blobs which washed up on some of the city’s famed beaches last month?

Initially believed to be tar balls, they were in fact a “disgusting” combination of human faeces, cooking oil, chemicals and illicit drugs, researchers say.

Eight beaches including Bondi were closed for several days and a massive clean-up ordered after thousands of the black deposits started appearing from 16 October.

Testing by chemists has determined the balls were the result of a sewage spill, though their exact origin remains unknown.

Last month authorities in New South Wales (NSW) said they suspected the objects were a mixture of fatty acids, fuel oil and chemicals found in cleaning and cosmetic products.

But further testing found the material is unlikely to have originated solely from an oil spill or waste from a ship, as some had thought.

“We found the sticky spheres contained hundreds of different components,” said Associate Professor Jon Beves from the University of NSW, who led the investigation.

The balls had a firm surface – hardened partially by accumulating sand and minerals like calcium – and a soft core.

Inside was everything from cooking oil and soap scum molecules, to blood pressure medication, pesticides, methamphetamine and veterinary drugs.

Professor William Alexander Donald said they resembled fat, oil, and grease blobs – often called fatbergs – which are commonly formed in sewerage systems.

Detecting this along with recreational drugs and and industrial chemicals had “pointed us to sewage and other sources of urban effluent”, he explained.

The researchers said they had received unconfirmed reports of smaller but otherwise similar balls washing up over the past two years.

Sydney Water has reported that there are no known issues with waste systems in the city.

Australian breaker Rachael Gunn has announced she will retire from competition, citing the viral response to her performance at the Paris Olympics.

Gunn – who is known as B-girl Raygun – failed to get on the scoreboard in all three of her competition rounds in August, with a routine that included unorthodox moves, such as the sprinkler and a kangaroo hop.

The 37-year-old university lecturer’s moves catapulted her to global attention and ridicule, spawned conspiracy theories about her qualification, and reignited criticism of breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics.

Gunn had initially planned to keep competing but said the saga had been so “upsetting” that she changed her mind.

“I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was,” she told local radio station 2DayFM on Wednesday.

“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now.

“I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online.”

Gunn received a torrent of violent messages after the Olympics, and was the subject an anonymous petition demanding she apologise. It falsely accused her and her husband of manipulating her selection at the expense of other Australian talent.

She was vigorously defended by Olympic officials, but her performance split opinion within the breaking community, with some saying she made a mockery of the sport.

It also revived questions over whether breaking – which debuted in Paris but is not on the programme for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles – should have ever been included in the Olympics, due to the creative nature of the genre, which doesn’t necessarily suit organised competition.

Gunn has previously said the backlash took the joy out of the sport for her, which she again alluded to on Wednesday.

“Dancing is so much fun, and it makes you feel good. I don’t think people should feel crap about the way that they dance.

“I still dance, and I still break. But, you know, that’s like in my living room with my partner!”

It is now “virtually certain” that 2024 – a year punctuated by intense heatwaves and deadly storms – will be the world’s warmest on record, according to projections by the European climate service.

Global average temperatures across the year are on track to end up more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which would make 2024 the first calendar year to breach this symbolic mark.

These high temperatures are mainly down to human-caused climate change, with smaller contributions from natural factors such as the El Niño weather pattern.

Scientists say this should act as an alarm call ahead of next week’s UN climate conference in Azerbaijan, COP29.

“This latest record sends another stark warning to governments at COP29 of the urgent need for action to limit any further warming,” says Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Global temperatures have been so high through the first 10 months of 2024 that only an implausibly sharp drop in the final two months would prevent a new record from being set.

In fact, it is likely that 2024 will end up at least 1.55C hotter than pre-industrial times, according to data from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“Pre-industrial” refers to the benchmark period of 1850-1900, which roughly equates to the time before humans started significantly heating up the planet, for example by burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

The projection means that 2024 could surpass the current record of 1.48C, which was set only last year.

“This marks a new milestone in global temperature records,” says Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus.

This would also represent the first time that a calendar year has passed 1.5C of warming, according to Copernicus data.

This would be symbolic, because almost 200 countries pledged to try to limit long-term temperature rises to that level under the Paris climate agreement in 2015, hoping to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change.

If the 1.5C limit is breached, that does not mean the Paris goal has been broken, because it refers to average temperatures over a period of 20 years or so, in order to smooth out natural variability.

But every year-long breach brings the world closer to passing the 1.5C mark in the longer term. Last month, the UN warned that the world could warm by more than 3C this century based on current policies.

The specifics of 2024 also offer cause for concern.

Early 2024 warmth was boosted by the natural El Niño weather pattern. This is where surface waters in the east tropical Pacific Ocean are warmer than usual, which releases extra heat into the atmosphere.

This latest El Niño phase began in mid-2023 and ended around April 2024, but temperatures have remained stubbornly high since.

Over the past week, global average temperatures have set new records for the time of year every day, according to Copernicus data.

Many scientists expect the opposite, cooler phase, La Niña, to develop soon. This should, in theory, lead to a temporary drop in global temperatures next year, although exactly how this will play out is uncertain.

“We will watch with interest what happens going into 2025 and beyond,” says Ed Hawkins, professor of climate science at the University of Reading.

But, with levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere still rising quickly, scientists warn it is likely only a matter of time before new records are set.

“The warmer temperatures [are making] storms more intense, heatwaves hotter and heavy rainfall more extreme, with clearly seen consequences for people all around the world,” says Prof Hawkins.

“Stabilising global temperatures by reaching net zero emissions is the only way to stop adding to the costs of these disasters.”

We’ve known for months that there is no love lost between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his now former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant.

But this year, there have been reports of stand-up rows and shouting matches between the two men over Israel’s war strategy.

Gallant has vastly more military experience than Netanyahu.

He began his career as a navy commando in 1977 and rose to be a major general in Israel’s Southern Command, overseeing two wars in Gaza between 2005 and 2010.

The suspicion is that Gallant’s military superiority and respect from within the armed forces grated with his boss.

In Israel’s hard-line government, the most right-wing in the country’s history, Gallant was less hawkish than some of his fellow ministers. But he was no dove.

After Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the country’s biggest ever military humiliation, Gallant was initially fully behind the war in Gaza.

Along with Netanyahu, he faces possible war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court. Both men rejected the allegations made by the ICC’s prosecutor when he sought warrants for them in May.

But in recent months as defence minister, Gallant argued that Israel’s government should prioritise a hostage release deal with Hamas and end the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu hasn’t listened, insisting that continued military pressure on Hamas was the best way to free the remaining Israelis being held.

Since the beginning of the year, Gallant had raised concerns about the lack of a post-war strategy. Again, it fell on deaf ears.

He has pushed for a comprehensive investigation into the military, political, and intelligence failings that led to the 7 October attack.

The prime minister has been resistant, arguing now is not the time.

Gallant was also unhappy at plans to continue to allow Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students to be exempt from serving in the military.

At a time of multiple wars, he said, the country couldn’t afford such luxuries.

Netanyahu, wary of the collapse of his coalition government which has been dependent on support from the ultra-Orthodox parties, paid no heed.

The new Defence Minister, Israel Katz, who up until yesterday was the foreign minister, is more hawkish and much more in step with his boss’s thinking.

Following his appointment, he vowed to “achieve the goals of the war”, including “the return of all hostages as the most important moral mission, the destruction of Hamas in Gaza, [and] the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

But compared to Gallant, Katz has virtually no military experience.

That will raise concerns here and abroad at a time when Israel is fighting two wars, in Gaza and in Lebanon, which risk further engulfing the wider Middle East.

The cabinet has now lost the last remaining minister who was willing and able to confront Netanyahu, another likely reason Gallant was shown the door.

There have been rumours for months that he was on the verge of being sacked.

The timing of his dismissal on the day of the United States election cannot be ignored.

The former defence minister has a much better relationship with President Joe Biden’s White House than Netanyahu, whose rapport is frosty at best.

His sacking can be seen as one more jab in the eye to the now outgoing US administration.

It will come as no surprise if the Israeli prime minister is much more willing to listen to advice on war strategy handed out by Donald Trump’s team.

Of course, in the merry-go-round world of Israeli politics, no-one will be shocked if this is not the last we hear from Gallant.

He has been sacked as defence minister once before, back in March 2023.

On that occasion, along with many high-ranking military and former military officials, he was unhappy with Netanyahu’s controversial plans to overhaul the judicial system.

His dismissal led to tens of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets calling for him to be reinstated.

After just a few days, Netanyahu was forced to back down and return Gallant to his position.

On Tuesday night, as news broke that he had been sacked again, there were again protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but not on the same scale.

Gallant belongs to the same political party as Netanyahu, Likud, and could one day challenge his leadership in any future elections.

But the fact he has been given his marching orders now suggests the prime minister is feeling strong.

As has been the case for the past year, it is Israel’s longest-serving leader, its most Machiavellian and successful political operator, who is calling the shots.

Once regarded as a safe haven for refugees, Kenya is slowly becoming a hostile place for some of those seeking protection from political persecution and war, rights groups say.

Their concerns come after masked men abducted at gunpoint four Turkish refugees in the capital, Nairobi, last month – the latest in a series of such cases in the East African state.

Kenyan authorities said the four, who were recognised by the UN as refugees, were deported at the request of the Turkish government, which wants them on treason charges.

Critics accuse Kenya of abandoning an age-old legal principle of “non-refoulement”, which prohibits the forced return of people to countries where they may face persecution.

This has tarnished Kenya’s reputation, with the local Daily Nation newspaper reporting that the chiefs of the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the UK’s foreign intelligence agency MI6 – William Burns and Richard Moore respectively – raised the deportations with President William Ruto during their visit to Nairobi late last month.

Kenya’s refugee commissioner John Burugu declined to comment about the expulsions, but senior foreign ministry official Korir Sing’oei highlighted the dilemma the government faced when he said it needed to perform a “crucial balancing of interests for the bigger good”.

“Harbouring the subversive elements accused of undertaking activities detrimental to a friendly country posed both a diplomatic and humanitarian dilemma to Kenya,” he added.

In the end, realpolitik triumphed, with Kenya not prepared to jeopardise its closer ties with Turkey, which saw the two countries sign a military co-operation agreement in July.

Compared to its neighbours, Kenya has enjoyed peace and stability for many years, making it a prime destination for refugees and asylum seekers, from various conflict-hit or authoritarian countries in the region such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Rwanda and South Sudan.

East Africa’s biggest economy, Kenya is home to more than 800,000 refugees, according to Burugu.

But rights groups fear that the country has in recent years become an increasingly unsafe for those fleeing persecution in their home countries.

Kenyan police have also been accused on numerous occasions of colluding with foreign security agencies trying to apprehend people they regard as threats.

The latest example of this came when it was accused of being complicit – as Uganda’s Observer newspaper put it – in the “brazen cross-border abductions” of 36 Ugandan opposition supporters in July.

The group had travelled to the Kenyan city of Kisumu for a training course, according to their lawyers, but were deported to Uganda without proper legal channels like deportation orders or extradition requests being followed.

