The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has voted to pass a budget deal to avert what would be the first US federal government shut down since 2019.

The deal, which passed by a vote of 366 -34 only six hours before a midnight deadline, must still be approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate before it can be signed into law by President Joe Biden.

Lawmakers earlier this week had successfully negotiated a deal to fund government agencies – but it fell apart after President-elect Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk called on Republicans to reject it.

This vote was the third attempt this week to get a deal through the House after a second funding measure – that one backed by Trump – failed on Thursday.

• Why government shutdowns seem to only happen in US
• Trump’s shutdown gamble exposes limits of his power

The 118-page “American Relief Act, 2025” that passed in the House on Friday strips out a debt-limit provision that Trump had demanded, which was a sticking point for Democrats and some Republican budget hawks in an earlier draft bill.

The deal also removes measures sought by Democrats in the first version of the bill, including the first pay raise for lawmakers since 2009, federal funds to rebuild a bridge that collapsed in Baltimore, healthcare reforms, and provisions aimed at preventing hotels and live event venues from deceptive advertising.

A total of 34 Republicans voted against the short-term funding bill while all Democrats in attendance were in favour.

Trump has not yet commented on the vote. A statement put out by the White House on behalf of Biden praises the deal.

Ahead of the vote, Democrats slammed the involvement of Mr Musk in the process, who they pointed out is an unelected billionaire.

Mr Musk, who Trump has tasked with cutting government spending in his future administration, had lobbied heavily against an earlier bill.

During floor debate, Republicans said they look forward to a “new era” when Trump takes office and Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress next month.

The wrangling over budget left Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson bruised amid criticism from members of his own party over his handling of the process.

“We are grateful that everyone stood together to do the right thing and having gotten this done now as the last order of business for the year, we are set up for a big and important new start in January,” Johnson told reporters after Friday’s vote.

He also said that he had spoken frequently to both Trump and Mr Musk during the negotiations.

Johnsons remarks came shortly after Mr Musk praised the Louisiana congressman’s work on the budget in a post on X, the social media platform he owns.

“The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” he posted. “It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces.”

The dramatic budget fight served as a preview of the tense legislative fights that could be in store next year, once Trump is in the White House.

• What happens when the US government shuts down?

Officials have warned that if there is no funding deal going into the holiday season, millions of federal employees would go without paycheques if the government shuts down.

There will be countless other ways a shut down would affect Americans – including by limiting assistance to aid-reliant farmers and people recovering from natural disasters.

The last government shutdown was during Trump’s first term in 2019 after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives failed to come to an agreement on a new spending bill.

That shutdown lasted 35 days, and was the longest in US history.

It was the year Beyoncé donned her stetson for Cowboy Carter, Taylor Swift conquered the world on her Eras tour and King Charles appeared in a vivid bright red in his royal portrait.

It was also 12 months when the British Museum showcased a handful of its recovered stolen gems and Charli XCX rebranded the summer in slime green, with her album Brat.

These are some of the highlights from an eclectic year in culture.

Poor Tom Hollander.

One minute he was watching his friend perform on stage (for a £300 salary), while the Rev actor sat “smugly in the audience”, having just received about £30,000 for a BBC show.

But after doing a swift check of his emails during the interval, he found a payslip labelled “Box office bonus for The Avengers”. He had wrongly received a paycheque intended for Spider-Man actor and near-namesake Tom Holland, as they had briefly shared the same agent.

“It was an astonishing amount of money,” he told Late Night host Seth Meyers. “It was not his salary. It was his first box office bonus. Not the whole box office bonus, the first one. And it was more money than I’d ever [seen]. It was a seven-figure sum.”

“My feeling of smugness disappeared,” he added.

Two Madonna fans tried to sue the singer for showing up late to one of her concerts in New York. Michael Fellows and Jason Alvarez were incensed that the star took to the stage at 22:30 – two hours later than expected – and didn’t wrap up the show until after 01:00.

In a lawsuit filed in New York, they claimed her tardiness impacted their sleep and their ability to “get up early to go to work” the next day.

In response, Madonna’s lawyers argued “no reasonable concertgoer – and certainly no Madonna fan” – would expect her to take to the stage at the advertised time.

The case was later dismissed without a settlement.

The power of TV drama was on display when ITV aired Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

A dramatisation of the long-running legal controversy with hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses wrongly accused of stealing from the Post Office.

It helped push the story of the scandal to the top of the news agenda.

Gems stolen from the British Museum were seen for the first time, when they were put on display.

In August, last year, the museum announced up to 2,000 objects from its storerooms were missing, stolen or damaged.

Ten of the gems retrieved by the museum were showcased in an exhibition there this month.

So far, the museum says 626 items have been recovered and they have new leads for a further 100 objects.

Word of mouth hit and cult Japanese bestseller, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, took the literary world by storm.

This compelling novel about a gourmet chef and serial killer who gets her comeuppance was inspired by a true story and examines society’s relationship with food, misogyny and violence.

Author Pandora Skyes wrote: “Butter will churn your brain and your stomach with panache.”

The 40th anniversary of London Fashion week saw more than 60 designers hit the capital to showcase their autumn/winter collections.

It wasn’t just the designers descending upon London though, as the likes of Barry Keoghan, Central Cee and Skepta were among the famous faces packing out the front rows.

Original supermodel Naomi Campbell capped off the whirlwind few days as she walked the runway at Burberry’s closing show.

Love was very much in the air as romantic floral-themed collections dominated – Susan Fang’s collaboration with Victoria’s Secret had a Valentine’s Day theme while Richard Quinn embraced high society elegance as he paid homage to the Victorian era.

The elusive street artist Banksy appeared to reveal what his first name is, in a lost BBC interview.

Banksy’s real identity has never been revealed, but the interview gave his fans, who include many A-list celebrities, a rare chance to hear his voice.

In the 2003 recording, now on BBC Sounds in The Banksy Story, reporter Nigel Wrench asks him if he is called “Robert Banks”, and the artist replies: “It’s Robbie.”

In August, the world-famous artist completed nine days of pop-up animal artworks dotted around London, ending with a piece on the shutters of London Zoo.

Percival Everett’s James was shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize and it was a popular choice. but was pipped by fellow favourite Orbital by Elizabeth Harvey (her dazzling space tale was published in 2023).

Everett’s action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was both harrowing and ferociously funny, as it re-told Mark Twain’s classic tale from the enslaved Jim’s point of view.

James had been joint-favourite to win the Booker Prize, but was beaten by Orbital, by Elizabeth Harvey (her space tale – the biggest-selling book on the shortlist in the UK – was published in 2023).

Schadenfreude has never been so sweet. Standing in a room full of record label executives who’d refused to release her debut album, Raye picked up award after award after award for the very same record, which she’d released independently in 2023.

She earned six Brits in total, including artist and album of the year.

Viewers compared it to the moment, when Julia Roberts, in the film Pretty Woman, returns to the shop that had refused her custom, brandishing the bags of clothes she bought elsewhere.

“This has been the best night of my life,” Raye told the BBC. “And luckily they got it all on camera so I can watch it back.”

We should have realised Beyoncé was a little bit country. Not only does she hail from Texas, but she ended her Renaissance tour by riding around football stadiums on a giant glitterball horse. The signs were there all along.

She made it official in March with the release of Cowboy Carter, an album inspired by righteous anger (she was treated like a pariah at the 2016 Country Music Awards), and a desire to explore country music’s forgotten black roots.

Over 27 sprawling tracks, Beyoncé tipped her hat to rodeo culture, the chitlin’ circuit, Honky Tonk, bluegrass, folk and gospel – connecting the dots between genres, and daring the country music establishment to look itself in the eye.

It flinched, of course. Acclaimed as it was, Cowboy Carter failed to pick up a single nomination at the 2024 Country Music Awards.

The seven-part Netflix series became one of the most talked about TV shows of the year.

Scottish writer and comedian Richard Gadd recounted what Netflix said was the true story of him being stalked and harassed by a woman called Martha.

It was compelling viewing and triggered an ongoing court case with the woman said to have inspired the character of Martha suing Netflix in the US, over what she called the “brutal lies” of the dark comedy drama.

Netflix has said: “We intend to defend this matter vigorously and to stand by Gadd’s right to tell his story.”

One hundred life-size cast iron figures appeared in the grounds of an 18th Century house in Norfolk, in the latest major artwork by Sir Antony Gormley.

The artist used his own body to mould the sculptures, which have been placed around Houghton Hall, in an installation called Time Horizon.

They are similar to his famous iron men on Crosby beach in Merseyside.

They started as friends, but Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s relationship turned in a protracted, public spat.

Their anger escalated over a series of 10 diss tracks, incorporating everything from playground insults (Drake mocked Lamar’s height), to serious criminal allegations (Drake accused Lamar of domestic abuse, to which the rapper branded his rival a “certified paedophile”).

The beef produced an all-time classic in the shape of Not Like Us – earning Lamar four Grammy nominations and a spot at next year’s Super Bowl half-time show.

But many hip-hop heads were disappointed at how low the rappers had stooped.

Spring also saw the highly anticipated publication of Salman Rushdie’s Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. The renowned author recounted the horrific attack he had suffered, which caused both physical and emotional trauma, including leaving him blind in one eye.

Rushdie told the BBC that he had used the book as a way of fighting back against what happened.

If you were looking for something lighter, David Nicholls made a triumphant return with You Are Here, a warming romcom featuring an unlikely pair (reminiscent of One Day’s Emma and Dexter).

It all started with the Barbie press tour in 2023 when Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling sported pink-laden outfits that were as iconic as the Mattel doll’s on the red carpet.

This year, it was Zendaya that embraced method dressing with her red carpet looks playfully toying with the tennis theme of her new film, Challengers.

From a dress that looked like a tennis lawn to Loewe tennis ball shoes, the Hollywood star served some ace looks that we won’t forget any time soon.

The first official painted portrait of King Charles III since his coronation was unveiled at Buckingham Palace.

The vast oil on canvas shows a larger-than-life King Charles in the uniform of the Welsh Guards.

The vivid red work, measuring about 8ft 6in (2.6m) by 6ft 6in (2m), is by Jonathan Yeo, who has also painted Sir Tony Blair, Sir David Attenborough and Malala Yousafzai.

Queen Camilla is said to have looked at the painting and told Yeo: “Yes, you’ve got him.”

Eurovision’s official slogan is “united by music”, but this year’s contest was derailed by politics, backstage tension and in-fighting.

The run-up to the contest was overshadowed by protests over Israel’s participation, amid the country’s war in Gaza. Contestants from several nations came under pressure to boycott the show, Israel’s entrant Eden Golan reportedly faced death threats, and there were multiple reports of backstage harassment.

Dutch contestant Joost Klein was disqualified at the last minute after a Swedish crew member complained about “threatening” behaviour outside his dressing room. Police later said an investigation had produced no evidence of a threat.

And the Swiss star Nemo, who won the contest, accidentally broke their trophy.

Manchester’s Co-op Live arena opened… eventually, after several highly publicised and highly embarrassing delays.

The setbacks included part of a ventilation duct falling from the ceiling shortly before an audience was let in, which its boss said was “almost catastrophic”.

However, the £365m venue, the UK’s biggest indoor arena, did get up and running and has staged some major gigs this year including Liam Gallagher, Eagles, Sir Paul McCartney and the MTV European Music Awards.

Colm Tóibín’s breakout novel Brooklyn (2009) followed the life of Irish woman Eilis Lacey, who moved Stateside before secretly marrying and settling.

In his sequel, Long Island, eager readers returned to find the enigmatic Eilis living in the suburbs with her Italian-American husband, Tony, and teenage children, Rosella and Larry. She is soon drawn back to her small home town in County Wexford (from where Tóibín hails) for a family celebration, and finds old flame Jim still lurking in the shadows.

Echoing the journey of his protagonist, the author also lives in the US but told the Guardian that he tries to write part of each novel in Enniscorthy. “Once I can do something on that stretch, it becomes sort of magical,” he said. “I mean a subdued sort of magical.”

Sir Ian McKellen was in “good spirits” after falling off stage during a performance of Player Kings at the Noël Coward theatre in London.

The actor, 85, cried out in pain, calling for help, and a staff member rushed to assist.

Sir Ian had been performing in a fight scene when he seemed to lose his footing. He was taken to hospital and the play was cancelled.

He later pulled out of the theatre’s run to recover from breaking his wrist and chipping one of his vertebrae, and said in September he was taking the rest of the year off.

As they headlined Glastonbury for a record fifth time, Coldplay brought out an array of guest stars, from Little Simz to Palestinian singer Elyanna.

But they saved the best ’til last, in the shape of Back To The Future actor Michael J Fox. The star, who has been battling Parkinson’s Disease since 1991, received a rush of affection from the 100,000+ audience, as he played two songs – Humankind and Fix You – from his wheelchair.

Martin later said the moment had been a dream come true – because watching Fox play Johnny B Goode in Back To The Future had inspired him to play music.

“It’s so trippy to me that we get to play with him because it just feels like being seven and being in heaven,” he told US chat show host Jimmy Fallon.

The official colour of summer 2024 was slime green, and the official soundtrack was hedonistic house bangers – all thanks to Charli XCX and her sixth album, Brat.

The record represented a specific, bad-ass spirit. Charli characterised it as “a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra”.

There was certainly a bulletproof bravado to tracks like 360 and Von Dutch (“it’s ok to admit that you’re jealous of me”); but they were balanced by moments of naked vulnerability, as Charli explored female rivalry and her changing attitude to motherhood.

Formerly a cult favourite among pop fans, Brat made Charli into a mainstream phenomenon.

While many have been talking about superhero fatigue, no one seems to have told Marvel’s foul-mouthed anti-hero Deadpool.

In this hugely successful third instalment Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool teamed up with with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine to try and save his universe.

Jennifer Aniston criticised Donald Trump’s then vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, for resurfaced comments calling Democrats a “bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives”.

The Friends actress, 55, posted a 2021 interview with Mr Vance, and she wrote on Instagram: “I truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States.

“All I can say is… Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.”

He later defended his position, saying: “Obviously it was a sarcastic comment… The substance of what I said… I’m sorry, it’s true.”

The Young V&A, which describes itself as the most joyful museum in the world, won the 2024 Museum of the Year award, with a £120,000 prize.

The east London venue, a branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum, reopened in July 2023 after being closed for a three-year £13m redevelopment. It was formerly called the V&A Museum of Childhood.

The biggest tour of all time came to a grinding halt when evidence was uncovered of a “planned terrorist attack” as Taylor Swift played in Austria.

Security officials said a 19-year-old was planning to kill “a large crowd of people” in a suicide attack. Three people were arrested in connection with the plot.

About 195,000 fans had been expected to attend the shows, and many took to the streets of Vienna in a show of solidarity and defiance after the cancellations.

Swift said the incident “filled me with a new sense of fear”, but thanked authorities “because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives”.

The tour resumed with a record-breaking run at London’s Wembley Stadium. When it wrapped up in December, Swift had made a record $2bn (£1.6bn) at the box office.

What started as a rumour quickly became front page news, as Liam and Noel Gallagher set aside more than a decade of resentment and announced they were reforming Oasis.

“The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over,” they said in a statement.

In some respects, we’ll miss the feud. Liam repeatedly called Noel a “potato”. Noel memorably described his brother as “a man with a fork in a world of soup”.

But comedy’s loss is music’s gain. Despite a farcical ticket sale, in which prices magically doubled in front of fans’ eyes, anticipation for their 2025 stdaium tour is sky-high.

The BBC apologised to actor Amanda Abbington after she complained about her treatment by her professional dance partner Giovanni Pernice when she took part in the 2023 series Strictly Come Dancing.

It was widely reported that while complaints of verbal bullying and harassment were upheld, claims of physical aggression by Pernice were were not.

Earlier this year, the BBC confirmed Pernice would not return to the Strictly professional line-up for the new series.

“This apology means a great deal to me,” Abbington said. “So too does the fact that the BBC have acknowledged the steps that were put in place to support and protect me and past contestants were “not enough”.

Pernice said: “The majority of the false allegations have been thrown out by the review. It has been an extremely difficult year, reading story after story and not being able to say anything in return.”

Critics dished out rave reviews for a new Vincent Van Gogh exhibition at London’s National Gallery, which runs until 19 January next year.s

The Guardian, Telegraph, Time Out and the Times each awarded it five stars.

The show features more than 60 pieces painted by the Dutch artist, who died in 1890 aged 37.

The Times called it a “once-in-a-century” show, while the Guardian said it was a “riveting rollercoaster ride from Arles to the stars”.

In a case filed in New York, hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was accused of kidnapping, drugging and coercing women into sexual activities.

Prosecutors described the star as the head of a criminal enterprise that used threats of violence to force women into participating in drug-fuelled orgies with male prostitutes, known as “freak-offs”.

Combs, who is also facing more than two dozen civil legal cases, denied the charges, and vowed to fight them in court.

However, he was denied bail three times, after judges heard he posed “a serious risk of witness tampering“.

His trial is set to begin on 5 May, 2025.

Literary darling Sally Rooney returned with her fourth novel, Intermezzo, which received rave reviews from critics.

The book follows two brothers, who seemingly have little in common, but have to navigate their way through grief together following the death of a close family member.

Like Rooney’s other novels, chapters alternate from the point of views of different characters. Both brothers are in relationships with age gaps.

“I feel like the older I get the more freedom I have to write about a greater range of life experiences,” Rooney, 33, told the Guardian.

