Out of all of Donald Trump’s supporters, Derrick Evans has a particular reason to be happy with November’s election results – he hopes the president-elect will give him a pardon for participating in the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.

“A pardon will be life changing,” said Evans, who was a member of the West Virginia legislature when he and at least 2,000 others stormed the Capitol in 2021. It was part of an effort to overturn the results of the US election, inspired by the false belief that it was Trump, not President Joe Biden, who had won.

He reached an agreement with prosecutors which saw him plead guilty to civil disorder and spent three months in federal prison in 2022. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly said he would pardon the rioters, whom he has called “patriots” and “political prisoners”. But who exactly will be pardoned – and when – is still an open question.

“I believe he’s a man of his word,” Evans told the BBC.

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In March, Trump wrote on his Truth Social account that one of his first acts as president would be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!”

He repeated the pledge at a National Association of Black Journalists forum in Chicago in July.

“Oh, absolutely, I would,” he said. “If they’re innocent, I would pardon them.”

But he has stopped short of proposing a blanket pardon, at one point telling CNN: “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”

His campaign has previously said decisions would be made “on a case-by-case basis when he is back in the White House”.

The events of 6 January resulted in one of the largest federal investigations in US history. Nearly 600 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding police officers.

Some of those who have been given the longest sentences, such as Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, did not participate in the violence inside the building. Instead, they were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other felonies for organising the melee.

Arrests are still being made. In an update issued last week, the FBI said it is still looking for nine suspects wanted for violent assaults on police officers.

But with Trump – who still maintains, without evidence, that he was the winner of the 2020 election – coming back to the White House, the future of the investigation remains uncertain.

Citing Justice Department sources, NBC News reported that officials are focusing on trying the “most egregious” cases before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

In the meantime, several Capitol riot defendants have asked for hearings to be delayed in anticipation of pardons.

Among them are Christopher Carnell, a North Carolina man who was found guilty on several riot-related charges earlier in the year. His lawyers asked for a hearing to be delayed last week because of possible “clemency actions relevant to his case”, but the request was turned down.

Jonathanpeter Klein, who along with his brother Matthew pleaded guilty to several charges in July, asked for his sentencing hearing, scheduled for 15 November, to be delayed. That request too was turned down.

Wendy Via, co-founder of the not-for-profit Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), said that there is already a sense of excitement amongst rioters and their supporters.

“Folks on fringe sites are calling for the release of what they are calling the Jan 6 ‘prisoners of war’ or ‘hostages’,” she said.

They include Jake Lang, who is charged with a number of crimes including assaulting police officers, and who regularly posts online from his jail cell in New York.

After Trump’s victory he wrote on X: “IM COMING HOME!!!! THE JANUARY 6 POLITICAL PRISONERS ARE FINALLY COMING HOME!!!!”

“In just 75 days on January 20th 2025, when Donald J Trump is inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, he will pardon all of the J6 Hostages.”

GPAHE also found that some groups plan to lay low until Trump takes office and pardons are made official.

One post on a Proud Boys channel on Telegram suggested that members avoid the January inauguration: “Stay home or patronize your local watering hole and celebrate the inauguration of our President and the imminent release of our Boys.”

In a blog post, Via said pardons would “make a mockery of our justice system, and it will send the message to his followers that violence is a legitimate response to political outcomes they don’t like.”

For the moment, the release of everyone charged with riot-related offenses seems unlikely, but non-violent offenders such as Derrick Evans have called for large numbers to be freed.

And, he suggested, a pardon would not be enough to compensate him and others for the time they spent behind bars.

“I think there needs to be some reparations and restitution involved as well,” he said.

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.

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.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his military’s ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is now holding down 50,000 Russian troops.

In his daily address to the nation, Zelensky said the operation was reducing Moscow’s ability to attack inside Ukraine itself. The president has long cited this as the goal of the offensive, despite scepticism from some Western allies.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, a US non-profit, Russia had 11,000 troops in Kursk when Ukraine began its shock incursion in early August.

However, a report in the New York Times suggests Moscow has achieved its troop build-up in Kursk without any need to pull its soldiers out of Ukraine.

The paper says North Korean troops are also being deployed in Kursk as part of an imminent Russian counter-offensive.

In his speech, Zelensky said he had been briefed by his Сommander-in-Сhief, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyy, who announced earlier on Monday that he had carried out an inspection of Ukrainian units deployed in Kursk.

“Our men are holding back… 50,000 of the occupier’s army personnel who, due to the Kursk operation, cannot be deployed to other Russian offensive directions on our territory,” the Ukrainian president said.

Gen Syrskyy said separately that were it not for Ukraine’s forces inside Kursk, “tens of thousands of enemies from the best Russian assault units would have been storming” Ukrainian positions in Donetsk region, a key battleground since the conflict erupted a decade ago.

Fighting rages on in Donetsk, where the two sides accused each other on Monday of damaging a dam near the Ukrainian-held town of Kurakhove. Russian troops have been slowly advancing in the region for months towards the key city of Pokrovsk – a major supply hub for Ukrainian forces.

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The New York Times, which quotes both US and Ukrainian unnamed officials, puts the number of Russian and North Korean troops being readied for the reported counter-offensive in Kursk at 50,000.

“A new US assessment concludes that Russia has massed the force without having to pull soldiers out of Ukraine’s east – its main battlefield priority – allowing Moscow to press on multiple fronts simultaneously,” the paper says.

Both Ukraine and the US say that more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia. Moscow neither confirms nor denies that troops from North Korea, a close ally since Soviet times, are in Kursk.

In North Korea itself, it was announced that its leader, Kim Jong un, had signed a decree ratifying a mutual defence treaty with Russia, which was approved in June at a summit in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

North Korea and Russia have grown increasingly close since Moscow found itself largely internationally isolated after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The US has repeatedly accused Pyongyang of sending vast amounts of military hardware to Russia, including ballistic missiles and launchers.

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte recently suggested that Pyongyang was receiving military technology and other support from Moscow to help it evade international sanctions

Elsewhere, amid much speculation over the impact of Donald Trump’s re-election victory last week, the Kremlin has denied media reports that he held a phone call with President Vladimir Putin.

The call, which was first reported by the Washington Post on Sunday, is said to have happened on Thursday. Trump is said to have warned the Russian president against escalating the war in Ukraine and mentioned America’s extensive military presence in Europe.

Trump’s team told the BBC that it would not comment on the president-elect’s “private calls”.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” in some of the harshest public criticism of the country by a Saudi official since the start of the war.

Speaking at a summit of Muslim and Arab leaders the prince also criticised Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran.

In a sign of improving ties between rivals Riyadh and Tehran, he warned Israel against launching attacks on Iranian soil.

Saudi’s de facto leader was joined by other leaders present in calling for a total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said it was a “failing of the international community” that the war in Gaza had not been stopped, accusing Israel of causing starvation in the territory.

Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud said: “Where the international community primarily has failed is ending the immediate conflict and putting an end to Israel’s aggression.”

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, which saw hundreds of gunmen enter southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.

Israel retaliated by launching a military campaign to destroy Hamas, during which more than 43,400 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A report by the UN’s Human Rights Office found that close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period in Gaza were women and children.

Leaders at the summit also condemned what they described as Israel’s “continuous attacks” against UN staff and facilities in Gaza.

Last month, the Knesset passed a bill to ban Unrwa, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, from operating in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, accusing the organisation of colluding with Hamas.

Several countries, including the US and the UK, have expressed serious concern about the move limiting the agency’s ability to transfer aid to Gaza.

In the backdrop of the well-attended summit, is Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Gulf leaders are aware of his closeness to Israel, but they also have good relations with him, and want him to use his influence and his fondness for deal-making to secure an end to conflicts in this region.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump is viewed much more favourably than Joe Biden, but his track record in the Middle East is mixed.

He pleased Israel and angered the Muslim world by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as the annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. 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.

One editorial in a leading Saudi newspaper today is titled: “A new era of hope. Trump’s return and the promise of stability.”

Several airlines have suspended flights to Haiti after a passenger plane from the US was hit by gunfire as it tried to land in Port-au-Prince.

Spirit Airlines Flight 951 from Fort Lauderdale in Florida was diverted to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, where it landed safely at Santiago Airport.

A flight attendant suffered minor injuries but no passengers were hurt in the attack, the second in three weeks on aircraft flying over Haiti’s capital.