Uganda’s police accused the suspects of being “engaged in covert activities that are suspected to be subversive, drawing the attention of Kenyan security forces”.

But the group denied any wrongdoing through their lawyer.

“By allowing Ugandan security operatives to cross into Kenya and essentially kidnap these individuals, Kenya has failed in its duty to safeguard the liberty and wellbeing of all people on its territory, regardless of their nationality or political affiliations,” the Observer said in an editorial.

Last May, Rwandan human rights defender Yusuf Ahmed Gasana was abducted from his home in Nairobi by unidentified persons and has not been seen since.

Sources told Gasana’s family he was being held in a secret detention facility in Rwanda with several other people who were yet to be charged.

Other standout cases include:

• South Sudanese refugee Mabior Awikjok Bak, who was abducted in Nairobi last February by men reportedly in Kenyan police uniform. A critic of the government, he is now in arbitrary detention back home.
• Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif, who was shot dead outside Nairobi by police in October 2022, two months after he had sought safety in Kenya after fleeing Pakistan. Police say it was a case of mistaken identity.
• Nnamdi Kanu, a separatist leader from Nigeria, who said he was arrested in 2021 at a Kenyan airport and handed over to Nigerian intelligence services. He is now on trial facing charges of terrorism and incitement. Both governments denied involvement in his arrest.

For those seeking refuge in Kenya, it is frightening.

“I’m longer active on social media because of threats from all sides,” a Rwandan refugee critical of Rwanda’s government, who has lived in Kenya for more than 10 years, told the BBC.

The 40-year-old believes the authorities in Kenya are aiding Rwandan officials to track him down.

“Going back home is not an option for me and my family but we live in constant fear here,” he said.

“I’m afraid because being accessed by the people we are running away from is a huge possibility,” the refugee added.

Because of the growing threat, more than 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers are currently living under the protection of a non-governmental organisation, the Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK).

The fear of being arrested, charged or extradited are among the reasons why they had turned to the RCK for assistance, the organisation’s lead researcher, Shadrack Kuyoh, told the BBC.

He said the deportation of refugees was in breach of the Refugees Act of Kenya, which seeks to ensure that they “are not returned to territories where they may face harm”.

The fate of the Turkish nationals since their deportation remains unclear.

The four were believed to be part of the Gulen movement, named after the Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, which ran schools in Kenya and other parts of the world.

Their deportation came soon after Gulen, whom Turkey accused of plotting a failed coup in 2016, died, suggesting that Turkey exploited his death to crack down on his supporters.

The chair of the Interreligious Council of Kenya, Bishop Willybard Kitogho Lagho, described the four as “peace-loving people” who were involved in humanitarian work.

“Their abductions underscore the growing concerns about the safety of all refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya,” he said.

Kenyan foreign policy analyst Edgar Githua said the government should have handed them over to the UN refugee agency to shield itself from criticism.

“Kenya has soiled its international image. This will be quoted for ages. We cannot undo what we have done,” he said.

• Lupita Nyong’o speaks of family ordeal and condemns ‘chilling’ Kenya crackdown
• The ever-shifting alliances that fuelled Kenya’s impeachment drama
• Can Kenya close Dadaab, the world’s biggest refugee camp?

The Eastern European country of Moldova is continuing efforts to attract overseas firms, as it tries to move past political uncertainty.

“I went with a backpack, and set up a business,” says Dutch entrepreneur Luc Vocks, recalling how he moved to Moldova in 2007.

Mr Vocks had first visited the former Soviet republic three years earlier, and recalls experiencing “the cliché that one would have of Eastern Europe at that time”.

“Everything was dirt cheap, and if you were a foreigner you’d get attention,” he says.

Today, Mr Vocks is the owner of a Moldovan company called DevelopmentAid. Based in the capital Chisinau, it employs 180 people in the country, and runs a website that lists job vacancies in the international development community.

Mr Vocks is one of a growing number of foreign entrepreneurs in Moldova. The government wants to attract more like him and hopes that low business tax rates will help.

The country’s standard corporation tax rate – the amount that firms have to pay on their profits – is just 12%. This compares with 25% in the UK, and 25.8% in the Netherlands where Mr Vocks had initially launched his company before relocating it to Moldova.

There’s an even better deal for tech firms. In 2018 the Moldovan government launched an initiative to grow the country’s IT sector – the Moldova IT Park (MITP).

This isn’t a physical business park. Instead it is virtual scheme open to all IT firms in the country – and those that wish to move there from overseas. Firms that sign up only have to pay a corporation tax rate of 7%.

The MITP is part of a wider effort by the Moldovan government to modernise and expand its economy ahead of a bid to join the European Union in 2030.

This drive is being led by Moldova’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu, who this week was re-elected for a second term. And last month Moldovans voted “yes” on pro-EU constitutional changes.

However, the vote was extremely close, with Yes getting 50.46% and No receiving 49.54%. Although Russia denied interfering in the vote, Moldova’s authorities said attempts had been made to buy up to 300,000 votes in what Maia Sandu described as an “unprecedented assault on freedom and democracy”.

Moscow is opposed to Moldova joining the EU, and supports Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria economically, politically and militarily.

Dumitru Alaiba, Moldova’s deputy prime minister and minister for economic development and digitalisation, is positive about where Moldova is heading.

“Moldova in the past 10 to 15 years has really proven that it’s a country that can change very fast,” he tells the BBC.

“This used to be a highly corrupt country, a country where, exactly 10 years ago, a billion dollars from our central banks just disappeared.”

“We are moving very fast towards joining the EU, and we are reforming our economy at top speed. Of course, we have a long way to go.”

He pointed to Moldova’s rise on the global Corruption Perceptions Index, produced by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International.

Out of 180 countries – with a lower placing meaning that a country is less corrupt – Moldova is now in 76th place, up from 91st a year earlier.

“Now entrepreneurs can breathe freely without fear of repercussion, without fear of corrupt inspectors, without fear of a filthy justice sector that commits crazy abuses.”

Mr Vocks agrees that Moldova is now a much easier place in which to do business than when he first set up his company there back in 2007.

“Back then, it was extremely bureaucratic. It was hard to get a residence permit. It was painful to register a company, especially as a foreigner.

“It was painful intersecting with the tax agency. The banks were rough to work with.”

Member companies of the MITP don’t just benefit from the 7% corporation tax rate. They also don’t need to make employer social security contributions, and staff don’t have to pay income tax. Mr Volks signed up DevelopmentAid almost immediately.

The MITP has also simplified immigration procedures through the IT Visa program.

More than 2,000 companies are now registered with the MITP, 300 of which have come from overseas. The most common countries these have moved from being the US, UK, Germany, Netherlands, and Ukraine.

In the first half of 2024, MITP firms generated a combined €365m ($397m; £308m) in revenues, according to official figures. And now employing 22,000 people in general, they are said to contribute around 6% of the country’s GDP.

While the MITP scheme has worked to boost Moldova’s IT sector, the influx of foreign tech companies has driven up salaries in the industry considerably.

Sven Wiese, a German expat who has set up a small IT services business in the country called Trabia, says he is now finding himself priced out when it comes to employee pay.

He says that the biggest firms signed up to the MITP can offer IT specialists more than €100,000 a year, “because that is still cheaper than hiring people within a bigger country like the US or Germany”.

At the same time he says that many Moldovan IT sector workers still want to leave the country. “Fewer people are now leaving Moldova, but emigration is still high.”

Another negative issue is the continuing war in neighbouring Ukraine, which is likely making some Western IT firms think twice about investing in Moldova. Mr Alaiba says is confident that Moldova is safe “as long as the free world is supporting Ukraine”.

Marina Bzovii, MITP’s administrator and an assistant professor at the Technical University of Moldova, already sees Moldova as a regional business hub. “Moldova is connecting even Central Asia, countries like Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, who are culturally much further from Europe.

“However, Moldova understands both of the cultures. So it’s the kind of business hub that Europe needs… and Chisinau is now really vibrant.”

A Scottish man has landed his “dream job” as a lighthouse keeper on a remote Australian island.

Sandy Duthie, 42, jumped at the chance when the previous lighthouse keeper decided to retire after 25 years on Gabo Island, off the coast of Victoria.

Sandy, from Aberdeenshire, visited Australia five years ago with his partner, and never left. When he went to the small lighthouse island he realised he would love to one day become part of its history.

Landing the lighthouse keeper and island caretaker job means he is now spending six months of the year there – one month on and one month off – with a colony of penguins for company.

Sandy hails from Kirkton of Durris, near Banchory.

He studied ecology at the University of Aberdeen before becoming an arborist.

He visited Mallacoota in 2019 with his partner Brodie Gaudion on an initial three-month holiday visa to meet her family for the first time, and ended up staying.

He first went to Gabo Island two years ago, and dreamed of eventually being its caretaker.

Gabo lighthouse itself was built more than 160 years ago.

Previous keeper Leo op den Brouw, 70, had spent every second month alone on the island for the past 25 years.

When he decided to return to family life on the mainland earlier this year that left the post open, and Sandy landed the job with government organisation Parks Victoria.

He and another keeper – who has now been working there for 16 years – share the month-on and month-off rotation.

Sandy and his enormous beard – which he has been cultivating for many years, and which he thinks may have helped in the job interview – started his new job back in March.

He gets to and from the island via a small boat charter.

It takes about 30 minutes if the weather allows it – the conditions are often choppy – and there tend to be whales nearby.

Sandy’s first experience of Gabo Island came when he visited for two weeks to do weed control work.

“It felt like home immediately, it felt very much like the north east of Scotland,” he explained.

“The foliage – it’s pretty scrubby – and the granite is unlike any other part of Australia that I’ve seen. I fell immediately in love with the place.

“I asked the caretaker then how he got he job and he told me it was just luck at the right place and the right time. And since then he retired and I applied for the job – right place, right time.

“The job does not come up very often.”

He described Gabo island as small but with “amazing” wildlife.

“We have little penguins – a large colony of them,” he said.

“We have whales, sea eagles and seals. We have whales go past constantly at the moment.

“I saw around 15 or 16 today. Sometimes there are 30 or 40 a day.”

Sandy said the job itself is more like a way of living.

“You have to really get with the rhythm of what you have to do and not put too much expectation or planning because Gabo Island has a way of flipping round whatever plans you have.

“You have to be able to problem-solve. Our range of tasks run from weather observations every six hours to cleaning the public toilets, painting everything – we have 80% humidity with salt air so everything rusts and corrodes and it all needs looked after.

“There’s a lot of ongoing maintenance that needs to be done to the house.

“You just have to expect the unexpected.”

He said the job was ideal for him, but that it came with challenges.

“There’s enough difference to keep your mind busy all the time,” Sandy said.

“I quite enjoy my own company. I do also enjoy the company of others. My partner comes to visit.

“Don’t get me wrong, there are some days where it seems like a prison sometimes.

“The previous caretaker described it as Alcatraz the rock. You can’t leave, go to family events if you’re here. Sometimes we get stuck on here for days on end because of the weather.

“But at the same time you can basically write your own script of the day and go about your duties.

