On Friday evening, a man ploughed a car into a crowd of shoppers at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg.

The attack killed five people, including a nine-year-old child, and left more than 200 injured, with many in a critical condition.

One man has been arrested and is currently being questioned, German authorities confirmed. Police believe he acted alone.

• Live updates: Follow live updates on this story
• News story: Five dead, more than 200 injured in car attack on German Christmas market
• Eyewitness account: Witness saw car hit boyfriend in attack

At 19:02 local time (18:02 GMT), the first call to emergency services was made.

The caller reported that a car had driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in the middle of town.

The caller assumed it was an accident, police said, but it soon became clear this wasn’t the case.

The driver, police said, had used traffic lights to turn off the road and onto a pedestrian crossing, leading him through an entry point to the market which was reserved for emergency vehicles, injuring a number of people on the way.

Unverified footage on social media showed the driver speeding the vehicle through a pedestrian walkway between Christmas stalls.

Eyewitnesses described jumping out of the car’s path, fleeing or hiding.

Police said the driver then returned to the road the way he came in and was forced to stop in traffic. Officers already at the market were able to apprehend and arrest the driver here.

Footage showed armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground next to a stationary vehicle – a black BMW with significant damage to its front bumper and windscreen.

The entire incident was over in three minutes, police said.

A nine-year-old child and four adults are confirmed to have died in the attack.

More than 200 people have been injured and at least 41 of those are in a critical condition.

The toll had earlier been reported as two dead and 68 injured, but was revised to the much higher totals on Saturday morning.

None of the victims have been identified yet.

German media has identified the suspect as Taleb A, a psychiatrist who lives in Bernburg, around 40km (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

The motive behind the attack remains unclear, but authorities have reported that they believe he carried out the attack alone.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, he arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.

Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters that it was “clear to see” that the suspect holds “Islamophobic” views.

The suspect is an outspoken critic of Islam on social media, and has promoted conspiracy theories regarding an alleged plot by German authorities to islamicise Europe.

A report from Der Spiegel said a complaint was filed against Taleb A with the authorities a year ago over statements which officials concluded did not constitute a concrete threat.

“The reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears,” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on social media platform X.

Magdeburg’s city councillor for public order, Ronni Krug, said the Christmas market will stay closed and that “Christmas in Magdeburg is over”, according to German public broadcaster MDR.

That sentiment was echoed on the market’s website, which in the wake of the attack featured only a black screen with words of mourning, announcing that the market was over.

The Saudi government expressed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”, in a statement on X, and “affirmed its rejection of violence”.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “horrified by the atrocious attack in Magdeburg”, adding that his thoughts were with “the victims, their families and all those affected” in a post on X on Friday night.

Jamil Hassan, one of the most feared men in Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, wanted for the torture and killing of civilians, was shaking as he walked down the stairs of his apartment block.

Outside, the 72-year-old climbed into a car in a small convoy with his family and a handful of security guards, just a few suitcases between them.

His neighbour and her teenage son watched.

“I knew the moment I saw them flee that Assad had fallen,” she says.

When we entered Hassan’s apartment a few days later, signs of the family’s hasty departure were everywhere.

In the fridge was a half-eaten carrot cake with a knife still on the plate. The beds were strewn with clothes and empty shoeboxes. Flowers wilted in a vase in the dining room, and cups and plates had been left to dry by the sink.

A framed photo of a smiling Hassan and Assad hung on the wall of the study, with text reading: “Our skies are for us and forbidden to others”.

Hassan, referred to as “the butcher” by many civilians on his street, was one of Assad’s most menacing enforcers. He led the Air Force Intelligence and oversaw a network of detention facilities including the notorious Mezzeh Prison, where detainees were routinely tortured.

He is one of many senior regime figures wanted or sanctioned around the world who have abandoned their homes in affluent areas of Damascus and vanished.

Finding these men who ruled Syria with an iron fist will be difficult. Some fear they will strike political deals abroad and evade justice.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the campaign to topple the regime, has vowed to search for them inside Syria. Rebels aligned with the group now occupy Hassan’s apartment and a handwritten note on the front door warns people not to enter.

When we asked them where Hassan might have gone, one grinned and replied: “I don’t know – to Hell.”

Many apartment shutters on Hassan’s quiet street in central Damascus are now closed. Knocks on doors go unanswered.

Those who will speak tell us about their fear at living on a street with a wanted war criminal. “We were so afraid to talk,” says the woman who watched him flee. “It was terrifying to live next to them.”

Hassan is wanted in the US for “engaging in conspiracy to commit cruel and inhuman treatment of civilian detainees, including US citizens”. He was convicted in absentia earlier this year in France for his role in imprisoning, disappearing and torturing two Syrian-French nationals. Germany wants him too. An Interpol Red Notice shows a photograph of Hassan alongside a note that he is wanted for “conspiracy to commit war crimes”.

He was placed under travel bans and had his assets frozen over the repression of civilian protesters. In April 2011 the US says Air Force Intelligence personnel fired tear gas and live ammunition at protesting crowds in Damascus and other cities, killing at least 43.

People on the street describe a formidable figure who was unapproachable and always surrounded by guards.

A makeshift security post outside Hassan’s apartment building was constantly staffed by military personnel. The night before the regime collapsed, the men simply took off their uniforms and discarded their weapons, according to another neighbour.

“It was the first time I’d seen this post with no lights, no sounds, no noise,” says 27-year-old Amr al-Bakri, a filmmaker who lives with his family in the building next door.

He said locals “knew what he did to the Syrians – outside of Damascus and in Damascus – so we know it but we can’t say anything, just ‘good morning sir’. He’d say nothing back.”

Amr says his family had to give away their pet dog after Hassan’s guards threatened to kill it if it didn’t stop barking. When Amr’s family asked for the guard post to be moved from outside their home, they were told they should move house instead, he says.

The guards would run regular inspections on the street and check the bags of visitors.

“Sometimes if I had a plumber or handyman to come and fix something one of the guards would come and check if there was really something that needed to be fixed,” says the woman living in Hassan’s building.

Neighbours also say Hassan had a “golden line” for electricity that meant his family’s lights were always on, while other homes in the neighbourhood were in darkness.

The electrician called to fix any problems at the apartment says he knew Hassan over many years “but only from a distance”. “[Hassan] was very strict – a military personality,” the man says. “He was a butcher… He had no mercy.”

The man told BBC News he had been in prison – not at Mezzeh but elsewhere – and was tortured there.

A local shopkeeper, Mohammed Naoura, says he didn’t like Hassan but that you had to appear to support him.

“We are happy now,” he adds. “Nobody believed this would ever happen.”

Hussam Luka, head of the General Security Directorate (GSD), was less well-known among residents but had an apartment underneath Hassan.