The incident comes as a new prime minister took office in the crisis-hit country, which has been plagued by armed gangs and escalating violence.

Alix Didier Fils-Aimé said his priority was “restoring security”, according to AFP news agency.

Notwithstanding the country’s “difficult circumstances”, he promised to put all of his energy, skills and “patriotism at the service of the national cause”.

The businessman, who stood unsuccessfully for a seat in the Senate in 2015, studied at Boston University. He was installed by the country’s ruling council after the previous leader, Garry Conille, was ousted less than six months into the job.

The Spirit Airlines flight had been scheduled to land at Toussaint Louverture International Airport just before 12:00 (17:00 GMT) when it was hit.

Unverified video of the incident shared on social media appeared to show several bullet holes on the inside of the aircraft, where the crew sit during take-off and landing.

Spirit Airlines said that damage “consistent with gunfire” had been found when the plane was inspected at Santiago Airport. The aircraft was taken out of commission, Spirit added.

The airline said it had also suspended flights to Haiti “pending further evaluation”.

Two other US airlines, American Airlines and JetBlue, have also suspended flights to Haiti until at least Thursday.

The security situation further deteriorated in Haiti in recent months. In October, gang members opened fire at a UN helicopter, causing some airlines to temporarily cancel flights to the Caribbean nation.

A UN-backed policing mission, led by officers from Kenya, had begun in June in an attempt to wrest back control from gangs.

Spirit is a low-cost airline based in Florida which flies throughout the US, Caribbean and Latin America.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has formally apologised to victims of abuse in care homes, following an inquiry into one of the country’s biggest abuse scandals.

The historic apology, delivered in parliament, comes after a report found that 200,000 children and vulnerable adults had suffered abuse while in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019.

Many of them included people from the Māori and Pacific communities and those with mental or physical disabilities.

The government has since promised to reform the care system.

“I make this apology to all survivors on behalf of my own and previous governments,” said Luxon on Tuesday.

“It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,” he added. “For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility.”

The inquiry, which Luxon described as the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, took six years to complete and included interviews with thousands of survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care institutions.

The ensuing report documented a wide range of abuses including rape and sterilisation, and forced labour.

It found that faith-based institutions often had higher rates of sexual abuse than state care; and civil and faith leaders fought to cover up abuse by moving abusers to other locations and denying culpability, with many victims dying before seeing justice.

The findings were seen as vindication for those who found themselves facing down powerful officialdom, the state, and religious institutions – and often struggling to be believed.

The inquiry made over 100 recommendations, including public apologies from New Zealand authorities and religious leaders, as well as legislation mandating suspected abuse to be reported.

Luxon said the government has either completed or is in the process of working on 28 of these recommendations, and will provide a full response next year.

He also announced a National Remembrance Day to be held on 12 November next year to mark the anniversary of Tuesday’s apology.

“It is on all of us to do all we can to ensure that abuse that should never have been accepted, no longer occurs,” he said.

How will history judge my tenure?

That’s a question Dhananjay Yashwant Chandrachud, who retired as India’s 50th chief justice on Sunday, asked just weeks before he finished his term.

Justice Chandrachud said his mind was “heavily preoccupied with fears and anxieties about the future and the past”.

“I find myself pondering: Did I achieve everything I set out to do? How will history judge my tenure? Could I have done things differently? What legacy will I leave for future generations of judges and legal professionals?” he said.

The soul searching came at a time when many in India are also debating what legacy he leaves behind.

Justice Chandrachud served more than eight years as a top court judge and as chief justice for the past two years. He presided over one of the most powerful Supreme Courts in the world with jurisdiction over India’s 1.4 billion citizens.

The top court is the final court of appeal, the final interpreter of the constitution and its judgements, which are binding on all other courts in India, routinely make news – although judges seldom do.

But Justice Chandrachud, sometimes described as India’s “first celebrity judge” and a “rockstar judge”, has routinely hit the headlines.

According to Arghya Sengupta of the Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy, the jurist was India’s most prolific chief justice who wrote 93 judgements – more than his last four predecessors put together – including some on matters of seminal importance. He also made huge strides in terms of digitisation and livestreaming of court hearings – making them more accessible to citizens.

But some of the recent coverage has also been unflattering, with critics saying he wasn’t assertive enough and his tenure has been disappointing.

The Harvard-educated judge has many firsts to his name – he was the youngest to head a high court and his two-year-term was the longest for a chief justice in more than a decade. He’s also the only chief justice whose father also served in the role.

During his years in the Supreme Court, he developed a reputation for being a progressive, liberal judge known for his nuanced and thoughtful judgements related to matters of liberty, freedom of speech and gender and LGBT rights.

He was part of landmark rulings that decriminalised homosexuality and allowed menstruating women into Kerala’s Sabarimala shrine. His utterances on the right to privacy and right to dissent were extensively praised.

So, his elevation to be India’s top judge in November 2022 was welcomed by senior lawyers, activists and citizens with many expressing a “strong hope that under his leadership the court will rise to greater heights”.

It was a time when India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was getting ready to secure a third term in the 2024 general election.

Opposition parties, activists and sections of the press were accusing the government of targeting them, with global rights organisations saying Indian democracy was under threat.

Although the government denied any wrongdoing, many of India’s top academics, rights activists and popular opposition leaders found themselves in jail and the country kept sliding on the global press freedom index. (The government has always rejected such ratings, saying they are biased against India.)

Senior lawyer Kamini Jaiswal says Justice Chandrachud’s appointment had come at “a crucial juncture as some of the last chief justices had left under a cloud of dark spots and the position had been denigrated with serious allegations”.

“So, we thought Justice Chandrachud would use his erudition and brilliant mind to do a lot of good for the citizens. But he has been disappointing,” she said.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Chander Uday Singh says his record is “a mixed bag”.

“In his judgments, he would lay down the law brilliantly which could be used as a precedent for future cases. But whenever the state was heavily invested in any issue, he failed to hold power to account, so the state got away with what they had set out of achieve.”

For instance, he points out that the court struck down a government scheme that allowed people to make anonymous donations to political parties, calling it unconstitutional and illegal. “But then he did not hold anyone accountable for the illegality.”

Similarly, when it came to a political crisis in the western state of Maharashtra or Delhi’s power struggle with the federal government, his judgments tended to favour the government, he adds.

“There was hope that through his judgments, he would set things right in a country that is under a strong majoritarian government. But he fell short.”

Several top lawyers have also criticised Justice Chandrachud for what he did as the “master of the roster” by failing to effectively prevent the prolonged incarceration of political prisoners – leading to the death of some of them without ever getting bail. This happened despite Justice Chandrachud saying that bail should be the norm and not the exception.

And as he neared his retirement, Justice Chandrachud also made headlines for what he did not in the court, but outside.

In September, there was uproar over a viral video that showed him praying at home with PM Modi during a Hindu religious festival.

Ms Jaiswal said by publicising the photo, “a message was being sent that the chief justice is close to the PM”. Lawyers, former judges, opposition politicians and many citizens also criticised him saying “the presence of a politician at a private event erodes the perception of impartiality of the judiciary”.

Another burst of criticism greeted Justice Chandrachud’s comment last month when he said he had asked God for a solution to the vexed Babri Mosque-Ram temple dispute. “I sat before the deity and told him he needed to find a solution and he gave it to me,” he said.

The comment led to a firestorm of criticism, not entirely unexpected as the mosque-temple dispute has been one of the most contentious and religiously polarising issues in modern India.

The mosque was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992. A five-judge bench, which included Justice Chandrachud, ruled in 2019 that the demolition was illegal, but still gave the disputed land to Hindus and a separate site for the mosque to be built. Earlier this year, PM Modi inaugurated a grand new temple at the site, fulfilling a longstanding promise by his party.

So, no surprise then that Justice Chandrachud’s comment, seen by many as religious, was extensively criticised.

Retired high court judge Anjana Prakash told HW news that his comment was “dramatic, filmy and laughable and it had brought down the level of judiciary”.

“A judge has to decide cases on principles of law. Where does God come into a judgement? Besides, people have different gods. And if a justice from another faith had said this, would the reaction be the same?” she asked.

Justice Prakash and other critics wondered if he was cosying up to the government for a post-retirement assignment.

In the days preceding his retirement, Justice Chandrachud addressed some of the criticism in interactions with the media.