“It can be difficult when phone signal drops out but there’s not much that I miss..

He said supplies could run low if a boat did not come.

“But the other side of it is when I get back to the mainland, something I’ve found is having to be super cautious about being in a crowd of people.

“If you’ve been here for weeks by yourself and not seen another face it’s quite intimidating going to the pub or going to an event.”

He has also discovered that there were other Scottish connections to Gabo Island.

“The pink granite on Gabo is very hard compared to other Australian granite,” Sandy explained.

“Documents I’ve found suggest the person in charge of building the lighthouse in 1859 actually sought Scottish stonemasons, in particular ones who had worked on the Aberdeen and Peterhead lighthouses, as they were used to working with such a hard material.

“Unfortunately we don’t know much more about who built the lighthouse though.

“There’s a book about all of the caretakers who have been on the island since 1859, and a lot of them are Scottish – people from the Highlands and Islands, Perth, Edinburgh, Glasgow and from the north east too.

“It’s really incredible the Scottish connection here.

“It is 100% a dream job. For me it’s perfect.”

On a rainy November night Lindsay Rimer walked the short route from her home to a local shop to buy breakfast cereal. The 13-year-old’s body was discovered weighed down in a nearby canal months later. In her pocket, the exact change from the cornflakes she had bought.

The 30 years since her death have seen a so-far fruitless search for her killer and decades of torment for her family.

Senior detectives are not usually immediately alerted to a missing teenager.

On the day the alarm was raised Tony Whittle was chatting with colleague Graham Sunderland.

The conversation turned to the cases they were working on, with Graham saying the force received a call that morning about a young girl who had not turned up for her daily paper round.

Her parents were frantic because it appeared she had not been home all night.

Whether it was professional judgement or gut feeling, the men agreed there was something they could not put their finger on that left them concerned.

Then a detective superintendent in the murder squad, Tony was based in Bradford where it was not too unusual for teenagers to disappear overnight before re-emerging the next day.

But this was Hebden Bridge.

Eight miles (12km) outside of Halifax in West Yorkshire, a hippie-spirited town surrounded by rolling hills and stone bridges. The definition of a community where everyone knows everyone.

Although no-one in Lindsay Rimer’s family knew it yet, their lives had changed forever.

“We were just a normal family before that night. Then it all exploded,” recalls Kate, Lindsay’s elder sister who was 20 when she disappeared.

One of three girls, Kate was a new mum and living near the family home on Cambridge Street. Lindsay would often come for a sleepover.

Having realised there were no cornflakes for breakfast the next day, at 22:00 GMT on 7 November Lindsay had walked less than a mile to the Spar on Crown Street.

When she left the house, her dad was on the phone so Lindsay called at the nearby Trades Club where her mum was meeting friends and got some money from her so she could buy the cereal.

After her mum returned later, Lindsay’s parents went to bed assuming their daughter had come home and gone straight up to her attic room.

But the next morning they were called by the newsagents where Lindsay worked to say she had not turned up.

“Mum and dad realised her paper delivery bag was still in the kitchen along with her school money. They ran upstairs and realised she hadn’t slept in her bed.

“They knew straight away something had happened,” Kate says.

Grainy CCTV footage from the shop captured Lindsay leaving at 22:22 GMT.

She was spotted moments later by two bus passengers as she leant against a wall near to the town’s Memorial Garden.

That was the last confirmed sighting of her alive.

In the early days of her disappearance, police and the community joined forces and combed the area, hoping to bring the teenager home.

Three close friends of Geri and Gordon moved in with the family.

Together, they would spend nights brainstorming, writing down potential leads or information on a flip chart – anything that could help find Lindsay.

A week into the search and Kate, who describes being “plucked from normality into a world of crime and press,” played the role of her sister in a televised reconstruction.

It was hoped tracing her last movements would jog people’s memories.

Kate remembers: “I was insistent I wanted to take part. She was my build and we looked similar. I felt it was the least I could do to try and find her.”

“I look back at photos of myself at the time and the reconstruction and I look so young. I don’t recognise myself but I recognise the terror in my face,” she adds.

As the investigation wore on Kate says she remembers when officers, growing increasingly desperate for a breakthrough, searched the home of every man in the town.

There were rumours of sightings in other parts of the country. One man told police he had seen Lindsay being dragged into a car and had followed it to a nearby reservoir but his claims were disproved.

Tony reflects: “All we had was this CCTV picture of her in her big baggy jumper and jeans and that was it.”

“There were people around at the time and had she been dragged into a vehicle kicking and screaming, someone would have seen or heard.”

The lack of sightings led detectives to believe Lindsay had got into a vehicle with someone she knew.

She was described as an “intelligent, cautious girl” who would not have gone off with a stranger.

The investigation gained national attention, generating a sense of fear about how a schoolgirl could vanish in a place like Hebden Bridge.

An offender profile drawn up by a psychiatrist suggested the likely suspect would be someone who could drive, probably aged 17 to early 20s, and perhaps someone Lindsay would be attracted to.

Could it be someone she had met recently or maybe an older brother of someone she knew?

Several weeks into the inquiry and there was hope of a breakthrough.

Exhausted detective Tony had been persuaded to take his first day off in weeks when he received a call to say officers had tracked down the driver of a stolen red Honda Civic.

The vehicle had been spotted around the town when Lindsay disappeared. It was thought the driver had attempted to talk to schoolgirls.

Tony remembers: “I thought, ‘right, that’s our guy, let’s get him in’.”

However, it turned out the man had an alibi and was ruled out.

“He was actually being spoken to by a police officer miles away at about the time Lindsay would have left the shop,” he adds.

As the months wore on, and with the absence of any concrete leads, the inquiry was beginning to wind down.

Then in April 1995, Lindsay’s body was found a mile out of the town centre in the Rochdale Canal by two council workers clearing debris from the waterway.

Kate says: “I remember it clearly. I was sat in the park watching my daughter play.

“My dad walked down and sat next to me. He said they’d found a body and we needed to go back to the house.

“It wasn’t a shock because after so long we weren’t expecting her to come home. But it was just deeply sad.”

Lindsay had been strangled – likely killed on the night she vanished and her body dumped.

The arms of her jumper had been tied together in a sling with a stone used to weigh her down. There was no suggestion of a sexual assault.

Being submerged in the water for so long had erased any chance of forensic clues that might help police.

Hundreds of witness statements were taken. Officers spoke to thousands of people, examined hundreds of vehicles and made repeated appeals, but no progress was made.

Over the years the case has remained open and there have been moments where a breakthrough appeared within touching distance.

In April 2016, police believed that scientific advances had enabled them to create a DNA profile which may lead them back to the killer.

A 63-year-old man was arrested in November of that year with a 68-year-old from Bradford arrested in April 2017.

Both were later released without charge.

Three decades on, Lindsay’s younger sister Juliet reflects on how she has no living memory of her sibling.

A baby when she disappeared, Juliet has grown up knowing Lindsay to exist only in the context of murder and death.

She talks about a childhood where her family were in a “perpetual cycle of grief”.

“I don’t think there was one particular instance where I found out I had a sister that was killed.

“You can’t have a conversation with your young child about murder so it was something I pieced together over the years.”

The shadow of Lindsay’s murder still looms across Hebden Bridge and weighs heavily on the minds of both former and current officers.

Graham, who was a detective inspector on the investigation, says he thinks about the case often and it was the only one in his career that officers hadn’t solved.

Although now retired, he is desperate for the case to be solved: “We need to know what happened to Lindsay. No matter how insignificant, if someone knows something, for heaven’s sake come forward.”

“It’s a little girl I’ve never met and yet I know really well,” he adds.

The detective now heading up the inquiry says police are still committed to finding the killer and getting justice for the Rimers.

Det Ch Insp James Entwistle says: “Loyalties change around people who know things, science moves on. There is always an opportunity and always a drive because this is a relentless pursuit for the truth.”

The wounds of not knowing remain unhealed for Lindsay’s family.

Kate describes her parents as “broken” with the whole family “exhausted by grief”.

They have created a memory box of their sister. They talk about a young teenager who had a love of fashion, was into Nirvana and the Prodigy and was keen to go to university.

But for self-preservation Kate and Juliet can’t focus too much on what Lindsay’s life may have been like.

“For our own wellbeing, we cannot go there.

“It’s too painful to think about what she would be doing and what she’s missed out on.”

The family’s only way of finding peace is to find the killer.

Kate says: “If you’ve experienced a death in the family you’re allowed to move on from it.

“You can forge a life where you encompass grief, but it doesn’t overwhelm it.

“But we’re stuck in this overwhelm all the time because we don’t have closure.

“We can only move on when we know who is responsible for killing our sister.”

West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds

Australian breaker Rachael Gunn has announced she will retire from competition, citing the viral response to her performance at the Paris Olympics.

Gunn – who is known as B-girl Raygun – failed to get on the scoreboard in all three of her competition rounds in August, with a routine that included unorthodox moves, such as the sprinkler and a kangaroo hop.

The 37-year-old university lecturer’s moves catapulted her to global attention and ridicule, spawned conspiracy theories about her qualification, and reignited criticism of breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics.

Gunn had initially planned to keep competing but said the saga had been so “upsetting” that she changed her mind.

“I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was,” she told local radio station 2DayFM on Wednesday.

“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now.

“I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online.”

Gunn received a torrent of violent messages after the Olympics, and was the subject an anonymous petition demanding she apologise. It falsely accused her and her husband of manipulating her selection at the expense of other Australian talent.

She was vigorously defended by Olympic officials, but her performance split opinion within the breaking community, with some saying she made a mockery of the sport.

It also revived questions over whether breaking – which debuted in Paris but is not on the programme for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles – should have ever been included in the Olympics, due to the creative nature of the genre, which doesn’t necessarily suit organised competition.

Gunn has previously said the backlash took the joy out of the sport for her, which she again alluded to on Wednesday.

“Dancing is so much fun, and it makes you feel good. I don’t think people should feel crap about the way that they dance.

“I still dance, and I still break. But, you know, that’s like in my living room with my partner!”

Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing is on his first visit to China since he ousted the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

The significant losses his regime has suffered in the civil war at the hands of poorly-armed insurgents has raised questions over how long he will remain at the helm.

So, the invitation to visit China – an important ally, neighbour and Myanmar’s largest trading partner – is significant, although it is not a state visit.

It is a long way from a Chinese endorsement of his disastrous handling of the post-coup chaos in Myanmar, but it does suggest that Beijing sees him as an essential part of a solution to the conflict there.

Leading a large delegation of officials and business figures, Min Aung Hlaing arrived on Tuesday in Kunming, a city in the province of Yunnan, which shares a long border with Myanmar.

He is attending a minor summit of countries in the so-called Greater Mekong Sub-region.

The embattled leader has cut an isolated figure since the coup, and been shunned by the regional gatherings which are usually attended by Burmese leaders.

The few overseas trips he has made since 2021 have mainly been to Russia, now a staunch ally.