His “ruthless, smooth-talking nature” reportedly earned him the nickname “the spider” – and he’s under sanctions in the EU, US and UK.

A UK sanctions list says he was “responsible for the torture of opponents in custody”, while the US Treasury Department says he “reportedly committed a number of massacres” while working in Homs.

The White House has said he is one of a small group of officials who might have information about missing American journalist Austin Tice.

At his home on Monday, rebels were dismantling furniture to be put into storage. They said they arrived after looters had already taken many of the most expensive items.

A photo of Luka and Assad remained, printed in different sizes and styles, alongside documents from security and intelligence events, and ceremonial medals and certificates from the foreign spy service in Russia – where the deposed Syrian leader Assad has fled.

“This award is to the coordinator of the mukhabarat [intelligence service] organ in the southern provinces of the Syrian Arab Republic,” one certificate naming Luka says. “You showed the utmost professionalism and put in huge effort to fulfil the duties entrusted to you for the good of the Syrian people.”

As rebels clear the apartment, a neighbour wanders in to see what’s happening.

When asked what she knows about the regime official, she replies: “We keep to ourselves, they keep to themselves. No one in this building interacts with each other.” She walks away.

In other affluent areas more homes have been abandoned. Fridges are fully stocked, wardrobes full and in some cases travel documents left behind.

The rebels who have taken over the homes are using them as bases, and say they are also preventing further looting.

At one lavish apartment, men say they are sleeping on blankets on marble floors beneath giant chandeliers and cooking on a camp stove in its modern kitchen. Guns are propped against plush sofas and arm chairs.

“We don’t need any of this,” a rebel says, gesticulating around the room.

At another, a child peaks through the curtain of a sprawling ground-floor apartment with an outdoor swimming pool. A large family say they are occupying the space.

Perhaps the grandest home in the area is the modern labyrinthine underground dwelling of one of the country’s best-known businessmen – Khodr Taher Bin Ali, better known as Abu Ali Khodr.

Bin Ali has been sanctioned by the US, UK and EU for his role in supporting and benefiting from the Syrian regime.

His home has a lift, a full-size gym, an indoor swimming pool, hot tub and sauna, and an industrial kitchen.

In the master bedroom, there are two golden safes, with space for dozens of watches – in a drawer there is a forgotten warranty card for luxury brand Audemars Piguet. A gun case and jewellery boxes in the wardrobe are empty.

The children’s ensuite bedrooms still have toys and a Louis Vuitton handbag on the floor and homework and school reports are in the cupboards. A Quran rests on a work top with the words “A gift from the president Bashar al-Assad” inscribed on the side.

Around the corner from Bin Ali is the home of Ali Mamlouk, one of Assad’s closest associates and among the most senior and notorious members of the regime. He was reportedly given the nickname “black box” because of his control over sensitive information.

He was sentenced alongside Hassan by French judges this year for war crimes, and is also wanted in Lebanon for two explosions in 2012 in the city of Tripoli that killed and wounded dozens.

Like Luka, the White House believes Mamlouk is one of few men who could have information about Tice.

His home is padlocked shut, and rebels are more reluctant to grant entry there.

In a guard booth outside, there are notes on visitors to the property before Assad’s fall – people delivering chocolates, water and vegetables, and coming to fix the electricity.

“No one could see, no one could walk, no one could pass by this area. It’s actually the first time I’m seeing this place from up close,” says 17-year-old Mo Rasmi Taftaf, whose family own a house nearby.

“Whenever he came in or out, guards would cut the roads off,” one neighbour says.

Shouting down from a second-floor balcony, another gestures towards Mamlouk’s large home when asked about the wanted regime figure.

“It felt like there was a strange atmosphere” on the street the night before news broke that Assad had fled, he says, without elaborating.

“His security was here at the time but I saw them leave on Sunday morning – a lot of cars. Ali Mamlouk wasn’t here,” he adds, before returning inside.

Another man, who declines to give his name, says he doesn’t want to talk about the regime men.

“I just want to live in peace. I don’t want to open this book or explore all of these crimes – there would be a lot of blood.”

Many, though, do want justice.

The leader of HTS has vowed to pursue the senior regime figures in Syria and asked other countries to hand over those who fled. Those wanted elsewhere have limited places to run.

Finding the men will be a challenge.

“While there is no confirmed information on the current whereabouts of senior regime figures like Jamil Hassan, Ali Mamlouk, and others, there are concerns that such individuals could benefit from political deals that enable them to evade justice,” the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) tells the BBC.

“Some are likely to have sought refuge in allied countries, complicating future extradition efforts, while others may still be in Syria, living discreetly.”

On Hassan’s street, neighbours speculate about where the vanished war criminal has gone.

His family left few clues in the apartment. But in the office is a certificate for Hassan’s daughter signed by Hassan Nasrallah, the late leader of Lebanon-based Shia militant group Hezbollah, thanking her for her “help and support for this honourable resistance”.

Several neighbours suggest he may be hiding in Lebanon or has transited through there, while the local shopkeeper says he thinks Hassan headed for the coast, perhaps to Latakia in the north – the heartland of the minority Alawite sect to which Assad and many of his closest allies belong.

Meanwhile, Lebanese newspaper Nida al-Watan reports that Mamlouk was smuggled across the border and into the Lebanese capital Beirut by Hezbollah – a long-time ally of Syria’s Ba’ath government.

Hezbollah has not confirmed offering assistance to any regime figures, and the Lebanese government has said no Syrian officials targeted by international warrants were authorised to enter through legal crossings. Lebanese security services say Mamlouk is not in the country.

Syrian-British barrister Ibrahim Olabi says regime officials may have acquired new identities and passports, as they were powerful people backed by state institutions.

When it comes to getting justice, he adds, a lack of evidence is not the problem. It is more about finding them and getting them to a place where they can be held accountable.

The SCM says doing this will “require considerable resources, sustained political will, and international collaboration”.

Failing to do so will send a “dangerous message that crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, can go unpunished”, it adds.

Ibrahim Olabi says he is hopeful that justice will be served.

“It will absolutely be a hunt,” he says, but “the world now is a small place through social media, private investigators, political leverages”.

Hassan’s neighbours who were willing to talk say they hope he will one day be returned to Syria, far away from their street, to be punished.

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,” Ms 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 stopped using her husband’s surname, 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 residents of Mazan – the village where the Pelicots lived – 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.

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 Samantha 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 just 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.

A Houthi missile strike has injured more than a dozen people in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The Israeli military said attempts to shoot down a projectile launched from Yemen had been unsuccessful and it landed in a public park early on Saturday.

A Houthi military spokesman said the group hit a military target using a hypersonic ballistic missile.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls north-western Yemen, began attacking Israel and international shipping shortly after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians.

