Ukrainian armed forces began a surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region on Sunday, in an apparent attempt to regain the initiative on the battlefield before Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House.

Video showed Ukrainian armoured columns advancing across snowy fields towards the village of Bolshoe Soldatskoe, north-east of the Ukrainian-held Russian town of Sudzha. Vehicles could also be seen driving through empty rustic settlements.

Ukrainian officials confirmed a substantial operation was taking place. Russian military bloggers reported fierce fighting. Ukraine’s general staff said 42 combat clashes took place on Sunday in the Kursk area, with 12 continuing.

There were unconfirmed reports Ukrainian troops had entered the Russian hamlets of Berdin and Novosotnitskii. Overnight Ukrainian sappers removed mines. Extensive electronic countermeasures were used to knock out some Russian drones.

Ukraine launched a significant cross-border raid nearly six months ago into the Kursk region. It was the first time enemy tanks had penetrated Russian territory since the second world war and was a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.

Since then Russia’s army has been attempting to evict Ukrainian forces. It has had some success – recapturing about 40% of lost territory – but has been unable to push them out fully.

Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, suggested Ukraine’s latest attack had been successful. “Kursk region, good news, Russia is getting what it deserves,” he wrote on Sunday.

Andriy Kovalenko, a senior official with Ukraine’s national security and defence council, confirmed Sunday’s operation. “In the Kursk region the Russians are deeply concerned. They were attacked on multiple fronts, which came as a surprise to them,” he posted on Telegram.

Russian military bloggers speculated that Ukraine was trying to capture the Kursk nuclear power plant in the town of Kurchatov. Kyiv has previously dismissed this. The power plant is situated far away from the existing frontline.

Sunday’s operation comes before Donald Trump’s return as US president on 20 January and possible “peace” negotiations later this year. Zelenskyy has hinted that land around Kursk could play a part in any peace deal. Kyiv currently controls 585 sq km of Russian territory.

Moscow has shown few signs it is willing to stop fighting. Putin has said his territorial demands are unchanged. They include four Ukrainian regions that he “annexed” in 2022, including the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and other areas Russia does not control.

Putin’s seeming calculation is that the new US administration will cut off all military supplies to Ukraine, allowing Russian forces to make further gains in 2025.

Inside Ukraine, Russia is already advancing at the fastest rate since its full-scale 2022 invasion. Russian troops are attempting to flank the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. In the past two days they captured several outlying villages, to the south-west.

The last Ukrainian defenders were recently forced to abandon their underground stronghold in a thermal power plant in the eastern city of Kurakhove. The Russians have since captured the ruined complex, with battles taking place on Kurakhove’s outskirts.

The latest Kursk raid was made possible by freezing weather, which made it easier for Ukrainian armoured units to advance. There were reports that US-supplied Bradley fighting vehicles were deployed to ferry Ukrainian infantry to forward positions beneath a tree line.

There has been some criticism of Ukraine’s counter-invasion of Russia, at a time when exhausted Ukrainian troops have been struggling elsewhere. Ukraine’s commander in chief, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, has defended his tactics and last week visited the Kursk sector.

Syrskyi said the operation had compelled Russia to maintain a large group of forces on its own territory and to transfer reserves from other directions. He claimed Moscow had lost 38,000 personnel – killed or injured – and more than a thousand pieces of equipment.

Since August, 700 Russian soldiers and a handful of officers from the FSB spy agency have been captured in and around Kursk. This has allowed Ukraine to get back its own prisoners of war, including 189 returned just before new year, Syrskyi said.

On Saturday, Zelenskyy said Russia had lost up to a battalion of North Korean soldiers, brought in to join the fight for Kursk oblast, in just two days. They had been wiped out in the village of Makhnovka, together with Russian paratroopers, he said.

North Korean combat groups have been sent to several frontline villages south-east of Sudzha, reports suggest. According to Zelenskyy, more than 3,000 have so far been killed or wounded.

• Russia says Ukraine has launched a new attack in the Kursk region of western Russia where Russian troops have been trying to eject Ukrainian forces for the past five months. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its forces were beating back the Ukrainian forces but Russian military bloggers reported fierce fighting and some said the Russian side had come under heavy pressure. Ukraine’s general staff said 42 combat clashes took place on Sunday in the Kursk area, with 12 continuing. The head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, Andriy Yermak, posted on Telegram that there was “good news” from Kursk, adding: “Russia is getting what it deserves.” Russia’s ministry said Ukraine attacked around 0600 GMT near the village of Berdin with two tanks, a mine-clearing vehicle and 12 armoured combat vehicles with paratroops. It said two Ukrainian attacks had been repelled. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

• The Ukrainian army did not comment on the operation, simply saying in its daily report that fighting was under way in the Kursk region without elaborating. Zelenskyy said on Saturday that in two days of battles near the Kursk village of Makhnovka, “the Russian army lost up to a battalion of North Korean infantry soldiers and Russian paratroops”. Ukraine launched a cross-border raid into the Kursk region last August and Russia’s army has since recaptured only about 40% of lost territory. Ukraine’s new offensive comes as both sides seek to strengthen their negotiating hand ahead of US president-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House on 20 January, with Zelenskyy hinting that land around Kursk could play a part in any peace deal.

• Zelenskyy said security guarantees for Kyiv to end Russia’s war would only be effective if the US provides them, and that he hoped to meet Trump soon after his inauguration. He said Ukrainians were counting on Trump to force Moscow to end its war and that Russia would escalate in Europe if Washington were to quit the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) military alliance. In an interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman published on Sunday, the Ukrainian president also renewed his call for Ukraine’s Nato membership.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency reported hearing loud blasts near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant on Sunday, coinciding with reports of a drone attack on the plant’s training centre, the head of the nuclear watchdog said. It had not yet been able to confirm any impact, Rafael Mariano Grossi said, adding that reports said there were no casualties or impact on equipment.

• One person was killed and another wounded in Russian shelling of the city of Nikopol in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region on Sunday, local officials said. Downstream along the Dnipro River, at least six people were wounded when Russian troops shelled the city of Kherson, the Kherson region’s capital. Moscow sent 103 drones into Ukraine overnight to Sunday, Ukrainian officials said, with Ukraine’s air force saying 61 drones were destroyed and 42 lost, likely due to electronic jamming. Russia’s defence ministry said 61 Ukrainian drones were shot down in western Russia. No casualties were reported but Rostov’s regional governor, Yuri Slyusar, said residential buildings and cars were damaged by falling drone debris.

• Dozens of sea mammals have been found dead since last month’s Russian oil tanker spill in the Black Sea, a dolphin rescue centre said as authorities raced to contain the disaster. The spill began on 15 December, when two ageing Russian tankers were caught in a storm off the Kerch Strait linking Crimea to southern Russia. One sank and the other ran aground, pouring about 2,400 tonnes of a heavy fuel oil into the surrounding waters, authorities estimate. Russia’s Delfa centre, which rescues and rehabilitates dolphins, said on Sunday it had recorded 61 dead cetaceans – a type of aquatic mammal that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises – since the incident.