A shockwave vibrated around the world as news emerged from Argentina that One Direction star Liam Payne had died, at the age of just 31.

The singer, who had been in the country to watch a show by his bandmate Niall Horan, fell from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room and sustained fatal injuries. Three people have been charged in connection with his death.

Friends, family and fans all paid tribute. “His greatest joy was making other people happy, and it was an honour to be alongside him as he did it,” said Harry Styles.

“I can’t explain to you what I’d give to just give you a hug one last time,” added Zayn Malik.

The largest restoration of Rembrandt’s masterpiece, The Night Watch, began at the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.

Following five years of research using techniques such as digital imaging and artificial intelligence, eight restorers will begin “Operation Night Watch” by removing the varnish from the painting – in full view of the public, within the glass-enclosed space in The Night Watch Room.

The varnish, applied during a 1975-76 restoration, will be removed using microfibre cloths and cotton swabs.

It’s been a golden year for the outspoken women of pop.

Whether it was Chappell Roan dripping with sapphic disdain on Good Luck, Babe; or Sabrina Carpenter winking theatrically through the innuendo-laden Espresso, the charts were full of whip-smart lyrics from women who weren’t afraid to speak their minds.

Even the Grammys, never knowingly in touch with the zeitgeist, couldn’t help but pay attention.

Carpenter and Roan got six nominations each; Charli XCX picked up seven; and Beyoncé grabbed 11 – making her the most-nominated artist of all time, with a running total of 99.

The winners will be announced in Los Angeles next February.

He’s one of the most recognisable faces on British television.

But in November, Gregg Wallace stepped aside from presenting MasterChef after a BBC News investigation revealed allegations of inappropriate sexual comments and inappropriate behaviour against him.

In an Instagram video, he blamed a “handful of middle-class women of a certain age” for the claims – which he later apologised for.

Masterchef’s production company Banijay UK has launched a probe and said Wallace is co-operating, while his lawyers have denied he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature.

It all started with the Timothée Chalamet lookalike competition in New York which attracted the real actor himself.

Shortly after, similar contests popped up across the US and UK with men vaguely resembling the likes of Harry Styles, Dev Patel and Paul Mescal entering into the competitions.

While you might have needed to squint to see the resemblance, the events were a way to “get people together to have a wholesome time and make new friends” according to the Dev Patel lookalike winner.

A year after Barbenheimer electrified cinema audiences, two more very different movies went up against each other at the box office.

Both Gladiator II and Wicked Part I were huge hits, taking in hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide.

When it comes to awards though, Wicked seems to have the edge with Cynthia Erivo who plays Elphaba being touted as a potential Best Actress winner at the Oscars.

Comedian Chris McCausland was both Strictly Come Dancing’s first blind contestant, along with being its first blind winner of the glitterball trophy.

The former salesman, who got into comedy in the early 2000s, was the bookmakers’ favourite to win.

McCausland, 47, was registered blind after losing his sight to retinitis pigmentosa in his 20s.

He said his win was for Buswell, “and for everyone out there who’s got told they couldn’t do something or thought they couldn’t do it”.

After quite a few setbacks, British powerhouse Adele finally ended her Las Vegas residency in December 2024 after more than two years.

Performing 100 shows at the 4,000-capacity Caesar’s Palace, there were plenty of viral moments for the singer, mostly involving the Brit crying over something emotional or getting wrapped up in storytelling.

Earlier this year she said she would be taking a “big break” from music after a mammoth run in the US city.

“I’m so sad this residency is over but I am so glad that it happened, I really, really am,” she told fans at her final show. “I will miss it terribly, I will miss you terribly. I don’t know when I next want to perform again,” she added.

When a court declared Iwao Hakamata innocent in September, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate seemed unable to comprehend, much less savour the moment.

“I told him he was acquitted, and he was silent,” Hideko Hakamata, his 91-year-old sister, tells the BBC at her home in Hamamatsu, Japan.

“I couldn’t tell whether he understood or not.”

Hideko had been fighting for her brother’s retrial ever since he was convicted of quadruple murder in 1968.

In September 2024, at the age of 88, he was finally acquitted – ending Japan’s longest running legal saga.

Mr Hakamata’s case is remarkable. But it also shines a light on the systemic brutality underpinning Japan’s justice system, where death row inmates are only notified of their hanging a few hours in advance, and spend years unsure whether each day will be their last.

Human rights experts have long condemned such treatment as cruel and inhuman, saying it exacerbates prisoners’ risk of developing a serious mental illness.

And more than half a lifetime spent in solitary confinement, waiting to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit, took a heavy toll on Mr Hakamata.

Since being granted a retrial and released from prison in 2014, he has lived under Hideko’s close care.

When we arrive at the apartment he is on his daily outing with a volunteer group that supports the two elderly siblings. He is anxious around strangers, Hideko explains, and has been in “his own world” for years.

“Maybe it can’t be helped,” she says. “This is what happens when you are locked up and crammed in a small prison cell for more than 40 years.

“They made him live like an animal.”

A former professional boxer, Iwao Hakamata  was working at a miso processing plant when the bodies of his boss, the man’s wife and their two teenage children were found. All four had been stabbed to death.

Authorities accused Mr Hakamata of murdering the family, setting their house in Shizuoka alight and stealing 200,000 yen (£199; $556) in cash.

“We had no idea what was going on,” Hideko says of the day in 1966 when police came to arrest her brother.

The family home was searched, as well as the homes of their two elder sisters, and Mr Hakamata was taken away.

He initially denied all charges, but later gave what he came to describe as a coerced confession following beatings and interrogations that lasted up to 12 hours a day.

Two years after his arrest, Mr Hakamata was convicted of murder and arson and sentenced to death. It was when he was moved to a cell on death row that Hideko noticed a shift in his demeanour.

One prison visit in particular stands out.

“He told me, ‘there was an execution yesterday – it was a person in the next cell’,” she recalls. “He told me to take care – and from then on, he completely changed mentally and became very quiet.”

Mr Hakamata is not the only one to be damaged by life on Japan’s death row, where inmates wake each morning not knowing if it will be their last.

“Between 08:00 and 08:30 in the morning was the most critical time, because that was generally when prisoners were notified of their execution,” Menda Sakae, who spent 34 years on death row before being exonerated, wrote in a book about his experience.

“You begin to feel the most terrible anxiety, because you don’t know if they are going to stop in front of your cell. It is impossible to express how awful a feeling this was.”

James Welsh, lead author of a 2009 Amnesty International report into conditions on death row, noted that “the daily threat of imminent death is cruel, inhuman and degrading”. The report concluded that inmates were at risk of “significant mental health issues”.

Hideko could only watch as her own brother’s mental health deteriorated as the years went by.

“Once he asked me ‘Do you know who I am?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do. You are Iwao Hakamata’. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you must be here to see a different person’. And he just went back [to his cell].”

Hideko stepped up as his primary spokesperson and advocate. It wasn’t until 2014, however, that there was a breakthrough in his case.

A key piece of evidence against Mr Hakamata were red-stained clothes found in a miso tank at his workplace.

They were recovered a year and two months after the murders and the prosecution said they belonged to him. But for years Mr Hakamata’s defence team argued that the DNA recovered from the clothes did not match his – and alleged that the evidence was planted.

In 2014 they were able to persuade a judge to release him from prison and grant him a retrial.

Prolonged legal proceedings meant it took until last October for the retrial to begin. When it finally did, it was Hideko who appeared in court, pleading for her brother’s life.

Mr Hakamata’s fate hinged on the stains, and specifically how they had aged.

The prosecution had claimed the stains were reddish when the clothes were recovered – but the defence argued that blood would have turned blackish after being immersed in miso for so long.

That was enough to convince presiding judge Koshi Kunii, who declared that “the investigating authority had added blood stains and hid the items in the miso tank well after the incident took place”.

Judge Kunii further found that other evidence had been fabricated, including an investigation record, and declared Mr Hakamata innocent.

Hideko’s first reaction was to cry.

“When the judge said that the defendant is not guilty, I was elated; I was in tears,” she says. “I am not a tearful person, but my tears just flowed without stopping for about an hour.”

The court’s conclusion that evidence against Mr Hakamata was fabricated raises troubling questions.

Japan has a 99% conviction rate, and a system of so-called “hostage justice” which, according to Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch, “denies people arrested their rights to a presumption of innocence, a prompt and fair bail hearing, and access to counsel during questioning”.

“These abusive practices have resulted in lives and families being torn apart, as well as wrongful convictions,” Mr Doi noted in 2023.

David T Johnson, a professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, whose research focuses on criminal justice in Japan, has followed the Hakamata case for the last 30 years.

He said one reason it dragged on is that “critical evidence for the defence was not disclosed to them until around 2010”.

The failure was “egregious and inexcusable”, Mr Johnson told the BBC. “Judges kept kicking the case down the road, as they frequently do in response to retrial petitions (because) they are busy, and the law allows them to do so.”

Hideko says the core of the injustice was the forced confession and the coercion her brother suffered.

But Mr Johnson says false accusations don’t happen because of a single mistake. Instead, they are compounded by failings at all levels – from the police right through to the prosecutors, courts and parliament.

“Judges have the last word,” he added. “When a wrongful conviction occurs, it is, in the end, because they said so. All too often, the responsibility of judges for producing and maintaining wrongful convictions gets neglected, elided, and ignored.”

Against that backdrop, Mr Hakamata’s acquittal was a watershed – a rare moment of retrospective justice.

After declaring Mr Hakamata innocent, the judge presiding over his retrial apologised to Hideko for how long it took to achieve justice.

A short while later, Takayoshi Tsuda, chief of Shizuoka police, visited her home and bowed in front of both brother and sister.

“For the past 58 years… we caused you indescribable anxiety and burden,” Mr Tsuda said. “We are truly sorry.”

Hideko gave an unexpected reply to the police chief.

“We believe that everything that happened was our destiny,” she said. “We will not complain about anything now.”

After nearly 60 years of anxiety and heartache, Hideko has styled her home with the express intention of letting some light in. The rooms are bright and inviting, filled with pictures of her and Iwao alongside family friends and supporters.

Hideko laughs as she shares memories of her “cute” little brother as a baby, leafing through black-and-white family photos.

The youngest of six siblings, he seems to always be standing next to her.

“We were always together when we were children,” she explains. “I always knew I had to take care of my little brother.  And so, it continues.”

She walks into Mr Hakamata’s room and introduces their ginger cat, which occupies the chair he normally sits in. Then she points to pictures of him as a young professional boxer.

“He wanted to become a champion,” she says. “Then the incident happened.”

After Mr Hakamata was released in 2014, Hideko wanted to make the apartment as bright as possible, she explains. So she painted the front door pink.

“I believed that if he was in a bright room and had a cheerful life, he would naturally get well.”

It’s the first thing one notices when visiting Hideko’s apartment, this bright pink statement of hope and resilience.

It’s unclear whether it has worked – Mr Hakamata still paces back and forth for hours, just as he did for years in a jail cell the size of three single tatami mats.

But Hideko refuses to linger on the question of what their lives might have looked like if not for such an egregious miscarriage of justice.

When asked who she blames for her brother’s suffering, she replies: “no-one”.

“Complaining about what happened will get us nowhere.”

Her priority now is to keep her brother comfortable. She shaves his face, massages his head, slices apples and apricots for his breakfast each morning.

Hideko, who has spent the majority of her 91 years fighting for her brother’s freedom, says this was their fate.

“I don’t want to think about the past. I don’t know how long I’m going to live,” she says. “I just want Iwao to live a peaceful and quiet life.”

Sega is considering launching its own Netflix-like subscription service for video games, a move which would accelerate gaming’s transition towards streaming.

There are already a number of similar services on the market – such as Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus – which see gamers pay a monthly fee for access to a range of titles rather than owning them outright.

Sega’s president Shuji Utsumi told the BBC such subscription products were “very interesting”, and his firm was “evaluating some opportunities”.

“We’re thinking something – and discussing something – we cannot disclose right now,” he said.

Some in the industry have expressed concern about the move however telling the BBC it could see gamers “shelling out more money” on multiple subscription services.

It is not just Sony and Microsoft who offer game subscriptions – there are now countless players in the space, with rivals such as Nintendo, EA and Ubisoft all offering their own membership plans.

Currently, various Sega games are available across multiple streaming services.

The amount these services individually charge vary depending on the features and games made available. For example, Xbox Game Pass prices range from £6.99 to £14.99 a month, while PlayStation Plus ranges from £6.99 to £13.49 a month.

So it would make financial sense for Sega for people who are playing its titles to pay it subscription fees rather its rivals.

It could also be attractive for people who mostly want to play Sega games – but for everyone else it could result in higher costs.

Rachel Howie streams herself playing games on Twitch, where she is known as DontRachQuit to her fans, and said she was “excited and worried” about another subscription service

“We have so many subscriptions already that we find it very difficult to justify signing up for a new one,” she told the BBC.

“I think that SEGA will definitely have a core dedicated audience that will benefit from this, but will the average gamer choose this over something like Game Pass?”

And Sophie Smart, Production Director at UK developer No More Robots, agreed.

“As someone whose first console was the Sega Mega Drive, what I’d love more than anything is to see Sega thriving and this feels like a step in a modern direction,” she said.

But she wondered if Sega did create a rival subscription service if this would lead to their games being removed from other services.

“If so, it could mean that consumers are shelling out more money across owning multiple subscription services,” she said.

Shuji Utsumi spoke to the BBC ahead of the premiere of the film Sonic 3 on Saturday, after a year in which he oversaw the launch of Metaphor: ReFantazio, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and the latest Sonic the Hedgehog game.

Our conversation started in an unexpected way.

The very first thing Mr Utsumi said to me seemed to suggest that the firm, which dominated gaming in the 1990s with a rivalry between Sonic the Hedgehog and Nintendo’s Super Mario, may have lost its way.

“I want to make Sega really shiny again,” he said.

He said Sega had been putting too much focus on domestic success in Japan, and needed to re-establish itself on a global stage, which would mean expanding past its base.

“Sega has been somehow losing confidence,” he said.

“But why? Sega has a great RPG group, Sega has amazing IPs, Sega is a really well-known brand.

“So I was like, hey, now is not the time to be defensive – but more offensive.”

He said the company was too concerned about controlling costs when he took over, and he wants to “bring a rock and roll mentality” to gaming.

When I told him that sounded familiar – Sega’s marketing in the 90s often tried to position Sonic the Hedgehog as the cool alternative to Mario – he agreed.

He said the firm now simply must “make a great game” in the series.

“The next one is going to be a quite challenging, quite exciting game that we are working on,” he said.

But he would not divulge whether Sega was considering a follow up to the much-loved Sonic Adventure series.

“Sonic Adventure was kind of a game-changer for Sonic,” he said.

“When we release it, it should be good, it should be impressive – we need to meet or even exceed people’s expectations, so it takes some time.”

Part of the series which fans have been clamouring to see return is the Chao Garden – a much-loved virtual pet synonymous with Sonic Adventure.

Mr Utsumi said “we’ve been talking about it” – but would not go into further detail, only that he could not “say too much about it”.

Mr Utsumi unsurprisingly talked up the firm’s successes this year, which have included winning multiple gaming awards with new IP Metaphor: ReFantazio, made by the team behind the Persona series.

But it hasn’t all been positive for the firm, with job cuts in March, and Football Manager 2025 being delayed to next year.

“It was a hard decision,” he said of the cuts which saw 240 people lose their jobs.

“But when you reset the initiative, you have to make that hard decision.”

And he said Football Manager had been delayed over “a quality issue”.

“I mean, financially, maybe providing the game at an early stage can be the better choice.

“But we decided to keep having the quality level – to keep that discipline.”

And he also spoke of how Sega’s year has gone outside of gaming, with several film and television adaptations being capped off with the third Sonic the Hedgehog movie releasing on Saturday.

“I just saw the movie – it’s so much fun. It’d be nice if that kind of excitement goes on.”

In 1915, 29-year-old Indian entrepreneur Jhamandas Watumull arrived in Hawaii’s Honolulu island to set up a retail shop of his import business with his partner Dharamdas.

The two registered Watumull & Dharamdas as a business on Honolulu’s Hotel Street, selling exotic goods like silks, ivory crafts, brassware and other curios from the East.

Dharamdas died of cholera in 1916, prompting Jhamandas Watumull to send for his brother Gobindram to manage their Honolulu store while he took care of their business in Manila. Over the next several years, the brothers would travel between India and Hawaii as they solidified their business.

Today, the Watumull name is ubiquitous on the islands – from garment manufacturing and real estate to education and arts philanthropy, the family is inextricably linked with Hawaii’s rich history.

The first South Asians to move to the island from India, they are now one of its wealthiest families.

“Slowly, slowly, that’s how we did it,” Jhamandas told a local Hawaiian publication in 1973.

Born in pre-independent India, Jhamandas was the son of a brick contractor in Sindh province’s Hyderabad (now in Pakistan). The family was educated but not wealthy. After an accident paralysed his father, Jhamandas’ mother bought his passage to the Philippines where he began working in textile mills. In 1909, he began his own trading business in Manila with his partner Dharamdas.

His grandson JD Watumull says Jhamandas and Dharamdas moved to Hawaii after a drop in their Manila business after the US, which occupied Philippines at the time, curtailed ties with foreign businesses.

Their Hawaii business was renamed East India Store soon after Jhamandas’ brother Gobindram began managing it. In the following years, the business expanded into a major department store with branches in several parts of Asia as well as Hawaii, says SAADA, a digital archive of South Asian American history.