During his visit, he is expected to meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who is presiding over the summit. But this is otherwise a low-level affair, attended by heads of government from other authoritarian governments in the region, such as Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

China always takes the symbolic importance of diplomatic protocol seriously, and will be conscious of the signal sent out by Min Aung Hlaing’s presence at a Chinese-hosted meeting.

This matters, after a perception over the past year that China might be preparing to wash its hands of Min Aung Hlaing, as the civil war has become increasingly costly for Beijing.

The ethnic insurgent alliance which has inflicted the greatest defeats on the Myanmar military operates along the border with China, and launched its offensive a year ago with the declared objective of shutting down scam centres of which thousands of Chinese citizens had become victims.

It was widely presumed that China, frustrated by the junta’s refusal to act, had given the insurgents a green light to move in and do so.

Since then, though, China has tried to rein in the insurgents, to prevent an outright collapse of the military regime in Nay Pyi Daw.

Beijing is known to be pushing Min Aung Hlaing to come up with a timetable for elections to bring an end to military rule. It wants cross-border trade restored, and ambitious Chinese investment plans for Myanmar protected.

Many of the groups fighting the military takeover in Myanmar have vowed never to negotiate with the coup leaders. They argue that the military must be taken out of Burmese politics for good and put under civilian control, and a new federal political system established.

The National Unity Government (NUG), which represents the elected administration ousted by the coup, has objected to the implicit recognition given to the junta by China’s invitation to Min Aung Hlaing this week.

“Myanmar’s people want stability, peace and economic growth. It is Min Aung Hlaing and his group who are destroying these things,” said the NUG’s spokesperson, Kyaw Zaw.

“I am concerned that [the visit] will unintentionally incite a misunderstanding of the Chinese government among Myanmar’s public.”

But the opposition is still a long way from defeating the junta, and China fears that if it were to collapse, even worse chaos might ensue as different armed groups jostled for power.

It looks like China is willing to work with the junta, despite the military regime’s record of brutality and incompetence.

And for now, Chinese-led diplomacy is all there is because Western influence is negligible.

India, Myanmar’s other giant neighbour, has concerned itself largely with localised border issues.

And the efforts of Asean, the Association of South East Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member – essentially a five-point consensus agreed with Min Aung Hlaing just three months after his coup – have gone nowhere.

China alone has the commitment and influence to make a plausible attempt to end the civil war in Myanmar.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not shorten or lengthen the life expectancy of those taking it to ease menopause symptoms, says the health assessment body NICE in updated guidance.

Its conclusion comes after a detailed analysis of data on links between HRT and conditions such as heart disease, stroke, some cancers and dementia.

The guidance includes a new discussion aid to help GPs give patients the most useful information they can about the drugs and what they do.

And it says talking therapy could be offered alongside HRT, to help women cope with symptoms.

HRT replaces the hormones oestrogen or progestogen, or both, when women’s periods stop – normally between the ages of 45 and 55.

It is administered using gels, creams, pessaries, tablets or sprays.

In updated menopause guidelines, NICE (the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence) says healthcare professionals should take into account a woman’s personal situation, and provide all the information needed to help her make the best choice on treatment.

The guidance highlights that while there are some increased risks linked to taking HRT, it is unlikely to lengthen or shorten overall life expectancy.

Easy-to-read illustrations of the likelihood of developing certain health conditions are featured. These are intended to help GPs have informed conversations with patients.

Dr Marie Anne Ledingham, consultant clinical adviser to NICE, explained that an independent panel assessed available scientific evidence to come up with the information.

She said the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and ovarian and endometrial cancer was no higher among women aged 45 and over taking combined HRT, compared to those who had never taken it.

And HRT actually reduced the risk of fractures linked to the bone condition osteoporosis, which is more likely to develop after the menopause.

But the risk of breast cancer for women did rise slightly, affecting:

• 59 in every 1,000 women who never take HRT
• 79 in every 1,000 taking combined HRT for five years from the age of 50
• 92 in every 1,000 taking combined HRT for 10 years

The risk of dementia was also slightly higher if women started taking HRT after the age of 65. In younger patients there was no elevated risk of developing dementia.

“The risks are very low in the population, and HRT can provide huge benefits at a very difficult point in many women’s lives,” Dr Ledingham said.

The guidance is clear that HRT is the go-to treatment option for hot flushes and night sweats caused by the menopause.

Talking therapy known as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) is to be offered to women over 40 alongside HRT or, if the patient’s individual circumstances call for it, in place of it.

That is a change from draft guidelines, published in late 2023, which caused controversy by suggesting that talking therapy could replace HRT as a treatment.

The level of feedback received by NICE on that point led to a longer than usual delay in issuing the final guidance.

Prescriptions for HRT have grown considerably in recent years in the UK.

Professor Jonathan Benger, chief medical officer at NICE, said that awareness of the impact menopause symptoms can have on women has grown in recent years.

But he said more could be done to improve support for women from ethnic minority backgrounds and from poorer areas “who are often unaware of or unable to access treatments that could help them”.

“Women need to feel confident that they will be offered advice and options that meet their needs, and that they will be supported to make the choices that are right for them,” said Prof Benger.

The body of pop star Liam Payne was released to his family on Wednesday to be flown back to the UK, the public prosecutor in charge of his case has confirmed to the BBC.

The singer died three weeks ago after falling from a third-floor balcony of a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

An autopsy confirmed the 31-year-old had suffered internal and external bleeding and multiple traumatic injuries sustained as a result of the fall.

His body had been held in Argentina while local authorities completed further toxicology and laboratory tests. It was released to his family on Wednesday, public prosecutor Andrés Madrea told the BBC.

Payne was one of the most recognisable names in pop, after rising to fame with the boyband One Direction in the 2010s.

A co-writer on many of their hits, he also achieved solo success with tracks like Strip That Down and Bedroom Floor.

In the week leading up to his death, it was revealed the singer was facing legal action from his ex-fiancee Maya Henry, who had issued a cease and desist order over what she described as “obsessive” contact.

Payne’s girlfriend at the time of his death, Kate Cassidy, said the couple had been planning to get married.

The singer’s family said they were “heartbroken” by his death, adding: “Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul.”

In October, some media outlets reported preliminary toxicology tests, which the Associated Press (AP) news agency said suggested evidence of exposure to cocaine, quoting an unnamed official.

But they said the official stressed that the initial results don’t give an accurate idea of how much of the drug was in his blood when he died.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office in Argentina is continuing to investigate the circumstances around his death.

North Korean soldiers have clashed with Ukrainian troops for the first time, Ukraine’s top officials have revealed.

In an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said a “small group” of North Korean soldiers were attacked.

US officials told the Reuters news agency that North Korean troops were engaged in combat in the Kursk region of Russia on 4 November.

Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who had earlier condemned the West’s lack of response to the North Korean troops, said these “first battles with North Korea open a new chapter of instability in the world”.

Seoul, however, said it “does not believe [troops on both sides] engaged in direct combat”, but that there was an “incident” involving a small number of North Korean soldiers “near the frontline”.

Ukraine says an estimated 11,000 North Korean soldiers were in the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian troops have a foothold.

In recent weeks, South Korean and US intelligence as well as Nato have said that they have seen evidence of North Korean troops being involved in Russia’s war.

But Moscow and Pyongyang have so far not responded directly to any of the allegations.

Ukraine’s top counter-disinformation official Andriy Kovalenko first said in a Telegram post on Monday that North Korea’s “first military units… [had] already come under fire in Kursk”.

In an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS, Rustem Umerov confirmed this, saying he expects a “significant number” of the North Korean troops to be engaged in combat, though he added it was “so far just small contacts, not full-scale engagement”.

Most of them are still undergoing training, he added.

“They’re wearing Russian uniforms, they’re undergoing tactical training, and they’re being deployed under various commands of the Russian army on the front lines,” Umerov said.

He said it was likely that five units, each consisting of around 3,000 soldiers, would be deployed across the battlefield.

He did not mention if there were any casualties.

In a daily video address on Wednesday, Zelensky called on Ukraine “together with the world… [to do] everything to make this Russian step toward expanding the war… a failure. Both for them, and for North Korea.”

Reports of such a move by North Korea have also alarmed the South, raising tensions between the two sides.

Late last month, Seoul had summoned Russia’s ambassador, seeking the “immediate withdrawal” of North Korean troops from Ukraine. It also warned that it was considering directly supplying arms to Ukraine.

Analysts have said that Pyongyang could be paid, or may be given access to Russian military technology in exchange for the troops.

On Wednesday, Russian lawmakers will vote to ratify a mutual defence treaty with North Korea, first proposed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lavish visit to Pyongyang in June.

It pledges that Russia and North Korea will help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.

A Malaysian businessman has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for his role in the US Navy’s biggest corruption scandal and for skipping a previous sentencing hearing.

Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “Fat Leonard”, pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribing senior Navy officials with millions of dollars in cash, prostitutes, luxury travel and top-shelf liquor and cigars.

In exchange, Francis said he received classified information and was able to overcharge the Navy $35m (£27m) for his company’s services to the 7th Fleet based in the Indo-Pacific.

He had been due for sentencing in 2022 but he escaped in September that year by cutting off his ankle bracelet, and was recaptured within days.

The US Attorney’s Office said Tuesday’s sentence reflected admissions in his 2015 guilty plea, his “extensive cooperation with the government”, and his guilty plea earlier on Tuesday for failing to attend the original sentencing hearing.

The court also fined the 60-year-old $150,000 and ordered him to pay the US Navy $20m in restitution.

His company, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia, was also sentenced on Tuesday to five years probation and was fined $36m.

US officials said the scandal had weakened public trust in some Navy leaders and its fallout will be long-felt.

Francis was arrested in California in 2013 and he pleaded guilty to bribery and fraud charges in 2015.

After his escape in September, he was recaptured days later in Venezuela while trying to get to Russia.

His case came to be known as the Fat Leonard scandal because of Francis’ rotund frame at that time.

Francis was returned to California last December under a prisoner swap between the US and Venezuela that saw Washington release an ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in exchange for 10 American detainees.

“Leonard Francis lined his pockets with taxpayer dollars while undermining the integrity of US Naval forces,” said US Attorney Tara McGrath in a statement.

“The impact of his deceit and manipulation will be long felt, but justice has been served today,” McGrath said.

The bribery and corruption that Francis had “fostered” within the US Navy over many years was “aggravated and egregious”, but under custody, he helped investigators uncover “unprecedented levels of corruption” in the establishment, the US Attorney’s Office said.

Francis provided investigators with detailed information on hundreds of sailors, from petty officers to admirals.

“Mr. Francis’ sentencing brings closure to an expansive fraud scheme that he perpetrated against the US Navy with assistance from various Navy officials,” said Kelly Mayo, Director of the defence department’s Office of the Inspector General.

“Mr. Francis’ actions not only degraded the 7th Fleet’s readiness but shook the Fleet’s trust in its leadership who furthered his corrupt practices,” Kelly said.

South Africa has closed one of its busiest border crossings with Mozambique following violent post-electoral protests in the neighbouring country.

The protests have led to deadly clashes in several cities following last month’s disputed presidential election, won by Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo party.

