South Korea’s Constitutional Court has held its first hearing to decide if suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol should be removed from office after his shock martial law attempt last month.

The hearing ended within four minutes because of Yoon’s absence – his lawyers had earlier said he would not attend for his own safety, as there is a warrant out for his arrest on separate charges of insurrection.

In December, Yoon was suspended after members of his own party voted with the opposition to impeach him.

However he will only be formally removed from office if at least six of the eight-member Constitutional Court bench votes to uphold the impeachment.

According to South Korean law, the court must set a new date for a hearing before they can proceed without his participation.

The next hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Yoon’s lawyers have indicated that he will show up for a hearing at an “appropriate time”, but they have challenged the court’s “unilateral decision” on trial dates.

The court on Tuesday rejected the lawyers’ request for one of the eight justices to be recused from the proceedings.

Yoon has not commented publicly since parliament voted to impeach him on 14 December and has been speaking primarily through his lawyers.

Investigators are also separately preparing for another attempt to arrest Yoon for alleged insurrection, after an earlier attempt on 3 January ended following an hours-long standoff with his security team.

Yoon is South Korea’s first sitting president to face arrest. The second attempt to take him into custody could happen as early as this week, according to local media.

The suspended leader has not commented publicly since parliament voted to impeach him on 14 December and has been speaking primarily through his lawyers.

Yoon’s short-lived martial law declaration on 3 December has thrown South Korea into political turmoil. He had tried to justify the attempt by saying he was protecting the country from “anti-state” forces, but it soon became clear it was spurred by his own political troubles.

What followed was an unprecedented few weeks which saw the opposition-dominated parliament vote to impeach Yoon and then Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who succeeded him briefly as acting president.

The crisis has hit the country’s economy, with the won weakening and global credit rating agencies warning of weakening consumer and business sentiment.

Former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Park Geun-hye did not attend their impeachment trials in 2004 and 2017 respectively.

In Park’s case, the first hearing ended after nine minutes in her absence.

Roh was reinstated after a two-month review, while Park’s impeachment was upheld.

Starbucks says it is reversing rules for its cafes in North America that allowed people to use their facilities even if they had not bought anything.

The changes, which are set to come into force from 27 January, are a U-turn from a policy introduced six years ago that allowed people to linger in Starbucks outlets and use their toilets without making a purchase.

The move is part of the “back to Starbucks” strategy – a plan announced by the firm’s new boss as he tries to tackle flagging sales.

The world’s biggest coffee chain says its new code of conduct – which also addresses harassment and bans smoking and outside alcohol – aims to make its stores more welcoming.

“Implementing a Coffeehouse Code of Conduct… is a practical step that helps us prioritise our paying customers who want to sit and enjoy our cafes”, a Starbucks spokesperson told BBC News.

“These updates are part of a broader set of changes we are making to enhance the cafe experience as we work to get back to Starbucks.”

The company said the new rules will be displayed at every store and staff will be instructed to ask anyone who violates the code of conduct to leave. That includes allowing employees to call the police when necessary.

In 2018, Starbucks decided to allow free access to its coffee shops and toilets after the controversial arrest of two men at one of its Philadelphia cafes.

Other changes set to be introduced later this month include offering one free refill of hot or iced coffee for customers who buy a drink to consume on the premises.

Starbucks has been trying to boost flagging sales as it grappled with a backlash to price increases and boycotts sparked by the Israel-Gaza war.

Brian Niccol, who previously headed the Mexican food chain Chipotle, was brought into Starbucks last year to help turn the business around.

Mr Niccol has been trying to improve the customer experience at Starbucks’ cafes by revamping its menus and coffee shops.

Starbucks said the policy change only applied to North America and not its UK stores.

However, it has not yet responded to requests for comment on the details of its UK policy.

Ukraine struck several targets deep inside Russia on Tuesday in what it says is its “most massive” attack of the war so far.

Ammunition deports and chemical plants were hit across several regions, some of which were hundreds of kilometres from the border, according to the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

Sources in Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency told the BBC the overnight attack was a “painful blow” to Russia’s ability to wage war.

Russia said it had shot down US-supplied Atacms missiles as well as UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and vowed to respond to the attack.

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At least nine airports in central and western Russia temporarily halted traffic, while the strikes prompted schools in the southwestern Saratov region to close.

Strikes in the border region of Bryansk caused explosions at a refinery, ammunition depots and a chemical plant said to produce gunpowder and explosives, a Ukrainian security source told the BBC.

But Kyiv also struck far deeper into the country, with the General Staff claiming to have hit targets up to 1,100km (700 miles) from the border.

In the western region of Saratov, officials reported a “massive” drone attack.

Two industrial plants in the cities of Engels and Saratov were damaged, regional governor Roman V. Busargin wrote on Telegram.

Students were taught online on Tuesday after local schools were closed.

Last week, Kyiv said it had struck an oil storage facility in Engels – prompting a days-long effort to tackle the blaze and Busgarin to declare a state of emergency.

Officials in the western region of Tula also reported an overnight attack, where regional governor Dmitry V. Milyaev Russian said air defences had shot down 16 drones.

There were no casualties, he said, although falling debris had damaged some cars and buildings.

Elsewhere, a gas storage site near Kazan was struck in a drone attack in the southwestern region of Tatarstan, local officials said, without reporting any casualties.

Moscow also launched dozens of drones across Ukraine overnight, with multiple air raid alerts in and around Kyiv.

Ukraine’s Air Force said it had shot down around 60 of the 80 drones involved in the attack, which caused no casualties.

Ukraine is trying to push back, however it can, against Russian military advances on the ground, with a week to go until President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has said he is preparing to meet Vladimir Putin upon his return to the White House.

He has expressed scepticism about US military and financial support for Kyiv, and promised to prioritise negotiating an end to the war.

He has not made clear how he plans to do that.

TikTok users in the US are migrating to a Chinese app called RedNote with the threat of a ban just days away.

The move by users who call themselves “TikTok refugees” has made RedNote the most downloaded app on Apple’s US App Store on Monday.

RedNote is a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.

It has about 300 million monthly users and looks like a combination of TikTok and Instagram. It allows users, mostly young urban women, to exchange lifestyle tips from dating to fashion.

Supreme Court justices are due to rule on a law that set a 19 January deadline for TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban in the country.

TikTok has repeatedly said that it will not sell its US business and its lawyers have warned that a ban will violate free speech protections for the platform’s 170 million users in the US.

Meanwhile, RedNote has welcomed its new users with open arms. There are 63,000 posts on the topic “TikTok refugee”, where new users are taught how to navigate the app and how to use basic Chinese phrases.

“To our Chinese hosts, thanks for having us – sorry in advance for the chaos,” a new US user wrote.

But like TikTok, there have also been reports of censorship on RedNote when it comes to criticism of the Chinese government.

In Taiwan, public officials are restricted from using RedNote due to alleged security risks of Chinese software.

As more US users joined RedNote, some Chinese users have also jokingly referred to themselves as “Chinese spies”, a reference to US officials’ concerns that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.

RedNote’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, translates to Little Red Book, but the app says it is not a reference to Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s book of quotations with the same name.

But security concerns have not deterred users from flocking to RedNote.

Sarah Fotheringham, a 37-year-old school canteen worker in Utah, says the move to RedNote is a way to “snub” the government.

“I’m just a simple person living a simple life,” Ms Fotheringham told the BBC in a RedNote message.

“I don’t have anything that China doesn’t, and if they want my data that bad they can have it.”

Marcus Robinson, a fashion designer in Virginia, said he created his RedNote account over the weekend to share his clothing brand and “be ahead of the curve”.

Mr Robinson told the BBC he was was only “slightly hesitant” about accepting the terms and conditions of using the app, which were written in Mandarin.

“I wasn’t able to actually read them so that was a little concerning to me,” he said, “but I took my chance.”

While a ban will not make TikTok disappear immediately, it will require app stores to stop offering it – which could kill it over time.

But even if TikTok dodges a ban, it may prove helpless against users moving to alternative platforms.

Some social media users tell the BBC that they find themselves scrolling on RedNote more than TikTok.

“Even if TikTok does stay I will continue to use my platform I’ve created on RedNote,” Tennessee tech worker Sydney Crawley told the BBC.

Ms Crawley said she got over 6,000 followers within 24 hours of creating her RedNote account.

“I will continue to try to build a following there and see what new connections, friendships, or opportunities it brings me.”

Ms Fotheringham, the canteen worker, said RedNote “opened my world up to China and its people”.

“I am now able to see things I never would have seen,” she said. “Regular Chinese people, finding out about their culture, life, school, everything, it has been so much fun.”

The community so far has been “super welcoming”, said Mr Robinson, the designer.

“I love RedNote so far … I just need to learn how to speak Mandarin!”

Months after mysterious black balls forced the closure of some of Sydney’s most famous beaches, small marble-like debris has begun washing up on the city’s shores again.

The balls – this time grey or white in colour – have prompted councils to shut nine beaches, including popular Manly and Dee Why, while authorities investigate.