In 1937, Gobindram built the Watumull Building in Honolulu’s Waikiki neighbourhood to house the company’s headquarters. According to SAADA, the multi-million-dollar business had expanded to 10 stores, an apartment house and assorted commercial developments by 1957.

The Star-Bulletin newspaper describes products at the store – linens, lingerie, brass and teak wood curios – as woven with “romance and mystery” that transported one “to distant lands and fascinating scenes”.

As Hawaii emerged as a popular destination for wealthy tourists in the 1930s, shirts in bold colours with island motifs called the ‘Aloha shirt’ became a sought-after souvenir.

According to Dale Hope, an expert in Hawaiian textile and patterns, the Watumull’s East India Store was one of the first on the island to carry designs with Hawaiian patterns.

The designs were first commissioned in 1936 by Gobindram from his artist sister-in-law Elsie Jensen.

“Instead of Mount Fuji, she’d have Diamond Head, instead of koi [she’d] have tropical fish, instead of cherry blossoms [she’d] have gardenias and hibiscus and all the things we know here,” Hope said.

The designs were sent to Japan where they were handblocked onto raw silk, Nancy Schiffer writes in the book Hawaiian Shirt Designs.

“These subtle floral patterns, modern and dynamic in concept, were the first Hawaiian designs to be produced commercially,” Schiffer notes.

“They were sold by the boat load and were exhibited as far away as London,” William Devenport says in the book Paradise of the Pacific.

Gobindram’s daughter Lila told Hope that the Watumull’s Waikiki store had American movie stars Loretta Young, Jack Benny, Lana Turner and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson coming to buy these shirts.

“More and more we are finding out that Watumull has become a synonym for Hawaiian fashions,” Gulab Watumull said in a 1966 interview in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

The Watumulls soon bought the Royal Hawaiian Manufacturing Company, where the first matching family aloha wear was created.

Despite their success, it would be decades before the Watumull brothers – Jhamandas and Gobindram – received US citizenship. Their early years in the country were marred by discrimination and difficult immigration laws, the Hawaii Business Magazine wrote.

In 1922, Gobindram married Ellen Jensen, an American, whose citizenship was stripped under the Cable Act for marrying an immigrant who was not eligible for US citizenship. Jensen would go on to work with the League of Women Voters to reform the law and regain citizenship in 1931.

Gobindram would become a citizen in 1946 when a law allowing Indians to gain citizenship through naturalisation was enacted.

His brother Jhamandas, meanwhile, continued to split much of his time between India and Hawaii.

During India’s 1947 partition, the Watumull family moved from Sindh to Bombay (now Mumbai), leaving much of their property behind, SAADA says.

Jhamandas’ son Gulab eventually arrived in Hawaii to work in the family business and become its head.

In 1955, the brothers split the business with Jhamandas and Gulab keeping its retail portion while Gobindram’s family took over its real estate section.

Jhamandas moved permanently to Hawaii In 1956, a few years after the death of his wife and one of their sons, and in 1961, became a US citizen.

Over the years, the family remained invested in the welfare of India and its people. Gobindram was an active member of the Committee for India’s Freedom and often travelled to Washington to support the country’s case for independence, Elliot Robert Barkan writes in Making it in America.

Gobindram’s home in Los Angeles was “a Mecca for people concerned with Indian independence”, Sachindra Nath Pradhan notes in the book India in the United States.

The Watumull Foundation in 1946 sponsored a series of lectures by Dr S Radhakrishnan – who later served as India’s president – at American universities.

Gobindram’s wife Ellen was instrumental in bringing an international parenthood conference to Delhi in 1959, leading to the establishment of the country’s first birth control clinics.

The family’s philanthropy has and continues to include funding for educational institutions in Hawaii and in India, endowments for Honolulu-based art programmes and promoting Indian-Hawaiian exchange.

Many of the Watumull brothers’ grandchildren now work in and around Hawaii.

In the past few years, as the family business shifted focus to real estate, the last Watumull retail store closed in 2020. The company thanked its customers “for years of good business and good memories”.

Watumull Properties purchased a 19,045 sq m (205,000 sq ft) marketplace in Hawaii last year. JD Watumull, the president of the company, said, “The Hawaiian Islands continue to be our family’s focus today and in the future.”

French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot walked out of a court in southern France for the last time on Thursday after her ex-husband was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her, and inviting dozens of strangers to also abuse her over nearly a decade.

Dominique Pelicot, 72, was found guilty of all charges by a judge in Avignon. He was on trial with 50 other men, all of whom were found guilty of at least one charge, although their jail terms were less than what prosecutors had demanded.

Although the trial is over, there are still questions lingering over the Pelicot case and what happens next.

When she climbed the steps of the Avignon courthouse for the first time in September, no one knew Gisèle Pelicot’s name. Over the course of the next 15 weeks, her fame as a rape victim who refused to be ashamed of what had been done to her grew vertiginously.

By the time she left the tribunal on Thursday, crowds of hundreds were chanting her name and her picture was on the front pages of newspapers worldwide.

She is now perhaps one of the best-known women in France. This means that although she has changed her name, it will be impossible for her to return to the anonymity that served her so well as she tried to rebuild a life following the revelation of her husband’s crimes.

Gisèle is not the first person whose unimaginable suffering has turned her into an icon. At great personal cost, she has become the symbol of a fight she never chose. It seems unlikely, then, that she will want to become an outspoken activist against gender violence, or a prominent feminist figure. Rather, she may go back to what she has said has always given her solace: music, long walks and chocolate – as well as her seven grandchildren.

“At the start of the trial she said: ‘If I last two weeks, that will be a lot.’ In the end, she made it to three and a half months,” her lawyer Stephane Babonneau said. “Now, she is at peace, and relieved it’s all over.”

Days after Dominique Pelicot’s crimes came to light, his daughter Caroline Darian was summoned to the police station and shown photos of an apparently unconscious woman dressed in unfamiliar lingerie. Later, she said her life had “stopped” when she realised she was looking at photos of herself.

Her father has always denied touching her, but Caroline – whose anguish and devastation were apparent in many court sessions – has said she would never believe him and accused him of looking at her “with incestuous eyes”.

But the lack of proof of the abuse Caroline is convinced was inflicted on her has led her to say she is “the forgotten victim” of the trial. That notion has visibly seeped into her relationship with her mother. In her memoir – published after her father’s arrest – she accused Gisèle of not showing her enough support, implicitly choosing to side with her rapist ex-husband over her daughter.

Although Gisèle and her children have always sat next to one another in court, often whispering huddled together, there have been signs of the toll the trial has taken on their relationship.

On Friday, Caroline’s brother David highlighted – as he has done before – that the trial had not just been about Gisèle but about their whole “annihilated family”.

“Us children felt forgotten,” he said. “Very honestly I feel that while our lawyers did a remarkable job on the defence of our mother, we were a little bit less taken into account.”

In her memoir, Caroline lamented Gisèle’s “denial as a coping mechanism”.

“Because of my father,” she wrote, “I am now losing my mother.”

Apart from Dominique, all of the jail terms handed down to the defendants were less than what prosecutors had demanded.

Several defence lawyers were visibly satisfied, meaning it is unlikely they will encourage their clients to appeal against their sentences. A man called Jean-Pierre Maréchal got 12 years – five less than prosecutors had asked – and his lawyer Patrick Gontard told the BBC it was “out of the question” he would appeal.

The months or years the men spent in pre-trial detention will count towards their total sentences, meaning that some may be freed soon if they have served their minimum term.

One man who was facing 17 years ended up being sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, and his lawyer Roland Marmillot told the BBC that because he had already spent several years in jail it was likely he would be released relatively soon.

Still, by the morning after the trial closed, two men each jailed for eight years had already appealed. More are expected to follow over the next ten days – the period of time appeals can be lodged for.

Dominique Pelicot has admitted to assaulting and attempting to rape a 23-year-old estate agent, known by the pseudonym Marion, in the suburbs of Paris in 1999. A cloth imbued with ether was put over her mouth but she managed to fight the attacker off and he fled. It was only in 2021, after he was arrested for the crimes he inflicted on his wife Gisèle, that Pelicot’s DNA was cross-checked with a speck of blood found on Marion’s shoe, and he admitted to his guilt.

He has, however, denied any responsibility in another cold case – the 1991 rape and murder of another young estate agent, Sophie Narme, for which there is no DNA. Investigators have argued that the two cases present too many similarities to be coincidental.

Other cold cases where similar modi operandi were used are also being looked at again.

“There will be a ‘before’ and there will be an ‘after’ the Pelicot trial,” one Parisian man told the BBC in the early days of the trial.

For many, this sentiment has only grown over the last few months during which the intense media coverage of the Pelicot trial generated countless conversations around rape, consent and gender violence.

“What we need to do is have much, much harsher sentences,” Nicolas and Mehdi, two Mazan residents, told the BBC. They said they were “disgusted” when they found out one of the defendants was a man they had played football with.

“With longer sentences they’ll at least they’ll think twice before doing stuff like this,” they said, adding that it was “crazy unfair” that some of the men could come out of jail in the next few months.

It is worth noting, however, that the risk of incurring a 20-year prison sentence for aggravated rape did not deter Dominique Pelicot from offering his unconscious wife to be raped by strangers he met online.

There have been calls to reform French legislation on rape to include consent, but that has stalled in the past and would take considerable work in the current divided French parliament.

Some have argued that schools have a responsibility to better teach new generations about sex, love and consent. Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, has said she believes “change will not come from the Ministry of Justice but from the Ministry of Education.”

Françoise, a resident of the area where Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot used to live, told the BBC she thinks a way must be found to bridge the gap between what children are taught in schools and the type of material they have access to online.

“Young people are so exposed to sex on the internet and at the same time schools are very prudish,” she said. “They should be much more open and frank to match and explain what kids see.”

What these exchanges show is that, while it will take time before any changes become tangible, a conversation has now started. It will continue until there are no more unanswered questions.

The US has scrapped a $10m (£7.9m) reward for the arrest of Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, following meetings between senior diplomats and representatives from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf said the discussion with Sharaa was “very productive”, and he came across as “pragmatic”.

The US delegation arrived in the capital, Damascus, after HTS overthrew the Bashar al-Assad regime less than a fortnight ago. Washington still designates it as a terrorist group.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed that the diplomats discussed “transition principles” supported by the US, regional events and the need to fight against IS.

The spokesperson also said the officials were seeking further information on American citizens who disappeared under Assad’s regime, including journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in Damascus in 2012, and psychotherapist Majd Kamalmaz, who disappeared in 2017.

A US embassy spokesperson earlier said a news conference involving Ms Leaf had been cancelled due to “security concerns”.

However during a later briefing, Leaf denied that, insisting “street celebrations” were the cause of the delay.

The visit is the first formal American diplomatic appearance in Damascus in more than a decade.

It is a further sign of the dramatic shifts under way in Syria since the ousting of Assad, and the speed of efforts by the US and Europe, also leaning on Arab countries, to try to influence its emerging governance.

The visit follows those of delegations in recent days from the UN and other countries including the UK, France and Germany.

The delegation of senior officials includes Barbara Leaf, Roger Carstens, who is US President Joe Biden’s hostage envoy, and Daniel Rubinstein, a senior adviser in the Bureau of Near East Affairs.

The spokesperson also said the delegation engaged with civil society groups and members of different communities in Syria “about their vision for the future of their country and how the United States can help support them”.

The meeting was a show of readiness to deal with HTS, which the US still designates as a terrorist organisation but is building pressure for it to transition to inclusive, non-sectarian government.

Washington is effectively laying down a set of conditions before it would consider delisting the group – a critical step which could help ease the path towards sanctions relief that Damascus desperately needs.

Meanwhile, US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that IS leader Abu Yusif and two of his operatives had been killed in an air strike in the Deir al-Zour province of north-eastern Syria.

It said in a statement on Friday that the airstrike was launched on Thursday and carried out in an area that was formerly controlled by the Assad regime and Russian forces supporting his government.

CENTCOM commander Gen Michael Erik Kurilla said the US would not allow IS “to take advantage of the current situation in Syria and reconstitute”, adding the group intended to free more than 8,000 detained IS militants being held in Syria.

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.

A French court has sentenced seven men and a woman to prison for their roles in a hate campaign that led to the October 2020 murder of schoolteacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb.

The sentences handed down range from three to 16 years.

The attack took place following social media posts that falsely claiming Paty had shown his students obscene pictures of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on free speech.

Chechen-born radicalised Muslim Abdoullakh Anzorov murdered Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, at a secondary school in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-Saint-Honorine.

Anzorov was shot dead at the scene by police minutes after killing the 47-year-old.

He was fired up by claims circulating on the internet that a few days earlier Paty had ordered Muslims to leave a class of 13-year-olds, before displaying the images of the prophet Muhammad.

In fact, Paty had been conducting a lesson on freedom of speech, and before showing one of the controversial images first published by the Charlie Hebdo magazine, he advised pupils to avert their eyes if they feared being offended.

In the absence of the killer, this trial was of people who provided him with support, moral or material.

Over seven weeks, the court heard how a 13-year-old schoolgirl’s lie span out of control thanks to social media.

Among those sentenced on Friday were Brahim Chnina, the schoolgirl’s father.

Chnina started an online campaign against the teacher and enlisted the help of a radical Islamic activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who has also now been convicted.

Two friends of the killer who were with him when he bought weapons were also found guilty, as were four people with whom he shared messages on a radical chatline.

The defence had argued that none of the eight had any idea of Anzorov’s intentions, and that their words and actions only became criminal when he carried out his act.

But the judge decided that the absence of foreknowledge was no defence, because what they did had the effect of incitement.

A top campaign adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump has called the incoming UK ambassador to the US, Lord Peter Mandelson, “an absolute moron”.

In a post on social media, Chris LaCivita said Lord Mandelson “should stay home”.

Mr LaCivita, who was a co-campaign manager for Trump’s presidential election bid, criticised the British government’s decision saying it was replacing a “professional universally respected ambo [ambassador] with an absolute moron”.

Lord Mandelson is one of the best-known figures in British politics, having served in multiple ministerial roles under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before taking up a life peerage in the Lords.

He called his appointment as the UK’s next ambassador to the US as “a great honour”.

As first reported in The Times, Lord Mandelson will replace Dame Karen Pierce, whose term in Washington DC is due to end as Trump enters the White House in early 2025.

Dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” during his years as New Labour’s spin doctor, the 71-year-old will now be the key link between the prime minister and Trump’s incoming administration during a crucial time for US-UK diplomacy.

Like other senior Labour figures, Lord Mandelson has a record of criticising Donald Trump, once describing him as “little short of a white nationalist and racist”.

Those comments were the focus of Mr LaCivita’s criticism of Lord Mandelson, as he said in his post on X that the incoming ambassador “described Trump as a danger to the world and ‘little short of a white nationalist'”.

Mr LaCivita, a veteran of Republican politics with decades of experience, was a senior adviser to Trump’s 2024 election campaign but currently has no official role in the administration.

In a statement following his appointment, Lord Mandelson said: “We face challenges in Britain, but also big opportunities and it will be a privilege to work with the government to land those opportunities.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “delighted” to appoint Lord Mandelson.

“The United States is one of our most important allies and as we move into a new chapter in our friendship,” he said in a statement.

“Peter will bring unrivalled experience to the role and take our partnership from strength to strength.”

Sir Keir also thanked Dame Karen for “her invaluable service for the last four years, and in particular the wisdom and steadfast support she has given me personally since July”.

UK ambassadors are normally career diplomats or civil servants, but Downing Street said choosing a leading Labour politician “shows just how importantly we see our relationship with the Trump administration”.

It comes as senior Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith challenged the decision.

He called for an investigation to scrutinise Lord Mandelson’s appointment, his background and “whether or not this is reliable or anyway likely to cause offence in the United States”.

“He’s not a diplomatic appointee, he’s a political appointee and political appointees often carry baggage, particularly if they’ve been out of parliament and out of government for some time,” Sir Iain added.

In a recently unearthed interview with an Italian journalist in 2019, Lord Mandelson described Trump as a “reckless and a danger to the world”.

In a 2018 interview with the Evening Standard, he also called Trump “a bully”.

Since being touted as a potential candidate for the US-ambassador role, considered the most prestigious diplomatic post in the UK government, Lord Mandelson has softened his language on Trump.

In November he made a pitch on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme to create “a new relationship rather than a special one” with the US.

He also told News Agents podcast it is “absolutely essential that we establish a relationship with President Trump that enables us not only to understand and interpret what he’s doing but to influence it”.

He added that the Labour government should try to “reconnect” with Trump’s ally and tech multi-billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk, who has been critical of Sir Keir’s government, has been appointed head of new advisory team the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which is not an official government department.

When police in Rio de Janeiro seize blocks of cocaine and bundles of marijuana they may well find them branded with a religious symbol – the Star of David. This is not a reference to the Jewish faith, but to the belief of some Pentecostal Christians that the return of Jews to Israel will lead to the Second Coming of Christ.

The gang selling these branded drugs is the Pure Third Command, one of Rio’s most powerful criminal groups, with a reputation both for making its opponents disappear, and for fanatical evangelical Christianity.

They took control of a group of five favelas in the north of the city – now known as the Israel Complex – after one of their leaders had what he believed was a revelation from God, says theologian Vivian Costa, author of the book, Evangelical Drug Dealers.

She says the gangsters see themselves as “soldiers of crime”, with Jesus as “the owner” of the territory they dominate.

Controversially, some have dubbed them “Narco-Pentecostals”.

