Donald Trump’s nomination of Congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general has arrived like a thunderclap in Washington.

Of all the president-elect’s picks for his administration so far, this is easily the most controversial – and sends a clear message that Trump intends to shake up the establishment when he returns to power.

The shockwaves were still being felt on Thursday morning as focus shifted to a looming fight in the Senate over his nomination.

Trump is assembling his team before he begins his term on 20 January, and his choice of defence secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, and intelligence chief, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, have also raised eyebrows.

But it is the firebrand Florida politician Gaetz making most headlines. He is perhaps best known for spearheading the effort to unseat then-Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last year. But he has a consistent history of being a flamethrower in the staid halls of Congress.

In 2018, he brought a right-wing Holocaust denier to the State of the Union, and later tried to expel two fathers who lost children in a mass shooting from a hearing after they objected to a claim he made about gun control.

His bombastic approach means he has no shortage of enemies, including within his own party. And so Trump’s choice of Gaetz for this crucial role is a signal to those Republicans, too – his second administration will be staffed by loyalists who he trusts to enact his agenda, conventional political opinion be damned.

Gasps were heard during a meeting of Republican lawmakers when the nomination for America’s top US prosecutor was announced, Axios reported, citing sources in the room.

Republican Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho reportedly responded with an expletive.

“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said. “This one was not on my Bingo card.”

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Gaetz does have some allies on Capitol Hill who share an unwavering loyalty to Trump. The Florida lawmaker has been one of the president-elect’s most aggressive and relentless defenders – at congressional hearings, in press conferences and during television appearances.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, another devoted Trump loyalist, called Gaetz an “accomplished attorney”.

“He’s a reformer in his mind and heart, and I think that he’ll bring a lot to the table on that,” said Johnson.

In a social media post, Trump spelled out how he intends to use Gaetz as a wrecking ball to radically change the US Department of Justice, which he has regularly blamed for his multiple legal troubles.

“Matt will root out the systemic corruption at the DOJ, and return the department to its true mission of fighting crime and upholding our democracy and constitution,” he wrote.

During the campaign, Trump promised retribution for the numerous investigations launched against him. Now, it appears, Gaetz will be at the frontlines of Trump’s efforts to bring the justice department to heel.

The department also investigated Gaetz himself.

Last year, it declined to bring charges over allegations he violated sex trafficking laws during a trip he took to the Bahamas with paid escorts.

He was the subject of an ongoing ethics investigation in the House of Representatives into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and misuse of campaign funds.

But on Wednesday evening, reportedly just two days before a highly critical House report on the investigation, Johnson said Gaetz had resigned as a lawmaker, effectively ending the House probe since the committee only investigates members.

On Thursday, top Senate Democrat Dick Durbin asked the House committee to preserve and share the findings of that report, saying the sequence and timings of the resignation raised questions.

“Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States.”

Gaetz has denied all the allegations against him.

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According to CBS News, Gaetz had asked Trump for a pre-emptive pardon for any related crimes prior to the president leaving office in January 2021.

All this makes him an unlikely choice for a position that typically goes to more senior politicians, well versed in law.

Gaetz, 42, has a law degree and worked for a Florida law firm before his eight years in Congress. Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, was a senior federal appellate court judge. Trump in his first term picked US Senator Jeff Sessions, and later Bill Barr, who had decades of experience in Republican presidential administrations.

The Senate will be responsible for confirming Gaetz’s nomination, and the Florida congressman has ruffled more then a few feathers in that chamber – including among Republicans. While his party has a majority, it would only take four “no” votes, joined by unified Democratic opposition, to sink his chances.

Gaetz himself said last year that he would love to be attorney general while acknowledging it was unlikely.

“The world is not ready, probably,” he told Newsmax in an interview. “Certainly Senate confirmation wouldn’t be, but you know, a boy can dream.”

For the moment, however, Trump’s closest supporters are celebrating his pick.

“The hammer of justice is coming,” Elon Musk posted about Gaetz on X.

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of Gaetz’s bid to be attorney general, Trump has fired a warning shot across the bow of US government. While his second term in office may be more organised than his first, it may end up being even more confrontational.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense the presidential election in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A knife attack on a doctor in the southern Indian city of Chennai has raised fresh concerns about the safety of medical professionals in the country.

Police say that Balaji Jaganathan, an oncologist at a government hospital, was stabbed several times by a man who was reportedly unsatisfied with his mother’s treatment.

The doctor’s condition is reported to be stable and the attacker has been sent to police custody.

More than 75% of doctors in India have faced at least some form of violence and 68.33% of such attacks are committed by the patients’ attendees, a report by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) shows.

The case comes months after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor inside the hospital where she worked sparked nationwide protests – and a conversation about the unsafe working conditions of medical practitioners in India.

The attack took place on Wednesday, when Mr Jaganathan was treating the attacker’s mother, who was recently diagnosed with an advanced stage of ovarian cancer.

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Reports say that the man was seen quarrelling with the doctor a day before. The next day, he entered Mr Jaganathan’s consultation room, locked it and reportedly stabbed him seven times with a kitchen knife.

He was caught by hospital staff on his way out and taken into police custody.

Meanwhile, Mr Jaganathan, who suffered wounds to his scalp, head, neck, back and ear, was rushed into surgery.

“His condition is stable. He will be monitored in ICU by a team of doctors,” the hospital’s director, Dr L Parthasarathy, told reporters on Wednesday.

The incident sparked protests across Tamil Nadu state, where Chennai is located, with several doctors unions threatening a complete strike of services.

IMA, which is the biggest union of medical professionals in the country, condemned the attack and demanded strong measures to curb violence against doctors.

“Only a comprehensive overhaul of the security atmosphere in the hospitals could restore the confidence of doctors. The nation owes this to its doctors,” it said in a statement.

Opposition parties in Tamil Nadu also reacted to the incident and accused the government of failing to maintain law and order in the state.

Deputy Chief Minister Udayanidhi Stalin visited the hospital on Wednesday and assured of strict action against the attacker.

The sister of a 16-year-old boy who drowned while swimming naked at a Christian holiday camp in Zimbabwe run by child abuser John Smyth blames the Church of England for his death.

“The Church knew about the abuses that John Smyth was doing. They should have stopped him. Had they stopped him, I think my brother [Guide Nyachuru] would still be alive,” Edith Nyachuru told the BBC.

The British barrister had moved to Zimbabwe with his wife and four children from Winchester in England in 1984 to work with an evangelistic organisation.

This was two years after an investigation revealed he had subjected boys in the UK, many of whom he had met at Christian holiday camps run by a charity he chaired that was linked to the Church, to traumatic physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

The 1982 report, prepared by Anglican clergyman Mark Ruston, about the canings said “the scale and severity of the practice was horrific”, with accounts of boys beaten so badly they bled, with one describing how he needed to wear nappies until his wounds scabbed over.

Despite these shocking revelations, mainly involving boys from elite British public schools, the Rushton report was not widely circulated.

A decade on, aged 50, Smyth had established himself as a respected member of the Christian community in Zimbabwe. He had set up his own organisation, Zambesi Ministries, with funding from the UK – and was meting out similar punishments at camps that he marketed at the country’s top schools.

Ms Nyachuru says her brother’s trip had been an early Christmas present from one of his other sisters, who had picked up one of Smyth’s brochures and been impressed with all the activities on offer for the week.

As she looks at an old photograph of Guide, she says he was the youngest of eight siblings, and the only boy: “He was very loved by everyone.

“A lovely boy… Guide was due to be made head boy the following year,” she remembers, adding that he was “an intelligent boy, a good swimmer, strong, healthy with no known medical conditions”.

But within 12 hours of him being dropped at the camp at Ruzawi School in Marondera, 74km (46 miles) from the capital, Harare, on the evening of 15 December 1992, the family received a call to say he had died.

Witnesses say that like all the boys, Guide had gone swimming naked in a pool before bed – a camp tradition. The other boys returned to the dormitory, but Guide’s absence was not noticed – which his sister finds surprising – and his body was found at the bottom of the pool the next morning.

His family rushed to the mortuary but Ms Nyachuru’s shock was compounded by confusion when she was stopped by officers from viewing his body: “They told me: ‘You can’t go in there because he is indecently dressed.’

“It was only my father, my brother-in-law and our pastor who went in and put him in the coffin.”

Nakedness appears to be something Smyth was fixated on at his camps. Camp attendees have told of how he would often parade around without clothes in the boys’ dormitories – where he also slept, unlike other staff members.

He would also shower naked with them in the communal showers and the boys were ordered not to wear underpants in bed.

“He promoted nakedness and encouraged the boys to walk around naked at the summer camp,” a former student who attended a camp at Ruzawi in 1991 told the BBC.

But his jocular manner put many of them at ease, he said.

“Smyth was very friendly, laid-back, approachable, he was really fun, always joking.

“Smyth would also walk the dorms and shower area wearing nothing but a towel slung over his shoulder.”

The reason given for the no-underwear-in-the-evening rule was “because it would make them grow”, he recalled.

Smyth gave talks on masturbation, would sometimes lead prayers in the nude and encouraged naked trampolining, an activity he described as “flappy jumping” – all behaviour noted in an investigation by Zimbabwean lawyer David Coltart that was launched in May 1993.

It was the thrashings that Smyth was giving boys with a notorious table tennis bat, dubbed “TTB”, that led a parent to the door of Coltart, who worked at a law practice in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo.

She wanted to know why one of her sons had returned from a holiday camp with bruises on his buttocks so severe that she took him to a doctor, who found a “12cm x 12cm bruise”.

“She saw these and demanded to know what happened and then it came out that her son had been badly beaten in the nude, and she came to me for advice,” Coltart, now mayor of Bulawayo, told the BBC.

“When I heard that this was a Christian organisation – I’m an elder in the Presbyterian Church – I got hold of my pastor and we got hold of the Baptist Church, Methodist Church and two other churches in the city and then I was instructed by those churches to investigate the matter,” he said.

Forty-four-year old Jason Leanders, who went on the camp that immediately followed Guide’s death, said he was beaten three to four times a day by Smyth, who would put his hands into his pants to check he had not put on extra layers to cushion his buttocks.

“My bum was black,” he told the BBC. “But being a boy, you act tough.”

For many boarding school students, corporal punishment was regarded as “normal”, former Zimbabwean cricketer Henry Olonga, who was attending the camp the night Guide died, said in his 2015 autobiography.

But after Coltart managed to track down the Rushton report, the severity of the problem became apparent. He wrote to Smyth instructing him to immediately stop the Zambesi Ministries camps.

“It was calculated, he focused on boys. He groomed young men. He encouraged them to take showers in the nude with him. There was a pattern of violence,” he said.

But Coltart’s dealings with Smyth proved difficult.

“He was a highly articulate man and quite aggressive in the meetings that I had with him. He employed all his skills as a barrister to seek to intimidate. He was older than me. I was then a relatively young lawyer in my 30s. He exploited the fact that he was an English QC [Queen’s Counsel].”

Rather than comply with Coltart’s various requests, he doubled down and in a letter to parents ahead of the August 1993 camps, described himself as “a father figure to the camp” and defended the nudity and corporal punishment, writing: “I never cane the boys, but I do whack with a table tennis bat when necessary… although most regard TTB (as it is affectionately known) as little more than a joke.”

This time there appears to have been no cloaking of the beatings as “spiritual discipline” as had been the case in the UK. He also admitted to Coltart that he took photographs of naked boys, but said they were “from shoulders up” for publicity purposes.

Coltart contacted two psychologists with his findings, both of whom advised that Smyth should stop working with children.

His 21-page report was then published in October 1993, and circulated to head teachers and church leaders in Zimbabwe.

“The report was never published widely, conscious of the dangers of a defamation suit,” Coltart said.

However it “basically stopped him in his tracks in Zimbabwe” as the private schools were his harvesting ground, he said. Zambesi Ministries camps did continue in some guise, but not at schools or under Smyth’s leadership

Coltart then instructed another law firm to pursue a legal case against Smyth who was eventually charged with culpable homicide over Guide’s death, as well as charges relating to the beatings.

But, according to former BBC TV producer Andrew Graystone in his 2021 book about the abuse, the case was bedevilled with problems, police documents were missing and Smyth’s legal prowess led to the prosecutor being removed – another one was never appointed, so the case was essentially shelved in 1997.

Ms Nyachuru says no post-mortem was carried out at the time – Guide was buried on the day he drowned in the family’s home village, with Smyth presiding over the funeral.

Following the Coltart report, Smyth faced deportation from Zimbabwe but Graystone says he used his significant connections to avoid this, lobbying various cabinet ministers – some of whose sons had attended his camps – with suggestions that even then-President Robert Mugabe was approached by one of Smyth’s associates.

But from the time of Smyth’s prosecution, the family were given temporary residency permits, which had to be renewed every 30 days.

In 2001, having spent too long out of the country on a trip, Smyth and his wife Anne were refused re-entry, prompting their move to South Africa’s coastal city of Durban and then a few years later to Cape Town, where the couple were living when the Church of England became fully aware in 2013 of the abuses he had committed in the UK.

“The Anglican church in Cape Town in which John Smyth worshipped… has reported that it never received any reports suggesting he abused or groomed young people,” Thabo Makgoba, the archbishop of Cape Town, said in statement responding to this week’s resignation of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Smyth was only excommunicated by his local church the year before his death in 2018, after he was named publicly as an abuser in a Channel 4 News report.

Ms Nyachuru told the BBC it was not until 2021 that she received a written apology from Welby about the death of her brother, in which he admitted that Smyth was responsible and the church had failed her family.

She wrote back describing the apology as “too little, too late” and is now calling for other senior church leaders who failed to intervene to prevent Smyth’s abuse to resign: “I just think people of the church, if they see something not going in the right direction, if it needs the police they should go to the police.”

Coltart feels it is not just the Church that is to blame, and suggests other institutions in the UK need to face up to their failure to warn people in Zimbabwe.

He commended the Church of England’s recent Makin report, saying it “left no stone unturned”. The report estimates that around “85 boys and young men were physically abused in African countries, including Zimbabwe”.

Coltart urged the Church to reach out to them.

“I think possibly there are still victims in Zimbabwe, perhaps in South Africa, who are suffering from PTSD and I think the Anglican church has a responsibility to identify those individuals and to supply them with the medical assistance that they might require,” he said.

Mr Leanders says many of his friends are still “so traumatised by the beatings they are not even prepared to talk about it”.

“Smyth was protected in England and he was protected in Zimbabwe. The protection went on for so long it robbed victims the chance to confront Smyth as adults.”

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Thousands of police are being deployed in Paris to ensure security at Thursday’s France-Israel football international, a week after violence in Amsterdam in which Maccabi Tel Aviv fans came under attack.

Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez says 4,000 officers will be on patrol, 2,500 at the Stade de France in the northern Paris suburbs and the rest on public transport and inside the capital.

In addition around 1,600 private security guards will be on duty at the stadium, and an elite anti-terrorist police unit will protect the visiting Israeli squad.

“It is a high-risk match [because of] an extremely tense geopolitical context,” Mr Nuñez said.

“We will not allow any attempt to disturb public order.”

The Uefa Nations League match is under intense scrutiny following the violence after last Thursday’s match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Netherlands.

The stadium, which can hold 80,000, will be only a quarter full. Following advice by the Israeli government, no more than 100 or so Israeli fans are expected to travel to Paris, though other Israel supporters may go to the game.

Politicians across Europe decried a “return of antisemitism” after Israeli fans were chased through the streets of Amsterdam.

Maccabi fans were themselves involved in vandalism, tearing down a Palestinian flag, attacking a taxi and chanting anti-Arab slogans, according to city authorities. They were then targeted by “small groups of rioters… on foot, by scooter or car”, the city said in a 12-page report.

Violence between Israel and its neighbours in the Middle East has the potential to spread to Europe.

France, Belgium and the Netherlands all have large Muslim populations of North African origin and they live beside far smaller Jewish populations, who in the main identify strongly with Israel.

