Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has pulled his new children’s book from the shelves after complaints it stereotyped Indigenous Australians.

The 400-page fantasy novel, Billy and the Epic Escape, features an Aboriginal girl with mystical powers living in foster care who is abducted from her home in central Australia.

First Nations leaders have said the book reproduces “harmful stereotypes” and trivialises the “complex and painful” history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being forcibly removed from their families under government assimilation policies.

Oliver – who is in Australia promoting a new cookbook – has apologised and said he was “devastated” to have caused hurt.

“It was never my intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue,” he said in a statement.

Publisher Penguin Random House UK said that a consultation with Indigenous Australians requested by Oliver had not happened due to an “editorial oversight”.

Critics said the book contained language errors and oversimplified the identity of First Nations character Ruby.

“This superficial treatment of Ruby’s character dehumanises her, and by extension, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” said Sharon Davis of the First Nations educational body Natsiec.

Among the complaints is that Ruby is given the ability to read people’s minds and communicate with animals and plants, because “that’s the Indigenous way”.

Ms Davis said that reduced “complex and diverse belief systems” to “magic”.

The character is also at the centre of an abduction plot, something community leader Sue-Anne Hunter called a “particularly insensitive choice,” given the “painful historical context” of Australia’s Stolen Generations.

During the 20th Century, tens of thousands of Indigenous children were removed from their families under official government policies aimed at assimilation which assumed black inferiority and white superiority. This government policy continued officially until the 1970s.

• Northern Territory resumes jailing 10-year-olds
• First Nations Australians still ‘suffering effects’ of colonial past
• Australia’s historic apology to Stolen Generations

“The story’s flippant approach to narrating the theft of a First Nations child dangerously trivialises the ongoing trauma associated with Australia’s violent history of child removal,” Natsiec said.

They added that today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 10 times more likely non-Indigenous children to be removed from their families into foster care or other systems.

Critics have also pointed out language errors in the book. The character is from Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory but uses vocabulary from the language of the Gamilaraay people of the states of New South Wales and Queensland.

Ms Davis said this showed “complete disregard for the vast differences among First Nations languages, cultures, and practices”.

Oliver said he and his publishers had decided to withdraw the book from sale around the world.

A statement from Penguin Random House UK added: “It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion, and we must learn from that.”

Natsiec said it acknowledged and recognised their apologies and “swift action” in removing the books from sale.

The Kremlin has denied media reports that US President-elect Donald Trump held a call with Vladimir Putin, in which he is said to have warned the Russian president against escalating the war in Ukraine.

The call, which was first reported by the Washington Post on Sunday, is said to have happened on Thursday.

Trump is also reported to have mentioned America’s extensive military presence in Europe to Putin.

A Kremlin spokesperson said the reports were “pure fiction”, while Trump’s team told the BBC that it would not comment on the president-elect’s “private calls”.

• Europe’s leaders face up to Trump victory at Hungarian summit
• Trump ally says Ukraine focus must be peace, not territory
• Moscow targeted as Ukraine and Russia trade huge drone attacks
• Return of unpredictable president puts UK defence spending top of agenda
• Trump tariffs could cost UK £22bn of exports

Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung told the BBC: “We do not comment on private calls between President Trump and other world leaders.”

But he said leaders had begun the process of contacting the president-elect.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied a conversation had taken place.

“This is completely untrue, it is pure fiction. That is, this is simply false information. There was no conversation,” Peskov said.

Trump has promised to end the nearly three-year long war in Ukraine, but has yet to outline how he intends to do so.

Zelensky has previously warned against conceding land to Russia and has said that without US aid, Ukraine would lose the war.

While Peskov on Sunday spoke to Russian state media of “positive” signals from the incoming US administration, others say they trust the future president will not abandon Ukraine.

They include John Healey, the British defence secretary, who said he expected the US “to remain alongside allies like the UK, standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes to prevail over Putin’s invasion”.

On Sunday, during a visit to Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that any end to the war needed to be sustainable.

“This is a warning for the ones who say, this war has to end, so let’s finish it as soon as possible no matter how. How matters,” he said.

In Washington, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said outgoing president Joe Biden would make the case to Trump that walking away from Ukraine would mean greater instability in Europe.

On Monday, Germany’s Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, warned that Putin could take advantage of the US post-election transition period to press Moscow’s advantage in Ukraine.

Urging Berlin and fellow European Union member states to increase aid to Kyiv, she said: “We don’t have time to wait until spring. Now is the transition phase that Putin has been waiting for and aiming for.”

Last week, Russia and Ukraine launched their largest drone attacks since the start of the war.

Russia’s defence ministry said it intercepted 84 Ukrainian drones over six regions, including some approaching Moscow, which forced flights to be diverted from three of the capital’s major airports.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 145 drones towards every part of the country on Saturday night, with most shot down.

On Monday, at least six people were killed and 21 others injured in Ukraine following the latest series of air strikes by Russia.

Russia, meanwhile, said it had destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones near the western regions of Kursk and Belgorod. It reported no deaths.

“Every day, every night, Russia unleashes the same terror,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter following Monday’s strike.

“More and more civilian sites are being targeted. Russia only wants to continue the war, and each of its strikes negates any claims of diplomacy from Russia.”

Zelensky asked for “stronger global support” and more weapons to stop Russian aggression.

Meanwhile, reports of Russian advances in Ukraine continue. Moscow’s defence ministry said on Monday that its forces had captured the village of Kolisnykivka in the Kharkiv region.

Russian territorial gains in October were the largest since March 2022, according to analysis of Institute for the Study of War data by the AFP news agency.

India has said it is not nervous about working with Donald Trump, as the former US president is set to return to office for a second term after his win in the recently held election.

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday that many countries were nervous about a [Trump-led] US, but added that “India was not one of them”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared cordial relations with Trump during his first term between 2017 and 2021.

But India also faced a bitter tariff war with the Trump administration that affected businesses on both sides.

India has enjoyed bipartisan support in the US, working well with both Republican and Democrat presidents over the years.

Different administrations in Washington have long viewed India as a counterweight to China.

Speaking at an event on Sunday, Jaishankar added that Delhi had no reasons to worry that India-US relations would not prosper under Trump.

“Modi was among the first three calls, I think, that President [elect] Trump took,” the minister said.

But the traffic war is likely to loom over the relationship.

The president-elect in October had called Modi a “great leader” but also accused India of charging excessive tariffs.

Analysts say it will be interesting to watch if the bonhomie between the leaders can help overcome trade differences between the two countries.

Trump and Modi have often expressed admiration for each other in the past.

In 2019, the two leaders heaped praise on each other during a joint appearance at an Indian-American community event called “Howdy, Modi!” hosted in the Indian prime minister’s honour in Texas.

The event, attended by nearly 50,000 people, was billed as one of the largest receptions for a foreign leader in the US.

The next year, during Trump’s first official visit to India, Modi hosted him at his home state in Gujarat where he organised a 125,000-strong rally at the world’s biggest cricket stadium.

But despite these big events, the relationship also suffered setbacks.

During his first term, Trump ended preferential trade status for India amid a bitter tariff war between the two countries.

Denial rate for H-1B visas also rose from 6% in 2016 to 21% in 2019, data from the US Department of Labour showed. A majority of these visas are granted to Indian tech workers.

Meanwhile, Jaishankar also argued that the balance of power between the East and West was shifting but added that older industrialised economies like the US were still very important.

“They are big markets, strong technology centres, hubs for innovation. So let’s recognise the shift, but let’s not get carried away and kind of overstate it and distort our own understanding of the world,” he said.

It started as a social media quest for breakfast dumplings, but ended with thousands of cyclists bringing traffic gridlock between two cities in central China.

What should have been a boost to the ancient city of Kaifeng’s economy backfired when the trend went viral – tens of thousands on rented bikes cycled through the night from nearby Zhenghou.

A six-lane expressway between the two cities quickly filled with cyclists as police took to loudspeakers urging them to leave. Bike rental firms warned they would remotely lock bikes taken out of Zhengzhou.

The event is part of a trend where young Chinese are travelling cheaply at a time when the economy is faltering and job prospects are scarce.

It began with four university students who cycled for 50km (30 miles) from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng in June to try guantangbao, a type of soup dumpling.

“You don’t get a second chance at youth, so you must go for a spontaneous trip with friends,” one of the four had told local media.

That message struck a chord with other young people in the city of 12.6 million – China’s young have increasingly been complaining of burnout from an overly-competitive and grinding job market.

Thus was born the social media trend “Night Ride to Kaifeng”.

State media initially praised it as a demonstration of young people’s “passion”. And local government saw it as an opportunity to recreate the instant fame that the town of Zibo enjoyed last year as millions arrived to sample its barbecues.

Before Friday night’s gridlock Kaifeng’s officials even announced discounts and events targeting college students. They also put in place additional traffic control measures to protect the cyclists.

“Everyone was beaming with energy and interacting with people around them. It was like back to my college days,” 27-year-old Ms Li told the BBC.

She rode a motorbike to Kaifeng along with the students on Friday night. She said she decided to join and “live like a young person for once” after she saw a post about the trend.

There was heavy police presence all the way, she added.

“You could see ambulances and traffic police cars on both sides of the road quite often, and there were also drones flying above to monitor the traffic.”

But the happy mood turned as the roads in Zhengzhou began to be overwhelmed by the thousands of bikes.

Pictures circulating online showed serious congestion on the main roads from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng. One witness told the local outlet Jimu News that his drive on that route, which usually took one hour, took three.

Some riders shared on social media that they were forced to get off their bikes and push their way through the crowd.

There was no official estimate of the number of bicycles on the road on Friday night. But reports on social media suggest the number ranged from 100,000 to 200,000.

And many of those who made it to Kaifeng didn’t seem to have enjoyed the experience.

“I really regret going,” said one viral post from a student, who rode more than seven hours. They couldn’t get a taxi or a hotel room as the demand was overwhelming.

“As I sat in a restaurant eating my meal, I heard the owner criticising college students for having nothing else to do… I’m really sorry for affecting the people in Kaifeng,” the student wrote.

Some users criticised the cyclists for “irresponsible” behaviour such as littering.

As the gridlock worsened, three major bike platforms in China issued a joint statement urging students to use trains or buses for long-distance travel and avoid using bikes at night for safety reasons.

By Saturday afternoon, the companies had begun charging those who rode to a different city.

Multiple social media posts suggest some universities in Zhengzhou have asked students to return to their dormitories and imposed restrictions on them leaving the campus.

Traffic police in both Zhengzhou and Kaifeng closed off some of the main cycling lanes between the two cities on Saturday and Sunday.

It is not surprising to see officials in both cities pushing back because Chinese authorities have always cracked down on large gatherings, which they fear can lead to protests or any form of political expression.

Last month, police in Shanghai silenced celebrations for Halloween over fears the revelries might be used to express dissent.

Ms Li says spontaneous gatherings – such as the Night Ride to Kaifeng – will keep happening simply because they appeal to young people.

“People are so stressed these days, so these events are a good thing,” she says. “Because happiness is infectious.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has won a run-off vote in parliament to stay in his post, after an election setback last month that saw his coalition lose its majority in the lower house.

Ishiba, 67, took over as prime minister from Fumio Kishida, who stepped down in September amid a series of scandals that rattled public trust in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) party.

In an extraordinary parliament session on Monday, Ishiba defeated Yoshihiko Noda, the leader of the main opposition party Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Ishiba will now have to navigate hostilities within his party, economic woes and a period of flux in international relations.

As the leader of a minority government, he also faces the challenge of having to heed to demands from the opposition bloc for any future bills or budget to pass – with fears of potential political gridlock in a hung parliament.

A former defence minister, Ishiba gained a reputation in Japanese politics for being openly critical of figures in his party, including Kishida and Japan’s longest-serving leader Shinzo Abe. That reputation scored him points among voters, even as it ruffled feathers within his own party.

Ishiba was named the leader of Japan’s ruling LDP – and consequently the country’s prime minister – on 1 October, following a tight race among LDP candidates.

Days after taking office, he called a snap election for the parliament’s lower house in an attempt to consolidate his mandate. The election gamble failed, however, as the LDP lost its parliamentary majority in its worst result in over a decade.

“The Japanese people expressed their strong desire for the LDP to do some reflection and become a party that acts in line with the people’s will,” Ishiba told national broadcaster NHK after that election.

Ishiba’s cabinet will mostly remain the same, but the members who have lost their seats in the election will be replaced.

The long-ruling party has become increasingly unpopular as Japan finds itself in the throes of economic challenges including soaring inflation, a sluggish economy and a weak yen.

In recent years, the LDP has also come under scrutiny over political scandals including its ties to the controversial Unification Church and allegations that its politicians had concealed millions of dollars in fundraiser donations. When Kishida announced in August that he would step down as prime minister, he cited both cases as reasons for the party’s crisis of trust.

Ishiba faces another challenge on the foreign policy front, as Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election could mean more of his protectionist policies and potential new trade tariffs, especially on Japanese steel.

Ishiba previously vowed to reform the LDP, revive the economy and double defence spending. He had also voiced support for socially liberal policies, including marriage equality and allowing couples to have separate surnames – though he has since called for further discussion on the issues, in line with the LDP’s more conservative stance.

When I ask the creator of the hit Korean drama Squid Game about reports that he was so stressed while shooting the first series he lost six teeth, he quickly corrects me. “It was eight or nine,” he laughs.

Hwang Dong-hyuk is speaking to me on set as he films the second series of his dystopian Netflix thriller, which sees hundreds of debt-laden contestants fight it out for a whopping cash prize, by playing a string of life-or-death children’s games.

But another series was not always on the cards. At one point, he swore against making one.

Given the stress it has caused him, I ask what changed his mind.

“Money,” he answers, without hesitation.

“Even though the first series was such a huge global success, honestly I didn’t make much,” he tells me. “So doing the second series will help compensate me for the success of the first one too.”

“And I didn’t fully finish the story,” he adds.

The first series was Netflix’s most successful show to date, thrusting South Korea and its home-grown television dramas into the spotlight. Its dark commentary on wealth inequality touched a nerve with audiences around the globe.

But having killed off almost every character, Hwang has had to start from scratch, with a new cast and set of games, and this time audience expectations are sky high.

“The stress I feel now is much greater,” he says.

Three years after the first series aired, Hwang is even more pessimistic about the state of the world.

He points to current wars, climate change and a widening global wealth gap. Conflicts are no longer confined between the rich and poor, they are playing out intensely between different generations, genders and political camps, he says.

“New lines are being drawn. We’re in an era of us vs them. Who’s right and who’s wrong?”

As I toured the show’s playful set, with its distinctive brightly-coloured staircase, I picked up a few clues as to how the director’s despair will be reflected this time around.

In this series, the previous winner, Gi-hun, re-enters the game on a quest to bring it down and save the latest round of contestants.

According to Lee Jung-jae, who plays the leading character, he is “more desperate and determined” than before.

The floor of the dormitory, where the contestants sleep at night, has been divided in two.

One half is branded with a giant red neon X symbol, the other with a blue circle.

Now, after every game, the players must pick a side, depending on whether they want to end the contest early and survive, or keep playing, in the knowledge all but one of them will die. The majority decision rules.

This, I am told, will lead to more factionalism and fights.

It is part of director Hwang’s plan to expose the dangers of living in an increasingly tribal world. Forcing people to pick sides, he believes, is fuelling conflict.

For all those who were captivated by the shocking storytelling of Squid Game, there were others who found it gratuitously violent and difficult to watch.

But it is clear from talking to Hwang, that the violence is fully thought out. He is a man who thinks and cares deeply about the world and is motivated by a mounting unease.

“When making this series, I constantly asked myself ‘do we humans have what it takes to steer the world off this downhill path?’. Honestly, I don’t know,” he says.

While viewers of the second series might not get the answers to these big life questions, they can at least be comforted that some plot holes will be filled in – like why the game exists, and what is motivating the masked Front Man running it.

“People will see more of the Front Man’s past, his story and his emotions,” reveals the actor Lee Byung-hun, who plays the mysterious role.

“I don’t think this will make viewers warm to him, but it may help them better understand his choices.”

As one of South Korea’s most famous actors, Lee admits that having his face and eyes covered and his voice distorted throughout the first series, was “a little bit dissatisfying”.

This series he has relished having scenes without a mask, in which he can fully express himself – a chance he nearly did not get.

Hwang tried for 10 years to get Squid Game made, taking out large loans to support his family, before Netflix swooped in.

They paid him a modest upfront amount, leaving him unable to cash in on the whopping £650m it is estimated to have made the platform.

This explains the love-hate relationship South Korea’s film and television creators currently have with international streaming platforms.

Over the past few years, Netflix has stormed the Korean market with billions of dollars of investment, bringing the industry global recognition and love, but leaving creators feeling short-changed.

They accuse the platform of forcing them to relinquish their copyright when they sign contracts – and with it, their claim to profit.

This is a worldwide problem.

In the past, creators could rely on getting a cut of box office sales or TV re-runs, but this model has not been adopted by streaming giants.

The issue is compounded in South Korea, creators say, due to its outdated copyright law, which does not protect them.

This summer, actors, writers, directors and producers teamed up to form a collective, to fight the system together.

“In Korea, being a movie director is just a job title, it’s not a way to earn a living,” the vice-president of the Korean Film Directors Guild, Oh Ki-hwan, tells the audience at an event in Seoul.

Some of his director friends, he says, work part-time in warehouses and as taxi drivers.

Park Hae-young is a writer at the event. When Netflix bought her show, ‘My Liberation Notes’, it became a global hit.

“I’ve been writing my whole life. So, to get global recognition when competing with creators from across the world, has been a joyful experience,” she tells me.

But Park says the current streaming model has left her reluctant to “pour her all” into her next series.

“Usually, I’ll spend four or five years making a drama in the belief that, if it’s successful, it could somewhat secure my future, that I’ll get my fair share of compensation. Without that, what’s the point of working so hard?”

She and other creators are pushing the South Korean government to change its copyright law to force production companies to share their profits.

In a statement, the South Korean government told the BBC that while it recognised the compensation system needed to change, it was up to the industry to resolve the issue. A spokesperson for Netflix told us it offers “competitive” compensation, and guarantees creators “solid compensation, regardless of the success or failure of their shows”.

Squid Game’s Hwang hopes his candor over his own pay struggles will initiate that change.

He has certainly sparked the fair pay conversation, and this second series will surely give the industry another bump.

But when we catch up after filming has wrapped, he tells me his teeth are aching again.

“I haven’t seen my dentist yet, but I’ll probably have to pull out a few more very soon.”

Indian full-service carrier Vistara will operate its last flight on Monday, after nine years in existence.

A joint venture between Singapore Airlines and the Tata Sons, Vistara will merge with Tata-owned Air India to form a single entity with an expanded network and broader fleet.

This means that all Vistara operations will be transferred to and managed by Air India, including helpdesk kiosks and ticketing offices. The process of migrating passengers with existing Vistara bookings and loyalty programmes to Air India has been under way over the past few months.

“As part of the merger process, meals, service ware and other soft elements have been upgraded and incorporates aspects of both Vistara and Air India,” an Air India spokesperson said in an email response.

Amid concerns that the merger could impact service standards, the Tatas have assured that Vistara’s in-flight experience will remain unchanged.

Known for its high ratings in food, service, and cabin quality, Vistara has built a loyal customer base and the decision to retire the Vistara brand has been criticised by fans, branding experts, and aviation analysts.

The consolidation was effectively done to clean up Vistara’s books and wipe out its losses, said Mark Martin, an aviation analyst.

Air India has essentially been “suckered into taking a loss-making airline” in a desperate move, he added.

“Mergers are meant to make airlines powerful. Never to wipe out losses or cover them.”

To be sure, both Air India and Vistara’s annual losses have reduced by more than half over the past year, and other operating metrics have improved too. But the merger process so far has been turbulent.