• Russia says Ukraine has launched a new attack in the Kursk region of western Russia where Russian troops have been trying to eject Ukrainian forces for the past five months. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its forces were beating back the Ukrainian forces but Russian military bloggers reported fierce fighting and some said the Russian side had come under heavy pressure. Ukraine’s general staff said 42 combat clashes took place on Sunday in the Kursk area, with 12 continuing. The head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, Andriy Yermak, posted on Telegram that there was “good news” from Kursk, adding: “Russia is getting what it deserves.” Russia’s ministry said Ukraine attacked around 0600 GMT near the village of Berdin with two tanks, a mine-clearing vehicle and 12 armoured combat vehicles with paratroops. It said two Ukrainian attacks had been repelled. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

• The Ukrainian army did not comment on the operation, simply saying in its daily report that fighting was under way in the Kursk region without elaborating. Zelenskyy said on Saturday that in two days of battles near the Kursk village of Makhnovka, “the Russian army lost up to a battalion of North Korean infantry soldiers and Russian paratroops”. Ukraine launched a cross-border raid into the Kursk region last August and Russia’s army has since recaptured only about 40% of lost territory. Ukraine’s new offensive comes as both sides seek to strengthen their negotiating hand ahead of US president-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House on 20 January, with Zelenskyy hinting that land around Kursk could play a part in any peace deal.

• Zelenskyy said security guarantees for Kyiv to end Russia’s war would only be effective if the US provides them, and that he hoped to meet Trump soon after his inauguration. He said Ukrainians were counting on Trump to force Moscow to end its war and that Russia would escalate in Europe if Washington were to quit the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) military alliance. In an interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman published on Sunday, the Ukrainian president also renewed his call for Ukraine’s Nato membership.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency reported hearing loud blasts near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant on Sunday, coinciding with reports of a drone attack on the plant’s training centre, the head of the nuclear watchdog said. It had not yet been able to confirm any impact, Rafael Mariano Grossi said, adding that reports said there were no casualties or impact on equipment.

• One person was killed and another wounded in Russian shelling of the city of Nikopol in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region on Sunday, local officials said. Downstream along the Dnipro River, at least six people were wounded when Russian troops shelled the city of Kherson, the Kherson region’s capital. Moscow sent 103 drones into Ukraine overnight to Sunday, Ukrainian officials said, with Ukraine’s air force saying 61 drones were destroyed and 42 lost, likely due to electronic jamming. Russia’s defence ministry said 61 Ukrainian drones were shot down in western Russia. No casualties were reported but Rostov’s regional governor, Yuri Slyusar, said residential buildings and cars were damaged by falling drone debris.

• Dozens of sea mammals have been found dead since last month’s Russian oil tanker spill in the Black Sea, a dolphin rescue centre said as authorities raced to contain the disaster. The spill began on 15 December, when two ageing Russian tankers were caught in a storm off the Kerch Strait linking Crimea to southern Russia. One sank and the other ran aground, pouring about 2,400 tonnes of a heavy fuel oil into the surrounding waters, authorities estimate. Russia’s Delfa centre, which rescues and rehabilitates dolphins, said on Sunday it had recorded 61 dead cetaceans – a type of aquatic mammal that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises – since the incident.

James Lee Williams, known as drag artist The Vivienne, has died at the age of 32, their public relations representative announced on Sunday.

Simon Jones posted on Instagram: “It is with immense sadness that we let you know our beloved James Lee Williams – The Vivienne, has passed this weekend.

“James was an incredibly loved, warm-hearted and amazing person. Their family are heartbroken at the loss of their son, brother and uncle. They are so proud of the wonderful things James achieved in their life and career.

“We will not be releasing any further details. We please ask that James’s family are given the time and privacy they now need to process and grieve.”

Williams, whose drag name came from their love of the fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, rose to prominence after becoming the UK drag ambassador for the US series of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2015.

They won the first UK series of the show in 2019 after lip-syncing in the final to I’m Your Man, a song by Wham!

Williams subsequently appeared in the seventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and was a finalist in the UK series of Dancing on Ice in 2023, finishing in third place.

The drag artist most recently played the Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on tour and previously appeared as the Wicked Witch of the West in the revival of the Wizard of Oz musical.

Their film credits included Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie and their TV credits included Emmerdale.

Tributes were paid to Williams on social media on Sunday.

RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage said: “Heartbreaking, I don’t know how to say how I feel.

“My darling @thevivienne_ we go back to when I started coming over here to the UK. You were always there, always laughing, always giving, always on point.

“Your laughter, your wit, your talent, your drag. I loved all of it but I loved your friendship most of all. You were a beacon to so many.”

Coronation Street star Antony Cotton said the news was “unbelievably sad”, adding: “James was a real joy to be around. We loved him, x.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Bimini Bon Boulash wrote on Instagram: “I’m so sorry I’m in total shock.”

Emmerdale actor Lisa Riley wrote on Instagram: “You incredible human … rest in peace. Never stop shining your beautiful light over us all. Love and strength to all your family. We will miss you so much.”

The ITV presenter Lorraine Kelly wrote on X: “Oh this is so sad – such a lovely, funny, whip smart and generous person. A delight to interview. My thoughts with everyone who loved The Vivienne.”

Williams, who was born in north Wales, also starred in BBC Three show The Vivienne Takes on Hollywood in 2020, which saw them make their first music video.

They were joined each week by a different celebrity, with guests including Broadway star Marissa Jaret Winokur and US comedian Bruce Vilanch.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World winner Tia Kofi said in a post on social media: “This is an incredible loss to the British drag community and to the world.

“Viv represented UK drag at its absolute finest on stage and screen internationally.

“She was a mentor, an inspiration and a friend. This shock will be felt deeply by us all. Love you Viv.”

Speaking in 2019, The Vivienne said: “My style is like a scouse wife who has come into money, she moved to LA and blew it all and then she’s had to move back to Liverpool.

“I like to have a really fierce look, but I like to be hilarious on stage so I’m kind of an old school and the new school put together which I think works.

“Comedy is definitely my trump card. My favourite trick in drag is my vocal impersonations so I do everyone from Kim Woodburn, Cilla Black, Donald Trump: you name it, I’ll do it – for the right price.”

Last January, a man who attacked Williams in a hate crime received a suspended jail sentence.

Liverpool magistrates court found that the one-punch attack by Alan Whitfield, an unemployed scaffolder, on Williams was homophobic.

Williams’s face was bruised and painful for a week, but they told the court that “luckily” they were a 6ft ex-rugby player who could take a punch.

Best film – musical or comedy

Anora
Challengers
Emilia Pérez – WINNER
A Real Pain
The Substance
Wicked

Best film – drama

The Brutalist – WINNER
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Nickel Boys
September 5

Best male actor in a film – drama

Adrien Brody, The Brutalist – WINNER
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Daniel Craig, Queer
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Best female actor in a film – drama

Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
Angelina Jolie, Maria
Nicole Kidman, Babygirl
Tilda Swinton, The Room Next Door
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here – WINNER
Kate Winslet, Lee

Best television series – drama

The Day of the Jackal
The Diplomat
Mr and Mrs Smith
Shōgun – WINNER
Slow Horses
Squid Game

Best female actor in a television series – drama

Kathy Bates, Matlock
Emma D’Arcy, House of the Dragon
Maya Erskine, Mr and Mrs Smith
Keira Knightley, Black Doves
Keri Russell, The Diplomat
Anna Sawai, Shōgun – WINNER

Best television series – musical or comedy

Abbott Elementary
The Bear
The Gentlemen
Hacks – WINNER
Nobody Wants This
Only Murders in the Building

Best television limited series, anthology series or television film

Baby Reindeer – WINNER
Disclaimer
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
The Penguin
Ripley
True Detective: Night Country

Cinematic and box office achievement

Alien: Romulus
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Deadpool & Wolverine
Gladiator II
Inside Out 2
Twisters
Wicked – WINNER
The Wild Robot