“The separation of powers doesn’t mean antagonistic relations between the executive and the judiciary, it doesn’t mean that they cannot meet,” he said at an event by the Indian Express newspaper, adding that such meetings were not used “to cut deals”.

“The ultimate proof of our good behaviour lies in the written word – in our judgements. Is it consistent with the constitution or not?”

Justice Chandrachud said his comment on seeking divine guidance was because “I am a person of faith” and “to impute motives to judges is not right”.

He added that courts were facing pressure “from lobbies and pressure groups” and they would praise a decision critical of the government, but if he ruled in favour of the government, they questioned his independence.

At his farewell on Friday, the outgoing chief justice said he was perhaps India’s most trolled judge, but his “shoulders are broad enough to accept all criticism”.

And at the weekend, he told Times of India that he believed he had “left the system better than I found it”.

“I’m retiring with a sense of satisfaction,” he said.

Broadcaster Gary Lineker is to step down as host of flagship football programme Match of the Day at the end of this season, BBC News understands.

His departure is expected to be announced officially by the BBC on Tuesday.

The Sun, who first reported the story, also said the presenter would leave the BBC after leading coverage of the 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Lineker’s representative has been approached for comment. The BBC press office declined to comment.

Lineker, whose contract was coming to an end, entered negotiations with the BBC’s new head of sport in October.

BBC News understands that Lineker was open to staying on at Match of the Day, but the BBC did not offer him a new contract for the show.

The 63-year-old has hosted Match of the Day since 1999. He will have held the post for 26 years when he leaves at the end of the Premier League season in May 2025.

Lineker told Esquire magazine in an interview published earlier this month that he accepted he will “have to slow down at some point”.

Earlier in the year, the presenter joked about speculation he could leave the BBC. He opened a Match of the Day broadcast by saying it was his “final show”. After a pause, he added “before the international break”.

Lineker is one of the corporation’s best-known presenters and its highest-paid star, of those whose salaries are declared, earning more than £1.3m a year.

He has also presented coverage of major tournaments like World Cups and European Championships for the BBC, as well as BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremonies.

Lineker has worked for other sports networks during his time at the BBC, including US network NBC and BT Sport (now TNT Sport). He has also branched out into podcasts, co-founding production company Goalhanger, which makes popular shows including The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics and The Rest is Entertainment.

Alastair Campbell, who co-presents The Rest Is Politics podcast, said Lineker would be “a very hard act to follow”, Sky News reported.

“He is an excellent broadcaster and a very good guy,” Campbell said.

Lineker’s new contract has now been agreed and he will leave on a high at the biggest tournament in world football. But replacing a star presenter on a high profile show is always a risk.

Some fans have suggested Match of the Day 2 host Mark Chapman should step into the role, but other football presenters including Gabby Logan and Alex Scott are also on fans’ lists as possible successors.

• Who could replace Gary Lineker as host?

Lineker has been involved in controversy at the BBC because of his social media activity.

He was briefly suspended by bosses last year after an outcry over a post about the UK’s asylum policy.

The incident led to a review of BBC social media guidelines, which concluded that high-profile presenters should be allowed to express views on issues and policies but stop short of political campaigning.

Lineker described the new rules at the time as “all very sensible”.

Before becoming a TV presenter, Lineker had a hugely successful career as a striker for England as well as Leicester, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Barcelona.

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.

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”.

Sharon 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.

Sharon 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 struggling genetic testing company 23andMe says it will cut 40% of its workforce, or 200 jobs, as it fights for survival.

The once-popular DNA-testing site will also halt work on therapies it was developing.

Last year, the company said hackers had managed to gain access to personal information of millions of its users.

23andMe’s share price has fallen by more than 70% this year, as its co-founder and chief executive Anne Wojcicki tries to turn the business around.

The company said it expected to incur one-off costs of $12m (£9.3m), including severance pay, for the plan that will result in savings of $35m.

“We are taking these difficult but necessary actions as we restructure 23andMe and focus on the long-term success of our core consumer business and research partnerships,” Ms Wojcicki said.

The company also said it is considering what to do with the therapies it had in development, including licensing or selling them.

23andMe is a giant of the growing ancestor-tracing industry. It offers genetic testing from DNA, with ancestry breakdown and personalised health insights.

Its customers include famous names, from rapper Snoop Dogg to multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

In December last year, 23andMe confirmed that hackers had accessed details of about 6.9 million of its users.

In some cases this included family trees, birth years and geographic locations. But the stolen data did not include DNA records, it said.

The hackers logged into 23andMe accounts by using email and password details previously exposed by other breaches.

They downloaded not only the data from those accounts but the private information of all other users they had links to across the family trees on the website.

In June, data watchdogs in the UK and Canada announced investigations into the breach.

At the time, a statement from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office said “23andMe is a custodian of highly sensitive personal information, including genetic information which does not change over time.”

“This makes public trust in these services essential,” it added.

In another blow to the company, seven of 23andMe’s eight-strong board resigned in September.

The firm’s independent directors said they had stepped down after not receiving a satisfactory buyout offer from Ms Wojcicki.

President-elect Donald Trump has named Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations.

A longtime Trump ally, Stefanik is a staunch supporter of Israel and has also been critical of the UN for what she argues is a lack of sufficient backing for its war against Hamas.

“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement confirming the first cabinet pick of his second term.

If confirmed, Stefanik would replace UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat who worked for the US Foreign Service for 35 years.

Stefanik said she was “deeply humbled” to accept Trump’s nomination and was looking forward to “earning the support of my colleagues in the United States Senate”, which must vote on her nomination to make it official.

“America continues to be the beacon of the world, but we expect and must demand that our friends and allies be strong partners in the peace we seek,” Stefanik added in a statement given to the New York Post.

The New York Congresswoman has minimal experience in foreign policy and national security. She has served on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Since Hamas’s 7 October attack, she has become one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel in Congress, garnering national attention as she led congressional hearings about university presidents’ handling of protests on college campuses.

Last month, she argued there should be a “complete reassessment of US funding of the United Nations” after the Palestinian Authority tried to expel Israel from the UN over human rights abuses in Gaza.

In a statement on Monday, Israel’s international spokesperson to the UN said the country’s ambassador, Danny Danon, “looks forward to working closely with Elise Stefanik on tackling malicious lies at the UN advanced by hostile nations while staying unswervingly committed to truth and justice”.

Before Trump’s announcement, Stefanik had risen to become the highest ranking woman in House Republican leadership.

Born and raised in upstate New York, the congresswoman was the first member of her family to earn a college degree after graduating from Harvard University in 2006.

Soon after, she entered politics, serving as a White House domestic policy adviser under President George W Bush and eventually becoming a senior aide to Bush chief of staff Joshua Bolten.

Stefanik later became a top campaign adviser for Paul Ryan when he ran for vice-president alongside Mitt Romney. When Romney lost, the then-30-year-old moved back to upstate New York and ran for Congress, flipping a Democratic-controlled seat with a win by over 20 points.

Stefanik once billed herself to voters as a traditional conservative, but emerged as one of Trump’s most ardent defenders during the first impeachment trial against him in 2019. Her support for Trump has not wavered since.

“I’m proud to be a top surrogate,” Stefanik said earlier this year of her support for the president-elect. “I would proudly serve in a future Trump administration.”

Her appointment would leave open the 21st Congressional District seat in New York, which would lead to a special election.

Some Trump allies, including billionaire Elon Musk, have argued it is too risky to lose Stefanik’s seat as Republicans and Democrats battle for control of the House, which remains too close to call.

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

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.

A president is responsible for about 4,000 political appointments – a process that can take months. Here is a closer look at those posts already filled, and the names in the mix for the top jobs.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to select Florida congressman Michael Waltz as the next national security adviser, sources told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.

The national security adviser counsels the president on various threats to the US and Waltz would likely have to help navigate the US position on the wars in Israel, and in Ukraine and Russia.

It is considered an influential role and does not require Senate confirmation.

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.

Certain political appointments in the US – including the UN ambassador job – require the approval of the US Senate. But Trump has demanded that the next Senate leader let him make appointments without traditional confirmation votes.

Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, has agreed to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, both he and Trump said. The Senate will still need to confirm his appointment.

He will be in charge of tackling America’s climate policy in this role.

“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” Zeldin said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

Zeldin has long been a Trump ally – and is one of 126 Republican members of Congress who signed onto a brief to the Supreme Court that contested the 2020 election results.