Israel’s military says about 400 missiles and drones have been launched at the country from Yemen since then, most of which have been shot down.

After the missile strike early on Saturday, Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s emergency medical service, said it treated 16 people who were “mildly injured” by glass shards from shattered windows in nearby buildings.

Another 14 people suffered minor injuries on their way to protected areas were also treated, it said.

Earlier this week, Israel conducted a series of strikes against what it said were Houthi military targets, hitting ports as well as energy infrastructure in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that nine people were killed in the port of Salif and the Ras Issa oil terminal.

The Houthis have vowed to continue their attacks until the war in Gaza ends.

It was one of the worst weeks of his political career, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was ringing in the season.

At the Liberal Party’s annual holiday gathering, Trudeau put on his party face, despite being blindsided the day before by the snap resignation of one of his most trusted allies, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, just hours before she was due to deliver an economic statement in Parliament.

But even as some members of his own party were calling on him to leave, the prime minister struck a resolute, defiant tone as he addressed the party faithful in his dark blue suit and tie.

He alluded to his “difficult” week, comparing it to a family fight.

He discussed being “audacious” and “ambitious” in the face of adversity, and made pointed digs at his political rival, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party of Canada.

Pundits remarked afterwards that it sounded a lot like a campaign speech, and that despite the latest political turmoil, Trudeau appears to be digging in.

That stance did not change on Friday, even after the leader of the country’s progressive New Democrat Party (NDP) Jagmeet Singh said he would introduce a motion to topple Trudeau’s government in the new year. It was the support of the NDP that had kept the Liberals in power. An election now appears imminent.

Yet Trudeau has so far given no indication that he will resign soon, though he reportedly told fellow party members that he would take time over the winter holiday to think about what to do.

Political observers say Trudeau has often shown a streak of defiance when he is under pressure, something that has helped him weather a number of controversies in his nine years in power.

And he has often been underestimated, such as when he won a majority government in 2015 at the age of 44, despite being portrayed by his political opponents as something of a dilettante.

But as pressure mounts on him to resign, some of those same experts say he may need a new strategy.

When Trudeau first ran for prime minister, three words followed him around: Just not ready.

That phrase was the tagline of an attack ad played repeatedly throughout the country as he tried to unseat the incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative who had been in power since 2004.

It conveyed common criticisms he faced at the time about his young age, his relative lack of experience and his winding path to politics.

Trudeau “sort of meandered around” in his early life before becoming a drama teacher in Vancouver, said Canadian historian Raymond Blake, seemingly insulated as the well-known and wealthy son of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

But not long after entering politics, Trudeau adopted a fighting stance.

It is a trait that some say he learned from his father, who was known for his charismatic yet combative leadership style, and who is famous for his catchphrase of “just watch me,” which he glibly told a reporter at the height of a political crisis.

“His father had an image of really being a resilient, very tough politician,” said Lawrence Martin, a long-time Canadian political columnist based in Washington DC.

The younger Trudeau went on to defy the odds himself by pulling off a historic win for his Liberal party, taking them from third-place in parliament to a majority mandate in his first federal election.

“This kind of makes him feel that he can overcome big obstacles,” said Mr Martin, adding that, politically, Trudeau operates with “a hyper amount of self-confidence”.

Trudeau’s path to power turned bumpy once he had assumed office, after he became involved in a number of political scandals.

In his first term, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould – the first indigenous woman to hold the job – quit over what she described as attempts at interference and “veiled threats” from top government officials seeking a legal favour for a firm facing a corruption trial.

As he vied for a second term in 2019, Trudeau’s re-election campaign was rocked by images that were released showing him as a younger man donning brown face on at least three occasions.

And a year later, in 2020, Trudeau faced yet another ethics scandal involving a potentially large government contract for a youth charity that had worked with Trudeau family members.

But in the face of every setback, Trudeau held on to power. He won re-election twice, making him the longest-serving leader of his G7 peers.

“Trudeau has survived so much,” Prof Blake said, noting that his political successes and leadership have won the loyalty of many in his party despite the scandals.

While Trudeau has weathered many storms, there are signs that his time may be up.

For one, history is not on his side. Only one Canadian prime minister, Sir John A MacDonald – the country’s first – served four consecutive terms.

Trudeau is also working against a sinking popularity. A September poll from Ipsos suggested around two-thirds of Canadians disapprove of him. Just 26% of respondents said Trudeau was their top pick for prime minister, putting him 19 points behind Conservative leader Poilievre.

And then there’s the slowly dwindling support within Trudeau’s own party. So far, at least 18 Liberal MPs have called for their leader to step down.

“He’s delusional if he thinks we can continue like this,” New Brunswick MP Wayne Long told reporters this week.

“It’s unfair to us MPs, it’s unfair to the ministers and most importantly it’s unfair to the country. We need to move on with a new direction and we need to reboot.”

According to Long, who has driven the push to remove Trudeau, as many as 50 of the 153 Liberal MPs want him to quit immediately. Roughly the same number are Trudeau loyalists, he said, and the rest are on the fence.

“There’s still some party loyalists who like him and, you know, want to still support him,” said Mr Martin, the DC-based columnist. “But if you had a secret vote of Liberal caucus about whether he should stay on or not, he would be defeated handily.”

The prime minister is also seemingly driven to stay by his disdain for his political opponent Poilievre, Mr Martin observed.

“He does not want to back down, and he does want to take on Pierre Poilievre, whom he detests,” he said.

Trudeau’s stubborn perseverance in the face of a dismal political forecast has drawn comparisons to outgoing US President Joe Biden, who abandoned his candidacy months before the November election only after mounting internal pressure.

Prof Blake said that Trudeau’s legacy, like Biden’s, will hinge on how he exits. Fighting a losing battle, he said, could give Trudeau “a lasting scar”. But the prime minister has a remarkable ability to survive, he noted.

“He’s been a survivor, and he hasn’t done what’s normal. Will normal – whatever it is – fall into place this time? Perhaps, but I’m not convinced.”

Trudeau’s dilemma is also similar to one faced by his father, who won three elections in a row, and went on to win a fourth after leaving power for less than a year.

But by 1984, more than 15 years after first becoming prime minister, the elder Trudeau – like his son now – faced dire polls. It seemed clear he would not win the next election if he stayed on. He decided to step down, telling the public that he made the decision after taking a walk in an Ottawa snowstorm.

Since then, the term “walk in the snow” has become synonymous with political resignation in Canada. This Christmas, it remains to be seen whether Trudeau will take his own walk.

In the midst of the scramble for a new Syria, the country’s musicians are warily eyeing the Islamist rebel leadership and hoping to build on hard-won achievements made during the almost 14-year civil war.