Best original song – film

Beautiful That Way, The Last Showgirl
Compress/Repress, Challengers
El Mal, Emilia Pérez – WINNER
Forbidden Road, Better Man
Kiss the Sky, The Wild Robot
Mi Camino, Emilia Pérez

Best original score – film

The Brutalist
Challengers – WINNER
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
The Wild Robot

Best director – film

Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Sean Baker, Anora
Edward Berger, Conclave
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist – WINNER
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine As Light

Best film – animated

Flow – WINNER
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
Moana 2
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot

Best male actor in a film – musical or comedy

Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
Hugh Grant, Heretic
Gabriel LaBelle, Saturday Night
Jesse Plemons, Kinds of Kindness
Glen Powell, Hit Man
Sebastian Stan, A Different Man – WINNER

Best female actor in a film – musical or comedy

Amy Adams, Nightbitch
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance – WINNER
Zendaya, Challengers

Best female actor in a television limited series, anthology series or television film

Cate Blanchett, Disclaimer
Jodie Foster, True Detective: Night Country – WINNER
Cristin Milioti, The Penguin
Sofía Vergara, Griselda
Naomi Watts, Feud: Capote vs the Swans
Kate Winslet, The Regime

Best male actor in television limited series, anthology series or television film

Colin Farrell, The Penguin – WINNER
Richard Gadd, Baby Reindeer
Kevin Kline, Disclaimer
Cooper Koch, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
Ewan McGregor, A Gentleman in Moscow
Andrew Scott, Ripley

Best film – non-English language

All We Imagine As Light
Emilia Pérez – WINNER
The Girl With the Needle
I’m Still Here
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Vermiglio

Best standup comedy on television

Jamie Foxx, Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was
Nikki Glaser, Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die
Seth Meyers, Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking
Adam Sandler, Adam Sandler: Love You
Ali Wong, Ali Wong: Single Lady – WINNER
Ramy Youssef, Ramy Youssef: More Feelings

Best screenplay – film

Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Sean Baker, Anora
Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist
Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Peter Straughan, Conclave – WINNER

Best male actor in a television series – musical or comedy

Adam Brody, Nobody Wants This
Ted Danson, A Man on the Inside
Steve Martin, Only Murders in the Building
Jason Segel, Shrinking
Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building
Jeremy Allen White, The Bear – WINNER

Best supporting male actor on television

Tadanobu Asano, Shōgun – WINNER
Javier Bardem, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
Harrison Ford, Shrinking
Jack Lowden, Slow Horses
Diego Luna, La Maquina
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear

Best supporting female actor on television

Liza Colón-Zayas, The Bear
Hannah Einbinder, Hacks
Dakota Fanning, Ripley
Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer – WINNER
Allison Janney, The Diplomat
Kali Reis, True Detective: Night Country

Best male actor in a television series – drama

Donald Glover, Mr and Mrs Smith
Jake Gyllenhaal, Presumed Innocent
Gary Oldman, Slow Horses
Eddie Redmayne, The Day of the Jackal
Hiroyuki Sanada, Shōgun – WINNER
Billy Bob Thornton, Landman

Best male actor in a supporting role in a film

Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain – WINNER
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Denzel Washington, Gladiator II

Best female actor in a television series – musical or comedy

Kristen Bell, Nobody Wants This
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Ayo Edebiri, The Bear
Selena Gomez, Only Murders in the Building
Kathryn Hahn, Agatha All Along
Jean Smart, Hacks – WINNER

Best female actor in a supporting role in a film

Selena Gomez, Emilia Pérez
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Margaret Qualley, The Substance
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez – WINNER

A French marine park has closed down definitively due to a 2021 law banning shows featuring marine mammals, leaving uncertain futures for the two last orcas in captivity in the country, hundreds of other animals and dozens of staff.

The closure of the park on Sunday was marked by a final show by its two orcas, Wikie and Keijo, who were received with rapturous applause by crowds who came for its last day of operations.

Attendance had fallen sharply in recent years but many visitors and employees alike expressed their dismay.

“Our hearts are in pieces,” said Salome Mathis, a young keeper who came to say goodbye to her former colleagues at the water park.

The two orcas – also known as killer whales – themselves face an uncertain future.

Animal activists had been angered by Marineland’s plans to transfer its two orcas to Japan, a move France’s ecology minister said she opposed over Tokyo’s more lax animal welfare laws.

The future of the 4,000 other animals of 150 different species including dolphins, sea lions, turtles and fish also remains unclear.

Marineland was hit by a firestorm of controversy in March after two of its orcas died within five months of each other.

The park, near Antibes on the French Riviera, has some 4,000 animals from 150 different species. But visitor numbers have dropped from 1.2m a year in its heyday, when it was a flagship attraction of the Cote d’Azur, to just 425,000 over the past decade.

It employed 103 permanent staff and some 500 seasonal workers.

“I understand that it’s closing with the drop in attendance, but I’m disappointed because we could have evolved differently,” said Jeremy Lo Vasco, 34, a keeper for 10 years.

“For the moment, we’re not thinking about our own fate because our priority is that the animals are well, but the hammer blow will come later.”

Vasco evoked a “snowball effect” from numerous factors including the floods of 2015 which submerged the site, the 2013 documentary film Blackfish denouncing the captivity of cetaceans, and the Covid pandemic.

These led the park’s owner, the Spanish group Parques Reunidos, to announce its definitive closure with only recreational activities to be kept during summer.

The park has said 90% of its visitors come for its orca and dolphin performances.

The closure of Marineland puts an end to a story that began when Count Roland Paulze d’Ivoy de La Poype – a hero of the second world war – opened the park entirely dedicated to marine fauna based on what he had seen in the US.

Marineland has until December 2026 to part with its two remaining orcas.

The priority is to “relocate all of the animals to the best facilities currently available”, the park has said.

A French marine park has closed down definitively due to a 2021 law banning shows featuring marine mammals, leaving uncertain futures for the two last orcas in captivity in the country, hundreds of other animals and dozens of staff.

The closure of the park on Sunday was marked by a final show by its two orcas, Wikie and Keijo, who were received with rapturous applause by crowds who came for its last day of operations.

Attendance had fallen sharply in recent years but many visitors and employees alike expressed their dismay.

“Our hearts are in pieces,” said Salome Mathis, a young keeper who came to say goodbye to her former colleagues at the water park.

The two orcas – also known as killer whales – themselves face an uncertain future.

Animal activists had been angered by Marineland’s plans to transfer its two orcas to Japan, a move France’s ecology minister said she opposed over Tokyo’s more lax animal welfare laws.

The future of the 4,000 other animals of 150 different species including dolphins, sea lions, turtles and fish also remains unclear.

Marineland was hit by a firestorm of controversy in March after two of its orcas died within five months of each other.

The park, near Antibes on the French Riviera, has some 4,000 animals from 150 different species. But visitor numbers have dropped from 1.2m a year in its heyday, when it was a flagship attraction of the Cote d’Azur, to just 425,000 over the past decade.

It employed 103 permanent staff and some 500 seasonal workers.

“I understand that it’s closing with the drop in attendance, but I’m disappointed because we could have evolved differently,” said Jeremy Lo Vasco, 34, a keeper for 10 years.

“For the moment, we’re not thinking about our own fate because our priority is that the animals are well, but the hammer blow will come later.”

Vasco evoked a “snowball effect” from numerous factors including the floods of 2015 which submerged the site, the 2013 documentary film Blackfish denouncing the captivity of cetaceans, and the Covid pandemic.