To express solidarity with European Jews after Amsterdam, President Emmanuel Macron has said he will attend Thursday’s match, which begins at 20:45 (19:45 GMT).

He will be joined by Prime Minister Michel Barnier as well as previous presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Supporters have been told to expect identity checks ahead of the game. Bars and restaurants in the area have been told to close from the afternoon.

The Stade de France was the scene of a dangerous breakdown in law-and-order at a Uefa Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in 2022. However since then the Rugby World Cup and Paris Olympics have both been peacefully staged there.

France’s far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party – which sides with Palestinians and Lebanese in the conflicts with Israel – has called for Thursday’s match to be cancelled, or at least for President Macron to refuse to attend.

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“We do not want our head of state honouring a country that commits genocide,” said LFI deputy David Guiraud. Israel has denied allegations of genocide as baseless and grossly distorted.

But Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said it was out of the question to cancel or relocate the match. “France does not give way to those who sow hatred,” he said.

France and Israel are in the same group in the Uefa competition, alongside Italy and Belgium. In their first leg – played in Budapest – France beat Israel 4-1.

Pre-match tensions were already in evidence on the eve of the match after a pro-Israeli “gala” event was given the go-ahead in Paris, which the far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich was at one point expected to attend – although it was later thought his “presence” would be by video-link.

Several thousand pro-Palestinian and anti-racist organisations staged protests in the capital to coincide with the event. Clashes broke out and police used tear gas as protesters targeted a McDonald’s on the Boulevard Montmartre.

Relations between Macron and Benyamin Netanyahu have come under severe strain in recent weeks, after Macron accused the Israeli prime minister of “spreading barbarism” in Gaza and Lebanon.

French Jews were also upset when Macron was quoted as saying that Netanyahu should accept United Nations calls for a ceasefire because “his country was itself created by a decision of the UN.” This was interpreted in Israel as an insult to Jews who had lost their lives in their country’s war of independence.

France in turn was angered when two French officials were briefly detained by Israeli authorities at a holy site in East Jerusalem that is under French administration.

Macron has been described as pursuing a zigzag in his approach to the Middle East, as in many other domains, flipflopping inconsistently between outspoken statements of support for Israel and then its Arab neighbours.

New Zealand’s parliament was brought to a temporary halt by MPs performing a haka, amid anger over a controversial bill seeking to reinterpret the country’s founding treaty with Māori people.

Opposition party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke began the traditional ceremonial group dance after being asked whether her party supported the bill, which faced its first vote on Thursday.

At the same time, a hīkoi – or peaceful protest march – organised by a Māori rights group is continuing to make its way towards the capital, Wellington.

Thousands have already joined the 10-day march against the bill, which reached Auckland on Wednesday, having begun at the top of New Zealand on Monday.

The country is often considered a leader in indigenous rights, but opponents of the bill fear those same rights are being put at risk by this bill.

Act, the political party that introduced the bill, argues there is a need to legally define the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which has been fundamental to race relations in New Zealand.

The core values of the treaty have, over time, been woven into New Zealand’s laws in an effort to redress the wrong done to Māori during colonisation.

But Act – a minor party in the ruling centre-right coalition – say this has resulted in the country being divided by race, and the bill will allow the treaty to be interpreted more fairly through parliament, rather than the courts. The party’s leader, David Seymour, has dismissed opponents as wanting to “stir up” fear and division.

Critics, however, say the legislation will divide the country and lead to the unravelling of much-needed support for many Māori.

The first reading passed on Thursday after a 30-minute break, backed by all parties from the ruling coalition. Maipi-Clarke was suspended from the house.

It is unlikely to pass a second reading, as Act’s coalition partners have indicated they will not support it.

But this has not placated those worried about the bill, and its impact, with the hikoi still making progress along its 1,000km (621-mile) route.

In Auckland, it took an estimated 5,000 marchers two hours to cross the harbour bridge. Officials had closed two lanes, the New Zealand Herald reported, to allow them to continue along the route.

Danielle Moreau, who is Māori, walked over the Harbour Bridge with her two sons, Bobby and Teddy, and told the BBC she “was hoping it [the hīkoi] would be big but it was much more epic than I expected”.

“I marched to make the point that Te Tiriti [the Treaty of Waitangi] is very important to our national identity,” said Winston Pond, who also took part in the march on Wednesday.

“We are a multi-cultural society built on a bicultural base – something that cannot be altered.”

Juliet Tainui-Hernández, from the Māori tribe Ngāi Tahu, and her Puerto Rican partner Javier Hernández, brought their daughter Paloma to the hīkoi.

Ms Tainui-Hernández said those who turned out in support did so “for the respectful and inclusive nation we want Aotearoa [New Zealand] to be for our tamariki mokopuna – our children and grandchildren”.

Kiriana O’Connell, who is also Māori, said that the current treaty principles were already a compromise for her people, and she would not support a “rewrite”.

Under the proposed legislation, the treaty principles that would be defined in law are:

• that the government has a right to govern and that parliament has the full right to make laws
• that the rights of Māori are respected by the Crown
• that everyone is equal before the law and is entitled to equal protection under it.

Act leader Seymour – who is also New Zealand’s associate justice minister – argues that because the principles have never been properly defined legally, the courts “have been able to develop principles that have been used to justify actions that are contrary to the principle of equal rights”.

He says these include “ethnic quotas in public institutions” that go against the spirit of fairness for all New Zealanders.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, however, has called the bill “divisive” – despite being part of the same coalition.

Meanwhile, the Waitangi Tribunal, which was set up in 1975 to investigate alleged breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, notes the bill “purposefully excluded any consultation with Māori, breaching the principle of partnership, the Crown’s good-faith obligations, and the Crown’s duty to actively protect Māori rights and interests”.

It also said that the principles of the bill misinterpreted the Treaty of Waitangi and that this “caused significant prejudice to Māori”.

The tabling of the Treaty Principles Bill comes following a series of measures introduced by the government that have affected Māori.

They include the closure of the Māori Health Authority, which was set up under Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government to help create health equity, and reprioritising English over Māori when it comes to the official naming of government organisations, for example.

While roughly 18% of New Zealand’s population consider themselves to be Māori, according to the most recent census, many remain disadvantaged compared with the general population when assessed through markers such as health outcomes, household income, education levels and incarceration and mortality rates. There remains a seven-year gap in life expectancy.

The Treaty of Waitangi is an agreement between the British and many, but not all, Māori tribes, which was signed in 1840.

It is contentious as it was written in both English and Māori – which had only been a spoken language until colonisation – and the two versions contain fundamental differences when it comes to issues such as sovereignty.

While the treaty itself is not enshrined in law, its principles have been adopted over time into various pieces of legislation.

The bill will now be sent to a select committee for a six-month public hearing process.

A brief yearly silence has once again enveloped South Korea, as half a million students across the country sit for the most important test of their lives.

Planes were grounded, construction work halted, and car honking discouraged as the Suneung, an eight-hour university placement exam billed as one of the toughest in the world, kicked off on Thursday.

But this year, there was one sound that students were especially scared of: “APT”.

The global hit by Blackpink’s Rosé and Bruno Mars emerged as a “forbidden” song among students who feared that its catchiness could cause them to lose focus during the test.

No distractions are too minor when it comes to the Suneung, which many see as a culmination of years of formal education – and a turning point that determines their university placements, careers, and social statuses.

“I’m worried that the song will play in my head even during the exam,” one student told Yonhap News of the chart-topper. “Adults might laugh and say, ‘Why stress over something like that?’ But for us, with such an important test ahead, it can feel unsettling.”

Suneung students have previously been encouraged to avoid other so-called earworms, with songs such as “Go Go” by BTS and “Ring Ding Dong” by SHINee repeatedly cited online as tracks that should be forbidden.

Ensuring that the exam runs smoothly is a nationwide effort. Shops and the stock market opened late on Thursday to reduce traffic congestion, and authorities adjusted public transport operating hours and put more than a dozen spare trains on standby in case of breakdowns.

More than 10,000 police officers were deployed, including some tasked to ferry students to school during emergencies.

Besides grounding planes to minimise noise disturbances during the 20-minute English listening test, authorities have also asked bus and taxi drivers to refrain from honking while the tests are taking place.

Disruptions to the Suneung are treated as a serious matter. Last December, dozens of students sued the government after teachers accidentally cut their test short by 90 seconds.

There are a record number of candidates retaking the exam this year, after authorities announced they would expand enrolment in medical schools – a move that was met with widespread protests among trainee doctors while being welcomed by aspiring medical students.

A new recording has emerged of notorious cult leader Charles Manson appearing to admit to additional killings.

Manson’s followers, known as the Manson Family, killed nine people in 1969.

The cult leader directed the killings in the hope they would start a race war. He died in prison in 2017.

In newly released audio recorded while he was in jail and featured in a new documentary, Manson appears to speak about previously unknown killings.

“See, there’s a whole part of my life that nobody knows about,” Manson is heard saying in one of the tapes, which feature in a new documentary series Making Manson.

“I lived in Mexico for a while. I went to Acapulco, stole some cars. I just got involved in stuff over my head, man. Got involved in a couple of killings. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City, and I left some dead people on the beach.”

Associates of Manson, as well as his former cellmate, Phil Kaufman, are also interviewed.

“Charlie was very good at being evil and not showing it,” says Mr Kaufman in the series teaser.

“Anything that detracted from his game plan at that time, he would squash it, but he did it with velvet gloves.”

In the series, Manson “recounts the early crimes that led to the murder spree in the summer of ‘69”, according to the Peacock streaming service.

The Manson Family killed nine people including the heavily pregnant Hollywood actress Sharon Tate, wife of Roman Polanski.

One of Manson’s young followers, Susan Atkins, stabbed Tate to death and scrawled “PIG” on the home’s front door with the actress’s blood.

Four other people at Tate’s home were brutally stabbed to death. The next day, a wealthy couple in Los Angeles, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, were also killed by the clan. The killings became known collectively as the Tate-LaBianca murders.

Separately Donald Shea, a Hollywood stuntman, and Gary Hinman, an acquaintance of the group, were killed by members of the Manson Family.

Manson was not at the scene of the killings, but was nonetheless convicted of murder for directing his followers in seven of the killings.

He died of natural causes behind bars in 2017.

Votes are being counted in Sri Lanka after snap parliamentary elections, barely seven weeks after a new president was sworn in.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, whose Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party had just three seats in the outgoing assembly, hopes to get a clear majority. He was elected on a promise to combat corruption and restore stability after the island’s worst ever economic crisis.

The high cost of living is still a key issue for many voters.

Nearly two-thirds of former MPs chose not to run for re-election, including prominent members of the former ruling Rajapaksa dynasty. Results are expected on Friday.

“We believe that this is a crucial election that will mark a turning point in Sri Lanka,” President Dissanayake told reporters after voting in the capital Colombo.

The man he defeated in the presidential elections, Sajith Premadasa, was leading the opposition alliance.

Sri Lanka’s 17.1 million registered voters had to choose from more than 8,800 candidates in an election marked by a low-key campaign. Election monitors estimated turnout at 60-65%.

“Voter enthusiasm was less evident today. This was partly due to the dull campaign. We haven’t seen any violence and there are no big violations,” Rohana Hettiarachchi, executive director of poll monitoring group People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections, told the BBC.

Out of 225 seats in the parliament, 196 MPs will be directly elected. The rest will be nominated by parties based on the percentage of votes they get in what is known as proportional representation.

High inflation, food and fuel shortages precipitated a political crisis in 2022 which led to the ousting of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His successor Ranil Wickremesinghe managed to negotiate a bailout package worth $3bn with the International Monetary Fund – but many Sri Lankans continue to feel economic hardship.

“We are still stuck with the problems we faced before. We still don’t have financial help even to fulfil our daily needs,” 26-year-old garment factory worker Manjula Devi, who works in the Katunayake Free Trade Zone near Colombo, told the BBC.

The number of people living below the poverty line in Sri Lanka has risen to 25.9% in the past four years. The World Bank expects the economy to grow by only 2.2% in 2024.

Disenchantment with established political players greatly helped the left-leaning Dissanayake during September’s election. His party has traditionally backed strong state intervention and lower taxes, and campaigned for leftist economic policies.

Analysts expect the JVP-led coalition to do well in the elections but what remains to be determined is the margin of victory, and whether it gets the two-thirds majority it wants to be able to pass its ambitious reforms.

Dissanayake made history as Sri Lanka’s first president to be elected with less than 50% of the vote. Many observers think his alliance will do better this time.

How his alliance fares will be partly due to a fragmented opposition – with many leaders and parties breaking away into either smaller groups, or contesting as independent candidates.

Observers say the JVP-led alliance ran a more vibrant campaign than the opposition, which is likely to have a significant impact on the outcome of the election.

What is clear is that whoever comes into power will be under massive pressure to perform and live up to their campaign promises.

Sri Lanka’s economic situation remains precarious – and the main focus is still on providing essential goods and services. How the country progresses from this point will be a real challenge for the new government.

Meta has been fined €798m (£664m) for breaking competition law by embedding Facebook Marketplace within its social network.

The European Commission said this meant alternative classified ads services had faced “unfair trading conditions”, making it harder for them to compete.

In addition to the fine, it has ordered Meta to stop imposing these conditions on other services.

Meta said it rejected the Commission’s findings and would appeal.

EU antitrust head Margrethe Vestager said Facebook had impeded other online classified ads service providers.

“It did so to benefit its own service Facebook Marketplace, thereby giving it advantages that other online classified ads service providers could not match,” she added,

She said Meta “must stop this behaviour”, with the EU asking the firm to “refrain from repeating” the infringement.

Meta said the Commission had provided “no evidence” of harm either to competitors or consumers.

“This decision ignores the market realities, and will only serve to protect incumbent marketplaces from competition.”

The ruling is the result of an investigation which the Commission opened in 2021, after Meta’s rivals complained that Facebook Marketplace gave it an unfair advantage.

Meta has not previously faced a fine from the EU over competition rules – though it was told to pay €110m in 2017 for not handing over correct information when it purchased WhatsApp.

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner has also previously fined Meta more than €1bn over mishandling people’s data when transferring it between Europe and the United States.

And it also had to pay a comparatively tiny £50m in 2021, when the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) accused it of deliberately breaking rules over its attempt to acquire Gif-maker Giphy – and ultimately demanded it sell the company altogether.

The decision comes as regulators are taking a firmer stance with big tech companies worldwide, with the US government considering a breakup of Google.

Anyone But You star Sydney Sweeney has said the idea of women supporting each other in the film and TV industry is “fake”.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the actress, who’s also known for Euphoria and White Lotus, said: “This entire industry, all people say is ‘women empowering other women’.

“None of it’s happening. All of it is fake and a front for all the other [stuff] that they say behind everyone’s back.”

Earlier this year, the star hit back at “shameful” comments made about her by a female Hollywood producer who said: “She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?”

Asked about the incident for the latest issue of Vanity Fair, Sweeney said: “It’s very disheartening to see women tear other women down, especially when women who are successful in other avenues of their industry see younger talent working really hard – hoping to achieve whatever dreams that they may have – and then trying to bash and discredit any work that they’ve done.”

Sweeney, one of Hollywood’s biggest breakout stars of recent years, went on to discuss why this might be the case.

“I’ve read that our entire lives, we were raised – and it’s a generational problem – to believe only one woman can be at the top,” she said.

“There’s one woman who can get the man. There’s one woman who can be, I don’t know, anything.

“So then all the others feel like they have to fight each other or take that one woman down instead of being like, let’s all lift each other up.

“I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m just trying my best over here. Why am I getting attacked?”

In April, Carol Baum, who produced films including Dead Ringers and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, spoke about Sweeney after a film screening.

According to Variety, Baum had said: “There’s an actress who everybody loves now – Sydney Sweeney. I don’t get Sydney Sweeney. I was watching on the plane Sydney Sweeney’s movie [Anyone But You] because I wanted to watch it.

“I wanted to know who she is and why everybody’s talking about her. I watched this unwatchable movie – sorry to people who love this… romantic comedy where they hate each other.”