The exercise has been riddled with problems – from pilot shortages that have led to massive flight cancellations, to Vistara crew going on mass sick leave over plans to align their salary structures with Air India.

There have also been repeated complaints about poor service standards on Air India, including viral videos of broken seats and non-functioning inflight entertainment systems.

The Tatas have announced a $400m (£308m) programme to upgrade and retrofit the interiors of its older aircraft and also a brand-new livery. They’ve also placed orders for hundreds of new Airbus and Boeing planes worth billions of dollars to augment their offering.

But this “turnaround” is still incomplete and riddled with problems, according to Mr Martin. A merger only complicates matters.

Experts say that the merger strikes a dissonant chord from a branding perspective too.

Harish Bijoor, a brand strategy specialist, told the BBC he was feeling “emotional” that a superior product offering like Vistara which had developed a “gold standard for Indian aviation” was ceasing operations.

“It is a big loss for the industry,” said Mr Bijoor, adding it will be a monumental task for the mother brand Air India to simply “copy, paste and exceed” the high standards set by Vistara, given that it’s a much smaller airline that’s being gobbled up by a much larger one.

Mr Bijoor suggests a better strategy would have been to operate Air India separately for five years, focusing on improving service standards, while maintaining Vistara as a distinct brand with Air India prefixed to it.

“This would have given Air India the time and chance to rectify the mother brand and bring it up to the Vistara level, while maintaining its uniqueness,” he adds.

Beyond branding, the merged entity will face a slew of operational challenges.

“Communication will be a major challenge in the early days, with customers arriving at the airport expecting Vistara flights, only to find Air India branding,” says Ajay Awtaney, editor of Live From A Lounge, an aviation portal. “Air India will need to maintain clear communication for weeks.”

Another key challenge, he notes, is cultural: Vistara’s agile employees may struggle to adjust to Air India’s complex bureaucracy and systems.

But the biggest task for the merged carrier would be offering customers a uniform flying experience.

These are “two airlines with very different service formats are being integrated into one airline. It is going to be a hotchpotch of service formats, cabin formats, branding, and customer experience. It will involve learning and unlearning, and such a process has rarely worked with airlines and is seldom effective,” said Mr Martin.

Still, many believe Vistara had to go – now or some years later.

A legacy brand like Air India, with strong global recognition and ‘India’ imprinted in its identity, wouldn’t have allowed a smaller, more premium subsidiary to overshadow its revival process.

Financially too, it makes little sense for the Tatas to have two loss-making entities compete with one another.

The combined strength of Vistara and Air India could also place the Tatas in a much better position to compete with market leader Indigo.

The unified Air India group (including Air India Express, which completed its merger with the former Air Asia India in October) “will be bigger and better with a fleet size of nearly 300 aircraft, an expanded network and a stronger workforce”, an Air India spokesperson said.

“Getting done with the merger means that Air India grows overnight, and the two teams start cooperating instead of competing. There will never be one right day to merge. Somewhere, a line had to be drawn,” said Mr Awtaney.

But for many Vistara loyalists, its demise leaves a void in India’s skies for a premium, full-service carrier – marking the third such gap after the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways.

It’s still too early to say if Air India, which often ranks at the bottom of airline surveys, can successfully fill that void.

Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been detained by police in Amsterdam after defying a ban on public protests in the Dutch capital.

Hundreds gathered in Dam Square on Sunday, calling for an end to the conflict in Gaza and expressing dissent towards the ban.

Demonstrations were temporarily banned by the mayor after Israeli football fans were targeted in what she called “hit-and-run” attacks on Thursday night after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam.

The Israeli government has advised its citizens to “categorically avoid” Israeli sports and cultural events while abroad – specifically the football match between France and Israel in Paris on Thursday.

Authorities say Thursday’s attacks – which caused five people to be hospitalised – were motivated by antisemitism as the fans were sought out across the city.

The violence – which led to at least 62 arrests – was condemned by leaders in Europe, the US and in Israel.

The outcry was exacerbated by the attacks occurring on the eve of commemorations of Kristallnacht – Nazi pogroms against German Jews that took place in 1938.

Three-quarters of Jewish people in the Netherlands were murdered during the Holocaust in World War Two.

Amsterdam police said there had also been trouble the night before the match. Police chief Peter Holla said there had been incidents “on both sides”, including Israeli supporters removing a Palestinian flag from a wall and setting it alight, and attacking a taxi.

The city’s Mayor Femke Halsema announced a ban on public assembly on Friday lasting at least until the end of the weekend, deeming the city a “high-risk security area”.

But protesters on Sunday argued they should be free to voice their disapproval of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the actions of the Maccabi supporters.

“This protest has nothing to do with antisemitism,” Alexander van Stokkum, one of the demonstrators, told the AFP news agency on Sunday. “It is against Israeli hooligans who were destroying our city.”

Others told a Reuters journalist: “We refuse to let the charge of antisemitism be weaponised to suppress Palestinian resistance.”

The news agency reported that more than 100 people were detained for attending the protest. Police in Amsterdam confirmed there had been arrests, but have yet to say how many.

Following the protest ban, Dutch activist Frank van der Linde applied for an urgent permit so Sunday’s demonstration could go ahead.

On X, he said that he wanted to protest what he described as “the genocide in Gaza”, adding: “We will not let our right to demonstrate be taken away.”

Mr Van der Linde was overruled by Amsterdam’s district court, which wrote on Sunday that “the mayor has rightly determined that there is a ban on demonstrating in the city this weekend”.

Dutch national newspaper De Telegraaf reports Mr Van der Linde was among those arrested.

The Israeli embassy in the Netherlands earlier warned Israelis in Amsterdam to avoid Dam square, saying the event “may flare up into significant violent incidents”.

Israel’s National Security Council has told its citizens to avoid public demonstrations “of any kind” and conceal “anything that could identify you as Israeli/Jewish”, citing Thursday’s attacks.

“Preparations to harm Israelis have been identified in several European cities, including Brussels (Belgium), major cities in the UK, Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Paris,” it claimed.

Paris’s police chief has pledged that 4,000 officers would be deployed in the stadium and across the French capital for the Nations League match on 14 November.

A Church of England bishop has called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign, calling his position “untenable” after a damning report into abuse by a prolific child abuser associated with the Church.

Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley is the most senior member of the Church to call on the Most Rev Justin Welby to stand down, following the “horrific, horrendous and shocking” report.

Mr Welby is facing mounting pressure to resign after it emerged last week that he did not follow up rigorously enough on reports of John Smyth QC’s “abhorrent” abuse of more than 100 boys and young men.

A review of the Church’s handling of Smyth’s case said Mr Welby “could and should” have reported the case to authorities when details were presented to him in 2013.

Mr Welby acknowledged he should have more rigorously followed up the details and said last week he had considered resigning, but decided to stay in his role.

The Makin review into Smyth’s case said he might have been brought to justice for decades of abuse before his death in 2018 had he been formally reported to authorities in 2013.

Smyth is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England, having subjected as many as 130 victims to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks.

Smyth’s abuse took place over almost five decades and across three countries, according to the report.

He abused 26 to 30 boys and young men in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, the report found. He then relocated to Africa, where he abused a further 85 to 100 “young male children aged 13 to 17”.

Anglican priest Giles Fraser told the BBC the Most Rev Justin Welby had “lost the confidence of his clergy” and three members of the Church’s parliament – the General Synod – have started a petition calling for Mr Welby to resign over his “failures” to report Smyth’s abuse.

“It’s very hard to find the words to respond adequately to what the report tells us,” Bishop Hartley told the BBC.

“I think rightly people are asking the question ‘Can we really trust the Church of England to keep us safe?’ And I think the answer at the moment is ‘no’,” she said.

Dr Hartley said it would be hard for the Church to “continue to have a moral voice” when “we cannot get our own house in order with regard to something as critically important”.

“We are in danger of losing complete credibility on that front,” she added.

She said Mr Welby’s resignation would not “solve the safeguarding problem,” but it would “be a very clear indication that a line has been drawn, and that we must move towards independence of safeguarding”.

• Church covered up ‘abhorrent’ abuse, report finds
• Why does the Church of England struggle to deal with child abuse allegations?

Smyth was accused of attacking boys at his home in Winchester in the 1970s and 1980s, identifying them at Christian camps he ran and at leading public schools including Winchester College.

Smyth took them to his home where he carried out lashings with a garden cane in his shed.

One of Smyth’s victims, Bishop of Guildford Andrew Watson, previously described the “excruciating and shocking” abuse he experienced.

A report detailing Smyth’s abuse was presented to some Church leaders in 1982, but no report was made to the police.

He was encouraged to leave the country and moved to Zimbabwe and later to South Africa, where his abuse continued in the years leading to his death in 2018.

Smyth was charged with the manslaughter of a 16-year-old boy at one of his summer camps. He was not convicted of the offence.

Smyth died aged 75 while under investigation by Hampshire Police.

In a statement, Mr Welby said he was “deeply sorry that this abuse happened” and “sorry that concealment by many people who were fully aware of the abuse over many years meant that John Smyth was able to abuse overseas and died before he ever faced justice”.

He added: “I had no idea or suspicion of this abuse before 2013.”

The petition calling for Mr Welby’s resignation was created on Saturday by three of the General Synod’s almost 500 members, and is open to anyone to sign online. By Monday morning it had gathered over 1,500 signatures.

“Given his role in allowing abuse to continue, we believe that his continuing as the Archbishop of Canterbury is no longer tenable,” the petition reads.

“We must see change, for the sake of survivors, for the protection of the vulnerable, and for the good of the Church.”

Mr Fraser, vicar of St Anne’s Church at Kew, west London, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Mr Welby “really [had] to go”.

Recalling his own experience of abuse at school, Mr Fraser said such an experience was “very traumatic and stays with you”.

“This happened to me when I was seven, eight – I’m 60 in a few weeks’ time,” he said.

“The idea that people continued to be abused after the Church knew what was happening is disgraceful.”

At the weekend, the Church’s lead safeguarding bishop said she welcomed Mr Welby’s apology – and would not say whether he should resign.

“I really appreciate that the Archbishop has wholeheartedly apologised for what he could have and should have done differently in 2013,” the Rt Rev Joanne Grenfell, the Bishop of Stepney, told the BBC.

“I also recognise his commitment over the time of his tenure as Archbishop to really having tried to change safeguarding.”

Mr Welby said he hoped the Makin review would support the ongoing work of building a safer church here and around the world, and reiterated his “horror at the scale of John Smyth’s egregious abuse, as reflected in his public apology”.

As leaders of dozens of Arab and Islamic nations gather in the Saudi capital for a summit, there is widespread speculation about what a second Trump presidency will mean for the region.

In sharp contrast to the fears voiced in Europe about Donald Trump’s famous unpredictability, Gulf Arab countries tend to view him as a force for stability.

Writing in the officially approved Arab News opinion column, the prominent UAE business leader Khalaf al-Habtoor says: “In a Middle East where security is paramount, Trump’s focus on strengthening alliances and curbing extremist forces offers a way forward.”

Here in Saudi Arabia, Trump is viewed much more favourably than Joe Biden.

Trump chose Riyadh for his first overseas trip as President in 2017, an idea reportedly brokered by Rupert Murdoch.

Through his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump enjoys warm relations with the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known by his initials, MBS. The crown prince has never forgiven or forgotten Biden saying that Saudi Arabia needed to be made a pariah for its attitude to human rights.

Trump’s record in office is a mixed one when it comes to the Middle East.

On the one hand he pleased Israel and upset the Arab world by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as Israel’s annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. But he also secured the Abraham Accords in 2020 which saw the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and Sudan agree to do so.

Trump was, and is, hawkish on Iran.

In 2018, he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Calling it “the worst deal in history”, he shared the views of many governments in the region that the deal, aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, failed to tackle Iran’s ballistic missile programme while enriching the Revolutionary Guards with money then used to fund proxy militias around the region.

In 2020, to Iran’s fury but to the satisfaction of many in the Gulf Arab states, Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.

But today’s Middle East is not the same as the one when Trump left the White House.

Israel is at war with Hamas and Hezbollah, and exchanged blows with both the Houthis in Yemen and their backers in Iran.

Under the Biden administration US influence in the region is seen to have waned with a White House largely ineffective at restraining its close ally, Israel, as it wages war in Gaza and Lebanon.

Trump’s return to the White House is thought likely to give Israel a freer hand to strike targets in Iran – like oil and nuclear facilities – that the Biden administration said were off limits.

“His staunch support for Israel and aggressive stance towards Iran’s destabilising efforts made him a key ally in the region, and his return to power is expected to intensify efforts to limit Iran’s influence,” former Israeli intelligence officer Joshua Steinrich says.

But something else has changed in the region.

Brokered by China, Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to put aside their differences, ending seven years of hostility, characterised most visibly by the war in Yemen where the Saudi air force bombed Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia’s military chief flew to Tehran to meet his Iranian counterpart, with both countries now talking about deepening their co-operation on defence and security.

Ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab neighbours in the region have viewed Iran as a major threat to their security. But the surprise 2019 drone strike on Saudi oil facilities, attributed to Iran-backed militants in Iraq, was an uncomfortable reminder to the Gulf Arab states as to just how vulnerable they were to attack by Iran.

So today, with an Arab and Islamic summit calling for an end to the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, there is both optimism and a degree of uncertainty about what a second Trump presidency will mean for the Middle East.

Donald Trump has made the first official hires of his incoming administration, naming a chief of staff, a border tsar and an ambassador to the United Nations.

The president-elect’s transition team is vetting a series of candidates ahead of his return to the White House on 20 January 2025.

Susie Wiles, who headed his campaign, becomes the first female chief of staff, while Tom Homan, who served in the first Trump term, will play a critical role on the border and immigration.

Here is a closer look at those posts already filled, and the names in the mix for the top jobs.

Susie Wiles and campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita were the masterminds behind Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris.

In his victory speech, Trump called her “the ice maiden” – a reference to her composure – and said she liked to stay in the background.

The chief of staff is often a president’s top aide, overseeing daily operations in the West Wing and managing the boss’s staff.

Wiles, 67, has worked in Republican politics for decades, from Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign to electing Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis as governors of Florida.

Republicans have said she commands respect and has an ability to corral the big egos of those in Trump’s orbit, which could enable her to impose a sense of order that none of his four previous chiefs of staff could.

• Who is Susie Wiles, new chief of staff?
• Seven things Trump says he will do in power

This is a critical job because it includes responsibility for Trump’s mass deportations of millions of undocumented migrants, which was a central campaign pledge.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, calling Homan a “stalwart” on border control.

The former police officer was acting director of the the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Trump’s first term and he has advocated a zero-tolerance stance on the issue.

“Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back,” he said in July. “And I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”

• How would mass deportations work?

Media reports – confirmed by the BBC’s US partner CBS News – say the New York congresswoman has been offered the UN ambassador job.

Stefanik has made national headlines with her sharp questioning in congressional committees, first at Trump’s 2019 impeachment hearings and again this year quizzing college leaders about anti-semitism on campus.

“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement to the New York Post.

No personnel decision may be more critical to the trajectory of Trump’s second term than his appointee to lead the Department of Justice.

After uneven relationships with both Jeff Sessions and William Barr, the attorneys general during his first term, Trump is widely expected to pick a loyalist who will wield its prosecutorial power in the manner of an “attack dog”.

Among the names being floated for the cabinet post are Aileen Cannon, the Trump-nominated federal judge who threw out his classified documents case; ex- justice department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who is alleged to have aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results; Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been both indicted and impeached like Trump; Matthew Whitaker, the man who took over for three months as acting attorney general after Sessions stepped down at Trump’s request; Mike Davis, a right-wing activist who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and has issued bombastic threats against Trump critics and journalists; and Mark Paoletta, who served in Trump’s budget office and argues there is no legal requirement for a president to stay out of justice department decisions.

The US secretary of state is the president’s main adviser on foreign affairs, and acts as America’s top diplomat when representing the country overseas.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio – who was most recently under consideration to be Trump’s vice-president – is a major name being floated for the key cabinet post.

Rubio, 53, takes a hawkish view of China. He opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican primary but has since mended fences. He is a senior member of the Senate foreign relations committee and vice-chairman of the chamber’s select intelligence panel.

Other contenders for the job include biotech entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy; Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien; Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty, who was previously Trump’s ambassador to Japan; and Brian Hook, the hawkish special envoy to Iran in Trump’s first term and the man who is leading the transition effort at the State Department.

A dark horse for the nomination, however, is Richard Grenell, a loyalist who served as ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and acting national intelligence chief. Grenell, 58, was heavily involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and even sat in on his private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in September.

Grenell’s combative style may make him a better fit for national security adviser – a position that does not require Senate confirmation – than secretary of state.

Also in line for major posts in a second Trump term are former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe; Keith Kellogg, a national security adviser to Trump’s first Vice-President Mike Pence; former defence department official Eldridge Colby; and Kash Patel, a loyalist who staffed the national security council and became chief of staff to the acting secretary of defence in Trump’s final months in office.

Patel, 44, who helped block the transition to the incoming Joe Biden administration in the latter role, is tipped to become the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief.

Trump has also said he would fire Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) Director Chris Wray, who he nominated in 2017 but has since fallen out with. Jeffrey Jensen, a former Trump-appointed US attorney, is under consideration to replace Wray.

Trump has previously singled out Christopher Miller, his final acting defence secretary, as a candidate who could be nominated to lead the military.

Miller, a retired Army Special Forces colonel, ran the National Counterterrorism Center and – more recently – authored the defence chapter of the controversial Project 2025 wish list for a second Trump term, though Trump has distanced himself from the document.

Other names being discussed include Michael Waltz, a Florida lawmaker who sits on the armed services committee in the US House of Representatives, and Robert O’Brien.

Trump is reportedly considering Robert Lighthizer, a free trade sceptic who led the tariff war with China as the US trade representative, as his chief financial officer.

But at least four others may be under consideration for the role, including Scott Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager who has become a major fundraiser and economic adviser to the president-elect; John Paulson, another megadonor from the hedge fund world; former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Jay Clayton; and Fox Business Network financial commentator Larry Kudlow, who ran Trump’s national economic council during his first term.

The woman co-chairing Trump’s transition team, Linda McMahon, is tipped as a key contender to represent US businesses and job creation in his cabinet – after previously serving as small business administrator during his first term.

Others who could fill this vacancy include Brooke Rollins; Robert Lighthizer; and Kelly Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman who briefly served in the US Senate.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem – who was passed over to be Trump’s running mate in part over a bizarre admission that she killed her pet dog – could see her loyalty to him pay off with the leadership of the interior department, which manages public land and natural resources.

She may compete with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum for the role.

Doug Burgum is also a contender to lead the energy department, where he would implement Trump’s pledges to “drill, baby, drill” and overhaul US energy policy.

A software entrepreneur who sold his small company to Microsoft in 2001, Burgum briefly ran in the 2024 Republican primary before dropping out, endorsing Trump and quickly impressing him with his low-drama persona and sizeable wealth.

Former energy secretary Dan Brouillette is also reportedly in the running.

• Trump victory is a major setback for climate action, experts say

Karoline Leavitt, 27, who impressed Trump as his campaign’s national press secretary, has already served as an assistant White House press secretary and may be a shoo-in to be the administration’s spokesperson.

RFK Jr, as he is known, is an environmental lawyer by trade, a vaccine sceptic by fame and the nephew of former President John F Kennedy.

He is on a shortlist to run the health and human services department, multiple people close to the president-elect’s campaign told CBS.

Despite having no medical qualifications to his name, Kennedy, 70, is expected to become a kind of “public health tsar” in the Trump administration.

There has been speculation about his inability to pass a background check for security clearance due to past controversies, including dumping a bear carcass in New York’s Central Park.

Besides a new job at the health and human services department, Kennedy could also influence policy at the agriculture department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Safety Administration (FDA).