These led the park’s owner, the Spanish group Parques Reunidos, to announce its definitive closure with only recreational activities to be kept during summer.

The park has said 90% of its visitors come for its orca and dolphin performances.

The closure of Marineland puts an end to a story that began when Count Roland Paulze d’Ivoy de La Poype – a hero of the second world war – opened the park entirely dedicated to marine fauna based on what he had seen in the US.

Marineland has until December 2026 to part with its two remaining orcas.

The priority is to “relocate all of the animals to the best facilities currently available”, the park has said.

When the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was asked in an interview about the barrage of insults being directed at him and other German leaders by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, his reply was: “Don’t feed the troll.”

Speaking to the German weekly Stern, Scholz described the criticisms as nothing new. “You have to stay cool,” he said in the interview. “As Social Democrats, we have long been used to the fact that there are rich media entrepreneurs who do not appreciate social democratic politics – and do not hide their opinions.”

He said he would make no efforts to engage with Musk, who has endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in next month’s federal elections and will host a live discussion on his social media platform X with its candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel. “I don’t believe in courting Mr Musk’s favour. I’m happy to leave that to others,” he said. “The rule is: don’t feed the troll.”

It was the chancellor’s most direct response to Musk, coming days after he urged voters not to let the “owners of social media channels” decide the outcome of the general election in a New Year’s Eve address that did not mention Musk by name nor his platform X.

Since taking the reins of X, Musk has increasingly used the social media platform’s global reach to push his own political views. After spending a quarter of a billion dollars to help secure Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Musk has used his influence to back far-right and anti-establishment parties across the continent, while attacking some of its most prominent centre-left leaders.

In November, after the collapse of Scholz’s centre-left coalition, Musk called the chancellor a “fool” on X, reiterating the criticism after five people were killed and more than 200 injured in a Christmas market attack allegedly carried out by a Saudi-born assailant with far-right sympathies.

As 2024 drew to a close, Musk again took aim at Scholz, offering his view on the outcome of Germany’s election, to be held on 23 February: “Chancellor Oaf Schitz or whatever his name is will lose.”

In recent days Musk has waded into UK politics, calling on King Charles to step in and dissolve parliament as he criticised the government over child grooming cases, related to abuse by organised groups after multiple convictions of sexual offences against children between 2010 and 2014. He also said he believes Nigel Farage should be replaced as Reform leader amid reports he could donate $100m (£80m) to the party.

Scholz brushed off the comments aimed at him, pointing instead to Musk’s endorsement of the AfD. “What I find much more worrying than such insults is that Musk is supporting a party like the AfD, which is in parts rightwing extremist, which preaches rapprochement with Putin’s Russia and wants to weaken transatlantic relations,” said Scholz.

Musk’s foray into the politics of Europe’s top economy has sparked outrage in Germany and accusations of interference.

His support for the AfD – last month, he wrote on social media that “Only the AfD can save Germany” – comes months after the party was expelled from a pan-European parliamentary group of populist far-right parties after a string of controversies, including a comment by a senior AfD figure that the Nazi SS were “not all criminals”. Elements of the party have been classed as rightwing extremists by Germany’s domestic intelligence services.

Musk later doubled down on his support for the AfD. In a guest editorial in the broadsheet Welt am Sonntag, Musk defended the party and claimed it was the “last spark of hope” for Germany.

The AfD is polling second before the general election and a strong showing for the party could complicate coalition building, as mainstream parties have ruled out collaborating with the AfD at state or federal level.

Scholz also used his interview to hit back at Musk’s description last month of the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as an “anti-democratic tyrant”.

“The German president is not an anti-democratic tyrant and Germany is a strong and stable democracy – never mind what Mr Musk says,” said Scholz. “In Germany, the will of the citizens prevails, not the erratic comments of a billionaire from the USA.”

In addition to his involvement in German and UK politics, Musk has also held talks with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, whose government has been under an EU sanctions procedure since 2018 for posing a “systemic threat” to democracy and the rule of law. Musk has also criticised the judges who annulled Romania’s presidential election over suspicions of Russian interference and enthusiastically supported Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.

Organisers of New Zealand’s national day commemorating the signing of the country’s founding treaty between Māori tribes and the British crown are expecting record attendance in 2025, following a year of rising tensions over the government’s policy direction for Māori.

In February, tens of thousands of people are expected to descend on Waitangi, in New Zealand’s Northland region, to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed by Māori chiefs and the British Crown in 1840 and is instrumental in upholding Māori rights.

The 2025 event is expected to exceed last year’s record attendance, when 80,000 people travelled from across the country to Waitangi.

While some will be there in a show of force against the coalition government, which many fear is rolling back Māori rights and undermining the promises made in the treaty, attendance will not be entirely driven by anger, says Pita Tipene, the chair of the Waitangi National Trust, which manages the grounds and events.

“It is becoming much more a festival atmosphere … and people know they can come there, bring their children and grandchildren and have a good time.”

Still, Tipene hopes people will reflect on what the day means. The Waitangi event is as much a festival as it is a forum for political discussion about sovereignty, equality and history. It has often been the scene of demonstrations, with Māori protesting against the lack of progress made in tackling inequality and ongoing breaches of the treaty.

“While we want people to be enjoying themselves … let’s just remember what it’s all about and celebrate nationhood in whatever way we like.”

The signing of the treaty has been commemorated as a public holiday on 6 February since 1974, with events around the country, and a formal multi-day celebration held at the Waitangi grounds where the treaty was signed.

The prime minister, Christopher Luxon, and his coalition partners faced protest and boos during the 2024 event, which set the tone between Māori and the government for the rest of the year, and which culminated in the largest protest over Māori rights in New Zealand’s history.

In December, Luxon announced he would not be attending the 2025 event in Waitangi, instead opting to attend smaller events in different parts of the country – a decision that sparked accusations of cowardice from opposition parties.

“I have been in Waitangi the last two years, including in my first year as prime minister, so next year I have decided to head to another part of the country,” he said in a statement at the time.

“Waitangi Day is of national importance, and I am keen to join New Zealanders celebrating it in other regions.”

Other prime ministers have skipped the formal celebrations in the past, including Helen Clark, John Key and Bill English. Luxon said senior government representatives would attend events around the country, including at the grounds.

But Luxon’s decision was disappointing and, as leader of the government, he should be there, Tipene said.

“Particularly given the current political situation where the treaty principles bill is going through and there is a lot of angst in our society in general.”

The coalition government’s broader policy direction for Māori – including sweeping rollbacks to policies designed to improve Māori health and wellbeing – has prompted strident criticism. Few policies have angered Māori as much as the treaty principles bill, which proposes to radically alter the way the treaty is interpreted. The bill does not have widespread support and is unlikely to become law. However, its introduction has prompted anger from many who believe it is creating division and undermining the treaty.

Luxon’s absence would be a missed opportunity to keep the conversation going between Māori leaders and the government, Tipene said.

“We would rather that we were focusing on what nationhood is and painting a clearer vision of where we’re going as a country, particularly given that we’re fast approaching the bicentennial of the signing of [the treaty].”

Federal authorities investigating the avowed Islamic State (IS) sympathizer who carried out the New Year’s Day Bourbon Street terror attack in New Orleans said they are still investigating his potential associates elsewhere in the US and abroad.