Baum, who also teaches at the University of Southern California, added: “I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’ Nobody had an answer.”

In response, Sweeney’s representative told Variety: “How sad that a woman in the position to share her expertise and experience chooses instead to attack another woman.”

Satirical news publication The Onion has bought Infowars, the media organisation headed by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, for an undisclosed price at a court-ordered auction.

The Onion said that the bid was secured with the backing of families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who won a $1.5b (£1.18b) defamation lawsuit against Jones for spreading false rumours about the victims.

A judge in Texas ordered the auction in September, and various groups – both Jones’s allies and detractors – had suggested they would bid for the company.

Jones founded Infowars in 1999. He has vowed to continue broadcasting using a different platform.

Ben Collins, a former NBC News journalist who is chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, said on X: “We’re planning on making a very stupid website.”

In a rambling video message posted Thursday morning, Jones called the takeover a “total attack on free speech”.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen but I’m going to be here until they come in and turn the lights off.”

The number of people dying because of the civil war in Sudan is significantly higher than previously reported, according to a new study.

More than 61,000 people have died in Khartoum state, where the fighting began last year, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group.

Of these, 26,000 people were killed as a direct result of the violence, it said, noting that the leading cause of death across the Sudan was preventable disease and starvation.

Many more people have died elsewhere in the country, especially in the western region of Darfur, where there have been numerous reports of atrocities and ethnic cleansing.

Aid workers say the conflict in Sudan has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with many thousands at risk of famine.

Until now, the UN and other aid agencies have been using the figure of 20,000 confirmed deaths.

Because of the fighting and chaos in the country, there has been no systematic recording of the number of people killed.

The study comes as a rights group says French military technology is being used in the conflict, in violation of a UN arms embargo.

Amnesty International on Thursday said the Rapid Support Forces militia, which is battling the army, was using vehicles in Darfur supplied by the United Arab Emirates that are fitted with French hardware.

“Our research shows that weaponry designed and manufactured in France is in active use on the battlefield in Sudan,” said Amnesty’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard.

The BBC has asked for comment from France and the UAE, which has previously denied arming the RSF.

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The Galix defence system – made in France by companies KNDS and Lacroix – is used for land forces to help counter close-range attacks.

Amnesty said the weapons could be used to commit or facilitate serious rights violations, adding that the French government must ensure the companies “immediately stop the supply of this system to the UAE”.

The rights group shared images, which it said it had verified, of destroyed vehicles on the ground that had the Galix system visible on them.

It said that the UAE and France had a long-standing partnership in the defence sector and cited a parliamentary report indicating that French companies had delivered about 2.6bn euros ($2.74bn; £2.16bn) in military equipment to the UAE between 2014 and 2023.

It said the companies had a responsibility to respect human rights and to conduct “due diligence throughout their entire value chain”.

Amnesty says that it had contacted the affected companies and the French authorities regarding the use of the defence system but had received no response.

“If France cannot guarantee through export controls, including end user certification, that arms will not be re-exported to Sudan, it should not authorise those transfers,” it said.

The UN first imposed an arms embargo in Darfur in 2004, following allegations of ethnic cleansing against the region’s non-Arabic population.

Amnesty has called for the embargo to be expanded to the rest of Sudan, and to strengthen its monitoring mechanism following the outbreak of the civil war.

Amnesty has urged all countries to stop directly and indirectly supplying arms to Sudan’s fighting factions.

The paramilitary RSF, led by general Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has been at war with Sudan’s regular army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan since April 2023 when the two former allies took up arms against each other in a ferocious power struggle.

The RSF has been accused of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, which it has denied, blaming local militias.

Both parties have been accused of committing war crimes, with the ongoing fighting leaving thousands dead and millions displaced.

In August, a UN-backed committee of experts declared famine conditions in parts of Darfur.

The head of the World Health Organization said starvation was “almost everywhere” following a visit to the country a month later.

“The situation in Sudan is very alarming… the massive displacement – it’s now the largest in the world, and, of course, famine,” director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus then told the BBC.

The confluence of war, hunger, displacement, and disease in Sudan has however been overshadowed internationally by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The Sudan Research Group research found that 90% of the deaths in Khartoum were unrecorded, pointing to a potentially similar situation in other regions.

Mayson Dahab, the lead researcher, however said they did not have sufficient data to estimate mortality levels in other parts of the country or determine how many deaths in all could be linked to the war.

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For now, Mike Huckabee seems to be keeping his cards close to his chest.

Shortly after being announced as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Israel, the former Republican governor of Arkansas said: “I won’t make the policy. I will carry out the policy of the president.”

But he did give an indication of what he expected that policy to be, citing the previous Trump administration’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and to recognise the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory – decisions as warmly welcomed by the Israeli right wing as they were categorically rejected by Palestinians.

“No-one has done more,” he told an Israeli radio station. “President Trump and I fully expect that will continue.”

What approach Trump will take to the Israel-Gaza war is still unclear. But the right wing of Israeli politics has welcomed the president-elect’s appointment of Huckabee, seeing it as predicting another term of American policy highly favourable to their longstanding aims of holding on to territory in the West Bank and expanding settlements.

The appointment was greeted with joy by two far-right ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. On the social media platform X, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich messaged his congratulations to “a consistent and loyal friend”, while Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, wrote “Mike Huckabee” with heart emojis.

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Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have reason to be cheered by Huckabee’s appointment. He has been a consistent supporter of many Israelis’ ambitions to expand into territories that would form part of any future Palestinian state.

Holding a press conference in 2017, shortly after a cornerstone-laying ceremony at one of the biggest Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Huckabee said: “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities.

“There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

The following year, he said: “I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” using the name used by many in Israel for the area which became the occupied West Bank when it was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

The previous Trump administration declared in 2019 that it did not consider Israeli settlements illegal under international law, contradicting decades of US policy. Other decisions, including a 2020 peace plan greenlighting the annexation of Israeli settlements, were seen as more favourable to the settlers than any previous administration.

The Israeli far right has indicated that it sees Huckabee’s appointment as a sign that it will be able to further advance its agenda, including annexation of the West Bank, during the next Trump term.

On Monday, Smotrich said that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty” in the West Bank, adding that he had instructed Israeli authorities to begin preparatory work for annexation of the occupied territory.

That happening is a genuine fear for Mustafa Barghouti, a West Bank-based veteran Palestinian politician who is leader of the Palestinian National Initiative political movement.

“You can imagine the reaction of other powerful countries in the world would be, when the idea of annexing occupied territories, obtained by war, becomes legal and acceptable,” he says. “So it’s not just about Palestinians and our suffering, it’s about the international order.”

Whether Smotrich will get his wish remains to be seen. Tal Schneider, a political correspondent at the Times of Israel, says it is not a foregone conclusion that a pro-settler US ambassador will result in pro-settler policies in Washington.

“Four years ago, some of the people that surrounded Trump were very much pro-settlements and pro-annexing, but it didn’t work like that last time. I predict it’s not going to work like that this time around.”

Huckabee was not the only appointee announced on Tuesday. The president-elect also said Steve Witkoff would serve as his special envoy to the Middle East.

As well as being a real estate developer, Witkoff is also a longtime golf buddy of Trump’s. The pair were playing together at the time of a second failed assassination attempt in September.

It is not clear what foreign policy experience Witkoff brings to the role, but he has previously praised Trump’s dealings with Israel.

In July, he argued that Trump’s “leadership was good for Israel and the entire region”.

“With President Trump, the Middle East experienced historic levels of peace and stability. Strength prevents wars. Iran’s money was cut off which prevented their funding of global terror,” he said.

Netanyahu’s decision to nominate a hardline settler leader for Israeli ambassador to Washington three days after Trump’s election also indicates that the prime minister believes the next administration will be receptive to right-wing arguments.

US-born Yechiel Leiter, who was Netanyahu’s chief of staff when he was finance minister, supports the annexation of the West Bank. According to the Haaretz newspaper, he was once active in the US-based Jewish Defence League, the organisation founded by far-right rabbi Meir Kahane. His son was killed fighting in Gaza.

He was also reported to support the Abraham Accords, Trump’s efforts to normalise relations between Israel and Arab states, which had some success. However, advancing that process has been derailed by the ongoing war in Gaza and Arab anger over the suffering of the Palestinians.

Palestinians, already disillusioned with the US over Joe Biden’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza, say Trump’s pick for ambassador suggests the next president will make the prospect of an eventual two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict even more remote.

“Mr Huckabee has said things that are absolutely contradictory to international law,” says Mustafa Barghouti, a West Bank-based Palestinian politician.

“It will be really bad news for the cause of peace in this region.”

On election night, Donald Trump repeated the phrase: “Promises made, promises kept.”

Now, Republicans have officially taken control of Congress and his “promises” are a whole lot easier to keep.

In Washington political parlance, it’s called “a governing trifecta”, when the president’s party also controls both chambers of Congress – the House of Representatives and the Senate.

That control is what Donald Trump’s Republican Party now has.

Single-party control was once common, but in recent decades it has become rarer and shorter. Often, the party in power loses seats when midterm congressional elections roll around two years later.

Both Trump and Joe Biden enjoyed trifectas for their first two years in the White House, but they also saw that having such control is no guarantee a president can get their way.

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In his first two years, Trump passed a signature tax bill – reducing corporate taxes from 35% to 21%, and cutting some taxes on individuals.

But with some members of his own party resistant to his surprise ascent to the top in 2016, he struggled with other aims.

His plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare) failed when a senator from his own party, John McCain, refused to vote for it. He also failed to pass an infrastructure bill as he had promised.

In his first two years, when the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, Biden succeeded in passing the American Rescue plan, the Investment and Jobs Act, and the Chips and Science Act. But he, too, had to significantly scale back his spending and investment plans – touted as the Build Back Better package – after opposition from one of his own senators.

A major impediment to total control for either party is that Senate bills require a three-fifths majority, or 60 votes, to bypass the filibuster, which enables senators to delay legislation by keeping debate open-ended. That means that when a party has a simple majority in the Senate, it needs to reach across the aisle to get a bill passed.

Even with a healthy majority in the Senate this time around, Trump will not have the magic 60 seats that would allow him to overcome opposition attempts to delay legislation.

And on Wednesday, Republicans in the Senate selected John Thune as their majority leader over Florida’s Rick Scott, the clear favourite in the Trump camp, in a sign some lawmakers may be reasserting their independence (Trump did not officially endorse Scott).

That said, a trifecta, if astutely managed, does open the way for the possibility of major legislative initiatives.

Trump’s power advantage could be key in pushing through his big promises such as the largest deportation of migrants in history, sweeping tariffs on foreign imports, and the rolling back of environmental protections.

Using legislation to achieve these ends will make such plans much harder to overturn in the courts – something Donald Trump was plagued by in his first term when he extensively used executive orders that were regularly and often successfully challenged.

The judicial landscape also has changed in Trump’s favour.

The signature achievement of his first term was putting three conservatives on the Supreme Court – cementing a two-thirds majority for possibly decades to come.

He also named more than four dozen judges to the federal appeals courts, flipping several circuits to a more conservative bent.

The majority Republicans have in the Senate also provides a key advantage.

Trump will be able to get his nominees for administration posts approved more easily, something he struggled with back in 2017 when internal resistance to him in the Republican Party was still significant.

All this bodes for a busy and possibly turbulent next two years. But, as recent history indicates, these trifectas don’t last all that long. The incoming administration will want to get a move on.

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

Pete Hegseth has spent the past eight years on the couch of a Fox News morning show defending President-elect Donald Trump and advocating for a conservative cultural shift in the US military, and he could soon be directing that agenda from behind the top desk at the Pentagon.

The Republican president-elect announced on Wednesday that Hegseth, a television host and veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, was his nominee for defence secretary – a role typically filled by senior civil servants, experienced politicians and high-level executives.

While the 44-year-old has little of the traditional experience expected for such an important cabinet position – he would be the second-youngest person to serve in the office – he could aim to transform the Department of Defense if confirmed by the Senate.

Just last week, Hegseth said on a podcast that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff – the US’s top military leader – should be fired, along with any “general, admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] woke [expletive]”.

He also said that women should not serve in combat roles because he argued it had not made the military “more effective” or “more lethal”.

“Over human history, men in those positions are more capable,” he said.

He has also reportedly called for the Defence Department to be renamed the War Department and for a 10-year ban on generals working as defence contractors after leaving the military.

Those views have earned Hegseth many conservative fans, particularly those close to the president-elect. But some also question whether he is capable of running an agency that is considered one of the world’s largest bureaucracies, with a budget of nearly $900bn (£708bn).

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Former Pentagon officials stressed that this role is one of the most critical appointments that the president could make, as the office-holder guides national security decisions and oversees the 2.9 million civilians and military service members who work for the Defence Department across the world.

“I’ve thought before that it was a harder job than the presidency,” Lincoln Bloomfield, who served in the Pentagon under Presidents George W Bush and Ronald Reagan, told the BBC.

“Hegseth’s not an old guy. He’s in his prime, so he has all the energy he needs,” added Bloomfield, who noted that the television host was well-educated and a combat veteran.

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“But the question is how much does experience help lead to finding solutions? This is a job where every morning there are at least a dozen kinds of fires burning.”

It is unclear how Hegseth will fare during his confirmation process in the Senate, when he is likely to faces hours of grilling in hearings.

Some officials anticipated a challenging path through the Senate given his short CV that does not include much work on national security or foreign policy issues.

“This is a job that will involve thousands of hours of advising the president and how, when and under what circumstances to use military force,” Mara Karlin, a former senior Pentagon official during the Biden administration, said. “It will involve figuring out how to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars and the care of millions of members of the US military and civilians and their families.”

Some lawmakers in Washington DC appeared initially perplexed by Hegseth’s appointment to oversee one of the most complex bureaucracies in the world.

“I confess I didn’t know who he was until 20 minutes ago,” Representative Adam Smith, who serves as the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Wednesday. “And he certainly doesn’t seem to have any background whatsoever in (Department of Defence) policy.”

Other lawmakers were more blunt.

“Who?” Republican Senator Bill Cassidy told NBC News when asked about the appointment. “I don’t know Pete. I just don’t know anything about him.”

A co-host of the Fox & Friends weekend show for eight years, Hegseth was reportedly considered for a post during Trump’s first administration. But several former military and Pentagon officials said that Hegseth was not a known quantity in the Washington defence community.

“There are different worlds that past secretaries have come from – political people, technocrats, some from Congress – but traditionally they have a pretty decent level of experience with defence, national security issues and foreign policy,” Ms Karlin said.

The Princeton and Harvard graduate served as an infantry platoon leader in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. He later deployed to Afghanistan as a counterinsurgency instructor in Kabul.

Many pointed to Hegseth’s military experience as a potential aid if he were to be confirmed.

“Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country. Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First. With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice,” Trump said in a statement announcing his choice.

Others, meanwhile, raised issue with Hegseth’s close ties to the president-elect.

John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser, told the BBC that the post of defence secretary should never be a “loyalty appointment”.

The person in the position should be willing to provide honest advice, Bolton said, even if it is unpopular.

“The question is: Will he be a yes man to Donald Trump or will he behave professionally and with courage the way he did when he was in uniform?” added Bolton, who has grown critical of the president-elect.

Hegseth has limited experience in politics beyond an unsuccessful run in 2012 for the Republican Senate nomination in Minnesota. Since then, he has largely turned to conservative activism and punditry.

He has advocated for privatising the US government’s agency that aids veterans, but his greatest political success in Washington was during Trump’s first term when he convinced the then-president to pardon several US service members accused of war crimes.

The two Army officers that Trump pardoned included one accused of killing a suspected Afghan bombmaker and another who was convicted of murder for directing men to fire upon three Afghans.

Still, Hegseth’s appointment to lead the Pentagon marks a departure from previous Republican and Democratic administrations alike.

Leon Panetta, who served under former President Barack Obama, was a former CIA director and White House Chief of Staff. Robert Gates, who was appointed by President George W Bush and Obama, worked for the CIA for 27 years.