The world’s richest man poured millions of dollars into re-electing Trump and critics say he will now have the power to shape the regulations that affect his companies Tesla, SpaceX and X.

Both he and Trump have focused on the idea of him leading a new “Department of Government Efficiency”, where he would cut costs and streamline what he calls a “massive, suffocating federal bureaucracy”.

The would-be agency’s acronym – DOGE – is a playful reference to a “meme-coin” cryptocurrency Musk has previously promoted.

But Musk, 53, could also play a role in global diplomacy. He participated in Trump’s first call with Ukraine’s Zelensky on Wednesday.

On Saturday, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he “will not be inviting former [UN] Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo” to work for him again.

It came one day after long-time ally Roger Stone identified the two as “neocons” likely to form a “sinister fifth column” against the Trump agenda. Haley also challenged, and harshly criticised, Trump during the 2024 Republican primary. Pompeo was considered a top contender to be defence secretary.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton has ruled himself out for a job as he expects to hold the third-highest rank in the new Senate Republican majority.

Also rumoured to be in the running was Utah Senator Mike Lee, who told Deseret News “I have the job I want” and Republicans must “take full advantage” of their return to power in Washington.

The Republican Party is four seats short of winning majority control of the US House of Representatives, which would make it easier for Donald Trump to enact his agenda.

On Monday morning, the party was at 214 seats, just short of the 218 needed to take control of the lower chamber of Congress, according to projections by Reuters.

The Senate, or upper chamber, and the White House have already flipped to Republicans – meaning the new president-elect could have significant power after he is sworn in on 20 January 2025.

Control of the House will give Republicans the ability to initiate spending legislation and launch impeachment proceedings against officials.

• These are the seven things Trump says he will do as president
• Analysis – Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed candidate or doomed campaign?

Under Trump, a unified Republican Party could more easily push through tax cuts and introduce border control measures.

Here are some of the races that have yet to be called.

The key races to watch are:

• California’s 45th congressional district: Republican Congresswoman Michelle Steel, the incumbent, has been leading against Democrat Derek Tran
• California’s 27th: Democrat George Whitesides is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Garcia. Garcia has been leading by a narrow margin
• California’s 41st: Incumbent Republican Congressman Ken Calvert is running against Democrat Will Rollins, and has also been leading by a narrow margin
• California’s 22nd: Democrat Rudy Salas is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman David Valadao, who has been enjoying a lead
• California’s 13th: Incumbent Republican Congressman John Duarte is running against Democrat Adam Gray, and has been leading

There are two closely-watched races in this swing state.

Republican Juan Ciscomani, the Republican, appears to be neck and neck with his Democratic challenger, Kirsten Engel, in Arizona’s 6th district, located in the south-east corner of the state.

In Arizona’s 1st district, David Schweikert has a slight lead over Democratic challenger Amish Shah. This district covers north-eastern Maricopa County, outside Phoenix.

Incumbent Democratic Congressman Jared Golden is fighting to keep his seat in Maine’s 2nd congressional district – one of two congressional districts in the state. This encompasses the majority of the state north of Augusta and Portland.

Golden is currently leading in the race against his Republican challenger, Austin Theriault. Almost all votes have been counted.

Democrats are looking to hold onto one seat in Ohio’s 9th congressional district, which encompasses Toledo in the state’s north.

Incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who has served in Congress since 1983, narrowly leads in the race against her Republican challenger, Derek Merrin.

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 Florida residence and private club Mar-a-Lago is once again the Winter White House – the place to be seen for West Wing hopefuls as the US president-elect assembles a new administration behind its opulent doors.

While President Joe Biden will remain in office until January, this part of Florida has become a rival centre of political power in America.

Just two years after an FBI raid found classified documents about US nuclear weapons and spy satellites stored in a bathroom, an eclectic mix of insiders are swarming to Mar-a-Lago, which is patrolled by robot dogs and armed guards on boats.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, rumoured as a potential energy secretary, was there on election night. So was former US Defence Department chief of staff Kash Patel.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been alongside Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago during family dinners and calls with world leaders.

Musk has been photographed inside the private club with his son and on the runway of Palm Beach International Airport, as he shuttles back and forth to be by the president-elect’s side.

For those not blessed with an invitation to stay at Mar-a-Lago itself, the hotels and restaurants around nearby West Palm Beach are packed with office-seekers jostling for influence in the new administration and supporters celebrating Trump’s victory.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, vaccine sceptic and scion of the one of the most famous US political dynasties, was by the swanky pool bar of The Ben hotel, where a fake ice rink and Christmas tree greet guests.

Giant, golden Great Dane dog sculptures adorn the lobby and every floor outside the lifts.

He is part of the transition team and the one-time presidential candidate is vying for a role with influence over health policy.

Speaking even before the election, alongside the former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat-turned-Republican, he said: “There’s people of all different kinds of ideology and people that we’re going to have to go up against in that transition team and fight for our vision.”

Also spotted at The Ben was outspoken Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who recently blamed the Biden administration for causing flooding in Republican areas of North Carolina. She is believed to be jockeying for a cabinet position.

At The Breakers, an opulent Italian Renaissance-style oceanfront hotel, the young valets were most star struck by the visit of Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, who joined his friend Trump on stage on election night, but who says he has no personal political aspirations.

The same cannot be said for others. One GOP insider that the BBC ran into in the corridors said the transition was “a free for all”, as different factions of the party battle for dominance.

“Trump loves to see people scramble and suck up.”

But the insider noted with a hint of worry that some “minimally acceptable people are starting to say they don’t want a role”.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, for one, has conveyed that he isn’t interested in working in the administration and would prefer a Senate leadership position.

Donald Trump is expected to focus less on elected officials to fill senior positions.

His son, Don Jr, said during an interview on Fox News that he wants people who “don’t think they know better” than his father and that he’s prepared to block anyone he thinks would be a disaster.

The president-elect has been vocal about doing things differently this time around, feeling his biggest mistake during his first presidency was hiring “bad people, or disloyal people”.

Back in 2016, plans for the transition that had been prepared by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in concert with the outgoing Obama administration were laid to waste.

Once the Trump team won what was seen as an improbable victory, they decided on an unconventional approach and fired Christie.

What ensued was an Apprentice-style parade of people to Trump Tower in New York that played out in front of the cameras.

Back then, news crews packed into the lobby to capture everyone headed up the golden elevator to see Donald Trump on the 26th floor.

While the world was still trying to understand what a Trump presidency would look like, those with influence in Wall Street, media, politics and entertainment all sought an audience, including Bill Gates, Al Gore and even Kanye West.

This time around, Trump seems to be prioritising loyalty, tallying up who has been with him since day one.

And the world’s media are crammed onto hotel balconies and the parks and beaches surrounding Mar-a-Lago, where security is at fortress levels.

The transition process is still unconventional by design, but so far it is far more behind the scenes than in 2016.

Trump’s first appointment – Florida political consultant Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff – does offer one clue that a well-built Florida conservative political operation could be ready to replicate its success in the White House.

• Who is in the frame to join Trump’s new top team?

Slater Bayliss, co-founder of a Florida-based lobbying firm, Advocacy Partners, has worked both for and against Ms Wiles during election battles in the state and much prefers to be on her side.

“I would say, borrowing a nickname from our friends across the pond, Susie is the Iron Lady of American electoral politics.”

He says offers have been flooding in from talent across the state, which has served as a “stronghold of resistance for smart conservative thinkers who love our country and desire to play a role in making it more reflective of our electorate”.

Republican political consultant Max Goodman says there is anticipation of a Florida wave crashing into Washington.

He expects Trump’s team will be mining staffers in Susie Wiles’s team and in the state, whose congressional and Senate delegations came out early for Trump.

“There is no hotter political farm system in the country than the state of Florida, when you have a president and the most prolific political consultant turned chief of staff calling Florida home,” he said.

Despite having the second largest Republican congressional delegation in the country, Mr Goodman says Florida has “notoriously been snubbed” when it comes to having a seat at the leadership table.

He believes that could change with Ms Wiles leading the charge, and with key Floridians such as Rick Scott potentially in line as Senate Majority leader and Senator Marco Rubio in contention for a high-profile cabinet position.

One person who has thrown his hand up to work in the transition is Joe Gruters, who is waiting to see how that shapes up.

He was the 2016 co-chairman of Trump’s Florida campaign with Ms Wiles, then the chairman of the Republican state party, and is now a state senator.

Mr Gruters describes himself as a “loyal foot soldier”, who was the only member of the Florida legislature to immediately endorse Trump’s 2024 bid and appear at Mar-a-Lago for his announcement.

He is counting on Ms Wiles taking her “battle-tested” lieutenants up with her to Washington to fill out positions.

“They know who the true believers are… and they probably have a clear idea of who they’re going to put in most of these positions,” Mr Gruters said.

Palm Beach didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for Donald Trump when he first arrived on the scene with his purchase of Mar-a-Lago in the 1980s.

But walking around town now, it’s obvious that this is firmly Maga country – Trump-branded bikinis and hats are a common sight.

Next week, Argentina’s President Javier Milei is expected to visit Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump and Elon Musk.

Also next week, CPAC, or the Conservative Political Action Conference, is hosting its annual investors summit at Mar-a-Lago with tickets costing up to $25,000 (£19,350).

And it’s unlikely the migration south will stop once Donald Trump is inaugurated and occupies the Oval Office once more.

Slater Bayliss – the Florida lobbyist – thinks Trump will want to spend as much time in Florida as possible during his second term.

That will go some way, he said, in “making the 62,500 square feet of Mar-a -Lago the most sacred real-estate in the political universe”.

Donald Trump swept to victory on Tuesday by chipping away at groups of voters which Democrats once believed would help them win the White House for a generation.

After Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, many triumphantly claimed that the liberal voting coalition which had elected the first black president was growing more powerful, as the makeup of America changed.

Older, white conservatives were reducing in number, and non-white Americans were projected to be in the majority by 2044. College-educated professionals, younger people, black Americans, Latinos and other ethnic minorities, and blue-collar workers were part of a “coalition of the ascendant”.

These voters were left-leaning on cultural issues and supportive of an active federal government and a strong social safety net. And they constituted a majority in enough states to ensure a Democratic lock on the Electoral College – and the presidency.

“Demography,” these left-wing optimists liked to say, “is destiny.” Sixteen years later, however, that destiny appears to have turned to dust.

• LIVE UPDATES: Trump projected to win Arizona

Cracks began forming when non-college educated voters slipped away from the Democrats in midterm elections in 2010 and 2014. They then broke en masse to Trump in 2016. While Joe Biden, with his working-class-friendly reputation built over half a century, won enough back to take the White House in 2020, his success proved to be only a temporary reprieve.

This year, Trump supplemented his gains with the blue-collar workers by also cutting into the Democratic margins among young, Latino and black voters. He has carved up the coalition of the ascendant.

According to exit polls, Trump won:

– 13% of the black vote in 2024 compared to Republican John McCain’s 4% against Obama

– 46% of the Latino vote this time, while McCain got 31% in 2008

– 43% of voters under 30 against the 32% for McCain

– 56% of those without a college degree – back in 2008, it was Obama who won a majority

Speaking on Thursday after his comeback victory, Trump celebrated his own diverse coalition of voters.

“I started to see realignment could happen because the Democrats are not in line with the thinking of the country,” the president-elect told NBC News.

Trump did it with a hard-line message on immigration that included border enforcement and mass deportations – policies that Biden and the Democrats recoiled from when they took power back from Trump in 2021, lest they anger immigrant rights activists in their liberal base.

Illegal border crossings reached record levels under the Biden administration, with more than eight million encounters with migrants at the border with Mexico.

“If you watch a video from Hillary Clinton back in 2008 in the primaries, she talks about making sure there’s wall-building, making sure that immigrants who violate the law get deported, making sure everybody learns English,” said Kevin Marino Cabrera, a Republican commissioner in Miami-Dade County. “It’s funny how far to the left [the Democrats] have gone.”

This week, Trump became the first Republican since 1988 to win that heavily Latino county in Florida. He also won Starr County in south Texas, with its 97% Latino population, with 57% of the vote. In 2008, only 15% of the county voted for McCain, the Republican.

Mike Madrid, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who specialises in Latino voting trends, told the BBC that the problem with “demography is destiny” was that it risked treating all non-white Americans as an “aggrieved racial minority”. “But that is not and nor has it ever been the way Latinos have viewed themselves,” he added.

“I hate that if you’re black, you’ve got to be a Democrat or you hate black people and you hate your community,” Kenard Holmes, a 20-year-old student in South Carolina, told the BBC during the presidential primaries earlier this year. He said he agreed with Republicans on some things and felt Democratic politicians took black voters for granted.

With some states still tabulating their results, Trump currently has improved on his electoral margins in at least 2,367 US counties, while slipping in just 240.

It wasn’t just the number of counties that Trump won that made a difference, either. Kamala Harris needed to post significant margins in the cities to offset Republican strength in rural areas. She consistently fell short.

In Detroit’s Wayne County, for example, which the latest US Census reports is 38% black, Harris won 63% of the vote – significantly lower than Joe Biden’s 68% in 2020 and Obama’s 74% in 2008.

Polls consistently suggested that the economy, along with immigration, were the two issues of highest importance to voters – and where polls indicated Trump had an advantage over Harris.

His economic message cut across racial divides.

“We’re just sick of hearing about identity politics,” said Nicole Williams, a white bartender with a black husband and biracial children in Las Vegas, Nevada – one of the key battleground states that Trump flipped this year.

“We’re just American, and we just want what’s best for Americans,” she said.

Democrats are already engaged in considerable soul-searching, as they come to grips with an election defeat that has delivered the White House, the Senate and, perhaps, the House of Representatives to Republican control.

Various elements within the party are offering their own, often conflicting, advice on the best path from the wilderness back to power.

Left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders, who twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, also criticised identity politics and accused the party of abandoning working-class voters.

Some centrist Democrats, meanwhile, have argued that the struggle to connect with voters goes beyond the economy and immigration. They point to how the Trump campaign was also able to use a cultural message as a wedge to fracture the Democratic coalition.

Among the positions that Republicans targeted in this year’s election were calls to shift funding away from law enforcement, decriminalise undocumented border-crossings and minor crimes like shoplifting, and provide greater protections for transgender Americans.

Many arose after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the resulting rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as other efforts to advance social justice and acknowledge darker parts of American history.

Within a few years, however, some of those positions proved a liability for Democrats when trying to win over persuadable voters and keep their coalition from fraying. Harris, for example, backed away from some positions she’d taken when she first ran for president in 2019.

In the last month of the presidential campaign, the Trump team made the vice-president’s past support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for federal prisoners and detained immigrants a central focus.

One advert ended with the line: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

The Trump campaign spent more than $21m on transgender issue ads in the first half of October – about a third of their entire advertising expenditures and nearly double what they spent on spots on immigration and inflation, according to data compiled by AdImpact.

It’s the kind of investment a campaign makes if it has hard data showing an advert is moving public opinion.

After Trump’s convincing win, Congressman Seth Moulton, a moderate from Massachusetts, said his party needed to rethink its approach on cultural issues.

“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Moulton told the New York Times. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, reject that characterisation, and argue that standing up for the rights of minorities has always been a core value of the party. Congressman John Moran wrote on X in response: “You should find another job if you want to use an election loss as an opportunity to pick on our most vulnerable.”

Mike Madrid, the political strategist, has a brutal assessment of where the Democratic coalition is today.

“The Democratic Party was predicated on what really is an unholy alliance between working-class people of colour and wealthier white progressives driven and animated by cultural issues,” Madrid said. “The only glue holding that coalition together was anti-Republicanism.”

Once that glue came unstuck, he said, the party was ripe for defeat.

Future elections are sure to be held in a friendlier political environment for Democrats. And Trump, who has shown a unique ability to attract new and low-propensity voters to the polls, has run his last campaign.

But 2024’s results will provide plenty of fuel for Democratic angst in the days to come.

The Harris campaign itself believes she lost to Trump because she was facing a restive public angry over the economic and social turbulence in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic.

“You stared down unprecedented headwinds and obstacles that were largely out of our control,” campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote in a letter to her staff. “The whole country moved to the right, but compared to the rest of the country, the battleground states saw the least amount of movement in his direction. It was closest in the places we competed.”

Moses Santana, a Puerto Rican living in Philadelphia, is from a demographic which seemed reliably Democratic a decade or so ago. But when he spoke to the BBC this week, he was not so convinced the Democrats had delivered when in power – or that their message today connected with Americans like him.

“You know, Joe Biden promised a lot of progressive things, like he was going to cancel student debt, he was going to help people get their citizenship,” he said. “And none of that happened. Donald Trump is bringing [people] something new.”

• 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

A day after her husband’s big election night win, Melania Trump took to social media to address the nation.

“The majority of Americans have entrusted us with this important responsibility,” Mrs Trump said.

“We will safeguard the heart of the republic – freedom,” she vowed, and urged Americans to rise above ideology for the sake of the country.

It was a brief message, but suggested a shift in how the former first lady will approach the role this second time around.

When Trump won his first presidency in 2016, his wife was initially absent from the White House, instead staying in New York with their young son. She appeared reticent, at times, with the traditions set out by first ladies that preceded her.

But experts say that this time, Mrs Trump will likely be more deliberate with her approach to the largely undefined role of being America’s First Lady.

Born Melanija Knavs, the 54-year-old Slovenian-American former fashion model eventually traded a glamorous life in the gilded walls of Manhattan’s Trump Tower for the confines of political life that came with the Oval Office, during a presidency that was often mired in controversy.

Described by some as an “enigma”, Mrs Trump has preferred to be less public than her predecessors, giving fewer speeches both in the White House and on the campaign trail.

“She’s been unique among modern first ladies,” said Tammy Vigil, an associate professor of communications at Boston University and author of a book on Michelle Obama and Melania Trump.

“She does things the way she wants to do them, as opposed to the way she has to do them. But she fulfils the base expectations.”

In recent years, she avoided the spotlight as her husband challenged several legal cases against him while he campaigned for a second term.

Her absence inspired several news articles this summer asking: “Where is Melania?”

Mrs Trump did appear on key occasions, like when her husband announced in late 2022 that he would be running again.

She also attended the Republican National Convention in July wearing a bright red Christian Dior suit, but did not deliver a speech – another break from tradition.

When she does speak, her words appear carefully chosen, offering hints to her point of view.

At her husband’s Madison Square Garden rally just weeks before Election Day, she delivered short but pointed remarks in line with the Trump campaign’s law and order messaging, painting New York City as a “great metropolis” in decline due to rampant crime.

She also spoke after the first assassination attempt on her husband, calling for unity and labelling the perpetrator a “monster”.

In a rare interview on Fox, she later accused his political opponents and the media of “fuelling a toxic atmosphere” that led to the attack.

Mrs Trump declared her pro-choice stance in her recent memoir, putting her at odds with anti-abortion activists within the Republican Party – though the remarks prompted speculation due to their timing, as her husband was struggling to campaign on the issue after the overturning of Roe v Wade.

• Melania Trump is latest Republican First Lady to back abortion

Mrs Trump wrote about her modelling career, her admiration for her husband and their past political disagreements, but chose to keep details of those disputes private.

She has, however, publicly stood by Trump on controversial stances like his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“I am not the only person who questions the results,” she wrote in her book. On the Capitol Riots on 6 January, 2021, she wrote that she “wasn’t aware” of what was taking place because she was preoccupied with her duties.

Her former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, wrote in her own memoir that Mrs Trump refused to issue a statement condemning the violence, leading Ms Grisham to resign.

Some commentators have questioned whether she enjoyed the role of first lady at all.

One of her biographers, former CNN reporter Kate Bennett, maintains she did despite her early reluctance.

“She liked all the accoutrements that go with being first lady and living in the White House,” Ms Bennett told People magazine in 2021. “I think she actually really enjoyed it.”