One man who has experience of crime and religion – though in his case, not at the same time – is Pastor Diego Nascimento, who became a Christian after hearing the gospel from a gangster holding a gun.

Looking at him, it’s hard to believe that this boyish looking 42-year-old Wesleyan Methodist minister with a ready smile and dimples, was once a member of Rio’s notorious Red Command crime gang and managed its activities in the city’s Vila Kennedy favela.

Four years in prison for drug dealing weren’t enough to make him give up crime. But when he became addicted to crack cocaine his standing in the gang plummeted.

“I lost my family. I practically lived on the street for almost a year. I went so far as to sell things from my house to buy crack,” he says.

It was at that point, when he was at rock bottom, that a well-known drug dealer in the favela summoned him.

“He started preaching to me, saying there was a way out, that there was a solution for me, which was to accept Jesus,” he recalls.

The young addict took this advice and began his journey to the pulpit.

Pastor Nascimento still spends time with criminals, but now it is through his work in prisons, where he helps people turn their lives around, as he did himself.

Despite having been converted by a gangster, he regards the idea of religious criminals as a contradiction in terms.

“I don’t see them as evangelical believers,” he says.

“I see them as people who are going down the wrong path and have a fear of God because they know that God is the one who guards their lives.

“There is no such thing as combining the two, being an evangelical and a thug. If a person accepts Jesus and follows the Biblical commandments, that person cannot be a drug dealer.”

Evangelical Christianity will, by some predictions, overtake Catholicism as Brazil’s biggest religion by the end of the decade.

As it has grown, the charismatic Pentecostal movement has particularly resonated with people living in the gang-ridden favelas, and now some of those gangs are drawing on elements of the faith they grew up with to wield power.

One accusation made against them is that they are using violence to suppress Afro-Brazilian faiths.

Christina Vital, a sociology professor at Rio’s Fluminense Federal University, says Rio’s poor communities have long been living “under siege” from criminal gangs, and this is now affecting their freedom of religion.

“In the Israel Complex, people with other religious beliefs cannot be seen to practise them publicly. It’s not an exaggeration to speak of religious intolerance in that territory.”

Vital says Afro-Brazilian Umbanda and Candomblé religious houses have been shut down in surrounding neighbourhoods too, with gangsters sometimes drawing messages on the walls such as “Jesus is the Lord of this place.”

Followers of Afro-Brazilian faiths have long faced prejudice, and drug dealers are not the only people who have targeted them.

But Dr Rita Salim, who heads the Rio police Department for Racial and Intolerance Crimes, says threats and attacks by narco-gangs have a particularly powerful impact.

“These cases are more serious because they are imposed by a criminal organisation, by a group and its leader, who imposes fear on the whole territory it dominates.”

She notes that an arrest warrant has been issued for the man thought to be the number one crime boss in the Israel Complex, for allegedly ordering armed men to attack an Afro-Brazilian temple in another favela.

While allegations of religious extremism in Rio’s favelas first gained attention in the early 2000s, the problem has “increased dramatically” in recent years, according to Marcio de Jagun, co-ordinator of Religious Diversity at Rio’s City Hall.

Jagun, who is a babalorixá (high priest) of the Candomblé religion, says the issue is now a national one, with similar attacks seen in other Brazilian cities.

“This is a form of neo-Crusade,” he says. “The prejudice behind these attacks is both religious and ethnic, with outlaws demonising religions from Africa and claiming to banish evil in the name of God.”

But religion and crime have long been intertwined in Brazil, says theologian Vivian Costa. In the past, gangsters would ask for protection from Afro-Brazilian deities and Catholic saints.

“If we look at the birth of the Red Command, or the birth of the Third Command, Afro religions [and Catholicism] have been there since their beginning. We see the presence of Saint George, the presence of [the Afro-Brazilian god] Ògún, the tattoos, the crucifixes, the candles, the offerings.

“That is why to call it Narco-Pentecostalism is to reduce that relationship that is so historic and traditional between crime and religion. I prefer to call it ‘Narco-Religiosity’.”

Whatever one calls this mix of faith and criminality, one thing seems clear: it jeopardises a right that is enshrined in Brazil’s constitution – that of religious freedom.

And it is yet one more way in which violent drug traffickers cause harm to the communities forced to live under their rule.

A selection of news photographs from around the world.

The once formidable Myanmar military is cracking from within – riddled with spies secretly working for the pro-democracy rebels, the BBC has found.

The military only has full control of less than a quarter of Myanmar’s territory, a BBC World Service investigation reveals.

The junta still controls the major cities and remains “extremely dangerous” according to the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar. But it has lost significant territory over the past 12 months – see map below.

The soldier spies are known as “Watermelons” – green on the outside, rebel red within. Outwardly loyal to the military but secretly working for the pro-democracy rebels whose symbolic colour is red.

A major based in central Myanmar says it was the military’s brutality that prompted him to switch sides.

“I saw the bodies of tortured civilians. I shed tears,” says Kyaw [not his real name]. “How can they be so cruel against our own people? We are meant to protect civilians, but now we’re killing people. It’s no longer an army, it’s a force that terrorises.”

More than 20,000 people have been detained and thousands killed, the UN says, since the military seized power in a coup in February 2021 – triggering an uprising.

Kyaw initially thought about defecting from the army, but decided with his wife that becoming a spy was “the best way to serve the revolution”.

When he judges it safe to do so, he leaks internal military information to the People’s Defense Forces [PDF] – a network of civilian militia groups. The rebels use the intelligence to mount ambushes on the military or to avoid attacks. Kyaw also sends them some of his wage, so they can buy weapons.

Spies like him are helping the resistance achieve what was once unthinkable.

The BBC assessed the power balance in more than 14,000 village groups as of mid-November this year, and found the military only has full control of 21% of Myanmar’s territory, nearly four years on from the start of the conflict.

The investigation reveals that ethnic armies and a patchwork of resistance groups now control 42% of the country’s land mass. Much of the remaining area is contested.

The military now controls less than at any time since they first took control of the country in 1962, according to the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled).

Co-ordinated operations between ethnic armies and civilian militia groups have put the military on the back foot.

After heavy territorial losses earlier this year Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing made a rare admission that his forces were under pressure.

The leaked Watermelon intelligence from within the military is helping to tip the balance. Two years ago, the resistance set up a specialised unit to manage the growing network of spies and to recruit more.

Agents like Win Aung [not his real name] collect the Watermelon leaks, verify them where possible, and then pass them on to the rebel leaders in the relevant area.

He is a former intelligence officer who defected to the resistance after the coup. He says they are now getting new Watermelons every week and social media is a key recruitment tool.

Their spies, he says, range from low-ranking soldiers to high-ranking officers. They also claim to have Watermelons in the military government – “from the ministries down to village heads”.

They are put through a strict verification process to ensure they are not double agents.

Motivations for becoming a spy vary. While in Kyaw’s case it was anger, for a man we are calling “Moe” – a corporal in the navy – it was simply a desire to survive for his young family.

His wife, pregnant at the time, pushed him to do so, convinced the military was losing and he would die in battle.

He began leaking information to the Watermelon unit about weapons and troop movements.

This kind of intelligence is crucial, says pro-democracy rebel leader Daeva.

The ultimate goal of his resistance unit is to take control of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city and his former home. But they are a long way off.

The military retains the majority of major urban areas – home to crucial infrastructure and revenue.

“It’s easier said than done to attack and occupy [Yangon], Daeva says. “The enemy will not give up on [it] easily.”

Unable to physically penetrate the city, Daeva from his jungle base directs targeted attacks by underground cells in Yangon using Watermelon intelligence.

In August, we witnessed him making one such call. We were not given the details but were told it was to direct an assassination attempt on a colonel.

“We will do it inside the enemy’s security parameters,” he told them. “Be careful, the enemy is losing in every direction,” he added, telling them that this meant they were more likely to be on alert for infiltrators and spies.

Daeva says several major attacks by his unit have been the result of tip-offs.

“We started with nothing and now look at our success,” says Daeva.

But it comes at a cost. Watermelons have to live in fear of both sides, as navy corporal-turned spy Moe discovered.

Deployed from Yangon to Rakhine – a border region where the military is fighting an ethnic group siding with the resistance – he had to live with the terror that his intelligence could mean he himself was attacked.

In March this year, his anchored ship was hit with a projectile missile, followed by open fire. “There was no place to run. We were like rats in a cage.” Seven of his fellow soldiers were killed in the rebel attack.

“Our ability to protect [the moles] is very limited,” admits Win Aung. “We can’t publicly announce that they are Watermelons. And we can’t stop our forces from attacking any particular military convoy.”

He says that when this is explained to the Watermelons, however, they do not falter. Some have even responded: “When it comes to that moment, don’t hesitate, shoot.”

Outside the UK, watch on YouTube

But there are times when the spies can no longer bear the danger.

When Moe was set to be sent to another dangerous front line, he asked the Watermelon unit to smuggle him out into a resistance-controlled area. They do this using an underground network of monasteries and safe houses.

He left in the dead of night. The next morning, when he did not show up for duty, soldiers came round to the house. They interrogated his wife Cho, but she remained tight-lipped.

After days on the run Moe arrived at one of Daeva’s bases. Daeva thanked him over video call, before asking him what role he wanted to play now. Moe replied that, given his young family, he would like a non-combat role and would instead share his knowledge of military training.

A few weeks later he crossed into Thailand. Cho and the children fled their home too and hope to eventually join him and build a new life there.

The military is aggressively trying to reclaim lost territory, carrying out a wave of deadly bombings. With Chinese- and Russian-made fighter jets, it is in the air that it has the upper hand. It knows that the resistance is far from being one homogenous group and is seeking to exploit divisions between them.

“As the junta loses control, their brutality increases. It’s getting worse. The loss of life… the brutality, the torture as they lose ground, literally and figuratively,” says UN special rapporteur Tom Andrews.

The military is also conducting sweeps for Watermelons.

“When I heard about the sweeps, I stopped for a while,” says Kyaw. He says he always acts like a staunch supporter of the military to avoid unwanted attention.

But he is scared and doesn’t know how long he can stay hidden. Defecting is not an option, as he worries about abandoning his ageing parents, so for now, he will keep acting as a military spy, hoping to see a day when the revolution is over.

If and when that day comes, Watermelons like Kyaw and Moe will not be forgotten, Win Aung vows.

“We will treat them with honor, and allow them to choose what they want to do next in their lives.”

The military did not respond to the BBC’s request for an interview.

The People’s Republic of China has a “magic weapon”, according to its founding leader Mao Zedong and its current president Xi Jinping.

It is called the United Front Work Department – and it is raising as much alarm in the West as Beijing’s growing military arsenal.

Yang Tengbo, a prominent businessman who has been linked to Prince Andrew, is the latest overseas Chinese citizen to be scrutinised – and sanctioned – for his links to the UFWD.

The existence of the department is far from a secret. A decades-old and well-documented arm of the Chinese Communist Party, it has been mired in controversy before. Investigators from the US to Australia have cited the UFWD in multiple espionage cases, often accusing Beijing of using it for foreign interference.

Beijing has denied all espionage allegations, calling them ludicrous.

So what is the UFWD and what does it do?

The United Front – originally referring to a broad communist alliance – was once hailed by Mao as the key to the Communist Party’s triumph in the decades-long Chinese Civil War.

After the war ended in 1949 and the party began ruling China, United Front activities took a backseat to other priorities. But in the last decade under Xi, the United Front has seen a renaissance of sorts.

Xi’s version of the United Front is broadly consistent with earlier incarnations: to “build the broadest possible coalition with all social forces that are relevant”, according to Mareike Ohlberg, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

On the face of it, the UFWD is not shadowy – it even has a website and reports many of its activities on it. But the extent of its work – and its reach – is less clear.

While a large part of that work is domestic, Dr Ohlberg said, “a key target that has been defined for United Front work is overseas Chinese”.

Today, the UFWD seeks to influence public discussions about sensitive issues ranging from Taiwan – which China claims as its territory – to the suppression of ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.

It also tries to shape narratives about China in foreign media, target Chinese government critics abroad and co-opt influential overseas Chinese figures.

“United Front work can include espionage but [it] is broader than espionage,” Audrye Wong, assistant professor of politics at the University of Southern California, tells the BBC.

“Beyond the act of acquiring covert information from a foreign government, United Front activities centre on the broader mobilisation of overseas Chinese,” she said, adding that China is “unique in the scale and scope” of such influence activities.

China has always had the ambition for such influence, but its rise in recent decades has given Beijing the ability to exercise it.

Since Xi became president in 2012, he has been especially proactive in crafting China’s message to the world, enouraging a confrontational “wolf warrior” approach to diplomacy and urging his country’s diaspora to “tell China’s story well”.

The UFWD operates through various overseas Chinese community organisations, which have vigorously defended the Communist Party beyond its shores. They have censored anti-CCP artwork and protested at the activities of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The UFWD has also been linked to threats against members of persecuted minorities abroad, such as Tibetans and Uyghurs.

But much of the UFWD’s work overlaps with other party agencies, operating under what observers have described as “plausible deniability”.

It is this murkiness that is causing so much suspicion and apprehension about the UFWD.

When Yang appealed against his ban, judges agreed with the then secretary of state’s report that Yang “represented a risk to national security” – citing the fact that he downplayed his ties with the UFWD as one of the reasons that led them to that conclusion.

Yang, however, maintains that he has not done anything unlawful and that the spy allegations are “entirely untrue”.

Cases like Yang’s are becoming increasingly common. In 2022, British Chinese lawyer Christine Lee was accused by the MI5 of acting through the UFWD to cultivate relationships with influential people in the UK. The following year, Liang Litang, a US citizen who ran a Chinese restaurant in Boston, was indicted for providing information about Chinese dissidents in the area to his contacts in the UFWD.

And in September, Linda Sun, a former aide in the New York governor’s office, was charged with using her position to serve Chinese government interests – receiving benefits, including travel, in return. According to Chinese state media reports, she had met a top UFWD official in 2017, who told her to “be an ambassador of Sino-American friendship”.

It is not uncommon for prominent and successful Chinese people to be associated with the party, whose approval they often need, especially in the business world.

But where is the line between peddling influence and espionage?

“The boundary between influence and espionage is blurry” when it comes to Beijing’s operations, said Ho-fung Hung, a politics professor at Johns Hopkins University.

This ambiguity has intensified after China passed a law in 2017 mandating Chinese nationals and companies to co-operate with intelligence probes, including sharing information with the Chinese government – a move that Dr Hung said “effectively turns everyone into potential spies”.

The Ministry of State Security has released dramatic propaganda videos warning the public that foreign spies are everywhere and “they are cunning and sneaky “.

Some students who were sent on special trips abroad were told by their universities to limit contact with foreigners and were asked for a report of their activities on their return.

And yet Xi is keen to promote China to the world. So he has tasked a trusted arm of the party to project strength abroad.

And that is becoming a challenge for Western powers – how do they balance doing business with the world’s second-largest economy alongside serious security concerns?

Genuine fears over China’s overseas influence are playing into more hawkish sentiments in the West, often leaving governments in a dilemma.

Some, like Australia, have tried to protect themselves with fresh foreign interference laws that criminalise individuals deemed to be meddling in domestic affairs. In 2020, the US imposed visa restrictions on people seen as active in UFWD activities.

An irked Beijing has warned that such laws – and the prosecutions they have spurred – hinder bilateral relations.

“The so-called allegations of Chinese espionage are utterly absurd,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters on Tuesday in response to a question about Yang. “The development of China-UK relations serves the common interests of both countries.”

Some experts say that the long arm of China’s United Front is indeed concerning.

“Western governments now need to be less naive about China’s United Front work and take it as a serious threat not only to national security but also to the safety and freedom of many ethnic Chinese citizens,” Dr Hung says.

But, he adds, “governments also need to be vigilant against anti-Chinese racism and work hard to build trust and co-operation with ethnic Chinese communities in countering the threat together.”

Last December, Di Sanh Duong, a Vietnam-born ethnic Chinese community leader in Australia, was convicted of planning foreign interference for trying to cosy up to an Australian minister. Prosecutors argued that he was an “ideal target” for the UFWD because he had run for office in the 1990s and boasted ties with Chinese officials.

Duong’s trial had centred around what he meant when he said the inclusion of the minister at a charity event would be beneficial to “us Chinese” – did he mean the Chinese community in Australia, or mainland China?

In the end, Duong’s conviction – and a prison sentence – raised serious concerns that such broad anti-espionage laws and prosecutions can easily become weapons for targeting ethnic Chinese people.

“It’s important to remember that not everyone who is ethnically Chinese is a supporter of the Chinese Communist Party. And not everyone who is involved in these diaspora organisations is driven by fervent loyalty to China,” Dr Wong says.

“Overly aggressive policies based on racial profiling will only legitimise the Chinese government’s propaganda that ethnic Chinese are not welcome and end up pushing diaspora communities further into Beijing’s arms.”

It’s become a seasonal tradition to seek the hidden message or symbolic meaning in the Christmas cards the royals send out, as they keep changing and reinventing the format.

This year’s card from King Charles and Queen Camilla shows them looking relaxed and maybe relieved – and there is a very personal significance behind this picture.

It was the first photoshoot after the King was given the green light that he was well enough to return to public duties, after beginning his cancer treatment. It was said to be a watershed moment for the couple, caught on camera.

The same pictures, with images full of spring rebirth, were then used for the official announcement that the King had made sufficient progress with his treatment to go back to public events.