In a news briefing, officials from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said they were pursuing leads in Houston, Atlanta and Tampa, Florida. They also revealed that Shamsud-Din Jabbar visited New Orleans twice in the months before the attack, and, on one of those trips, rode a bicycle up Bourbon Street wearing smart Meta glasses and also rode around the French Quarter neighborhood – ostensibly, officials said, to prepare for the attack that he carried out, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more.

Speaking to reporters, the FBI’s deputy assistant director of counter-terrorism, Christopher Raia, said: “All investigative details and evidence that we have now still support that Jabbar acted alone here in New Orleans. We have not seen any indications of an accomplice in the United States, but we are still looking into potential associates in the US and outside of our borders.”

Raia went on to reveal the itineraries of several trips – including his ultimate target – that Jabbar, 42, took prior to the deadly attack.

In 2023, Jabbar traveled to Cairo, the Egyptian capital, from 22 June to 3 July, according to Raia. He then flew to Canada on 10 July and returned to the US three days later.

Then in 2024, Jabbar made at least two trips to New Orleans – one in October and then another in November. Beginning 30 October, while the city celebrated Halloween, Jabbar stayed at a rental home in New Orleans and was in the city at least two days during that time, Raia said.

“Jabbar, using Meta glasses, recorded a video as he rode through the French Quarter on a bicycle,” Raia said. “Videos showed Jabbar during that trip in October with his Meta glasses. As we continue to learn more about that trip, we ask anyone who may have seen or interacted with him to contact us now for more information.”

One video clip released by the FBI showed Jabbar riding up Bourbon during the daytime on an unspecified date. He was about two blocks away from where he was killed in a gunfight with police who confronted him.

Another clip shows him riding on Canal Street, about two blocks away, and across the road from the entrance to Bourbon Street, where he later rounded a police cruiser blocking the street and launch the attack.

One clip showed Jabbar wearing a pair of the glasses as they recorded video. In the clip, he looked at himself in a mirror inside a home, wearing a T-shirt with the words “It all starts with VMWare vSphere” – an apparent reference to the cloud computing virtualization platform.

Raia said Jabbar was wearing the glasses – which allows users to take photos and videos, as well as live-stream hands-free – during the night of the attacks. However, Jabbar did not activate the glasses to livestream the attacks, said Raia, without elaborating.

It was only the latest ominous revelation of the weaponization of yet another tech giant’s technology in the case. Officials have said Jabbar obtained a short-term rental home where he stayed in the final hours before the attack on the Airbnb platform. And officials have said he rented the truck used in the attack on the Turo platform.

Meanwhile, the army released information showing Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger – a decorated special forces solider who died in an apparent suicide and vehicle bombing at a Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day – both served in the military branch in Afghanistan for about seven months beginning in May 2009.

Livelsberger at the time was assigned to the 10th special forces group, and Jabbar was a human resources specialist.

Jabbar and Livelsberger also served at the army’s Fort Bragg in North Carolina for about 10 months beginning in December 2012, the branch’s statement said.

Livelsberger rented the car used in the Las Vegas explosion from Turo. Despite the multiple coincidences, Raia said earlier this week: “At this point there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas.”

Journalist Steve Herman on Sunday published a screenshot of an alert saying the cases in New Orleans and Las Vegas had prompted the US military’s northern command to direct all military installations to immediately implement heightened security measures, including 100% ID checks, random inspections and suspension of the so-called trusted traveler program administered by the US customs and border protection (CBP) agency.

Authorities also disclosed more details of Jabbar’s movements on the day of the attack.

Investigators believe Jabbar crossed into Louisiana from Texas at about 2.30pm on 31 December, Raia said. He said he rented a vehicle that was seen again in Gonzales, Louisiana, a drive west of a little less than an hour from New Orleans, at about 9pm.

By 10pm, footage showed Jabbar unloading the white pickup truck in New Orleans outside of the rental home he used in the city’s St Roch neighborhood, about two miles away from Bourbon Street.

At 12.41am, Jabbar parked the truck and walked to Royal and Governor Nichols streets, one block toward the Mississippi River from the 1200 block of Bourbon. He placed the first of two homemade bombs – designed to be detonated by remote control – hidden in a cooler in about the 600 block of Bourbon Street at 1.53am.

According to federal authorities, an individual on Bourbon Street – who authorities said they have no reason to believe was involved – dragged the cooler a block to about the 700 block of Bourbon, where authorities found it after the attack.

At about 2.20am in about the 500 block of Bourbon, Jabbar placed the second homemade bomb in a cooler, authorities said. At 3.15am, Jabbar plowed the rented truck into the crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street, starting at the beginning of the 100 block and crashing in the middle of the 300 block.

The truck, authorities said, displayed an IS flag. The rifle he used in the shootout was bought privately from someone who did not know what he had planned, officials said. Officials said Jabbar – who wore body armor and a helmet – had fashioned a homemade device meant to suppress the noise of gunshots fired by the rifle.

Additionally, in regards to the devices Jabbar made, authorities said he “didn’t have access to a detonator so he used an electrical match in its place to try and set off the explosive material”.

Joshua Jackson, the ATF’s New Orleans field division’s special agent in charge, said: “The IED is not unique. The abnormality is that Jabbar used an explosive material that is set off by a detonator. Detonators are not easily accessible by the common citizen, so usually homemade bombs are made with explosive material that is set off by a flame.”

Jackson added: “Jabbar’s lack of experience and crude nature of putting the device together is the reason why he used the wrong device to set the explosives off.”

Shortly after 5am, a fire was reported at the Mandeville Street rental home. Local firefighters found explosive devices and bomb-making materials.

According to Jackson, Jabbar set the fire using an open flame just before he left. The fire began in the linen closet next to the rental home’s washer and dryer. Jabbar also placed accelerants in other rooms of the home “which we believe was intentional so that the entire residence would burn down in an attempt to destroy evidence of his crimes”, Jackson said.

Jackson also revealed that Jabbar drove from Houston to New Orleans by himself. And throughout his entire time at the rental location in New Orleans, “he was the only one seen coming and going from that location”, Jackson said.

Video footage from a doorbell camera obtained by CNN also showed Jabbar outside the rental home prior to the attack by himself.

Speaking at the briefing about the bomb-making supplies at the short-term rental, Joshua Jackson, the ATF’s New Orleans field division’s special agent in charge, said the explosive materials recovered were “all relatively common and available right here in the United States”. Those statements appeared to dispel some reporting that Jabbar had used rare explosive material not seen in the US or Europe.

Jabbar’s father had converted from Christianity to Islam. The army veteran’s name was given to him at birth, though he converted to Islam later.

All available indications were that Jabbar fell into extremism after marital and financial woes. He had previously spent more than a decade in the US army, having served in Afghanistan and having earned a global war on terrorism service medal.

Livelsberger, the Las Vegas suspect, had reportedly shown depressive symptoms after returning from a tour in Afghanistan in 2019 with a traumatic brain injury but not treated them. His wife had reportedly broken up with him after an argument over apparent infidelity less than a week before the explosion.

Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed to this report

Federal authorities investigating the avowed Islamic State (IS) sympathizer who carried out the New Year’s Day Bourbon Street terror attack in New Orleans said they are still investigating his potential associates elsewhere in the US and abroad.

In a news briefing, officials from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said they were pursuing leads in Houston, Atlanta and Tampa, Florida. They also revealed that Shamsud-Din Jabbar visited New Orleans twice in the months before the attack, and, on one of those trips, rode a bicycle up Bourbon Street wearing smart Meta glasses and also rode around the French Quarter neighborhood – ostensibly, officials said, to prepare for the attack that he carried out, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more.