In her memoir, Mrs Trump wrote that she has a “strong sense of duty to use the platform as First Lady for good”.

And she said in a 1999 interview that if her then-boyfriend Trump ever ran for president, she would use former first ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Betty Ford as role models, calling them “very traditional”.

• Five takeaways from Melania Trump’s new book

Mrs Kennedy was a fashion icon who was dedicated to the preservation of the White House, while Mrs Ford was known as a trailblazer who advocated for abortion rights and women’s rights.

After relocating to Washington, Mrs Trump started taking on first lady duties, such as hosting luncheons and state dinners for visiting world leaders. She also focused on White House aesthetics, ordering extensive renovations and overseeing ambitious Christmas decorations (and was once secretly recorded complaining about that last task).

Her clothing was the subject of media fascination and controversy, particularly after she was spotted wearing a jacket with the phrase “I really don’t care, do you?” during a trip to a migrant child detention centre in 2018.

She said the jacket was a message for “the people and the left-wing media” who were criticising her.

Mrs Trump came under fire again after being secretly recorded by her former friend and senior advisor. She was heard expressing her frustration at being criticised for her husband’s policy to separate migrant children from their families.

She later revealed that she had been blindsided by the policy, and had told Trump privately that she did not support it. The policy was dropped by the president in June 2018 after a firestorm of controversy.

Prof Vigil says one of the biggest challenges that Mrs Trump faced in her first term was her political inexperience as well as a revolving door of staff, who were equally inexperienced and at times disloyal.

But Mrs Trump kept quietly busy regardless, Prof Vigil adds, advocating for issues like children’s welfare through her Be Best campaign against online bullying.

She was forced to defend that campaign given her own husband’s aggressive use of social media, telling CBS in 2016 that how he conducted himself online got him in trouble – and boosted his followers.

She also advocated for children affected by the opioid crisis, and has since started a foundation that raises education funds for children in foster care.

Many expect for that work to continue once she moves back to Washington, though it remains unclear if she will live there full-time.

Prof Vigil says the role of first lady has evolved over the years and Mrs Trump will “make choices about how active in public she wants to be”.

“And I think she’ll do that much more intentionally.”

The last time Chaw Su saw her husband was in March, when he was forcibly conscripted to fight for the army in Myanmar’s civil war.

Four months later, she found out he had been killed at the frontline.

“We were always poor and struggled,” she says. “But life was much more bearable with him.”

The 25-year-old widow, who had depended on her husband as the breadwinner, now has three young children to care for.

In February, Myanmar’s military regime, known as the junta, announced compulsory conscription, meaning all men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 would be forced to serve for up to two years.

Since launching the 2021 coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government, the junta has faced an uprising on multiple fronts – including from volunteer People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) and ethnic armed groups. That uprising has since escalated into a full-blown civil war.

Last year marked a turn of the tide, as the junta saw a fresh wave of attacks from insurgents that have since pushed the military government to breaking point. As a result, up to two-thirds of the country, which has had decades of military rule and repression, fell under the control of resistance groups.

The increasingly embattled junta responded in part by pushing forward with mandatory conscription, despite warnings from experts that it could exacerbate the nation’s civil conflict. The first training began in April.

In July, Chaw Su received a call from her husband who was one of two men from their village sent for training.

He told her he had been deployed to Karen state, where some of the most intense fighting between the junta and ethnic armed groups was taking place.

“He said that he would be sent to the frontline for two weeks and that he would call me when he returned to base,” Chaw Su tells the BBC. “It was the first and last message I received from him.”

At the end of July, a military officer called to inform Chaw Su her husband was dead.

“I was completely out of my mind. The officer tried to console me with his words, but I felt that my life was over.”

Like many others, Chaw Su was promised a salary for her husband’s service, but she claimed she only received 70,000 kyats (around $21) from the village official when her husband was first conscripted.

After the initial payment, months went by without any financial support.

The military says conscripts are entitled to salary and compensation upon death in service, as with full-rank soldiers. But junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun told the BBC “there could be a delay if the necessary documents are incomplete”.

Across Myanmar, conscripted soldiers – often untrained and unprepared – are sent to conflict zones with little support. Their families are often left in the dark about their whereabouts.

Soe Soe Aye, a widow in her 60s, has been left without word from her son, who was conscripted six months ago. She says he had no desire to serve in the military.

“[My son] joined the military to feed his mother,” she adds tearfully. “I regret letting him go.”

Now, she struggles with poor health and depends on her youngest daughter to support their household. But she is trying to remain hopeful.

“I just want to see my son. I don’t have enough strength to face this.”

Many young Burmese have taken drastic measures to resist the conscription order.

Kan Htoo Lwin, a 20-year-old from Myannmar’s commercial hub, Yangon, was conscripted and trained for three months along with 30 others.

He says the training was gruelling and they were threatened that if anyone tried to escape, their homes would be burned.

“After the training, I hated the army even more,” he says.

During a journey to the frontline in the eastern part of the country, Kan Htoo saw a chance to escape with two others when their convoy stopped halfway.

“We ran once it got dark, while they were busy with security checks. We didn’t stop until nightfall,” he recalls. “At some point we were exhausted and stopped to rest. We took turns sleeping and keeping watch.”

At dawn, the three young men hitched a ride from a truck driver and made it to Aung Ban, a township in the southern Shan state. Here, Kan Htoo joined a PDF, one of the many resistance groups that have been growing as more young people, disillusioned with the military junta, take up arms.

The other two men are currently in hiding, Kan Htoo says. For safety reasons, he doesn’t want to reveal what they are doing now.

While men have been the primary focus of the conscription efforts, women have also been affected.

Zue Zue, a 20-year-old from Yangon, abandoned her dream of becoming a Chinese translator to join the Special Operation Force (SOF), a unit within the PDFs.

“Now my goal is to end this era of military dictatorship and make peace for our generation,” she tells the BBC.

While Zue Zue chose to stay, others have fled the country.

Engineer Min Min left for Thailand when conscription began. He’s now staying there on an education visa, but claims he has been struggling to find legal work that suits his qualifications in Bangkok.

Many who flee to Thailand, like Min Min, end up in low-wage jobs. Thai authorities have also become stricter in catching illegal migrants, and many are now facing deportation if caught.

Min Min worries that when his visa expires, he will have to stay illegally in the country.

“I’m worried about the living costs,” says the 28-year-old. “I have no choice but to find manual labour jobs.”

He also says priority is given to Thai nationals, whose rights are protected, while Thai business owners often exploit migrants working illegally.

“I have also seen that Burmese engineers are working illegally and only paid around 12,000 Thai baht ($355), similar to the salary of migrant manual workers,” he says.

Back in Myanmar, Chaw Su now works odd jobs in the village, earning barely enough to feed her children.

“It’s hard to explain to other people the struggle I’m going through,” she says.

Herders scooping murky water from a small pond in grasslands in South Sudan are well aware of the dangers they face if they drink it.

“The water is dirty because this place has oil – it has chemicals in it,” says their chief, Chilhok Puot.

Nyatabah, a woman from this community raising cows in the heart of oil fields in Unity State, adds: “If you drink it, it makes you pant and cough.

“We know it’s bad water, but we don’t have anywhere else, we’re dying of thirst.”

A former oil engineer, David Bojo Leju, has told the BBC World service that flooding in the area is washing pollution into water sources.

Large swathes of the state have been under water for several years after unprecedented flooding, which scientists say has been worsened by climate change.

Mr Bojo Leju says the floods are a “disaster” and that pollution from mismanaged oil facilities is a “silent killer” spreading across the state.

South Sudan is the world’s youngest country and one of its poorest, with a government hugely dependent on oil revenue.

Unity State, a major oil-producing state, has always experienced seasonal flooding. But in 2019, extreme rains brought a deluge that engulfed villages, grasslands and forests. Year after year of intense rainfall followed. The water built up, trapped on the clay soil.

At the worst point in 2022, two-thirds of Unity State were submerged, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) – even now, it says about 40% is still under water.

Mr Bojo Leju worked for eight years for the oil consortium Greater Pioneer Operating Company (GPOC), a joint venture between Malaysian, Indian and Chinese oil companies – with South Sudan’s government owning 5%.

After a major pipeline rupture five years ago, he started photographing and filming pools of oily water and heaps of blackened soil in locations in Unity State, including sites near Roriak, where the herders live.

He says spills from oil wells and pipelines were “a recurring situation”, and that he was involved in transporting contaminated soil away from roads, so it would not be seen.

He tried to raise his concerns with company managers, but he says little was done and “there was no treatment plan for soil”.

Mr Bojo Leju also says “produced water” – water released from the ground when oil is extracted and often containing hydrocarbons and other pollutants – was not properly treated.

There were reports of high oil content, above international standards, in the produced water “every day in our morning meeting”, he says, “and this water is injected back into the environment”.

“The question is where does water flow?” he says.

“Up to the river, up to the water source where people drink, up to ponds where people catch fish.”

Mr Bojo Leju explains that “some of the oil chemicals seeped down” into the groundwater, where they will flow into boreholes.

“The water table is contaminated,” he says.

When intense rains began in 2019, earth dykes were put around some spilled oil “but it was not enough to withstand the volume of water”, he adds.

In Roriak, there is no data available about the quality of the water the herders drink, but they fear pollution is making their cattle sick.

They say calves have been born without heads or without limbs.

Unity State’s agriculture minister blames the deaths of more than 100,000 cattle in the last two years on the floods combined with oil pollution.

In a forest close to Roriak, a group of men and women chop down trees to make charcoal.

They have walked for eight hours along dirt roads flanked by flood water to reach the forest.

They say the only water they can find here is polluted.

Even boiled “it causes diarrhoea and abdominal pain”, says one woman, Nyakal.

Another, Nyeda, wipes away tears, saying she needs the charcoal to sell, but is worried about her seven children, left with her mother for a week.

“She has nothing either,” she says.

Nyeda lives near the state capital, Bentiu, in a reed hut squeezed into a camp housing 140,000 people who have fled conflict or the floods. It is completely surrounded by flood water and protected only by earth dykes.

There is some food aid, but many in the area survive by foraging for water lily roots and fish to supplement their rations.

Safe water is scarce. Nyeda uses water from a borehole for washing and cooking, but needs money to buy drinking water.

Health professionals and politicians in the area have told the BBC they fear pollution and the lack of clean water are taking a toll on human health.

In a hospital in Bentiu, a mother has just given birth. Her new-born baby’s nose and mouth are joined.

“They have no access to clean water,” says Dr Samuel Puot, one of the doctors caring for the baby.

“They just drink from the river where water and oil are mixed. That might be the problem.”

He says there are “many” cases of children born with abnormalities, such as no limbs or a small head, in Bentiu and also Ruweng, an oil-producing area north of Unity State.

They often die within days or months, he adds.

Genetic testing can give clues about the causes of congenital abnormalities, but the hospital does not have the facilities, and results are often not conclusive.

Dr Puot wants the government to keep a register of cases.

As the data is not recorded systematically, it is not clear whether these anecdotal reports indicate an unusually high prevalence of congenital abnormalities.

“It is plausible that oil-related pollution could contribute to an increased risk of birth defects,” says Dr Nicole Deziel, an environmental health specialist at Yale University.

Environmental pollution is a risk factor for congenital abnormalities, alongside genetics, maternal age, infection and nutrition, she says.

Some compounds released during the production of oil can affect foetal development, Dr Deziel adds.

“Anecdotal reports can serve as important indicators of environmental health problems,” she says, but stresses that without systematic data collection, establishing evidence of a causal relationship is difficult.

In 2014 and 2017, the German-based non-governmental organisation Sign of Hope carried out peer-reviewed studies close to other oil fields in Unity State.

They found increased salinity and high concentrations of heavy metals in water nearer oil wells, as well as high concentrations of lead and barium in human hair samples.

The researchers concluded these were indicators of pollution from oil production.

The government has commissioned an environmental audit of the impact of the oil industry, but the results are yet to be made public more than a year later than expected.

Mary Ayen Majok, a senior politician from the ruling party, has been raising concerns about oil pollution for more than a decade.

She is a member of the government and deputy speaker in the upper house of the South Sudanese parliament, and is from Ruweng.

She says one of her own relatives has had a child “born with deformities” and believes many such cases are not reported because of fear of stigma or lack of access to medical facilities.

Ms Majok says South Sudan “inherited an industry that was based on bad practices” when the country was formed in 2011 after it gained independence from Sudan.

A five-year civil war broke out in 2013. For a nation facing conflict and heavily dependent on oil revenues, improving environmental responsibility has been “at the tail of our priorities”, she says.

Laws and institutions have been established but “accountability is not that strong”, she says.

“Talking about oil is like touching the heart of the government,” says Mr Bojo Leju.

He spoke to the BBC in Sweden, where he has been granted asylum.

In 2020 he was approached by South Sudanese lawyers who wanted to sue the government over oil pollution.

He agreed to testify as a witness. But he says security personnel detained him, hit him on the head with a pistol and forced him to sign a document recanting his evidence.

He fled the country soon afterwards. The lawyers did not pursue their case.

The BBC asked the oil consortium GPOC and the South Sudanese president’s office to comment on the allegations in this report, but they did not respond.

Scientists are not sure whether the floods in Unity State will ever recede.

Dr Chris Funk, director of the Climate Hazards Center at University of Carolina, Santa Barbara, says 2019 saw record sea surface temperatures in the west Indian Ocean, which “would have been impossible in a world without climate change”.

Warmer air can hold more moisture, and he says there was a “strong link” between these sea temperatures and the 2019 extreme rains over East Africa.

Dr Funk says higher rainfall has continued since then over the Lake Victoria basin that feeds into South Sudan, but it is not clear whether this is a permanent new pattern.

Temperatures in South Sudan have risen and are expected to rise further, he adds.

This means extreme precipitation “will be more extreme” and, under some global warming scenarios, heat and humidity could mean some parts of the country “would not be liveable”, he says.

However, despite the floods and pollution fears, many here hope to return to a life of raising animals and living off the land.

In Roriak, children fashion a miniature village out of the clay on the ground, complete with model huts and cows.

And near Bentiu, an elderly woman grinds water lily roots next to the flood water. She says she would like to a have a cow again, one day.

“When the water goes down, I’ll grow grain, even if it’s years,” she adds.

The new season of the BBC World Service series Life at 50°C investigates climate change and the devastating effects of water insecurity in some of the hottest parts of the world.

You can listen to Poisoned Floods: South Sudan on BBC Sounds if you’re in the UK, or if you’re outside the UK click here.

• Extreme drought areas treble in size since 80s – study
• This year set to be first to breach 1.5C global warming limit
• Deadliest weather made worse by climate change – scientists
• South Sudan floods: Fleeing Nile waters to a minefield

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

A hologram of a young sex worker haunts Amsterdam’s red light district.

Dressed in faded denim hotpants, a leopard-print bra, with a tattoo snaking up her stomach and across her chest, the 3D computer-generated image reaches out and appears to knock on the window to attract attention.

She leans forward, breathes on the glass and writes the word “help”.

The hologram is designed to represent Bernadette “Betty” Szabo, a 19-year-old woman from Hungary who was murdered a few months after giving birth in 2009.

Her fatal stabbing has baffled police for 15 years. Dutch cold case detectives are using the innovative technology for the first time in an effort to solve the case.

The murdered teenager’s image is being projected from behind a window, alongside hundreds of young women who continue to make a living in this notoriously risky industry.

Investigators hope the lifelike hologram will help jog memories and draw attention to the unsolved murder.

Until now, Betty’s killer has eluded justice and cold case detective Anne Dreijer-Heemskerk is determined to change that: “A young woman, only 19, taken from life in such a horrific way.”

Szabo had a tough life and her story was one of hardship and resilience, according to the detective.

She had moved to Amsterdam aged 18 and became pregnant soon afterwards. She carried on working throughout her pregnancy, returning to the job shortly after her son was born.

It was in the early hours of 19 February 2009, when two sex workers went to check on the teenage mother during a break between clients, because they realised her usual music was not playing.

When they entered her brothel, a small room with a plastic-covered bed, vanity table and sink, they discovered Betty Szabo’s body.

She had been murdered three months after giving birth, the victim of a savage knife attack.

Her baby was placed in foster care and never got to know his mother – a fact that motivates detectives.

Although police immediately launched a murder investigation, her killer was never found. They combed through CCTV footage and questioned potential witnesses.

The majority of people eyeing the scantily dressed women behind the red neon windows are tourists. Police suspect the perpetrator came from abroad.

Now they are urging people who may have visited Amsterdam to think back, with a €30,000 reward to encourage witnesses to come forward.

As Amsterdam grapples with controversial plans to relocate its famous brothels to an out-of-town “erotic zone”, Betty Szabo’s hologram offers a poignant reminder of the vulnerability of sex workers in an area that, despite a range of security measures, remains perilous.

Sex workers have voiced concerns that removing the women who sell sex from public view could expose them to even greater danger.

The fact that such a violent crime could occur in one of the Netherlands’ busiest nightspots without witnesses coming forward continues to confound investigators.

In the historic red-light district where she once lived and worked, the teenage sex worker’s digital presence reminds passers-by that her case is yet to be solved.

Malevolent spirits, spooky zombies and vengeful witches are making a comeback to Bollywood this year, with horror films emerging as some of the biggest earners of 2024. The BBC looks at how these modest-budget films are earning impressive returns.

Earlier this month, Bollywood witnessed a dramatic showdown between the big and the not-so-big.

On one side was the star-studded high-budget action film Singham Again, and on the other, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, the latest instalment of a mid-budget three-part horror-comedy series by the same name.

Singham Again, which featured five of Bollywood’s biggest stars – Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, and Ranveer Singh – managed to pull in 1.86bn rupees ($22.05m; £17.06) worldwide in four days, according to film analytics tracker Sacnilk.

While Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, which features the relatively young and new Kartik Aryan, earned slightly less in the same period (1.63bn rupees), its smaller budget meant that its performance was even more impressive

The film brings back Aaryan, who also featured in the second part, as a conman exorcist who is hired by a royal family to purge their palace of an evil spirit.

Packed with adventure and hilarity, the film’s racy plot has been drawing audiences to theatres in droves.

The film’s success marks a continuation of a new trend in Bollywood, where horror and horror-comedy films – once relegated to the fringes – are now leading the box office.

The trend began with Shaitaan, a psychological horror film starring Ajay Devgn, which earned over $25m worldwide despite a modest budget. Following that, Munjya and Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank continued the success, with the latter becoming the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2024, grossing over $103mn.

The film, Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aantank, set in the fictional town of Chanderi, features the mysterious Stree, who once targeted patriarchal men, now facing off against a monster that abducts free-thinking women.

The film sold out shows for months while other major Bollywood productions struggled to find an audience.

The industry has gone through through a slump post the Covid-19 pandemic, with most films tanking at the box-office, trade figures show.

What’s interesting is that a lot of these horror films did not receive glowing reviews – in fact, some critics have criticised the films for their “lousy” plotlines.

Yet their back-to-back successes seem to have given Bollywood a new lease of life.

So what’s driving this trend?

“Horror-comedy plays on the most primal instinct of the audience – alternating between fear and humour,” says Mayank Shekhar, a senior film critic.

“Both are infectious. You audibly sense the shrieks and the laughs in the hall.”

Films like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 and Stree 2 have also benefited from the success of their prequels.

People come to watch these films simply because they enjoyed the films that came before it, making them somewhat “critic-proof”, Shekhar adds.

“I think we go because we loved the original film and want to feel the same magic in the sequels,” says Apurva, a radio jockey, who watched both films recently.

Horror as a genre in Bollywood has also reinvented itself over the years.

Unlike the horror films of the 1980s, which were designed for an adult audience, horror films nowadays have become a collective cinematic experience, fit for family viewing.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Ramsay Brothers ruled the Hindi horror scene with hits like Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche (1972) and Purana Mandir (1984), built on a formula of exaggerated ghosts, witches, gore, and titillation.