Eight beaches including Bondi were closed for several days in October and a massive clean-up ordered after thousands of black deposits started appearing on the coast.

Testing by authorities determined those balls were most likely the result of a sewage spill.

Northern Beaches mayor Sue Heins said the latest balls “could be anything”, according to the Guardian Australia.

“We don’t know at the moment what it is and that makes it even more concerning,” she said.

“There’s something that’s obviously leaking or dropping… floating out there and being tossed around.”

In a post on Facebook on Tuesday, the Northern Beaches Council said they were alerted to the fresh debris by the New South Wales Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The agency and the council planned to collect the discoveries for testing and inspect other beaches in the area too.

Anyone who spotted the balls was urged to contact authorities, the council added.

Though widely reported to be “tar balls”, the debris in October was later found to contain everything from cooking oil and soap scum molecules, to blood pressure medication, pesticides, hair, methamphetamine and veterinary drugs.

Scientists said they resembled fat, oil, and grease blobs – often called fatbergs – which are commonly formed in sewerage systems.

However Sydney Water reported there were no known issues with waste systems in the city, and authorities still don’t know the source of the material, prompting some to express concerns about the safety of the city’s beaches.

“The EPA can’t explain the source of the human waste causing the fatbergs and it can’t assure the public that Sydney’s beaches are safe to use,” state politician Sue Higginson, from the Greens party, said in a statement in December.

Spain is planning to impose a tax of up to 100% on the value of properties bought by non-residents from countries outside the EU, such as the UK.

Announcing the move, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the “unprecedented” measure was necessary to meet the country’s housing emergency.

“The West faces a decisive challenge: To not become a society divided into two classes, the rich landlords and poor tenants,” he said.

Non-EU residents bought 27,000 properties in Spain in 2023, he told an economic forum in Madrid, “not to live in” but “to make money from them”.

“Which, in the context of shortage that we are in, [we] obviously cannot allow,” he added.

The move was designed to prioritise available homes for residents, the Spanish prime minister said.

Sánchez did not provide any more details on how the tax would work nor a timeline for presenting it to parliament for approval, where he has often struggled to gather sufficient votes to pass legislation.

His office described the proposed measure as a way to limit the purchase of homes by “non-resident non-EU foreigners”. In Spain, people are classed as non-residents if they live in the country for less than 183 days in a single year.

It added: “The tax burden that they will have to pay in case of purchase will be increased up to 100% of the value of the property, in line with countries such as Denmark and Canada.”

Currently non-residents can be expected to pay 6-10% in tax on the property’s value depending on the region and if the property is new or not.

The Spanish government said the proposal would be finalised “after careful study”.

Prospective British buyers told BBC News the proposal had made them think again about buying in Spain.

Michele Hayes, from Manchester, who spent the weekend house-hunting south of Alicante, had wanted a property for family to visit and to spend time during her retirement.

“We could look at buying quickly before the tax comes in, but we don’t know what could happen in the future,” she said.

“Selling could be tough if we can no longer sell to non-residents, especially a holiday home property in a touristy area.”

The 59-year-old said she empathised with their housing issue, but said she wanted to add to the local economy and asked: “How many working Spanish people want to live in holiday homes in these tourist areas anyway?”

Martin Craven, from London, said he had been looking to buy in Spain this year.

“I definitely wouldn’t consider trying to get in before this tax, because who knows what else they could do, a retrospective tax or a tax on existing owners,” the 62-year-old said.

“I’ll be looking at Cyprus now instead.”

Julian, 54, from Surrey, said Spain was his first choice to buy a holiday home, but now it “looks more risky” than other countries.

“I would want to be out there four to six months a year, also travelling, spending money, buying food and drink, paying taxes,” the 54-year-old said.

“Here in the UK, we also have problems with landlords buying multiple properties and driving up the rest, but this policy is losing sight of those of us who want to spend money in the country. “

It is one of a dozen planned measures announced by the Spanish prime minister on Monday aimed at improving housing affordability in the country.

Other measures announced include a tax exemption for landlords who provide affordable housing, transferring more than 3,000 homes to a new public housing body, and tighter regulation and higher taxes on tourist flats.

“It isn’t fair that those who have three, four or five apartments as short-term rentals pay less tax than hotels,” Sánchez said.

Nato has launched a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year.

Nato chief Mark Rutte said the mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”, would involve more patrol aircraft, warships and drones.

His announcement was made at a summit in Helsinki attended by all Nato countries perched on the Baltic Sea – Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden.

While Russia was not directly singled out as a culprit in the cable damage, Rutte said Nato would step up its monitoring of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” – ships without clear ownership that are used to carry embargoed oil products.

Tensions between Nato countries and Russia have been mounting relentlessly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“There is reason for grave concern” over infrastructure damage, Rutte said. He added that Nato would respond to such accidents robustly, with more boarding of suspect vessels and, if necessary, their seizure.

He declined to share more details on the number of assets that will take part in the Baltic Sentry initiative, as he said this could change regularly and that he did not wish to make “the enemy any wiser than he or she is already”.

Undersea infrastructure is essential not only for electricity supply but also because more than 95% of internet traffic is secured via undersea cables, Rutte said, adding that “1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles) of cables guarantee an estimated 10 trillion-dollar worth of financial transactions every day”.

In a post on X, he said Nato would do “what it takes to ensure the safety and security of our critical infrastructure and all that we hold dear”.

There has been an uptick in unexplained damage to undersea infrastructure in the Baltic in recent months.

The most recent accident to undersea infrastructure saw an electricity cable running between Finland and Estonia be cut in late December.

Finnish coast guard crew boarded the oil tanker Eagle S – which was sailing under a Cook Islands flag – and steered it into Finnish waters, while Estonia deployed a patrol ship to protect its undersea power cable.

On Monday, Risto Lohi of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation told Reuters that the Eagle S was threatening to cut a second power cable and a gas pipe between Finland and Estonia at the time it was seized.

Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in December that damage to submarine infrastructure had become “so frequent” that it cast doubt on the idea the damage could be considered “accidental” or “merely poor seamanship”.

Tsahkna did not accuse Russia directly. Neither did Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who on Sunday said that while Sweden was not jumping to conclusions or “accusing anyone of sabotage without very strong reasons”, it was also “not naive”.

“The security situation and the fact that strange things happen time and time again in the Baltic Sea also lead us to believe that hostile intent cannot be ruled out.”

“There is little evidence that a ship would accidentally and without noticing it… without understanding that it could cause damage,” he said.

The Princess of Wales has spoken of the challenge to “get back to normal” after her cancer treatment, as she shared experiences with patients and thanked staff at the hospital where she was treated.

Catherine visited the Royal Marsden Hospital in west London, personally thanking doctors and nurses for their care and compassion – on a visit that also confirmed this was where she had undergone treatment.

She spoke to cancer patients with the empathy of her own first-hand experiences, in what was her most significant solo royal engagement since her treatment ended.

Catherine told a woman who was having chemotherapy: “It’s really tough… It’s such a shock… Everyone said to me, ‘please keep a positive mindset, it makes such a difference’.”

Catherine, arriving as a visitor now rather than as a patient, sympathised with those undergoing treatment – and described how she was still feeling the long-term effects.

“You think the treatment has finished and you can crack on and get back to normal, but that’s still a real challenge,” she said.

“The words totally disappear. And understanding that as a patient – yes, there are side effects around treatment, but actually there are more long-term side effects.”

The princess told patients at the hospital: “The body is amazing at telling us ‘you need to take time out’.”

Asked how she was feeling, Catherine said she was doing well, but added: “Sometimes from the outside we all think you’ve finished treatment and you go back to things. But it’s hard to get back to normal.”

Before she left, Catherine hugged a woman who appeared to be a visitor.

“I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could do to help,” the princess told the woman.

“I wanted to come and show my support for the amazing work that’s going on here and for those who are going through treatment and having such a hard time.”

Catherine added: “Are you ok? Yes? There is light at the end of that tunnel. Very nice to meet you and best of luck. You are in the best of hands.”

A Kensington Palace spokesman described the personal importance of the visit, saying: “The princess wanted to make the journey to both show her gratitude to the incredible team, but also highlight the world leading care and treatment the Marsden provides.”

It’s almost a year since the princess’s health problems were first revealed – with an announcement last January that she had undergone abdominal surgery.

Catherine then announced in a video statement in March that she was in the early stages of receiving cancer treatment – and in September released a video saying that her chemotherapy had ended.

Since the end of her treatment she has gradually returned to more public events, including Remembrance Sunday and her Christmas carol concert at Westminster Abbey, which were seen as positive signs of her recovery.

The princess has now made her first big engagement of 2025 – a return to the hospital where she was treated, going to see those who helped her at the Royal Marsden, which specialises in cancer treatment and research.

Catherine has become the hospital’s joint royal patron, with Prince William already a patron.

Diana, Princess of Wales, had been a previous royal patron.

The Royal Marsden, which treats 59,000 patients each year, was founded as a specialist cancer hospital in 1851.