While serving in congress from 2015 to 2023, Zeldin voted against expanding a number of environmental policies. He has already said he plans to “roll back regulations” from day one.

He has not earned high marks from environmental groups for his voting record on environmental issues.

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. Wiles was the first appointment in Trump’s top team.

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

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.

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.

Princess Zelda is one of Nintendo’s best-known characters, but she’d never starred in one of its games until this year.

Despite lending her name to the Legend of Zelda series, she’d always played a supporting role behind regular hero Link.

That all changed with Echoes of Wisdom, released a few weeks ago.

BBC Newsbeat caught up with series producer Eiji Aonuma and the game’s directors, Tomomi Sano and Satoshi Terada, to find out about making the game and their reaction to its launch.

Echoes of Wisdom was a complete surprise when it was announced at the Nintendo Direct showcase in June.

Fans were quick to realise the significance of a game starring the princess as the main character.

But it also introduced a new play style for the series.

Rather than being equipped with a sword and shield, as in previous Legend of Zelda games, the main character has the ability to copy items and enemies found during their quest.

Known as echoes, these items can then be spawned or “pasted” into the world, allowing players to come up with solutions to obstacles and puzzles.

You might stack beds and boxes to scale a wall, or unleash several enemies to attack one of the game’s bosses.

Series producer Aonuma acknowledges “a lot of the focus of the topic of conversation was going to be on Zelda being the main protagonist”.

But, he says, a bigger concern for him was “whether or not the unique gameplay of the echoes was going to be conveyed properly and understood properly by the viewers”.

It’s a feeling shared by directors Terada and Sano.

“Whether or not the Zelda fans would accept these new elements was something I was watching over nervously,” says Terada, chief of third-party co-developer Grezzo.

Sano says she was “relieved to see that it was being accepted positively, and was really watching closely over my smartphone to see people’s reactions the following day as well”.

Since getting their hands on the new game, some players have reported taking a while to get to grips with the new system.

Aonuma, who says he completed Echoes of Wisdom eight times during its development, admits that he had similar feelings on his first playthrough.

“From the second time through I sort of realised that there’s various ways and methods of overcoming these puzzles and overcoming the challenges,” he says.

Aonuma says experimenting with different methods helped him to change his experience.

“And so I think that realisation that you can do various things and there are various ways to overcome and solve these puzzles is sort of a turning point of whether you become used to using the echoes in the new game system.”

Recent Zelda games have given players much more room to be creative and test the limits of what they can do, with some sharing the results online.

Last year’s Tears of the Kingdom, for example, allowed players to build strange contraptions and led to memorable creations such as a giant robotic Godzilla.

Terada says that the team spent a lot of time testing Echoes of Wisdom’s various combinations, but even they were surprised once people got their hands on it.

“Seeing how players are using it, I was really amazed at people’s imaginations,” he says.

The developers admit they were impressed by one trick that’s been widely shared, of players combining a bed with a tornado to propel Zelda into the air.

“That was one that we hadn’t thought of,” Terada admits.

Sano adds: “Players were using the tornado and the bed to actually climb and go over mountains.

“And this was something that I was amazed by, something that I probably wouldn’t be able to do.”

Echoes of Wisdoms received positive reviews upon its release, with the majority of critics praising the game for the sense of freedom it gave players.

But there were a few common criticisms.

One of the main ones was about the game’s performance on the Switch console, which was released back in 2017.

Many players said the game’s frame rate – which governs the smoothness of on-screen animations – was unstable.

Sano confirmed that Echoes of Wisdom uses a variable frame rate, and that the developers felt this was the “best option” available.

Players and reviewers also had complaints about the menu system used to select echoes during the game.

By the end it’s possible to have gathered a total of 127, and the main method of selecting them involves scrolling sideways through a very long row of icons.

It can be filtered using options including most used and newest, but many still felt that it could have been more streamlined.

Terada tells Newsbeat the developers wanted to encourage players to experiment.

“One of the essences of this game is being able to figure out different ways of using each of these echoes,” he says.

“And so in that sense we wanted players to fall upon and see the echoes that they may not have noticed or have been using while they’re sorting through all the echoes that they have.”

He also pointed out that there’s an alternative notebook method which enables players to access the echoes they’ve gathered more quickly.

Zelda celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2026, and Aonuma says Echoes of Wisdom shares some DNA with the original game in the series.

Aonuma says that he thought it “might be close to impossible” to make a new entry adding new elements to the top-down style of earlier Zelda titles.

But, he says: “I think through this game we were able to satisfy a lot of players.

“And so this game made me realise that there’s still a lot of possibility for these top-down Zelda games as well.”

The future of Nintendo is currently a topic of speculation among fans, with fans waiting for news on its successor to the Switch.

Aonuma didn’t give anything away there, but did share something about his vision for the next instalments of Zelda.

“And so we will also have those dynamic 3D Zeldas as well,” he says.

“But in addition to that, we’re also hoping that we can continue with these 2D top-down Zeldas.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back 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”.

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.

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.

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.

You can watch South Sudan: Poisoned Floods on iPlayer (UK only) or on the BBC Africa YouTube channel (outside the UK)

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

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.

Poisoned Floods: South Sudan

Blood, pollution and oil in South Sudan. BBC Eye investigates the legacy of oil and asks who’s responsible?

You can listen 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.

Ghana is due to get a new president after December’s election. The current vice-president, Mahamudu Bawumia, and a former head of state, John Mahama, are the two leading candidates in contention to win the poll.

Nana Akufo-Addo, first elected in 2016, is coming to the end of his second and final four-year term.

On Saturday 7 December, the nearly 18.8 million Ghanaians registered to vote will be able to take part in the country’s ninth general election since multiparty politics was reintroduced in the early 1990s.

In the last 30 years, the country has had a series of closely fought but peaceful polls. Ghana has a reputation for the orderly transfer of power between administrations.

On polling day, two elections will be taking place simultaneously:

• Presidential – there are 12 candidates
• Parliamentary – voters in 275 constituencies across the country will be choosing their MP.

Although 12 hopefuls are vying for the presidency, only two have a realistic chance of winning. Since the return of multiparty politics in 1992 only candidates from either the National Democratic Congress (NDC) or the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have won.

The two front-runners are:

• Mahamudu Bawumia (NPP) – Having served as Akufo-Addo’s vice-president for eight years, the 61-year-old Oxford-educated economist could make history as the country’s first Muslim president. The former deputy governor of the central bank gained a reputation for his financial know-how. But that could also be his undoing as he has faced heavy criticism after Ghana plummeted into its most severe economic crisis in years under his watch.
• John Mahama (NDC) – Winning this ballot would represent a comeback for the 65-year-old as he already served as president for four-and-a-half years from 2012 but then lost the 2016 election. In office, he was nicknamed “Mr Dumsor”, which is a reference to the power cuts that plagued his time in office. Amid the current tough economy, Mahama has pledged an “urgent reset” for the country that needs an experienced leader at the helm.

Among other candidates garnering attention are:

• Nana Kwame Bediako – The businessman, also known as “Cheddar”, does not have a political background but has made a lot of impact on social media and attracted young supporters.
• Alan Kyerematen – The former minister, nicknamed “Alan Cash”, left the NPP last year after complaining that the presidential primaries were biased against him. He could draw some NPP support in the party’s heartland in the Ashanti region.

Economic questions have topped people’s concerns in the build-up to the election, especially the rising cost of living. At the end of 2022, the annual inflation rate hit 54%. It has come down since then but prices are still rising steeply.

The World Bank said as many as 850,000 Ghanaians may have been pushed into poverty in 2022 because of the rising prices of goods and services. These “new poor” joined the six million who were already living in poverty.

By the end of 2022, government finances had been depleted with little left to support the country’s budget, forcing Ghana to go to the International Monetary Fund for help.

• How Ghana’s central bank lost $5bn in one year

Unemployment among young people and an exodus of Ghanaians looking for better opportunities elsewhere has also been a feature of recent years.

The NDC has decried this as an “abysmal performance” and has demanded a reset.

The governing NPP says it has built a resilient economy that is on the “cusp of… transformation” so it is not the time to change.

Concerns over the environmental impact of illegal gold mining – known in the country as “galamsey” – have become another major talking-point. A series of demonstrations over the practice, which has led to the pollution of several major rivers with dangerous chemicals, have been held in the build-up to the vote.