Speaking to reporters, the FBI’s deputy assistant director of counter-terrorism, Christopher Raia, said: “All investigative details and evidence that we have now still support that Jabbar acted alone here in New Orleans. We have not seen any indications of an accomplice in the United States, but we are still looking into potential associates in the US and outside of our borders.”

Raia went on to reveal the itineraries of several trips – including his ultimate target – that Jabbar, 42, took prior to the deadly attack.

In 2023, Jabbar traveled to Cairo, the Egyptian capital, from 22 June to 3 July, according to Raia. He then flew to Canada on 10 July and returned to the US three days later.

Then in 2024, Jabbar made at least two trips to New Orleans – one in October and then another in November. Beginning 30 October, while the city celebrated Halloween, Jabbar stayed at a rental home in New Orleans and was in the city at least two days during that time, Raia said.

“Jabbar, using Meta glasses, recorded a video as he rode through the French Quarter on a bicycle,” Raia said. “Videos showed Jabbar during that trip in October with his Meta glasses. As we continue to learn more about that trip, we ask anyone who may have seen or interacted with him to contact us now for more information.”

One video clip released by the FBI showed Jabbar riding up Bourbon during the daytime on an unspecified date. He was about two blocks away from where he was killed in a gunfight with police who confronted him.

Another clip shows him riding on Canal Street, about two blocks away, and across the road from the entrance to Bourbon Street, where he later rounded a police cruiser blocking the street and launch the attack.

One clip showed Jabbar wearing a pair of the glasses as they recorded video. In the clip, he looked at himself in a mirror inside a home, wearing a T-shirt with the words “It all starts with VMWare vSphere” – an apparent reference to the cloud computing virtualization platform.

Raia said Jabbar was wearing the glasses – which allows users to take photos and videos, as well as live-stream hands-free – during the night of the attacks. However, Jabbar did not activate the glasses to livestream the attacks, said Raia, without elaborating.

It was only the latest ominous revelation of the weaponization of yet another tech giant’s technology in the case. Officials have said Jabbar obtained a short-term rental home where he stayed in the final hours before the attack on the Airbnb platform. And officials have said he rented the truck used in the attack on the Turo platform.

Meanwhile, the army released information showing Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger – a decorated special forces solider who died in an apparent suicide and vehicle bombing at a Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day – both served in the military branch in Afghanistan for about seven months beginning in May 2009.

Livelsberger at the time was assigned to the 10th special forces group, and Jabbar was a human resources specialist.

Jabbar and Livelsberger also served at the army’s Fort Bragg in North Carolina for about 10 months beginning in December 2012, the branch’s statement said.

Livelsberger rented the car used in the Las Vegas explosion from Turo. Despite the multiple coincidences, Raia said earlier this week: “At this point there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas.”

Journalist Steve Herman on Sunday published a screenshot of an alert saying the cases in New Orleans and Las Vegas had prompted the US military’s northern command to direct all military installations to immediately implement heightened security measures, including 100% ID checks, random inspections and suspension of the so-called trusted traveler program administered by the US customs and border protection (CBP) agency.

Authorities also disclosed more details of Jabbar’s movements on the day of the attack.

Investigators believe Jabbar crossed into Louisiana from Texas at about 2.30pm on 31 December, Raia said. He said he rented a vehicle that was seen again in Gonzales, Louisiana, a drive west of a little less than an hour from New Orleans, at about 9pm.

By 10pm, footage showed Jabbar unloading the white pickup truck in New Orleans outside of the rental home he used in the city’s St Roch neighborhood, about two miles away from Bourbon Street.

At 12.41am, Jabbar parked the truck and walked to Royal and Governor Nichols streets, one block toward the Mississippi River from the 1200 block of Bourbon. He placed the first of two homemade bombs – designed to be detonated by remote control – hidden in a cooler in about the 600 block of Bourbon Street at 1.53am.

According to federal authorities, an individual on Bourbon Street – who authorities said they have no reason to believe was involved – dragged the cooler a block to about the 700 block of Bourbon, where authorities found it after the attack.

At about 2.20am in about the 500 block of Bourbon, Jabbar placed the second homemade bomb in a cooler, authorities said. At 3.15am, Jabbar plowed the rented truck into the crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street, starting at the beginning of the 100 block and crashing in the middle of the 300 block.

The truck, authorities said, displayed an IS flag. The rifle he used in the shootout was bought privately from someone who did not know what he had planned, officials said. Officials said Jabbar – who wore body armor and a helmet – had fashioned a homemade device meant to suppress the noise of gunshots fired by the rifle.

Additionally, in regards to the devices Jabbar made, authorities said he “didn’t have access to a detonator so he used an electrical match in its place to try and set off the explosive material”.

Joshua Jackson, the ATF’s New Orleans field division’s special agent in charge, said: “The IED is not unique. The abnormality is that Jabbar used an explosive material that is set off by a detonator. Detonators are not easily accessible by the common citizen, so usually homemade bombs are made with explosive material that is set off by a flame.”

Jackson added: “Jabbar’s lack of experience and crude nature of putting the device together is the reason why he used the wrong device to set the explosives off.”

Shortly after 5am, a fire was reported at the Mandeville Street rental home. Local firefighters found explosive devices and bomb-making materials.

According to Jackson, Jabbar set the fire using an open flame just before he left. The fire began in the linen closet next to the rental home’s washer and dryer. Jabbar also placed accelerants in other rooms of the home “which we believe was intentional so that the entire residence would burn down in an attempt to destroy evidence of his crimes”, Jackson said.

Jackson also revealed that Jabbar drove from Houston to New Orleans by himself. And throughout his entire time at the rental location in New Orleans, “he was the only one seen coming and going from that location”, Jackson said.

Video footage from a doorbell camera obtained by CNN also showed Jabbar outside the rental home prior to the attack by himself.

Speaking at the briefing about the bomb-making supplies at the short-term rental, Joshua Jackson, the ATF’s New Orleans field division’s special agent in charge, said the explosive materials recovered were “all relatively common and available right here in the United States”. Those statements appeared to dispel some reporting that Jabbar had used rare explosive material not seen in the US or Europe.

Jabbar’s father had converted from Christianity to Islam. The army veteran’s name was given to him at birth, though he converted to Islam later.

All available indications were that Jabbar fell into extremism after marital and financial woes. He had previously spent more than a decade in the US army, having served in Afghanistan and having earned a global war on terrorism service medal.

Livelsberger, the Las Vegas suspect, had reportedly shown depressive symptoms after returning from a tour in Afghanistan in 2019 with a traumatic brain injury but not treated them. His wife had reportedly broken up with him after an argument over apparent infidelity less than a week before the explosion.

Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed to this report

Social order in Gaza is likely to collapse further if Israel goes ahead with its threat this month to end all cooperation with the UN refugee agency for Palestinians, Louise Wateridge, its senior emergency officer, has warned.

Wateridge, who has just returned from Gaza, described the territory as increasingly fractured and said the two Knesset bills due to come into force at the end of the month blocking cooperation with the agency would make it impossible for Unrwa to operate or to distribute aid in a war zone.

“If we’re no longer able to communicate to the Israeli authorities, we no longer have a deconfliction process in place, so none of our buildings will be de-conflicted or protected any more, and we simply won’t be able to be there,” she said.

She said the levels of lawlessness already occurring in the Kerem Shalom crossing had so far not spread across Gaza due to the societal ties Palestinians have with each other and their relationship with Unrwa.