The conflict gave energy and focus to a nascent heavy metal scene.

As the fighting ebbed, a flourishing industry of electronic music and dance shows then rose from the ashes, leading to a resurgence of Syrian nightlife.

Now, its members are preparing to approach a government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS – a group with roots in al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. HTS said it broke years ago with its extremist past.

“We have to be organised before we go to them, because they are so organised,” said DJ and musician Maher Green. “We are willing to talk to them with logic. We are willing to talk to them with a real proposal.”

The electronic music organisers found a way to talk to the security services working for the former president, Green said.

“They didn’t understand the gathering of 50 boys and girls and dancing in such a goofy way,” he said. “We developed a relationship with them through the years to make it go in a good and peaceful way.”

The Assad regime was less tolerant with the heavy metal rockers who started up underground bands in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

They saw it as a subversive Western subculture connected with Satanism.

“I went to the intelligence force maybe three times, just because I sold this kind of music,” said Nael al-Hadidi, who owned a music shop. “They made me sign some papers that I wouldn’t do it again.”

The scrutiny shifted when the brutal suppression of Syria’s pro-democracy revolution triggered a bloody civil war.

“Before the war, even if you grew long hair, wore black T-shirts, metal dance T-shirts, the security would take you. They suspected that you were Satanic or something,” said al-Hadidi.

“After the war started, they were too busy to dig in this way. They were more afraid about the political stuff.”

This opened up space for the emergence of a vibrant heavy metal scene, the subject of a documentary by Monzer Darwish called Syrian Metal is War.

War may have energised the metal bands, but ultimately it led to a mass exodus of musicians that felt the country no longer offered a future.

“Ninety percent of my friends are now in Europe, the Netherlands and Germany,” said al-Hadidi, shaking his head.

Wajd Khair is a musician who stayed, but he quit music in 2011 when the killing started.

“It seemed that any lyrics I would write, they didn’t express what really happened, no words can express what was happening back then,” he told me.

Just last year Khair finally started playing and recording again. Now he is wondering what the Islamist leadership means for creative freedom.

“We have to be more bold,” he said when asked if he will keep a low profile until the situation becomes clearer.

“We have to be heard. We have to let all the people know that we are here. We exist. It’s not just Islamic Front and Islamic State here. I don’t think that keeping a low profile under these circumstances is good for anyone.”

Khair was encouraged by the pragmatism demonstrated in the days following the rebel takeover. “The indicators are that we are going to better place, hopefully,” he said.

But as he was speaking, we heard that HTS had closed the Opera House. “Not a good sign” if true, Khair exclaimed.

We rushed to the venue only to be told by officials outside it that this was a false alarm, that the venerable institution would open one week after the rebel victory along with other public buildings.

The HTS is certainly promising to respect rights and freedoms. It seems sensitive to the cosmopolitan culture of Damascus. State television started broadcasting Islamic chanting last week but withdrew it in less than 24 hours when social media erupted in protests.

In the square outside the Opera House, Safana Bakleh was trying to perform revolutionary songs with the choir she directs. Joined by enthusiastic youths, she handed over her drum and let them chant and sing.

“It’s maybe not going to be an easy path,” she said. “Maybe we will have some new obstacles, but we used to have corruption, we used to have dictatorship, we used to have secret police. We’re still very hopeful for the future…because we have a very, very large group of people that are opposition and artists and actors, musicians and composers and the future of Syria.”

But they do not want to exchange political authoritarianism for religious fundamentalism, said al-Hadidi.

“I hope that HTS stands by their words about freedom, because we don’t want to be another Afghanistan or another country ruled by a specific party or rulers who enforce you to (follow) some rules.”

Determined to stay part of Syria’s future, Green said it is important for the artistic community to act quickly.

“It doesn’t seem like in the first week of freeing Syria, (HTS) is willing to look for the cultural side. They have a lot of problems, they’re looking for the economy, looking for making a new government,” he said.

“We are trying to organise ourselves before they start looking at culture. So that we get there first, (and we must be) united in our opinions.”

Like others here, Green has been experimenting, mixing traditional Arabic music with electronic beats.

The culture of the Islamist rebels “is religious songs and that’s it,” he said.

“This is a little bit backward for us. We were here in Syria before the war, and inside during the war, (when) we had so many experiments. We evolved so much. We have so much mixed culture.”

Syria’s music scene revived and even thrived during the civil war – now it faces a new and unexpected test.

At London’s famous Hyde Park at around 11:00 on a crisp Saturday morning, runners gather at some benches – some tall and lean, others broad and sturdy, a few logging into the Strava app, but one common thread unites them – most of them are Nigerians of Igbo extraction.

This is the Ozo running club, formed by Igbo people to celebrate the culture of one of the largest of Nigeria’s more than 300 ethnic groups.

“We wanted to create a space where young Igbo people could connect and re-connect to their culture,” said Chibueze Odoemene, who co-founded the club with Emeka Atumonyogo, and Chigo Ogbonna.

In less than three months, the Ozo running club already has more than 300 members.

This rapid growth speaks not only to the deep desire for community, but to the significant boom of social running clubs in recent years.

Strava, the popular running app, said there had been a 59% increase in running club participation globally this year.

But for the Ozo running club, the weekly Saturday meets aren’t simply about running, pace or fitness – it’s a place where strangers become family.

Even as the runners wait to join their respective speed groups – fast, medium, slow, and walking pace – a buzz and energy cuts through the calm of the park as Afrobeats music pulses from a nearby speaker.

“Igbo kwenu!” shouts Mr Odoemene, his voice booming across the park to gather everyone’s attention.

The group responds in unison with a low, rumbling “Eyy.”

“Igbo kwezo!” he calls out again, his tone both commanding and warm.

Once more, a unified “Eyy” follows, resonating among the runners and setting the tone for the morning.

This traditional Igbo call-and-response is more than a greeting – it’s a moment of pride, a reminder of shared roots and identity that runs as deep as their commitment to each other and the weekly run.

“The chant is used as a call of unity, community, and love among all Igbo peoples,” said Mr Odoemene.

Running clubs like Ozo, which are often free, have become spaces for people to make new friends, create a community, and possibly even meet future partners.

The co-founders, who met at other Igbo social events, laugh at the prospect of a love story blossoming at their club.

“If people meet the love of their lives, that’s amazing, but the most important part for us is to build a fun community,” said Mr Odoemene.

For Francesca Ngozi Ezennolim, 21, the prospect of romance is not what brought her all the way from Reading, about 64km (40 miles) from London, on a Saturday morning, but the promise of community.

“I don’t have a lot of Igbo friends,” she said, adding: “I do have a lot of Nigerian friends – but it’s hard to find Igbo friends.”

Donning a black athletic outfit, she told the BBC she hopes the running club will fill that hole in her life.