The authorities say there are reports of vehicles being torched on the Mozambican side of the Lebombo port of entry.

“Due to these security incidents and in the interest of public safety, the port has been temporarily closed until further notice,” the South African border agency said.

South African police also fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Mozambicans trying to enter the country through the Lebombo border, according to the News24 site.

Lebombo, one of the four busiest land ports in southern Africa, is about 110km (68 miles) from Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, and about 440km from South Africa’s capital of Pretoria.

Travellers have been advised to use alternative crossing points between the two countries.

• Fresh faces in Mozambique’s poll as independence-era leaders bow out
• Mozambique presidential runner-up escapes alleged assassination attempt

Violence had spread to Ressano Garcia, a small area in Maputo province, near Lebombo, said Michael Masiapato, South Africa’s Border Management Authority (BMA) commissioner.

Mr Masiapato said the South African side was not affected, but safety measures needed to be taken.

“Some buildings have been set alight. At the moment we are working on securing the Lebombo border as well as travellers’ safety,” he said in a statement.

“The border will be closed to ensure the safety of travellers.”

Reports say protesters on the Mozambican side of the border have burnt down an immigration office in that country.

Seven Mozambican officials have requested refuge on the South African side for safety and protection, the authorities said.

BMA officials, the South African police and the army have been engaged to stop the protests from spilling over into South Africa.

Demonstrations started at the end of October in Maputo after Daniel Chapo, the Frelimo candidate, was officially declared the winner with more than 71% of the vote.

Opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane, who came second with 20% of the vote, went into hiding before the results were announced.

He cited fears for his safety after his aide and lawyer were killed as they were preparing to challenge the results.

The protests have led to violent clashes with the police and at least 18 people have been killed, according to Human Rights Watch.

The internet and social media have also been restricted.

A general strike called by Mondlane has continued, despite the prime minister’s call for people to return to work.

On Tuesday, Defence Minister Cristóvão Chume threatened to deploy the army ahead of nationwide protests called for Thursday.

Chume said the post-election protests were intended “to change the democratically established power”.

• The illicit trade with China fuelling Mozambique’s insurgency
• Mozambique ex-minister guilty of one of Africa’s biggest scandals
• The poet who caught the eye of Mozambique’s freedom fighters

Nearly a month ago, Kamala Harris appeared on ABC’s The View in what was expected to be a friendly interview aimed at pitching herself to Americans who wanted to know more about her.

But the sit-down was quickly overshadowed by her response to a question on what she would have done differently from incumbent president, Joe Biden: “Not a thing comes to mind.”

Harris’s answer – which became a Republican attack ad on loop – underscored the political headwinds that her jumpstart campaign failed to overcome in her decisive loss to Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Publicly, she conceded the race late on Wednesday afternoon, telling supporters “do not despair”.

But soul-searching over where she went wrong and what else she could have done will likely take longer as Democrats begin finger-pointing and raising questions about the future of the party.

Harris campaign officials were silent in the early Wednesday hours while some aides expressed tearful shock over what they had expected to be a much closer race.

“Losing is unfathomably painful. It is hard,” Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in an email to staff on Wednesday. “This will take a long time to process.”

As the sitting vice-president, Harris was unable to untether herself from an unpopular president and convince voters that she could offer the change they were seeking amid widespread economic anxiety.

After Biden dropped out of the race following a disastrous debate performance, Harris was anointed to the top of the ticket, bypassing the scrutiny of a primary without a single vote being cast.

She began her 100-day campaign promising a “new generation of leadership”, rallying women around abortion rights and vowing to win back working-class voters by focusing on economic issues including rising costs and housing affordability.

With just three months until election day, she generated a wave of initial momentum, which included a flurry of memes on social media, a star-studded endorsement list that included Taylor Swift and a record-setting donation windfall. But Harris couldn’t shake the anti-Biden sentiment that permeated much of the electorate.

The president’s approval rating has consistently hovered in the low 40s throughout his four years in office, while some two-thirds of voters say they believe the US is on the wrong track.

Some allies have privately questioned whether Harris remained too loyal to Biden in her bid to replace him. But Jamal Simmons, the vice-president’s former communication director, called it a “trap”, arguing any distance would have only handed Republicans another attack line for being disloyal.

“You can’t really run away from the president who chooses you,” he said.

Harris tried to walk the fine line of addressing the administration’s record without casting shade on her boss, showing a reluctance to break with any of Biden’s policies while also not outwardly promoting them on the campaign trail.

But she then failed to deliver a convincing argument about why she should lead the country, and how she would handle economic frustrations as well as widespread concerns over immigration.

About 3 in 10 voters said their family’s financial situation was falling behind, an increase from about 2 in 10 four years ago, according to data from AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 US voters conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.

Nine in 10 voters were very or somewhat concerned about the price of groceries.

The same survey found that 4 in 10 voters said immigrants living in the US illegally should be deported to their country of origin, up from around 3 in 10 who said the same in 2020.

And though Harris tried to spend the home stretch of her campaign underlining that her administration would not be a continuation of Biden’s, she failed to clearly outline her own policies, often skirting around issues instead of addressing perceived failures head on.

The Harris campaign had hoped to reassemble the voting base that powered Biden’s 2020 victory, winning over the core Democratic constituencies of black, Latino and young voters as well as making further gains with college-educated suburban voters.

But she underperformed with these key voting blocs. She lost 13 points with Latino voters, two points with black voters, and six points with voters under 30, according to exit polls, which may change as votes are counted, but are considered representative of trends.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who lost the 2016 Democratic presidential primary to Hillary Clinton and the 2020 primary to Biden, said in a statement it was “no great surprise” that working class voters abandoned the party.

“First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” he said. “And they’re right.”

While women largely threw their support behind Harris over Trump, the vice-president’s lead did not exceed the margins that her campaign had hoped her historic candidacy would turn out. And she was unable to deliver on her ambitions of winning over suburban Republican women, losing 53% of white women.

In the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Democrats had hoped her focus on the fight for reproductive rights would deliver a decisive victory.

While some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for Harris, it fell short of the 57% who backed Biden in 2020, according to exit poll data.

Even before she was catapulted to the top of the ticket, Harris had sought to frame the race as a referendum on Trump, not Biden.

The former California prosecutor leaned into her law enforcement record to prosecute the case against the former president.

But her nascent campaign opted to ditch Biden’s core argument that Trump posed an existential threat to democracy, prioritising a forward-looking “joyful” message about protecting personal freedoms and preserving the middle class.

In the final stretch, however, Harris made a tactical decision to again highlight the dangers of a second Trump presidency, calling the president a “fascist” and campaigning with disaffected Republicans fed up with his rhetoric.

After Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, told the New York Times that Trump spoke approvingly about Adolf Hitler, Harris delivered remarks outside her official residence describing the president as “unhinged and unstable”.

• Why Harris moved from ‘joy’ to calling Trump ‘a fascist”

“Kamala Harris lost this election when she pivoted to focus almost exclusively on attacking Donald Trump,” veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said on Tuesday night.

“Voters already know everything there is about Trump – but they still wanted to know more about Harris’ plans for the first hour, first day, first month and first year of her administration.”

“It was a colossal failure for her campaign to shine the spotlight on Trump more than on Harris’s own ideas,” he added.

Ultimately, the winning coalition Harris needed to beat Trump never materialised, and voters’ resounding rejection of Democrats showed that the party has a deeper problem than just an unpopular president.

• GLOBAL: What does Trump victory mean for UK?
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• IN FULL: All our election coverage in one place

Donald Trump is set to return to the White House, having promised action on issues including immigration, the economy and the war in Ukraine.

He looks likely to enjoy plenty of support for his political agenda in Congress after his Republican Party regained control of the Senate.

In his victory speech, Trump vowed he would “govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept. We’re going to keep our promises.”

But in some cases, he has given little detail of how he might achieve his aims.

Asked in 2023 by Fox News whether he would abuse his power or target political opponents, he replied he would not, “except for day one”.

“No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

• Follow live election day updates as Trump wins

While campaigning, Trump promised the biggest mass deportations of undocumented migrants in US history.

He also pledged to complete the building of a wall at the border with Mexico that was started during his first presidency.

The number of crossings at the US southern border hit record levels at the end of last year during the Biden-Harris administration, before falling in 2024.

Experts have told the BBC that deportations on the scale promised by Trump would face huge legal and logistical challenges – and could slow economic growth.

Exit poll data has suggested the economy was a key issue for voters. Trump has promised to “end inflation” – which rose to high levels under President Joe Biden before falling again. But a president’s power to directly influence prices is limited.

He has also promised sweeping tax cuts, extending his overhaul from 2017. He has proposed making tips tax-free, abolishing tax on social security payments and shaving corporation tax.

He has proposed new tariffs of at least 10% on most foreign goods, to cut the trade deficit. Imports from China could bear an additional 60% tariff, he has said. Some economists have warned that such moves could push up prices for ordinary people.

• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance
• Who did each state vote for?
• When does he become US president again?
• What could happen to Trump’s legal cases now

During his first presidency, Trump rolled back hundreds of environmental protections and made America the first nation to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

This time, he has again vowed to cut regulations, particularly as a way to help the American car industry. He has constantly attacked electric vehicles, promising to overturn Biden’s targets encouraging the switch to cleaner cars.

He has pledged to increase production of US fossil fuels – vowing to “drill, drill, drill” on day one in favour of renewable energy sources such as wind power.

He wants to open areas such as the Arctic wilderness to oil drilling, which he argues would lower energy costs – though analysts are sceptical.

• How America voted in maps and charts
• Donald Trump: A remarkable life in pictures
• The Trump family: A guide to an American dynasty
• Who is the new vice-president-elect, JD Vance?
• At the scene: Jubilation in the room as Trump declared victory
• Images capture high emotions as Americans react to Trump’s victory

Trump has criticised the tens of billions of dollars spent by the US on supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia – and has pledged to end the conflict “within 24 hours” through a negotiated deal.

He has not said what he thinks either side should give up. Democrats say the move would embolden President Vladimir Putin.

Trump wants the US to disentangle itself from foreign conflicts generally. Regarding the war in Gaza – Trump has positioned himself as a staunch supporter of Israel, but has urged the American ally to end its operation.

He has also pledged to end the related violence in Lebanon, but gave no detail on how.

Against the wishes of some of his supporters, Trump said during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris that he would not sign into law a national abortion ban.

In 2022, the nationwide constitutional right to abortion was overturned by the Supreme Court, which had a majority of conservative judges following Trump’s first presidency.

Reproductive rights became a key campaigning topic for Harris, and several states approved measures to protect or expand abortion rights on polling day.

Trump himself has regularly said states should be free to decide their own laws on abortion, but struggled to find a consistent message of his own.

Trump has said he will “free” some of those convicted of offences during the riot in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol building in an effort to thwart the 2020 election victory of Joe Biden.

Several deaths were blamed on the violence, which Trump was accused of inciting.

He has worked to downplay the riot’s significance and recast the hundreds of supporters who were convicted as political prisoners.