“The films were profitable but lacked the legitimacy and appeal that could attract big actors and wider viewership,” says Taran Adarsh, a trade analyst.

In the new millennium, producer brothers Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt, along with director Vikram Bhatt, took the reins of the genre.

Their Raaz series (The first film released in 2002) – a sleeker reimagining of the Ramsay Brothers’ formula, featuring chart-topping songs and sensual scenes – achieved significant success.

But apart from a few exceptions, the charm of horror films remained limited.

The turning point came in 2007, when Bhool Bhulaiyaa’s first part, starring Akshay Kumar and Vidya Balan, hit theatres.

Adapted from the 1993 Malayalam blockbuster Manichitrathazhu, the movie offered a perfect blend of humour and horror and became an instant hit with the audiences.

The genre – with its newfound family-friendly approach, which tones down explicit content – gained more popularity with the release of Stree in 2018, which combined horror with social themes like patriarchy and feminism.

Anees Bazmee, the director of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and 3, says a big part of his vision was to ensure his films are enjoyable for children. “I wanted them to be on the edge of their seats but never truly scared, like a roller-coaster ride – happy on the ascent, with a thrill of fear on the descent,” he told the BBC.

And it’s not just humour, there are other common elements as well – most of these films are set in small towns and cities and combine local folklore with universal themes of kindness, bravery and the eventual triumph of good over evil.

Take the film Tumbbad, a bold blend of mythology, horror and moral lessons.

The film follows Vinayak, who discovers a treasure guarded by a cursed creature and attempts to steal it, only to realise greed is a deadly trap. Originally released in 2018, the film was re-released in cinemas earlier this year, managing to earn more than its original collection.

Mr Adarsh says there is no doubt that horror is enjoying a “revival” at the box office this year.

But others warn against the oversimplification of the trend.

“Bhool Bhulaiyaa was our first horror-comedy success that established a successful formula,” says Munjya director Aditya Sarpotdar.

“But it took more than a decade to come up with the next big hit (Stree),” he adds.

Bazmee says that often, it’s the plot and not the genre that determines a film’s popularity.

“In the end, it’s always the well-made films that work. That’s always going to be a fundamental factor,” he says.

The MTV Awards came to Manchester for the first time in their 30-year history on Sunday night, but somehow didn’t feel very Mancunian.

There was no sign of Take That or Aitch, or Liam Gallagher – even though he won best rock star.

Organisers made a few subtle nods to the city: The stage was framed in the black and yellow stripes of Factory Records, and New Order’s Blue Monday pumped through the speakers every time nominees were announced.

But the show took a more global perspective, highlighting acts from Mexico, South Korea, South Africa and America – including a predictable victory for Taylor Swift in the night’s two biggest categories, best artist and video of the year.

She only appeared by video, choosing instead to spend the night watching her boyfriend, American Football player Travis Kelce, lead the Kansas City Chiefs to victory against the Denver Broncos.

But there were plenty of other stars at the show and on the red carpet. Here’s some of the gossip we picked up along the way.

Two weeks ago, Raye told fans her second album had been delayed by thieves who stole her car and, with it, several notebooks full of lyrics and song ideas.

On the red carpet, she confirmed the police hadn’t been able to track them down, saying: “I’ve just had to let it go.”

The singer said she couldn’t recreate a lot of the ideas, because the act of writing them down freed her mind to work on other things.

“You let it go, because you think you can come back to it – and now there are so many ideas that are just gone. It’s so sad.”

But the singer, who won best UK artist, maintained a positive outlook.

“Everything happens for a reason. I’ll have to start again and maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”

The decision to bring rap legend Busta Rhymes to Manchester to receive a global icon award wasn’t as random as it sounded.

Before he developed his rapid-fire rap delivery, an 11-year-old Rhymes spent two summers living with his Aunt Velma in Morecambe.

“I went to karate school, and we illegally went into nightclubs, to make a little money break-dancing,” he told us.

“I remember Boy George was cool, Wham was cool,” he continued.

“But our favourite was Benny Hill. Benny Hill is still our favourite to this day. I don’t think anybody has as ever been as funny or as charismatic as Benny Hill.”

So, during those halcyon days of watching smutty comedy in Morecambe, did he ever think he’d be back, winning a lifetime achievement prize?

“You can never foresee something like that,” he said. “When we first got involved with hip-hop, we didn’t do it for none of the accolades. We just did it because we loved it.

“But with that being said, tonight is a dream come true.”

To honour that moment, he gave a nine-minute acceptance speech thanking everyone from his mother to an art teacher he’d met backstage.

“I’ve never got an award from MTV before. Thirty four years of professionally recording [and] this is the first time I’m getting an award from MTV. It feels incredible.”

Olly Alexander played a pre-show party on Saturday night, and couldn’t quite believe the reception for Dizzy – the song which earned him 18th place at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

“That went down a lot better than it did in Eurovision,” he laughed, shortly before Jedward invaded the stage and caused utter chaos.

At the main ceremony, Alexander was there to award song of the year to Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso. But he also had a few words for anyone considering representing the UK at next year’s contest.

“I would say to them, whoever it is, ‘Call me, and we will have a serious conversation about it’,” he said with the haunted look of a man who has

In addition to winning best new artist, US singer Benson Boone opened the ceremony with a spectacular performance that saw him suspended mid-air on a grand piano, before pulling off a spectacular front flip from a platform at the side of the stage.

“The insurance is always crazy,” he laughed, “but I love to perform.”

One person who couldn’t believe his eyes was Happy Mondays star Bez, who accosted Boone during an interview with Rita Ora.

“I was so blown away by that performance, mate,” he told the singer.

“When you came down on that shiny piano, I thought, ‘Elton John is going to be so gutted.'”

Manchester is home to the UK’s biggest K-Pop shop and, on Sunday morning, the staff couldn’t quite believe one of the genre’s biggest girl bands had landed in their city.

“Le Sserafim were posting pictures from the Christmas market,” one of them told me. “That’s only five minutes from here!”

The five-piece, who’ve been setting chart records over in the US, jetted in for their first-ever UK performance, a mash-up of Chasing Lightning and the 90s house banger Crazy.

But they were more excited to be out on the town without being mobbed.

“It was so good, we had baklava!” enthused singer Huh Yun-Jin; while her bandmate Sakura tucked into a portion of fish and chips.

“It was my first time,” she said. “I loved it.”

On stage at the EMAs, the band got one of the biggest screams of the night, despite being relatively unknown in the UK… for now.

“Coming to Europe is something that we’ve always dreamt of, so this is absolutely surreal,” said Yun-Jin. “We just want to make a good impression.”

Mission accomplished.

For absolutely no reason at all, Jedward went on a massive charm offensive for the international press.

“Oasis are back and Jedward are back!” they declared, before racing over to baffled German and French journalists, while singing Stop Crying Your Heart Out.

This went on for two deliriously brilliant hours, as the twins, who found fame on The X Factor 15 years ago, insisted that “a lot of artists have been inspired by Jedward”.

And, to be fair, they have proof. Mercury Prize nominee CMAT recently said the brothers had encouraged her to finish her second album, with a motivational voice message.

“You have to think about it, in life,” explained John.

“Don’t always think you’re the main character. Reach out to other people. Serve that tennis ball and see what they do.”

“It’s always about keeping that spark alive,” added Edward. “We’re like a support animal for all the artists.”

They were, to be honest, an absolute blast.

Liam Payne won 12 MTV EMAs during his time in One Direction, and later used the ceremony to launch his solo career, performing his global smash hit Strip That Down at the 2017 ceremony.

It was only fitting that the event marked his death – but striking the right tone in the middle of a huge showbiz event is never easy.

In the end, his friend and collaborator Rita Ora just spoke from the heart.

“There were so many ways that we were talking about honouring him,” she said. “But sometimes simply speaking is enough.”

Addressing the camera directly, she shared her memories of the 31-year-old, as her voice cracked.

“Liam Payne was one of the kindest people that I knew,” she said. “He brought so much joy to every room he walked into. And he left such a mark on this world.”

It was sombre and restrained, yet powerfully emotional. Ora wasn’t the only one crying.

South African star Tyla, best known for her viral hit Water, clinched both the best R&B and best Afrobeats awards.

The awards marked her continued ascent, after being named one of the BBC’s Sounds of 2024 – but she made sure to honour her inspirations.

On the red carpet, she rocked a vintage Roberto Cavalli dress with a turquoise blue zebra print.

The exact same dress had previously been worn by US rapper Eve at the 2000 Soul Train Awards.

And R&B legend Aaliyah wore a canary yellow version at the 2000 MTV Awards, where she won best female video for Try Again.

The ceremony took place in September 2000, less than a year before Aaliyah’s tragic death in an plane accident.

The singer was just 22 at the time – the same age that Tyla is now.

Donald Trump’s Florida residence and private club Mar-a-Lago is once again the Winter White House – the place to be seen for West Wing hopefuls as the US president-elect assembles a new administration behind its opulent doors.

While President Joe Biden will remain in office until January, this part of Florida has become a rival centre of political power in America.

Just two years after an FBI raid found classified documents about US nuclear weapons and spy satellites stored in a bathroom, an eclectic mix of insiders are swarming to Mar-a-Lago, which is patrolled by robot dogs and armed guards on boats.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, rumoured as a potential energy secretary, was there on election night. So was former US Defence Department chief of staff Kash Patel.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been alongside Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago during family dinners and calls with world leaders.

Musk has been photographed inside the private club with his son and on the runway of Palm Beach International Airport, as he shuttles back and forth to be by the president-elect’s side.

For those not blessed with an invitation to stay at Mar-a-Lago itself, the hotels and restaurants around nearby West Palm Beach are packed with office-seekers jostling for influence in the new administration and supporters celebrating Trump’s victory.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, vaccine sceptic and scion of the one of the most famous US political dynasties, was by the swanky pool bar of The Ben hotel, where a fake ice rink and Christmas tree greet guests.

Giant, golden Great Dane dog sculptures adorn the lobby and every floor outside the lifts.

He is part of the transition team and the one-time presidential candidate is vying for a role with influence over health policy.

Speaking even before the election, alongside the former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat-turned-Republican, he said: “There’s people of all different kinds of ideology and people that we’re going to have to go up against in that transition team and fight for our vision.”

Also spotted at The Ben was outspoken Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who recently blamed the Biden administration for causing flooding in Republican areas of North Carolina. She is believed to be jockeying for a cabinet position.

At The Breakers, an opulent Italian Renaissance-style oceanfront hotel, the young valets were most star struck by the visit of Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, who joined his friend Trump on stage on election night, but who says he has no personal political aspirations.

The same cannot be said for others. One GOP insider that the BBC ran into in the corridors said the transition was “a free for all”, as different factions of the party battle for dominance.

“Trump loves to see people scramble and suck up.”

But the insider noted with a hint of worry that some “minimally acceptable people are starting to say they don’t want a role”.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, for one, has conveyed that he isn’t interested in working in the administration and would prefer a Senate leadership position.

Donald Trump is expected to focus less on elected officials to fill senior positions.

His son, Don Jr, said during an interview on Fox News that he wants people who “don’t think they know better” than his father and that he’s prepared to block anyone he thinks would be a disaster.

The president-elect has been vocal about doing things differently this time around, feeling his biggest mistake during his first presidency was hiring “bad people, or disloyal people”.

Back in 2016, plans for the transition that had been prepared by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in concert with the outgoing Obama administration were laid to waste.

Once the Trump team won what was seen as an improbable victory, they decided on an unconventional approach and fired Christie.

What ensued was an Apprentice-style parade of people to Trump Tower in New York that played out in front of the cameras.

Back then, news crews packed into the lobby to capture everyone headed up the golden elevator to see Donald Trump on the 26th floor.

While the world was still trying to understand what a Trump presidency would look like, those with influence in Wall Street, media, politics and entertainment all sought an audience, including Bill Gates, Al Gore and even Kanye West.

This time around, Trump seems to be prioritising loyalty, tallying up who has been with him since day one.

And the world’s media are crammed onto hotel balconies and the parks and beaches surrounding Mar-a-Lago, where security is at fortress levels.

The transition process is still unconventional by design, but so far it is far more behind the scenes than in 2016.

Trump’s first appointment – Florida political consultant Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff – does offer one clue that a well-built Florida conservative political operation could be ready to replicate its success in the White House.

• Who is in the frame to join Trump’s new top team?

Slater Bayliss, co-founder of a Florida-based lobbying firm, Advocacy Partners, has worked both for and against Ms Wiles during election battles in the state and much prefers to be on her side.

“I would say, borrowing a nickname from our friends across the pond, Susie is the Iron Lady of American electoral politics.”

He says offers have been flooding in from talent across the state, which has served as a “stronghold of resistance for smart conservative thinkers who love our country and desire to play a role in making it more reflective of our electorate”.

Republican political consultant Max Goodman says there is anticipation of a Florida wave crashing into Washington.

He expects Trump’s team will be mining staffers in Susie Wiles’s team and in the state, whose congressional and Senate delegations came out early for Trump.

“There is no hotter political farm system in the country than the state of Florida, when you have a president and the most prolific political consultant turned chief of staff calling Florida home,” he said.

Despite having the second largest Republican congressional delegation in the country, Mr Goodman says Florida has “notoriously been snubbed” when it comes to having a seat at the leadership table.

He believes that could change with Ms Wiles leading the charge, and with key Floridians such as Rick Scott potentially in line as Senate Majority leader and Senator Marco Rubio in contention for a high-profile cabinet position.

One person who has thrown his hand up to work in the transition is Joe Gruters, who is waiting to see how that shapes up.

He was the 2016 co-chairman of Trump’s Florida campaign with Ms Wiles, then the chairman of the Republican state party, and is now a state senator.

Mr Gruters describes himself as a “loyal foot soldier”, who was the only member of the Florida legislature to immediately endorse Trump’s 2024 bid and appear at Mar-a-Lago for his announcement.

He is counting on Ms Wiles taking her “battle-tested” lieutenants up with her to Washington to fill out positions.

“They know who the true believers are… and they probably have a clear idea of who they’re going to put in most of these positions,” Mr Gruters said.

Palm Beach didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for Donald Trump when he first arrived on the scene with his purchase of Mar-a-Lago in the 1980s.

But walking around town now, it’s obvious that this is firmly Maga country – Trump-branded bikinis and hats are a common sight.

Next week, Argentina’s President Javier Milei is expected to visit Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump and Elon Musk.

Also next week, CPAC, or the Conservative Political Action Conference, is hosting its annual investors summit at Mar-a-Lago with tickets costing up to $25,000 (£19,350).

And it’s unlikely the migration south will stop once Donald Trump is inaugurated and occupies the Oval Office once more.

Slater Bayliss – the Florida lobbyist – thinks Trump will want to spend as much time in Florida as possible during his second term.

That will go some way, he said, in “making the 62,500 square feet of Mar-a -Lago the most sacred real-estate in the political universe”.

When dairy farmer Patrick Holden sat down at his kitchen table to read his emails one day in July, he couldn’t believe his luck. A buyer, who claimed to represent a French supermarket chain, wanted to buy 22 tonnes of Hafod, his specialist cheddar.

“It was the biggest order for our cheese we’ve ever received,” he recalls, “and, because it was from France, I thought, ‘finally, people on the continent are appreciating what we do’.”

The order had been made through Neal’s Yard Dairy, an upmarket cheese seller and wholesaler, and the first batch of Hafod arrived at its London base in September. It took up just one square metre on a pallet but represented two years of effort and had a wholesale value of £35,000.

• Listen to Dan read this article

“It’s one of the most special cheeses being made in the UK,” explains Bronwen Percival, a buyer at Neal’s Yard Dairy. Once bound in muslin cloth and sealed with a layer of lard, Hafod is aged for 18 months.

The farm didn’t have enough to fulfil the order, so 20 tonnes of Somerset cheddar was also provided by two other dairy farms to make it up; in all, this was £300,000-worth of some of the most expensive cheese made in the UK.

On 14 October, it was collected from Neal’s Yard’s warehouse by a courier and taken to a depot – and then, mysteriously, it disappeared.

There had, in fact, been no order. It came instead from someone impersonating the supposed buyer.

The theft made global headlines, and was nicknamed “the grate cheese robbery”. British chef Jamie Oliver warned his followers on X: “If anyone hears anything about posh cheese going for cheap, it’s probably some wrong’uns.”

In late October, a 63-year-old man was arrested in London, then released on bail. And there has been no news since. The 950 truckles of cheese – roughly the weight of four full-sized elephants – have disappeared without a trace.

“It is ridiculous,” says fellow cheesemaker Tom Calver, whose cheddar was part of the stolen consignment. “Out of all the things to steal in the world – 22 tonnes of cheese?”

And yet it isn’t as surprising as it at first seems – for this is far from the first theft of its kind.

Food-related crimes – which include smuggling, counterfeiting, and out-and-out theft – cost the global food industry between US $30 to 50 billion a year (£23-£38 billion), according to the World Trade Organisation. These range from hijackings of freight lorries delivering food to warehouses to the theft of 24 live lobsters from a storage pen in Scotland.

But a number of these food crimes have also targeted the cheese industry – and in particular luxury cheese.

Last year, in the run-up to Christmas, around £50,000 worth of cheese was stolen from a trailer in a service station on the M5 near Worcester. The problem isn’t a new one – as far back as 1998, thieves broke into a storeroom and took nine tonnes of cheddar from a family-run farm in Somerset.

It’s happening elsewhere in Europe, too: in 2016, criminals made off with £80,000 of Parmigiano Reggiano from a warehouse in northern Italy. This particular type of parmesan, which requires at least a year to mature, is created by following a process that has been in place, with little modification, for almost 1,000 years. At the time of the heist, Italy’s Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium told CBS news that about $7 million (£5.4m) worth of cheese had been stolen in a two-year period.

The problem is only set to rise across the industry as cheese becomes more valuable. The overall price of food and non-alcoholic drinks in the UK rose around 25% between January 2022 and January 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics. Cheese, meanwhile, saw a similar price hike in the space of a single year.

“Cheesemaking is an energy-intensive business,” says Patrick McGuigan, a specialist in the dairy sector. This is because in the production process milk needs to be heated up and, once made, cheese is stored in energy-hungry refrigerators, meaning that fuel prices play a big part in the cost. “And so there was a big price increase following the disruption caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

In 2024, overall food price inflation in the UK has fallen to 1.7 per cent, but less so for cheese. “The retail price of cheddar increased by 6.5 per cent up to May 2024,” adds McGuigan. “This is why we’re seeing security tags on blocks of cheddar in supermarkets. Based on price alone, cheese is one of the most desirable foods a criminal can steal.”

Yet it isn’t the easiest product to shift – particularly farmhouse cheese, most of which tends to be heavy and bulky and must be kept at specific temperatures. As such, transporting it can be a costly, complicated procedure that is beyond most criminals – unless, of course, they are organised.

But the question that remains is who exactly these organised criminals are – and where does the cheese end up?

“There is a long-established connection between food and organised crime,” says Andy Quinn of the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU), which was established in 2015 following the 2013 horse meat scandal. One example of this is the high proportion of illegal drugs smuggled through legal global food supply chains.

In September, dozens of kilograms of cocaine were found in banana deliveries to four stores of a French supermarket, with police unsure who the intended recipient was. For the drugs to reach the end of the food supply chain is highly unusual, but this method of transporting illegal items across borders in containers of food is common.

According to Quinn, once drug cartels and other criminal operators gain a foothold into how a food business operates, they spot other opportunities. “They will infiltrate a legitimate business, take control of its distribution networks and use it to move other illegal items, including stolen food.”

For criminal networks, food has other attractions. “They know crimes involving food result in less severe convictions than for importing drugs,” says Quinn, “but they can still make similar amounts of money.” Particularly if it’s a premium cheese.