• Ghana gold rush sparks environmental disaster

Both major parties agree that the issue needs to be addressed, but while the NPP says it is important for the economy to allow some small-scale miners to continue their work, the NDC is calling for much tougher regulation and the restriction of new licences.

To win the presidential election in the first round, a candidate must get more than half of the votes cast. If no-one passes that threshold then a second round run-off featuring the two candidates with the largest number of votes will take place by the end of December.

The parliamentary election is run on a first-past-the-post basis with the winner being the candidate in each constituency with the largest share of votes, even if that is less than 50%.

On election day, each voter can turn up to their assigned polling station with their voter’s ID card, where they will have their fingerprints electronically checked and are then issued with the two ballot papers. Each person who has cast their ballot then has their little finger marked with indelible ink to prevent voting a second time.

Since 1992, Ghana has had several tight presidential elections.

In 2008, less than half a percentage point separated the two candidates in the second round.

In the election four years later, the winner, Mahama, crept over the 50% threshold in the first round by less than 80,000 votes.

That result triggered a legal complaint from the NPP, which argued that tally sheets at certain polling stations had been tampered with. The challenge was unsuccessful, but it did lead the electoral commission to introduce new measures to ensure greater transparency.

Election observers have frequently praised the way the vote has been run.

Going by previous elections, the electoral commission is likely to announce the result by 10 December.

• Journalist’s apology not enough to satisfy Ghanaian king
• Ghana rejoices as looted treasure put on display
• Ghana’s first photojournalist turns 95
• ‘Bipolar, colour and me’ – an artist’s spreadsheet of emotion
• Ghana – a basic guide

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.

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 planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the dead sterile worlds that scientists have long thought.

Instead, they may have oceans, and the moons may even be capable of supporting life, scientists say.

Much of what we know about them was gathered by Nasa’s Voyager 2 spacecraft which visited nearly 40 years ago.

But a new analysis shows that Voyager’s visit coincided with a powerful solar storm, which led to a misleading idea of what the Uranian system is really like.

Uranus is a beautiful, icy ringed world in the outer reaches of our solar system. It is among the coldest of all the planets. It is also tilted on its side compared to all the other worlds – as if it had been knocked over – making it arguably the weirdest.

We got our first close-up look at it in 1986, when Voyager 2 flew past and sent back sensational pictures of the planet and its five major moons.

But what amazed scientists even more was the data Voyager 2 sent back indicating that the Uranian system was even weirder than they thought.

The measurements from the spacecraft’s instruments indicated that the planets and moons were inactive, unlike the other moons in the outer solar system. They also showed that Uranus’s protective magnetic field was strangely distorted. It was squashed and pushed away from the Sun.

A planet’s magnetic field traps any gases and other material coming off the planet and its moons. These might be from oceans or geological activity. Voyager 2 found none, suggesting that Uranus and its five largest moons were sterile and inactive.

This came as an enormous surprise because it was unlike the solar system’s other planets and their moons.

But the new analysis has solved the decades-long mystery. It shows that Voyager 2 flew past on a bad day.

The new research shows that just as Voyager 2 flew past Uranus, the Sun was raging, creating a powerful solar wind that might have blown the material away and temporarily distorted the magnetic field.

So, for 40 years we have had an incorrect view of what Uranus and its five largest moons are normally like, according to Dr William Dunn of University College London.

“These results suggest that the Uranian system could be much more exciting than previously thought. There could be moons there that could have the conditions that are necessary for life, they might have oceans that below the surface that could be teeming with fish!”.

Linda Spilker was a young scientist working on the Voyager programme when the Uranus data came in. She is now still serving as the project scientist for the Voyager missions. She said that she was delighted to hear about the new results, which have been published in the Journal Nature Astronomy.

“The results are fascinating, and I am really excited to see that there is potential for life in the Uranian system,” she told BBC News.

“I’m also so pleased that so much is being done with the Voyager data. It’s amazing that scientists are looking back at the data we collected in 1986 and finding new results and new discoveries”.

Dr Affelia Wibisono of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, who is independent of the research team, described the results as “very exciting”.

“It shows how important it is to look back at old data, because sometimes, hiding behind them is something new to be discovered, which can help us design the next generation of space exploration missions”.

Which is exactly what Nasa is doing, partly as a result of the new research.

It has been nearly 40 years since Voyager 2 last flew past the icy world and its moons. Nasa has plans to launch a new mission, the Uranus Orbiter and Probe, to go back for a closer look in 10 years’ time.

According to Nasa’s Dr Jamie Jasinski, whose idea it was to re-examine the Voyager 2 data, the mission will need to take his results into account when designing its instruments and planning the scientific survey.

“Some of the instruments for the future spacecraft are very much being designed with ideas from what we learned from Voyager 2 when it flew past the system when it was experiencing an abnormal event. So we need to rethink how exactly we are going to design the instruments on the new mission so that we can best capture the science we need to make discoveries”.

Nasa’s Uranus probe is expected to arrive by 2045, which is when scientists hope to find out whether these far-flung icy moons, once thought of as being dead worlds, might have the possibility of being home to life.

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.

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.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” in some of the harshest public criticism of the country by a Saudi official since the start of the war.

Speaking at a summit of Muslim and Arab leaders the prince also criticised Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran.

In a sign of improving ties between rivals Riyadh and Tehran, he warned Israel against launching attacks on Iranian soil.

Saudi’s de facto leader was joined by other leaders present in calling for a total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said it was a “failing of the international community” that the war in Gaza had not been stopped, accusing Israel of causing starvation in the territory.

Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud said: “Where the international community primarily has failed is ending the immediate conflict and putting an end to Israel’s aggression.”

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, which saw hundreds of gunmen enter southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.

Israel retaliated by launching a military campaign to destroy Hamas, during which more than 43,400 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A report by the UN’s Human Rights Office found that close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period in Gaza were women and children.

Leaders at the summit also condemned what they described as Israel’s “continuous attacks” against UN staff and facilities in Gaza.

Last month, the Knesset passed a bill to ban Unrwa, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, from operating in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, accusing the organisation of colluding with Hamas.

Several countries, including the US and the UK, have expressed serious concern about the move limiting the agency’s ability to transfer aid to Gaza.

In the backdrop of the well-attended summit, is Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Gulf leaders are aware of his closeness to Israel, but they also have good relations with him, and want him to use his influence and his fondness for deal-making to secure an end to conflicts in this region.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump is viewed much more favourably than Joe Biden, but his track record in the Middle East is mixed.

He pleased Israel and angered the Muslim world by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as the annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. 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.

One editorial in a leading Saudi newspaper today is titled: “A new era of hope. Trump’s return and the promise of stability.”

Broadcaster Gary Lineker is to step down as host of flagship football programme Match of the Day at the end of this season, BBC News understands.

His departure is expected to be announced officially by the BBC on Tuesday.

The Sun, who first reported the story, also said the presenter would leave the BBC after leading coverage of the 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Lineker’s representative has been approached for comment. The BBC press office declined to comment.

Lineker, whose contract was coming to an end, entered negotiations with the BBC’s new head of sport in October.

BBC News understands that Lineker was open to staying on at Match of the Day, but the BBC did not offer him a new contract for the show.

The 63-year-old has hosted Match of the Day since 1999. He will have held the post for 26 years when he leaves at the end of the Premier League season in May 2025.

Lineker told Esquire magazine in an interview published earlier this month that he accepted he will “have to slow down at some point”.

Earlier in the year, the presenter joked about speculation he could leave the BBC. He opened a Match of the Day broadcast by saying it was his “final show”. After a pause, he added “before the international break”.

Lineker is one of the corporation’s best-known presenters and its highest-paid star, of those whose salaries are declared, earning more than £1.3m a year.

He has also presented coverage of major tournaments like World Cups and European Championships for the BBC, as well as BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremonies.

Lineker has worked for other sports networks during his time at the BBC, including US network NBC and BT Sport (now TNT Sport). He has also branched out into podcasts, co-founding production company Goalhanger, which makes popular shows including The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics and The Rest is Entertainment.

Alastair Campbell, who co-presents The Rest Is Politics podcast, said Lineker would be “a very hard act to follow”, Sky News reported.

“He is an excellent broadcaster and a very good guy,” Campbell said.

Lineker’s new contract has now been agreed and he will leave on a high at the biggest tournament in world football. But replacing a star presenter on a high profile show is always a risk.

