Evacuations have been ordered for areas of Los Angeles east of the uncontained Palisades fire – as the Santa Ana winds that initially fueled the four-day inferno are expected to moderately pick up.

The Los Angeles fire department issued a new immediate evacuation order at 7pm local time on Friday to areas that cover Sunset Boulevard north to the Encino reservoir and from the 405 Freeway west to Mandeville Canyon.

The evacuation order covers parts of the Brentwood – one of the city’s most affluent areas – and Encino neighborhoods in west LA after the fire department warned that the Palisades fire, now at 21,596 acres, saw a “significant flare-up” on Friday evening.

The area was already under an evacuation warning, but it is now an immediate evacuation order.

“The Palisades fire has got a new significant flare-up on the eastern portion and continues to move northeast,” Capt Erik Scott of the Los Angeles fire department told KTLA.

The new evacuation order comes as the three major fires in Los Angeles remain out of control after having killed at least 11 people, displaced 200,000, and destroyed more than 10,000 homes and structures, including entire residential neighborhoods.

More than 35,000 acres – an area about two and a half times the size of Manhattan – are estimated to have been consumed by the blazes.

The new areas under evacuation orders are close to Brentwood’s Mandeville Canyon Road, a two-lane road that makes emergency access to the pricey homes difficult. The orders also encompass the Getty Center, with its priceless art collection, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A spokesperson for the J Paul Getty Trust, which funds the museum, said the institution was complying with the evacuation order and is now closed, with only emergency personnel in place.

The Veterans Affairs Medical Center in west LA says it relocated residents from its community living facility on the north campus “out of an abundance of caution”.

Earlier, US officials declared a public health emergency due to the air quality effects of the California fires.

The LA public health department said it had declared a local health emergency and issued a public health order in response “to the widespread impacts of the ongoing multiple critical fire events and windstorm conditions”. The order applies to all areas of Los Angeles county.

The department said in a statement that “the fires, coupled with strong winds, have severely degraded air quality by releasing hazardous smoke and particulate matter, posing immediate and long-term risks to public health”.

It advises anyone who must go outside for long periods of time in areas with heavy smoke or where ash is present to wear a mask.

According to the California department of forestry and fire protection, the Palisades fire is 8% contained, and the Eaton fire, affecting Altadena and Pasadena, is 3% contained. Smaller wildfires – such as the Kenneth, Hurst, Lydia and Archer fires, some of which may have been set deliberately – are more in the control of firefighters.

The Santa Ana winds that drove the wildfire destruction earlier in the week are forecast to come and go over the next several days. Strong gusts are forecast for Monday night and into Tuesday, but they are not expected to attain the 100mph strength that drove the firestorms earlier.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has ordered an inquiry into LA county’s water management after reports emerged that a critical reservoir was offline when the fires started, leaving some emergency hydrants with low water pressure before running dry.

A spokesperson for the water and power department confirmed on Friday that the Santa Ynez reservoir, which helps supply water in the Pacific Palisades, was offline for scheduled maintenance when the Palisades fire ignited.

“We need answers to how that happened,” Newsom said in a letter dated 10 January to the heads of the Los Angeles department of water and power and Los Angeles county public works.

As California state and federal agencies lag in their response to the widespread wildfires that erupted this week in Los Angeles, a network of grassroots organizations and small businesses have launched their own disaster relief efforts – from coordinating overnight evacuation services to delivering essential supplies to victims and frontline workers.

After the fires began burning, the worker-owners at All Power Books decided on Tuesday night to convert the leftist bookstore cooperative into a warehouse for emergency resources.

Over the next 48 hours, residents all over the city packed the community space with box after box of canned food, masks, blankets, sleeping bags and toiletries. Organizers transported supplies to survivors at different churches and evacuation shelters; they delivered bottled water and snacks to firefighters, many of whom are serving out a sentence as they battle the blazes.

“We’ve already seen how crucially underprepared the city government is in dealing with social service,” said Savannah Boyd, a co-founder of All Power Books, which is based in the West Adams neighborhood.