And she is not alone.

A first-timer to the club, Jennifer Iwuamadi, 23, echoed the same sentiments.

“It’s so important to come to an Igbo run club because we get to socialise with our brothers and sisters. It’s a great way to get fit and network,” she said.

Although the Igbos are one of Nigeria’s largest ethnic groups and are prominent in the diaspora, many feel their culture is under threat. In 2006, the United Nations cultural organisation (Unesco) predicted that the Igbo language would become extinct by 2025.

However, in the UK, their numbers have risen over the last decade – from around 8,000 to 11,000, according to the Office for National Statistics.

• Nigerian novelist: How I was banned from speaking Igbo

In contrast, speakers of Yoruba, the other main language in southern Nigeria, have declined from 15,000 to 10,000 over the same period.

Nevertheless, some young Igbo people told the BBC they have struggled to make friends outside their parents’ community.

“I have so many Yoruba friends, but I want to meet people from my tribe,” Ms Ezennolim told the BBC.

“When people think about Nigerians, they don’t really think about Igbo. Nigeria is not just one piece, it’s multiple pieces,” said Mr Odoemene.

But isn’t it divisive to have a running club which focuses on Igbo culture?

The founders vehemently shake their heads.

“You don’t have to be Igbo to come to the run club,” said Mr Atumonyogo.

He adds that people from Iran, Italy, and the Caribbean have come to their sessions – and they encourage others to join in, learn about Igbo culture, ask questions, and immerse themselves in the vibrant atmosphere.

Yet, beneath the joy and camaraderie, there is a darker side to the Igbo story.

In Nigeria, many people still associate the Igbos with the 1967-70 Biafran war, which left some one million people dead after Igbo leaders in the south-east led a campaign to secede from the rest of the country.

Decades later, the wounds of the war remain raw, still shaping to some degree how Igbo people are viewed, both at home and abroad.

• Remembering the Biafra war that many prefer to forget

In his book The Trouble with Nigeria, the late Chinua Achebe, one of the most renowned Nigerian authors, who was Igbo, said: “Nigerians will probably achieve consensus on no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo.”

These words capture – in the view of many Igbos – a history of marginalisation that continues to resonate.

For them, this history underscores a deeper purpose – the desire to make their mark and amplify Igbo representation.

Uzoma Ehziem, 34, who moved to the UK almost two decades ago, said he does not feel Igbo culture gets the attention it deserves.

He is one of the club’s pacers and believes that Yoruba culture dominates what many in the UK and, globally, think of as “Nigerian”.

From the legendary Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti to the first African Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, and contemporary stars like Davido, Ayra Starr, and Tems, many of the most prominent figures in Nigerian pop culture are Yoruba.

The exception is literature, where Achebe, and contemporary Igbo authors like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Akwaeke Emezi have gained international fame.

Many in the running club feel the world should know more about the Igbo people.

“If you tell someone you are Nigerian, the first thing someone will ask is: ‘Are you Yoruba?'” Mr Ehziem said.

The club does not only organise running sessions. It has added monthly social outings for members of the community – from karaoke to dodgeball sessions and even an Igbo gala that will take place next year.

But for now the weekly running clubs have become a source of joy and camaraderie for members.

As the run winds down and all the group meet at the benches again, Mr Odoemene rounds up the runners with the same chant of unity.

Old friends catch up and new friends say hello.

People exchange phone numbers, and as they part ways, the promise to meet again next Saturday is a reminder this isn’t just a fleeting encounter but the beginning of lasting relationships rooted in community and cultural pride.

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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.

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.”

Russia says five people have been killed in a Ukrainian strike in the western Kursk region.

Ukrainian officials reported earlier that Moscow had launched a fresh missile attack on Kyiv, damaging a building hosting several embassies.

In Russia, the acting governor of the Kursk region said in addition to those killed, nine had been taken to hospital following the attack on the town of Rylsk.

Alexander Khinshtein said a cultural centre, a fitness complex, a school and homes had been damaged in the strike which took place at 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT) on Friday.

Russian officials earlier reported six killed, including a child, in Rylsk, about 25km (16 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

But in an audio message on Telegram on Saturday morning, Khinstein gave the latest update, saying there were five fatalities.

“There were no children among those [killed],” he said.

Ukrainian troops still hold parts of the Kursk region after launching a surprise cross-border offensive in early August.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Russia’s strike on Kyiv had affected the diplomatic missions of Albania, Argentina, North Macedonia, Palestine, Portugal and Montenegro. It is unclear whether the building housing them was directly targeted in the Ukrainian capital.

At least one person was killed and nine others were injured in the strike which damaged a number of buildings in the city, Ukraine’s military said. It is not thought that any of the embassy diplomats were injured.

In a verified video filmed in the Pecherskyi District, Kyiv’s second oldest Roman Catholic church, St Nicholas Cathedral. is shown with windows shattered following a nearby blast.

Ukraine’s military said Russia had launched 65 drones and missiles across the country overnight, with most shot down.

One man in Kyiv, who said he was the owner of a restaurant that suffered extensive damage following the attack, was filmed cursing the Russians as “beasts” as he surveyed the charred shell of a building in front of him.

The video was widely shared on social media.

Oksana, another resident, sent the BBC photos of her destroyed apartment, with the windows blown in and glass and brickwork strewn across the floors.

“I don’t understand how I survived,” she said.

“My balcony flew away, half my walls are gone. My neighbour is in such shock she can’t even speak. I have no words for the people who did this.”

A local journalist at the scene told the BBC that one of the buildings nearby had been used by the Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, and was likely to have been the target of the strikes, although much of the damage seen by the BBC had affected residential buildings.

In a statement confirming the attack, the Russian defence ministry said missiles had been launched at an SBU “command post” in response to a strike on a chemical plant in Russia’s Rostov Region two days ago.

But there is also speculation in Kyiv that Friday’s attack could be linked to the killing of a Russian general, Lt-Gen Igor Kirillov, in Moscow on Tuesday.

Friday’s attack come one day after Vladimir Putin’s end-of-year press conference and phone-in show, in which he threatened to launch more ballistic missiles at the Ukrainian capital.

There is concern in Ukraine that Russia could use a so-called Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile to hit Kyiv. Moscow test-fired the missile on the central city of Dnipro earlier this month.

Earlier on Friday morning, the Ukrainian authorities issued an air alert linked to the possible launch of an Oreshnik missile, and urged people in Kyiv to urgently seek shelter. It turned out to be a false alarm.

The dusty high-school football field that was supposed to be the scene of some pre-Christmas joy on Wednesday now echoes with the memories of a tragedy.

It was here that 35 children died that morning, killed in a crush after thousands turned up on the promise of free food.