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Best-selling British author Neil Gaiman has reportedly been accused of sexual misconduct by eight women, including four who previously spoke out.

The fantasy graphic novel and science fiction writer – whose books Good Omens, American Gods and The Sandman have been adapted for television – was the subject of a New York Magazine cover story on Monday.

The article – which details fresh claims made against him based on interviews with eight women – follows last year’s release of Tortoise Media’s podcast Master, which reported the initial accusations.

Gaiman’s representatives have denied the allegations, telling the US publication that he and the women had engaged in consensual encounters.

In July 2024, Tortoise Media reported that Gaiman had been accused of sexual assault and released a podcast series which covered allegations made by five women.

On Monday, New York Magazine and its website Vulture reported allegations from eight women – four of whom also participated in Tortoise’s podcast – claiming to have had similar experiences with Gaiman.

One of the women, who had been babysitting Gaiman’s five-year-old child, alleges that he offered her a bath in his garden before joining her in the tub naked, asking her to sit on his lap, and that he sexually assaulted her.

While the article states that all of the accusers had at some point played along with Gaiman’s desires to some extent by calling him “master” and continuing to communicate with him, the women allege that consent and specific BDSM activities which they say took place had not been discussed and agreed upon prior to them happening.

Gaiman’s representative’s previously told Tortoise that “sexual degradation, bondage, domination, sadism and masochism may not be to everyone’s taste, but between consenting adults, BDSM is lawful”.

The BBC has contacted Gaiman’s representatives for further comment.

A police report accusing Gaiman of a sexual assault was made in January 2023, but the investigation was eventually dropped.

Since the allegations first surfaced, several of Gaiman’s film and TV projects have been affected.

Season three of Prime Video’s Good Omens will now end with one 90-minute episode, with Gaiman no longer involved in the production.

Disney has paused production on its film adaptation of another Gaiman title, The Graveyard Book, while Netflix has cancelled Dead Boy Detectives, although it’s not clear if this was related to the allegations.

Season two of The Sandman is still expected to be released this year on Netflix, however, as well as Prime Video’s series adaptation of Anansi Boys.

The BBC has contacted Netflix, Prime Video and Disney for a comment.

Leeds Playhouse is hosting a musical adaptation of Gaiman’s dark fantasy horror children’s novella Coraline from April. It told BBC News in November it was moving ahead with the project. The venue has been approached for a response to the latest allegations.

Headline, which has published several of Gaiman’s works, declined to comment on the allegations against the Portsmouth-born author.

A Los Angeles brain surgeon who fought for almost a week to save the houses on his street from wildfires told the BBC he spent 15 years preparing for such an event.

Malibu resident Dr Chester Griffiths, 62, ignored evacuation orders to keep flames from the Palisades fire at bay with the help of his son and neighbour, until emergency services were able to reach them.

“We had always known that a fire would come someday – but we didn’t know when,” Dr Griffiths told the BBC’s Today Programme.

“We never fathomed it would be this catastrophic and apocalyptic.”

Griffiths said he had finished performing brain surgery just hours before he returned to his Malibu street last week to fight the fire, joined by his son Chester Jnr and Colbert.

“The houses were coming down like dominoes,” he said.

Thankfully, he and his neighbour, Clayton Colbert, had developed an action plan in the event of such a fire and had sourced hoses that they could use.

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Connecting four hoses to hydrants, Dr Griffiths, his son and Mr Colbert positioned themselves on nearby roofs to spraying water on the flames, and using dirt to put out embers on the ground.

“There were burning embers coming down on us for about 12 hours,” said Dr Griffiths.

The trio was only joined by firefighters in the last few days of their week-long ordeal because resources were “so widely stretched” due to the number of blazes in the Los Angeles area.

“The (fire department) felt that all the homes weren’t able to be saved,” said Dr Griffiths.”

He says he “totally understands” why the fire service was too busy to help, adding: “That’s why it’s so important to be trained ahead of time, to have your equipment and truly to have your community’s support.”

Fire crews in Los Angeles are still battling two large blazes and two smaller ones as they brace for more possible destruction.

The Palisades Fire that is burning between Santa Monica and Malibu on the city’s western side has destroyed more than 23,000 acres, and ranks among the most destructive in California’s history.

At least 24 people have died in the fires and 23 others are missing in the Eaton and Palisades fire zones, while more than 90,000 are under evacuation orders.

Residents are bracing for further destruction as weather forecasts indicate that winds helping fuel the flames might pick up again.

Los Angeles’ mayor Karen Bass said “urgent preparations” are being made in advance of the near-hurricane force winds, which are expected throughout Tuesday.

President Biden has said that rebuilding areas of the city that were burned down during almost a week of wildfires is going to cost tens of billions of dollars.

Michael Storc and his family had just survived a devastating wildfire.

Now they have to face a daunting new challenge that he had hoped to never experience again – the Los Angeles housing market.

After losing the Altadena home that he owned in the Eaton fire, he was scouring for a new place to rent, and having little luck.

“What’s available is not nice at all and the rents have gone up a lot,” Mr Storc told the BBC. “I told my teenage daughter we had to accept we would live somewhere not very nice.”

The Los Angeles area already has one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. And with thousands now displaced by the Palisades and Eaton fires, Angelenos are anxious that the sudden surge in demand could make rents and home prices soar even higher.

California has an anti-price gouging law that prevents landlords from raising rents more than 10% after the governor declares an emergency. It applies to both existing and tenants and new leases.

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Many Los Angeles County buildings are also covered by rent stabilisation laws, which prevent landlords from raising the rent for existing tenants above a certain percentage even in normal circumstances.

“It is illegal. You cannot do it,” California attorney general Rob Bonta said at a Saturday press conference. “It is a crime punishable by up to a year in jail and fines.”

Not everyone was certain that the law would be completely enforceable, however.

“We’re aware of that but my question is, how is that being regulated? And who’s monitoring that?” said Jessica Heredia, a realtor based in the high-end Brentwood neighbourhood for the last 20 years.

If both a landlord and prospective renter armed with significant cash came to a private agreement, she mused, who would stop them?

Such arrangements between a renter desperate for shelter and a landlord happy to work with the highest bidder could wind up pushing the cost higher.

The median rent in the city of Los Angeles, for all home types – be it single family, apartments, or townhomes – was currently about $2,800 according to the real estate listing company Zillow.

The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment, a potentially tight squeeze for a family just starting over after a wildfire, is $2,995, according to Zillow data.

But prices vary wildly and can run significantly higher in the desirable neighbourhoods near the ocean that offer a similar climate and community to the Pacific Palisades.

In Los Angeles, the land of the movie star mansion, rents on the highest end of the market can climb well into the five figures.

In Pasadena, the city nextdoor to devastated Altadena, the median rent for all home types was $2,600, according to Zillow.

Other Altadena residents who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire were starting to contemplate a new house search, and were already exhausted by the prospect.

The anxiety only grew as neighbours swapped anecdotal accounts of watching listing prices increase, and local outlets shared reports of individual rentals jumping by double-digit percentages.

Longtime area residents feared that the law that would not be enough to help them.

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Jennifer Nazarian, 52, had just finished a two-year remodel of her Altadena home late last year. The family had celebrated Thanksgiving in a glistening new kitchen. Now the house has been reduced to a pile of smouldering rubble.

While she and her husband began navigating an insurance claim, they started talking to a real estate agent about finding a temporary place to live.

“We want to stay local and there isn’t much available,” she told the BBC as she waited to talk to the Federal Emergency Management Agency at a Pasadena emergency shelter.

She feared that the rental market was about to get much worse – potentially fuelled by eager landlords and agents.

“Everybody’s going to be like, okay, we need a bigger slice of the pie,” she said.

As the hillside communities burned, Los Angeles’s luxury realtors watched the housing market heat up.

Ms Heredia showed the BBC a database used by realtors to track fluctuations in rent prices.

Several high-end listings showed jumps this week; one home in Santa Monica promising “a private balcony overlooking the ocean”, which had been listed back in September, suddenly jumped from $29,995 to $35,000 on 10 January.

Ms Heredia said that some people were realising how competitive the rental market was and opting to buy instead.

There are no laws preventing a spike in the price to buy a home, she said, and individuals with the means wanted to move quickly.

Another realtor told the BBC she had also sent an email blast to clients, in case anyone was looking and needed help navigating issues with insurance.

Frustration with the real estate industry was palpable on Monday.

Ms Heredia and her colleagues with Coldwell Banker Realty had set up a tent outside an emergency center in Westwood offering a booklet they wrote called “navigating life after wildfire displacement”.

A volunteer, however, soon came over and asked them to leave.

“We just want to help,” Ms Heredia explained to the BBC. “Everyone’s trying to figure their way through this.”

For the wealthiest affected by the Palisades fire, buyers could afford to pay millions in cash to secure a new house.

Yet there was a “tragic” misconception that all of the victims of the Palisades fire were wealthy, according to Pete Brown, a spokesperson for the area’s city council member, Traci Parks.