“We knew we were going to have to start organizing for mutual aid.”

The bookstore’s central location in south LA and proximity to the I-10 freeway, Boyd said, made it an ideal fit for a centralized “donations hub” where donors and mutual aid groups can coordinate supply dropoffs and deliveries.

By Thursday afternoon, Boyd said the bookstore had to stop accepting donations, as deliveries have maxed out its storage capacity.

Fueled by ferocious Santa Ana winds, the series of blazes that tore through Los Angeles county on Tuesday and Wednesday burned more than 30,000 acres of land and killed at least 10 people. The Palisades and Eaton fires, which destroyed more than 10,000 structures, were both among the five most destructive fires in California history. Other fires spread in Woodley, Lidia and Sunset. More than 180,000 people were ordered to evacuate.

Many mutual aid drives have emerged from a deep frustration with elected officials. Months before these deadly fires, the city cut the fire department’s budget by $17.5m while bumping the police department’s budget by $126m.

“The city started off this chain of events,” said Howie Galper, a lead organizer of the political group the People’s Struggle San Fernando Valley. “The politics of LA is to ignore the people, and this is the end result.”

The People’s Struggle functions as a “grassroots 911 dispatch” center, Galper said. Donations totaled more than $2,500, which organizers used to secure materials requested by evacuation shelters, such as toys for children or sanitary products for women. People can also donate their own supplies at various dropoff locations in the San Fernando valley. The group typically operates with fewer than 20 core members, Galper said, but more than 100 volunteers have joined since the fires.

In addition to the dispatches, the People’s Struggle also operates a 24-hour hotline for victims looking for evacuation rides. A network of drivers across the greater LA area, Galper said, has transported more than 40 people out of the Pacific Palisades, Eaton and West Hills.

A host of other LA-based community groups are also spearheading mutual aid efforts.

It’s Bigger Than Us, a Black-led non-profit based in Inglewood, delivers water and resources to first responders while also running a distribution hub. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network is raising money for immigrant workers afected by the fires. Lagartijas Climbing Crú, a collective of Black, Latino, Asian and Indigenous rock climbers, created a crowdsourced spreadsheet to connect people with evacuees who need supplies including blankets and clothes.

“We know that minorities are usually the first ones affected by disasters but have the hardest path to getting back up,” said Lagartijas founder Anuardi J Cantre Santiago.

More than a dozen LA restaurants, including Oy Bar in Studio City and Teleferic Barcelona in Brentwood, are offering free meals to evacuees. The South LA Cafe is providing free groceries. The charity Baby2Baby has provided more than 1m emergency supplies, including diapers and formulas, for displaced children and families.

Pasadena Human, which is accepting donations, has been evacuating and housing animals injured and displaced by the fires. The shelter has taken in more than 100 animals for emergency boarding.

To facilitate direct donations to evacuees, GoFundMe has a centralized hub with all verified fundraisers related to the wildfires, as well as an annual Wildfire Relief Fund that dispenses cash grants to victims.

Other fundraisers include the Los Angeles fire department’s wildfire emergency fund, the Eaton Canyon Fire Relief and Recovery Fund and the California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund.

The White House is working to reach a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas before president-elect Trump’s inauguration, William Burns, the director of the CIA, has suggested.

“Negotiations going on right now are quite serious and do offer the possibility, at least, of getting this done in the next couple of weeks,” Burns said in an interview with National Public Radio on Friday. “This administration worked very hard at that right up until 20 January. I think the coordination with the new administration on this issue has been good. President-elect Trump has made clear his interest in trying to get a deal, you know, before his inauguration.”

The CIA director’s interview with Mary Louise Kelley on NPR’s All Things Considered took place as Israel and Hamas appeared to be edging closer towards a ceasefire and hostage release deal that could bring the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip to an end amid reports of optimism among decision-makers.

Hamas said on Monday that it had given mediators a list of 34 Israeli captives who were seized during the group’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war, and who could be freed as part of the “first phase of a prisoner exchange deal”.