Children’s sandals, torn books and broken desks litter the compound of the Islamic High School in Bashorun, a suburb of Ibadan in south-western Nigeria.

The everyday objects, abandoned in panic, serve as an eerie reminder of who was lost.

The chance to spread some cheer in these economically straitened times must have seemed like a good idea to those behind what was advertised as a funfair.

The organisers – a local radio station along with a charity belonging to Queen Naomi Ogunwusi, the ex-wife of the Ooni of Ife, a revered traditional monarch – reportedly said they would distribute food parcels to the first 5,000 who turned up.

Some families travelled up to 90 minutes and arrived before sunrise on Wednesday so as not to miss out.

“Some people slept at the school gate a night before the event because they wanted to be among the first 5,000 that would be given access to the carnival. Before 06:30, the venue had recorded the estimated number,” said Lanre Kadiri, the zonal coordinator of Nigeria’s Emergency Management Agency.

Bashorun residents told the BBC the crowd soon exceeded 5,000 with many attempting to force their way through the school gate. Parents are said to have tried to scale the fence surrounding the compound to gain access.

Within hours, pandemonium reportedly swept through the crowd and some of the children got knocked down in the ensuing frenzy.

One local, Olumide Adeniyi, turned up at 09:00 to see what was going on.

On his phone he recorded a bereft woman screaming that her child had died.

“I’m finished. Why did I even come here?” she cried while standing at the school gate.

“A man came to the carnival with two children. He told me one had died while the other was being treated in a nearby hospital for injuries,” Mr Adeniyi said.

The organisers are now in police custody. The police allege that they were not informed about the event and were not able to advise on the crowd control and safety measures.

But people here seem reluctant to point the finger of blame as they believe the funfair and the plan for the charity handouts were put together in good faith.

President Bola Tinubu has ordered an investigation.

“Our children’s safety and well-being remain paramount. No event should ever compromise their safety or take precedence over their lives,” he said.

But the poverty levels in Nigeria may mean that such events will happen again.

Food and transportation costs have more than tripled in Nigeria in the last 18 months. The global bout of inflation has been exacerbated by some of the policies of the government – designed to strengthen the economy in the long term – such as ending a fuel subsidy.

“People are suffering. It’s because of the situation of the country. It is the hunger that made them come out en masse like that,” Mr Adeniyi said.

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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.

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.

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”.

A selection of news photographs from around the world.

Jamil Hassan, one of the most feared men in Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, wanted for the torture and killing of civilians, was shaking as he walked down the stairs of his apartment block.

Outside, the 72-year-old climbed into a car in a small convoy with his family and a handful of security guards, just a few suitcases between them.

His neighbour and her teenage son watched.

“I knew the moment I saw them flee that Assad had fallen,” she says.

When we entered Hassan’s apartment a few days later, signs of the family’s hasty departure were everywhere.

In the fridge was a half-eaten carrot cake with a knife still on the plate. The beds were strewn with clothes and empty shoeboxes. Flowers wilted in a vase in the dining room, and cups and plates had been left to dry by the sink.

A framed photo of a smiling Hassan and Assad hung on the wall of the study, with text reading: “Our skies are for us and forbidden to others”.

Hassan, referred to as “the butcher” by many civilians on his street, was one of Assad’s most menacing enforcers. He led the Air Force Intelligence and oversaw a network of detention facilities including the notorious Mezzeh Prison, where detainees were routinely tortured.

He is one of many senior regime figures wanted or sanctioned around the world who have abandoned their homes in affluent areas of Damascus and vanished.

Finding these men who ruled Syria with an iron fist will be difficult. Some fear they will strike political deals abroad and evade justice.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the campaign to topple the regime, has vowed to search for them inside Syria. Rebels aligned with the group now occupy Hassan’s apartment and a handwritten note on the front door warns people not to enter.

When we asked them where Hassan might have gone, one grinned and replied: “I don’t know – to Hell.”

Many apartment shutters on Hassan’s quiet street in central Damascus are now closed. Knocks on doors go unanswered.

Those who will speak tell us about their fear at living on a street with a wanted war criminal. “We were so afraid to talk,” says the woman who watched him flee. “It was terrifying to live next to them.”

Hassan is wanted in the US for “engaging in conspiracy to commit cruel and inhuman treatment of civilian detainees, including US citizens”. He was convicted in absentia earlier this year in France for his role in imprisoning, disappearing and torturing two Syrian-French nationals. Germany wants him too. An Interpol Red Notice shows a photograph of Hassan alongside a note that he is wanted for “conspiracy to commit war crimes”.

He was placed under travel bans and had his assets frozen over the repression of civilian protesters. In April 2011 the US says Air Force Intelligence personnel fired tear gas and live ammunition at protesting crowds in Damascus and other cities, killing at least 43.

People on the street describe a formidable figure who was unapproachable and always surrounded by guards.

A makeshift security post outside Hassan’s apartment building was constantly staffed by military personnel. The night before the regime collapsed, the men simply took off their uniforms and discarded their weapons, according to another neighbour.

“It was the first time I’d seen this post with no lights, no sounds, no noise,” says 27-year-old Amr al-Bakri, a filmmaker who lives with his family in the building next door.

He said locals “knew what he did to the Syrians – outside of Damascus and in Damascus – so we know it but we can’t say anything, just ‘good morning sir’. He’d say nothing back.”

Amr says his family had to give away their pet dog after Hassan’s guards threatened to kill it if it didn’t stop barking. When Amr’s family asked for the guard post to be moved from outside their home, they were told they should move house instead, he says.

The guards would run regular inspections on the street and check the bags of visitors.

“Sometimes if I had a plumber or handyman to come and fix something one of the guards would come and check if there was really something that needed to be fixed,” says the woman living in Hassan’s building.

Neighbours also say Hassan had a “golden line” for electricity that meant his family’s lights were always on, while other homes in the neighbourhood were in darkness.

The electrician called to fix any problems at the apartment says he knew Hassan over many years “but only from a distance”. “[Hassan] was very strict – a military personality,” the man says. “He was a butcher… He had no mercy.”

The man told BBC News he had been in prison – not at Mezzeh but elsewhere – and was tortured there.

A local shopkeeper, Mohammed Naoura, says he didn’t like Hassan but that you had to appear to support him.

“We are happy now,” he adds. “Nobody believed this would ever happen.”

Hussam Luka, head of the General Security Directorate (GSD), was less well-known among residents but had an apartment underneath Hassan.

His “ruthless, smooth-talking nature” reportedly earned him the nickname “the spider” – and he’s under sanctions in the EU, US and UK.

A UK sanctions list says he was “responsible for the torture of opponents in custody”, while the US Treasury Department says he “reportedly committed a number of massacres” while working in Homs.