Some fans have suggested Match of the Day 2 host Mark Chapman should step into the role, but other football presenters including Gabby Logan and Alex Scott are also on fans’ lists as possible successors.

• Who could replace Gary Lineker as host?

Lineker has been involved in controversy at the BBC because of his social media activity.

He was briefly suspended by bosses last year after an outcry over a post about the UK’s asylum policy.

The incident led to a review of BBC social media guidelines, which concluded that high-profile presenters should be allowed to express views on issues and policies but stop short of political campaigning.

Lineker described the new rules at the time as “all very sensible”.

Before becoming a TV presenter, Lineker had a hugely successful career as a striker for England as well as Leicester, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Barcelona.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his military’s ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is now holding down 50,000 Russian troops.

In his daily address to the nation, Zelensky said the operation was reducing Moscow’s ability to attack inside Ukraine itself. The president has long cited this as the goal of the offensive, despite scepticism from some Western allies.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, a US non-profit, Russia had 11,000 troops in Kursk when Ukraine began its shock incursion in early August.

However, a report in the New York Times suggests Moscow has achieved its troop build-up in Kursk without any need to pull its soldiers out of Ukraine.

The paper says North Korean troops are also being deployed in Kursk as part of an imminent Russian counter-offensive.

In his speech, Zelensky said he had been briefed by his Сommander-in-Сhief, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyy, who announced earlier on Monday that he had carried out an inspection of Ukrainian units deployed in Kursk.

“Our men are holding back… 50,000 of the occupier’s army personnel who, due to the Kursk operation, cannot be deployed to other Russian offensive directions on our territory,” the Ukrainian president said.

Gen Syrskyy said separately that were it not for Ukraine’s forces inside Kursk, “tens of thousands of enemies from the best Russian assault units would have been storming” Ukrainian positions in Donetsk region, a key battleground since the conflict erupted a decade ago.

Fighting rages on in Donetsk, where the two sides accused each other on Monday of damaging a dam near the Ukrainian-held town of Kurakhove. Russian troops have been slowly advancing in the region for months towards the key city of Pokrovsk – a major supply hub for Ukrainian forces.

• Moscow targeted as Ukraine and Russia trade huge drone attacks
• Macron and Starmer vow ‘unwavering’ Ukraine support
• Trump ally says Ukraine focus must be peace, not territory

The New York Times, which quotes both US and Ukrainian unnamed officials, puts the number of Russian and North Korean troops being readied for the reported counter-offensive in Kursk at 50,000.

“A new US assessment concludes that Russia has massed the force without having to pull soldiers out of Ukraine’s east – its main battlefield priority – allowing Moscow to press on multiple fronts simultaneously,” the paper says.

Both Ukraine and the US say that more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia. Moscow neither confirms nor denies that troops from North Korea, a close ally since Soviet times, are in Kursk.

In North Korea itself, it was announced that its leader, Kim Jong un, had signed a decree ratifying a mutual defence treaty with Russia, which was approved in June at a summit in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

North Korea and Russia have grown increasingly close since Moscow found itself largely internationally isolated after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The US has repeatedly accused Pyongyang of sending vast amounts of military hardware to Russia, including ballistic missiles and launchers.

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte recently suggested that Pyongyang was receiving military technology and other support from Moscow to help it evade international sanctions

Elsewhere, amid much speculation over the impact of Donald Trump’s re-election victory last week, the Kremlin has denied media reports that he held a phone call with President Vladimir Putin.

The call, which was first reported by the Washington Post on Sunday, is said to have happened on Thursday. Trump is said to have warned the Russian president against escalating the war in Ukraine and mentioned America’s extensive military presence in Europe.

Trump’s team told the BBC that it would not comment on the president-elect’s “private calls”.

Out of all of Donald Trump’s supporters, Derrick Evans has a particular reason to be happy with November’s election results – he hopes the president-elect will give him a pardon for participating in the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.

“A pardon will be life changing,” said Evans, who was a member of the West Virginia legislature when he and at least 2,000 others stormed the Capitol in 2021. It was part of an effort to overturn the results of the US election, inspired by the false belief that it was Trump, not President Joe Biden, who had won.

He reached an agreement with prosecutors which saw him plead guilty to civil disorder and spent three months in federal prison in 2022. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly said he would pardon the rioters, whom he has called “patriots” and “political prisoners”. But who exactly will be pardoned – and when – is still an open question.

“I believe he’s a man of his word,” Evans told the BBC.

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In March, Trump wrote on his Truth Social account that one of his first acts as president would be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!”

He repeated the pledge at a National Association of Black Journalists forum in Chicago in July.

“Oh, absolutely, I would,” he said. “If they’re innocent, I would pardon them.”

But he has stopped short of proposing a blanket pardon, at one point telling CNN: “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”

His campaign has previously said decisions would be made “on a case-by-case basis when he is back in the White House”.

The events of 6 January resulted in one of the largest federal investigations in US history. Nearly 600 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding police officers.

Some of those who have been given the longest sentences, such as Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, did not participate in the violence inside the building. Instead, they were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other felonies for organising the melee.

Arrests are still being made. In an update issued last week, the FBI said it is still looking for nine suspects wanted for violent assaults on police officers.

But with Trump – who still maintains, without evidence, that he was the winner of the 2020 election – coming back to the White House, the future of the investigation remains uncertain.

Citing Justice Department sources, NBC News reported that officials are focusing on trying the “most egregious” cases before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

In the meantime, several Capitol riot defendants have asked for hearings to be delayed in anticipation of pardons.

Among them are Christopher Carnell, a North Carolina man who was found guilty on several riot-related charges earlier in the year. His lawyers asked for a hearing to be delayed last week because of possible “clemency actions relevant to his case”, but the request was turned down.

Jonathanpeter Klein, who along with his brother Matthew pleaded guilty to several charges in July, asked for his sentencing hearing, scheduled for 15 November, to be delayed. That request too was turned down.

Wendy Via, co-founder of the not-for-profit Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), said that there is already a sense of excitement amongst rioters and their supporters.

“Folks on fringe sites are calling for the release of what they are calling the Jan 6 ‘prisoners of war’ or ‘hostages’,” she said.

They include Jake Lang, who is charged with a number of crimes including assaulting police officers, and who regularly posts online from his jail cell in New York.

After Trump’s victory he wrote on X: “IM COMING HOME!!!! THE JANUARY 6 POLITICAL PRISONERS ARE FINALLY COMING HOME!!!!”

“In just 75 days on January 20th 2025, when Donald J Trump is inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, he will pardon all of the J6 Hostages.”

GPAHE also found that some groups plan to lay low until Trump takes office and pardons are made official.

One post on a Proud Boys channel on Telegram suggested that members avoid the January inauguration: “Stay home or patronize your local watering hole and celebrate the inauguration of our President and the imminent release of our Boys.”

In a blog post, Via said pardons would “make a mockery of our justice system, and it will send the message to his followers that violence is a legitimate response to political outcomes they don’t like.”

For the moment, the release of everyone charged with riot-related offenses seems unlikely, but non-violent offenders such as Derrick Evans have called for large numbers to be freed.

And, he suggested, a pardon would not be enough to compensate him and others for the time they spent behind bars.

“I think there needs to be some reparations and restitution involved as well,” he said.

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.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has formally apologised to victims of abuse in care homes, following an inquiry into one of the country’s biggest abuse scandals.

The historic apology, delivered in parliament, comes after a report found that 200,000 children and vulnerable adults had suffered abuse while in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019.

Many of them included people from the Māori and Pacific communities and those with mental or physical disabilities.

The government has since promised to reform the care system.

“I make this apology to all survivors on behalf of my own and previous governments,” said Luxon on Tuesday.

“It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,” he added. “For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility.”

The inquiry, which Luxon described as the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, took six years to complete and included interviews with thousands of survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care institutions.

The ensuing report documented a wide range of abuses including rape and sterilisation, and forced labour.

It found that faith-based institutions often had higher rates of sexual abuse than state care; and civil and faith leaders fought to cover up abuse by moving abusers to other locations and denying culpability, with many victims dying before seeing justice.

The findings were seen as vindication for those who found themselves facing down powerful officialdom, the state, and religious institutions – and often struggling to be believed.

The inquiry made over 100 recommendations, including public apologies from New Zealand authorities and religious leaders, as well as legislation mandating suspected abuse to be reported.

Luxon said the government has either completed or is in the process of working on 28 of these recommendations, and will provide a full response next year.