The list included the remaining women, children and older and injured people, Hamas said, although Israel said the militant group had yet to convey whether those named were alive or dead.

“I’ve learned the hard way not to get my hopes up about the ceasefire hostage negotiations,” Burns said. “I do think there remains a chance to get a deal. The gaps between the parties have narrowed.”

Several rounds of talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar have failed to produce a lasting ceasefire. Officials have repeatedly voiced optimism that a breakthrough was close only for the negotiations to founder.

Hamas insists that any negotiations to secure the release of hostages must form part of a comprehensive pact to end the hostilities in Gaza, while the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is seeking a more segmented agreement, aiming for a deal that would see the liberation of some, though not all, hostages, while simultaneously preserving Israel’s prerogative to recommence hostilities against Hamas upon the deal’s expiration.

In recent weeks, the issue of the hostages and a ceasefire agreement have been at the heart of an intense debate in the Israeli media. Critics accuse Netanyahu of deliberately stalling the deal, ostensibly to await Trump’s assumption of office.

Western intelligence services estimate that at least one-third of the remaining 95 or so Israeli captives in Gaza have been killed. Despite the latest talks, Israel has stepped up airstrikes on the Palestinian territory that killed at least 100 people last weekend, local health officials said.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Netanyahu “is betting that Trump’s pressure campaign will bring Hamas to its knees”, but noting how “the prime minister has been wrong many times before about the impact of different events on the group’s negotiating positions”.

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Israeli thinktank the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, told Agence-France Presse earlier this week: “I cannot foresee significant progress until President Trump assumes office.”

Trump’s return to office could prove advantageous for Netanyahu’s expansionist policies, particularly regarding settlement expansion and potential annexation in the West Bank.

Trump has said there will be “hell to pay” if Hamas does not release its hostages before he takes office, suggesting he is seeking a deal before the inauguration day.

On Friday, the mediator Qatar said had it briefed Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, about the Gaza ceasefire talks.

In their meeting in Doha, the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and Witkoff discussed “the latest developments in the region, especially the efforts aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip”, the Qatari foreign ministry said.

Conditions in Gaza, where almost all of the population on 2.3 million are living in makeshift accommodation, are deteriorating in the face of cold and wet winter weather, which has caused flooding.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed at least 46,537 Palestinians and wounded 109,571 since 7 October 2023, the Palestinian territory’s health ministry said on Saturday. About 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage in the Hamas attack.

Germany is battling to secure a heavily loaded tanker stranded off its northern coast, which it says is part of Russia’s sanctions-busting “shadow fleet”.

The 274-metre-long Eventin was sailing from Russia to Egypt with almost 100,000 tonnes of oil on board when its engine failed and it lost the ability to manoeuvre overnight Thursday to Friday, according to Germany’s central command for maritime emergencies.

As the vessel drifted in coastal waters Friday, the foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, criticised Russia’s use of “dilapidated oil tankers” to avoid sanctions on its oil exports, calling it a threat to European security.

Three tugs have linked up with the Eventin and are attempting to steer it north-east, away from the coast and towards a safer area where there is “more sea space”, the command said.

On Saturday morning it said the Eventin and the accompanying tugs were “still north of [the island of] Ruegen and moving eastwards”.

The whole convoy was “travelling slowly” at a rate of about 1-2 knots, or 2.5 km/h, to safer waters north-east of Ruegen’s Cape Arkona, the commando said.

It added that there were winds of 6 to 7 on the Beaufort scale in the area and that “stormy gusts” were expected to continue, while waves were around 2.5 metres (8ft) high.

“Once the position has been reached the convoy will wait out the strong winds,” the statement said.

No oil leaks were detected by several surveillance overflights, authorities said on Friday.

Although the tanker was navigating under the Panamanian flag, the German foreign ministry linked it to Russia’s “shadow fleet” used to avoid western sanctions on its oil exports over its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Baerbock said “by ruthlessly deploying a fleet of rusty tankers, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is not only circumventing the sanctions, but is also willingly accepting that tourism on the Baltic Sea will come to a standstill” in the event of an accident.