He continues to say many of them are “wrongfully imprisoned”, though has acknowledged that “a couple of them, probably they got out of control”.

Trump has vowed to sack “within two seconds” of taking office the veteran prosecutor leading two criminal investigations against him.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has indicted Trump over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Trump denies any wrongdoing, and managed to prevent either case coming to trial before the election. He says Mr Smith has subjected him to a “political witch hunt”.

Trump will return to the White House as the first ever president with a criminal conviction, having been found guilty in New York of falsifying business records.

• GLOBAL: What does Trump victory mean for UK?
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• IN FULL: All our election coverage in one place

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice-weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House is set to reshape US foreign policy, promising potentially radical shifts on multiple fronts as war and uncertainty grip parts of the world.

During his campaign, Trump made broad policy pledges, often lacking specific details, based on principles of non-interventionism and trade protectionism – or as he puts it “America First”.

His victory signals one of the most significant potential disruptions in many years in Washington’s approach to foreign affairs in the midst of parallel crises.

We can piece together some of his likely approach to different areas from both his comments on the campaign trail and his track record in office from 2017 to 2021.

• Follow live election day updates as Trump wins

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in a day”. When asked how, he suggested overseeing a deal, but has declined to give specifics.

A research paper written by two of Trump’s former national security chiefs in May said the US should continue its weapons supply to Ukraine, but make the support conditional on Kyiv entering peace talks with Russia.

To entice Russia, the West would promise to delay Ukraine’s much-wanted entry into Nato. The former advisers said Ukraine should not give up its hopes of getting all of its territory back from Russian occupation, but that it should negotiate based on current front lines.

Trump’s Democratic opponents, who accuse him of cosying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, say his approach amounts to surrender for Ukraine and will endanger all of Europe.

He has consistently said his priority is to end the war and stem the drain on US resources.

• Who did each state vote for?
• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance
• When does he become US president?
• What happens to Trump’s legal cases now?

It’s not clear how far the former advisers’ paper represents Trump’s own thinking, but it’s likely to give us a guide to the kind of advice he’ll get.

His “America First” approach to ending the war also extends to the strategic issue of the future of Nato, the transatlantic all-for-one and one-for-all military alliance set up after the World War Two, originally as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

Nato now counts 32 countries and Trump has long been a sceptic of the alliance, accusing Europe of free-riding on America’s promise of protection.

Whether he would actually withdraw the US from Nato, which would signal the most significant shift in transatlantic defence relations in nearly a century, remains a matter of debate.

Some of his allies suggest his hard line is just a negotiating tactic to get members to meet the alliance’s defence spending guidelines.

But the reality is Nato leaders will be seriously worried about what his victory means for the alliance’s future and how its deterrent effect is perceived by hostile leaders.

As with Ukraine, Trump has promised to bring “peace” to the Middle East – implying he would end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon – but has not said how.

He has repeatedly said that, if he had been in power rather than Joe Biden, Hamas would not have attacked Israel because of his “maximum pressure” policy on Iran, which funds the group.

Broadly, it’s likely Trump would attempt to return to the policy, which saw his administration pull the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, apply greater sanctions against Iran and kill Gen Qasem Soleimani – Iran’s most powerful military commander.

In the White House, Trump enacted strongly pro-Israel policies, naming Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv – a move which energised Trump’s Christian evangelical base, a core Republican voter group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump the “best friend that Israel has ever had in the White House”.

But critics argue his policy had a destabilising effect on the region.

The Palestinians boycotted the Trump administration, because of Washington’s abandonment of their claim to Jerusalem – the city that forms the historical centre of national and religious life for Palestinians.

• How Israelis and Palestinians see US election
• US calls for Israel ceasefire with Hezbollah

They were further isolated when Trump brokered the so-called “Abraham Accords”, which saw a historic deal to normalise diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab and Muslim countries. They did so without Israel having to accept a future independent Palestinian state alongside it – the so-called two-state solution – previously a condition of Arab countries for such a regional deal.

The countries involved were instead given access to advanced US weapons in return for recognising Israel.

The Palestinians were left at one of the most isolated points in their history by the only power that can really apply leverage to both sides in the conflict – further eroding their ability as they saw it to protect themselves on the ground.

Trump made several statements during the campaign saying he wants the Gaza war to end.

He has had a complex, at times dysfunctional relationship with Netanyahu, but certainly has the ability to apply pressure on him.

He also has a history of strong relations with leaders in the key Arab countries that have contacts with Hamas.

It’s unclear how he would navigate between his desire to show strong support for the Israeli leadership while also trying to bring the war to a close.

Trump’s allies have often portrayed his unpredictability as a diplomatic asset, but in the highly contested and volatile Middle East in the midst of a crisis already of historical proportions, it’s far from clear how this would play out.

Trump will have to decide how – or whether – to take forward the stalled diplomatic process launched by the Biden administration to get a Gaza ceasefire in return for the release of the hostages held by Hamas.

America’s approach to China is its most strategically important area of foreign policy – and one which has the biggest implications for global security and trade.

When he was in office, Trump labelled China a “strategic competitor” and imposed tariffs on some Chinese imports to the US. This sparked tit-for-tat tariffs by Beijing on American imports.

There were efforts to de-escalate the trade dispute, but the Covid pandemic wiped out this possibility, and relations got worse as the former president labelled Covid a “Chinese virus”.

While the Biden administration claimed to take a more responsible approach to China policy, it did, in fact, keep in place many of the Trump-era tariffs on imports.

• What Chinese people want from the US

The trade policy has become closely linked to domestic voter perceptions in the US about protecting American manufacturing jobs – even though much of the long-term jobs decline in traditional US industries like steel has been as much about factory automation and production changes as global competition and offshoring.

Trump has praised Chinese President Xi Jinping as both “brilliant” and “dangerous” and a highly effective leader who controls 1.4 billion people with an “iron fist”- part of what opponents characterised as Trump’s admiration for “dictators”.

The former president seems likely to shift away from the Biden administration’s approach of building stronger US security partnerships with other regional countries in a bid to contain China.

The US has maintained military assistance for self-ruled Taiwan, which China sees as a breakaway province that will eventually be under Beijing’s control.

Trump said in October that if he returned to the White House, he would not have to use military force to prevent a Chinese blockade of Taiwan because President Xi knew he was “[expletive] crazy”, and he would impose paralysing tariffs on Chinese imports if that happened.

SIMPLE GUIDE: How America voted in maps and charts

EXPLAINER: Seven things Trump says he will do as president

GLOBAL: How this election could change the world

IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump

IN FULL: All our election coverage in one place

Donald Trump has soared to a decisive election victory over Kamala Harris, lifted up by some of the very voters that Democrats once relied on.

The Republican president-elect showed strength with the white working-class voters who first propelled him to the White House in 2016, while racking up huge support from Latino voters and putting in a better-than-expected performance among younger Americans, especially men.

Among Latinos, a key part of the Democratic voter base for decades, Trump benefited from a mammoth 14 percentage-point bump compared to the 2020 election, according to exit polls.

Nowhere is Trump’s reshaping of the electorate more apparent than in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the highly coveted “blue wall” that helped propel Joe Biden to victory in 2020.

This time, Trump won all three states, crushing Democrats’ hopes that Harris could find a path to victory despite early election night losses in the southern states of North Carolina and Georgia.

• Follow live election day updates as Trump wins
• Who did each state vote for?
• Watch: How election night unfolded
• What’s next for the Trump agenda?
• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance

In his victory speech in Florida, Trump – who is set to win the popular vote too – credited the result to “the biggest, the broadest, the most unified coalition” in American history.

“They came from all quarters. Union, non-union, African American, Hispanic American,” he told a roaring crowd. “We had everybody, and it was beautiful.”

In Pennsylvania, the prized battleground state, Trump benefited from a huge swell of support from the state’s growing Latino population.

Exit polls suggested Latinos in Pennsylvania amounted to about 5% of the total vote. Trump garnered 42% of that vote, compared to 27% when he ran against Joe Biden in 2020.

The polls will continue to change as votes are counted, but are broadly representative of electoral trends.

In the state’s “Latino belt” – an eastern industrial corridor that has shifted to the right in the last two elections – some voters said they were not surprised by the result.

“It’s simple, really. We liked the way things were four years ago,” said Samuel Negron, a Pennsylvania state constable and member of the large Puerto Rican community in the city of Allentown.

Mr Negron, and other Trump supporters in the now majority-Latino city, listed other reasons that their community was drifting towards Trump, including social issues and a perception that their family values now align more with the Republican Party.

The most common factor, however, was the economy – specifically, inflation.

“Out here, you pay $5 for a dozen eggs. It used to be $1, or even 99 cents,” Mr Negron added. “A lot of us have woken up, in my opinion, from Democratic lies that things have been better. We realised things were better then.”

Ahead of the election, polls also suggested that many Latinos – across the US and in Pennsylvania specifically – were drawn to Trump’s proposals to block migrants at the US-Mexico border and enact much stricter immigration laws.

Daniel Campo, a Venezuelan-American, said that Trump’s claims of creeping “socialism” reminded him of the situation he left in his home country.

“I understand what [migrants] are leaving. But you have to do it the right way. I came the right way,” he said. “Things have to be done legally. Many of us were worried that the borders were just open” under the Biden-Harris administration, he said.

Collectively, the Latino shift towards Trump, his hold on white working-class voters and his increased support among non-college educated voters in general created an insurmountable obstacle for the Harris campaign.

But Trump also improved his position in some surprising corners.

In 2020 Joe Biden had a 24-point advantage with voters under 30. This time, that lead shrank to just 11 points. While nationally black voters still overwhelmingly supported Harris (85%), in Wisconsin Trump’s support among that demographic more than doubled, from 8% in 2020 to 22% this election.

Some of the most significant battlegrounds in Wisconsin were the three counties surrounding Milwaukee known as the Wow counties – Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. Harris failed to significantly improve upon Biden’s 2020 vote share in these suburban areas, while also slipping in rural, whiter parts of the state dominated by Trump.

Preliminary results also indicate that Harris failed to get as many votes as Biden in Wisconsin’s biggest, most diverse city – Milwaukee.

Michael Wagner, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said her direct appeals to working-class voters may not have made much of a difference given the national political climate.

Ted Dietzler cast his vote in a fire station on the outskirts of the small city of Waukesha.

“I’m voting Trump because of the border, the economy, and no more wars,” he said, wearing a Green Bay Packers hat.

“We saw a huge difference when Trump was president,” Dietzler said, adding that he was drawn to Trump’s embrace of former Democrats like Robert F Kennedy Jr and Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom appear set to have roles in the Trump administration.

“Inflation is a big deal, and I don’t think Harris quite gets it,” he said. “I think we’ll all just be better off with Trump back.”

Trump’s national economic messaging hit home with working-class voters in the Midwestern state of Michigan, too.

With nearly all votes counted, Trump is leading the state that he lost in 2020 by about 85,000 votes. He increased his vote share in rural areas as well as in Macomb County, home to many working-class voters in the Detroit suburbs.