During his first term, Trump himself turned to those with more military and national security experience than Hegseth, such as Secretaries Jim Mattis and Mark Esper – who both served for decades in the military and were well known in Washington’s defence community.

President Joe Biden chose to appoint a retired four-star general, Secretary Lloyd Austin, who served as the commander of US Central Command and faced some criticism from lawmakers for not informing the White House about undergoing medical procedures while in office.

Given the experience of past secretaries, many were quick to argue that Hegseth lacked the necessary credentials.

“A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense,” said Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who leads the Senate military personnel panel. She urged her fellow senators not to confirm him.

Others, however, rushed to Hegseth’s defence.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said the conservative anchor was a “tireless advocate for America’s soldiers and veterans”.

“[H]e brings a fresh perspective to a Pentagon that has lost sight of its mission under Joe Biden. Pete is dedicated to ensuring that our military is focused on lethality and readiness, not woke ideology,” the speaker said.

Donald Trump has announced many picks this week to join his administration when he becomes US president in January.

But those personnel decisions aren’t automatic.

Even with the backing of the future president, each person chosen for a key spot in Trump’s cabinet or administration must go through further vetting.

Many posts require a Senate hearing and the full chamber’s approval.

More than 1,000 positions – including the 15 officials chosen to lead executive departments, known as the Cabinet – typically require Senate approval. This also includes ambassadors and even some lower-level positions.

But many members of Trump’s team, including those who work in the White House or posts like the national security adviser, don’t require Senate approval. However, they still are vetted by the administration and face FBI background checks.

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The Senate approval process requires nominees to submit financial disclosure forms, fill out a questionnaire – which differs based on the role – and testify before a Senate committee.

These hearings can sometimes be contentious. They allow members from both political parties to question nominees about their backgrounds and plans for the post.

After the hearing, the committee votes on the nominee and if it approves, the full Senate then votes on the nominee.

Historically, the upper chamber has approved cabinet positions quickly – sometimes with little or no debate. But, “political and partisan conflicts between the president and senators have at times produced dramatic fights over cabinet nominees and led to their ultimate withdrawal or rejection,” the Senate’s historical website notes.

Bitter political brawls over Trump’s picks isn’t too probable in either chamber of Congress since Republicans will control both once he takes office in January.

But some Republicans already have questioned at least one Trump choice, notably Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, the pick for attorney general, the top prosecutor in the US.

The vetting and approval process for nominees can be lengthy – but it’s in the US Constitution to provide checks and balances on presidential power. It also is designed to prevent corrupt or unqualified nominees in administrations.

But Trump recently said the Senate “must agree” to recess appointments – a process that skips Senate vetting and allows quick installation of a nominee.

He argued that otherwise “we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.” He noted that in his past administration, some of his nominees took multiple years to be confirmed.

Trump made the demand in a post on X as Republicans weighed who would lead the Senate majority. Sen John Thune, who was chosen majority leader, agreed to use recess appointments to fill the posts quickly.

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In a recess appointment, a president makes an appointment when Congress is on recess. The process was created when Congress didn’t meet as often as it does today, and to be used in emergencies.

Recess appointments also are meant to be temporary and expire at the end of a congressional session – at most, one year.

There aren’t many constraints on this manoeuvre, though there are some rules that could prevent officials appointed under this procedure from being paid until they are approved by the Senate, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Past presidents have employed this method liberally, often as a way of circumventing political divides that would slow nominations.

George W. Bush made 171 recess appointments, Bill Clinton made 139 and Barack Obama made at least 32, according to the CRS. Trump and Joe Biden did not employ the method.

The process was used less after after the Supreme Court ruled against Obama in 2014, striking down multiple recess appointments and calling them unconstitutional.

The court ruled the Senate was not truly in recess when he made the appointments and that the vacancies did not occur when the Senate was on a break, according to US media reports.

From his wheelchair, Michael Northey watches quietly over his father’s grave, and lays a flower for the very first time.

“This is the closest I’ve been to him in 70 years, which is ridiculous,” he jokes poignantly.

Born into a poor family in the backstreets of Portsmouth, Michael was still a baby when his father, the youngest of 13 children, left to fight in the Korean War. He was killed in action, his body never identified.

For decades, it lay in an unmarked grave in the UN cemetery in Busan, on Korea’s south coast, adorned with the plaque ‘Member of the British Army, known unto God’.

Now it bears his name – Sergeant D. Northey, died 24 April 1951, age 23.

Sergeant Northey, along with three others, are the first unknown British soldiers killed in the Korean War to be successfully identified, and Michael is attending a ceremony, along with the other families, to rename their graves.

Michael had spent years doing his own research, hoping to find out where his father was buried, but had eventually given up.

“I’m ill and don’t have a lot of time left myself, so I’d written it off. I thought I’d never find out,” he says.

But a couple of months ago, Michael received a phone call. Unknown to him, researchers at the Ministry of Defence had been conducting their own investigation. When he heard the news, he “wailed like a banshee for 20 minutes”.

“I can’t describe the emotional release,” he says, smiling. “This had haunted me for 70 years. The poor lady who phoned me, I felt sorry for her!”

The woman on the other end of the phone was Nicola Nash, a forensic researcher from the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre in Gloucester, who ordinarily works to identify victims from the First and Second World Wars.

Tasked for the first time with finding the Korean War dead, she had to start from scratch – by first compiling a list of the 300 British soldiers still missing, of whom 76 were buried in the cemetery in Busan.

Nicola went through their burial reports, and found just one man had been buried wearing sergeant stripes from the Gloucester Regiment, as well as one major.

After trawling the national archives and cross referencing eyewitness accounts, family letters and war office reports, Ms Nash was able to identify these men as Sergeant Northey and Major Patrick Angier.

Both were killed in the famous Battle of Imjin River, in April 1951, as the Chinese Army – which had joined the war on the North Korean side – tried to push the allied forces down the peninsula to retake the capital Seoul.

Despite being hugely outnumbered, the men held their position for three days, giving their comrades enough time to retreat and successfully defend the city.

The issue at the time, Ms Nash explains, is that because the battle was so bloody, most of the men were either killed or captured, leaving no one to identify them.

The enemy had removed and scattered their dog tags. It was not until the prisoners of war were released that they were able share their accounts of the battle. No one had thought to go back and piece the puzzles together – until now.

For Ms Nash, this has been a six-year “labour of love”, made slightly easier, she admits, by having some of the men’s children still alive to draw on, something that has also made the process more special.

“The children have spent their whole lives not knowing what happened to their fathers, and for me to be able to do this work and bring them here to their graves, to say their goodbyes and have that closure, means everything,” she says.

At the ceremony, the families sit on chairs amidst the long rows of small stone graves which mark the thousands of foreign soldiers who fought and died in the Korean War. They are accompanied by serving soldiers from their loved ones’ former regiments.

Major Angier’s daughter, Tabby, now 77, and his grandson Guy, stand to read excerpts of letters he wrote from the front line.

In one of his final letters, he writes to his wife: “Lots of love to our dear children. Do tell them how much Daddy misses them and will come back as soon as he has finished his work.”

Tabby was three years old when her father left for the war, and her memories of him are fractured: “I can remember someone standing in a room and canvas bags piling up, which must have been his equipment to go to Korea. But I can’t see his face,” she says.

At the time of her father’s death, people didn’t like to talk about wars, Tabby says. Instead, people in her small Gloucestershire village used to remark: “Oh, those poor children, they’ve lost their father.”

“I used to think that if he’s lost, they’re going to find him,” says Tabby.

But as the years passed, and she learnt what had happened, Tabby was told her father’s body would never be found. The last record of his whereabouts suggested his body had been left under an upturned boat on the battlefield.

Tabby had twice previously visited the cemetery in Busan, in an attempt to get as close to her father as she thought possible – not knowing his actual grave was here all along.

“I think it will take some time to sink in,” she says, from his newly-adorned graveside.

The shock has been even greater for 25-year-old Cameron Adair, from Scunthorpe, whose great, great uncle, Corporal William Adair, is one of two soldiers from the Royal Ulster Rifles identified by Ms Nash. The other is Rifleman Mark Foster, from County Durham.

Both men were killed in January 1951 as they were forced to retreat by a platoon of Chinese soldiers.

Corporal Adair did not have children, and when his wife died so did his memory, leaving Cameron and his family unaware of his existence.

Finding out his relative “helped bring freedom to so many people” has brought Cameron “a real sense of pride,” he says.

“Coming here and witnessing this firsthand has really brought it home”.

Now a similar age to his uncle when he was killed, Cameron feels inspired and says he would like to serve should the need arise.

Ms Nash is now gathering DNA samples from the relatives of the other 300 missing soldiers, in the hope she can give more families the same peace and joy she has brought to Cameron, Tabby and Michael.

“If there are still British personnel missing, we will keep trying to find them,” she says.

Indian women on average hit menopause a few years earlier than their counterparts in the West, studies show. A recent paper found that women experiencing premature menopause, particularly in the age group of 30–39 years, is also on the rise. Yet there are few resources to help them deal with it.

“In some studies, the average age of menopause in India is 47 – meaning some women can hit it by 44-45 while others by 50 and this is considered normal,” says Dr Ruma Satwik, a gynaecologist and obstetrician at Delhi’s Sir Gangaram Hospital.

This is several years earlier than, for example, the US where the average age is 51.

Doctors say the earlier menopause is a result of nutritional and environmental circumstances as well as genetic factors.

But in a country where conversation on menstruation still comes with stigma and taboo, menopause awareness is lagging.

Sangeeta, who goes by one name, is overwhelmed every day as she juggles work, household chores and childcare while enduring severe hot flushes, fatigue, insomnia, backache and abdominal pain.

“What’s the point of living like this?” the 43-year-old asks. “Sometimes I feel my pain will end when I die.”

A janitor at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, a government-run facility in the capital, Delhi, Ms Sangeeta hit menopause a year ago but did not know until recently that the hospital had a dedicated clinic to address the health concerns it raised.

Hundreds of miles away in the financial capital, Mumbai, Mini Mathur says she felt like she was experiencing “every possible” symptom after she turned 50.

The TV host says she had never had any medical concerns and followed a healthy lifestyle. The onslaught of symptoms reminded her of the advice a friend had given her years ago.

“It’s coming for everyone. Please hit the ground running.”

India’s 2011 Census data showed the country had 96 million women above 45 years. By 2026, that number is projected to reach 400 million, says Dr Anju Soni, president of the Indian Menopause Society.

“Indian women live one-third of their life after menopause,” she says.

Women are considered to have hit menopause when they haven’t menstruated for a year. But this is preceded by perimenopause, a phase of gradual decline in reproductive hormones that can last from anywhere between two to 10 years.

The symptoms are wide ranging: from affecting mood, memory, focus, libido to effects on bone, brain, muscle, skin and hair. Depending on its severity, women may find their quality of life decline.

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Most symptoms are manageable with supplements, changes in diet, exercise and, if necessary, hormone replacement therapy, doctors say. But there are no tests to determine the condition and they usually rely on eliminating other causes for the symptoms.

Doctors say menopause and perimenopause are under-researched across the world with very little taught about it in medical school.

This can make the process of getting a diagnosis quite frustrating for women, Dr Satwik says.

Ms Mathur says it took visits to several healthcare centres across the country and abroad over the past two years before she received the care she needed.

She was stunned to find that a lot of her symptoms – which included brain fog, low mood, joint pain and anxiety – became “vastly better” when she began using progesterone cream topically.

“I had to go to Austria to find a doctor who wouldn’t negate my symptoms and feelings and say ‘sabko hota hai [it happens to everyone]’.”

The refrain is all too familiar for 60-year-old activist Atul Sharma who was so worried about the changes menopause brought in her mood and sex drive that she hid the condition from her husband for nearly six years.

Ms Sharma, who works with women in rural areas on health and economic empowerment in northern Uttar Pradesh state, found there was barely any provision for menopausal women at rural government clinics. Primary healthcare workers who wanted to help did not have any specialised training.

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“Even the nurse who comes here says, ‘Ab iske liye bhi davai mangogi [now you will seek medicine for this also]? Just bear it with. It happens to every woman’.”

In 2022-24, Dr Satwik surveyed over 370 women between the ages of 40 and 60 on their symptoms and its severity.

“About 20% experienced nothing at all. The rest experienced one or more symptoms mildly while 15-20% were experiencing it to a severe degree.”

While information within India remains scarce, many women say they are turning to social media and that online resources are often more illuminating than conversations with their doctors.

Many follow American specialists like Dr Mary Claire Haver who shares latest research on social media and celebrities like Hollywood actresses Naomi Watts and Halle Berry who have been promoting the documentary The M Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause. Watts is herself writing a book on menopause while Berry is pushing for new legislation to promote its research, training and education.

Ms Mathur says she feels privileged that she was able to get treatment. “How are women who are bringing up families, kids, going to work, travelling in packed local trains dealing with it?

“We are not up to date with the West,” she says. “We don’t have enough brands of oestrogen patches and progesterone creams that we need in India.”

She’s now studying a course in the US, certified by the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaches, hoping to eventually bridge the gap between information, resources and access to specialists for women from all kinds of backgrounds in India.

“The cost of this treatment is out of reach for many poor women in India,” Ms Sharma says. Ms Sangeeta says she is resigned to living with pain.

Increased awareness has to come from the medical fraternity, says Dr Satwik, adding that there need to be as many talks on menopause or perimenopause as there are on fertility and adolescent health.

Dr Soni says the government already has a network of healthcare workers in rural and remote areas.

“They already give supplements and provide health care services to pregnant women. Now extend that to menopausal women.”

Before the east and west coast rap beef of the 1990s boiled over with the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG, legendary producer Quincy Jones called a secret meeting at which he appealed for an end to the violence.

As hip-hop rose from the streets to the mainstream in the 90s, the rappers and hustlers that broke through had few role models who had trodden that path before them.

There was one man, though, who had been there, and done pretty much everything.

Quincy Jones had been in gangs and had been stabbed at the age of seven in 1930s Chicago, before becoming a major force in American music thanks to his work with legends like Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson.

He was at the heart of revolutions in jazz, swing, soul, funk, disco and pop – but one aspect of his career that got less attention when he died last week at the age of 91 was his place in hip-hop.

Jones was revered in all corners of music, including rap. Unlike most in the old guard and the media, he immediately realised the scene’s artistic and cultural importance.

Hip-hop reminded him of the bebop jazz of his youth. “I feel a kinship there because we went through a lot of the same stuff,” he said.

“Quincy understood it and got it right away,” says pioneering artist, rapper and presenter Fab 5 Freddy.

Jones worked with leading rappers in the 80s, and in the 90s he recognised risks including a volatile rivalry that had begun to erupt between competing labels and stars.

So he brought artists, executives and elder black American statesmen together for a secret summit in 1995, hoping it would be a turning point.

The east coast was hip-hop’s spiritual home. In 1992, Sean Combs – then known as Puffy and later as P Diddy – launched his Bad Boy record label in New York with artists including Notorious BIG, aka Biggie Smalls.

Meanwhile, across America, Los Angeles was coming into its own as the capital of gangsta rap, led by menacing mogul Suge Knight’s Death Row Records, which had Dr Dre and Tupac.

In 1994, Tupac was shot and injured during a robbery in the lobby of a studio. He later implied that his former friend Biggie may have known about the attack in advance. Biggie then released the track Who Shot Ya?, which Tupac thought was about him.

The beef continued at the Source magazine awards on 3 August 1995, when Knight goaded Combs and Bad Boy Records from the stage.

Jones, who had his own magazine, Vibe, held his summit three weeks later.

The brewing east-west beef wasn’t the only reason Jones called it – it was mainly intended to discuss the state of hip-hop and let the new generation hear life and business advice from a group of highly successful black executives.

But rap’s negative image and the burgeoning tensions were a big talking point.

“He knew this was a bubbling issue, and so his idea was to bring together a symposium,” says Fab 5 Freddy, who was hosting Yo! MTV Raps at the time and was the event’s moderator.