Western countries have hit Russia’s oil industry with an embargo and banned the provision of services to ships carrying oil by sea.

In response, Russia has relied on tankers with opaque ownership or without proper insurance to continue lucrative oil exports.

The number of ships in the “shadow fleet” has exploded since the start of the war in Ukraine, according to the Atlantic Council, a US thinktank.

In addition to direct action against Russia’s oil industry, western countries have moved to impose sanctions on individual ships thought to be in the shadow fleet.

The EU has so far imposed sanctions on more than 70 ships thought to be ferrying Russian oil.

The US and Britain on Friday moved to impose restrictions on about 180 more ships in the shadow fleet.

Throughout Roger Thiberville’s long life, he never once visited the Normandy town that gave him his last name. Descended from a family of vineyard owners, he inherited property in Paris from his parents and worked as a meteorologist.

But when Thiberville died in August at the age of 91 leaving no descendants, the mayor of the town (population 1,773) received a phone call. Thiberville the man had left Thiberville the town most of his estimated €10m fortune.

Guy Paris, the mayor of Thiberville, said astonished and delighted locals and officials were now considering how to spend the unexpected windfall, which is five times the municipality’s annual budget. “It’s an exceptional sum of money. Obviously the amount is beyond imagination,” Paris told the local radio station, France Bleu. “We don’t yet know what we will do with it.

“We’re not going to spend it all. We’re going to manage this dowry as we’ve always done with our municipal budget – with prudence and responsibility.”

The French commune is now looking to pay off a bank loan of more than €400,000 used to build a new primary school. Because the town is a public body it will not have to pay any inheritance tax.

Paris said it appeared Thiberville’s only link with the town was his name and that he understood the town’s benefactor had lived “humbly in Paris”, where he owned four apartments in the city’s south-eastern 15th arrondissement. Perhaps surprisingly, there are no known photographs of him. Thiberville’s only stated wish was for his ashes to be placed in a memorial in the commune’s cemetery.

“Monsieur Thiberville did not demand anything in return for his legacy, but we owe him at least that,” the mayor said.

Thiberville is an unremarkable town boasting a late-19th-century château and a former ribbon factory, but little else to mark it out from other Norman communes.

The nearest major attraction is the grand Basilica at Lisieux – 16km to the west – constructed in honour of Saint Thérèse and opened in the 1950s.

Paris said: “We have projects: a public garden with a play area, a boules ground with solar panels that will serve as shade, the renovation of the elementary school, a synthetic football pitch…”

While Thiberville celebrated its good fortune, the neighbouring villages of Le Planquay and La Chapelle-Hareng may be regretting a decision not to merge with the town in order to receive subsidies reserved for communes with more than 2,000 inhabitants. The plan was rejected by neighbouring councillors, meaning Thiberville will not be sharing its inheritance.

Democrats are harboring strong feelings of stress and gloom as the new year begins. And many are questioning whether their party’s commitment to diverse candidates – especially women – may lead to further political struggles as Donald Trump is sworn in for a second presidency on 20 January.

A recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that a significant number of Democrats believe that it may be decades before the United States will get its first female president.

Specifically, about four in 10 Democrats said it’s “not very likely” or “not at all likely” that a woman will be elected to the nation’s highest office in their lifetime, according to the poll. That’s compared with about one-quarter of Republicans who feel the same.

While despondency is hardly unique for a political party after a high-profile loss, that finding reflects the deep depression that has set in among Democrats about the country and their party after Trump soundly defeated Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

Such concerns may already be shaping the Democratic National Committee (DNC)’s search for a new leader. For the first time in more than a decade, the top candidates for the job are all white men.

And looking further ahead, the party’s pessimism is influencing early conversations about the contest for the 2028 presidential nomination.

“We knew men hated women. The last election showed, for some of us, that we underestimated the extent to which some women hate other women,” said Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a Democratic state representative from South Carolina and former president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. “America is as racist and misogynist as it has always been.”