Many Palisades fire victims purchased their homes decades ago, possibly for prices as low as $25,000, he told the BBC.

“Their wealth was in that home,” Mr Brown said.

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These elderly homeowners were now left with nothing, and stood little chance against today’s market, where buying a home for under a million dollars is considered just one step short of miraculous.

Other longtime residents found themselves daunted by the cold, hard maths of financing a new home in such an expensive market.

Up until a few days ago, Roya Lavasani lived with her husband and daughter in the Malibu condo building they purchased in the 1980s. On Monday, she was seeking help at a shelter in Westwood, after the multi-unit building burned down.

Ms Lavasani wept as she told the BBC she did not believe insurance would pay them enough to rebuild the complex, which had risen steeply in value since they purchased it.

They rented the other units in the building, meaning the family had lost not just housing but a portion of income. And there was little chance they could buy a property similar to the one they owned at today’s rates.

After temporarily sleeping in their car, Ms Lavasani’s family planned to rent an motor home for eight days. But after that, she he does not know where they will go.

A man from Devon who lives and works in Los Angeles has said everything he owned could now “fit into two cars” after his home was destroyed in the devastating wildfires.

Harry Butler, who was born and grew up in Manaton on the eastern edge of Dartmoor, has lived in California for about 20 years.

Mr Butler told BBC Radio Devon he proposed to his girlfriend Vanessa while in Devon over the Christmas period and only returned to their rented home in Altadena on 4 January, a few days before the LA wildfires began burning around the city on 7 January.

Mr Butler, who works for Disney, said: “Talk of a rollercoaster ride – leaving Devon on a high, newly engaged and then coming back for two days and the world is caving in around us.”

Mr Butler said it was his fiancée’s birthday the day the wildfires began and they had planned to go out for the evening.

“We decided against going out for dinner purely based on the winds which was probably the best decision we ever made because not long after that the fire started four miles east of us,” Mr Butler said.

“We were anxiously looking at a map of evacuation zones.

“Ours wasn’t in it but we decided it made sense for us to pack up a few things, put our pets in the cars and left to go and stay at my fiancée’s house which is about a two-hour drive south.

“It turned out to be the best decision we ever made.”

He said all of their possessions now fit into two cars which was “very sobering”.

On the morning of 8 January Mr Butler said their neighbours sent them a video and the palm trees outside the house were on fire.

Mr Butler said they could not see the house because of the smoke.

“They promptly left and we heard at about 08:00 GMT that our house had been consumed within that time frame,” he said.

“The entire block was wiped out.

“We heard from a neighbour who tragically lost his family members in the house immediately behind ours.

“He informed us that our house was gone and sent us a screengrab from a security camera across the street of our house engulfed.”

Mr Butler said the devastation and the fact that lives had been lost had left given him some perspective.

“It sounds tripe but losing a house doesn’t seem too bad in the end,” he said.

“We grabbed a few things, we have some trinkets that are sentimental, my fiancée grabbed her entire vinyl collection that belonged to her dad.

“I have some bits and pieces – those will represent everything that we lost.”

The couple were able to revisit the remains of their home, with an escort, and they captured the devastation.

Mr Butler said they were staying at an Airbnb which was owned by a friend.

The couple had only been living at the rented property – which was 100 years old – for four months, but they said they had made happy memories there.

“We are very blessed in that sense and I don’t think the enormity of this situation has really hit us,” Mr Butler added.

X

Svitlana says she never considered betraying her country, “not for a second.”

“My husband would’ve never forgiven me,” she says, as we meet in her flat near Kyiv.

The 42-year-old had been waiting for news of her husband Dima, an army medic captured by Russia, for more than two years when she suddenly received a phone call.

The voice at the end of the phone told her that if she committed treason against Ukraine, Dima could be eligible for better treatment in prison, or even early release.

“A Ukrainian number called me. I picked up, and the man introduced himself as Dmitry,” Svitlana explains. “He spoke in a Russian accent.”

“He said, ‘You can either burn down a military enlistment office, set fire to a military vehicle or sabotage a Ukrainian Railways electrical box.'”

There was one other option: to reveal the locations of nearby air defence units — vital military assets that keep Ukraine’s skies safe from Russian drones and missiles.

As Dmitry set out his proposal, Svitlana says she recalled instructions that the Ukrainian authorities had distributed to all families in the event of being approached by Russian agents: buy as much time as possible, record and photograph everything, and report it.

Svitlana did report it, and took screenshots of the messages, which she showed to the BBC.

The Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, told her to stall the Russians while they investigated. So she pretended to agree to firebomb a local railway line.

As we sit in her immaculate sitting room, with air raid sirens periodically wailing outside, she plays me recordings she made on her phone of two of the voice calls with Dmitry, made via the Telegram app. During the call, he gives instructions on how to make and plant a Molotov cocktail.

“Pour in a litre of lighting fluid and add a bit of petrol,” Dmitry explains. “Go to some sort of railway junction. Make sure there are no security cameras. Wear a hat – just in case.”

He also gave Svitlana a tutorial in how to put her phone on airplane mode once she was 1-2km away from her intended target, to avoid her signal being picked up by mobile phone masts that could be used by investigators.

“Do you know what a relay box is? Take a photo of it. This should be the target for her arson attack,” explained Dmitry, who demanded proof of completion of the task.

“Write today’s date on a piece of paper and take a photo with this piece of paper.”

In return, Dmitry said he could arrange a phone call with her husband, or for a parcel to be delivered to him.

Later, the SBU told Svitlana that the man she’d been talking to was indeed in Russia, and she should break off contact. Svitlana told Dmitry she’d changed her mind.

“That’s when the threats began,” says Svitlana, “He said they’d kill my husband, and I’d never see him again.

For days, he kept calling, saying: “Your husband is being tortured, and it’s your fault!”

“How concerned were you that he might go through with the threats to harm Dima?” I ask Svitlana. Her eyes moisten. “My heart ached, and I could only pray: ‘God, please don’t let that happen.'”

“One part of me said ‘this person has no connection with the prisoners.’ The other part asks: ‘What if he really can do it? How would I live with myself?'”

In a statement to the BBC, the SBU said co-operating with Russian agents “will in no way ease the plight of the prisoner; on the contrary, it may significantly complicate their chances of being exchanged.”

The authorities are urging all relatives to come forward immediately if they are approached by Russian agents.

Those who do, they say, will be “protected,” and treated as victims.

But if relatives agree to commit sabotage or espionage, says the SBU, “this may be classified as treason. The maximum punishment is life imprisonment.”

The authorities regularly publicise arrests of Ukrainians who allegedly commit arson or reveal the location of military sites to Russia.

Pro-Kremlin media is awash with videos purporting to show Ukrainians torching army vehicles or railway electrical boxes.

Some of the culprits do it for money, paid by suspected Russian agents, but it is thought there are attacks carried out by desperate relatives, too.

Petro Yatsenko, from the Ukrainian military’s Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, says around 50% of all families of PoWs are contacted by Russian agents.

“They’re in a very vulnerable position and some of them are ready to do anything,” Petro says, “but we are trying to educate them that it won’t help [their loved ones in captivity].”

Petro says an act such as setting fire to a military vehicle isn’t considered a significant material loss to the Ukrainian Armed Forces:

“But it can destabilise the unity of Ukrainian society, so that’s the main problem.

And, of course, if someone shares the location of, for example, air defence systems, that’s a big problem for us too,” he admits.

The authorities don’t publish the numbers of Ukrainians held as prisoners of war, but the number is thought to be more than 8,000.

A source in Ukrainian intelligence told the BBC the number of cases where relatives agree to work with Russia is small.

The Russian government told the BBC in a statement that the allegations it uses prisoners’ families as leverage are “groundless,” and Russia treats “Ukrainian combatants humanely and in full compliance with the Geneva Convention.”

The statement goes on to accuse Ukraine of using the same methods:

“Ukrainian handlers are actively attempting to coerce residents of Russia to commit acts of sabotage and arson within Russian territory, targeting critical infrastructure and civilian facilities.”

Svitlana’s husband Dima was released from captivity just over three months ago.

The couple are now happily back together, and enjoy playing with their four-year-old son, Vova.

How did Svitlana feel when her husband was finally set free?

“There were tears of joy like I’ve never cried before,” she says, beaming. “It felt like I had snatched my love from the jaws of death.”

Dima told his wife the Russians didn’t act on their threats to punish him for her refusal to co-operate.

When Svitlana told him about the calls, he was shocked.

“He asked me how I held up,” she says, and winks. “Well, as I always say, I’m an officer’s wife.”

TikTok users in the US are migrating to a Chinese app called RedNote with the threat of a ban just days away.

The move by users who call themselves “TikTok refugees” has made RedNote the most downloaded app on Apple’s US App Store on Monday.

RedNote is a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.

It has about 300 million monthly users and looks like a combination of TikTok and Instagram. It allows users, mostly young urban women, to exchange lifestyle tips from dating to fashion.

Supreme Court justices are due to rule on a law that set a 19 January deadline for TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban in the country.