He also announced a National Remembrance Day to be held on 12 November next year to mark the anniversary of Tuesday’s apology.

“It is on all of us to do all we can to ensure that abuse that should never have been accepted, no longer occurs,” 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.”

How will history judge my tenure?

That’s a question Dhananjay Yashwant Chandrachud, who retired as India’s 50th chief justice on Sunday, asked just weeks before he finished his term.

Justice Chandrachud said his mind was “heavily preoccupied with fears and anxieties about the future and the past”.

“I find myself pondering: Did I achieve everything I set out to do? How will history judge my tenure? Could I have done things differently? What legacy will I leave for future generations of judges and legal professionals?” he said.

The soul searching came at a time when many in India are also debating what legacy he leaves behind.

Justice Chandrachud served more than eight years as a top court judge and as chief justice for the past two years. He presided over one of the most powerful Supreme Courts in the world with jurisdiction over India’s 1.4 billion citizens.

The top court is the final court of appeal, the final interpreter of the constitution and its judgements, which are binding on all other courts in India, routinely make news – although judges seldom do.

But Justice Chandrachud, sometimes described as India’s “first celebrity judge” and a “rockstar judge”, has routinely hit the headlines.

According to Arghya Sengupta of the Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy, the jurist was India’s most prolific chief justice who wrote 93 judgements – more than his last four predecessors put together – including some on matters of seminal importance. He also made huge strides in terms of digitisation and livestreaming of court hearings – making them more accessible to citizens.

But some of the recent coverage has also been unflattering, with critics saying he wasn’t assertive enough and his tenure has been disappointing.

The Harvard-educated judge has many firsts to his name – he was the youngest to head a high court and his two-year-term was the longest for a chief justice in more than a decade. He’s also the only chief justice whose father also served in the role.

During his years in the Supreme Court, he developed a reputation for being a progressive, liberal judge known for his nuanced and thoughtful judgements related to matters of liberty, freedom of speech and gender and LGBT rights.

He was part of landmark rulings that decriminalised homosexuality and allowed menstruating women into Kerala’s Sabarimala shrine. His utterances on the right to privacy and right to dissent were extensively praised.

So, his elevation to be India’s top judge in November 2022 was welcomed by senior lawyers, activists and citizens with many expressing a “strong hope that under his leadership the court will rise to greater heights”.

It was a time when India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was getting ready to secure a third term in the 2024 general election.

Opposition parties, activists and sections of the press were accusing the government of targeting them, with global rights organisations saying Indian democracy was under threat.

Although the government denied any wrongdoing, many of India’s top academics, rights activists and popular opposition leaders found themselves in jail and the country kept sliding on the global press freedom index. (The government has always rejected such ratings, saying they are biased against India.)

Senior lawyer Kamini Jaiswal says Justice Chandrachud’s appointment had come at “a crucial juncture as some of the last chief justices had left under a cloud of dark spots and the position had been denigrated with serious allegations”.

“So, we thought Justice Chandrachud would use his erudition and brilliant mind to do a lot of good for the citizens. But he has been disappointing,” she said.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Chander Uday Singh says his record is “a mixed bag”.

“In his judgments, he would lay down the law brilliantly which could be used as a precedent for future cases. But whenever the state was heavily invested in any issue, he failed to hold power to account, so the state got away with what they had set out of achieve.”

For instance, he points out that the court struck down a government scheme that allowed people to make anonymous donations to political parties, calling it unconstitutional and illegal. “But then he did not hold anyone accountable for the illegality.”

Similarly, when it came to a political crisis in the western state of Maharashtra or Delhi’s power struggle with the federal government, his judgments tended to favour the government, he adds.

“There was hope that through his judgments, he would set things right in a country that is under a strong majoritarian government. But he fell short.”

Several top lawyers have also criticised Justice Chandrachud for what he did as the “master of the roster” by failing to effectively prevent the prolonged incarceration of political prisoners – leading to the death of some of them without ever getting bail. This happened despite Justice Chandrachud saying that bail should be the norm and not the exception.

And as he neared his retirement, Justice Chandrachud also made headlines for what he did not in the court, but outside.

In September, there was uproar over a viral video that showed him praying at home with PM Modi during a Hindu religious festival.

Ms Jaiswal said by publicising the photo, “a message was being sent that the chief justice is close to the PM”. Lawyers, former judges, opposition politicians and many citizens also criticised him saying “the presence of a politician at a private event erodes the perception of impartiality of the judiciary”.

Another burst of criticism greeted Justice Chandrachud’s comment last month when he said he had asked God for a solution to the vexed Babri Mosque-Ram temple dispute. “I sat before the deity and told him he needed to find a solution and he gave it to me,” he said.

The comment led to a firestorm of criticism, not entirely unexpected as the mosque-temple dispute has been one of the most contentious and religiously polarising issues in modern India.

The mosque was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992. A five-judge bench, which included Justice Chandrachud, ruled in 2019 that the demolition was illegal, but still gave the disputed land to Hindus and a separate site for the mosque to be built. Earlier this year, PM Modi inaugurated a grand new temple at the site, fulfilling a longstanding promise by his party.

So, no surprise then that Justice Chandrachud’s comment, seen by many as religious, was extensively criticised.

Retired high court judge Anjana Prakash told HW news that his comment was “dramatic, filmy and laughable and it had brought down the level of judiciary”.

“A judge has to decide cases on principles of law. Where does God come into a judgement? Besides, people have different gods. And if a justice from another faith had said this, would the reaction be the same?” she asked.

Justice Prakash and other critics wondered if he was cosying up to the government for a post-retirement assignment.

In the days preceding his retirement, Justice Chandrachud addressed some of the criticism in interactions with the media.

“The separation of powers doesn’t mean antagonistic relations between the executive and the judiciary, it doesn’t mean that they cannot meet,” he said at an event by the Indian Express newspaper, adding that such meetings were not used “to cut deals”.

“The ultimate proof of our good behaviour lies in the written word – in our judgements. Is it consistent with the constitution or not?”

Justice Chandrachud said his comment on seeking divine guidance was because “I am a person of faith” and “to impute motives to judges is not right”.

He added that courts were facing pressure “from lobbies and pressure groups” and they would praise a decision critical of the government, but if he ruled in favour of the government, they questioned his independence.

At his farewell on Friday, the outgoing chief justice said he was perhaps India’s most trolled judge, but his “shoulders are broad enough to accept all criticism”.

And at the weekend, he told Times of India that he believed he had “left the system better than I found it”.

“I’m retiring with a sense of satisfaction,” he said.

Several airlines have suspended flights to Haiti after a passenger plane from the US was hit by gunfire as it tried to land in Port-au-Prince.

Spirit Airlines Flight 951 from Fort Lauderdale in Florida was diverted to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, where it landed safely at Santiago Airport.

A flight attendant suffered minor injuries but no passengers were hurt in the attack, the second in three weeks on aircraft flying over Haiti’s capital.

The incident comes as a new prime minister took office in the crisis-hit country, which has been plagued by armed gangs and escalating violence.

Alix Didier Fils-Aimé said his priority was “restoring security”, according to AFP news agency.

Notwithstanding the country’s “difficult circumstances”, he promised to put all of his energy, skills and “patriotism at the service of the national cause”.

The businessman, who stood unsuccessfully for a seat in the Senate in 2015, studied at Boston University. He was installed by the country’s ruling council after the previous leader, Garry Conille, was ousted less than six months into the job.

The Spirit Airlines flight had been scheduled to land at Toussaint Louverture International Airport just before 12:00 (17:00 GMT) when it was hit.

Unverified video of the incident shared on social media appeared to show several bullet holes on the inside of the aircraft, where the crew sit during take-off and landing.

Spirit Airlines said that damage “consistent with gunfire” had been found when the plane was inspected at Santiago Airport. The aircraft was taken out of commission, Spirit added.

The airline said it had also suspended flights to Haiti “pending further evaluation”.

Two other US airlines, American Airlines and JetBlue, have also suspended flights to Haiti until at least Thursday.

The security situation further deteriorated in Haiti in recent months. In October, gang members opened fire at a UN helicopter, causing some airlines to temporarily cancel flights to the Caribbean nation.

A UN-backed policing mission, led by officers from Kenya, had begun in June in an attempt to wrest back control from gangs.

Spirit is a low-cost airline based in Florida which flies throughout the US, Caribbean and Latin America.