Democrats have nominated a woman to run against Trump in two of the past three presidential elections. In both cases, Trump won decisively, over Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024. The Democrat who unseated Trump – Joe Biden in 2020 – was a white man.

Adding insult to injury for many Democrats was the long list of allegations brought by women against Trump. He was found liable in civil court for sexual abuse and convicted of felonies in a hush-money case involving an adult film star. He was once caught on tape bragging that he could grab women’s genitals without consent because he was a celebrity.

Still, Trump narrowly carried every key swing state in November. Harris had the advantage among women, winning 53% to Trump’s 46%, but that margin was somewhat narrower than Biden’s. Trump’s support held steady among white women, with slightly more than half supporting him, similar to 2020.

Most Democrats – about seven in 10 – believe 2025 will be a worse year for the US than 2024, the AP-NORC poll found. That’s compared with about four in 10 US adults who feel that way.

The poll also found that Democrats were less likely to be feeling “happy” or “hopeful” about 2025 for them personally. Instead, about four in 10 Democrats said “stressed” described their feelings extremely or very well, while roughly one-third of Democrats said this about the word “gloomy.”

Meanwhile, majorities of Republicans and conservatives said “happy” described how they feel about 2025. A similar share said the same about “hopeful”.

“It’s so dark out there right now,” said poll respondent Rachel Wineman, a 41-year-old Democrat from Murrieta, California. “My family and I are circling the wagons, trying to keep our heads down and survive.”

There are early signs that this loss has triggered questions about a core commitment of the modern-day Democratic party to support minority groups, including women, while pushing diverse candidates into positions of power.

Some Democratic leaders fear that Trump’s strong success with working-class white voters – and his modest gains among Blacks and Latinos in the election – may signal a political realignment that could transform the political landscape for years to come unless the party changes its approach.

The vote for a DNC chairperson offers the first clue as to the direction of the party during the second Trump administration. The election is three weeks away, and the leading candidates are Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin state party chairperson, and Ken Martin, the Minnesota state party chairperson.

Either would be the first white man in the job since Virginia US senator Tim Kaine left the position in 2011, five years before he was Clinton’s running mate.

Martin and Wikler are considered the strong frontrunners in a field of eight candidates who qualified for a DNC candidate forum Saturday, the first of four such gatherings before the 1 February election at the committee’s winter meeting in suburban Washington.

Two candidates are women: former presidential contender Marianne Williamson and Quintessa Hathaway, a former congressional candidate, educator and civil rights activist.

The outgoing chair, Jaime Harrison, who is Black, said in a statement that the committee will be well positioned to compete in future elections and push back against Trump’s policies.

“Democrats stand ready to hold him accountable,” Harrison said. “We will continue to invest in all 50 states to build power from the local level on up and elect Democrats across the country.”

Democrats are harboring strong feelings of stress and gloom as the new year begins. And many are questioning whether their party’s commitment to diverse candidates – especially women – may lead to further political struggles as Donald Trump is sworn in for a second presidency on 20 January.

A recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that a significant number of Democrats believe that it may be decades before the United States will get its first female president.

Specifically, about four in 10 Democrats said it’s “not very likely” or “not at all likely” that a woman will be elected to the nation’s highest office in their lifetime, according to the poll. That’s compared with about one-quarter of Republicans who feel the same.

While despondency is hardly unique for a political party after a high-profile loss, that finding reflects the deep depression that has set in among Democrats about the country and their party after Trump soundly defeated Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

Such concerns may already be shaping the Democratic National Committee (DNC)’s search for a new leader. For the first time in more than a decade, the top candidates for the job are all white men.

And looking further ahead, the party’s pessimism is influencing early conversations about the contest for the 2028 presidential nomination.

“We knew men hated women. The last election showed, for some of us, that we underestimated the extent to which some women hate other women,” said Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a Democratic state representative from South Carolina and former president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. “America is as racist and misogynist as it has always been.”