TikTok has repeatedly said that it will not sell its US business and its lawyers have warned that a ban will violate free speech protections for the platform’s 170 million users in the US.

Meanwhile, RedNote has welcomed its new users with open arms. There are 63,000 posts on the topic “TikTok refugee”, where new users are taught how to navigate the app and how to use basic Chinese phrases.

“To our Chinese hosts, thanks for having us – sorry in advance for the chaos,” a new US user wrote.

But like TikTok, there have also been reports of censorship on RedNote when it comes to criticism of the Chinese government.

In Taiwan, public officials are restricted from using RedNote due to alleged security risks of Chinese software.

As more US users joined RedNote, some Chinese users have also jokingly referred to themselves as “Chinese spies”, a reference to US officials’ concerns that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.

RedNote’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, translates to Little Red Book, but the app says it is not a reference to Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s book of quotations with the same name.

But security concerns have not deterred users from flocking to RedNote.

Sarah Fotheringham, a 37-year-old school canteen worker in Utah, says the move to RedNote is a way to “snub” the government.

“I’m just a simple person living a simple life,” Ms Fotheringham told the BBC in a RedNote message.

“I don’t have anything that China doesn’t, and if they want my data that bad they can have it.”

Marcus Robinson, a fashion designer in Virginia, said he created his RedNote account over the weekend to share his clothing brand and “be ahead of the curve”.

Mr Robinson told the BBC he was was only “slightly hesitant” about accepting the terms and conditions of using the app, which were written in Mandarin.

“I wasn’t able to actually read them so that was a little concerning to me,” he said, “but I took my chance.”

While a ban will not make TikTok disappear immediately, it will require app stores to stop offering it – which could kill it over time.

But even if TikTok dodges a ban, it may prove helpless against users moving to alternative platforms.

Some social media users tell the BBC that they find themselves scrolling on RedNote more than TikTok.

“Even if TikTok does stay I will continue to use my platform I’ve created on RedNote,” Tennessee tech worker Sydney Crawley told the BBC.

Ms Crawley said she got over 6,000 followers within 24 hours of creating her RedNote account.

“I will continue to try to build a following there and see what new connections, friendships, or opportunities it brings me.”

Ms Fotheringham, the canteen worker, said RedNote “opened my world up to China and its people”.

“I am now able to see things I never would have seen,” she said. “Regular Chinese people, finding out about their culture, life, school, everything, it has been so much fun.”

The community so far has been “super welcoming”, said Mr Robinson, the designer.

“I love RedNote so far … I just need to learn how to speak Mandarin!”

Some of Donald Trump’s key allies will face a grilling by senators this week, as part of a process that will see them either approved or rejected for the roles the president-elect has nominated them for.

The hearings, which begin on Tuesday, are the first chance for senators to publicly quiz some of Trump’s more controversial picks.

Nominees then must be confirmed by a vote. And while the upper chamber of Congress is now controlled by Trump’s Republican Party – just three defections could be enough to deny a nominee a job.

Here are some of the difficult questions those nominees are likely preparing to face.

One of the first confirmation hearings is set to be one of the most closely watched.

Trump’s nominee for defence secretary is expected to face questions on Tuesday about his lack of management experience and his alleged heavy drinking.

Senators could ask Hegseth about an accusation that he sexually assaulted a woman in a California hotel room in 2017, according to Politico.

Hegseth denies that claim and maintains the encounter was consensual. The allegation was investigated, but Hegseth – a military veteran and former Fox News host – was never arrested or charged.

• Why Trump’s defence pick surprised Washington

Hegseth and the unnamed accuser then reached a confidential financial settlement in 2023. His lawyer later told the Associated Press that the payment was intended to prevent a baseless lawsuit.

Trump stood by his pick, who is among the nominees busy courting senators in recent days to try and shore up the necessary votes.

Rival Democrats on the committee also plan to pick up on Hegseth’s previous opposition to women serving in combat roles in the military, US media reports say.

In the spotlight on Wednesday will be the woman who could be tasked with carrying out one of Trump’s top campaign pledges – billed by his team as the largest mass deportation of illegal immigrants in American history.

As the president-elect’s choice for homeland security secretary, Noem could be quizzed on the practicality of enacting this pledge. A mass deportation programme on the scale proposed would likely face logistical or legal difficulties, experts say.

Noem could also face questions on other potential immigration policies, such as Trump’s vow to end birthright citizenship.

She has been a loyal and vocal backer of the president-elect’s pledges, which is consistent with other nominees and appointees for Trump’s second term in the White House.

The man picked to lead Trump’s foreign policy agenda was once on the other side of a confirmation hearing for a Trump nominee for secretary of state.

During the session in 2017, he needled Rex Tillerson – urging him to describe Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal which Tillerson refused to do.

If that session signalled a divergence in views between Rubio and Trump – who were then rivals – the two appear much more closely aligned eight years later.

Rubio is now in the frame for one of the most coveted jobs in Trump’s administration and is expected to encounter relatively little resistance in his path to confirmation.

But senators on Wednesday could test his loyalty with a line of questioning about future American support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Trump has cast this as a drain on US resources – a view that could jar with Rubio’s hawkish views on foreign policy.

Another nominee facing a possible test of loyalty to Trump in his Senate committee hearing (which is yet to be scheduled) is one of the officials who would be tasked with delivering Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

Trump has threatened import taxes on a variety of goods arriving in the US – including from some of its top trade partners – in what he says is as an effort to protect US jobs.

Lutnick, the billionaire chief executive of financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, has embraced this proposal – despite this position being at odds with others in his industry and some leading economists.

He is likely to face direct questions over the impact of sweeping new tariffs on the US economy and consumers.

Trump’s choice for national intelligence director could be asked by Republicans and Democrats alike about her past comments on American adversaries such as Russia and Syria.

Gabbard, another military veteran, has routinely opposed American interventionist foreign policy. In 2017, while still Democratic congresswoman, she met the then-president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and cast doubt on US intelligence assessments blaming him for using deadly chemical weapons.

And after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine five years later, she blamed Nato and echoed a Kremlin claim that there were US-funded biolabs in Ukraine.

Gabbard has spoken of the necessity of talking to countries such as Russia.

Democrats are reported to be delaying her hearing until background checks are complete.

• Who is Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s intelligence pick?

One of Trump’s most unconventional picks has, like Gabbard, been on a political journey that actually began in the Democratic Party.

Kennedy has since become a supporter of Trump and has been rewarded with this nomination.

He has no medical qualifications – which could present a tricky initial line of questioning from both sides of the political divide.

And his past statements on established science could also be put under scrutiny. He has repeatedly stated widely debunked claims about vaccine harm, but has denied being anti-vaccine more generally.

• Fact-checking RFK Jr’s views on health policy

On other issues – such as scrutinising food additives – Kennedy enjoys broader support.

Some critics of Trump’s pick to lead the FBI have voiced doubts that Patel is qualified to run America’s main law enforcement agency. Others have shared concerns that he could work to exact revenge on Trump’s opponents.

“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” he has previously said, citing a baseless Trump claim about the 2020 election.

• Trump pick plans to shake up FBI – but critics doubt his suitability

Although former law enforcement officials have questioned his ability to lead the agency, Patel’s experience as a lawyer and in a number of national security roles has been praised by Trump’s team and some Republicans.

Patel has a stated aim to dramatically refashion how the FBI works, including with a clear-out of some of its top staff.

• What Trump can and can’t do on day one
• The chosen ones: Ten people trusted to deliver for Trump
• How undocumented migrants feel about deportations
• What Trump’s Ukraine envoy has said about war

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

“By the end, I was just wondering how I would prefer to die.”

Spending 35 hours trapped in a pitch-black air pocket in the upturned hull of a boat has taken its toll on Lucianna Galetta, her voice cracking as she recounts her ordeal.

A video she managed to film briefly using the light on her phone, now shared with the BBC, shows the space where she thought her life might end – and how surging sea water and floating debris prevented her escape.

Lucianna was one of the last of 35 survivors to be rescued from the wreck of the Sea Story, an Egyptian dive vessel that sank in the Red Sea on 25 November last year. Up to 11 people died or are still missing, including two Britons, Jenny Cawson and Tarig Sinada from Devon.

At the time, Egyptian authorities attributed the disaster to a huge wave of up to 4m (13ft), but the BBC has spoken to 11 survivors of the Sea Story who have cast doubt on the claim. That has been supported by a leading oceanographer, who told us weather data from the time suggests a wave could not have been responsible, and that a combination of crew error and failings in the boat were the likely cause.

As well as describing the terror of being trapped in a rapidly sinking boat, the survivors accuse the company which ran it, Dive Pro Liveaboard, of several safety failings. They also say the Egyptian authorities were slow to react, something which may have cost lives. We have put questions to Dive Pro Liveaboard – based in Hurghada – and the Egyptian government, but not received any reply.

This, for the first time, is the inside story of how the Sea Story sank, as told by those who made it out alive.