There’s also a pattern that even though these are Christmas cards, forget the snowy steeples and robins, because royal cards rarely seem to have any signs of winter.

And the message, printed in red, always look like a party invitation from the 1950s.

Prince Harry and Meghan have given their own twist to royal cards. They’ve added some glitz, so that it has the feel of film credits as much as a season’s greeting.

It’s an upbeat Californian message, sent out as an e-card, with six pictures rather than a single image, showing the couple hugging and laughing. It also drew comments on the rare appearance of their son and daughter.

If cards could have an accent, this would undoubtedly sound American. It’s a “Happy Holiday Season”, with no mention of “Christmas”. But then, they’ve spent most of their married life in the US.

Prince William and Catherine’s cards have used more informal pictures in recent years. It’s jeans and no ties, a modern family, without any royal imagery.

This year’s card kept the same relaxed style, but it had a very poignant significance. It was from the video that announced that Catherine had completed her chemotherapy.

It shows William and Catherine and their three children in Norfolk in August, from a video that was full of end-of-summer colours and very emotional messages about a tough year since her cancer diagnosis.

It was a strikingly different style of royal communication, unashamedly about love and togetherness – and they’ve used it again for the Christmas card.

Last year’s card from the Prince and Princess of Wales had also been a talking point. It featured the same jackets-off, casual image, but there was also a designer chic, with an arty black-and-white picture that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an upmarket jeans advert.

The prince is very keen on sustainability, so maybe next year’s will be made out of recyclable seaweed.

Christmas cards can also be like time capsules, holding a moment.

In 1995 Prince William appeared alongside his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, and his brother Prince Harry in this rather haunting image. It really evokes another era.

There’s often a sense of family closeness projected by the cards.

The late Queen Elizabeth II was always pictured with Prince Philip. And King Charles and Queen Camilla have continued to use images of themselves as a couple.

That’s had to be mixed up with some props over the years.

For the 2019 card the then Prince Charles and Camilla were pictured in a vintage sports car, in a photo taken on a trip to Cuba. It was more or less made for a Prince of Wheels headline.

There was also a picture of the Royal Family standing around a speed boat in 1969, looking like winners on a game show.

Christmas cards might be slipping out of fashion – sales of boxes of cards are down 23% in a year, according to retailers John Lewis.

But the royals show no sign of losing interest – and that includes European royal families… although their use of a family group in a posh room isn’t always that original.

The Belgian royal card has a multi-lingual message, which is inclusive and reflects a multi-lingual country, but risks looking like a Eurostar menu. It’s also unusually forward-looking, with the date of 2025.

Spanish royals this year used their card to send a more serious message. There was a standard family group photo on the front, but inside was a poem that was a tribute to the victims of the Valencia flood.

Last month, Spain’s king and queen had been pelted with mud when they visited areas hit by the floods.

You couldn’t say that the Christmas card pictures are always predictable or easy to interpret.

What was the thinking behind the 2016 card which used a photo of Prince Charles and Camilla on a trip to Croatia? An unexpected Eurovision entry?

They might begin as greetings cards, but they soon become history. Like this poignant wartime Christmas card from the then Princess Elizabeth, sent in 1942. There’s the tilt of the cap, the young face, looking into an unknown future.

There’s often a hint of melancholy in Christmas films and songs, hinting at the passing of time, and that’s here, too.

Happy Christmas! It’s in the post.

The government shutdown showdown of December 2024 was the first big test of president-elect Donald Trump’s influence over Republicans in Congress.

It was one he struggled to meet. The chaos of the last few days exposed some of the limits of his power and control of his party as he prepares to re-enter the White House.

One day after Trump derailed a bipartisan government funding bill – with a big assist from the world’s richest man, Elon Musk – he issued a new demand, for a stripped-down government funding bill that would also raise the limit on how much new debt the federal government can issue to fund its spending.

It was a big ask for many congressional conservatives who have long demanded that any debt increase at least be accompanied by cuts to what they view as out-of-control government spending. And Democrats, and more than a few Republicans, rejected it.

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Trump’s demand was also a tacit admission that his legislative agenda, heavy on tax cuts and new military spending, was unlikely to deliver the kind of reduction to America’s enormous federal deficit that many on the right have been hoping for.

On Thursday night, this slimmed-down bill, along with a two-year suspension of the debt limit, came up for a vote in the House. Thirty-eight Republicans joined nearly every Democrat in voting it down. This amounted to a stunning rebuke of the president-elect, who had enthusiastically endorsed the legislation and threatened to unseat any Republicans who opposed it.

After that defeat, Republican leaders huddled behind closed doors on Friday in an effort to come up with a new plan.

First, they appeared to back a series of votes on individual components of Thursday night’s legislative package – government funding, disaster relief, health-care fixes and a debt-limit increase. It became increasingly clear, however, that any debt-limit increase would be dead on arrival.

After Republicans and Democrats reopened communications, a new plan was hatched. Bring Thursday night’s package back for another vote without the debt-limit provision. While 34 Republican budget hawks still rejected that, all Democrats who voted – wary of a government shutdown less than a week before Christmas – jumped on board.

That ensured the bill had the necessary two-thirds majority to pass. It will now go to the Democrat-controlled Senate where it almost certain to be approved and sent to President Joe Biden to sign.

Republicans, in a closed-door meeting earlier on Friday, reportedly agreed to raise the debt limit without Democratic help sometime next year, before the US Treasury hits the current cap. In doing so, however, they also agreed to accompany that move with trillions in spending cuts – from a pot of “mandatory” spending that includes government-run health insurance, veterans benefits, government pensions and food aid to the poor.

Such cuts would be vehemently opposed by Democrats and could be controversial among the larger public.

That’s a fight for another day, however. For now, it appears the US government will continue to function – at least until the new budget deadline is reached in March. At that point, the Republicans will have to juggle funding the federal government while also trying to enact Trump’s legislative agenda on immigration, taxes and trade, all with an even narrower House majority.

In the end, this latest drama underscores just how tenuous the Republican majority in the House is – and the limits to Donald Trump’s power.

Republicans abhor compromise with the Democrats, but they will be hard-pressed to muster a majority without them. And when Trump says jump, not every Republican will spring into action.

Trump and Elon Musk can kill legislation, but they are often hard-pressed to rally the support to get their proposals over the finish line.

An amphibious mouse with webbed feet and a blob-headed fish are among 27 new species scientists have discovered in Peru.

They were found in an expedition to Alto Mayo – which includes the Amazon rainforest – by scientists from the non-profit organisation Conservation International and members of local indigenous groups.

Up to 48 other new species may also have been found, although further study will be needed to determine whether they are new, Conservation International says.

“Discovering so many new species of mammals and vertebrates is really incredible, especially in such a human-influenced landscape,” said Trond Larsen, senior director at Conservation International.

Alto Mayo is a protected area in northern Peru with multiple ecosystems and Indigenous territories.

It has a relatively high population density, putting pressure on environmentalism through deforestation and agricultural expansion, Conservation International said.

Yulisa Tuwi, an Awajún woman who assisted with the research, said the report “allows the Awajún to protect our culture, natural resources and our territory”, as it gives them a better understanding of the ecosystems.

“[The Awajún] have extensive traditional knowledge about the forests, animals and plants they live side-by-side with,” Mr Larsen said.

The expedition also found a new species of dwarf squirrel, eight types of fish, three amphibians and 10 types of butterfly.

This “blob-headed” fish is a new discovery to science, but the Indigenous Awajún people who helped with the expedition were already aware of its existence.

The fish scientists were particularly shocked by its enlarged head – something they had never seen before.

This dwarf squirrel measures just 14cm (5.5in), half the length of an average grey squirrel in the UK, which ranges from 24 to 29cm, according to the UK Squirrel Accord.

“[It] fits so easily in the palm of your hand. Adorable and beautiful chestnut-brown colour, very fast,” Larsen said.

“It jumps quickly and hides in the trees.”

Scientists discovered a new species of spiny mouse – named after the especially stiff guard hairs found on their coats, which function similar to the spines of a hedgehog.

They also found a new “amphibious mouse”, which has partially webbed feet and eats aquatic insects.

It belongs to a group of semi-aquatic rodents considered to be among the rarest in the world, with the few species known to exist only spotted a handful of times by scientists.

A man having his hair cut leapt out of the barber’s chair and ran to help a police officer who was being wrestled to the ground in a headlock.

Kyle Whiting was having a trim at Haron Barbers in Warrington, Cheshire, when he looked through the window and saw the officer being confronted.

The 32-year-old dashed out of the shop – with the barber’s cape still draped around his shoulders – before dragging the man off the officer and giving him time to handcuff the suspect.

Mobile phone footage of the incident was shared on social media, with people praising the “barbershop Batman”, “haircut hero”, and “caped crusader”.

Mr Whiting, whose sister is a police officer, said he was only there by chance after taking his girlfriend to the A&E unit at nearby Warrington Hospital.

He said he realised something was amiss when he noticed the barber becoming distracted by a commotion flaring up outside.

He said: “Before you know it, my barber had taken his phone out and had gone up to the window and started recording.

“I then saw the guy outside swing for the police officer and throw him down on to the ground.

“I thought, ‘I’m not sitting back and watching this’.”

Mr Whiting said he was thinking of his sister and felt it was about “putting yourselves in other people’s shoes”.

“If that was my sister, I would hope somebody wouldn’t hesitate to help her if she was on her own,” he said.

“So before you know it, I’ve run out of the door.”

Another officer and members of the public soon arrived to help – leaving Mr Whiting able to return to the barber’s chair for his chop to be finished.

In a coincidence, Mr Whiting later saw the police officer sitting next to his girlfriend in the A&E unit, waiting for an X-ray on the broken finger he had received.

Cheshire Constabulary thanked Mr Whiting for his support during the incident on 16 December.

The force said: “A 50-year-old man was subsequently arrested in relation to the matter and has since been passed to the care of health professionals.”

The video of the incident, shared by Mr Whiting’s sister, has since had more than 400,000 views and 50,000 likes across Instagram and Facebook.

Poland has accused Hungary of acting in a hostile manner by granting political asylum to a former Polish deputy justice minister accused of defrauding the state.

Marcin Romanowski, 48, is facing 11 charges in Poland, including defrauding or attempting to defraud $40m (£32m; €39m) from a justice fund meant to help victims of crime when he served as deputy justice minister under the previous Law and Justice-led government between 2019 and 2023.

“We consider the decision of Viktor Orban’s government to grant political asylum to M.Romanowski, a suspect in criminal offences and wanted under a European Arrest Warrant, to be an act hostile to the Republic of Poland and the principles of the European Union,” Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X on Thursday night.

“Tomorrow we will announce our decisions.”

On Friday, the foreign ministry said it was summoning Hungary’s ambassador to the country and would request the European Commission to launch proceedings against Budapest if it fails to fulfil its EU obligations.

Mr Romanowski was responsible for the justice fund under the previous government that lost power in 2023’s election.

An audit found that only 40% of the funds’ resources went to crime victims and former prisoner rehabilitation, and that contracts were issued at the minister’s discretion without due competitive process.

Mr Romanowski denies the charges.

He fled to Hungary, saying he would not receive a fair trial in his homeland because of politicised prosecutors and judges under Poland’s current pro-EU coalition government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Such reasoning was mocked by governing officials given that the Law and Justice-led government Mr Romanowski served in was widely condemned by international judicial bodies, the European Commission and European courts for introducing reform that politicised the judiciary.

Mr Tusk’s government is trying to undo that reform because it created a two-tier judicial system of judges appointed under Law and Justice and older judges, some of whom do not recognise the new judges because they consider their appointments unlawful.

Law and Justice and Mr Romanowski have accused the current government of making illegal judicial appointments in its efforts to undo that reform.

Until Thursday night, the 48-year-old opposition MP had not been seen for almost two weeks.

He reportedly had not used his phones or bank cards since 6 December and failed to attend a court hearing three days later that ruled he be remanded in custody before trial.

On Thursday, a European Arrest Warrant was issued by a Warsaw court acting on prosecutors’ information he had fled to an EU country.

There had been speculation that Mr Romanowski was in hiding in Hungary.

On Thursday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the current Polish government was treating Hungary as an enemy and he would offer refuge to anyone facing political persecution in Poland.

Mr Orban and Poland’s Law and Justice party share ideological goals even though they fell out over Russia’s invasion and war against Ukraine.

They broadly agree that what they consider a liberal EU-elite is driving Europe away from its Christian traditions and eroding member states’ sovereignty.

Mr Romanowski is reportedly a member of conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, who issued a denial earlier this week that the MP was being hidden by them.

In October 2022, he told a Polish Catholic radio station that LGBT+ was “institutionalised deviancy”.

A year later he advocated the death penalty, even for minors, after a 16-year-old boy was beaten to death by teenagers.

For the uninitiated, sorting one’s rubbish can be a convoluted process in Japan – a country that boasts one of the world’s strictest waste disposal rules.

But in the city of Fukushima, things are about to get even tougher.

Starting in March, the city government will go through bags of rubbish that fall afoul of regulations – such as those which have not been sorted correctly, or which exceed size limits – and in some cases publicly identify their owners.

The new regulations, passed in a municipal meeting on Tuesday, comes amid Japan’s long push to enhance its waste management system.

While many cities in Japan open rubbish bags to inspect them, and some allow for the disclosure of offending businesses, Fukushima is believed to be the first city that plans to disclose the names of both individuals and businesses.

In a statement to the BBC, the Fukushima Waste Reduction Promotion Division said that waste which had not been properly disposed has previously led to scattered rubbish and the proliferation of crows.

“The improper disposal of waste is a major concern as it deteriorates the living environment of local residents,” said the department.

Waste which is not properly sorted also leads to more landfill, the department added, “which imposes a burden on future generations”.

“Therefore, we consider waste sorting to be very important.”

Last year, Fukushima reported over 9,000 cases of non-compliant rubbish.

Currently, instead of collecting rubbish that does not comply with disposal rules, workers usually paste stickers on the bags informing residents of the violation. Residents would then have to take them back inside, re-sort it and hope they get it right the next time collectors come around.

Under Fukushima’s new rules, if the rubbish remains unsorted for a week, city workers can go through it and try to identify the offenders via items such as mail. The violators will be issued a verbal warning, followed by a written advisory, before the last resort: having their names published on the government website.

Amid privacy concerns, Fukushima authorities said that the inspection of the rubbish would be carried out in private.

Japanese cities each have their own guides on how to dispose of rubbish. In Fukushima, rubbish bags have to be placed at collection points every morning by 0830 – but cannot be left out from the night before.

Different types of waste – separated into combustibles, non-combustibles, and recyclables – are collected according to different schedules.

For items that exceed stipulated dimensions, like household appliances and furniture, residents have to make an appointment for them to be collected separately.

Fukushima’s mayor, Hiroshi Kohata, said that the new rules were meant to promote waste reduction and proper disposal methods.

“There is nothing illegal about publicising malicious waste generators who do not abide by the rules and do not follow the city’s guidance and advisory,” the Mainichi quoted authorities as saying.

Rubbish is taken very seriously in Japan, where since the 1990s the government has made it a national goal to shift away from landfills, reduce waste and promote recycling. Local authorities have introduced their own initiatives in line with this goal.

Residents in Kamikatsu, a Japanese town with an ambitious zero-waste goal, proudly sort their rubbish into 45 categories. Kagoshima prefecture has made it mandatory for residents to write their names on their rubbish bags. And last year the city of Chiba piloted an AI assistant to help residents dispose their rubbish properly.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has been acquitted in a long-running case over his refusal to let a migrant rescue boat dock in Italy in 2019.

Judges in the Sicilian city of Palermo cleared him of two counts of kidnap and dereliction of duty, after prosecutors had sought a jail term of six years.

Salvini, who’s leader of the right-wing Lega party and a government ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has always argued he was guilty only of wanting to “protect Italy”.

“I have kept my promises, combating mass immigration and reducing departures, landings and deaths at sea,” he told reporters outside court on Friday.

On hearing the verdict, Salvini clenched his fists in a sign of victory and hugged his girlfriend, film producer Francesca Verdini, Ansa news agency reported.

The trial began in September 2021, focusing on a case when Salvini, as interior minister, had sought to stop irregular migrants crossing the Mediterranean by blocking Italy’s ports.

He had ordered an NGO ship called Open Arms to be prevented from docking on the island of Lampedusa after it had picked up 147 migrants off the Libyan coast.

The Open Arms remained at sea for almost three weeks, and the health situation of the migrants on board seriously deteriorated.

Eventually, the prosecutor in the Sicilian city of Agrigento, Luigi Patronaggio, ordered the vessel to be preventatively seized after inspecting it and noting the “difficult situation on board”.

The captain of Open Arms and some of those rescued from sea were civil parties in the case, which began in September 2021.

The three female prosecutors in the case have been under police protection after being harassed online and receiving threats.

One of them, Geri Ferrara, told the court in September that human rights had to prevail over the “protection of state sovereignty”.

“A person stranded at sea must be saved and it is irrelevant whether they are classified as a migrant, a crewmember or a passenger”, she said.

Salvini maintained that the then-government of Giuseppe Conte had backed him fully in his mission to “close the ports” of Italy to NGO rescue ships.

In recent months, the deputy prime minister had frequently referenced the trial and the forthcoming verdict in social media posts and during public speeches and interviews.

PM Giorgia Meloni has stood by her deputy prime minister, saying he had her and her government’s “solidarity”.

“Turning the duty to protect Italy’s borders from illegal immigration into a crime is a very serious precedent,” she posted on X earlier this year.