One of them, Nahim Uddin, a delivery driver and former Ford car-worker, cast his ballot for Trump because he said the former president would drive down prices.

“I went to go purchase a car – the interest rates had skyrocketed,” the 34-year-old said. “That’s the whole reason I voted for him.”

The same was true for Yian Yian Shein, a small business owner in the city Warren, who said Trump would lower income taxes and help people like her.

Democrats tried to tailor their economic messages in Michigan, touting their investments in electric car manufacturing while securing an endorsement from United Automobile Workers president Shawn Fain, a frequent Trump critic.

But Republicans were able to “neutralise” those messages by arguing that the transition to electric vehicles would come at the cost of jobs, said Michigan State University professor Matt Grossmann.

Ultimately what cost Democrats among blue-collar voters across demographic groups was the perception that they were to blame for high prices and pinched budgets.

“Largely, voters have felt economic pain due to the post-Covid inflationary period, and they’re taking it out on Biden” and Harris, said University of Michigan professor Jonathan Hanson.

Donald Trump will be the first president to take office while several criminal cases against him are pending.

His ascent to the highest office in the US while facing dozens of criminal charges has left the country in uncharted territory.

Many of his legal problems will go away when he steps into the White House. Discussions already have started between Trump’s team and the office overseeing federal cases about how to wind those down, according to the BBC’s US news partner CBS.

Here’s a look at what could happen with each of the four legal challenges he faces.

• Follow live election day updates as Donald Trump wins

Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in May in New York.

A jury of New Yorkers found him guilty of all counts in connection with a hush-money payment made to an adult film star.

Judge Juan Merchan pushed back Trump’s sentencing from September to 26 November, after the election.

He could still go forward with the sentencing as planned despite Trump’s win, said former Brooklyn prosecutor Julie Rendelman.

But legal experts said it is unlikely that Trump would be sentenced to prison as an older, first-time offender.

If he was, his lawyers would appeal the sentence immediately, arguing that jail time would prevent him from conducting official duties and that he should remain free pending the appeal, Ms Rendelman said.

“The appellate process in that scenario could go on for years,” she said.

Special counsel Jack Smith filed criminal charges against Trump last year over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Trump pleaded not guilty.

The case has been in legal limbo since the Supreme Court ruled this summer that Trump was partially immune from criminal prosecution over official acts committed while in office.

Smith has since refiled his case, arguing Trump’s attempts to overturn the election were not related to his official duties.

This is one of the cases which could be wound down under current discussions.

• Who did each state vote for?
• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance
• When does he become US president?

As president-elect, Trump’s criminal problems from the case now “go away”, according to former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.

“It’s well established that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, so the election fraud case in DC District Court will be dismissed,” he said.

Mr Rahmani said that if Smith refuses to dismiss the case, Trump can simply get rid of him, as he has pledged to do already.

“I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said during a radio interview in October.

Smith also is leading a case against Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House, charges Trump denies.

He is accused of storing sensitive documents in his Mar-a-Lago home and obstructing Justice Department efforts to retrieve the files.

The judge assigned to the case, Trump-appointee Aileen Cannon, dismissed the charges in July, arguing Smith was improperly appointed by the Justice Department to lead the case.

Smith appealed the ruling, but with Trump set to take office, talks are now underway about ending the case.

Mr Rahmani said he expects the classified documents case will meet the same fate as the election case.

“The DOJ will abandon its Eleventh Circuit appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case,” he said.

Trump is also facing criminal charges in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

That case has faced a number of hurdles, including efforts to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis over her relationship with a lawyer she hired to work on the case.

An appeals court is in the process of weighing whether Willis should be allowed to stay on the case.

But now that Trump is the next president, the case could face even more delays, or possibly dismissal.

It is expected to be paused during Trump’s time in office, according to legal experts.

Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow said as much when asked by the judge if Trump could still stand trial if elected.

“The answer to that is I believe that under the supremacy clause and his duties as president of the United States, this trial would not take place at all until after he left his term in office,” he said.

Few nations are as closely tied as the US and Canada. The two share the world’s longest land border and a trade relationship worth more than a trillion dollars.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, was quick to congratulate President-elect Donald Trump on his election victory.

But there is no doubt their relationship has been rocky and there are challenges on the horizon.

Here are the ways Trump’s win could affect America’s northern neighbour.

On Wednesday morning, Canadian political leaders were cautiously laudatory about Trump’s win.

Trudeau congratulated “Donald” on the decisive victory, saying he was looking forward to working with him.

“The world is actually more difficult and more complicated than it was four years ago and I know there’s lots of work for us to do,” he said.

Trump and Trudeau have been counterparts before, notably successfully renegotiating, along with Mexico, the USMCA – the North American trade pact.

But the pair have had strained moments – Trump has referred to Trudeau as a “far-left lunatic” and “two-faced”, while Trudeau once appeared to mock Trump at a meeting of Nato leaders in 2019.

It is also possible that Canada could get a new prime minister and government altogether, with Trudeau facing a possible snap election while his Liberal Party trails badly in the polls.

This could complicate the process of forging a renewed, strong relationship with the incoming Trump administration – at least in the short-term, said Louise Blais, a former Canadian diplomat.

“It’s not an ideal situation to find ourselves politically at the moment,” she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Wednesday that she knew “a lot of Canadians are feeling unsettled today”.

But she touted “enduring relationships – I would even say even friendships” that Canadian officials have with their US counterparts.

“Canada will be prosperous, Canadians will be safe and our sovereign identity will be secure as we work with this newly elected administration,” she said.

Canada and the US have a deeply entwined economic and trade relationship.

Canada exports 75% of its goods and services to the US – and Trump’s promise of blanket 10% tariffs could significantly affect its economy.

“I do worry about what an across-the-board tariff would actually look like,” said Trevor Tombe, a Canadian economist with the University of Calgary.

“This is where details are really important – and we unfortunately don’t have details for what these tariffs would actually look like.”

In July, the Business Development Bank of Canada estimated the move could subtract $7bn from Canada’s GDP in the year it is implemented – mainly from a drop in business investment – and drive down the Canadian dollar.

Mr Tombe warned that Canada’s economic growth is already slowing and in a poor position to absorb shocks.

Also in question is the future of USMCA. The three trade partners will decide in 2026 whether to extend the pact for another 16 years.

John Dickerman, a US-based policy adviser for the Business Council of Canada, said Canada could lean on its previous experience renegotiating that trilateral deal six years ago to meet the challenge.

He said Canada should be consistent in its messaging on the issue, “reminding Americans that this deal has been good for them”.

Analysts say that Canada may have to make some concessions as it tries to navigate this new relationship.

Among them is working out how to address policies already unpopular with the US – such as Canada’s new Digital Services Tax – a 3% tax on major foreign digital services companies like Google and Amazon.

“The previous Trump administration took a really aggressive view on the Digital Services Tax,” said Dickerman. “I wouldn’t expect that to change. If anything, I expect it to amplify a little bit.”

Freeland, the deputy PM, addressed some of these concerns on Wednesday.

She said that Canada being the single biggest export market for the US gives the country “leverage” in future negotiations.

Canada has long been seen as a laggard among allies on Nato and defence spending. Trump is expected to place the most pressure on his northern neighbour.

Trudeau has said his country will reach the alliance’s minimum target of spending 2% of GDP on defence by 2032, up from the current 1.29%.

In an interview with CTV News Kelly Craft, the former US ambassador to Canada under the first Trump administration said that timeline was “not good enough”.

“Donald Trump, when he says he expects people to pay their fair share, they will.”

Ms Blais said Canada has to “get creative” to accelerate the timeline, including leaning on its rich supply of critical minerals for defence purposes.

“We don’t have huge fiscal wiggle room,” she said. “But at the same time, I think we can show a little more commitment.”

Trump’s threat of mass deportations has raised questions in Canada about what it means for the shared northern border.

Terri Givens, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, said even if that threat was not enacted, there was “an issue of perception” that could drive people to cross the Canadian border.

In 2017, thousands of people began entering Canada via Roxham Road – an unofficial access point on the New York-Quebec border – to seek asylum.

The reasons that drove them were diverse, but many cited both concerns of their ability to stay in the US under the first Trump presidency and the belief that they would be welcomed in Canada.

Canada and the US have since closed a loophole in a border pact that allowed people to cross at unofficial border points – but US figures suggest people are still trying to make the attempt.

Asked about the concern, Freeland said there was a plan in place.

“I do want to assure Canadians that we absolutely do recognise the importance of border security and control of the border,” she said.

Solving any potential issue will take close collaboration between Canadian and US officials. The 5,525 miles (8,891km) border is undefended.

“How do you actually enforce that border?” said Julie Young, the Canada Research Chair in Critical Border Studies and an assistant professor at the University of Lethbridge.

• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• When does he become president again?
• What happens to his legal cases now
• How he pulled off an incredible comeback

Australian breaker Rachael Gunn has announced she will retire from competition, citing the viral response to her performance at the Paris Olympics.

Gunn – who is known as B-girl Raygun – failed to get on the scoreboard in all three of her competition rounds in August, with a routine that included unorthodox moves, such as the sprinkler and a kangaroo hop.

The 37-year-old university lecturer’s moves catapulted her to global attention and ridicule, spawned conspiracy theories about her qualification, and reignited criticism of breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics.

Gunn had initially planned to keep competing but said the saga had been so “upsetting” that she changed her mind.

“I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was,” she told local radio station 2DayFM on Wednesday.

“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now.

“I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online.”

Gunn received a torrent of violent messages after the Olympics, and was the subject an anonymous petition demanding she apologise. It falsely accused her and her husband of manipulating her selection at the expense of other Australian talent.

She was vigorously defended by Olympic officials, but her performance split opinion within the breaking community, with some saying she made a mockery of the sport.

It also revived questions over whether breaking – which debuted in Paris but is not on the programme for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles – should have ever been included in the Olympics, due to the creative nature of the genre, which doesn’t necessarily suit organised competition.

Gunn has previously said the backlash took the joy out of the sport for her, which she again alluded to on Wednesday.

“Dancing is so much fun, and it makes you feel good. I don’t think people should feel crap about the way that they dance.

“I still dance, and I still break. But, you know, that’s like in my living room with my partner!”

News of Donald Trump’s return to power in the White House has made global headlines.

His so-called ‘America First’ foreign policy could see a withdrawal of US involvement in areas of conflict around the world.

Five BBC correspondents assess the effect it could have where they are.

“Do not try to predict Trump’s actions. No one knows how he is going to act.”

The words of one Ukrainian MP reflect the political challenge facing Kyiv. A Trump victory was widely feared here, over what it could mean for future US support.

The Republican once vowed to end the war in a single day, and has repeatedly criticised US military aid for Ukraine. Now, it’s anyone’s guess what he could do.

“He could ask Putin to freeze this war, and he says ‘OK’,” says a front-line soldier. “It’s the worst scenario because in a couple of years the Russians will advance again and might destroy us.”

“The second scenario is if Putin refuses,” he says. “There is a chance Trump will react radically. That is a more promising scenario.”