The problem for the criminals is what to do with it. “There are few places to offload them,” says Jamie Montgomery, who runs the Somerset farm that was targeted in the 1998 heist. “Shifting that much artisan cheese is difficult.”

This is why people in the industry believe stolen cheese is often sent overseas to countries where there are thriving food black markets – and indeed cheese black markets.

Russia is one country where there is a thriving black market for cheese. Following the illegal annexation of Crimea in March 2014, the EU and other states imposed economic sanctions on Russia. President Vladimir Putin responded by banning fresh produce from the countries behind the sanctions.

State television made a great show of the ban by broadcasting footage of foreign food being bulldozed, buried or burned, including huge cheeses being dumped and crushed.

Soon the so-called “fromagicide” was worldwide news.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, sanctions have been further tightened and the availability of certain food from the West has become even more limited, among them Scottish whisky and Norwegian salmon. At the same time, the black market in Russia for high-end foods from the EU has been growing.

“Cheese and wine are two of the most common products being transported illegally into Russia,” says Professor Chris Elliott, founder of the Global Institute for Food Security and a senior scientific advisor to the UN, “and there are sophisticated routes across Europe’s borders through Belarus and Georgia”.

Many Russians feel that the quality of local cheese doesn’t compare to banned foreign goods, so there is wide demand. Indeed, after the ban, some resorted to extreme measures – one man was caught attempting to drive into Russia from Poland with 460kg of banned cheese on the backseat of his car.

Since 2014, expensive and complex varieties of cheese from countries that were not previously known for their cheese have appeared on shop shelves, such as Belarusian camembert and parmesan. Some companies import European cheese to Belarus or other CIS countries, where the label is swapped so that it can be sold legally in Russian shops.

There were also reports of corner shops becoming black market cheese dealers.

Corruption makes the movement of sanction-busting food possible, says Prof Elliott. “So much money is involved that officials, including border guards, can be paid off. Sanctioned goods are bought and sold through digital networks and these online orders also make it into shops.”

Paul Thomas spent years running cheesemaking courses in Russia. When he visited Moscow after the sanctions were tightened, he observed firsthand that banned cheeses were being displayed openly on the shelves of shops. “There was plenty of authentic Italian Parmigiano Reggiano and French Roquefort, all clearly labelled”.

He also observed that cheesemakers in Russia have been boosting production and attempting to emulate types of European cheese.

It’s not just Russia – in various parts of the Middle East, for example, food subsidies in one country can provide an incentive to smuggle ingredients into others where governments provide no support and prices are high. Counterfeiting, or creating a replica of an official type of cheese, is also common in the region.

And in the US, strict federal rules mean it’s illegal to produce or import unpasteurised cheeses aged for less than 60 days, leading to a black market for raw-milk products such as French classics Brie de Meaux and Mont d’Or. In 2015, a raw-milk trafficking gang was prosecuted for distributing unpasteurised cheeses.

Food counterfeiting also happens in the US – in some cases, cheap and even dangerous ingredients are being used to produce “fake” versions of expensive cheese, such as parmesan made using additives derived from wood pulp.

Andy Quinn explains: “Food chains are truly global. The same goes for the movement of illegal food.”

Now, many in the industry are fighting back, however. Italy’s Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium – the cheesemakers behind the world’s most stolen cheese – have said that the black market for that variety is “robust”. This is partly down to the fact that it is hugely valuable, generating global sales of almost £3bn a year – and so they have come up with a unique way of protecting it.

In 2022, the consortium began introducing tracking chips, no larger than a grain of rice, as part of the label embedded in the hard rind of the cheese. This helps to reduce thefts, but also means counterfeit Parmigiano Reggiano can be identified, as each tiny chip contains a unique digital ID that can authenticate the cheese.

Buyers can now scan each wheel to check its authenticity or find out if it was stolen. The consortium is yet to release any figures showing whether the technology is cutting down levels of fraud.

Neal’s Yard Dairy says it plans to use a less high-tech approach to preventing future fraud, including visiting buyers in person when big cheese orders are made, rather than relying on digital contracts and emails.

As for what will become of the cheddar stolen in the October heist, there may be no swift solution: given that they could easily be stored for as long as two years, the cheese could still surface many months from now.

“A criminal could hide tonnes away and then pass them slowly, truckle by truckle, into supply chains,” says Ben Lambourne of the online retailer Pong Cheese.

For the cheesemakers, this isn’t just about a stolen food; the missing Hafod, Westcombe and Pitchfork represent ways of farming and food production that took thousands of years to evolve, shaped landscapes and became part of British culture, yet which have been all but lost in just a few generations.

Lancashire-based cheesemonger Andy Swinscoe says that at the beginning of the 20th Century, in the area surrounding his shop there were 2,000 farmhouse cheesemakers. Today, there are just five. There have been declines in Somerset with cheddar makers, in the East Midlands with Stilton and in the north-west with Cheshire cheese.

“It would be impossible for these small family farms to survive by selling liquid milk,” says Swinscoe – but they can add value by turning their milk into a farmhouse cheese.

Patrick Holden admits that the financial loss from this theft would have had a huge impact on his farm. “A fraud of this scale can easily spell the end of a farm and cheesemaking.” In this instance, Neal’s Yard paid its suppliers in full, describing the effect of the fraud on their business as “a significant financial blow”.

Unless crimes like this are stopped, however, other farms and businesses will suffer similar blows, particularly when luxury cheese remains sought-after and prized.

“Conflicts around the world, the cost-of-living crisis, even climate change, all increase the appeal for food fraud,” says the NFCU’s Andy Quinn. Until that changes, cheesemakers might need to tighten up their security – and think twice when an order seems too good to be true.

The price of bitcoin has risen above $80,000 (£62,000) for the first time ever, after Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the US election last week.

It comes as the Republicans are edging closer to overall control of Congress after having already secured the presidency and a majority in the Senate.

On the campaign trail the president-elect pledged to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet”.

The value of world’s biggest cryptocurrency has now risen by more than 80% this year.

Other cryptocurrencies, including dogecoin – which has been promoted by high-profile Trump supporter Elon Musk – are also making gains.

In the run-up to the election Trump said he would create a strategic bitcoin stockpile and appoint digital asset-friendly financial regulators – spurring expectations that he would strip back regulations on the crypto industry.

Trump has said one of his first actions as president would be to sack the current chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler.

Mr Gensler, who was appointed by Joe Biden in 2021, has led the SEC’s crackdown on the crypto industry.

“If the Trump administration does deregulate crypto, it’s hard to see how it is not bullish for the sector,” Matt Simpson, market analyst at StoneX Financial told the BBC, adding that such a move could lead bitcoin prices to jump to as high as $100,000.

But “it is still vulnerable to nasty selloffs along the way – which can be less kind to smaller pockets,” he added.

Trump’s broader agenda, which includes cutting taxes and reducing regulations on businesses, has also driven a surge in other investments since he won the election.

With Republicans in control of the executive and potentially both the legislative branches of the government, they will be able to advance his ideas through each chamber and send those bills for him to sign into law.

Major stock indexes, the dollar and US bonds have all made gains in recent days.

An Australian soldier has been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross – the Commonwealth’s highest military honour – for bravery during the Vietnam War.

The then 19-year-old Private Richard Norden ran into enemy fire to reach a wounded comrade and retrieve the body of another during a battle north-east of the capital, then known as Saigon, in 1968.

He survived the battle but died at the age of 24 in a traffic accident while on duty as a police officer in Canberra

More than 60,000 Australians – about a quarter of them conscripted – served in controversial Vietnam War from 1962 to 1973, as part of an allied force led by the US.

“Private Richard Norden is a true Australian hero… [He] demonstrated extraordinary courage and selflessness by putting his own life at risk to save and protect his fellow comrades,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said after the announcement, on Remembrance Day.

Pte Norden’s company was ambushed by North Vietnamese Army soldiers on 14 May, 1968, with a scout immediately killed and the section Commander gravely injured.

Described as having a “complete disregard for his own personal safety”, he ran forward under heavy enemy fire to reach the two soldiers and carried the severely wounded section Commander back to his group.

Himself seriously wounded by that point, Pte Norden then went back for the scout. Finding him dead, he then returned to the group to collect grenades before pushing into the battlefield for a third time, to clear the area so the scout’s body could be recovered.

Australia’s Governor-General Sam Mostyn said it was a “historic” day for the country and a “significant” moment for Pte Norden’s family.

“We are honoured that His Majesty has approved the Victoria Cross for Australia for Richard, recognising his gallantry actions whilst serving in Vietnam,” his widow, Robynn Freeman said in a statement.

A formal ceremony to present the medal to Pte Norden’s family will take place at a later date, yet to be announced.

Like in many other allied countries, the war was very divisive in Australia and thousands of Australians protested against it.

By the time the conflict ended in 1975, an estimated three million Vietnamese people had died, with the US losing over 58,000 people and Australia 521.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered what he called “total support” for Africa, including in the struggle against terrorism and extremism.

The speech was read out at a summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to his African counterparts.

Several African governments have cut ties with traditional Western allies and are looking to Moscow for help in tackling frequent attacks by jihadists.

During the summit, Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré said Russia was a more suitable international partner than the former colonial power, France.

• How Russia is trying to influence Africa
• How Wagner has rebranded in Africa

It is a view shared by several of France’s former colonies – and was reiterated by Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, who contrasted the Kremlin’s “sincere” partnership to the “neo-colonial” relationship of Western powers.

He said that as well as military co-operation, Mali was exploring other joint projects in the energy, telecommunications, technology and mining sectors.

“Russian companies are working in all these areas with the Malian government and [private] partners in Mali to provide solutions to the challenges facing the Malian people. The two parties have agreed to step up the pace to ensure rapid results,” he said on the second and final day of the conference of African foreign ministers.

Wagner mercenary fighters – now rebranded under the Africa Corps banner by Russia’s defence ministry – were the preferred choice for the military leaders who ordered French and UN troops to leave.

Russia’s help, often in exchange for access to raw materials, also comes with a promise that there will be no meddling in a country’s internal affairs or lessons on how to run an election.

However, Russia’s military expeditions to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have helped protect the junta leaders there, but have failed to make much progress in the fight against Islamist militants.

Nonetheless, the Kremlin is trumpeting about these new-found friends, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying the conference had dashed Western hopes for Russia’s isolation.

And Lavrov said Russia’s relations with Africa were strengthening “more and more” with progress “on all axes”.

Putin’s speech underlined this point.

“I would like to reiterate that our country will continue to provide total support to our African friends in different sectors: ensuring sustainable development, the struggle against terrorism and extremism, combating epidemics, food problems and the consequences of natural disasters,” it said.

Emanuela Del Re, the EU special representative for the Sahel region of West Africa, told the BBC the West needed to accept the shifting sands of allegiances.

While Russia was “certainly a very malicious actor”, the Italian diplomat explained it had a strong bond with Africa going back to before independence and was not alone in its interest in the Sahel.

“It’s largely a desert but in reality the region is very crowded: because at the moment you see Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran… all member states of the EU and the UK,” she said.

In fact, African leaders were pragmatic about their need to “diversify their partnerships”, Ms Del Re said, adding it was not a time for the EU to abandon what she called the “three difficult countries” of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which have all experienced coups in recent years.

Her point was that it should not be seen as a competition.

Rwanda, which has strong ties with the UK and the West, is one of several African countries that have already signed deals with Moscow to get help building a nuclear power plant.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe, who is also in Sochi, told the AFP news agency hundreds of Rwandan students had graduated from Russian universities, including “those who specialise in nuclear science”.

“We hope to be able to train a certain number of scientific managers specialising in this field,” he added.

Five years ago, Putin promised to double trade with Africa – this has not happened.

But using other means, which the West sees as destabilising the continent, Russia’s influence has grown significantly.

• Was Ukraine’s role in big Wagner defeat an own goal in Africa?
• Why Wagner is winning hearts in the Central African Republic
• Wagner – built by blood and treasure in Africa

A 37-year-old Irish man has been arrested in connection with the murder of an American nurse in Hungary, police say.

Mackenzie Michalski, 31, from Portland, Oregon, was reported missing after a night out in Hungary’s capital, Budapest, on Tuesday.

Officers said the suspect was identified through CCTV footage and later confessed to killing Ms Michalski, but claimed her death had been an accident.

In a statement, put out on Saturday, police said the man had attempted to conceal Ms Michalski’s death by renting a car, putting her body in a suitcase and hiding it in woodland near the village of Szigliget in the country’s west.

Officers said Ms Michalski was killed during an “intimate encounter” with the suspect, but did not provide any further details.

They were able to establish that the pair had met at a nightclub, danced together and then travelled to the man’s rented apartment.

He was arrested there on Thursday evening, and has been remanded in custody.

After being questioned, the suspect showed detectives where he had disposed of Ms Michalski’s body, the police statement said.

It added that the man had placed the nurse’s body in a wardrobe while he cleaned his apartment – in a bid to “remove traces” of the alleged murder – before driving to the woods.

Ms Michalski was reported missing by friends when she failed to return to their accommodation.

During the course of their investigation, police said they uncovered evidence which “gave rise to the suspicion of murder”.

Following Ms Michalski’s disappearance, the man made a series of online searches – including “what does a dead body smell like after it decomposes?”, “how do the police handle missing person cases?”, and “removing rotting meat smell”.

He is also alleged to have searched whether pigs eat dead bodies and about the appearance of wild boar along Lake Balaton – a body of water near Szigliget.

In footage released by Hungarian police, a man in handcuffs can be seen guiding officers through woodland. Sniffer dogs and forensic investigators are present.

A Facebook group, called Find Mackenzie Michalski, says the 31-year-old often went by the nickname Kenzie.

On Saturday, her friends held a candlelit vigil close to the US embassy in Budapest.

Over the past few months the BBC has been exploring a dark, hidden world – a world where the very worst, most horrifying, distressing, and in many cases, illegal online content ends up.

Beheadings, mass killings, child abuse, hate speech – all of it ends up in the inboxes of a global army of content moderators.

You don’t often see or hear from them – but these are the people whose job it is to review and then, when necessary, delete content that either gets reported by other users, or is automatically flagged by tech tools.

The issue of online safety has become increasingly prominent, with tech firms under more pressure to swiftly remove harmful material.

And despite a lot of research and investment pouring into tech solutions to help, ultimately for now, it’s still largely human moderators who have the final say.

Moderators are often employed by third-party companies, but they work on content posted directly on to the big social networks including Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.

They are based around the world. The people I spoke to while making our series The Moderators for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, were largely living in East Africa, and all had since left the industry.

Their stories were harrowing. Some of what we recorded was too brutal to broadcast. Sometimes my producer Tom Woolfenden and I would finish a recording and just sit in silence.

“If you take your phone and then go to TikTok, you will see a lot of activities, dancing, you know, happy things,” says Mojez, a former Nairobi-based moderator who worked on TikTok content. “But in the background, I personally was moderating, in the hundreds, horrific and traumatising videos.

“I took it upon myself. Let my mental health take the punch so that general users can continue going about their activities on the platform.”

There are currently multiple ongoing legal claims that the work has destroyed the mental health of such moderators. Some of the former workers in East Africa have come together to form a union.

“Really, the only thing that’s between me logging onto a social media platform and watching a beheading, is somebody sitting in an office somewhere, and watching that content for me, and reviewing it so I don’t have to,” says Martha Dark who runs Foxglove, a campaign group supporting the legal action.

In 2020, Meta then known as Facebook, agreed to pay a settlement of $52m (£40m) to moderators who had developed mental health issues because of their jobs.

The legal action was initiated by a former moderator in the US called Selena Scola. She described moderators as the “keepers of souls”, because of the amount of footage they see containing the final moments of people’s lives.

The ex-moderators I spoke to all used the word “trauma” in describing the impact the work had on them. Some had difficulty sleeping and eating.

One described how hearing a baby cry had made a colleague panic. Another said he found it difficult to interact with his wife and children because of the child abuse he had witnessed.

I was expecting them to say that this work was so emotionally and mentally gruelling, that no human should have to do it – I thought they would fully support the entire industry becoming automated, with AI tools evolving to scale up to the job.

But they didn’t.

What came across, very powerfully, was the immense pride the moderators had in the roles they had played in protecting the world from online harm.

They saw themselves as a vital emergency service. One says he wanted a uniform and a badge, comparing himself to a paramedic or firefighter.

“Not even one second was wasted,” says someone who we called David. He asked to remain anonymous, but he had worked on material that was used to train the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, so that it was programmed not to regurgitate horrific material.

“I am proud of the individuals who trained this model to be what it is today.”

But the very tool David had helped to train, might one day compete with him.

Dave Willner is former head of trust and safety at OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. He says his team built a rudimentary moderation tool, based on the chatbot’s tech, which managed to identify harmful content with an accuracy rate of around 90%.

“When I sort of fully realised, ‘oh, this is gonna work’, I honestly choked up a little bit,” he says. “[AI tools] don’t get bored. And they don’t get tired and they don’t get shocked…. they are indefatigable.”

Not everyone, however, is confident that AI is a silver bullet for the troubled moderation sector.

“I think it’s problematic,” says Dr Paul Reilly, senior lecturer in media and democracy at the University of Glasgow. “Clearly AI can be a quite blunt, binary way of moderating content.

“It can lead to over-blocking freedom of speech issues, and of course it may miss nuance human moderators would be able to identify. Human moderation is essential to platforms,” he adds.

“The problem is there’s not enough of them, and the job is incredibly harmful to those who do it.”

We also approached the tech companies mentioned in the series.

A TikTok spokesperson says the firm knows content moderation is not an easy task, and it strives to promote a caring working environment for employees. This includes offering clinical support, and creating programs that support moderators’ wellbeing.

They add that videos are initially reviewed by automated tech, which they say removes a large volume of harmful content.

Meanwhile, Open AI – the company behind Chat GPT – says it’s grateful for the important and sometimes challenging work that human workers do to train the AI to spot such photos and videos. A spokesperson adds that, with its partners, Open AI enforces policies to protect the wellbeing of these teams.

And Meta – which owns Instagram and Facebook – says it requires all companies it works with to provide 24-hour on-site support with trained professionals. It adds that moderators are able to customise their reviewing tools to blur graphic content.

The prime minister of Mauritius has accepted that his coalition, L’Alliance Lepep, has suffered a “huge defeat” following Sunday’s parliamentary election.

“The population has decided to choose another team,” Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, 62, told journalists on Monday.

Jugnauth was seeking a second five-year term, but his main rival, Navin Ramgoolam, 77, leader of the Alliance of Change coalition, looks set to become the next leader of the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Mauritius is known as one of Africa’s most stable democracies, but this election was tainted by a phone-tapping scandal, with leaked recordings of public figures posted online.

In response, the government issued a social media ban until after the election, although this led to an outcry and the decision was reversed within 24 hours.

• Is this tiny Mauritian island a confidential spy station?
• A simple guide to Mauritius

Final results are yet to be released but Ramgoolam’s party looks set to win.

Ramgoolam, a former doctor, told reporters that his party was “heading towards a huge victory”, but didn’t go into any further detail as he said all votes must be counted first.

“We must respect this choice… and we wish the country and the population good luck,” said Jugnauth.

The mood in the capital Port Louis reflects this changing tide, as people gathered in hopeful anticipation of results that signal a fresh direction for the country.

People were dancing and singing in the streets with vuvuzelas, the national flags in their hands and fire crackers.

Ibrahim, who voted for the Alliance for Change told the BBC that “growing public dissatisfaction” was a major reason the ruling party lost.

The cost-of-living crisis has been a major issue for many Mauritians, along with a growing concern about governance and corruption.

On the campaign trail, both parties promised to improve the lives of people on the islands.

Ramgoolam – whose father was a liberation hero and has already twice served as prime minister – said he would increase pensions, introduce free transport and internet and reduce fuel costs.

Mauritius’ former foreign minister and a member of the opposition coalition, Arvin Boolell, told the BBC Newsday programme the election was a “victory of the people”.