After the verdict, the governor of the Veneto region and Lega party colleague Luca Zaia said justice had been done.

“Salvini acted in the legitimate interest of our country and in full respect for his institutional responsibilities,” he posted on Facebook.

Salvini had been criticised after he said the Italian judiciary was “politicised” and that some magistrates were “clearly following left-wing politics”.

Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left opposition Democratic Party, accused him of “spreading propaganda and fuelling a serious institutional clash”.

Members of Salvini’s Lega party rallied around him. On Wednesday, Lega MEPs turned up at a European Parliament session in Strasbourg wearing t-shirts that read “Guilty of defending Italy” – a slogan Salvini has used in the past.

Current Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said on Friday that whatever the sentence it would not affect the government.

However, Lega deputy secretary Andrea Crippa had warned that a guilty verdict would be “like convicting the entire Italian people, the Italian parliament and the elected government”.

Others outside Italy have waded into the debate too.

“That mad prosecutor should be the one who goes to prison for six years,” Elon Musk tweeted, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a close ally of Salvini, called the trial “shameful”.

Two men have been arrested in Zambia accused of being “witchdoctors” who had been tasked with trying to bewitch the president.

The police said they had arrested Jasten Mabulesse Candunde and Leonard Phiri in the capital, Lusaka.

“Their purported mission was to use charms to harm” President Hakainde Hichilema, said the police statement, released on Friday.

Many people in the southern African country believe in – and live in fear of – witchcraft.

The police said Mr Candunde and Mr Phiri were hired by Nelson Banda, the younger brother of MP Emmanuel “Jay Jay” Banda.

The MP was reportedly arrested last month in neighbouring Zimbabwe over robbery charges, which he denies, but he has not been seen in public.

He is also accused of having escaped from custody in August as he awaited to appear in court.

The opposition Patriotic Front (PF) party, led by former President Edgar Lungu, has previously alleged that these charges are politically motivated.

Emmanuel Banda, who has been an independent MP since 2021, was previously associated with Lungu, who lost the presidency to Hichilema that year.

In their statement, the police said the MP’s younger brother, Nelson, was “currently on the run”.

Mr Candunde and Mr Phiri have been charged under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act with “possession of charms”, “professing knowledge of witchcraft” and “cruelty to wild animals”.

The pair were found in possession of “assorted charms”, including a live chameleon, the police added.

They told the police they had been promised more than 2m Zambian kwacha (£58,000; $73,000) for their “mission”, according to the police statement.

The suspects are being held in custody and will appear in court “soon”, the police said, but did not give an exact date for the hearing. They have not yet commented in public on the allegations.

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What Haneul remembers most about his time in the North Korean military is the gnawing, continuous hunger. He lost 10kg in his first month of service, due to a diet of cracked corn and mouldy cabbage.

Three months into training, he says almost his entire battalion was severely malnourished and needed to be sent to a recovery centre to gain weight.

When they were later deployed as frontline guards to the border with South Korea, rice replaced corn. But by the time it reached their bowls, much had been siphoned off by rear units, and the remainder had been cut with sand.

Haneul says his unit was among the best-fed, a tactic to stop them defecting to South Korea. But it failed to prevent Haneul.

In 2012, he made a death-defying dash across the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) – the strip of land dividing the North from the South.

His experience and that of other military defectors helps shed light on the condition of thousands of North Korean troops deployed to the frontline in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Pyongyang has reportedly sent around 11,000 troops to help Russian forces reclaim part of its Kursk region taken by Ukraine in a surprise summer offensive.

Earlier this week, Seoul, Washington and Kyiv said the soldiers had now entered the fight “in significant numbers”, and reported the first casualties, with South Korean officials estimating more than 100 had already been killed and more injured. This figure has not been confirmed.

However, defectors and other military experts have told the BBC these troops should not be underestimated.

According to South Korean intelligence, most belong to the elite Storm Corps unit, and have “high morale”, but “lack an understanding of contemporary warfare”.

Only the taller, sportier men are selected for the Storm Corps, says defector Lee Hyun Seung, who trained North Korea’s special forces in the early 2000s before defecting in 2014.

He taught them martial arts, how to throw knives and make weapons out of cutlery and other kitchen utensils.

But even though the Storm Corps’ training is more advanced than that of regular North Korean units, the soldiers are still underfed and even malnourished.

Online videos, reportedly of the troops in Russia, show younger, “frail” soldiers, Haneul says. They are a stark contrast to Pyongyang’s propaganda videos, where men are seen bursting out of iron chains and smashing blocks of ice with their bare hands.

During his entire time in the army, Haneul says he fired only three bullets in a single live-fire training session.

The closest he came to combat was when a hungry farmer stumbled into the DMZ looking for vegetables. Haneul says he ignored instructions to “shoot any intruders” and let the man go with a warning.

It is difficult to know how much has changed in the decade since Haneul defected, given the scarcity of information from North Korea. It appears that the country’s leader Kim Jong Un has directed much of his limited resources into missiles and nuclear weapons rather than his standing army.

But according to another soldier, Ryu Seonghyun, who defected in 2019, the first three years in the military are “incredibly tough”, even for the special forces. The 28-year-old, who worked as a driver in the air force for seven years, says that during his service, conditions deteriorated and rice gradually disappeared from meals.

“The soldiers are sent into the mountains for days with a small amount of rice, and are told it is part of their survival training.”

Given these troops have been trained to fight in the mountainous Korean Peninsula, the defectors question how well they will adapt to fighting on the flatlands and in the trenches of Kursk.

Crucially, the Storm Corps are not a frontline unit. “Their mission is to infiltrate enemy lines and create chaos deep within enemy territory,” Ryu says.

But, he adds, Kim Jong Un has no alternative to sending special forces, as regular soldiers spend most of their time farming, building or chopping wood.

“Kim Jong Un had to send men who could demonstrate at least a certain level of combat ability, to avoid damaging North Korea’s reputation in Russia.”

The language barrier seems to have created an additional hurdle. On Sunday, Ukraine’s defence intelligence unit said communication issues had resulted in North Korean soldiers accidentally firing on a Russian battalion, killing eight.

With these assessments, it could be easy to dismiss the troops as “cannon fodder” and a sign of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desperation. But that would be a mistake, the defectors say. Their loyalty to the regime and fighting spirit will count for a lot.

“Most of the soldiers in the Storm Corps come from working-class or farming families, who are highly obedient to the party and will follow orders unquestionably,” says Haneul, whose father and cousin were in the special forces.

Intense, ideological “brainwashing” sessions, held every morning, will further ensure they are mentally ready, Lee adds. He believes the North Korean troops “will become accustomed to the battlefield, learn how to fight the enemy, and find ways to survive”.

Although the soldiers will not have been given a choice over whether to be deployed, Ryu thinks many will have wanted to go. The ambitious will see it as an opportunity to advance their careers, he says.

And given how tough it is to serve in North Korea, some will have relished the chance to experience life abroad for the first time.

“I think they’ll be more willing to fight than Russian troops,” he adds, admitting that in their situation, he too would have wanted to be sent.

Chun In-bum, a former commander of South Korea’s special forces, agrees with the defectors’ appraisals. “Just because they lack food and training, does not mean they are incapable. They will acclimatise quickly. We should not underestimate them.”

While 11,000 troops are unlikely to turn the tide of such an attritional war – it is estimated Russia is suffering more than a thousand casualties a day – experts and officials believe this could be just the first tranche, with Pyongyang potentially able to send up to 60,000 or even 100,000 if they are rotated.

In these numbers, Mr Chun believes they could end up being effective.

Also, Kim Jong Un will be able to shoulder big losses without affecting the stability of his regime, the former soldiers say.

“Those who have been sent will be men without influence or connections – to put it bluntly, those who can be sacrificed without issue,” Haneul says.

He remembers being shocked to learn there were no children of high-ranking parents in his frontline unit: “That’s when I realised we were expendable.”

He does not expect much resistance from the families of the deceased, whose sons, he says, will be honoured as heroes.

“There are countless parents who have lost a child after sending them to the military,” he adds, recalling his second cousin who died. His aunt received a certificate, praising her son for his heroic contribution.

The loyalty of the soldiers and their families could blunt Ukrainian and South Korean hopes that many will simply defect once they enter the fight. Kyiv and Seoul have discussed conducting psychological operations along the frontline to encourage the men to surrender.

But it seems they do not have access to mobile phones. According to Ukrainian intelligence, even Russian soldiers’ phones are seized before they encounter North Korean troops.

So, possible infiltration strategies include broadcasting messages through loudspeakers or using drones to drop leaflets.

Both Ryu and Haneul decided to defect after reading anti-regime propaganda sent across the border from South Korea. But they are doubtful this would work so far from home.

They say it takes a long time to build up the desire and courage to defect.

Furthermore, Haneul suspects the officers will have been ordered to shoot anyone who attempts to flee. He remembers his comrades opening fire as he made his daring sprint across the DMZ.

“Twelve bullets flew just a metre over my head,” he says.

Even capturing the North Korean troops may prove challenging for Ukraine.

In the North, being a prisoner of war is considered extremely shameful and worse than death. Instead, soldiers are taught to take their own lives, by shooting themselves or detonating a grenade.

Ryu recalls a famous military song entitled Save the Last Bullet. “They tell you to save two bullets, one to shoot the enemy and one to shoot yourself.”

Nevertheless, the former special forces trainer Lee is determined to help. He has offered to go to the frontline to communicate directly with the soldiers.

“It’s unlikely they will defect in large numbers, but we have to try. Hearing familiar voices like mine, and others from North Korea, might impact their psychology,” he says.

Haneul just hopes they get home to North Korea. He knows there is a chance some of his relatives are among the troops sent to help Russia.

“I just hope they make it through and return safely.”

The government shutdown showdown of December 2024 was the first big test of president-elect Donald Trump’s influence over Republicans in Congress.

It was one he struggled to meet. The chaos of the last few days exposed some of the limits of his power and control of his party as he prepares to re-enter the White House.

One day after Trump derailed a bipartisan government funding bill – with a big assist from the world’s richest man, Elon Musk – he issued a new demand, for a stripped-down government funding bill that would also raise the limit on how much new debt the federal government can issue to fund its spending.

It was a big ask for many congressional conservatives who have long demanded that any debt increase at least be accompanied by cuts to what they view as out-of-control government spending. And Democrats, and more than a few Republicans, rejected it.

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Trump’s demand was also a tacit admission that his legislative agenda, heavy on tax cuts and new military spending, was unlikely to deliver the kind of reduction to America’s enormous federal deficit that many on the right have been hoping for.

On Thursday night, this slimmed-down bill, along with a two-year suspension of the debt limit, came up for a vote in the House. Thirty-eight Republicans joined nearly every Democrat in voting it down. This amounted to a stunning rebuke of the president-elect, who had enthusiastically endorsed the legislation and threatened to unseat any Republicans who opposed it.

After that defeat, Republican leaders huddled behind closed doors on Friday in an effort to come up with a new plan.

First, they appeared to back a series of votes on individual components of Thursday night’s legislative package – government funding, disaster relief, health-care fixes and a debt-limit increase. It became increasingly clear, however, that any debt-limit increase would be dead on arrival.

After Republicans and Democrats reopened communications, a new plan was hatched. Bring Thursday night’s package back for another vote without the debt-limit provision. While 34 Republican budget hawks still rejected that, all Democrats who voted – wary of a government shutdown less than a week before Christmas – jumped on board.

That ensured the bill had the necessary two-thirds majority to pass. It will now go to the Democrat-controlled Senate where it almost certain to be approved and sent to President Joe Biden to sign.

Republicans, in a closed-door meeting earlier on Friday, reportedly agreed to raise the debt limit without Democratic help sometime next year, before the US Treasury hits the current cap. In doing so, however, they also agreed to accompany that move with trillions in spending cuts – from a pot of “mandatory” spending that includes government-run health insurance, veterans benefits, government pensions and food aid to the poor.

Such cuts would be vehemently opposed by Democrats and could be controversial among the larger public.

That’s a fight for another day, however. For now, it appears the US government will continue to function – at least until the new budget deadline is reached in March. At that point, the Republicans will have to juggle funding the federal government while also trying to enact Trump’s legislative agenda on immigration, taxes and trade, all with an even narrower House majority.

In the end, this latest drama underscores just how tenuous the Republican majority in the House is – and the limits to Donald Trump’s power.

Republicans abhor compromise with the Democrats, but they will be hard-pressed to muster a majority without them. And when Trump says jump, not every Republican will spring into action.

Trump and Elon Musk can kill legislation, but they are often hard-pressed to rally the support to get their proposals over the finish line.

French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot walked out of a court in southern France for the last time on Thursday after her ex-husband was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her, and inviting dozens of strangers to also abuse her over nearly a decade.

Dominique Pelicot, 72, was found guilty of all charges by a judge in Avignon. He was on trial with 50 other men, all of whom were found guilty of at least one charge, although their jail terms were less than what prosecutors had demanded.

Although the trial is over, there are still questions lingering over the Pelicot case and what happens next.

When she climbed the steps of the Avignon courthouse for the first time in September, no one knew Gisèle Pelicot’s name. Over the course of the next 15 weeks, her fame as a rape victim who refused to be ashamed of what had been done to her grew vertiginously.

By the time she left the tribunal on Thursday, crowds of hundreds were chanting her name and her picture was on the front pages of newspapers worldwide.

She is now perhaps one of the best-known women in France. This means that although she has changed her name, it will be impossible for her to return to the anonymity that served her so well as she tried to rebuild a life following the revelation of her husband’s crimes.

Gisèle is not the first person whose unimaginable suffering has turned her into an icon. At great personal cost, she has become the symbol of a fight she never chose. It seems unlikely, then, that she will want to become an outspoken activist against gender violence, or a prominent feminist figure. Rather, she may go back to what she has said has always given her solace: music, long walks and chocolate – as well as her seven grandchildren.

“At the start of the trial she said: ‘If I last two weeks, that will be a lot.’ In the end, she made it to three and a half months,” her lawyer Stephane Babonneau said. “Now, she is at peace, and relieved it’s all over.”

Days after Dominique Pelicot’s crimes came to light, his daughter Caroline Darian was summoned to the police station and shown photos of an apparently unconscious woman dressed in unfamiliar lingerie. Later, she said her life had “stopped” when she realised she was looking at photos of herself.

Her father has always denied touching her, but Caroline – whose anguish and devastation were apparent in many court sessions – has said she would never believe him and accused him of looking at her “with incestuous eyes”.

But the lack of proof of the abuse Caroline is convinced was inflicted on her has led her to say she is “the forgotten victim” of the trial. That notion has visibly seeped into her relationship with her mother. In her memoir – published after her father’s arrest – she accused Gisèle of not showing her enough support, implicitly choosing to side with her rapist ex-husband over her daughter.

Although Gisèle and her children have always sat next to one another in court, often whispering huddled together, there have been signs of the toll the trial has taken on their relationship.

On Friday, Caroline’s brother David highlighted – as he has done before – that the trial had not just been about Gisèle but about their whole “annihilated family”.

“Us children felt forgotten,” he said. “Very honestly I feel that while our lawyers did a remarkable job on the defence of our mother, we were a little bit less taken into account.”

In her memoir, Caroline lamented Gisèle’s “denial as a coping mechanism”.

“Because of my father,” she wrote, “I am now losing my mother.”

Apart from Dominique, all of the jail terms handed down to the defendants were less than what prosecutors had demanded.

Several defence lawyers were visibly satisfied, meaning it is unlikely they will encourage their clients to appeal against their sentences. A man called Jean-Pierre Maréchal got 12 years – five less than prosecutors had asked – and his lawyer Patrick Gontard told the BBC it was “out of the question” he would appeal.

The months or years the men spent in pre-trial detention will count towards their total sentences, meaning that some may be freed soon if they have served their minimum term.

One man who was facing 17 years ended up being sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, and his lawyer Roland Marmillot told the BBC that because he had already spent several years in jail it was likely he would be released relatively soon.

Still, by the morning after the trial closed, two men each jailed for eight years had already appealed. More are expected to follow over the next ten days – the period of time appeals can be lodged for.

Dominique Pelicot has admitted to assaulting and attempting to rape a 23-year-old estate agent, known by the pseudonym Marion, in the suburbs of Paris in 1999. A cloth imbued with ether was put over her mouth but she managed to fight the attacker off and he fled. It was only in 2021, after he was arrested for the crimes he inflicted on his wife Gisèle, that Pelicot’s DNA was cross-checked with a speck of blood found on Marion’s shoe, and he admitted to his guilt.

He has, however, denied any responsibility in another cold case – the 1991 rape and murder of another young estate agent, Sophie Narme, for which there is no DNA. Investigators have argued that the two cases present too many similarities to be coincidental.

Other cold cases where similar modi operandi were used are also being looked at again.

“There will be a ‘before’ and there will be an ‘after’ the Pelicot trial,” one Parisian man told the BBC in the early days of the trial.

For many, this sentiment has only grown over the last few months during which the intense media coverage of the Pelicot trial generated countless conversations around rape, consent and gender violence.

“What we need to do is have much, much harsher sentences,” Nicolas and Mehdi, two Mazan residents, told the BBC. They said they were “disgusted” when they found out one of the defendants was a man they had played football with.

“With longer sentences they’ll at least they’ll think twice before doing stuff like this,” they said, adding that it was “crazy unfair” that some of the men could come out of jail in the next few months.