Jones told the summit: “The thing that really provoked me to say it’s time to pay attention now is Tupac.”

Tupac was missing, however – he was in jail for sexual assault at the time. Suge and Dre were there, as were Combs and Biggie.

Jones had already experienced his own beef with Tupac – the rapper criticised the producer in a 1993 edition of Source for marrying white women.

“We finally hooked up, even though it was tension conditions in the beginning,” Jones said at the event.

“We finally talked to each other, and he said nobody had talked to him like that before.

“And I said, I can’t take it any more. Because we can no longer afford to be non-political, and I’m talking to the hip-hop nation now.”

About 50 influential artists and executives were in the room, including Public Enemy’s Chuck D, members of A Tribe Called Quest, MC Lyte, Kris Kross, Jermaine Dupri and Boyz n the Hood film-maker John Singleton.

Jones wrote in his now-out-of-print 2001 autobiography: “I had been concerned about the potentially volatile diversity of a group who’d never been in the same room together.”

They were joined by veteran executives Clarence Avant and Ahmet Ertegun, plus Colin Powell, the former national security adviser and head of the US military who would go on to become the first African-American secretary of state.

Powell had presidential ambitions – that was why the summit was held in secret. Jones wanted to save Powell from being associated with the negative publicity that surrounded rap music.

He switched venues at the last minute to throw press off the scent, and confiscated the recordings.

“Rest assured that my discretion is based on a deep respect for you and a valued friendship,” Jones wrote to Powell in an unpublished letter held at Indianapolis University Library.

“I know that we are going to make a difference at this conference. Thanks for the way you handled the situation. Maybe we can turn the battleship an inch or two.”

Jones later wrote in his book: “Some of the younger rappers didn’t even know who he was. When addressing some of the more confrontational comments from the floor, Powell maintained his South Bronx demeanour and authoritative cool throughout.”

Fab 5 Freddy remembers one exchange between Powell and Knight. “There was an encounter where he [Knight] had something to say, and Colin Powell responded.

“Here you have this guy who was a four-star general talking to Suge Knight, and he pretty much put Suge in his place.”

Jones finally released a clip of the event for a 2018 Netflix documentary about his life.

“We’ve got to seriously talk about what you are going to deal with,” he is seen telling the assembled attendees.

“They are not playing, there’s real bullets out there, believe me. Maybe literally and figuratively.

“It’s a very emotional thing,” he added, his voice cracking. “I want to see you guys live to at least my age.”

“Quincy did get emotional,” Fab 5 Freddy recalls, “because he sensed what could happen.

“And the worst, unfortunately, did happen.”

Jones had ended up reconciling with Tupac. After Tupac’s 1993 comments, Jones’s 17-year-old daughter Rashida – who would go on to star in US sitcom The Office – wrote an irate letter to Source attacking the rapper.

When Tupac bumped into one of Jones’s other daughters, Kidada, he apologised, thinking she was Rashida. But Tupac and Kidada hit it off and began a relationship.

“Though we got off to a rocky start, as I came to know and feel him I saw his enormous potential and sensitivity as an artist and as a human being,” Quincy Jones wrote.

There have also been claims that Tupac was planning to leave Death Row for Jones’s record label.

But in September 1996, a year after the summit, Tupac was shot and killed.

A former gang leader, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, was charged with his murder last year. He has pleaded not guilty.

Then in 1997, Notorious BIG was shot dead outside a party thrown by Jones’s record label and magazine. No-one has ever been charged.

Meanwhile, today Knight is in prison for a hit-and-run, while Combs is awaiting trial on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking, which he denies.

The violence in the 90s “wasn’t necessary” and was caused by “wannabes and gang-related troublemakers” on the edges of the music industry, according to Fab 5 Freddy.

“Also, the east/west coast beef was mainly ignited by jealousy. It was an ashtray fire fanned into a big deal by media outlets that led to Biggie and Tupac getting killed.”

Despite his stature, not even Jones could alter the forces of power and pride that were at work and prevent the bloodshed.

Freddy believes some lessons were learned at the summit, however, and that it deserves a place in hip-hop history.

“It was incredible and electric to be in that room.

“It was a thrilling moment. And then it became even more legendary because it was never released, so the only people that really knew about it were the people that were there.”

The mystery as to why a beluga whale appeared off the coast of Norway wearing a harness may finally have been solved.

The tame white whale, which locals named Hvaldimir, made headlines five years ago amidst widespread speculation that it was a Russian spy.

Now an expert in the species says she believes the whale did indeed belong to the military and escaped from a naval base in the Arctic Circle.

But Dr Olga Shpak does not believe it was a spy. She believes the beluga was being trained to guard the base and fled because it was a “hooligan”.

Russia has always refused to confirm or deny that the beluga whale was trained by its military.

But Dr Shpak, who worked in Russia researching marine mammals from the 1990s until she returned to her native Ukraine in 2022, told BBC News: “For me it’s 100% (certain).”

Dr Shpak, whose account is based on conversations with friends and former colleagues, features in a BBC documentary, Secrets of the Spy Whale, which is now on BBC iPlayer and being shown on BBC Two on Wednesday at 21:00 GMT.

The mysterious whale first came to public attention five years ago when it approached fishermen off the northern coast of Norway.

“The whale starts rubbing against the boat,” Joar Hesten, one of the fishermen, says. “I heard about animals in distress that instinctively knew that they need help from humans. I was thinking that this is one smart whale.”

The sighting was unusual because the beluga was so tame and they’re rarely seen as far south. It was also wearing a harness, which had a mount for a camera, and bore the words, in English, “Equipment St Petersburg”.

Mr Hesten helped to remove the harness from the whale, which then swam to the nearby port of Hammerfest, where it lived for several months.

Seemingly unable to catch live fish to eat, it charmed visitors by nudging at their cameras and even on one occasion returning a mobile phone.

“It was very obvious that this particular whale had been conditioned to be putting his nose on anything that looked like a target because he was doing it each time,” says Eve Jourdain, a researcher from the Norwegian Orca Survey.

“But we have no idea what kind of facility he was in, so we don’t know what he was trained for.”

Captivated by the whale’s story Norway made arrangements for the beluga to be monitored and fed. The name it was given – Hvaldimir – is a nod to hval which is Norwegian for whale, and the name of Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin.

Dr Shpak did not want to name her sources in Russia for their own safety but said she had been told that when the beluga surfaced in Norway, the Russian marine mammal community immediately identified it as one of theirs.

“Through the chain of vets and trainers the message came back – that they were missing a beluga called Andruha,” she says.

According to Dr Shpak, Andruha/Hvaldimir had first been captured in 2013 in the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia’s Far East. A year later it was moved from a facility owned by a dolphinarium in St Petersburg to the military programme in the Russian Arctic, where his trainers and vets remained in contact.

“I believe that when they started to work in open water, trusting this animal (not to swim away), the animal just gave up on them,” she says.

“What I’ve heard from the guys at the commercial dolphinarium who used to have him was that Andruha was smart, so a good choice to be trained. But at the same time, he was kind of like a hooligan – an active beluga – so they were not surprised that he gave up on (following) the boat and went where he wanted to.”

Satellite images from near the Russian naval base in Murmansk show what could have been Hvaldimir/Andruha’s old home. Pens can clearly be seen in the water with what appear to be white whales inside.

“The location of the beluga whales very close to the submarines and the surface vessels might tell us that they are actually part of a guarding system,” says Thomas Nilsen, from Norwegian online newspaper The Barents Observer.

Russia, for its part, has never officially addressed the claim that Hvaldimir/Andruha was trained by its army. But it does have a long history of training marine mammals for military purposes.

Speaking in 2019, a Russian reserve colonel, Viktor Baranets, said: “If we were using this animal for spying, do you really think we’d attach a mobile phone number with the message ‘Please call this number’?”

Sadly, Hvaldimir/Andruha’s incredible story does not have a happy ending.

Having learned to feed himself, it spent several years travelling south along Norway’s coast and in May 2023 was even spotted off the coast of Sweden.

Then on September 1 2024 its body was found floating at sea, near the town of Risavika, on Norway’s south-western coast.

Had the long arm of Putin’s Russia caught up with the reluctant beluga?

It appears not. Despite some activist groups suggesting that the whale had been shot, that explanation has been dismissed by the Norwegian police.

They say there was nothing to suggest that human activity directly caused the beluga’s death. A post-mortem examination revealed that Hvaldimir/Andruha died after a stick became lodged in his mouth.

Holly was just 16 when someone asked her if she could have sex because she was disabled.

She has been asked many other questions over the years, such as if she “can have rough sex” or if it needs to be in a wheelchair.

“People think they’re doing you a favour, almost like a sacrifice. The worst thing is I’m not surprised or offended anymore.”

Holly, now 26, has chronic pain and hypermobility syndrome and is one of a number of disabled women who have spoken out to challenge negative stereotypes and stigma when it comes to dating and relationships.

Holly Greader said it was important that happy relationships for those who were disabled were represented.

She started dating her now husband James when she was a teenager, and has been with him for nine years, getting married earlier this year.

“Often in the media disabled people have miserable lives, we’re just a sad story,” she said.

She added she has always felt supported by him, but felt stereotyped by others.

“I was told by people when we first moved in together, that if my health declines he’d leave me.

“For being a burden or too much to handle.”

She said there were assumptions people made about her in school, which some asked to her face.

“When it comes to wheelchair users, it’s always without a doubt almost the first question, can that person have sex?”

She said the boys in her class at school would ask personal and intrusive questions.

“I got asked things like, can you only have sex in a wheelchair? Will your joints dislocate? If I wanted to have rough sex with you, would I be able to?”

Holly said people have also messaged her on social media about sex, an offer she was often made to feel she should be “lucky” for.

Holly would like to see better positive representation in the media, citing that the character Isaac Goodwin in the programme Sex Education was the only good example she has been aware of recently.

Nicola Thomas, 38, from Caerphilly, who is registered blind, said: “One of the more common things people will ask is, how do you have sex? It kind of takes your breath back, it’s such an invasive and personal question.”

Nicola has an auto immune disease – neuromyelitis optica – and she lost her sight in one eye 15 years ago and the other five years ago.

“A lot of people see barriers with blindness and I’m definitely one to break those down.”

Nicola’s hobbies include sailing, paddleboarding and travelling, and her next trip is to Hong Kong.

Nicola had a boyfriend when she lost her sight but the relationship broke down.

“I was treated like a burden, people would say you can’t be a carer for her, but I didn’t need a carer.”

She now has a boyfriend who is also visually impaired.

“Even though we’re both blind, we’ll navigate our way round a city, or go on a date on our own. Nothing holds us back.”

Nicola also said she feels stereotyped when people show an interest in her.

“People message on social media asking for dates, their attention shifts or acts differently when I tell them I’m blind.”

“You’re definitely treated like they’re doing you a favour. It puts you off instantly.”

Nicola added: “People do pigeon hole us. I want to breakdown that stereotype, I have a full and happy life.”

Kat Watkins said disabled people have a right to explore their sexual identity and develop relationships just like anybody else.

She is the access to politics project officer for Disability Wales.

“Why are sex and relationships such a taboo for disabled people? There is much more to us than just being able to eat and having a roof over our heads.”

“Living your life and enjoying yourself that’s just part of life, and it doesn’t get highlighted enough for people with disabilities.”

Kat said hearing examples of how people message disabled women was “sadly normalised.”

She said adaptable sex toys and aids can help give people confidence and would like to see them on more mainstream sex sites and outlets.

“You’ve got to be comfortable with yourself and understand your body, so you can tell others how it works. Self love is also really important.”

For more on this story, watch Wales Live on BBC iPlayer.

The boss of Tesla and the social media site X, Elon Musk, suggested last month at Donald Trump’s rally in New York City that it would be possible to cut “at least $2 trillion” from US government spending by eradicating “waste”.

Musk has now been appointed to co-head a new Department of Government Efficiency by the incoming US president, giving him an opportunity to try to put his plans into action.

In the most recent fiscal year (from October 2023 to September 2024) the US federal government spent $6.75 trillion (£5.3 trillion) according to the US Treasury.

This means Musk’s proposed cuts of $2 trillion would represent around a cut of around 30% of total federal government spending — also known as national spending in other countries.

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How realistic is that proposal?

To answer that, it’s helpful to break down the total spending figure.

Around $880bn (13% of total US government spending) goes on interest payments on the national debt, which means that line of expenditure cannot be reduced without putting the US government in default.

Around $1.46 trillion (22%) goes on Social Security, which primarily means pensions for Americans over the retirement age. This is a line of spending which is “mandatory”, meaning it must be spent by law on those eligible.

Other large mandatory lines of government expenditure include Medicare – a government-funded health insurance program primarily serving Americans aged over 65.

So-called “discretionary” US government spending – outlays that are not permanently enshrined in law but have to be voted on annually by US lawmakers – includes defence ($874bn, 13%), transportation ($137bn, 2%) and education, training, employment and social services ($305bn, 5%).

Altogether, discretionary spending accounted for around 25% of the total in the 2023 financial year according to the Congressional Budget Office, with more than half of that going to defence.

In theory, discretionary spending would be easier for the incoming Trump administration to cut than mandatory spending.

Donald Trump has said that Musk – and his co-head at the new Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy – will achieve the savings from dismantling government bureaucracy, slashing excess regulations and restructuring government agencies. In an interview with the BBC in April 2023 Musk claimed to have reduced the staff of Twitter (now X) from 8,000 to 1,500 after acquiring the social network in 2022.

Yet if all of the $2 trillion in US government expenditure savings now being targeted by Musk were to come from discretionary spending, analysts calculate that entire agencies – from transport, to agriculture, to Homeland Security – would have to be entirely closed down. Discretionary spending accounted for only $1.7 trillion in 2023.

Musk did not specify if he would aim to deliver $2 trillion in savings in a single year, or over a longer period, but many US public finance experts, including those who are in favour in principle of reductions in US government spending, are sceptical savings on such a scale can be found in the near term without either a collapse in the delivery of important government functions or sparking major public resistance.

After taking control of the House of Representatives in 2022, Republican lawmakers have struggled to pass legislation to deliver considerably smaller cuts of $130bn in discretionary government spending after meeting opposition from other Republicans.

It’s also important to note that Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of making Social Security more financially generous, not less, by removing the income tax payable on it. And, on defence, Trump said he would build an “iron dome missile defence shield” around America, implying greater spending in this area, not cuts.

Total US federal government spending as a share of the US economy in 2024 was around 23% according to the US Treasury.

That’s a considerably smaller share than national government spending in other developed countries.

However, a large share of government spending in the US, including almost all school spending, is done at a state rather than a federal level, and states are funded by local sales and property taxes.

The International Monetary Fund has projected that total US “general government expenditure”, which includes spending by individual states, will be around 37.5% of its GDP in 2024.

That compares with 43% in the UK, 48% in Germany and 57% in France.

The US government is currently running an annual deficit – a shortfall between its spending and tax revenues – equal to around 6% of its economy. And America’s national debt held by the public is currently equal to around 97% of the size of the economy.

The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) think tank has projected that this is currently set to climb to 125% by 2035.

The CRFB has projected that absent major spending reductions, Donald Trump’s planned tax cuts would considerably widen the US deficit in the coming decade and push up the US national debt to 143% by the middle of the next decade.

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

The rescue workers had just left when we arrived at the scene of an Israeli air strike on a building in Aramoun, south-west of Lebanon’s capital Beirut.

It was supposed to have been cleared. They had found eight bodies – including three children and three women – and taken the many injured to hospitals; some were in a critical condition.

Then several men on a balcony in a building opposite started shouting: “A hand, a hand. We can see a hand.”

They were pointing at a balcony on the second floor, which was completely destroyed and had crumbled on to the collapsed floor below.

A young man climbed on to the mound of rubble. He reached the spot, moved some of the rubble, then held something up that could not be identified from distance.

Later, I asked him if he did find a hand. He replied: “No. It wasn’t a hand. It was a piece of bone from a head.”