Democrats have nominated a woman to run against Trump in two of the past three presidential elections. In both cases, Trump won decisively, over Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024. The Democrat who unseated Trump – Joe Biden in 2020 – was a white man.

Adding insult to injury for many Democrats was the long list of allegations brought by women against Trump. He was found liable in civil court for sexual abuse and convicted of felonies in a hush-money case involving an adult film star. He was once caught on tape bragging that he could grab women’s genitals without consent because he was a celebrity.

Still, Trump narrowly carried every key swing state in November. Harris had the advantage among women, winning 53% to Trump’s 46%, but that margin was somewhat narrower than Biden’s. Trump’s support held steady among white women, with slightly more than half supporting him, similar to 2020.

Most Democrats – about seven in 10 – believe 2025 will be a worse year for the US than 2024, the AP-NORC poll found. That’s compared with about four in 10 US adults who feel that way.

The poll also found that Democrats were less likely to be feeling “happy” or “hopeful” about 2025 for them personally. Instead, about four in 10 Democrats said “stressed” described their feelings extremely or very well, while roughly one-third of Democrats said this about the word “gloomy.”

Meanwhile, majorities of Republicans and conservatives said “happy” described how they feel about 2025. A similar share said the same about “hopeful”.

“It’s so dark out there right now,” said poll respondent Rachel Wineman, a 41-year-old Democrat from Murrieta, California. “My family and I are circling the wagons, trying to keep our heads down and survive.”

There are early signs that this loss has triggered questions about a core commitment of the modern-day Democratic party to support minority groups, including women, while pushing diverse candidates into positions of power.

Some Democratic leaders fear that Trump’s strong success with working-class white voters – and his modest gains among Blacks and Latinos in the election – may signal a political realignment that could transform the political landscape for years to come unless the party changes its approach.

The vote for a DNC chairperson offers the first clue as to the direction of the party during the second Trump administration. The election is three weeks away, and the leading candidates are Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin state party chairperson, and Ken Martin, the Minnesota state party chairperson.

Either would be the first white man in the job since Virginia US senator Tim Kaine left the position in 2011, five years before he was Clinton’s running mate.

Martin and Wikler are considered the strong frontrunners in a field of eight candidates who qualified for a DNC candidate forum Saturday, the first of four such gatherings before the 1 February election at the committee’s winter meeting in suburban Washington.

Two candidates are women: former presidential contender Marianne Williamson and Quintessa Hathaway, a former congressional candidate, educator and civil rights activist.

The outgoing chair, Jaime Harrison, who is Black, said in a statement that the committee will be well positioned to compete in future elections and push back against Trump’s policies.

“Democrats stand ready to hold him accountable,” Harrison said. “We will continue to invest in all 50 states to build power from the local level on up and elect Democrats across the country.”

The man widely believed to be the real victor of last year’s presidential election in Venezuela has accused Nicolás Maduro of staging a coup and “crowning himself dictator” after the South American autocrat claimed another six years in power.

Maduro, a former union leader who has governed since 2013, in increasingly authoritarian fashion, was sworn in for a third term on Friday, despite claims that he stole the election from the actual winner, the retired diplomat Edmundo González.

The governments of Argentina, Canada, the US and Peru are among those to have recognised González as Venezuela’s rightful president-elect, while the EU, UK, Brazil and Colombia have refused to recognise Maduro’s claim to victory.

González, who was forced into exile during a wave of government repression that followed the 28 July vote, criticised Maduro’s power grab in a video message to supporters on Friday night.

“Maduro has violated the constitution and the sovereign will of the ​Venezuelans … He has executed a coup d’état and crowned himself dictator. The people aren’t with him and no government considered democratic is with him – only the dictators of Cuba, [the Democratic Republic of the] Congo and Nicaragua,” said González, a 75-year-old retired diplomat.

González has published detailed voting tallies that offer convincing evidence he won last year’s election by a wide margin, while Maduro has offered no proof of his supposed victory. But Venezuela’s military and security forces have stood by their increasingly isolated commander-in-chief despite opposition calls for them to switch sides.