“If people don’t have flour one day, people understand and trust that the agency will do what they can, because it’s their cousin or brother that works at Unrwa, so they know that the agency is trying to help, and it’s not that agency’s fault.

“If that agency is removed, it takes this buffer away, and what’s to say people don’t fight more? I’m surprised social order hasn’t collapsed more than it has. People have been pushed to the brink.”

Wateridge said the threat to Unrwa’s future was coming at a time when the general consensus in Gaza is that they have been abandoned by the international community. “If you speak to any person, any civilian, they feel in absolute despair,” she said. “There’s a quadcopter, then there’s a drone, it’s like a fish bowl, and you’re just having to dodge being killed. And while you’re dodging being killed, you have to get water and food for your family, and now you have to keep warm.”

She said she knew of no plan B for what may happen after the deadline for the Israel Defense Forces to end cooperation. Two bills were passed by the Knesset in October to ban Unrwa from “any activity” and to declare it a terror group after allegations by Israel that members of the Unrwa staff in Gaza were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks that led to the deaths of more than 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of hundreds more. The UN launched an investigation into the Israeli claims and fired nine Unrwa staff as a result.

“If Unrwa is no longer functioning, there’s just not any other agency that can come in,” she said. “Unrwa does something like 17,000 health consultations a day in the Gaza Strip. It’s impossible for another agency to replace that.”

She warned civil order was already breaking down in parts of Gaza. “There are areas in Kerem Shalom and around that border that are just absolutely lawless. There’s no other way to describe it. Local criminal families are operating here. We’ve had drivers killed which is absolutely appalling, and then all of the aid looted.”

She said IDF actions in Gaza were making “the living conditions as miserable as possible in every way you can imagine” after 15 months of war.

“The bombing and the strikes are one part of this war, and another huge part of the war is the undignified living. Just every aspect of society has gone.”

She added: “My friend’s sister had hepatitis A this summer, and she didn’t have fluids. There’s no fluids in the hospital, so she’s just suffering in this tent, in this heat. You hit the side of these tents, and all these cockroaches come out, and all these bugs scuttle away, and it’s just miserable, and now in winter the tents are flooded, they’ve got snakes in them, there’s rats in them, and the water is coming in, and people are sleeping on the floor with water dripping on their head in the freezing cold.”

She described meeting one tearful student who showed her the book she was studying. “She was living in a toilet in a school and she had made it home. She was using a torch light to study. She said ‘we don’t have internet. I don’t have online classes. My future is ruined. I was supposed to be going to university, and now I’m living in a toilet in a school. I am trapped’ … After so long of the war, people are realising the long-term depression and frustration that … their homes are gone. They have nothing to go back to.”

In the central town of Deir al-Balah, she said, “we have around 20,000 people inside the schools, so say five or six families in a classroom, and then outside the schools there’s around 60,000 people in the perimeter of the school because they try to access the aid supplies that the school provides … Despite all the attacks that have been on the facilities throughout the war, they do tend to go towards these facilities, but it will be about 12 bathrooms for 60,000 people.”

Northern Gaza remains off-limits to the agency, she said. In its latest update, Unrwa said that between 6 October and 30 December 2024, the UN attempted to reach besieged areas in the north 164 times; of these, 148 attempts were denied by the Israeli authorities and 16 were impeded.

Wateridge said many Palestinians displaced from the north arrived without any male members of the family, with the women saying they had either been arrested or shot.

“Some women you speak to are very quiet about it, and very subdued and almost defeated, and some are very angry. They will shout at us, which is completely fair enough, but they shout and scream in our faces and say, ‘Why? Why aren’t you doing more? Why are we just being pushed around from place to place, being told to go to a safe place when nowhere is safe?’”

Austria’s president has said he will meet the leader of the country’s far-right Freedom party (FPÖ), amid speculation that the pro-Kremlin, anti-Islam party will be tasked with trying to form a government after centrist parties failed to find agreement.

The Alpine country of 9 million has been plunged into political crisis after the collapse of coalition talks aimed at keeping the far right out of government. On Sunday it appeared the FPÖ – narrowly the most voted-for party in September’s parliamentary elections – would be most likely to benefit from the turmoil.

It would be a turn of fortune for the party, which had seemed poised to be kept out of power after the mainstream parties, including Austria’s People’s party, refused to back a government led by the FPÖ’s leader, Herbert Kickl, who during the election routinely peppered his speeches with Nazi rhetoric, railed against migrants with slogans such as “Fortress Austria” and “Austria First”, and had been previously ousted as a hardline interior minister.

Austria’s president, Alexander van der Bellen, on Sunday said he had spent several hours speaking to officials and had emerged with the impression that “the voices within the People’s party who exclude working with the Freedom party under its leader Herbert Kickl have become quieter.”

This development meant “that a new path may be opening up that did not exist before,” he added, noting that he would meet Kickl on Monday morning.

Kickl, who cites Hungary’s autocratic leader, Viktor Orbán, as a role model, has previously said his party would only join a government if he were chancellor.

He has long courted controversy and campaigned on a slogan to become “Volkskanzler” (people’s chancellor), a term once used for Adolf Hitler.

The FPÖ, founded in the 1950s and first led by a former senior SS officer and Nazi lawmaker, has promoted the idea of “remigration” – forced deportation – of immigrants and foreign-born citizens. It has also called for a stop to western support for Ukraine’s defence against Russia and to EU sanctions against Moscow.

In its most-recent election programme, titled “Fortress Austria”, it called on Austria to become a more “homogeneous” nation through tightly controlled borders and the suspension of the right to asylum via an emergency law.

The country’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer, had long insisted that his centre-right People’s party (ÖVP) would not support a government with Kickl as chancellor, describing him as a security risk and conspiracy theorist.

Following the collapse of talks between his party and the centre-left Social Democrats, Nehammer announced his intention to resign, potentially paving a path for his party to enter into a coalition with the FPÖ under new leadership. The two parties overlap on various issues, including a hard line on immigration, to the extent that the FPÖ has accused the ÖVP of stealing its ideas.

While the ÖVP has previously governed with the FPÖ as junior partners several times and continues to govern with them in five of Austria’s nine states, any alliance this time would probably force the conservatives to play a more junior role.

The FPÖ seemingly reinforced this on Sunday. “Austria needs a Chancellor Kickl now,” the far-right party wrote on social media.

The ÖVP announced on Sunday that it had nominated its general secretary, Christian Stocker, to act as interim leader after Nehammer’s announced resignation. The country’s president said Nehammer would remain chancellor for now.

Speaking to reporters soon after, Stocker, who in the past has described Kickl as a “security risk” for Austria, said his party was preparing to enter into coalition talks with the far right.

“I expect that the leader of the party with the most votes will be tasked with forming a future government. If we are invited to these (coalition) talks, we will accept this invitation,” said Stocker.

Stocker said on Sunday that his party had given him their backing to enter the talks.

“It is therefore not about Herbert Kickl or me, but about the fact that this country needs a stable government right now and that we cannot keep losing time in election campaigns or elections,” he said.

More than 1,000 patients a day in England are suffering “potential harm” because of ambulance handover delays, the Guardian can reveal.

In the last year, 414,137 patients are believed to have experienced some level of harm because they spent so long in the back of ambulances waiting to get into hospital. Of those, 44,409 – more than 850 a week – suffered “severe potential harm”, with delays causing permanent or long-term harm or death.

In total, ambulances spent more than 1.5m hours – equivalent to 187 years – stuck outside A&Es waiting to offload patients in the year to November 2024, the Guardian investigation found.