The multi-storey building that was hit is located in a residential area.

We were told that most of the people there were internally displaced, mainly from the south of the country or the southern suburbs of Beirut.

They are areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence and which have been frequently targeted by Israel during its war with the Iran-backed political and military group.

Aramoun is a religiously mixed area and until Wednesday it was deemed safe because it had not been hit before.

The dawn strike came without warning.

“It was around 4 o’clock in the morning. We were asleep. We woke up because of a very strong thud. We couldn’t see anything in the beginning because of the smoke that was everywhere,” said a mother of two who lived in the building opposite.

She had sought refuge in her uncle’s house in Aramoun after Israel started bombing Beirut’s southern suburbs.

“Israel is striking everywhere. There is nowhere that is safe anymore,” she added.

Another woman in her 80s was being rushed to a car.

She had moved to Aramoun a month ago, also from Beirut’s southern suburbs.

After the strike, she left with everyone else in the building and spent two or three hours in their car on the street.

When we saw her, she was collecting some of her possessions. She told us she was very scared and was moving once more.

This time, she said, she was going to her son’s place. He is displaced as well.

When asked about any prospects of an end of hostilities soon, she replied: “The more they talk about a ceasefire, the more Israel intensifies its strikes.”

The Israeli military has not yet said who or what it targeted in Aramoun.

But the strike bore similarities to several in other parts of the country: launched without warning on residential buildings or houses hosting displaced people. The Israeli military has said many of those strikes have targeted Hezbollah infrastructure.

The attacks are causing increasing social unease within host communities, with residents voicing concern over the possibility of Israel targeting displaced people living among them or others visiting, often to deliver financial assistance.

“We all love the resistance [Hezbollah], but if someone has a son and isn’t even sure he is in Hezbollah, or someone is coming to give aid to displaced people and they are being targeted, we are paying the price,” said one man who owns house in the area that was struck and lives there with his wife and child.

He added: “The displaced came as guests and we welcome them. But if there is someone stranger here, whoever he is – it might be my own son and I’m not aware of him being in Hezbollah – and they target him, and children and women get killed, isn’t that pitiful?”

Such comments have become more common following the recent series of Israeli strikes in various parts of the country which are outside the known areas of hostilities.

But at the same time there are increasing calls in Lebanon for national unity as well as warnings that such strikes from Israel could be purposely designed to create that social unease.

A Chinese influencer, with a huge global following and the approval of the Communist Party, has returned to the internet after a three-year hiatus.

Famous for idyllic videos of life with her grandmother in a village in Sichuan province, the 34-year-old has released three videos since Tuesday – and they have millions of views already.

Li first rose to fame in 2016 when China’s fast-growing social media users found comfort in her slow-paced videos about cooking and traditional handicraft.

Her return, welcomed by fans around the world, comes amid a government crackdown on influencers whose content they deem “inappropriate”.

Li’s hiatus followed a dispute with the agency that managed her accounts. In late 2021, she filed a lawsuit against the company over rights to her brand and stopped uploading new videos. They settled in 2022, but Li didn’t return to the internet until Tuesday.

In recent months, several influencers disappeared from Chinese internet as officials stepped up efforts to “rectify” online culture by targeting those accused of tax evasion, spreading disinformation and flaunting wealth.

But Li is among those who has survived official censure. Her huge following on YouTube and TikTok, which are banned in China, has led to questions about whether her videos are akin to soft propoganda.

She certainly appears to have the approval of the Party. State-run Xinhua news agency released an interview with her the day after her return. It’s rare for state media to interview influencers.

In the interview, Li said she had spent the past three years “catching up on sleep” and taking her grandmother to see the “outside world”. Now she has “a higher goal”, she added, and would “try her best”.

Li has always been a darling of state media. Xinhua called her the “vlogger who amazes the world with China’s countryside life” and China Daily praised her for “spreading Chinese culture to the world”.

For Beijing, Li’s rose-tinted videos encourage tourism and echo President Xi Jinping’s call for a Chinese culture renaissance. A Chinese soup noodle dish known for its distinctive smell became a hit after it was featured in a video.

Her videos also offer a distraction from the realities of rural China, which is poorer and older than the country’s bustling cities.

Li shot to fame internationally during the pandemic, when China’s relationship with the West began to sour. Locked in their homes, millions of people abroad were fascinated with her videos. China’s lockdowns, while harsh and sweeping, were largely enforced in the cities.

As Li’s brand thrived, she began selling food and sauces under her name on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao. In 2020, local media reported that sales of her products exceeded 1.6bn yuan ($220m; £172m).

By 2021 then she had become the most popular Chinese-language vlogger on YouTube, where she has more than 20 million followers. Another three million follow her on TikTok.

On Tuesday, she announced her return with a 14-minute video on all her social media accounts – including Chinese platforms Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, as well as YouTube and TikTok.

The video, which shows her making a wardrobe for her grandmother using the traditional lacquering technique, has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube and more than three million times on TikTok.

“I missed you very much,” she told her fans in a post.

And they felt the same: “When the world needed her [the] most, she returned. Welcome back,” a top-liked YouTube comment reads.

Another comment liked more than 13,000 times on Weibo says: “We need the slow-paced Li Ziqi in this age of information explosion.”

“Did anyone else literally cry happy tears?,” says another comment. “I’m so glad to see her gran doing so well! So happy to see you back.”

Amazon has launched a new outlet called Haul which caps the price of products on sale at $20 (£15.79), in an effort to take on low-cost retailers Temu and Shein.

The online shopping giant unveiled Haul as a mobile-only experience available in its Shopping app for US customers on Wednesday.

It says shoppers can expect “crazy low prices” on Haul products that are “worth the wait” of up to two weeks for delivery.

Amazon’s Chinese e-commerce rivals have enjoyed rapid growth in recent years but also faced criticism over the environmental impact of making and shipping ever more cheap products.

“Temu and Shein have faced backlash both for taking advantage of import loopholes and for being wasteful and environmentally irresponsible,” Forrester retail analyst Sucharita Kodali told BBC News.

“This effort seems to have the same challenges,” she said of Amazon Haul.

Haul marks the platform’s long-awaited foray into the sale cheaper goods with lengthier shipping times – a business model which has spurred the rise of Temu and Shein.

But regulators around the world are showing growing wariness about the rise of platforms selling mass produced goods for very low cost prices.

The European Commission also launched action against Temu in October over concerns that it is failing to stop the sale of illegal products.

• How Temu is shaking up the world of online shopping

Amazon has made low prices central to its offer with Haul.

As well as a maximum price of $20, it said most would cost less than $10 (£7.90).

It cited examples such as a three-piece razor set and an “elegant necklace, bracelet, and earring set” available at just under three dollars each in a press release about the launch.

Free delivery will also be available for orders of $25 or over with one to two week delivery.

“Finding great products at very low prices is important to customers, and we continue to explore ways that we can work with our selling partners so they can offer products at ultra-low prices,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide selling partner services.

The company says the “beta” Haul shopping experience will see all products sold backed by its product guarantees and provide confidence about their safety.

Mr Mehta said it was still “early days” for its new shopping vertical, and customer feedback would be listened to in order to “refine and expand it in the weeks and months to come”.

The BBC has asked Amazon if, and when, the service will be launched in the UK.

Ms Kodali added the project was not without risk for Amazon.

She told the BBC there was evidence consumers were “growing tired of poor quality goods and slow shipping.”

She said if the products were underwhelming for shoppers and unprofitable for Amazon “I don’t expect Haul to be long for the world.”

The former headteacher of a French school has revealed the shocking sequence of events that led to the beheading of Samuel Paty by a Chechen refugee.

Audrey F told the court in Paris how she had tried to stop a row spiralling out of control that began with a 13-year-old student lying to her parents.

What began with Samuel Paty giving a lesson on freedom of expression in October 2020 escalated when the father of the girl, who had not even been in the class, turned up at the headteacher’s office with a local Islamist activist.

“I didn’t manage to protect him,” Audrey F said of her late colleague – a well-liked history and geography teacher in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.

“It’s such an enormous waste.”

The row tragically ended with Paty’s murder outside the school by 18-year-old Abdoullakh Anzorov, who was shot dead by police at the scene.

• Trial begins over beheading of French teacher
• Beheading of teacher deepens divisions in France

The girl, known in court by the initial Z, had just been suspended by the school for two days for repeated absence and rudeness.

That was not what she had told her parents.

The girl claimed she had confronted Paty in a class she had not attended, falsely alleging that he had told Muslim students to leave the room while he showed “naked” images of the Prophet Muhammad.

Although the mother of another girl had phoned the school in tears, Audrey F said she had called her back, with Samuel Paty also on the call, and said the mother appeared reassured.

In reality, three cartoons published by a French satirical magazine had been discussed in class, and Paty had said anyone who felt they might be offended did not have to stay.

Any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are considered highly offensive by Muslims. But there had been no attempt to target or exclude Muslims students.

The following morning, Audrey F was told that the excluded student’s father Brahim Chnina was outside the school with another man, Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who wrongly claimed to be acting on behalf of French imams.

The pair were demanding action against Paty, who they condemned as a “thug” and wanted removed.

Audrey F said that while she had tried to focus the conversation on the girl’s exclusion from school, Abdelhakim Sefrioui had taken the lead, refusing to allow freedom of expression to be used by a “thug”.

The murder of Samuel Paty, 47, shocked France and came five years after militant Islamist gunmen murdered 12 people at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo which published the original cartoons.

Abdelhakim Sefrioui and Brahim Chnina are accused of identifying Samuel Paty as a “blasphemer” in online videos and of involvement in a “criminal terrorist” group and complicity in “terrorist murder”.

They are among eight people on trial at the court in Paris who all deny the charges against them, while not denying their involvement in the case.

The other six include a pair accused of helping the teenage killer and others who are accused of egging him on on social media.

Audrey F, who has left France to teach at an international school in China, told the court that she had felt the next day that the situation had now become a problem and “something is not right at the school”.

Two videos appeared on social media, one from Brahim Chnina in which his daughter repeated her lies about the class, another later from Abdelhakim Sefrioui, naming both Samuel Paty and the school.

“By now I was very worried, not specifically for Mr Paty but for the school,” she told the court.

On the advice of a superior she went to the police with Samuel Paty, where he filed a complaint, and contacted the local authority.

The geography teacher was urged to stay at home until the school holidays which were only days away. He refused to do so and Audrey F did not insist.

Threatening emails were sent to the school and there were anonymous phone-calls too. A police car was parked outside the school for several days.

On the final day of half-term, at 16:45 on Friday 16 October, Samuel Paty was stabbed and decapitated by the 18-year-old Chechen refugee outside the school.

Brahim Chnina’s daughter has already been convicted of making false and slanderous accusations, while five other teenagers have been found guilty of taking part in a group preparing aggravated violence.

When asked in court what Abdelhakim Sefrioui and Brahim Chnina could have done to calm the situation, Audrey F said nothing would have happened if they had not posted videos online.

Regretting that she had been unable to protect her colleague, the former headteacher said: “I tell myself that if there is justice, perhaps I’ll manage to move on.”

The British Museum is to receive what is believed to be the highest-value gift ever received by a UK museum with the acquisition of £1bn worth of Chinese ceramics.

Trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation, which owns the works, are to donate 1,700 pieces following a 15-year loan to the London museum.

The charitable foundation represents the late British businessman, who collected the items in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong and China, before his death in 1964.

The director of the British Museum, Dr Nicholas Cullinan, said it was an “incomparable private collection”.

The works have been on loan to the museum since 2009 and on show in the specially designed bilingual Room 95.

Sir Percival David was born into a wealthy family in Bombay in 1892 and inherited a baronetcy from his father, as well as ownership of the family company.

The businessman moved to London in 1914 from where he began to collect large amounts of Chinese art and books.

Trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation said he had wanted his private collection to be used to inform and inspire people.

Dr Cullinan said he was “humbled by the generosity of the trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation”.

He added: “These celebrated objects add a special dimension to our own collection and together offer scholars, researchers and visitors around the world the incredible opportunity to study and enjoy the very best examples of Chinese craftsmanship anywhere in existence.”

The donation will take the number of Chinese ceramics held by the British Museum to 10,000 pieces, making it one of the most important collections of such items of any public institution outside the Chinese-speaking world.

Highlights from the foundation’s donation include the David vases from 1351, which revolutionised the dating for blue and white ceramics with their discovery.

The collection also includes a chicken cup used to serve wine for the Chenghua emperor and Ru wares made for the Northern Song dynasty court around 1086.

The chairman of The Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, Colin Sheaf, said the donation achieved Sir Percival’s three main objectives.

He said these were to: “Preserve intact his unique collection, to keep every single piece on public display together, and to ensure the collection would remain an inspiration and education for future generations.”

Arts minister Sir Chris Bryant added: “I am thrilled these world-famous Chinese ceramics will now be displayed permanently in the British Museum, where the collection will educate and enlighten future generations for many years to come.

“I am immensely grateful for this phenomenal act of generosity and very much hope it will help set a trend for others.”

After the donation is completed, pieces will be lent to the Shanghai Museum in China and Metropolitan Museum in New York as part of the British Museum’s support of exhibitions worldwide.

The final transfer of ownership to the British Museum will be subject to the Charity Commission’s consent.

Apple is facing a legal claim accusing it of effectively locking 40 million British customers into its iCloud service and charging them “rip off prices”.

Consumer group Which? says the legal action – which it has launched – could result in a £3bn payout if it is successful, with the average customer getting around £70.

Apple has rejected the suggestion its practices are anti-competitive, saying users are not required to use iCloud. It said many customers rely on third-party alternatives, and insists it “works hard to make data transfer as easy as possible”.

It is another example of the “growing tide of large class actions against big tech” which has “operated without sufficient constraint”, Toby Starr from legal firm Humphries Kerstetter told the BBC.

Facebook, Google, gaming giant Steam and the UK’s leading mobile providers are among the others facing legal claims at the same court, the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

“Although most of these claims are in their infancy and take a long time to resolve, there will be more decisions coming out over the next couple of years and there will be settlements – these will start to affect the tech giants’ businesses,” said Mr Starr.

Users of Apple products get a small amount of digital storage for free – and after that are encouraged to pay to use its iCloud service to back up photos, videos, messages, contacts and all the other content which lives on their device.

Prices for this storage range from £0.99 a month for 50GB of space to £54.99 a month for 12TB.

Apple does not allow rival storage services full access to its products.

It says that is for security reasons – but it also contributes to the company’s enormous revenues.

Which? says over a period of nine years dating back to 2015 Apple has been effectively locking people into its services – and then overcharging them.

“By bringing this claim, Which? is showing big corporations like Apple that they cannot rip off UK consumers without facing repercussions,” the body’s chief executive Anabel Hoult said.

“Taking this legal action means we can help consumers to get the redress that they are owed, deter similar behaviour in the future and create a better, more competitive market.”

Apple has strongly denied Which’s accusations.

“We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anti-competitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise,” it said in a statement.

Which? says the legal action will be funded by Litigation Capital Management, and the consumer group has instructed the international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

Which? said the firm would be paid fees as the case progressed, getting additional payments if it was successful – but they would not be getting a percentage of any damages.

Alan Davis, from law firm Pinsent Masons, said there were very likely to be more, similar cases in the future.

“It is inevitable that further claims of this nature will continue to be brought given the very high value of the aggregate damages and the role of and incentive for litigation funders to support these claims which might not otherwise be brought without that financial support,” he told the BBC.

He added the absence of any infringement decisions under EU or UK competition law meant it would be down to the claimant to prove the market abuse it was alleging was actually taking place.

However, he pointed out the regulator had announced a wider investigation into cloud services in the UK.

Legal actions against big tech firms can take years as they work their way through the courts.

Which? has urged Apple to resolve this “without the need for litigation”, and wants the tech giant to offer consumers their money back and to open up competition further.

Donald Trump’s nomination of Congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general has arrived like a thunderclap in Washington.