At a televised ceremony on Friday attended by thousands of “anti-imperialist combatants”, the leaders of the armed forces and police declared their fealty to Maduro. “We are immortal. We are invincible. We are indestructible,” Maduro proclaimed.

In his address, González said Maduro’s “cowardly and unscrupulous” regime, which is widely blamed for crashing Venezuela’s economy and causing one of the biggest migration crises in Latin America’s modern history, was entering its dying days.

“Soon, very soon, no matter what they do, we will return to Venezuela and put an end to this tragedy … I promise that we will not fail you,” González said, claiming the opposition was “coordinating with all of the indispensable actors to ensure the swift return of freedom”.

González, who visited the Dominican Republic and Panama on the eve of Maduro’s inauguration, did not disclose his location but said he was “very close to Venezuela” and would return home “at the right time”.

“Freedom always defeats tyranny,” he said.

Flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air plane that crashed in South Korea in December, killing 179 people, stopped recording about four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at Muan airport, the transport ministry said.

Authorities investigating the disaster, the worst plane crash on South Korean soil, plan to analyse what caused the black boxes to stop recording, the ministry said.

The voice recorder was initially analysed in South Korea, and, when data was found to be missing, was then sent to a US National Transportation Safety Board laboratory, the ministry said.

The damaged flight data recorder was taken to the US for analysis in cooperation with the US safety regulator, the ministry said.

Jeju Air flight 7C2216, which departed the Thai capital, Bangkok, for Muan in south-western South Korea, belly-landed and overshot the regional airport’s runway, exploding into flames after hitting an embankment.

The pilots told air traffic control the aircraft had suffered a bird strike and declared an emergency about four minutes before it crashed. Two injured crew members, sitting in the tail section, were rescued.

Sim Jai-dong, a former transport ministry accident investigator, said the discovery of the missing data from the crucial final minutes was surprising and suggested all power including backup may have been cut, which is rare.

The transport ministry said other data was available and would be used in the investigation, which it said would be transparent, with information being shared with the victims’ families.

Some members of the victims’ families have said the ministry should not take the lead in the investigation, but that it should involve independent experts, including those recommended by the families.

The investigation of the crash has also focused on the embankment, which was designed to prop up the “localiser” system, used to assist aircraft landing, raising questions as to why it was built with such rigid material and so close to the end of the runway.

One of the four illegally released lynx captured in the Scottish Highlands has died overnight.

The lynx was humanely captured near Kingussie in the Cairngorms national park on Friday but the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) said it had later died.

Dr Helen Senn, the head of conservation at the RZSS, said: “After extensive efforts to capture these animals safely and humanely, we were very sad to discover that one of them has died overnight.

“We do not yet know the circumstances behind its death but will be carrying out a postmortem to try to establish what happened.

“Whatever the case, this unfortunate development just serves to further demonstrate the folly of abandoning these amazing animals in the wild, with no preparation or real concern for their welfare.

“We can only imagine the stress that all four of the recovered lynx must have experienced after being thrust into an entirely new and extremely harsh environment to fend for themselves.

“Our team of expert keepers and veterinarians will now ensure that they get the best possible care moving forward.”

The surviving lynx of the pair has been taken to Edinburgh zoo to join the others for a period of quarantine.

The RZSS said the captured lynx were tame and used to humans.

Senn added: “I’d like to say a massive thank you to the local community who have been amazing throughout this entire episode, rallying around at short notice and supporting the team through some extremely challenging conditions.”

Steve Micklewright, the chief executive of Trees for Life which is a member of the Lynx to Scotland partnership, said: “We await the postmortem results, but the tragic death of one of these beautiful, charismatic animals shows why illegal animal abandonment like this is so irresponsible and wrong. We hope the other three lynx are safe and well following the superb efforts of experts in trapping them so rapidly.

“This sorry saga is a reminder why an official future reintroduction of lynx to the Highlands must be properly managed with habitat assessments, public consultation, and a government licence. This would be a huge win for Scotland in the fight against extinction, and allow it to join other European nations in benefiting from the return of these stunning, shy animals which are a vital missing part of our ecosystems.”