Ukraine hopes that means the US further upping its military support in the face of a likely Ukrainian defeat.

For those close to the front lines who have had enough of Russian aggression, Trump is seen as a route to respite.

• Follow live updates
• Election weighs on frontline soldiers in Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president once labelled by Trump as “the greatest salesman in history” sent an early message of congratulations.

He talked up the political and economic opportunities a partnership could provide, and wants to be able to keep fighting in return.

There’s also another ingredient.

Trump won’t just have to consider further military support for Ukraine, but also how or whether to respond to North Korea’s growing involvement in Russia’s invasion.

You might expect the Kremlin to be cock-a-hoop at Trump winning back the White House.

After all, out on the campaign trail, he had avoided criticising Vladimir Putin. Kamala Harris meanwhile called the Russian president “a murderous dictator”.

Trump had also questioned the scale of US military assistance to Kyiv.

Publicly, though, the Kremlin is going out of its way to give the impression that it’s not excited by a Trump victory.

“I’m not aware of any plans [for President Putin] to congratulate Trump,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “Don’t forget that [America] is an ‘unfriendly country’ which is directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.”

The dampening down of expectations are the result of how Trump’s first term turned out: the Kremlin had high hopes that a Trump presidency would transform US-Russian relations. It didn’t.

• Moscow more cautious about Trump this time

Nevertheless, at the political discussion club I’m attending in the mountains above Sochi, leading Russian political scientists seem to be looking forward to Trump the sequel.

One pundit told me he thinks that under Trump the US will “retreat” from its global super power status.

Another suggested the US election fitted the Kremlin’s “overall vision of the world”, in which “liberal globalism has depleted its efficiency”.

When dozens of European leaders from the EU and beyond gather in Budapest on Thursday, those on the right will be celebrating Donald Trump’s election victory, but the rest will be asking themselves what happens next.

Hungarian host and Trump ally Viktor Orban was first on to Facebook with his delighted message: “It’s in the bag!”

But for many other EU leaders Trump 2.0 could signal trouble ahead on security, trade and climate change.

Within minutes of congratulating the Republican candidate, France’s Emmanuel Macron said he had agreed with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to work towards a “more united, stronger, more sovereign Europe in this new context”.

• What Trump’s win means for Ukraine, Middle East and China

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock gave an idea of that context. Just back from Ukraine, she said Europeans now had to “think big and make investments in our European security big”, with the US as a partner.

Her Polish and Nato counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski said he had been in touch with Trump’s top team and agreed “Europe must urgently take greater responsibility for its security”.

The prospect of steep US tariffs on EU imports weigh heavily too. EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Trump but gave a timely reminder that “millions of jobs and billions in trade” relied on their transatlantic relationship.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, was one of the first to congratulate Trump and has previously called him Israel’s best ever friend in the White House.

Trump previously won favour here by scrapping a US nuclear deal with Iran that Israel opposed. He also upended decades of US policy by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Trump’s first term in office was “exemplary” as far as Israel is concerned, says Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the US. But he adds: “We have to be very clear-sighted about who Donald Trump is and what he stands for.”

The former president sees wars as expensive, Mr Oren notes, and Trump has urged Israel to finish the war in Gaza quickly.

“If Donald Trump comes into office in January and says, ‘okay, you have a week to finish this war’, Netanyahu is going to have to respect that.”

• How Israelis and Palestinians see the election

In Gaza, where the Israeli military has been battling Palestinian group Hamas, desperation has narrowed the focus of some residents.

Trump “has some strong promises”, says Ahmed, whose wife and son were both killed when their house was destroyed. “We hope he can help, and bring peace.”

Another displaced resident, Mamdouh, said he didn’t care who won the US election – he just wanted someone to help.

China is bracing itself for the return of Donald Trump where there are fears that his presidency will trigger a new trade war.

As president, Trump imposed tariffs on over $300 billion of Chinese imports. This time around he has said the tariffs could be in excess of 60%.

Beijing will not stand by – it will retaliate. But China’s economy is already ailing and it will be in no mood for a second protracted trade war.

However, President Xi may see another four years of Trump as an opportunity.

The Biden administration has spent the last four years building up friendships across Asia with the likes of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam – all in an effort to contain China.

• Why many Chinese people wanted Trump win

Trump’s America First policy favours deals over this kind of diplomacy. For instance, as president, he demanded more money from South Korea to continue to host US troops in the country.

Make no mistake, China wants to challenge the US-led world order. Beijing has already built alliances with emerging economies across the so-called Global South.

There is a risk Trump could alienate US allies in Asia, in the way he did during his last presidency.

If that happens, Xi might see an opening to portray himself as a stable global partner.

• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• When does he become president again?
• What happens to his legal cases now
• How he pulled off an incredible comeback

Australia’s government says it will introduce “world-leading” legislation to ban children under 16 from social media.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the proposed laws, to be tabled in parliament next week, were aimed at mitigating the “harm” social media was inflicting on Australian children.

“This one is for the mums and dads… They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online. I want Australian families to know that the government has your back,” he said.

While many of the details are yet to be debated, the government said the ban will not apply to young people already on social media.

There will be no exemptions on the age limit for children who have consent from their parents. The government says that the onus will be on social media platforms to show they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access.

Albanese said there would be no penalties for users, and that it would be up to Australia’s online regulator – the eSafety Commissioner – to enforce the laws.

The legislation would come into force 12 months after it passes and be subject to a review after it’s in place.

While most experts agree that social media platforms can harm the mental health of adolescents, many are split over the efficacy of trying to outlaw them all together.

Some experts argue that bans only delay young people’s exposure to apps such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, instead of teaching them how to navigate complex online spaces.

Previous attempts at restricting access, including by the European Union, have failed or found the implementation challenging given that there are tools which can circumvent age-verification requirements.

One of Australia’s largest advocacy groups for child rights has criticised the proposed ban as “too blunt an instrument”.

In an open letter sent to the government in October, signed by over 100 academics and 20 civil society organisations, the Australian Child Rights Taskforce called on Albanese to instead look at imposing “safety standards” on social media platforms.

The group also pointed to UN advice that “national policies” designed to regulate online spaces “should be aimed at providing children with the opportunity to benefit from engaging with the digital environment and ensuring their safe access to it”.

But other grassroots campaigners have lobbied Australia’s government for the laws, saying bans are needed to protect children from harmful content, misinformation, bullying and other social pressures.

A petition by the 36Months initiative, which has over 125,000 signatures, argues children are “not yet ready to navigate online social networks safely” until at least 16, and that currently “excessive social media use is rewiring young brains within a critical window of psychological development, causing an epidemic of mental illness”.

When asked whether there should be broader efforts to educate children about how to navigate the benefits and risks of being online, Albanese said that such an approach would be insufficient because it “assumes an equal power relationship”.

“I don’t know about you, but I get things popping up on my system that I don’t want to see. Let alone a vulnerable 14-year-old,” he told reporters on Thursday.

“These tech companies are incredibly powerful. These apps have algorithms that drive people towards certain behaviour.”

Republican Donald Trump will be the next US president – after an historic victory that will send him back to the White House.

The race with Democrat Kamala Harris had been thought to be on a knife edge, but overnight results showed Trump had secured enough votes to win.

He will be the first former president to return to office in more than 130 years, and – at 78 – the oldest man ever elected to the role.

Trump has already been congratulated by world leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the UK’s Keir Starmer, but the official presidential election results are not yet confirmed.

There had been fears that extremely close races in some of the key battleground “swing” states might have left the results uncertain.

But earlier-than-expected wins in North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, coupled with victories in solidly Republican states, meant he reached the magic 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency.

CBS, the BBC’s broadcasting partner in the US, projected Donald Trump as the overall winner just after 05:30 EST (10:30 GMT) the day after the election.

However, it could still take days or even weeks for the detailed election results to be confirmed officially in every state.

No. Trump becomes the president-elect, and his running mate JD Vance becomes the vice-president elect.

Trump will be sworn in at the presidential inauguration on Monday, 20 January 2025, at which point he will legally assume the power and responsibilities of the presidency.

Once every valid vote has been included in the final results, a process known as the electoral college confirms the election result.

In each state a varying number of electoral college votes are up for grabs. It is securing these – and not just the backing of voters themselves – that ultimately wins the presidency.

Generally, states award all of their electoral college votes to whoever wins the popular vote, and this is confirmed after meetings on 17 December.

The new US Congress then meets on 6 January to count the electoral college votes and confirm the new president.

It was this meeting of Congress, to certify the election results, that Trump’s supporters tried to stop, when they marched on the US Capitol in 2021 after Trump refused to concede defeat to Joe Biden.

President-elect Trump and his running mate JD Vance will work with their transition team to organise the handover from President Biden’s administration.

They will identify their policy priorities, start vetting the candidates who will take up key roles in the new administration, and prepare to take over the functions of government.

Trump and his team will also begin receiving classified national security briefings covering current threats and ongoing military operations.

The president-elect and vice-president-elect also receive mandatory protection from the US Secret Service.

The outgoing president usually invites the incoming president to the White House in the days after the election.

They also typically attend the inauguration to symbolise the peaceful transfer of power, although Trump chose to boycott the ceremony in 2020.

He did however follow the tradition begun by Ronald Reagan of leaving a handwritten note in the Oval Office for his successor to read.

At the time, President Biden told reporters that his predecessor had left “a very generous letter”.

Biden and Harris, his vice-president, are expected to call Trump on Wednesday, following his projected victory.

After the inauguration, the new president begins work immediately.

• Follow live election day updates as Trump wins
• Who did each state vote for?
• Watch: How election night unfolded
• What’s next for the Trump agenda?
• Analysis: Why the US gave Trump a second chance

Australian breaker Rachael Gunn has announced she will retire from competition, citing the viral response to her performance at the Paris Olympics.

Gunn – who is known as B-girl Raygun – failed to get on the scoreboard in all three of her competition rounds in August, with a routine that included unorthodox moves, such as the sprinkler and a kangaroo hop.

The 37-year-old university lecturer’s moves catapulted her to global attention and ridicule, spawned conspiracy theories about her qualification, and reignited criticism of breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics.

Gunn had initially planned to keep competing but said the saga had been so “upsetting” that she changed her mind.

“I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was,” she told local radio station 2DayFM on Wednesday.

“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now.

“I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online.”

Gunn received a torrent of violent messages after the Olympics, and was the subject an anonymous petition demanding she apologise. It falsely accused her and her husband of manipulating her selection at the expense of other Australian talent.

She was vigorously defended by Olympic officials, but her performance split opinion within the breaking community, with some saying she made a mockery of the sport.

It also revived questions over whether breaking – which debuted in Paris but is not on the programme for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles – should have ever been included in the Olympics, due to the creative nature of the genre, which doesn’t necessarily suit organised competition.

Gunn has previously said the backlash took the joy out of the sport for her, which she again alluded to on Wednesday.

“Dancing is so much fun, and it makes you feel good. I don’t think people should feel crap about the way that they dance.

“I still dance, and I still break. But, you know, that’s like in my living room with my partner!”