The luxury dive boat set off from Port Ghaleb on Egypt’s Red Sea Coast on 24 November. On board were 31 international guests – mostly experienced divers – and three dive guides, along with 12 Egyptian crew. They were on a six-day trip, with their first destination being Sataya Reef, a popular diving spot.

Like many of those on board, Lucianna’s first impressions of the Sea Story were positive. “It looked like a really nice boat, very big, very clean,” she says, speaking from her home in Belgium.

The company had transferred over Lucianna and others at the last minute from another boat, which had hundreds of good online reviews. Several guests were told they were getting an “upgrade” but some were frustrated because it was not going to the destination they had booked.

Conditions that night were quite rough, although the survivors we spoke to, including experienced sailors, say the boat seemed more unstable than they would have expected.

At one point, a few hours before the capsizing, a small inflatable boat slipped off the back of the Sea Story. A passenger filmed as the crew battled to bring it back on board – the oceanographer the BBC spoke to says the video shows conditions which were not unusual and consistent with 1.5m (5ft) waves.

“Looking out at the waves, the weather wasn’t terrible,” says Sarah Martin, an NHS doctor from Lancaster who was on the trip. But, she says, “furniture was sliding around the deck – we asked the crew if it was normal and they just shrugged, so we didn’t realise the danger we were in”.

“I didn’t sleep that night because the boat was rocking so much,” says Hissora Gonzalez, a diver from Spain, whose cabin was on the lower deck.

She describes how the boat rolled sharply several times until, just before 03:00, it flipped onto its side with a loud bang, followed by silence as the engines died – and total darkness.

Shouting could soon be heard coming from other cabins, as people were thrown from their beds. Possessions were scattered around, blocking exits and making escape difficult. One survivor – who had been sleeping outside on deck – described being trapped under heavy furniture which had shifted as the boat rolled.

“We couldn’t see anything. I didn’t know if I was walking on the floor, on the ceiling, on the side,” says Hissora. Disoriented, she started looking around for life jackets. Before she could find one, her friend Cristhian Cercos shouted at her to run.

That call may well have saved her life. Their cabin was on the starboard (right) of the boat, the side that hit the sea. Nearly all of the dead or missing had cabins on that side of the boat.

“I could hear the water coming in, but I could not see it,” says Hissora. Their cabin door was now on the ceiling – she only escaped because Cristhian pulled her up on the fifth attempt.

Across the hall from Hissora, also in complete darkness, were Sarah and her cabin mate Natalia Sanchez Fuster, a dive guide. They couldn’t find the handle to the cabin door. When Sarah managed to turn on the torch on her phone she realised “everything was at 90 degrees – the door was on the floor and all our things were blocking it”.

After clearing the doorway, they joined about 10 others heading for an emergency exit towards the bow (front) of the boat.

With the boat on its side, the group had to crawl along the emergency staircase for two floors, past the restaurant and dining room on the main deck. It was hard to find their way and it seemed the contents of the kitchen cupboards had spilled out over the floors.

“We had to climb along door frames and beams to make our way out,” says Sarah. “It was quite disorienting in the dark and it was very slippery. There was cooking oil and broken eggs everywhere.”

Hissora, just ahead of Sarah, managed to make it to the upper deck. She could hear people screaming behind her but did not turn around. “I was afraid of looking back and seeing all the water coming in,” she says.

By this time, the Sea Story was sinking fast. Those who had reached the top deck knew they would have to jump into the water – a 2-3m (7-10ft) drop.

“I was paralysed because Cristhian kept saying to me ‘don’t jump’ because he could see someone was trying to release the life raft,” Hissora recalls.

Sarah was behind Hissora and desperate to get out. “There were other guests holding on to the side, blocking the exit,” she remembers. “We were shouting at them to move out of the way.”

With the water rising fast, Hissora, Sarah and the dozen or so people who had reached the top deck jumped into the water. They knew the danger was not over yet. “If the boat was going down, we needed to get away so it wouldn’t pull us down with it,” says Sarah.

Natalia, who had also jumped in, swam around the boat – she heard people screaming from inside the cabins and tried to use floating debris to break the windows, but didn’t succeed.

Sarah and Natalia were among the few who had grabbed a life jacket before escaping, but Sarah says they were not functioning as they should have.

“We noticed the lights weren’t working. Looking back, I don’t think there were any batteries in there.”

It is just one of several safety failings reported by the people we interviewed.

In total, we have spoken to seven of the survivors who had been staying on the lower deck. They all tell a near-identical story of the moment the boat went over – but not all of them escaped the same way.

Lucianna Galetta was in a cabin towards the back of the lower deck with her partner Christophe Lemmens. They were just moments slower than the others in realising the danger. That delay cost them dearly.

“We started to get up and tried to find the life jackets,” says Lucianna. “We opened the door but there was already water in the corridor. I think we panicked as we jumped in and almost drowned.”

Unable to reach the exit at the front, Lucianna and Christophe ended up in an air pocket in the engine room at the stern (rear) of the boat, which was still sticking out of the water. They did not understand where they were until they were joined in the tiny space, some time later, by one of the dive instructors, Youssef al-Faramawy.

The three of them would stay there, sitting on fuel tanks, for about 35 hours.

Outside the boat, Sarah, Hissora and the others who had jumped off eventually found the two life rafts, which had deployed after the sinking. As they clambered on board, they saw the boat’s captain and a number of other crew members were already there.

“There should be some supplies in here,” Sarah remembers one of the other guests saying. All the people we spoke to recall a safety briefing mentioning that the life rafts had food and water in them – but they did not, the BBC were told.

“We found a torch, but again it didn’t have any batteries. We didn’t have any water or any food,” Sarah says. “There were flares, but they had already been used.”

Sarah also says of the three blankets on board the raft, one had been taken by the captain for himself, leaving one for the rest of the crew and another for the guests. “We ripped it up and huddled together,” says Sarah.

The rafts were met by rescue vessels at about 11:00 on the morning of 25 November, about eight hours after the capsizing. Both they, and the boat, had drifted eastwards.

Back on board the Sea Story, Lucianna heard the rescue helicopter – but her ordeal was far from over.

“At this time we were very happy, but we had to wait 27 hours more,” she says.

Despite the boat having been located, the rescue effort was slow to reach them. “We had no communication with the outside, nothing. No-one tried to see if there was someone alive in there,” Lucianna says.

She tells me there were moments when darkness and despair overtook her. “I was so ready to die. We didn’t think that someone would come.”

After several hours trapped in the air pocket, the dive guide, Youssef, wanted to try to swim through the boat, but Lucianna and Christophe persuaded him not to. “Stay with us because they are going to come to get our bodies, so they will find us,” Lucianna recalls telling him.

Eventually, after nearly a day and a half stuck in the hull of the Sea Story, a light appeared in the darkness.

A local Egyptian diving instructor, Khattab al-Faramawi, who was Youssef’s uncle, had braved the wreck, diving through the submerged corridors looking for people. He took Youssef out first, then, after another hour’s delay because of issues with the breathing apparatus, returned to lead Lucianna and her partner to safety. “I hugged him so hard,” says Lucianna. “I was very, very happy.”

In total, five people from the Sea Story were rescued by divers, including a Swiss man and a Finnish man who had survived in another air pocket inside their cabin on the lower deck. Four bodies were recovered.

But Lucianna is critical of the fact the Egyptian navy had to rely on volunteers. “We waited 35 hours. I don’t understand how there are no divers on the Egyptian military boats.”

Lucianna, Christophe and Youssef were taken on board a waiting naval vessel, before returning to shore. They were the last to be rescued. At least 11 people either died or are missing, presumed dead.

Among them are Jenny Cawson and Tarig Sinada, a couple from Devon who were staying on the main deck, on the side of the boat that hit the water. Their bodies have never been found.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s real,” says Andy Williamson, a friend of the couple. “We keep expecting them to walk through the door.” A month and a half after the sinking, hopes of that happening have all but vanished.

The couple were experienced divers who always carefully researched the safety record of boats before their trips. They were also switched on to the Sea Story at the last minute, something that may have ultimately cost them dearly.

The BBC spoke to survivors from nearly every cabin on the vessel in which someone got out alive. They all confirm the boat sank between 02:00 and 03:00. However, according to local authorities, a distress signal was not received until about 05:30 – a further factor which may have cost lives.

Five survivors also reported that the heavy furniture on the top deck was unsecured and moved around before the sinking. The woman who had been sleeping on deck believes it all shifting to one side, as the boat started to overturn, further destabilised the Sea Story.

The narrative put forward by Egyptian officials in the immediate aftermath, reported by news agencies around the world, was that a huge wave hit the boat. Multiple survivors’ experiences in the water, just minutes after the capsizing, casts doubt on that.

“When we were in the water, the waves weren’t so big that we weren’t able to swim in them,” says Sarah, “so it does leave us wondering why that boat sank.”

Those suspicions are supported by data.

Dr Simon Boxall is a leading oceanographer from the University of Southampton. He has analysed the weather from the day which shows the biggest waves were about 1.5m (5ft) – so he says “there is no way a 4m (13ft) wave could have occurred in that region, at that time”.