It is worth noting, however, that the risk of incurring a 20-year prison sentence for aggravated rape did not deter Dominique Pelicot from offering his unconscious wife to be raped by strangers he met online.

There have been calls to reform French legislation on rape to include consent, but that has stalled in the past and would take considerable work in the current divided French parliament.

Some have argued that schools have a responsibility to better teach new generations about sex, love and consent. Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, has said she believes “change will not come from the Ministry of Justice but from the Ministry of Education.”

Françoise, a resident of the area where Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot used to live, told the BBC she thinks a way must be found to bridge the gap between what children are taught in schools and the type of material they have access to online.

“Young people are so exposed to sex on the internet and at the same time schools are very prudish,” she said. “They should be much more open and frank to match and explain what kids see.”

What these exchanges show is that, while it will take time before any changes become tangible, a conversation has now started. It will continue until there are no more unanswered questions.

Syria’s rebel leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has dismissed the online controversy over videos showing him gesturing to a young woman to cover her hair before he posed for a photo with her last week.

The incident sparked criticism from both liberal and conservative commentators amid intense speculation about the county’s future direction after rebels swept to power.

Liberals saw the request from the head of the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a sign that he might seek to enforce an Islamic system in Syria after leading the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, while hardline conservatives criticised him for consenting to be photographed with the woman in the first place.

“I did not force her. But it’s my personal freedom. I want photos taken for me the way that suits me,” Sharaa said in an interview with the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen.

The woman, Lea Kheirallah, has also said that she was not bothered by the request.

She said he had asked in “gentle and fatherly way”, and that she thought “the leader has the right to be presented in the way he sees fit”.

However, the incident demonstrated some of the difficulties any future leader of Syria might have in appealing to and uniting such a religiously diverse country.

Sunni Muslims make up the majority of the population, with the remainder split between Christians, Alawites, Druze and Ismailis.

There is also a wide range of views among the various political and armed groups who were opposed to Assad, with some wanting a secular democracy and others wanting governance according to Islamic law.

HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, initially imposed strict behaviour and dress codes rules when it seized control of the former rebel stronghold of Idlib province in 2017. However, it revoked those rules in recent years in response to public criticism.

The Quran, Islam’s holy book, tells Muslims – men and women – to dress modestly.

Male modesty has been interpreted to be covering the area from the navel to the knee – and for women it is generally seen as covering everything except their face, hands and feet when in the presence of men they are not related or married to.

Lea Kheirallah asked to take a photo with Sharaa – who was previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – when he toured the Mezzeh area of Damascus on 10 December.

Before agreeing, Sharaa gestured for her to cover her hair and she complied, raising the hood on her jumper and then standing beside him for the photo.

Many video clips and pictures of the incident were shared on social media, sparking widespread outrage among ordinary users and media commentators.

People with liberal or non-conservative views saw it as a troubling glimpse into Syria’s possible future under HTS, fearing increasingly conservative policies like the requirement for all women to wear a hijab, or headscarf.

France 24’s Arabic channel discussed the incident, with a headline asking if Syria was “heading towards Islamic rule”.

Others were sharper in their condemnation. One Syrian journalist said: “We replaced one dictator with a reactionary dictator.”

On social media, other commentators warned of “ultra-extremists” ascending to power, while others decried the “forcing of a free woman” to adopt a conservative look.

Islamist hardliners on Telegram criticised Sharaa for agreeing to be filmed and photographed next to a young woman in the first place.

Some called Ms Kheirallah a “mutabarijah” – a negative term for women considered immodestly dressed or wearing make-up.

Such hardline figures ranged from clerics to influential commentators whose views are often shared and read by Syria-focused conservative communities online, and are likely to reach HTS supporters and possibly officials.

Most of them appear to be based in Syria, mainly in the former HTS-dominated rebel stronghold of Idlib, with some having previously served in HTS ranks.

They argued that it was religiously impermissible for unrelated men and women to interact closely and accused Sharaa of seeking “vain public attention” and showing “indulgence” in matters contrary to strict religious teachings.

A post on one Telegram channel called Min Idlib (From Idlib) said the HTS leader was “too busy taking selfies with young ladies” to address demands for releasing prisoners from HTS jails in Idlib.

Many of the conservative figures who spoke out against the photo have criticised Sharaa in the past for political as well as religious reasons, and include clerics who have left HTS.

A holidaymaker from Northern Ireland who was detained in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after posting a negative Google review about his former employer has said returning home is a “Christmas miracle”.

Craig Ballentine, from Cookstown, County Tyrone, was arrested in Abu Dhabi airport in October because of his critical comments.

Under the UAE’s strict cybercrime laws, he was accused of slander and faced potential jail time.

The 33-year-old arrived in Dublin on Thursday morning after his travel ban had been lifted and he told BBC News NI he was “happy to be on Irish grass now”.

“It has been very overwhelming, because it has been quite confusing,” he said.

“One minute everything changes.

“It has been a Christmas miracle.

“The happiness kicked in when I just arrived at Dublin Airport, when I saw Dublin from the sky, that was it.

“I will have an extra big fry in the next hour or two and then it will be mainly focusing on seeing friends and family.

“On Christmas Eve, we are going to do the 12 pubs of Christmas – there are a few friends from Liverpool coming over, we do it every year – and I texted them this morning, saying, ‘I’m coming’.”

There were interventions from a number of politicians to highlight Mr Ballentine’s case, including Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill, former UUP leader Sir Reg Empey and Mid Ulster councillor Trevor Wilson.

Upon Mr Ballentine’s return, O’Neill said: “I am delighted to hear the news that Craig has arrived back in Ireland. It has been a difficult few months for him and his family who were concerned for his safety.

“My office was happy to assist in any way we could throughout this ordeal. I hope that Craig can now enjoy time at home in the company of his family and friends who have supported him throughout this difficult situation.”

Cllr Wilson also welcomed Mr Ballentine’s arrival home.

“It was a very stressful time for him and his family and hopefully he can now enjoy the Christmas festivities with his family and friends,” the UUP councillor said.

Mr Ballentine had previously told BBC News NI that all he wanted was to get home for Christmas to his family.

He said the last few weeks have been tough on them.

Mr Ballentine has already paid a fine but said he may have to return to Dubai at the end of January for a further court hearing.

He said that with regard to his case, he would have to “play it by ear”.

“On Christmas Eve, we will know a bit of a verdict of the court judgement,” he added.

“Have to wait for another 30 days and then they might appeal again, so it could be February, March, April, or else it could just be lifted just like that, finished.”

In 2023, Mr Ballentine got a job in a dog grooming salon in Dubai.

After working there for almost six months, he needed time off due to illness and so he gave his employer a doctor’s certificate as proof of his condition.

But when he did not show up for work, he was registered as “absconded” with the UAE authorities, which meant he could not leave the country.

Mr Ballentine later managed to get that travel ban lifted and went home to Northern Ireland, but doing so took two months and cost him thousands of pounds.

While he was back in Northern Ireland, he wrote an online review of the dog grooming salon, outlining the problems his former boss had allegedly caused him.

He told BBC News NI his Google post “explained the ordeal that I went through”.

In late October, Mr Ballentine returned to the UAE for a short holiday, at which point he was immediately arrested for the alleged slander.

He was transferred from Abu Dhabi to Dubai where he had to await the outcome of the case.

When a court declared Iwao Hakamata innocent in September, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate seemed unable to comprehend, much less savour the moment.

“I told him he was acquitted, and he was silent,” Hideko Hakamata, his 91-year-old sister, tells the BBC at her home in Hamamatsu, Japan.

“I couldn’t tell whether he understood or not.”

Hideko had been fighting for her brother’s retrial ever since he was convicted of quadruple murder in 1968.

In September 2024, at the age of 88, he was finally acquitted – ending Japan’s longest running legal saga.

Mr Hakamata’s case is remarkable. But it also shines a light on the systemic brutality underpinning Japan’s justice system, where death row inmates are only notified of their hanging a few hours in advance, and spend years unsure whether each day will be their last.

Human rights experts have long condemned such treatment as cruel and inhuman, saying it exacerbates prisoners’ risk of developing a serious mental illness.

And more than half a lifetime spent in solitary confinement, waiting to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit, took a heavy toll on Mr Hakamata.

Since being granted a retrial and released from prison in 2014, he has lived under Hideko’s close care.

When we arrive at the apartment he is on his daily outing with a volunteer group that supports the two elderly siblings. He is anxious around strangers, Hideko explains, and has been in “his own world” for years.

“Maybe it can’t be helped,” she says. “This is what happens when you are locked up and crammed in a small prison cell for more than 40 years.

“They made him live like an animal.”

A former professional boxer, Iwao Hakamata  was working at a miso processing plant when the bodies of his boss, the man’s wife and their two teenage children were found. All four had been stabbed to death.

Authorities accused Mr Hakamata of murdering the family, setting their house in Shizuoka alight and stealing 200,000 yen (£199; $556) in cash.

“We had no idea what was going on,” Hideko says of the day in 1966 when police came to arrest her brother.

The family home was searched, as well as the homes of their two elder sisters, and Mr Hakamata was taken away.

He initially denied all charges, but later gave what he came to describe as a coerced confession following beatings and interrogations that lasted up to 12 hours a day.

Two years after his arrest, Mr Hakamata was convicted of murder and arson and sentenced to death. It was when he was moved to a cell on death row that Hideko noticed a shift in his demeanour.

One prison visit in particular stands out.

“He told me, ‘there was an execution yesterday – it was a person in the next cell’,” she recalls. “He told me to take care – and from then on, he completely changed mentally and became very quiet.”

Mr Hakamata is not the only one to be damaged by life on Japan’s death row, where inmates wake each morning not knowing if it will be their last.

“Between 08:00 and 08:30 in the morning was the most critical time, because that was generally when prisoners were notified of their execution,” Menda Sakae, who spent 34 years on death row before being exonerated, wrote in a book about his experience.

“You begin to feel the most terrible anxiety, because you don’t know if they are going to stop in front of your cell. It is impossible to express how awful a feeling this was.”

James Welsh, lead author of a 2009 Amnesty International report into conditions on death row, noted that “the daily threat of imminent death is cruel, inhuman and degrading”. The report concluded that inmates were at risk of “significant mental health issues”.

Hideko could only watch as her own brother’s mental health deteriorated as the years went by.

“Once he asked me ‘Do you know who I am?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do. You are Iwao Hakamata’. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you must be here to see a different person’. And he just went back [to his cell].”

Hideko stepped up as his primary spokesperson and advocate. It wasn’t until 2014, however, that there was a breakthrough in his case.

A key piece of evidence against Mr Hakamata were red-stained clothes found in a miso tank at his workplace.

They were recovered a year and two months after the murders and the prosecution said they belonged to him. But for years Mr Hakamata’s defence team argued that the DNA recovered from the clothes did not match his – and alleged that the evidence was planted.

In 2014 they were able to persuade a judge to release him from prison and grant him a retrial.

Prolonged legal proceedings meant it took until last October for the retrial to begin. When it finally did, it was Hideko who appeared in court, pleading for her brother’s life.

Mr Hakamata’s fate hinged on the stains, and specifically how they had aged.

The prosecution had claimed the stains were reddish when the clothes were recovered – but the defence argued that blood would have turned blackish after being immersed in miso for so long.

That was enough to convince presiding judge Koshi Kunii, who declared that “the investigating authority had added blood stains and hid the items in the miso tank well after the incident took place”.

Judge Kunii further found that other evidence had been fabricated, including an investigation record, and declared Mr Hakamata innocent.

Hideko’s first reaction was to cry.

“When the judge said that the defendant is not guilty, I was elated; I was in tears,” she says. “I am not a tearful person, but my tears just flowed without stopping for about an hour.”

The court’s conclusion that evidence against Mr Hakamata was fabricated raises troubling questions.

Japan has a 99% conviction rate, and a system of so-called “hostage justice” which, according to Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch, “denies people arrested their rights to a presumption of innocence, a prompt and fair bail hearing, and access to counsel during questioning”.

“These abusive practices have resulted in lives and families being torn apart, as well as wrongful convictions,” Mr Doi noted in 2023.

David T Johnson, a professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, whose research focuses on criminal justice in Japan, has followed the Hakamata case for the last 30 years.

He said one reason it dragged on is that “critical evidence for the defence was not disclosed to them until around 2010”.

The failure was “egregious and inexcusable”, Mr Johnson told the BBC. “Judges kept kicking the case down the road, as they frequently do in response to retrial petitions (because) they are busy, and the law allows them to do so.”

Hideko says the core of the injustice was the forced confession and the coercion her brother suffered.

But Mr Johnson says false accusations don’t happen because of a single mistake. Instead, they are compounded by failings at all levels – from the police right through to the prosecutors, courts and parliament.

“Judges have the last word,” he added. “When a wrongful conviction occurs, it is, in the end, because they said so. All too often, the responsibility of judges for producing and maintaining wrongful convictions gets neglected, elided, and ignored.”

Against that backdrop, Mr Hakamata’s acquittal was a watershed – a rare moment of retrospective justice.

After declaring Mr Hakamata innocent, the judge presiding over his retrial apologised to Hideko for how long it took to achieve justice.

A short while later, Takayoshi Tsuda, chief of Shizuoka police, visited her home and bowed in front of both brother and sister.

“For the past 58 years… we caused you indescribable anxiety and burden,” Mr Tsuda said. “We are truly sorry.”

Hideko gave an unexpected reply to the police chief.

“We believe that everything that happened was our destiny,” she said. “We will not complain about anything now.”

After nearly 60 years of anxiety and heartache, Hideko has styled her home with the express intention of letting some light in. The rooms are bright and inviting, filled with pictures of her and Iwao alongside family friends and supporters.

Hideko laughs as she shares memories of her “cute” little brother as a baby, leafing through black-and-white family photos.

The youngest of six siblings, he seems to always be standing next to her.

“We were always together when we were children,” she explains. “I always knew I had to take care of my little brother.  And so, it continues.”

She walks into Mr Hakamata’s room and introduces their ginger cat, which occupies the chair he normally sits in. Then she points to pictures of him as a young professional boxer.

“He wanted to become a champion,” she says. “Then the incident happened.”

After Mr Hakamata was released in 2014, Hideko wanted to make the apartment as bright as possible, she explains. So she painted the front door pink.

“I believed that if he was in a bright room and had a cheerful life, he would naturally get well.”

It’s the first thing one notices when visiting Hideko’s apartment, this bright pink statement of hope and resilience.

It’s unclear whether it has worked – Mr Hakamata still paces back and forth for hours, just as he did for years in a jail cell the size of three single tatami mats.

But Hideko refuses to linger on the question of what their lives might have looked like if not for such an egregious miscarriage of justice.

When asked who she blames for her brother’s suffering, she replies: “no-one”.

“Complaining about what happened will get us nowhere.”

Her priority now is to keep her brother comfortable. She shaves his face, massages his head, slices apples and apricots for his breakfast each morning.

Hideko, who has spent the majority of her 91 years fighting for her brother’s freedom, says this was their fate.

“I don’t want to think about the past. I don’t know how long I’m going to live,” she says. “I just want Iwao to live a peaceful and quiet life.”

The US has scrapped a $10m (£7.9m) reward for the arrest of Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, following meetings between senior diplomats and representatives from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf said the discussion with Sharaa was “very productive”, and he came across as “pragmatic”.

The US delegation arrived in the capital, Damascus, after HTS overthrew the Bashar al-Assad regime less than a fortnight ago. Washington still designates it as a terrorist group.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed that the diplomats discussed “transition principles” supported by the US, regional events and the need to fight against IS.

The spokesperson also said the officials were seeking further information on American citizens who disappeared under Assad’s regime, including journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in Damascus in 2012, and psychotherapist Majd Kamalmaz, who disappeared in 2017.

A US embassy spokesperson earlier said a news conference involving Ms Leaf had been cancelled due to “security concerns”.

However during a later briefing, Leaf denied that, insisting “street celebrations” were the cause of the delay.

The visit is the first formal American diplomatic appearance in Damascus in more than a decade.

It is a further sign of the dramatic shifts under way in Syria since the ousting of Assad, and the speed of efforts by the US and Europe, also leaning on Arab countries, to try to influence its emerging governance.

The visit follows those of delegations in recent days from the UN and other countries including the UK, France and Germany.

The delegation of senior officials includes Barbara Leaf, Roger Carstens, who is US President Joe Biden’s hostage envoy, and Daniel Rubinstein, a senior adviser in the Bureau of Near East Affairs.

The spokesperson also said the delegation engaged with civil society groups and members of different communities in Syria “about their vision for the future of their country and how the United States can help support them”.

The meeting was a show of readiness to deal with HTS, which the US still designates as a terrorist organisation but is building pressure for it to transition to inclusive, non-sectarian government.

Washington is effectively laying down a set of conditions before it would consider delisting the group – a critical step which could help ease the path towards sanctions relief that Damascus desperately needs.

Meanwhile, US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that IS leader Abu Yusif and two of his operatives had been killed in an air strike in the Deir al-Zour province of north-eastern Syria.

It said in a statement on Friday that the airstrike was launched on Thursday and carried out in an area that was formerly controlled by the Assad regime and Russian forces supporting his government.

CENTCOM commander Gen Michael Erik Kurilla said the US would not allow IS “to take advantage of the current situation in Syria and reconstitute”, adding the group intended to free more than 8,000 detained IS militants being held in Syria.

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.

In 1915, 29-year-old Indian entrepreneur Jhamandas Watumull arrived in Hawaii’s Honolulu island to set up a retail shop of his import business with his partner Dharamdas.