Voter turnout was about 80%, according to the electoral commission.

Citizens went to the polls to elect lawmakers for the 62 seats in parliament for the next five years.

Additionally, up to eight “best loser” seats are allocated to ensure fair ethnic representation in parliament.

The vote comes after a historic agreement in which the UK gave up sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

• Chagossians criticise lack of say in UK deal to hand over islands
• What I found on the secretive tropical island they don’t want you to see
• Chagos islanders in emotional, historic trip home

A British teenager has been left in a serious condition after being hit by a paraglider while she ate a meal with her family on holiday.

Lily Nichol, 15, from Chester-le-Street in County Durham, was injured on Friday on the final day of her holiday in Oludeniz, a resort town in southwest Turkey.

She now needs multiple operations including back and jaw surgery, which would cost the family £45,000, Lyndsey Logan, her mother, told the BBC.

When Lily was eating pizza at a restaurant with her mum and older sister, a paraglider “came from nowhere”, Ms Logan said.

“Next thing we knew, my daughter was just unconscious on the floor,” she said.

“I was just screaming, crying for help,” Ms Logan continued. “I thought she was dead.”

Ms Logan said that Lily’s injuries included a broken jaw, a split tongue and four breaks in her spine, which meant that she cannot be moved from hospital.

Her eye was also “gashed open” and her teeth were “wobbly” and would need replacing, she said.

Doctors told her that Lily had also suffered a bleed on the brain but a scan later confirmed that she had no serious head injuries.

Ms Logan had not taken out travel insurance meaning the family has now been left to foot the bill for Lily’s medical care.

It has so far cost £7,200, which Lily’s father has paid, but the back and jaw surgery would add an extra £45,000.

Ms Logan said her family does not have the money, with Lily set to have the surgery on Monday.

Her mother said she would pay a deposit for the operation beforehand but would need to pay the full charge before Lily was able to leave hospital.

Lily’s family have set up an online fundraiser to try cover the costs.

“My daughter didn’t remember anything,” Ms Logan said. “She thought she was having a dream.”

On both Friday and Saturday nights, Lily had “bad nightmares,” Ms Logan said.

Her other daughter, Megan, 19, had also been knocked unconscious by the paraglider but was not as badly injured.

“She came around when I started screaming,” she said.

Ms Logan said that she was “absolutely traumatised” herself, adding: “I’ll never forget this day”.

The family have been in contact with the British Embassy in Turkey.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told the BBC: “We are providing support to a British girl and her family following an accident in Turkey.”

The Kremlin has denied media reports that US President-elect Donald Trump held a call with Vladimir Putin, in which he is said to have warned the Russian president against escalating the war in Ukraine.

The call, which was first reported by the Washington Post on Sunday, is said to have happened on Thursday.

Trump is also reported to have mentioned America’s extensive military presence in Europe to Putin.

A Kremlin spokesperson said the reports were “pure fiction”, while Trump’s team told the BBC that it would not comment on the president-elect’s “private calls”.

• Europe’s leaders face up to Trump victory at Hungarian summit
• Trump ally says Ukraine focus must be peace, not territory
• Moscow targeted as Ukraine and Russia trade huge drone attacks
• Return of unpredictable president puts UK defence spending top of agenda
• Trump tariffs could cost UK £22bn of exports

Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung told the BBC: “We do not comment on private calls between President Trump and other world leaders.”

But he said leaders had begun the process of contacting the president-elect.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied a conversation had taken place.

“This is completely untrue, it is pure fiction. That is, this is simply false information. There was no conversation,” Peskov said.

Trump has promised to end the nearly three-year long war in Ukraine, but has yet to outline how he intends to do so.

Zelensky has previously warned against conceding land to Russia and has said that without US aid, Ukraine would lose the war.

While Peskov on Sunday spoke to Russian state media of “positive” signals from the incoming US administration, others say they trust the future president will not abandon Ukraine.

They include John Healey, the British defence secretary, who said he expected the US “to remain alongside allies like the UK, standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes to prevail over Putin’s invasion”.

On Sunday, during a visit to Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that any end to the war needed to be sustainable.

“This is a warning for the ones who say, this war has to end, so let’s finish it as soon as possible no matter how. How matters,” he said.

In Washington, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said outgoing president Joe Biden would make the case to Trump that walking away from Ukraine would mean greater instability in Europe.

On Monday, Germany’s Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, warned that Putin could take advantage of the US post-election transition period to press Moscow’s advantage in Ukraine.

Urging Berlin and fellow European Union member states to increase aid to Kyiv, she said: “We don’t have time to wait until spring. Now is the transition phase that Putin has been waiting for and aiming for.”

Last week, Russia and Ukraine launched their largest drone attacks since the start of the war.

Russia’s defence ministry said it intercepted 84 Ukrainian drones over six regions, including some approaching Moscow, which forced flights to be diverted from three of the capital’s major airports.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 145 drones towards every part of the country on Saturday night, with most shot down.

On Monday, at least six people were killed and 21 others injured in Ukraine following the latest series of air strikes by Russia.

Russia, meanwhile, said it had destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones near the western regions of Kursk and Belgorod. It reported no deaths.

“Every day, every night, Russia unleashes the same terror,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter following Monday’s strike.

“More and more civilian sites are being targeted. Russia only wants to continue the war, and each of its strikes negates any claims of diplomacy from Russia.”

Zelensky asked for “stronger global support” and more weapons to stop Russian aggression.

Meanwhile, reports of Russian advances in Ukraine continue. Moscow’s defence ministry said on Monday that its forces had captured the village of Kolisnykivka in the Kharkiv region.

Russian territorial gains in October were the largest since March 2022, according to analysis of Institute for the Study of War data by the AFP news agency.

It started as a social media quest for breakfast dumplings, but ended with thousands of cyclists bringing traffic gridlock between two cities in central China.

What should have been a boost to the ancient city of Kaifeng’s economy backfired when the trend went viral – tens of thousands on rented bikes cycled through the night from nearby Zhenghou.

A six-lane expressway between the two cities quickly filled with cyclists as police took to loudspeakers urging them to leave. Bike rental firms warned they would remotely lock bikes taken out of Zhengzhou.

The event is part of a trend where young Chinese are travelling cheaply at a time when the economy is faltering and job prospects are scarce.

It began with four university students who cycled for 50km (30 miles) from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng in June to try guantangbao, a type of soup dumpling.

“You don’t get a second chance at youth, so you must go for a spontaneous trip with friends,” one of the four had told local media.

That message struck a chord with other young people in the city of 12.6 million – China’s young have increasingly been complaining of burnout from an overly-competitive and grinding job market.

Thus was born the social media trend “Night Ride to Kaifeng”.

State media initially praised it as a demonstration of young people’s “passion”. And local government saw it as an opportunity to recreate the instant fame that the town of Zibo enjoyed last year as millions arrived to sample its barbecues.

Before Friday night’s gridlock Kaifeng’s officials even announced discounts and events targeting college students. They also put in place additional traffic control measures to protect the cyclists.

“Everyone was beaming with energy and interacting with people around them. It was like back to my college days,” 27-year-old Ms Li told the BBC.

She rode a motorbike to Kaifeng along with the students on Friday night. She said she decided to join and “live like a young person for once” after she saw a post about the trend.

There was heavy police presence all the way, she added.

“You could see ambulances and traffic police cars on both sides of the road quite often, and there were also drones flying above to monitor the traffic.”

But the happy mood turned as the roads in Zhengzhou began to be overwhelmed by the thousands of bikes.

Pictures circulating online showed serious congestion on the main roads from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng. One witness told the local outlet Jimu News that his drive on that route, which usually took one hour, took three.

Some riders shared on social media that they were forced to get off their bikes and push their way through the crowd.

There was no official estimate of the number of bicycles on the road on Friday night. But reports on social media suggest the number ranged from 100,000 to 200,000.

And many of those who made it to Kaifeng didn’t seem to have enjoyed the experience.

“I really regret going,” said one viral post from a student, who rode more than seven hours. They couldn’t get a taxi or a hotel room as the demand was overwhelming.

“As I sat in a restaurant eating my meal, I heard the owner criticising college students for having nothing else to do… I’m really sorry for affecting the people in Kaifeng,” the student wrote.

Some users criticised the cyclists for “irresponsible” behaviour such as littering.

As the gridlock worsened, three major bike platforms in China issued a joint statement urging students to use trains or buses for long-distance travel and avoid using bikes at night for safety reasons.

By Saturday afternoon, the companies had begun charging those who rode to a different city.

Multiple social media posts suggest some universities in Zhengzhou have asked students to return to their dormitories and imposed restrictions on them leaving the campus.

Traffic police in both Zhengzhou and Kaifeng closed off some of the main cycling lanes between the two cities on Saturday and Sunday.

It is not surprising to see officials in both cities pushing back because Chinese authorities have always cracked down on large gatherings, which they fear can lead to protests or any form of political expression.

Last month, police in Shanghai silenced celebrations for Halloween over fears the revelries might be used to express dissent.

Ms Li says spontaneous gatherings – such as the Night Ride to Kaifeng – will keep happening simply because they appeal to young people.

“People are so stressed these days, so these events are a good thing,” she says. “Because happiness is infectious.”

Indian full-service carrier Vistara will operate its last flight on Monday, after nine years in existence.

A joint venture between Singapore Airlines and the Tata Sons, Vistara will merge with Tata-owned Air India to form a single entity with an expanded network and broader fleet.

This means that all Vistara operations will be transferred to and managed by Air India, including helpdesk kiosks and ticketing offices. The process of migrating passengers with existing Vistara bookings and loyalty programmes to Air India has been under way over the past few months.

“As part of the merger process, meals, service ware and other soft elements have been upgraded and incorporates aspects of both Vistara and Air India,” an Air India spokesperson said in an email response.

Amid concerns that the merger could impact service standards, the Tatas have assured that Vistara’s in-flight experience will remain unchanged.

Known for its high ratings in food, service, and cabin quality, Vistara has built a loyal customer base and the decision to retire the Vistara brand has been criticised by fans, branding experts, and aviation analysts.

The consolidation was effectively done to clean up Vistara’s books and wipe out its losses, said Mark Martin, an aviation analyst.

Air India has essentially been “suckered into taking a loss-making airline” in a desperate move, he added.

“Mergers are meant to make airlines powerful. Never to wipe out losses or cover them.”

To be sure, both Air India and Vistara’s annual losses have reduced by more than half over the past year, and other operating metrics have improved too. But the merger process so far has been turbulent.

The exercise has been riddled with problems – from pilot shortages that have led to massive flight cancellations, to Vistara crew going on mass sick leave over plans to align their salary structures with Air India.

There have also been repeated complaints about poor service standards on Air India, including viral videos of broken seats and non-functioning inflight entertainment systems.

The Tatas have announced a $400m (£308m) programme to upgrade and retrofit the interiors of its older aircraft and also a brand-new livery. They’ve also placed orders for hundreds of new Airbus and Boeing planes worth billions of dollars to augment their offering.

But this “turnaround” is still incomplete and riddled with problems, according to Mr Martin. A merger only complicates matters.

Experts say that the merger strikes a dissonant chord from a branding perspective too.

Harish Bijoor, a brand strategy specialist, told the BBC he was feeling “emotional” that a superior product offering like Vistara which had developed a “gold standard for Indian aviation” was ceasing operations.

“It is a big loss for the industry,” said Mr Bijoor, adding it will be a monumental task for the mother brand Air India to simply “copy, paste and exceed” the high standards set by Vistara, given that it’s a much smaller airline that’s being gobbled up by a much larger one.

Mr Bijoor suggests a better strategy would have been to operate Air India separately for five years, focusing on improving service standards, while maintaining Vistara as a distinct brand with Air India prefixed to it.

“This would have given Air India the time and chance to rectify the mother brand and bring it up to the Vistara level, while maintaining its uniqueness,” he adds.

Beyond branding, the merged entity will face a slew of operational challenges.

“Communication will be a major challenge in the early days, with customers arriving at the airport expecting Vistara flights, only to find Air India branding,” says Ajay Awtaney, editor of Live From A Lounge, an aviation portal. “Air India will need to maintain clear communication for weeks.”

Another key challenge, he notes, is cultural: Vistara’s agile employees may struggle to adjust to Air India’s complex bureaucracy and systems.

But the biggest task for the merged carrier would be offering customers a uniform flying experience.

These are “two airlines with very different service formats are being integrated into one airline. It is going to be a hotchpotch of service formats, cabin formats, branding, and customer experience. It will involve learning and unlearning, and such a process has rarely worked with airlines and is seldom effective,” said Mr Martin.

Still, many believe Vistara had to go – now or some years later.

A legacy brand like Air India, with strong global recognition and ‘India’ imprinted in its identity, wouldn’t have allowed a smaller, more premium subsidiary to overshadow its revival process.

Financially too, it makes little sense for the Tatas to have two loss-making entities compete with one another.

The combined strength of Vistara and Air India could also place the Tatas in a much better position to compete with market leader Indigo.

The unified Air India group (including Air India Express, which completed its merger with the former Air Asia India in October) “will be bigger and better with a fleet size of nearly 300 aircraft, an expanded network and a stronger workforce”, an Air India spokesperson said.

“Getting done with the merger means that Air India grows overnight, and the two teams start cooperating instead of competing. There will never be one right day to merge. Somewhere, a line had to be drawn,” said Mr Awtaney.

But for many Vistara loyalists, its demise leaves a void in India’s skies for a premium, full-service carrier – marking the third such gap after the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways.

It’s still too early to say if Air India, which often ranks at the bottom of airline surveys, can successfully fill that void.

US President-elect Donald Trump has made two more key appointments ahead of his return to the White House in January.

Tom Homan, 62, will serve as Trump’s “border tsar”, having previously served as the returning president’s acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, 40, has also been made ambassador to the United Nations, the BBC’s US partner CBS News has confirmed.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Republican Party are edging closer to full control of the US Congress. They already have a majority in the Senate and need to win just a handful of seats to take the House of Representatives.

A party needs 218 seats to win a House majority. The Republicans have 215 compared to the rival Democrats’ 210, according to CBS.

Control of the House gives a party the power to initiate spending legislation and launch impeachment proceedings against officials.

• Will Republicans win the House? The key races to watch
• Who’s in Trump’s top team and who is being linked to it?
• Who is Susie Wiles, Trump’s new chief of staff?
• Seven things Trump says he will do in power

A majority in the House, the lower chamber of Congress, alongside the Senate, the upper chamber, would give Trump a greater chance of getting his plans approved than if Democrats controlled one or both.

In the meantime, attention has switched to who he appoints to serve in his administration.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said Homan would be “in charge of our Nation’s Borders (“The Border Czar”), including, but not limited to, the Southern Border, the Northern Border, all Maritime, and Aviation Security”.

He continued: “Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin. Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job.”

One of Trump’s major campaign pledges was to deport immigrants who are in the US illegally.

A senior source close to Trump’s transition told CBS News that Trump had picked Stefanik for ambassador to the UN, and Stefanik accepted the role.

“I am honoured to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as US Ambassador to the United Nations,” Trump said shortly after in a statement to CBS News. “Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.”

She confirmed her acceptance of the role to the New York Post, saying she was “truly honoured”.

“During my conversation with President Trump, I shared how deeply humbled I am to accept his nomination and that I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the United States Senate,” she said.

Trump earlier appointed Susie Wiles as his chief of staff. In his election victory speech, Trump called her “the ice maiden” – a reference to her composure.

Other names in the running to join the administration are billionaire X owner Elon Musk, who played a key role in Trump’s campaign, and Robert F Kennedy Jr – who ran his own presidential campaign before endorsing Trump.

There is speculation that Florida Senator Rick Scott could be in line to become Senate majority leader, having received the backing of Musk and others.

Trump has said Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo – who both served in his first administration – will not be offered new positions.

Trump has confirmed that Homan will have a wide-ranging role overseeing border security and deportation policy – two of his main campaign issues.

Homan, a former police officer, also played an important role in Trump’s first presidency as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

He resigned in 2018 but remained a proponent of Trump’s hard-line approach. He supported separating migrant children from their parents as a means to deter illegal crossings, and has said politicians who support migrant sanctuary policies should be charged with crimes.

Homan is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation – a conservative think-tank that published the Project 2025 document, which set out a “wish list” for a second Trump presidency. Trump has distanced himself from the organisation.

Stefanik became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in 2014, then aged 30. She continues to represent New York’s 21st District.

After entering politics, the fourth-ranking House Republican initially positioned herself as a moderate and criticised Trump – but later became his loyal defender.

In his statement to the New York Post, Trump described her as “an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter”.

The UN ambassador role is crucial to global cooperation and security, and Stefanik’s nomination comes as conflicts continue to rage in Ukraine and the Middle East.

• UNITED KINGDOM: What does Trump victory mean for UK?
• GLOBAL: What Trump’s win means for Ukraine, Middle East and China
• AFRICA: Trade, aid, security: What does Trump’s win mean for Africa?
• ANALYSIS: Analysis: Will Trump’s victory spark a global trade war?
• 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 US politics in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has pulled his new children’s book from the shelves after complaints it stereotyped Indigenous Australians.

The 400-page fantasy novel, Billy and the Epic Escape, features an Aboriginal girl with mystical powers living in foster care who is abducted from her home in central Australia.

First Nations leaders have said the book reproduces “harmful stereotypes” and trivialises the “complex and painful” history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being forcibly removed from their families under government assimilation policies.

Oliver – who is in Australia promoting a new cookbook – has apologised and said he was “devastated” to have caused hurt.

“It was never my intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue,” he said in a statement.

Publisher Penguin Random House UK said that a consultation with Indigenous Australians requested by Oliver had not happened due to an “editorial oversight”.

Critics said the book contained language errors and oversimplified the identity of First Nations character Ruby.

“This superficial treatment of Ruby’s character dehumanises her, and by extension, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” said Sharon Davis of the First Nations educational body Natsiec.

Among the complaints is that Ruby is given the ability to read people’s minds and communicate with animals and plants, because “that’s the Indigenous way”.

Ms Davis said that reduced “complex and diverse belief systems” to “magic”.

The character is also at the centre of an abduction plot, something community leader Sue-Anne Hunter called a “particularly insensitive choice,” given the “painful historical context” of Australia’s Stolen Generations.

During the 20th Century, tens of thousands of Indigenous children were removed from their families under official government policies aimed at assimilation which assumed black inferiority and white superiority. This government policy continued officially until the 1970s.

• Northern Territory resumes jailing 10-year-olds
• First Nations Australians still ‘suffering effects’ of colonial past
• Australia’s historic apology to Stolen Generations

“The story’s flippant approach to narrating the theft of a First Nations child dangerously trivialises the ongoing trauma associated with Australia’s violent history of child removal,” Natsiec said.

They added that today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 10 times more likely non-Indigenous children to be removed from their families into foster care or other systems.

Critics have also pointed out language errors in the book. The character is from Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory but uses vocabulary from the language of the Gamilaraay people of the states of New South Wales and Queensland.

Ms Davis said this showed “complete disregard for the vast differences among First Nations languages, cultures, and practices”.

Oliver said he and his publishers had decided to withdraw the book from sale around the world.

A statement from Penguin Random House UK added: “It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion, and we must learn from that.”

Natsiec said it acknowledged and recognised their apologies and “swift action” in removing the books from sale.

Donald Trump has made the first official hires of his incoming administration, naming a chief of staff, a border tsar and an ambassador to the United Nations.

The president-elect’s transition team is vetting a series of candidates ahead of his return to the White House on 20 January 2025.

Susie Wiles, who headed his campaign, becomes the first female chief of staff, while Tom Homan, who served in the first Trump term, will play a critical role on the border and immigration.

Here is a closer look at those posts already filled, and the names in the mix for the top jobs.

Susie Wiles and campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita were the masterminds behind Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris.