The Egyptian Meteorological Authority had warned of high waves on the Red Sea and advised against maritime activity on 24 and 25 November. But, according to Dr Boxall, “these were over 200km (120 miles) away to the north of where the vessel went down.”

He says that leaves only two options, either pilot error or an error in the design of the vessel – or a combination of both.

The UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Board (MAIB), which will shortly publish a safety bulletin into the sinking, has recently warned divers of safety issues in the Red Sea after a number of incidents – at least two of which involved the same company, Dive Pro Liveaboard.

The BBC sent all the safety concerns raised in this article to the Egyptian government and the company, Dive Pro Liveaboard, multiple times. We are yet to receive a response from either.

After the disaster, the Egyptian authorities immediately opened an investigation into the sinking. That is yet to report, but for the friends of Jenny and Tarig this is about more than one boat.

“We’ve unfortunately had to learn of the dangers of diving in Egypt in the most tragic of circumstances,” says Andy Williamson. “I don’t know how we will ever get over this.

Lucianna wants to understand exactly what went wrong. “We are lucky to be alive,” she says. “But there are so many people who didn’t come back from this and I want their families to be able to grieve.”

It was late at night, and Darim’s animation studio had just finished designing a new look for a character in one of South Korea’s most popular video games, MapleStory.

Darim was proud of her work. So, sitting alone on the floor of her small studio apartment, she posted the trailer on social media. Almost immediately, she was flooded with thousands of abusive messages, including death and rape threats.

Young male gamers had taken issue with a single frame in the trailer, in which the female character could be seen holding her thumb and forefinger close together.

They thought it resembled a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago to poke fun at the size of Korean men’s penises.

“There were insults I’d never heard before, they were disgusting and inhumane,” said Darim, which is not her real name. One read: “You’ve just sabotaged your job.”

Messages then started piling into Darim’s studio and the game developer claiming she was a feminist and demanding she be fired. Within hours, the company pulled the promotional video.

Darim had become the latest victim in a series of vicious online witch hunts, in which men in South Korea attack women they suspect of having feminist views. They bombard them with abuse and try to get them sacked.

This is part of a growing backlash to feminism, in which feminists have been branded man-haters who deserve to be punished. The witch hunts are having a chilling effect on women, with many now scared to admit they are feminists.

This is forcing the movement underground, in a country where gender discrimination is still deeply entrenched. South Korea has the largest gender pay gap in the OECD, a group of the world’s rich countries.

The hunts are often spearheaded by young male video gamers, and target women who work in the industry, like Darim, though recently they have spread to other professions.

They look for anything that resembles what they term the ‘finger-pinching gesture’ and use it as proof that men-hating women are surreptitiously mocking them.

Once they spot a supposed sign, the hunt begins. “They decide that a dark, evil feminist is hiding in the company, and her life should be ruined,” explained Minsung Kim, a 22-year-old male gamer who, concerned by these witch hunts, set up an organisation to support the victims.

The witch hunters track down all female employees at the company in question, and trawl their social media accounts, searching for any evidence of feminism. Way back on Darim’s timeline, they found an ‘offending’ post.

Darim in fact had nothing to do with the disputed part of the animation, but her studio was rattled by the torrent of abuse – especially after Nexon, the gaming company, suddenly removed all the studio’s artwork from their roster and issued an apology to customers.

“My company and CEO were in a panic,” said Darim. “I thought I was going to be fired, and I’d never be able to work in animation again.”

Then Minsung’s organisation stepped in. They urged her studio to ignore the gamers and offered to pay Darim’s legal fees so she could report the abuse. “We said these demands will never end, you need to nip this in the bud now,” he said. The studio listened, and Darim kept her job.

But similar witch hunts have worked, in the gaming industry and beyond, and they are becoming more frequent. In one case, a young illustrator lost her job after a handful of disgruntled gamers stormed the company’s office demanding she be removed.

And it is not just Korean companies that have capitulated. Last year, the international car maker Renault suspended one of its female employees after she was accused of making the finger-pinching gesture while moving her hands in a promotional presentation.

“These anti-feminists are getting more organised; their playbook is getting more specific,” said Minsung. “By taking a hand gesture that everyone makes and turning it into a scarlet letter they can brand literally anyone an evil feminist,” he said.

Because the companies are folding to these baseless accusations, the instigators of these hunts have become emboldened, he said. “They are confident now that when you accuse someone of feminism, you can ruin their career.”

Minsung knows, because not long ago he was one of these men. He used to belong to the anti-feminist forums. “We are exposed to the uncensored internet unimaginably young,” he said, having joined the forums aged nine.

It was only when Minsung traded video games for playing real-life games, including Dungeons and Dragons, that he met women, and his views shifted. He became, in his words, an “ardent feminist”.

In South Korea, women commonly suffer discrimination and misogyny both at work and at home. But as they have fought to improve their rights, many young men have started to believe they are the ones being discriminated against.

The backlash began in the mid-2010s, following a surge of feminist activism. During this time, women took to the streets in protest at sexual violence and the widespread use of hidden cameras that secretly film women using toilets and changing rooms – around 5,000 to 6,000 cases are reported annually.

“Young men saw women becoming vocal and were threatened by their rise,” said Myungji Yang, a professor of sociology at the University of Hawai’i Manoa, who has interviewed dozens of young Korean men. “They learn about feminism from online forums, which carry the most radical caricature of feminists,” she said. “This has given them a distorted idea of what feminism is.”

One of their grievances is the 18-month military service men must complete. Once they leave the military they often “feel entitled” to a good job, said Hyun Mee Kim, a professor of cultural anthropology at Yonsei University in Seoul, who studies feminism.

As more women have entered the workforce, and jobs have become harder to get, some men feel their opportunities are being unfairly taken away.

These feelings have been validated by South Korea’s now disgraced and suspended President, Yoon Suk Yeol, who came to power in 2022 on an anti-feminist platform, claiming gender discrimination no longer existed, and has since tried to dismantle the government’s gender equality ministry.

More surprising than these views themselves, is that the men who hold them have such power over major companies.

I travelled to Pangyo, the Silicon Valley of South Korea, to meet a woman who has worked in the gaming industry for 20 years. After Darim’s case, her company started to edit all its games, removing the fingers from characters’ hands, turning them into fists, to avoid complaints.

“It’s exhausting and frustrating” to work like this, she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The idea that a hand gesture can be seen as an attack on men is absurd and companies should be ignoring it.”

When I asked why they were not, she told me that many developers share the gamers’ anti-feminist views. “For all those outside yelling, there are those on the inside who also believe things are bad.”

Then there is the financial cost. The men threaten to boycott the games unless the companies act.

“The gaming companies think the anti-feminists are the largest source of their revenue,” said Minsung. After Darim’s company, Studio Ppuri, was targeted, it said it lost nearly two thirds of its contracts with gaming companies.

Studio Ppuri, did not respond to our questions, but both Nexon, the game developer, and Renault Korea told us they stood against all forms of discrimination and prejudice.

There is evidence the authorities are also capitulating to the anti-feminists’ demands. When Darim reported her abuse to the police, they refused to take her case.

They said because the finger-pinching gesture was taboo, it was “logical” that she, as a feminist, had been attacked. “I was astonished,” she said. “Why would the authorities not protect me?”

Following outrage from feminist organisations, the police backtracked and are now investigating. In a statement, Seocho district police told the BBC their initial decision to close the case had been “insufficient” and they were “making all efforts to identify the suspects”.

The case left Darim’s lawyer, Yu-kyung Beom, dumbfounded. “If you want to say that you’re a feminist in South Korea, you have to be very brave or insane,” she said.

In November 2023, the violence spilled offline and into real life. A young woman, who we are calling Jigu, was working alone in a convenience store late at night, when a man walked in and started attacking her.

“He said ‘hey, you’re a feminist, right? You look like a feminist with your short hair’,” Jigu told me as she apprehensively recounted the night. The man pushed her to the ground and started kicking her. “I kept going in and out of consciousness. I thought I could die.”

Jigu did not consider herself a feminist. She just liked having short hair and thought it suited her. The attack has left her with permanent injuries. Her left ear is damaged, and she wears a hearing aid.

“I feel like I’ve become a completely different person,” she said. “I don’t smile as much. Some days it is agony just to stay alive, the memory of that day is still so clear.”

Her assailant was sent to prison for three years, and for the first time a South Korean court ruled this was a misogynistically motivated crime: in effect, that Jigu had been attacked for looking like a feminist.

During the attack, the man said he belonged to an extreme anti-feminist group, New Men’s Solidarity. Its leader, In-kyu Bae, has called on men to confront feminists. So, one evening, as he held a live-streaming event in Gangnam, a flashy neighbourhood in Seoul, I went to try to talk to him.

“I’m here to tell you these feminists are staining the country with hatred,” he shouted from the roof of a black van kitted out with loudspeakers.