President-elect Donald Trump has named Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations.

A longtime Trump ally, Stefanik is a staunch supporter of Israel and has also been critical of the UN for what she argues is a lack of sufficient backing for its war against Hamas.

“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement confirming the first cabinet pick of his second term.

If confirmed, Stefanik would replace UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat who worked for the US Foreign Service for 35 years.

Stefanik said she was “deeply humbled” to accept Trump’s nomination and was looking forward to “earning the support of my colleagues in the United States Senate”, which must vote on her nomination to make it official.

“America continues to be the beacon of the world, but we expect and must demand that our friends and allies be strong partners in the peace we seek,” Stefanik added in a statement given to the New York Post.

The New York Congresswoman has minimal experience in foreign policy and national security. She has served on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Since Hamas’s 7 October attack, she has become one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel in Congress, garnering national attention as she led congressional hearings about university presidents’ handling of protests on college campuses.

Last month, she argued there should be a “complete reassessment of US funding of the United Nations” after the Palestinian Authority tried to expel Israel from the UN over human rights abuses in Gaza.

In a statement on Monday, Israel’s international spokesperson to the UN said the country’s ambassador, Danny Danon, “looks forward to working closely with Elise Stefanik on tackling malicious lies at the UN advanced by hostile nations while staying unswervingly committed to truth and justice”.

Before Trump’s announcement, Stefanik had risen to become the highest ranking woman in House Republican leadership.

Born and raised in upstate New York, the congresswoman was the first member of her family to earn a college degree after graduating from Harvard University in 2006.

Soon after, she entered politics, serving as a White House domestic policy adviser under President George W Bush and eventually becoming a senior aide to Bush chief of staff Joshua Bolten.

Stefanik later became a top campaign adviser for Paul Ryan when he ran for vice-president alongside Mitt Romney. When Romney lost, the then-30-year-old moved back to upstate New York and ran for Congress, flipping a Democratic-controlled seat with a win by over 20 points.

Stefanik once billed herself to voters as a traditional conservative, but emerged as one of Trump’s most ardent defenders during the first impeachment trial against him in 2019. Her support for Trump has not wavered since.

“I’m proud to be a top surrogate,” Stefanik said earlier this year of her support for the president-elect. “I would proudly serve in a future Trump administration.”

Her appointment would leave open the 21st Congressional District seat in New York, which would lead to a special election.

Some Trump allies, including billionaire Elon Musk, have argued it is too risky to lose Stefanik’s seat as Republicans and Democrats battle for control of the House, which remains too close to call.

The planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the dead sterile worlds that scientists have long thought.

Instead, they may have oceans, and the moons may even be capable of supporting life, scientists say.

Much of what we know about them was gathered by Nasa’s Voyager 2 spacecraft which visited nearly 40 years ago.

But a new analysis shows that Voyager’s visit coincided with a powerful solar storm, which led to a misleading idea of what the Uranian system is really like.

Uranus is a beautiful, icy ringed world in the outer reaches of our solar system. It is among the coldest of all the planets. It is also tilted on its side compared to all the other worlds – as if it had been knocked over – making it arguably the weirdest.

We got our first close-up look at it in 1986, when Voyager 2 flew past and sent back sensational pictures of the planet and its five major moons.

But what amazed scientists even more was the data Voyager 2 sent back indicating that the Uranian system was even weirder than they thought.

The measurements from the spacecraft’s instruments indicated that the planets and moons were inactive, unlike the other moons in the outer solar system. They also showed that Uranus’s protective magnetic field was strangely distorted. It was squashed and pushed away from the Sun.

A planet’s magnetic field traps any gases and other material coming off the planet and its moons. These might be from oceans or geological activity. Voyager 2 found none, suggesting that Uranus and its five largest moons were sterile and inactive.

This came as an enormous surprise because it was unlike the solar system’s other planets and their moons.

But the new analysis has solved the decades-long mystery. It shows that Voyager 2 flew past on a bad day.

The new research shows that just as Voyager 2 flew past Uranus, the Sun was raging, creating a powerful solar wind that might have blown the material away and temporarily distorted the magnetic field.

So, for 40 years we have had an incorrect view of what Uranus and its five largest moons are normally like, according to Dr William Dunn of University College London.

“These results suggest that the Uranian system could be much more exciting than previously thought. There could be moons there that could have the conditions that are necessary for life, they might have oceans that below the surface that could be teeming with fish!”.

Linda Spilker was a young scientist working on the Voyager programme when the Uranus data came in. She is now still serving as the project scientist for the Voyager missions. She said that she was delighted to hear about the new results, which have been published in the Journal Nature Astronomy.

“The results are fascinating, and I am really excited to see that there is potential for life in the Uranian system,” she told BBC News.

“I’m also so pleased that so much is being done with the Voyager data. It’s amazing that scientists are looking back at the data we collected in 1986 and finding new results and new discoveries”.

Dr Affelia Wibisono of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, who is independent of the research team, described the results as “very exciting”.

“It shows how important it is to look back at old data, because sometimes, hiding behind them is something new to be discovered, which can help us design the next generation of space exploration missions”.

Which is exactly what Nasa is doing, partly as a result of the new research.

It has been nearly 40 years since Voyager 2 last flew past the icy world and its moons. Nasa has plans to launch a new mission, the Uranus Orbiter and Probe, to go back for a closer look in 10 years’ time.

According to Nasa’s Dr Jamie Jasinski, whose idea it was to re-examine the Voyager 2 data, the mission will need to take his results into account when designing its instruments and planning the scientific survey.

“Some of the instruments for the future spacecraft are very much being designed with ideas from what we learned from Voyager 2 when it flew past the system when it was experiencing an abnormal event. So we need to rethink how exactly we are going to design the instruments on the new mission so that we can best capture the science we need to make discoveries”.

Nasa’s Uranus probe is expected to arrive by 2045, which is when scientists hope to find out whether these far-flung icy moons, once thought of as being dead worlds, might have the possibility of being home to life.

Broadcaster Gary Lineker is to step down as host of flagship football programme Match of the Day at the end of this season, BBC News understands.

His departure is expected to be announced officially by the BBC on Tuesday.

The Sun, who first reported the story, also said the presenter would leave the BBC after leading coverage of the 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Lineker’s representative has been approached for comment. The BBC press office declined to comment.

Lineker, whose contract was coming to an end, entered negotiations with the BBC’s new head of sport in October.

BBC News understands that Lineker was open to staying on at Match of the Day, but the BBC did not offer him a new contract for the show.

The 63-year-old has hosted Match of the Day since 1999. He will have held the post for 26 years when he leaves at the end of the Premier League season in May 2025.

Lineker told Esquire magazine in an interview published earlier this month that he accepted he will “have to slow down at some point”.

Earlier in the year, the presenter joked about speculation he could leave the BBC. He opened a Match of the Day broadcast by saying it was his “final show”. After a pause, he added “before the international break”.

Lineker is one of the corporation’s best-known presenters and its highest-paid star, of those whose salaries are declared, earning more than £1.3m a year.

He has also presented coverage of major tournaments like World Cups and European Championships for the BBC, as well as BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremonies.

Lineker has worked for other sports networks during his time at the BBC, including US network NBC and BT Sport (now TNT Sport). He has also branched out into podcasts, co-founding production company Goalhanger, which makes popular shows including The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics and The Rest is Entertainment.

Alastair Campbell, who co-presents The Rest Is Politics podcast, said Lineker would be “a very hard act to follow”, Sky News reported.

“He is an excellent broadcaster and a very good guy,” Campbell said.

Lineker’s new contract has now been agreed and he will leave on a high at the biggest tournament in world football. But replacing a star presenter on a high profile show is always a risk.

Some fans have suggested Match of the Day 2 host Mark Chapman should step into the role, but other football presenters including Gabby Logan and Alex Scott are also on fans’ lists as possible successors.

• Who could replace Gary Lineker as host?

Lineker has been involved in controversy at the BBC because of his social media activity.

He was briefly suspended by bosses last year after an outcry over a post about the UK’s asylum policy.

The incident led to a review of BBC social media guidelines, which concluded that high-profile presenters should be allowed to express views on issues and policies but stop short of political campaigning.

Lineker described the new rules at the time as “all very sensible”.

Before becoming a TV presenter, Lineker had a hugely successful career as a striker for England as well as Leicester, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Barcelona.