In his victory speech, Trump called her “the ice maiden” – a reference to her composure – and said she liked to stay in the background.

The chief of staff is often a president’s top aide, overseeing daily operations in the West Wing and managing the boss’s staff.

Wiles, 67, has worked in Republican politics for decades, from Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign to electing Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis as governors of Florida.

Republicans have said she commands respect and has an ability to corral the big egos of those in Trump’s orbit, which could enable her to impose a sense of order that none of his four previous chiefs of staff could.

• Who is Susie Wiles, new chief of staff?
• Seven things Trump says he will do in power

This is a critical job because it includes responsibility for Trump’s mass deportations of millions of undocumented migrants, which was a central campaign pledge.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, calling Homan a “stalwart” on border control.

The former police officer was acting director of the the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Trump’s first term and he has advocated a zero-tolerance stance on the issue.

“Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back,” he said in July. “And I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”

• How would mass deportations work?

Media reports – confirmed by the BBC’s US partner CBS News – say the New York congresswoman has been offered the UN ambassador job.

Stefanik has made national headlines with her sharp questioning in congressional committees, first at Trump’s 2019 impeachment hearings and again this year quizzing college leaders about anti-semitism on campus.

“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement to the New York Post.

No personnel decision may be more critical to the trajectory of Trump’s second term than his appointee to lead the Department of Justice.

After uneven relationships with both Jeff Sessions and William Barr, the attorneys general during his first term, Trump is widely expected to pick a loyalist who will wield its prosecutorial power in the manner of an “attack dog”.

Among the names being floated for the cabinet post are Aileen Cannon, the Trump-nominated federal judge who threw out his classified documents case; ex- justice department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who is alleged to have aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results; Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been both indicted and impeached like Trump; Matthew Whitaker, the man who took over for three months as acting attorney general after Sessions stepped down at Trump’s request; Mike Davis, a right-wing activist who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and has issued bombastic threats against Trump critics and journalists; and Mark Paoletta, who served in Trump’s budget office and argues there is no legal requirement for a president to stay out of justice department decisions.

The US secretary of state is the president’s main adviser on foreign affairs, and acts as America’s top diplomat when representing the country overseas.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio – who was most recently under consideration to be Trump’s vice-president – is a major name being floated for the key cabinet post.

Rubio, 53, takes a hawkish view of China. He opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican primary but has since mended fences. He is a senior member of the Senate foreign relations committee and vice-chairman of the chamber’s select intelligence panel.

Other contenders for the job include biotech entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy; Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien; Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty, who was previously Trump’s ambassador to Japan; and Brian Hook, the hawkish special envoy to Iran in Trump’s first term and the man who is leading the transition effort at the State Department.

A dark horse for the nomination, however, is Richard Grenell, a loyalist who served as ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and acting national intelligence chief. Grenell, 58, was heavily involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and even sat in on his private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in September.

Grenell’s combative style may make him a better fit for national security adviser – a position that does not require Senate confirmation – than secretary of state.

Also in line for major posts in a second Trump term are former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe; Keith Kellogg, a national security adviser to Trump’s first Vice-President Mike Pence; former defence department official Eldridge Colby; and Kash Patel, a loyalist who staffed the national security council and became chief of staff to the acting secretary of defence in Trump’s final months in office.

Patel, 44, who helped block the transition to the incoming Joe Biden administration in the latter role, is tipped to become the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief.

Trump has also said he would fire Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) Director Chris Wray, who he nominated in 2017 but has since fallen out with. Jeffrey Jensen, a former Trump-appointed US attorney, is under consideration to replace Wray.

Trump has previously singled out Christopher Miller, his final acting defence secretary, as a candidate who could be nominated to lead the military.

Miller, a retired Army Special Forces colonel, ran the National Counterterrorism Center and – more recently – authored the defence chapter of the controversial Project 2025 wish list for a second Trump term, though Trump has distanced himself from the document.

Other names being discussed include Michael Waltz, a Florida lawmaker who sits on the armed services committee in the US House of Representatives, and Robert O’Brien.

Trump is reportedly considering Robert Lighthizer, a free trade sceptic who led the tariff war with China as the US trade representative, as his chief financial officer.

But at least four others may be under consideration for the role, including Scott Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager who has become a major fundraiser and economic adviser to the president-elect; John Paulson, another megadonor from the hedge fund world; former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Jay Clayton; and Fox Business Network financial commentator Larry Kudlow, who ran Trump’s national economic council during his first term.

The woman co-chairing Trump’s transition team, Linda McMahon, is tipped as a key contender to represent US businesses and job creation in his cabinet – after previously serving as small business administrator during his first term.

Others who could fill this vacancy include Brooke Rollins; Robert Lighthizer; and Kelly Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman who briefly served in the US Senate.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem – who was passed over to be Trump’s running mate in part over a bizarre admission that she killed her pet dog – could see her loyalty to him pay off with the leadership of the interior department, which manages public land and natural resources.

She may compete with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum for the role.

Doug Burgum is also a contender to lead the energy department, where he would implement Trump’s pledges to “drill, baby, drill” and overhaul US energy policy.

A software entrepreneur who sold his small company to Microsoft in 2001, Burgum briefly ran in the 2024 Republican primary before dropping out, endorsing Trump and quickly impressing him with his low-drama persona and sizeable wealth.

Former energy secretary Dan Brouillette is also reportedly in the running.

• Trump victory is a major setback for climate action, experts say

Karoline Leavitt, 27, who impressed Trump as his campaign’s national press secretary, has already served as an assistant White House press secretary and may be a shoo-in to be the administration’s spokesperson.

RFK Jr, as he is known, is an environmental lawyer by trade, a vaccine sceptic by fame and the nephew of former President John F Kennedy.

He is on a shortlist to run the health and human services department, multiple people close to the president-elect’s campaign told CBS.

Despite having no medical qualifications to his name, Kennedy, 70, is expected to become a kind of “public health tsar” in the Trump administration.

There has been speculation about his inability to pass a background check for security clearance due to past controversies, including dumping a bear carcass in New York’s Central Park.

Besides a new job at the health and human services department, Kennedy could also influence policy at the agriculture department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Safety Administration (FDA).

The world’s richest man poured millions of dollars into re-electing Trump and critics say he will now have the power to shape the regulations that affect his companies Tesla, SpaceX and X.

Both he and Trump have focused on the idea of him leading a new “Department of Government Efficiency”, where he would cut costs and streamline what he calls a “massive, suffocating federal bureaucracy”.

The would-be agency’s acronym – DOGE – is a playful reference to a “meme-coin” cryptocurrency Musk has previously promoted.

But Musk, 53, could also play a role in global diplomacy. He participated in Trump’s first call with Ukraine’s Zelensky on Wednesday.

On Saturday, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he “will not be inviting former [UN] Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo” to work for him again.

It came one day after long-time ally Roger Stone identified the two as “neocons” likely to form a “sinister fifth column” against the Trump agenda. Haley also challenged, and harshly criticised, Trump during the 2024 Republican primary. Pompeo was considered a top contender to be defence secretary.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton has ruled himself out for a job as he expects to hold the third-highest rank in the new Senate Republican majority.

Also rumoured to be in the running was Utah Senator Mike Lee, who told Deseret News “I have the job I want” and Republicans must “take full advantage” of their return to power in Washington.

Donald Trump’s Florida residence and private club Mar-a-Lago is once again the Winter White House – the place to be seen for West Wing hopefuls as the US president-elect assembles a new administration behind its opulent doors.

While President Joe Biden will remain in office until January, this part of Florida has become a rival centre of political power in America.

Just two years after an FBI raid found classified documents about US nuclear weapons and spy satellites stored in a bathroom, an eclectic mix of insiders are swarming to Mar-a-Lago, which is patrolled by robot dogs and armed guards on boats.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, rumoured as a potential energy secretary, was there on election night. So was former US Defence Department chief of staff Kash Patel.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been alongside Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago during family dinners and calls with world leaders.

Musk has been photographed inside the private club with his son and on the runway of Palm Beach International Airport, as he shuttles back and forth to be by the president-elect’s side.

For those not blessed with an invitation to stay at Mar-a-Lago itself, the hotels and restaurants around nearby West Palm Beach are packed with office-seekers jostling for influence in the new administration and supporters celebrating Trump’s victory.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, vaccine sceptic and scion of the one of the most famous US political dynasties, was by the swanky pool bar of The Ben hotel, where a fake ice rink and Christmas tree greet guests.

Giant, golden Great Dane dog sculptures adorn the lobby and every floor outside the lifts.

He is part of the transition team and the one-time presidential candidate is vying for a role with influence over health policy.

Speaking even before the election, alongside the former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat-turned-Republican, he said: “There’s people of all different kinds of ideology and people that we’re going to have to go up against in that transition team and fight for our vision.”

Also spotted at The Ben was outspoken Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who recently blamed the Biden administration for causing flooding in Republican areas of North Carolina. She is believed to be jockeying for a cabinet position.

At The Breakers, an opulent Italian Renaissance-style oceanfront hotel, the young valets were most star struck by the visit of Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, who joined his friend Trump on stage on election night, but who says he has no personal political aspirations.

The same cannot be said for others. One GOP insider that the BBC ran into in the corridors said the transition was “a free for all”, as different factions of the party battle for dominance.

“Trump loves to see people scramble and suck up.”

But the insider noted with a hint of worry that some “minimally acceptable people are starting to say they don’t want a role”.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, for one, has conveyed that he isn’t interested in working in the administration and would prefer a Senate leadership position.

Donald Trump is expected to focus less on elected officials to fill senior positions.

His son, Don Jr, said during an interview on Fox News that he wants people who “don’t think they know better” than his father and that he’s prepared to block anyone he thinks would be a disaster.

The president-elect has been vocal about doing things differently this time around, feeling his biggest mistake during his first presidency was hiring “bad people, or disloyal people”.

Back in 2016, plans for the transition that had been prepared by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in concert with the outgoing Obama administration were laid to waste.

Once the Trump team won what was seen as an improbable victory, they decided on an unconventional approach and fired Christie.

What ensued was an Apprentice-style parade of people to Trump Tower in New York that played out in front of the cameras.

Back then, news crews packed into the lobby to capture everyone headed up the golden elevator to see Donald Trump on the 26th floor.

While the world was still trying to understand what a Trump presidency would look like, those with influence in Wall Street, media, politics and entertainment all sought an audience, including Bill Gates, Al Gore and even Kanye West.

This time around, Trump seems to be prioritising loyalty, tallying up who has been with him since day one.

And the world’s media are crammed onto hotel balconies and the parks and beaches surrounding Mar-a-Lago, where security is at fortress levels.

The transition process is still unconventional by design, but so far it is far more behind the scenes than in 2016.

Trump’s first appointment – Florida political consultant Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff – does offer one clue that a well-built Florida conservative political operation could be ready to replicate its success in the White House.

• Who is in the frame to join Trump’s new top team?

Slater Bayliss, co-founder of a Florida-based lobbying firm, Advocacy Partners, has worked both for and against Ms Wiles during election battles in the state and much prefers to be on her side.

“I would say, borrowing a nickname from our friends across the pond, Susie is the Iron Lady of American electoral politics.”

He says offers have been flooding in from talent across the state, which has served as a “stronghold of resistance for smart conservative thinkers who love our country and desire to play a role in making it more reflective of our electorate”.

Republican political consultant Max Goodman says there is anticipation of a Florida wave crashing into Washington.

He expects Trump’s team will be mining staffers in Susie Wiles’s team and in the state, whose congressional and Senate delegations came out early for Trump.

“There is no hotter political farm system in the country than the state of Florida, when you have a president and the most prolific political consultant turned chief of staff calling Florida home,” he said.

Despite having the second largest Republican congressional delegation in the country, Mr Goodman says Florida has “notoriously been snubbed” when it comes to having a seat at the leadership table.

He believes that could change with Ms Wiles leading the charge, and with key Floridians such as Rick Scott potentially in line as Senate Majority leader and Senator Marco Rubio in contention for a high-profile cabinet position.

One person who has thrown his hand up to work in the transition is Joe Gruters, who is waiting to see how that shapes up.

He was the 2016 co-chairman of Trump’s Florida campaign with Ms Wiles, then the chairman of the Republican state party, and is now a state senator.

Mr Gruters describes himself as a “loyal foot soldier”, who was the only member of the Florida legislature to immediately endorse Trump’s 2024 bid and appear at Mar-a-Lago for his announcement.

He is counting on Ms Wiles taking her “battle-tested” lieutenants up with her to Washington to fill out positions.

“They know who the true believers are… and they probably have a clear idea of who they’re going to put in most of these positions,” Mr Gruters said.

Palm Beach didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for Donald Trump when he first arrived on the scene with his purchase of Mar-a-Lago in the 1980s.

But walking around town now, it’s obvious that this is firmly Maga country – Trump-branded bikinis and hats are a common sight.

Next week, Argentina’s President Javier Milei is expected to visit Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump and Elon Musk.

Also next week, CPAC, or the Conservative Political Action Conference, is hosting its annual investors summit at Mar-a-Lago with tickets costing up to $25,000 (£19,350).

And it’s unlikely the migration south will stop once Donald Trump is inaugurated and occupies the Oval Office once more.

Slater Bayliss – the Florida lobbyist – thinks Trump will want to spend as much time in Florida as possible during his second term.

That will go some way, he said, in “making the 62,500 square feet of Mar-a -Lago the most sacred real-estate in the political universe”.

Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been detained by police in Amsterdam after defying a ban on public protests in the Dutch capital.

Hundreds gathered in Dam Square on Sunday, calling for an end to the conflict in Gaza and expressing dissent towards the ban.

Demonstrations were temporarily banned by the mayor after Israeli football fans were targeted in what she called “hit-and-run” attacks on Thursday night after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam.

The Israeli government has advised its citizens to “categorically avoid” Israeli sports and cultural events while abroad – specifically the football match between France and Israel in Paris on Thursday.

Authorities say Thursday’s attacks – which caused five people to be hospitalised – were motivated by antisemitism as the fans were sought out across the city.

The violence – which led to at least 62 arrests – was condemned by leaders in Europe, the US and in Israel.

The outcry was exacerbated by the attacks occurring on the eve of commemorations of Kristallnacht – Nazi pogroms against German Jews that took place in 1938.

Three-quarters of Jewish people in the Netherlands were murdered during the Holocaust in World War Two.

Amsterdam police said there had also been trouble the night before the match. Police chief Peter Holla said there had been incidents “on both sides”, including Israeli supporters removing a Palestinian flag from a wall and setting it alight, and attacking a taxi.

The city’s Mayor Femke Halsema announced a ban on public assembly on Friday lasting at least until the end of the weekend, deeming the city a “high-risk security area”.

But protesters on Sunday argued they should be free to voice their disapproval of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the actions of the Maccabi supporters.

“This protest has nothing to do with antisemitism,” Alexander van Stokkum, one of the demonstrators, told the AFP news agency on Sunday. “It is against Israeli hooligans who were destroying our city.”

Others told a Reuters journalist: “We refuse to let the charge of antisemitism be weaponised to suppress Palestinian resistance.”

The news agency reported that more than 100 people were detained for attending the protest. Police in Amsterdam confirmed there had been arrests, but have yet to say how many.

Following the protest ban, Dutch activist Frank van der Linde applied for an urgent permit so Sunday’s demonstration could go ahead.

On X, he said that he wanted to protest what he described as “the genocide in Gaza”, adding: “We will not let our right to demonstrate be taken away.”

Mr Van der Linde was overruled by Amsterdam’s district court, which wrote on Sunday that “the mayor has rightly determined that there is a ban on demonstrating in the city this weekend”.

Dutch national newspaper De Telegraaf reports Mr Van der Linde was among those arrested.

The Israeli embassy in the Netherlands earlier warned Israelis in Amsterdam to avoid Dam square, saying the event “may flare up into significant violent incidents”.

Israel’s National Security Council has told its citizens to avoid public demonstrations “of any kind” and conceal “anything that could identify you as Israeli/Jewish”, citing Thursday’s attacks.

“Preparations to harm Israelis have been identified in several European cities, including Brussels (Belgium), major cities in the UK, Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Paris,” it claimed.

Paris’s police chief has pledged that 4,000 officers would be deployed in the stadium and across the French capital for the Nations League match on 14 November.

The price of bitcoin has risen above $80,000 (£62,000) for the first time ever, after Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the US election last week.

It comes as the Republicans are edging closer to overall control of Congress after having already secured the presidency and a majority in the Senate.

On the campaign trail the president-elect pledged to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet”.

The value of world’s biggest cryptocurrency has now risen by more than 80% this year.

Other cryptocurrencies, including dogecoin – which has been promoted by high-profile Trump supporter Elon Musk – are also making gains.

In the run-up to the election Trump said he would create a strategic bitcoin stockpile and appoint digital asset-friendly financial regulators – spurring expectations that he would strip back regulations on the crypto industry.

Trump has said one of his first actions as president would be to sack the current chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler.

Mr Gensler, who was appointed by Joe Biden in 2021, has led the SEC’s crackdown on the crypto industry.

“If the Trump administration does deregulate crypto, it’s hard to see how it is not bullish for the sector,” Matt Simpson, market analyst at StoneX Financial told the BBC, adding that such a move could lead bitcoin prices to jump to as high as $100,000.

But “it is still vulnerable to nasty selloffs along the way – which can be less kind to smaller pockets,” he added.

Trump’s broader agenda, which includes cutting taxes and reducing regulations on businesses, has also driven a surge in other investments since he won the election.

With Republicans in control of the executive and potentially both the legislative branches of the government, they will be able to advance his ideas through each chamber and send those bills for him to sign into law.

Major stock indexes, the dollar and US bonds have all made gains in recent days.

The Republican Party is four seats short of winning majority control of the US House of Representatives, which would make it easier for Donald Trump to enact his agenda.

On Monday morning, the party was at 214 seats, just short of the 218 needed to take control of the lower chamber of Congress, according to projections by Reuters.

The Senate, or upper chamber, and the White House have already flipped to Republicans – meaning the new president-elect could have significant power after he is sworn in on 20 January 2025.

Control of the House will give Republicans the ability to initiate spending legislation and launch impeachment proceedings against officials.

• These are the seven things Trump says he will do as president
• Analysis – Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed candidate or doomed campaign?

Under Trump, a unified Republican Party could more easily push through tax cuts and introduce border control measures.

Here are some of the races that have yet to be called.

The key races to watch are:

• California’s 45th congressional district: Republican Congresswoman Michelle Steel, the incumbent, has been leading against Democrat Derek Tran
• California’s 27th: Democrat George Whitesides is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Garcia. Garcia has been leading by a narrow margin
• California’s 41st: Incumbent Republican Congressman Ken Calvert is running against Democrat Will Rollins, and has also been leading by a narrow margin
• California’s 22nd: Democrat Rudy Salas is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman David Valadao, who has been enjoying a lead
• California’s 13th: Incumbent Republican Congressman John Duarte is running against Democrat Adam Gray, and has been leading

There are two closely-watched races in this swing state.

Republican Juan Ciscomani, the Republican, appears to be neck and neck with his Democratic challenger, Kirsten Engel, in Arizona’s 6th district, located in the south-east corner of the state.

In Arizona’s 1st district, David Schweikert has a slight lead over Democratic challenger Amish Shah. This district covers north-eastern Maricopa County, outside Phoenix.

Incumbent Democratic Congressman Jared Golden is fighting to keep his seat in Maine’s 2nd congressional district – one of two congressional districts in the state. This encompasses the majority of the state north of Augusta and Portland.

Golden is currently leading in the race against his Republican challenger, Austin Theriault. Almost all votes have been counted.

Democrats are looking to hold onto one seat in Ohio’s 9th congressional district, which encompasses Toledo in the state’s north.

Incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who has served in Congress since 1983, narrowly leads in the race against her Republican challenger, Derek Merrin.

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.