Experts said the figures were “staggering” and showed how the NHS was in a more “fragile” state than ever before, amid a “perfect storm” of record demand for A&E, soaring numbers of 999 calls, and an increasingly sicker and ageing population.

The analysis of NHS data by the Guardian and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) highlights the huge scale of the challenge facing Keir Starmer as he prepares to set out how he plans to rescue the NHS.

Anna Parry, the managing director of AACE, which represents the bosses of England’s 10 regional NHS ambulance services, said the data “speaks for itself”.

She added: “These figures underline what the ambulance sector has been saying for a long time – that thousands of patients are potentially being harmed every month as a direct result of hospital handover delays.”

Ambulance handover delays occur when ambulances arrive at A&E but are unable to hand patients over to staff due to units being busy. It also means paramedics are unable to get back on the road to attend to other patients.

The delays mean patients are either forced to wait in the back of ambulances outside or are moved into A&E but hospital staff are not available to complete the handover from paramedics.

National guidance says patients arriving at an emergency department by ambulance must be handed over to the care of A&E staff within 15 minutes.

However, the target is persistently missed, the Guardian investigation found. Crews often wait many hours and sometimes whole 12-hour shifts outside hospitals, with queueing ambulances unable to respond to other emergency calls.

Last week almost a third of patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England – 32.1% – waited at least 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams.

The Guardian analysis is the first time a media organisation has examined a whole year’s worth of data on ambulance handover delays and the potential harm caused.

Ambulance crews lost 1,641,522 hours waiting to hand over patients to A&E staff due to delays exceeding 15 minutes in the 12 months to November 2024. That figure is up 18.5% on the same period the year before, the investigation found.

AACE estimates that 414,137 patients may have come to harm as a result of delays exceeding one hour in the last year – more people than the population of Coventry, England’s ninth largest city. That figure is up 18.7% on the year before.

Of those patients who suffered potential harm, 44,409 were estimated to have come to severe harm. That number is also an 18.7% increase on the year before.

Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the findings of the Guardian investigation were “staggering” and reflected the “lack of capacity” in NHS urgent and emergency services.

“People are waiting for ambulances, waiting in ambulances and waiting on ambulance trolleys in hospital corridors because emergency departments are too full – causing potential harm.

“There needs to be an urgent focus on the ‘exit block’ – an increase in bed numbers to be able to move people from A&E to wards, and appropriate social care options to ensure people deemed medically well enough to go home, can do so.

“Only then will we see meaningful change at the front door of our hospitals.”

On Friday, NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly declared a critical incident because of long ambulance queues outside the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro and high A&E patient numbers, with many people medically fit for discharge but awaiting the right care.

Rory Deighton, the acute network director at the NHS Confederation, said the Guardian’s revelations exposed a crisis in emergency care.

“As these figures show, patients are unfortunately often having to wait too long for an ambulance, and when they do reach hospital, as we’ve seen in recent days, handovers can also be delayed with many emergency departments forced to use temporary solutions like corridor care in a bid to meet demand.”

Deighton said tackling “shortfalls in social care provision” would be crucial to cutting ambulance handover delays by speeding up discharge of hospital patients and helping more older people avoid admissions in the first place.

“But the reality is that years of underinvestment in the NHS and social care, alongside rising levels of ill health in the country, mean our local health and care services are more fragile than ever.”

Adam Brimelow, the director of communications at NHS Providers, said the figures were “very worrying”. A “perfect storm” of very high numbers of the most urgent category of 999 calls on top of record A&E attendances had led to “real capacity challenges”, he said.

“Recent months have seen some of the busiest ever for ambulance callouts and stretched teams face an uphill battle when demand goes through the roof and outstrips available resources.”

Parry said a “high-priority focus” on cutting handover delays was essential to ensure ambulances were available for those most in need. The crisis was “not intractable”, she added.

The Department of Health and Social Care said long ambulance handover delays were “completely unacceptable” and its plans to “rebuild” the NHS would improve emergency care.

A spokesperson added: “This includes the investment and reform we have announced in social care and the 1,000 extra GPs we are recruiting, which will reach patients earlier, help keep them well, and ease pressures on ambulance services.”

An NHS England spokesperson said that while handover delays had improved before this winter, there was “clearly much more still to do” to reduce “unacceptably long waits for patients” in some parts of the country.

The NHS was “prioritising the sickest patients” and doing all it could to prevent avoidable admissions, including treating patients at home where possible and only admitting patients to hospital when necessary.

Dame Sally Davies has a straightforward message about the coming year. We face a growing antibiotic emergency that could have devastating impacts on men, women and children across the globe, she says.

Davies, a former chief medical officer for England, has become a leading advocate for global action to fight the scourge of superbugs.

She told the Observer that there is a real danger that routine procedures – from surgery to childbirth – could carry widespread life-threatening risks because of the spread of bacteria that possess antimicrobial resistance (AMR). “About a million people die every year because of the spread of microbial resistance, and that figure will rise over the next 25 years,” she said. “It is really scary.”

Estimates suggest that by 2050, death rates from AMRs will have doubled, with figures indicating almost 40 million people will lose their lives to superbugs over the next 25 years, with elderly people especially at risk.

“Recent data shows AMR is going down in the under-fives, which is good news. For the over-70s, mortality rates have gone up 80% since 1990; that is very concerning.”

As the population ages, more people are living with chronic disease and that makes them more vulnerable to AMR, researchers have argued.

In the face of these threats, doctors have tried to limit prescriptions of antibiotics as much as possible while patients have been pressed to complete courses of treatments. However, medical misuse of antibiotics is not the only route by which resistance spreads. The landscape itself plays a critical role, a problem that stems from the fact that about 70% of all antibiotics are given to livestock, creating a pool of animals in which resistance can evolve.

“We’re essentially throwing antibiotics at cows and chickens and sheep as cheap alternatives to giving them growth promoters or prophylactics to prevent the spread of disease,” said Davies. Such actions help microbes to evolve, so they develop the ability to ward off antibiotics, resistance that then spreads across the globe.

“If you’ve got intensive farming where a lot of antibiotics are used or a busy hospital that has a poor sewage system, resistant bacteria can get into waterways,” added Davies. “Winds blow over these patches of contaminated land or water and pick up bacteria and genes with resistance in them, then let them rain down in other places. That is how pernicious this problem has become.”

The reason AMRs spread is a simple matter of the survival of the fittest, added Davies. “Bacteria take about 20 minutes to multiply. They also mutate a great deal, and if they do so in the presence of antibiotics and that mutation protects them, these strains will multiply. Crucially they can pass that on to any bacteria with which they make contact.”

The ease with which AMR spreads means it is becoming more and more important that we do not misuse the antibiotics we possess. It also generates a need for new antibiotics to be developed – and again this raise problems, said Davies.

“We’ve had no new classes of antibiotics come into routine use since the late 80s and the market model that would promote the creation of new ones is broken. If you develop a new antibiotic, it might be used by someone for a weekly course once a year. Where’s the profit in that?”

“By contrast, blood pressure drugs that have to be taken every day, or cancer drugs that have to be administered for months, offer pharmaceuticals far greater profits. So there is no incentive for them to try to develop new antibiotics. It is a real headache.”

The problems that lie ahead in dealing with AMR are not insurmountable, Davies insists, but they must be addressed with an increased sense of urgency. The G7 forum of industrialised nations has at least recognised the crisis. However, there is still a lack of adequate action and that needs to be tackled as an imperative in the coming year, she insists.