The White House has said he is one of a small group of officials who might have information about missing American journalist Austin Tice.

At his home on Monday, rebels were dismantling furniture to be put into storage. They said they arrived after looters had already taken many of the most expensive items.

A photo of Luka and Assad remained, printed in different sizes and styles, alongside documents from security and intelligence events, and ceremonial medals and certificates from the foreign spy service in Russia – where the deposed Syrian leader Assad has fled.

“This award is to the coordinator of the mukhabarat [intelligence service] organ in the southern provinces of the Syrian Arab Republic,” one certificate naming Luka says. “You showed the utmost professionalism and put in huge effort to fulfil the duties entrusted to you for the good of the Syrian people.”

As rebels clear the apartment, a neighbour wanders in to see what’s happening.

When asked what she knows about the regime official, she replies: “We keep to ourselves, they keep to themselves. No one in this building interacts with each other.” She walks away.

In other affluent areas more homes have been abandoned. Fridges are fully stocked, wardrobes full and in some cases travel documents left behind.

The rebels who have taken over the homes are using them as bases, and say they are also preventing further looting.

At one lavish apartment, men say they are sleeping on blankets on marble floors beneath giant chandeliers and cooking on a camp stove in its modern kitchen. Guns are propped against plush sofas and arm chairs.

“We don’t need any of this,” a rebel says, gesticulating around the room.

At another, a child peaks through the curtain of a sprawling ground-floor apartment with an outdoor swimming pool. A large family say they are occupying the space.

Perhaps the grandest home in the area is the modern labyrinthine underground dwelling of one of the country’s best-known businessmen – Khodr Taher Bin Ali, better known as Abu Ali Khodr.

Bin Ali has been sanctioned by the US, UK and EU for his role in supporting and benefiting from the Syrian regime.

His home has a lift, a full-size gym, an indoor swimming pool, hot tub and sauna, and an industrial kitchen.

In the master bedroom, there are two golden safes, with space for dozens of watches – in a drawer there is a forgotten warranty card for luxury brand Audemars Piguet. A gun case and jewellery boxes in the wardrobe are empty.

The children’s ensuite bedrooms still have toys and a Louis Vuitton handbag on the floor and homework and school reports are in the cupboards. A Quran rests on a work top with the words “A gift from the president Bashar al-Assad” inscribed on the side.

Around the corner from Bin Ali is the home of Ali Mamlouk, one of Assad’s closest associates and among the most senior and notorious members of the regime. He was reportedly given the nickname “black box” because of his control over sensitive information.

He was sentenced alongside Hassan by French judges this year for war crimes, and is also wanted in Lebanon for two explosions in 2012 in the city of Tripoli that killed and wounded dozens.

Like Luka, the White House believes Mamlouk is one of few men who could have information about Tice.

His home is padlocked shut, and rebels are more reluctant to grant entry there.

In a guard booth outside, there are notes on visitors to the property before Assad’s fall – people delivering chocolates, water and vegetables, and coming to fix the electricity.

“No one could see, no one could walk, no one could pass by this area. It’s actually the first time I’m seeing this place from up close,” says 17-year-old Mo Rasmi Taftaf, whose family own a house nearby.

“Whenever he came in or out, guards would cut the roads off,” one neighbour says.

Shouting down from a second-floor balcony, another gestures towards Mamlouk’s large home when asked about the wanted regime figure.

“It felt like there was a strange atmosphere” on the street the night before news broke that Assad had fled, he says, without elaborating.

“His security was here at the time but I saw them leave on Sunday morning – a lot of cars. Ali Mamlouk wasn’t here,” he adds, before returning inside.

Another man, who declines to give his name, says he doesn’t want to talk about the regime men.

“I just want to live in peace. I don’t want to open this book or explore all of these crimes – there would be a lot of blood.”

Many, though, do want justice.

The leader of HTS has vowed to pursue the senior regime figures in Syria and asked other countries to hand over those who fled. Those wanted elsewhere have limited places to run.

Finding the men will be a challenge.

“While there is no confirmed information on the current whereabouts of senior regime figures like Jamil Hassan, Ali Mamlouk, and others, there are concerns that such individuals could benefit from political deals that enable them to evade justice,” the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) tells the BBC.

“Some are likely to have sought refuge in allied countries, complicating future extradition efforts, while others may still be in Syria, living discreetly.”

On Hassan’s street, neighbours speculate about where the vanished war criminal has gone.

His family left few clues in the apartment. But in the office is a certificate for Hassan’s daughter signed by Hassan Nasrallah, the late leader of Lebanon-based Shia militant group Hezbollah, thanking her for her “help and support for this honourable resistance”.

Several neighbours suggest he may be hiding in Lebanon or has transited through there, while the local shopkeeper says he thinks Hassan headed for the coast, perhaps to Latakia in the north – the heartland of the minority Alawite sect to which Assad and many of his closest allies belong.

Meanwhile, Lebanese newspaper Nida al-Watan reports that Mamlouk was smuggled across the border and into the Lebanese capital Beirut by Hezbollah – a long-time ally of Syria’s Ba’ath government.

Hezbollah has not confirmed offering assistance to any regime figures, and the Lebanese government has said no Syrian officials targeted by international warrants were authorised to enter through legal crossings. Lebanese security services say Mamlouk is not in the country.

Syrian-British barrister Ibrahim Olabi says regime officials may have acquired new identities and passports, as they were powerful people backed by state institutions.

When it comes to getting justice, he adds, a lack of evidence is not the problem. It is more about finding them and getting them to a place where they can be held accountable.

The SCM says doing this will “require considerable resources, sustained political will, and international collaboration”.

Failing to do so will send a “dangerous message that crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, can go unpunished”, it adds.

Ibrahim Olabi says he is hopeful that justice will be served.

“It will absolutely be a hunt,” he says, but “the world now is a small place through social media, private investigators, political leverages”.

Hassan’s neighbours who were willing to talk say they hope he will one day be returned to Syria, far away from their street, to be punished.

On Friday evening, a man ploughed a car into a crowd of shoppers at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg.

The attack killed five people, including a nine-year-old child, and left more than 200 injured, with many in a critical condition.

One man has been arrested and is currently being questioned, German authorities confirmed. Police believe he acted alone.

• Live updates: Follow live updates on this story
• News story: Five dead, more than 200 injured in car attack on German Christmas market
• Eyewitness account: Witness saw car hit boyfriend in attack

At 19:02 local time (18:02 GMT), the first call to emergency services was made.

The caller reported that a car had driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in the middle of town.

The caller assumed it was an accident, police said, but it soon became clear this wasn’t the case.

The driver, police said, had used traffic lights to turn off the road and onto a pedestrian crossing, leading him through an entry point to the market which was reserved for emergency vehicles, injuring a number of people on the way.