Of all the president-elect’s picks for his administration so far, this is easily the most controversial – and sends a clear message that Trump intends to shake up the establishment when he returns to power.

The shockwaves were still being felt on Thursday morning as focus shifted to a looming fight in the Senate over his nomination.

Trump is assembling his team before he begins his term on 20 January, and his choice of defence secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, and intelligence chief, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, have also raised eyebrows.

But it is the firebrand Florida politician Gaetz making most headlines. He is perhaps best known for spearheading the effort to unseat then-Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last year. But he has a consistent history of being a flamethrower in the staid halls of Congress.

In 2018, he brought a right-wing Holocaust denier to the State of the Union, and later tried to expel two fathers who lost children in a mass shooting from a hearing after they objected to a claim he made about gun control.

His bombastic approach means he has no shortage of enemies, including within his own party. And so Trump’s choice of Gaetz for this crucial role is a signal to those Republicans, too – his second administration will be staffed by loyalists who he trusts to enact his agenda, conventional political opinion be damned.

Gasps were heard during a meeting of Republican lawmakers when the nomination for America’s top US prosecutor was announced, Axios reported, citing sources in the room.

Republican Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho reportedly responded with an expletive.

“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said. “This one was not on my Bingo card.”

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Gaetz does have some allies on Capitol Hill who share an unwavering loyalty to Trump. The Florida lawmaker has been one of the president-elect’s most aggressive and relentless defenders – at congressional hearings, in press conferences and during television appearances.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, another devoted Trump loyalist, called Gaetz an “accomplished attorney”.

“He’s a reformer in his mind and heart, and I think that he’ll bring a lot to the table on that,” said Johnson.

In a social media post, Trump spelled out how he intends to use Gaetz as a wrecking ball to radically change the US Department of Justice, which he has regularly blamed for his multiple legal troubles.

“Matt will root out the systemic corruption at the DOJ, and return the department to its true mission of fighting crime and upholding our democracy and constitution,” he wrote.

During the campaign, Trump promised retribution for the numerous investigations launched against him. Now, it appears, Gaetz will be at the frontlines of Trump’s efforts to bring the justice department to heel.

The department also investigated Gaetz himself.

Last year, it declined to bring charges over allegations he violated sex trafficking laws during a trip he took to the Bahamas with paid escorts.

He was the subject of an ongoing ethics investigation in the House of Representatives into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and misuse of campaign funds.

But on Wednesday evening, reportedly just two days before a highly critical House report on the investigation, Johnson said Gaetz had resigned as a lawmaker, effectively ending the House probe since the committee only investigates members.

On Thursday, top Senate Democrat Dick Durbin asked the House committee to preserve and share the findings of that report, saying the sequence and timings of the resignation raised questions.

“Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States.”

Gaetz has denied all the allegations against him.

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According to CBS News, Gaetz had asked Trump for a pre-emptive pardon for any related crimes prior to the president leaving office in January 2021.

All this makes him an unlikely choice for a position that typically goes to more senior politicians, well versed in law.

Gaetz, 42, has a law degree and worked for a Florida law firm before his eight years in Congress. Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, was a senior federal appellate court judge. Trump in his first term picked US Senator Jeff Sessions, and later Bill Barr, who had decades of experience in Republican presidential administrations.

The Senate will be responsible for confirming Gaetz’s nomination, and the Florida congressman has ruffled more then a few feathers in that chamber – including among Republicans. While his party has a majority, it would only take four “no” votes, joined by unified Democratic opposition, to sink his chances.

Gaetz himself said last year that he would love to be attorney general while acknowledging it was unlikely.

“The world is not ready, probably,” he told Newsmax in an interview. “Certainly Senate confirmation wouldn’t be, but you know, a boy can dream.”

For the moment, however, Trump’s closest supporters are celebrating his pick.

“The hammer of justice is coming,” Elon Musk posted about Gaetz on X.

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of Gaetz’s bid to be attorney general, Trump has fired a warning shot across the bow of US government. While his second term in office may be more organised than his first, it may end up being even more confrontational.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense the presidential election in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Amazon has launched a new outlet called Haul which caps the price of products on sale at $20 (£15.79), in an effort to take on low-cost retailers Temu and Shein.

The online shopping giant unveiled Haul as a mobile-only experience available in its Shopping app for US customers on Wednesday.

It says shoppers can expect “crazy low prices” on Haul products that are “worth the wait” of up to two weeks for delivery.

Amazon’s Chinese e-commerce rivals have enjoyed rapid growth in recent years but also faced criticism over the environmental impact of making and shipping ever more cheap products.

“Temu and Shein have faced backlash both for taking advantage of import loopholes and for being wasteful and environmentally irresponsible,” Forrester retail analyst Sucharita Kodali told BBC News.

“This effort seems to have the same challenges,” she said of Amazon Haul.

Haul marks the platform’s long-awaited foray into the sale cheaper goods with lengthier shipping times – a business model which has spurred the rise of Temu and Shein.

But regulators around the world are showing growing wariness about the rise of platforms selling mass produced goods for very low cost prices.

The European Commission also launched action against Temu in October over concerns that it is failing to stop the sale of illegal products.

• How Temu is shaking up the world of online shopping

Amazon has made low prices central to its offer with Haul.

As well as a maximum price of $20, it said most would cost less than $10 (£7.90).

It cited examples such as a three-piece razor set and an “elegant necklace, bracelet, and earring set” available at just under three dollars each in a press release about the launch.

Free delivery will also be available for orders of $25 or over with one to two week delivery.

“Finding great products at very low prices is important to customers, and we continue to explore ways that we can work with our selling partners so they can offer products at ultra-low prices,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide selling partner services.

The company says the “beta” Haul shopping experience will see all products sold backed by its product guarantees and provide confidence about their safety.

Mr Mehta said it was still “early days” for its new shopping vertical, and customer feedback would be listened to in order to “refine and expand it in the weeks and months to come”.

The BBC has asked Amazon if, and when, the service will be launched in the UK.

Ms Kodali added the project was not without risk for Amazon.

She told the BBC there was evidence consumers were “growing tired of poor quality goods and slow shipping.”

She said if the products were underwhelming for shoppers and unprofitable for Amazon “I don’t expect Haul to be long for the world.”

The largest coral ever recorded has been found by scientists in the southwest Pacific Ocean.

The mega coral – which is a collection of many connected, tiny creatures that together form one organism rather than a reef – could be more than 300 years old.

It is bigger than a blue whale, the team say.

It was found by a videographer working on a National Geographic ship visiting remote parts of the Pacific to see how it has been affected by climate change.

“I went diving in a place where the map said there was a shipwreck and then I saw something,” said Manu San Felix.

He called over his diving buddy, who is also his son Inigo, and they dived further down to inspect it.

Seeing the coral, which is in the Solomon Islands, was like seeing a “cathedral underwater”, he said.

“It’s very emotional. I felt this huge respect for something that’s stayed in one place and survived for hundreds of years,” he said.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this was here when Napoleon was alive’,” he added.

Scientists on the expedition measured the coral using a type of tape measure under water. It is 34m wide, 32m long and 5.5m high.

Globally coral is facing severe pressures as oceans warm with climate change.

Corals are made of hundreds of thousands of living organisms called polyps, each with its own body and mouth, which grow together as a colony.  Some corals grow hard, outer skeletons and when many of these fuse together they form a coral reef.

Some of these reefs can extend for huge distances, forming vast structures where fish and other species live.

Coral reefs also underpin the livelihoods of one billion people including by supporting tourism or fishing, according to the World Economic Forum.

This specimen was found in deeper waters than some coral reefs, which may have protected it from higher temperatures at the sea surface.

The discovery was announced at the same time as the UN climate talks COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan that are trying to make progress in tackling climate change.

Mr Trevor Manemahaga, climate minister for the Solomon Islands at the summit, told BBC News that his nation would be proud of the newly-found coral.

“We want the world to know that this is a special place and it needs to be protected,” he said.

“We rely mostly on marine resources for economic survival so coral is very, very important […] And it’s very crucial and critical for our economy to make sure our coral is not exploited,” he said.

Small island nations like the Solomon Islands are extremely vulnerable to climate change.

Mr Manemahaga said he’s seen first-hand the effects of global warming on his nation, as it causes more powerful cyclones and erodes the coastline causing homes to fall into the water.

Many developing countries at the talks are calling for more cash from richer nations to help them pay for their strategies to tackle climate change.

Mr Manemahaga said that more finance for the Solomon Islands would help the country create more varied jobs that would mean fewer people worked in industries that damage coral reefs.

Currently logging is a major part of the country’s economy – between 50-70% of the country’s annual export revenue – but it causes high levels of water pollution that damages coral in the area.

Eric Brown, who is a coral scientist on the National Geographic research trip, says that the health of the coral was “looking pretty good”.

“While the nearby shallow reefs were degraded due to warmer seas, witnessing this large healthy coral oasis in slightly deeper waters is a beacon of hope,” he said.

The coral is a species called Pavona clavus and provides a home to shrimp, crabs, fish and other marine creatures.

The age of the specimen also means it acts like a window into the history into oceanic conditions in the past. Scientists hope to study it to learn more about how it has grown.

A report this week found that 44% of corals living in warm waters are threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. That is an increase of a third since the species were last assessed in 2008.

Satirical news publication The Onion has bought Infowars, the media organisation headed by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, for an undisclosed price at a court-ordered auction.

The Onion said that the bid was secured with the backing of families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who won a $1.5b (£1.18b) defamation lawsuit against Jones for spreading false rumours about the victims.

A judge in Texas ordered the auction in September, and various groups – both Jones’s allies and detractors – had suggested they would bid for the company.

Jones founded Infowars in 1999. He has vowed to continue broadcasting using a different platform.

Ben Collins, a former NBC News journalist who is chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, said on X: “We’re planning on making a very stupid website.”

In a rambling video message posted Thursday morning, Jones called the takeover a “total attack on free speech”.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen but I’m going to be here until they come in and turn the lights off.”

For now, Mike Huckabee seems to be keeping his cards close to his chest.

Shortly after being announced as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Israel, the former Republican governor of Arkansas said: “I won’t make the policy. I will carry out the policy of the president.”

But he did give an indication of what he expected that policy to be, citing the previous Trump administration’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and to recognise the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory – decisions as warmly welcomed by the Israeli right wing as they were categorically rejected by Palestinians.

“No-one has done more,” he told an Israeli radio station. “President Trump and I fully expect that will continue.”

What approach Trump will take to the Israel-Gaza war is still unclear. But the right wing of Israeli politics has welcomed the president-elect’s appointment of Huckabee, seeing it as predicting another term of American policy highly favourable to their longstanding aims of holding on to territory in the West Bank and expanding settlements.

The appointment was greeted with joy by two far-right ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. On the social media platform X, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich messaged his congratulations to “a consistent and loyal friend”, while Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, wrote “Mike Huckabee” with heart emojis.

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Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have reason to be cheered by Huckabee’s appointment. He has been a consistent supporter of many Israelis’ ambitions to expand into territories that would form part of any future Palestinian state.

Holding a press conference in 2017, shortly after a cornerstone-laying ceremony at one of the biggest Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Huckabee said: “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities.

“There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

The following year, he said: “I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” using the name used by many in Israel for the area which became the occupied West Bank when it was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

The previous Trump administration declared in 2019 that it did not consider Israeli settlements illegal under international law, contradicting decades of US policy. Other decisions, including a 2020 peace plan greenlighting the annexation of Israeli settlements, were seen as more favourable to the settlers than any previous administration.

The Israeli far right has indicated that it sees Huckabee’s appointment as a sign that it will be able to further advance its agenda, including annexation of the West Bank, during the next Trump term.

On Monday, Smotrich said that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty” in the West Bank, adding that he had instructed Israeli authorities to begin preparatory work for annexation of the occupied territory.

That happening is a genuine fear for Mustafa Barghouti, a West Bank-based veteran Palestinian politician who is leader of the Palestinian National Initiative political movement.

“You can imagine the reaction of other powerful countries in the world would be, when the idea of annexing occupied territories, obtained by war, becomes legal and acceptable,” he says. “So it’s not just about Palestinians and our suffering, it’s about the international order.”

Whether Smotrich will get his wish remains to be seen. Tal Schneider, a political correspondent at the Times of Israel, says it is not a foregone conclusion that a pro-settler US ambassador will result in pro-settler policies in Washington.

“Four years ago, some of the people that surrounded Trump were very much pro-settlements and pro-annexing, but it didn’t work like that last time. I predict it’s not going to work like that this time around.”

Huckabee was not the only appointee announced on Tuesday. The president-elect also said Steve Witkoff would serve as his special envoy to the Middle East.

As well as being a real estate developer, Witkoff is also a longtime golf buddy of Trump’s. The pair were playing together at the time of a second failed assassination attempt in September.

It is not clear what foreign policy experience Witkoff brings to the role, but he has previously praised Trump’s dealings with Israel.

In July, he argued that Trump’s “leadership was good for Israel and the entire region”.

“With President Trump, the Middle East experienced historic levels of peace and stability. Strength prevents wars. Iran’s money was cut off which prevented their funding of global terror,” he said.

Netanyahu’s decision to nominate a hardline settler leader for Israeli ambassador to Washington three days after Trump’s election also indicates that the prime minister believes the next administration will be receptive to right-wing arguments.

US-born Yechiel Leiter, who was Netanyahu’s chief of staff when he was finance minister, supports the annexation of the West Bank. According to the Haaretz newspaper, he was once active in the US-based Jewish Defence League, the organisation founded by far-right rabbi Meir Kahane. His son was killed fighting in Gaza.

He was also reported to support the Abraham Accords, Trump’s efforts to normalise relations between Israel and Arab states, which had some success. However, advancing that process has been derailed by the ongoing war in Gaza and Arab anger over the suffering of the Palestinians.

Palestinians, already disillusioned with the US over Joe Biden’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza, say Trump’s pick for ambassador suggests the next president will make the prospect of an eventual two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict even more remote.

“Mr Huckabee has said things that are absolutely contradictory to international law,” says Mustafa Barghouti, a West Bank-based Palestinian politician.

“It will be really bad news for the cause of peace in this region.”

Next to a vandalised wire fence opposite HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, 28-year-old Beatrice Auty brushes away tears. The memories of her time inside the jail are too much to bear.

She served more than a year here for money laundering, and claims she was sexually harassed by a male prison officer.

“He made me feel very uncomfortable,” Auty says. “He commented on my appearance – a lot. He suggested he wanted to come to my cell – I feel if I had been up for it, he would have wanted sexual favours.”

Auty says she reported what happened, and told us she’s spoken to other women who have had similar experiences with the same guard, who made “comments about their breasts” and “how he would want [oral sex] from them”.

With prisons across the country running out of cells and the government releasing offenders early to ease pressure, the BBC has been reporting on the issues facing a system on the brink of collapse.

There are 23,613 prison officers in England and Wales, looking after a prison population of 85,867 inmates.

A record 165 prison staff were sacked for misconduct in the year to June 2024, according to His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). That’s an increase of 34% on the previous year.

Some of the reasons for these dismissals include sex acts and other inappropriate behaviour with inmates, as well as selling drugs and phones – a lucrative trade inside prisons.

In 2023, Auty was convicted of smuggling millions of pounds of criminal cash from London to Dubai, and sentenced to 42 months in prison.

She served 14 months in HMP Bronzefield – the largest prison in Europe for female offenders – before being released on licence, meaning even though she’s been freed she must stick to a set of rules for the remainder of her sentence.

With her hands thrust firmly in her pockets, Auty describes how it was “not uncommon at all” to see prison staff in Bronzefield dealing.

“The drugs would often be transported on the food trollies and then distributed at the other end on the house blocks,” Auty says.

“On one hand you have a prison service that’s meant to be rule-abiding and strict and uphold British values, and in reality you have corrupt officers.”

In response to Auty’s claims, Sodexo, the private company that runs the prison, told the BBC it cannot comment on individual cases, but “where complaints are received about any employee, we undertake all appropriate investigations and take necessary actions as needed”.