The two registered Watumull & Dharamdas as a business on Honolulu’s Hotel Street, selling exotic goods like silks, ivory crafts, brassware and other curios from the East.

Dharamdas died of cholera in 1916, prompting Jhamandas Watumull to send for his brother Gobindram to manage their Honolulu store while he took care of their business in Manila. Over the next several years, the brothers would travel between India and Hawaii as they solidified their business.

Today, the Watumull name is ubiquitous on the islands – from garment manufacturing and real estate to education and arts philanthropy, the family is inextricably linked with Hawaii’s rich history.

The first South Asians to move to the island from India, they are now one of its wealthiest families.

“Slowly, slowly, that’s how we did it,” Jhamandas told a local Hawaiian publication in 1973.

Born in pre-independent India, Jhamandas was the son of a brick contractor in Sindh province’s Hyderabad (now in Pakistan). The family was educated but not wealthy. After an accident paralysed his father, Jhamandas’ mother bought his passage to the Philippines where he began working in textile mills. In 1909, he began his own trading business in Manila with his partner Dharamdas.

His grandson JD Watumull says Jhamandas and Dharamdas moved to Hawaii after a drop in their Manila business after the US, which occupied Philippines at the time, curtailed ties with foreign businesses.

Their Hawaii business was renamed East India Store soon after Jhamandas’ brother Gobindram began managing it. In the following years, the business expanded into a major department store with branches in several parts of Asia as well as Hawaii, says SAADA, a digital archive of South Asian American history.

In 1937, Gobindram built the Watumull Building in Honolulu’s Waikiki neighbourhood to house the company’s headquarters. According to SAADA, the multi-million-dollar business had expanded to 10 stores, an apartment house and assorted commercial developments by 1957.

The Star-Bulletin newspaper describes products at the store – linens, lingerie, brass and teak wood curios – as woven with “romance and mystery” that transported one “to distant lands and fascinating scenes”.

As Hawaii emerged as a popular destination for wealthy tourists in the 1930s, shirts in bold colours with island motifs called the ‘Aloha shirt’ became a sought-after souvenir.

According to Dale Hope, an expert in Hawaiian textile and patterns, the Watumull’s East India Store was one of the first on the island to carry designs with Hawaiian patterns.

The designs were first commissioned in 1936 by Gobindram from his artist sister-in-law Elsie Jensen.

“Instead of Mount Fuji, she’d have Diamond Head, instead of koi [she’d] have tropical fish, instead of cherry blossoms [she’d] have gardenias and hibiscus and all the things we know here,” Hope said.

The designs were sent to Japan where they were handblocked onto raw silk, Nancy Schiffer writes in the book Hawaiian Shirt Designs.

“These subtle floral patterns, modern and dynamic in concept, were the first Hawaiian designs to be produced commercially,” Schiffer notes.

“They were sold by the boat load and were exhibited as far away as London,” William Devenport says in the book Paradise of the Pacific.

Gobindram’s daughter Lila told Hope that the Watumull’s Waikiki store had American movie stars Loretta Young, Jack Benny, Lana Turner and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson coming to buy these shirts.

“More and more we are finding out that Watumull has become a synonym for Hawaiian fashions,” Gulab Watumull said in a 1966 interview in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

The Watumulls soon bought the Royal Hawaiian Manufacturing Company, where the first matching family aloha wear was created.

Despite their success, it would be decades before the Watumull brothers – Jhamandas and Gobindram – received US citizenship. Their early years in the country were marred by discrimination and difficult immigration laws, the Hawaii Business Magazine wrote.

In 1922, Gobindram married Ellen Jensen, an American, whose citizenship was stripped under the Cable Act for marrying an immigrant who was not eligible for US citizenship. Jensen would go on to work with the League of Women Voters to reform the law and regain citizenship in 1931.

Gobindram would become a citizen in 1946 when a law allowing Indians to gain citizenship through naturalisation was enacted.

His brother Jhamandas, meanwhile, continued to split much of his time between India and Hawaii.

During India’s 1947 partition, the Watumull family moved from Sindh to Bombay (now Mumbai), leaving much of their property behind, SAADA says.

Jhamandas’ son Gulab eventually arrived in Hawaii to work in the family business and become its head.

In 1955, the brothers split the business with Jhamandas and Gulab keeping its retail portion while Gobindram’s family took over its real estate section.

Jhamandas moved permanently to Hawaii In 1956, a few years after the death of his wife and one of their sons, and in 1961, became a US citizen.

Over the years, the family remained invested in the welfare of India and its people. Gobindram was an active member of the Committee for India’s Freedom and often travelled to Washington to support the country’s case for independence, Elliot Robert Barkan writes in Making it in America.

Gobindram’s home in Los Angeles was “a Mecca for people concerned with Indian independence”, Sachindra Nath Pradhan notes in the book India in the United States.

The Watumull Foundation in 1946 sponsored a series of lectures by Dr S Radhakrishnan – who later served as India’s president – at American universities.

Gobindram’s wife Ellen was instrumental in bringing an international parenthood conference to Delhi in 1959, leading to the establishment of the country’s first birth control clinics.

The family’s philanthropy has and continues to include funding for educational institutions in Hawaii and in India, endowments for Honolulu-based art programmes and promoting Indian-Hawaiian exchange.

Many of the Watumull brothers’ grandchildren now work in and around Hawaii.

In the past few years, as the family business shifted focus to real estate, the last Watumull retail store closed in 2020. The company thanked its customers “for years of good business and good memories”.

Watumull Properties purchased a 19,045 sq m (205,000 sq ft) marketplace in Hawaii last year. JD Watumull, the president of the company, said, “The Hawaiian Islands continue to be our family’s focus today and in the future.”

It’s become a seasonal tradition to seek the hidden message or symbolic meaning in the Christmas cards the royals send out, as they keep changing and reinventing the format.

This year’s card from King Charles and Queen Camilla shows them looking relaxed and maybe relieved – and there is a very personal significance behind this picture.

It was the first photoshoot after the King was given the green light that he was well enough to return to public duties, after beginning his cancer treatment. It was said to be a watershed moment for the couple, caught on camera.

The same pictures, with images full of spring rebirth, were then used for the official announcement that the King had made sufficient progress with his treatment to go back to public events.

There’s also a pattern that even though these are Christmas cards, forget the snowy steeples and robins, because royal cards rarely seem to have any signs of winter.

And the message, printed in red, always look like a party invitation from the 1950s.

Prince Harry and Meghan have given their own twist to royal cards. They’ve added some glitz, so that it has the feel of film credits as much as a season’s greeting.

It’s an upbeat Californian message, sent out as an e-card, with six pictures rather than a single image, showing the couple hugging and laughing. It also drew comments on the rare appearance of their son and daughter.

If cards could have an accent, this would undoubtedly sound American. It’s a “Happy Holiday Season”, with no mention of “Christmas”. But then, they’ve spent most of their married life in the US.

Prince William and Catherine’s cards have used more informal pictures in recent years. It’s jeans and no ties, a modern family, without any royal imagery.

This year’s card kept the same relaxed style, but it had a very poignant significance. It was from the video that announced that Catherine had completed her chemotherapy.

It shows William and Catherine and their three children in Norfolk in August, from a video that was full of end-of-summer colours and very emotional messages about a tough year since her cancer diagnosis.

It was a strikingly different style of royal communication, unashamedly about love and togetherness – and they’ve used it again for the Christmas card.

Last year’s card from the Prince and Princess of Wales had also been a talking point. It featured the same jackets-off, casual image, but there was also a designer chic, with an arty black-and-white picture that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an upmarket jeans advert.

The prince is very keen on sustainability, so maybe next year’s will be made out of recyclable seaweed.

Christmas cards can also be like time capsules, holding a moment.

In 1995 Prince William appeared alongside his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, and his brother Prince Harry in this rather haunting image. It really evokes another era.

There’s often a sense of family closeness projected by the cards.

The late Queen Elizabeth II was always pictured with Prince Philip. And King Charles and Queen Camilla have continued to use images of themselves as a couple.

That’s had to be mixed up with some props over the years.

For the 2019 card the then Prince Charles and Camilla were pictured in a vintage sports car, in a photo taken on a trip to Cuba. It was more or less made for a Prince of Wheels headline.

There was also a picture of the Royal Family standing around a speed boat in 1969, looking like winners on a game show.

Christmas cards might be slipping out of fashion – sales of boxes of cards are down 23% in a year, according to retailers John Lewis.

But the royals show no sign of losing interest – and that includes European royal families… although their use of a family group in a posh room isn’t always that original.

The Belgian royal card has a multi-lingual message, which is inclusive and reflects a multi-lingual country, but risks looking like a Eurostar menu. It’s also unusually forward-looking, with the date of 2025.

Spanish royals this year used their card to send a more serious message. There was a standard family group photo on the front, but inside was a poem that was a tribute to the victims of the Valencia flood.

Last month, Spain’s king and queen had been pelted with mud when they visited areas hit by the floods.

You couldn’t say that the Christmas card pictures are always predictable or easy to interpret.

What was the thinking behind the 2016 card which used a photo of Prince Charles and Camilla on a trip to Croatia? An unexpected Eurovision entry?

They might begin as greetings cards, but they soon become history. Like this poignant wartime Christmas card from the then Princess Elizabeth, sent in 1942. There’s the tilt of the cap, the young face, looking into an unknown future.

There’s often a hint of melancholy in Christmas films and songs, hinting at the passing of time, and that’s here, too.

Happy Christmas! It’s in the post.

When police in Rio de Janeiro seize blocks of cocaine and bundles of marijuana they may well find them branded with a religious symbol – the Star of David. This is not a reference to the Jewish faith, but to the belief of some Pentecostal Christians that the return of Jews to Israel will lead to the Second Coming of Christ.

The gang selling these branded drugs is the Pure Third Command, one of Rio’s most powerful criminal groups, with a reputation both for making its opponents disappear, and for fanatical evangelical Christianity.

They took control of a group of five favelas in the north of the city – now known as the Israel Complex – after one of their leaders had what he believed was a revelation from God, says theologian Vivian Costa, author of the book, Evangelical Drug Dealers.

She says the gangsters see themselves as “soldiers of crime”, with Jesus as “the owner” of the territory they dominate.

Controversially, some have dubbed them “Narco-Pentecostals”.

One man who has experience of crime and religion – though in his case, not at the same time – is Pastor Diego Nascimento, who became a Christian after hearing the gospel from a gangster holding a gun.

Looking at him, it’s hard to believe that this boyish looking 42-year-old Wesleyan Methodist minister with a ready smile and dimples, was once a member of Rio’s notorious Red Command crime gang and managed its activities in the city’s Vila Kennedy favela.

Four years in prison for drug dealing weren’t enough to make him give up crime. But when he became addicted to crack cocaine his standing in the gang plummeted.

“I lost my family. I practically lived on the street for almost a year. I went so far as to sell things from my house to buy crack,” he says.

It was at that point, when he was at rock bottom, that a well-known drug dealer in the favela summoned him.

“He started preaching to me, saying there was a way out, that there was a solution for me, which was to accept Jesus,” he recalls.

The young addict took this advice and began his journey to the pulpit.

Pastor Nascimento still spends time with criminals, but now it is through his work in prisons, where he helps people turn their lives around, as he did himself.

Despite having been converted by a gangster, he regards the idea of religious criminals as a contradiction in terms.

“I don’t see them as evangelical believers,” he says.

“I see them as people who are going down the wrong path and have a fear of God because they know that God is the one who guards their lives.

“There is no such thing as combining the two, being an evangelical and a thug. If a person accepts Jesus and follows the Biblical commandments, that person cannot be a drug dealer.”

Evangelical Christianity will, by some predictions, overtake Catholicism as Brazil’s biggest religion by the end of the decade.

As it has grown, the charismatic Pentecostal movement has particularly resonated with people living in the gang-ridden favelas, and now some of those gangs are drawing on elements of the faith they grew up with to wield power.

One accusation made against them is that they are using violence to suppress Afro-Brazilian faiths.

Christina Vital, a sociology professor at Rio’s Fluminense Federal University, says Rio’s poor communities have long been living “under siege” from criminal gangs, and this is now affecting their freedom of religion.

“In the Israel Complex, people with other religious beliefs cannot be seen to practise them publicly. It’s not an exaggeration to speak of religious intolerance in that territory.”

Vital says Afro-Brazilian Umbanda and Candomblé religious houses have been shut down in surrounding neighbourhoods too, with gangsters sometimes drawing messages on the walls such as “Jesus is the Lord of this place.”

Followers of Afro-Brazilian faiths have long faced prejudice, and drug dealers are not the only people who have targeted them.

But Dr Rita Salim, who heads the Rio police Department for Racial and Intolerance Crimes, says threats and attacks by narco-gangs have a particularly powerful impact.

“These cases are more serious because they are imposed by a criminal organisation, by a group and its leader, who imposes fear on the whole territory it dominates.”

She notes that an arrest warrant has been issued for the man thought to be the number one crime boss in the Israel Complex, for allegedly ordering armed men to attack an Afro-Brazilian temple in another favela.

While allegations of religious extremism in Rio’s favelas first gained attention in the early 2000s, the problem has “increased dramatically” in recent years, according to Marcio de Jagun, co-ordinator of Religious Diversity at Rio’s City Hall.

Jagun, who is a babalorixá (high priest) of the Candomblé religion, says the issue is now a national one, with similar attacks seen in other Brazilian cities.

“This is a form of neo-Crusade,” he says. “The prejudice behind these attacks is both religious and ethnic, with outlaws demonising religions from Africa and claiming to banish evil in the name of God.”

But religion and crime have long been intertwined in Brazil, says theologian Vivian Costa. In the past, gangsters would ask for protection from Afro-Brazilian deities and Catholic saints.

“If we look at the birth of the Red Command, or the birth of the Third Command, Afro religions [and Catholicism] have been there since their beginning. We see the presence of Saint George, the presence of [the Afro-Brazilian god] Ògún, the tattoos, the crucifixes, the candles, the offerings.

“That is why to call it Narco-Pentecostalism is to reduce that relationship that is so historic and traditional between crime and religion. I prefer to call it ‘Narco-Religiosity’.”

Whatever one calls this mix of faith and criminality, one thing seems clear: it jeopardises a right that is enshrined in Brazil’s constitution – that of religious freedom.

And it is yet one more way in which violent drug traffickers cause harm to the communities forced to live under their rule.

A top campaign adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump has called the incoming UK ambassador to the US, Lord Peter Mandelson, “an absolute moron”.

In a post on social media, Chris LaCivita said Lord Mandelson “should stay home”.

Mr LaCivita, who was a co-campaign manager for Trump’s presidential election bid, criticised the British government’s decision saying it was replacing a “professional universally respected ambo [ambassador] with an absolute moron”.

Lord Mandelson is one of the best-known figures in British politics, having served in multiple ministerial roles under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before taking up a life peerage in the Lords.

He called his appointment as the UK’s next ambassador to the US as “a great honour”.

As first reported in The Times, Lord Mandelson will replace Dame Karen Pierce, whose term in Washington DC is due to end as Trump enters the White House in early 2025.

Dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” during his years as New Labour’s spin doctor, the 71-year-old will now be the key link between the prime minister and Trump’s incoming administration during a crucial time for US-UK diplomacy.

Like other senior Labour figures, Lord Mandelson has a record of criticising Donald Trump, once describing him as “little short of a white nationalist and racist”.

Those comments were the focus of Mr LaCivita’s criticism of Lord Mandelson, as he said in his post on X that the incoming ambassador “described Trump as a danger to the world and ‘little short of a white nationalist'”.

Mr LaCivita, a veteran of Republican politics with decades of experience, was a senior adviser to Trump’s 2024 election campaign but currently has no official role in the administration.

In a statement following his appointment, Lord Mandelson said: “We face challenges in Britain, but also big opportunities and it will be a privilege to work with the government to land those opportunities.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “delighted” to appoint Lord Mandelson.

“The United States is one of our most important allies and as we move into a new chapter in our friendship,” he said in a statement.

“Peter will bring unrivalled experience to the role and take our partnership from strength to strength.”

Sir Keir also thanked Dame Karen for “her invaluable service for the last four years, and in particular the wisdom and steadfast support she has given me personally since July”.

UK ambassadors are normally career diplomats or civil servants, but Downing Street said choosing a leading Labour politician “shows just how importantly we see our relationship with the Trump administration”.

It comes as senior Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith challenged the decision.

He called for an investigation to scrutinise Lord Mandelson’s appointment, his background and “whether or not this is reliable or anyway likely to cause offence in the United States”.

“He’s not a diplomatic appointee, he’s a political appointee and political appointees often carry baggage, particularly if they’ve been out of parliament and out of government for some time,” Sir Iain added.

In a recently unearthed interview with an Italian journalist in 2019, Lord Mandelson described Trump as a “reckless and a danger to the world”.

In a 2018 interview with the Evening Standard, he also called Trump “a bully”.

Since being touted as a potential candidate for the US-ambassador role, considered the most prestigious diplomatic post in the UK government, Lord Mandelson has softened his language on Trump.

In November he made a pitch on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme to create “a new relationship rather than a special one” with the US.

He also told News Agents podcast it is “absolutely essential that we establish a relationship with President Trump that enables us not only to understand and interpret what he’s doing but to influence it”.

He added that the Labour government should try to “reconnect” with Trump’s ally and tech multi-billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk, who has been critical of Sir Keir’s government, has been appointed head of new advisory team the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which is not an official government department.