Unverified footage on social media showed the driver speeding the vehicle through a pedestrian walkway between Christmas stalls.

Eyewitnesses described jumping out of the car’s path, fleeing or hiding.

Police said the driver then returned to the road the way he came in and was forced to stop in traffic. Officers already at the market were able to apprehend and arrest the driver here.

Footage showed armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground next to a stationary vehicle – a black BMW with significant damage to its front bumper and windscreen.

The entire incident was over in three minutes, police said.

A nine-year-old child and four adults are confirmed to have died in the attack.

More than 200 people have been injured and at least 41 of those are in a critical condition.

The toll had earlier been reported as two dead and 68 injured, but was revised to the much higher totals on Saturday morning.

None of the victims have been identified yet.

German media has identified the suspect as Taleb A, a psychiatrist who lives in Bernburg, around 40km (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

The motive behind the attack remains unclear, but authorities have reported that they believe he carried out the attack alone.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, he arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.

Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters that it was “clear to see” that the suspect holds “Islamophobic” views.

The suspect is an outspoken critic of Islam on social media, and has promoted conspiracy theories regarding an alleged plot by German authorities to islamicise Europe.

A report from Der Spiegel said a complaint was filed against Taleb A with the authorities a year ago over statements which officials concluded did not constitute a concrete threat.

“The reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears,” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on social media platform X.

Magdeburg’s city councillor for public order, Ronni Krug, said the Christmas market will stay closed and that “Christmas in Magdeburg is over”, according to German public broadcaster MDR.

That sentiment was echoed on the market’s website, which in the wake of the attack featured only a black screen with words of mourning, announcing that the market was over.

The Saudi government expressed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”, in a statement on X, and “affirmed its rejection of violence”.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “horrified by the atrocious attack in Magdeburg”, adding that his thoughts were with “the victims, their families and all those affected” in a post on X on Friday night.

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.

Five people have been killed, including a child, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, officials say.

Many people were critically injured, Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, told reporters on Saturday. German media reported 41 critical injuries.

Haseloff told reporters on Friday that the suspect – who was arrested – was a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.

He said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting as a lone wolf. He could not rule out further deaths due to the number of injured.

• Follow live updates on this story
• What we know so far about Magdeburg Christmas market attack
• Eyewitness saw car hit boyfriend in attack

The suspected attacker’s motive is unclear, and he has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.

Footage from the scene shows numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.

Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.

Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.

City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.

He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.

There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.

In an interview with German paper Bild, Nadine, described being at the Christmas market with her boyfriend, Marco, when the car came speeding towards them.

“He was hit and pulled away from my side,” the 32-year-old told the paper. “It was terrible.”

Meanwhile, Lars Frohmüller, a reporter for German public broadcaster MDR, told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight he saw “blood on the floor” as well as “many doctors trying to keep people warm and help them with their injuries”.

German media identified the suspect as Taleb A, a psychiatrist who lives in Bernburg, around 40km (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, he arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.

He ran a website that aimed to help other former Muslims flee persecution in their Gulf homelands.

Evidenced by social media posts, the suspect is an outspoken critic of Islam, and has promoted conspiracy theories regarding a plot to seek Islamic supremacy in Europe.

When the incident occurred, Magdeburg’s football team were playing against Fortuna Dusseldorf.

After the game finished, the team’s players united in a line in front of their supporters. A statement from the club said its “thoughts are with those affected by the terrible events and the Magdeburg Christmas market”.

Meanwhile, a minute’s silence was held at the end of a match between Bayern and RB Leipzig in Munich.

Friday’s incident is not the first time people at a Christmas market have been attacked in Germany.

In 2016, Anis Amri, a Tunisian man who failed to gain asylum in Germany and had links to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, drove a truck into crowds gathered at a church market in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring 49 others.

Two years later, a gunman opened fire on a Christmas market in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, killing five and injuring another 11 people. The gunman was shot dead by police two days later.

Only last month, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser talked about the need for “greater vigilance” at the highly popular markets – but said there were no “concrete” indications of danger.

She also reportedly pointed to tougher laws on weapons in public spaces following a knife attack in Solingen, west Germany, in August in which three people died – an incident which reignited an already fraught debate on asylum and migration in Germany.

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 stopped using her husband’s surname, 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 residents of Mazan – the village where the Pelicots lived – 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.

A Houthi missile strike has injured more than a dozen people in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The Israeli military said attempts to shoot down a projectile launched from Yemen had been unsuccessful and it landed in a public park early on Saturday.

A Houthi military spokesman said the group hit a military target using a hypersonic ballistic missile.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls north-western Yemen, began attacking Israel and international shipping shortly after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians.

Israel’s military says about 400 missiles and drones have been launched at the country from Yemen since then, most of which have been shot down.

After the missile strike early on Saturday, Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s emergency medical service, said it treated 16 people who were “mildly injured” by glass shards from shattered windows in nearby buildings.

Another 14 people suffered minor injuries on their way to protected areas were also treated, it said.

Earlier this week, Israel conducted a series of strikes against what it said were Houthi military targets, hitting ports as well as energy infrastructure in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that nine people were killed in the port of Salif and the Ras Issa oil terminal.

The Houthis have vowed to continue their attacks until the war in Gaza ends.

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.

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.”

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.

The US Senate has voted to pass a budget deal to avert what would be the first federal government shutdown since 2019, only hours after the lower House of Representatives approved the same legislation.

The budget deal was passed shortly after a midnight deadline with an overwhelming of margin of 85-11.

The bill does not include a demand from President-elect Donald Trump that lawmakers increase how much money the federal government can borrow, showing the limits of his ability to command lawmakers from his own party.

The bill now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

The Senate voted shortly after 00:30 (05:30 GMT), with most Democrats and Republicans supporting the measure.

Without a funding deal, millions of federal employees would have ended up either on temporary unpaid leave or left working without pay.

A shutdown would close or severely reduce operations for public services like parks, food assistance programmes and federally funded preschools, as well as limit assistance to aid-reliant farmers and people recovering from natural disasters.

The last government shutdown was during Trump’s first term in 2019 and lasted 35 days – the longest in US history.

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

The 118-page “American Relief Act, 2025” 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 rise 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.

It does include $100bn (£78bn) in disaster relief funds to help with hurricane recovery and other natural disasters, and allocates $10bn in aid to farmers.

Democrats in the House have criticised the involvement of Musk in the process, who they pointed out is an unelected billionaire.

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

During the debate, Republicans said they looked forward to a “new era” with Trump taking office on 20 January and Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress. Currently, the Senate remains under Democratic control.

The budget wrangling left Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson bruised as he faced 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 Musk during the negotiations.

Johnson’s remarks came shortly after 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.