Lee Davis was a prison officer from 2006 until 2010, during which time he regularly supplied cannabis, steroids and phones to inmates, getting paid £400-500 for every package he delivered.

After agreeing to take the first package, he describes a “snowball effect”.

“It then became two, and three,” he says, “then after package four it was purely about the money.”

Davis was eventually caught and served two years in prison. He’s since turned his life around and works as a bus driver in Lancaster now, but says much more could be done to stop other prison staff dealing inside.

“They’ve got to up the ante by searching officers going in,” Davis says. “I was searched twice in three years and that isn’t good – we need to stop it at the gates.”

A prison officer who doesn’t want to be identified who works in a different, government-run English jail, told us it’s unsurprising to hear about staff corruption.

She says everyone working in prisons knows drugs are being supplied by officers.

“They know how to fiddle the system – they know better than anyone how to get drugs and phones in – because they know the checks they’ve got to go through,” the woman says.

“Some [prison officers] are so young and inexperienced they easily get caught up in organised crime, with gangs inside sometimes putting pressure on them to supply all sorts.

“There’s a power dynamic, and prison officers can feel like they can do what they want – like asking for sex. They can make life difficult for those inside, and they know that.”

There have been several high profile cases this year which convey the problem of prison officer corruption.

Last month, former prison officer Richard Goss was jailed for four years after admitting to smuggling drugs, needles, and mobile phones into HMP Buckley Hall in Rochdale.

Another former officer, Linda De Sousa Abreu, was filmed having sex with an inmate in HMP Wandsworth in London. In July she was convicted of misconduct in a public office after the video went viral on social media.

Corruption inside prisons is now “a greater problem than it has ever been,” according to John Podmore, a former governor of several large prisons, including HMP Belmarsh and HMP Brixton, both in London. He oversaw the prison service’s Corruption Prevention Unit and the London Prison’s Anti-corruption Team.

“There is a perfect storm of young inexperienced staff with poor vetting and inadequate training being thrown into a dystopian environment,” Mr Podmore says, “where violence and organised crime dominate a failing prison system.”

He estimates the value of drugs traded across the prison estate each year is in excess of £1bn.

No specific qualifications are needed to become a prison officer in England and Wales.

On its website, HMPPS states new recruits will be given a 10-day induction, which includes finding out about prison life and being shown basic security processes.

This is followed by a seven-week training programme, during which trainees are taught how to look after people in custody and de-escalate challenging situations.

Mr Podmore describes this training as “totally inadequate”, and “the worst and shortest of any jurisdiction I have observed over five continents”.

“The vast majority of officers are corrupted as a result of conditioning, manipulation, coercion and blackmail, while being badly trained, poorly led and inadequately supervised,” he adds.

Steven Gillan from the Prison Officer Association told the BBC that, while he defends the vast majority of “hard working and professional” prison officers, he is “not going to sugar coat the issue of corruption” – one he describes as “very real”.

“Prisons are complex places and there can be no place or excuse for corrupt staff,” he says.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) says it is “catching more of the small minority who break the rules. This includes by bolstering our Counter Corruption Unit and strengthening our vetting processes.

“Where officers do fall below our high standards, we will always take robust action.”

New Zealand’s parliament was brought to a temporary halt by MPs performing a haka, amid anger over a controversial bill seeking to reinterpret the country’s founding treaty with Māori people.

Opposition party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke began the traditional ceremonial group dance after being asked whether her party supported the bill, which faced its first vote on Thursday.

At the same time, a hīkoi – or peaceful protest march – organised by a Māori rights group is continuing to make its way towards the capital, Wellington.

Thousands have already joined the 10-day march against the bill, which reached Auckland on Wednesday, having begun at the top of New Zealand on Monday.

The country is often considered a leader in indigenous rights, but opponents of the bill fear those same rights are being put at risk by this bill.

Act, the political party that introduced the bill, argues there is a need to legally define the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which has been fundamental to race relations in New Zealand.

The core values of the treaty have, over time, been woven into New Zealand’s laws in an effort to redress the wrong done to Māori during colonisation.

But Act – a minor party in the ruling centre-right coalition – say this has resulted in the country being divided by race, and the bill will allow the treaty to be interpreted more fairly through parliament, rather than the courts. The party’s leader, David Seymour, has dismissed opponents as wanting to “stir up” fear and division.

Critics, however, say the legislation will divide the country and lead to the unravelling of much-needed support for many Māori.

The first reading passed on Thursday after a 30-minute break, backed by all parties from the ruling coalition. Maipi-Clarke was suspended from the house.

It is unlikely to pass a second reading, as Act’s coalition partners have indicated they will not support it.

But this has not placated those worried about the bill, and its impact, with the hikoi still making progress along its 1,000km (621-mile) route.

In Auckland, it took an estimated 5,000 marchers two hours to cross the harbour bridge. Officials had closed two lanes, the New Zealand Herald reported, to allow them to continue along the route.

Danielle Moreau, who is Māori, walked over the Harbour Bridge with her two sons, Bobby and Teddy, and told the BBC she “was hoping it [the hīkoi] would be big but it was much more epic than I expected”.

“I marched to make the point that Te Tiriti [the Treaty of Waitangi] is very important to our national identity,” said Winston Pond, who also took part in the march on Wednesday.

“We are a multi-cultural society built on a bicultural base – something that cannot be altered.”

Juliet Tainui-Hernández, from the Māori tribe Ngāi Tahu, and her Puerto Rican partner Javier Hernández, brought their daughter Paloma to the hīkoi.

Ms Tainui-Hernández said those who turned out in support did so “for the respectful and inclusive nation we want Aotearoa [New Zealand] to be for our tamariki mokopuna – our children and grandchildren”.

Kiriana O’Connell, who is also Māori, said that the current treaty principles were already a compromise for her people, and she would not support a “rewrite”.

Under the proposed legislation, the treaty principles that would be defined in law are:

• that the government has a right to govern and that parliament has the full right to make laws
• that the rights of Māori are respected by the Crown
• that everyone is equal before the law and is entitled to equal protection under it.

Act leader Seymour – who is also New Zealand’s associate justice minister – argues that because the principles have never been properly defined legally, the courts “have been able to develop principles that have been used to justify actions that are contrary to the principle of equal rights”.

He says these include “ethnic quotas in public institutions” that go against the spirit of fairness for all New Zealanders.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, however, has called the bill “divisive” – despite being part of the same coalition.

Meanwhile, the Waitangi Tribunal, which was set up in 1975 to investigate alleged breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, notes the bill “purposefully excluded any consultation with Māori, breaching the principle of partnership, the Crown’s good-faith obligations, and the Crown’s duty to actively protect Māori rights and interests”.

It also said that the principles of the bill misinterpreted the Treaty of Waitangi and that this “caused significant prejudice to Māori”.

The tabling of the Treaty Principles Bill comes following a series of measures introduced by the government that have affected Māori.

They include the closure of the Māori Health Authority, which was set up under Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government to help create health equity, and reprioritising English over Māori when it comes to the official naming of government organisations, for example.

While roughly 18% of New Zealand’s population consider themselves to be Māori, according to the most recent census, many remain disadvantaged compared with the general population when assessed through markers such as health outcomes, household income, education levels and incarceration and mortality rates. There remains a seven-year gap in life expectancy.

The Treaty of Waitangi is an agreement between the British and many, but not all, Māori tribes, which was signed in 1840.

It is contentious as it was written in both English and Māori – which had only been a spoken language until colonisation – and the two versions contain fundamental differences when it comes to issues such as sovereignty.

While the treaty itself is not enshrined in law, its principles have been adopted over time into various pieces of legislation.

The bill will now be sent to a select committee for a six-month public hearing process.

A Chinese influencer, with a huge global following and the approval of the Communist Party, has returned to the internet after a three-year hiatus.

Famous for idyllic videos of life with her grandmother in a village in Sichuan province, the 34-year-old has released three videos since Tuesday – and they have millions of views already.

Li first rose to fame in 2016 when China’s fast-growing social media users found comfort in her slow-paced videos about cooking and traditional handicraft.

Her return, welcomed by fans around the world, comes amid a government crackdown on influencers whose content they deem “inappropriate”.

Li’s hiatus followed a dispute with the agency that managed her accounts. In late 2021, she filed a lawsuit against the company over rights to her brand and stopped uploading new videos. They settled in 2022, but Li didn’t return to the internet until Tuesday.

In recent months, several influencers disappeared from Chinese internet as officials stepped up efforts to “rectify” online culture by targeting those accused of tax evasion, spreading disinformation and flaunting wealth.

But Li is among those who has survived official censure. Her huge following on YouTube and TikTok, which are banned in China, has led to questions about whether her videos are akin to soft propoganda.

She certainly appears to have the approval of the Party. State-run Xinhua news agency released an interview with her the day after her return. It’s rare for state media to interview influencers.

In the interview, Li said she had spent the past three years “catching up on sleep” and taking her grandmother to see the “outside world”. Now she has “a higher goal”, she added, and would “try her best”.

Li has always been a darling of state media. Xinhua called her the “vlogger who amazes the world with China’s countryside life” and China Daily praised her for “spreading Chinese culture to the world”.

For Beijing, Li’s rose-tinted videos encourage tourism and echo President Xi Jinping’s call for a Chinese culture renaissance. A Chinese soup noodle dish known for its distinctive smell became a hit after it was featured in a video.

Her videos also offer a distraction from the realities of rural China, which is poorer and older than the country’s bustling cities.

Li shot to fame internationally during the pandemic, when China’s relationship with the West began to sour. Locked in their homes, millions of people abroad were fascinated with her videos. China’s lockdowns, while harsh and sweeping, were largely enforced in the cities.

As Li’s brand thrived, she began selling food and sauces under her name on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao. In 2020, local media reported that sales of her products exceeded 1.6bn yuan ($220m; £172m).

By 2021 then she had become the most popular Chinese-language vlogger on YouTube, where she has more than 20 million followers. Another three million follow her on TikTok.

On Tuesday, she announced her return with a 14-minute video on all her social media accounts – including Chinese platforms Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, as well as YouTube and TikTok.

The video, which shows her making a wardrobe for her grandmother using the traditional lacquering technique, has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube and more than three million times on TikTok.

“I missed you very much,” she told her fans in a post.

And they felt the same: “When the world needed her [the] most, she returned. Welcome back,” a top-liked YouTube comment reads.

Another comment liked more than 13,000 times on Weibo says: “We need the slow-paced Li Ziqi in this age of information explosion.”

“Did anyone else literally cry happy tears?,” says another comment. “I’m so glad to see her gran doing so well! So happy to see you back.”

A new recording has emerged of notorious cult leader Charles Manson appearing to admit to additional killings.

Manson’s followers, known as the Manson Family, killed nine people in 1969.

The cult leader directed the killings in the hope they would start a race war. He died in prison in 2017.

In newly released audio recorded while he was in jail and featured in a new documentary, Manson appears to speak about previously unknown killings.

“See, there’s a whole part of my life that nobody knows about,” Manson is heard saying in one of the tapes, which feature in a new documentary series Making Manson.

“I lived in Mexico for a while. I went to Acapulco, stole some cars. I just got involved in stuff over my head, man. Got involved in a couple of killings. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City, and I left some dead people on the beach.”

Associates of Manson, as well as his former cellmate, Phil Kaufman, are also interviewed.

“Charlie was very good at being evil and not showing it,” says Mr Kaufman in the series teaser.

“Anything that detracted from his game plan at that time, he would squash it, but he did it with velvet gloves.”

In the series, Manson “recounts the early crimes that led to the murder spree in the summer of ‘69”, according to the Peacock streaming service.

The Manson Family killed nine people including the heavily pregnant Hollywood actress Sharon Tate, wife of Roman Polanski.

One of Manson’s young followers, Susan Atkins, stabbed Tate to death and scrawled “PIG” on the home’s front door with the actress’s blood.

Four other people at Tate’s home were brutally stabbed to death. The next day, a wealthy couple in Los Angeles, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, were also killed by the clan. The killings became known collectively as the Tate-LaBianca murders.

Separately Donald Shea, a Hollywood stuntman, and Gary Hinman, an acquaintance of the group, were killed by members of the Manson Family.

Manson was not at the scene of the killings, but was nonetheless convicted of murder for directing his followers in seven of the killings.

He died of natural causes behind bars in 2017.

The boss of Tesla and the social media site X, Elon Musk, suggested last month at Donald Trump’s rally in New York City that it would be possible to cut “at least $2 trillion” from US government spending by eradicating “waste”.

Musk has now been appointed to co-head a new Department of Government Efficiency by the incoming US president, giving him an opportunity to try to put his plans into action.

In the most recent fiscal year (from October 2023 to September 2024) the US federal government spent $6.75 trillion (£5.3 trillion) according to the US Treasury.

This means Musk’s proposed cuts of $2 trillion would represent around a cut of around 30% of total federal government spending — also known as national spending in other countries.

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How realistic is that proposal?

To answer that, it’s helpful to break down the total spending figure.

Around $880bn (13% of total US government spending) goes on interest payments on the national debt, which means that line of expenditure cannot be reduced without putting the US government in default.

Around $1.46 trillion (22%) goes on Social Security, which primarily means pensions for Americans over the retirement age. This is a line of spending which is “mandatory”, meaning it must be spent by law on those eligible.

Other large mandatory lines of government expenditure include Medicare – a government-funded health insurance program primarily serving Americans aged over 65.

So-called “discretionary” US government spending – outlays that are not permanently enshrined in law but have to be voted on annually by US lawmakers – includes defence ($874bn, 13%), transportation ($137bn, 2%) and education, training, employment and social services ($305bn, 5%).

Altogether, discretionary spending accounted for around 25% of the total in the 2023 financial year according to the Congressional Budget Office, with more than half of that going to defence.

In theory, discretionary spending would be easier for the incoming Trump administration to cut than mandatory spending.

Donald Trump has said that Musk – and his co-head at the new Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy – will achieve the savings from dismantling government bureaucracy, slashing excess regulations and restructuring government agencies. In an interview with the BBC in April 2023 Musk claimed to have reduced the staff of Twitter (now X) from 8,000 to 1,500 after acquiring the social network in 2022.

Yet if all of the $2 trillion in US government expenditure savings now being targeted by Musk were to come from discretionary spending, analysts calculate that entire agencies – from transport, to agriculture, to Homeland Security – would have to be entirely closed down. Discretionary spending accounted for only $1.7 trillion in 2023.

Musk did not specify if he would aim to deliver $2 trillion in savings in a single year, or over a longer period, but many US public finance experts, including those who are in favour in principle of reductions in US government spending, are sceptical savings on such a scale can be found in the near term without either a collapse in the delivery of important government functions or sparking major public resistance.

After taking control of the House of Representatives in 2022, Republican lawmakers have struggled to pass legislation to deliver considerably smaller cuts of $130bn in discretionary government spending after meeting opposition from other Republicans.

It’s also important to note that Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of making Social Security more financially generous, not less, by removing the income tax payable on it. And, on defence, Trump said he would build an “iron dome missile defence shield” around America, implying greater spending in this area, not cuts.

Total US federal government spending as a share of the US economy in 2024 was around 23% according to the US Treasury.

That’s a considerably smaller share than national government spending in other developed countries.

However, a large share of government spending in the US, including almost all school spending, is done at a state rather than a federal level, and states are funded by local sales and property taxes.

The International Monetary Fund has projected that total US “general government expenditure”, which includes spending by individual states, will be around 37.5% of its GDP in 2024.

That compares with 43% in the UK, 48% in Germany and 57% in France.

The US government is currently running an annual deficit – a shortfall between its spending and tax revenues – equal to around 6% of its economy. And America’s national debt held by the public is currently equal to around 97% of the size of the economy.

The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) think tank has projected that this is currently set to climb to 125% by 2035.

The CRFB has projected that absent major spending reductions, Donald Trump’s planned tax cuts would considerably widen the US deficit in the coming decade and push up the US national debt to 143% by the middle of the next decade.

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