Police Scotland said inquiries into how the lynx ended up in the area were continuing, and officers and wildlife experts would continue to examine the area where the animals were found.

Following a week in which Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was getting rid of factchecking, as of Friday the company is also terminating its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, effective immediately.

An internal memo from Meta acknowledged that “the legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing”, while pointing to recent supreme court decisions and the “charged” view some have of DEI as a concept. Axios and Business Insider first reported the memo. While Meta confirmed to the Guardian the company is ending its DEI practices, the company did not respond to a request for a comment about how the decision aligns with its overarching goals.

In the memo, Janelle Gale, vice-president of human resources, wrote that the company would be ending several programs that targeted minority groups, including the Diverse Slate Approach, which she said “is currently being challenged” and representation goals, both of which have been used to promote diverse hiring practices.

Silicon Valley’s lack of race and gender diversity has long been acknowledged. According to the company’s most recent diversity report, under previous efforts, Meta doubled the number of Black and Hispanic employees in the US two years ahead of its goal, increasing from 3.8% and 5.2% to 4.9% and 6.7%, respectively. Per the new announcement, Meta will no longer enact specific diverse hiring practices.

The company is ending its equity and inclusion training programs and totally disbanding a team that was focused on DEI.

In addition to ending internal equity measures, the memo announced that the company would be terminating their supplier diversity efforts.

“This effort focused on sourcing from diverse-owned businesses; going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting small and medium sized businesses that power much of our economy,” the memo reads. “Opportunities will continue to be available to all qualified suppliers, including those who were part of the supplier diversity program.”

The decision to end diversity efforts came even as Meta’s own AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles noted the company’s need for a more representative team.

“My creators’ team is predominately White, cisgender and male – a total of 12 people: 10 White men, 1 white woman and 1 Asian man. Zero Black creators – a pretty glaring omission given my identity!” Liv, a Black AI profile, wrote to journalist Karen Attiah. AI bots can “hallucinate”, or respond with false information, so Liv’s assessment of her development team may not be fully accurate. However, Meta’s four person AI advisory board is made up of four white men.

“A team without Black creators designing a Black character like me is trying to draw a map without walking the land – inaccurate and disrespectful.”

The move comes after Zuckerberg has joined other Silicon Valley leaders in cozying up to Donald Trump. Meta pledged a $1m donation to the president-elect’s 20 January inauguration. Earlier this week, UFC president and CEO Dana White, a Trump ally, was added to the company’s board.

Meta is one of several companies ending DEI efforts, including McDonald’s, Walmart, Ford and Lowe’s. Many of those companies have voluntarily walked back their diversity initiatives, while others were specifically targeted by far-right groups.

A convention of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party was met by protests as it launched its campaign in Germany’s elections.

AfD is holding a two-day gathering in Riesa – in the eastern state of Saxony, one of the party’s strongholds – to formally nominate its co-leader Alice Weidel as candidate for chancellor and to finalise details of its platform.

A heavy police presence was in place as thousands of demonstrators were expected. Officers partly broke up a sit-in blockade at a crossroads, and fireworks were thrown toward police on the sidelines of another protest, the German news agency dpa reported.

Polls show AfD in second place, with about 20% support, in the run-up to the 23 February elections. However, Weidel, who this week held a live chat on X with the tech billionaire Elon Musk, has no realistic chance of becoming Germany’s leader as other parties refuse to work with AfD.

The conservative opposition Union bloc leads polls on about 30%, and its candidate, Friedrich Merz, is the favourite to become the next chancellor.

The incumbent centre-left chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is hoping for victory, but there has been little sign of significant movement in the polls, which show support for his Social Democrats at between 14% and 17%.

Scholz leads a minority government after his unpopular and rancorous three-party coalition collapsed in November when he fired his finance minister in a dispute over how to revitalise Germany’s stagnant economy. The elections are being held seven months earlier than originally scheduled.