“That psychopath [who attacked Jigu] was not a member of our group. We don’t have members, we are a YouTube channel,” he told me as he simultaneously broadcast to thousands of subscribers. A small group of young men who had come to watch in person were cheering along.

“We’ve never encouraged anyone to use violence. In fact, the violent ones are the feminist groups. They’re shaming men’s genitals,” he added.

Last year, Mr Bae and several of his supporters were convicted of defaming and insulting a feminist activist after harassing her for more than two years.

Anti-feminist views have become so widespread that Yuri Kim, the director of Korea Women’s Trade Union, recently established a committee to track cases of what she describes as “feminism censorship”. She found that some women have been questioned about their stance on feminism in job interviews, while at work women commonly face comments like “all feminists need to die”.

According to Prof Kim, the feminism academic, men are using now feminist threats in the office as a way to harass and control their female colleagues – it is their way of saying ‘we are watching you; you should behave yourself’.

Such harassment is proving effective. Last year, a pair of scholars coined the phrase “quiet feminism”, to describe the impact of what they say is a “pervasive everyday backlash”.

Gowoon Jung and Minyoung Moon found that although women held feminist beliefs they did not feel safe disclosing them in public. Women I spoke to said they were even afraid to cut their hair short, while others said feminism had become so synonymous with hating men they did not associate with the cause.

A 2024 IPSOS poll of 31 countries found only 24% of women in South Korea defined themselves as feminist, compared to an average of 45%, and down from 33% in 2019.

Prof Kim worries the consequences will be severe. By being forced to conceal their feminist values, she argues women are being stripped of their ability to fight against gender inequality, which penetrates workplaces, politics and public life.

Feminists are now busy brainstorming ways to put an end to the witch hunts. One clear answer is legal change. In South Korea there is no blanket anti-discrimination law to protect women and prevent them being fired for their views.

It has been repeatedly blocked by politicians, largely because it would support gay and transgender people, with anti-feminists, and even some trans-exclusionary feminists, now lobbying against it.

Minsung believes the only way to strip the witch hunters of their powers is for the companies and the authorities to stand up to them. They make up a small fraction of men in South Korea, they just have loud voices and a bizarrely oversized influence, he argues.

Since her attack, Jigu now proudly calls herself a feminist. “I want to reach out to other victims like me, and if even one woman has the strength to grab my hand, I want to help.”

The UK has introduced a ban on pigs, sheep and cattle imports from Germany after a case of foot-and-mouth disease was confirmed in the country.

The government said on Tuesday it will no longer approve health certificates for animals, fresh meat and animal products susceptible to the disease to prevent its spread to the UK where there are currently no confirmed cases.

While there is no risk to humans or food safety, foot-and-mouth is highly contagious in pigs, sheep and cattle, as well as other cloven-hoofed animals.

In 2001 and 2007, the UK suffered major outbreaks of the disease, leading to millions of livestock animals being slaughtered across the country.

Farming minister Daniel Zeichner said the government will do “whatever it takes to protect our nation’s farmers from the risk posed by foot-and-mouth”.

He added: “That is why restrictions have immediately been brought in on animal products from Germany to prevent an outbreak, and we will not hesitate to add additional countries to the list if the disease spreads.

“We will continue to keep the situation under review, working closely with the German authorities.”

Foot-and-mouth disease is a legally notifiable disease, meaning it is an offence not to report a case to the government.

As well as culling animals, farmers affected by the disease could see reduced milk production, as well as wider economic implications such as the loss of access to foreign markets for animals and their subsequent products.

Major outbreaks in 2001 and 2007 cost the public and private sectors billions.

For cattle, symptoms of the disease include blisters and sores on their feet, mouth and tongue, as well as lameness, fever and reluctance to feed.

In sheep and pigs, symptoms typically present as lameness and blisters.

UK Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Christine Middlemiss has asked “livestock keepers to exercise the upmost vigilance for signs of disease, follow scrupulous biosecurity, and report any suspicion of disease immediately to the Animal and Plant Health Agency”.

The government recently announced a £200m investment in the UK’s main research and laboratory testing facilities at Weybridge to bolster protection against animal disease.

Ash-smeared naked Hindu holy men charged into India’s most sacred river Ganges at dawn on the first most significant bathing day of the Kumbh Mela festival (also known as Mahakumbh) in the northern city of Prayagraj.

The ascetics chanted religious slogans, invoking Hindu gods and goddesses as they plunged into the icy waters.

After coming out of the water, some picked up fistfuls of the silver sand and rubbed it over their bodies.

Many carried swords and tridents and one held aloft a silver staff with a snake head.

Alongside these holy men – known as Naga sadhus – millions of Hindu pilgrims from across the globe are in Prayagraj to take part in a festival that can actually be seen from space and is billed as humanity’s biggest gathering.

Tuesday’s bathing spectacle comes on the second day of the Kumbh Mela which is held every 12 years. By noon local time (06:30 GMT), about 16 million bathers had taken a dip in the river. Officials said on the first day on Monday, 16.5 million pilgrims had bathed.

More than 20 million people are expected to take part in the rituals today and around 400 million over the course of 45 days, authorities say.

Hindus believe that this ritual will cleanse them of sins, purify their soul and help them attain salvation by liberating them from the cycle of birth and death.

Police struggled to manage the surging crowds at the festival on Tuesday as thousands managed to come into an arena meant for the ascetics.

Mahant Prayag Puri Ji of Juna Akhara on Tuesday accused the administration of laxity in controlling the crowds.

“We were being shoved and pushed when we went for bathing,” he told me after his dip. “It was very crowded and people were very indisciplined. I fell down and hurt my foot. I had to run away from there to save my life.”

Today, he said, “is the first Shahi snan” .

“I hope the administration gets its act together before the next one which will be on 29 January,” he added.

Tuesday’s bathing rituals, called the Shahi Snan – or the royal bath – see the ascetics arrive in batches at the Sangam – the confluence of India’s most sacred Ganges river with the Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati – in colourful processions.

Their outing is a major draw for people from across India and around the world who come to seek their blessings.

Their presence also holds a special significance for the great masses who believe that the river waters get imbued with the purity of the saints’ thoughts and deeds when they bathe in the river.

There are six auspicious days to bathe this time, decided by astrologers, based on the alignment of specific planets and constellations. They are:

• 13 January: Paush Purnima
• 14 January: Makar Sankranti
• 29 January: Mauni Amavasya
• 3 February: Basant Panchami
• 12 February: Magh Purnima
• 26 February: Maha Shivaratri

Three of these – 14 and 29 January, and 3 February – have been designated as Shahi Snan days when the Naga sadhus will bathe.

The largest gathering is expected on 29 January when 50 to 60 million worshippers are expected to take to the waters.

Authorities have built a sprawling tented city on the river bank spread over 4,000 hectares to accommodate the holy men, pilgrims and tourists visiting the festival.

For the past few days, we have watched groups of saints arriving at the mela grounds in large noisy processions.

One group of ash-smeared holy men, some naked and some dressed in just a loin cloth or marigold garland draped around their necks, marched through the streets, holding tridents, swords and small two-headed drums.

• Millions start bathing in holy rivers at India’s biggest Hindu festival
• In photos: World’s biggest religious festival begins in India

Another group had its leaders on chariots escorted to their campsite in a large procession with music bands, dancers, horses and camels.

The groups – known as akharas – have set up sprawling camps which have been a hive of activity, with tens of thousands of pilgrims visiting to hear religious discourses or attend evening prayers.

The origin of the festival is rooted in the mythological story about a fight between the gods and demons over a Kumbh (a pitcher) of nectar that emerged during the churching of the ocean.

As the two sides fought over the pot of elixir, a few drops spilled over and fell in four cities – Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik.

The Kumbh mela is organised in all the four cities, but the biggest festivals are always held in Prayagraj.

Hindu seer Mahant Ravindra Puri says the rare planetary alignments at present make this year’s festival “extra special” and “a Maha [great] Kumbh”.

Mahant Puri will be leading tens of thousands of holy men from his akhara to Tuesday morning’s bath.

“We believe that during Kumbh Mela, the waters of the sacred river will be imbued with nectar,” he says.

“And those who have faith, Ganga maiyya [the river goddess] will bless them with whatever they want, whatever they need,” he adds.

Besides the saints and ascetics, Tuesday’s bathing will also see millions of ordinary pilgrims making their way to the river.

On Monday, in the mela ground, we met Chitiya Ahirvar who is visiting from her village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

The 60-year-old who is travelling in a group of 20 bathed in the river in the morning and will be going back for a repeat on Tuesday .

“I prayed to the river goddess for my children’s well being and happiness,” she said.

Mavaram Patel, a businessman who is visiting from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, said he had heard a lot about the Kumbh Mela but did not have the opportunity to visit earlier.

“Kumbh Mela is part of our ancient tradition. It’s one of Hinduism’s most important festivals,” he told the BBC.

Mr Patel said he prayed to the river goddess for the “happiness and welfare” of his “family and the wider world” and plans to take a dip in the river on Tuesday morning too before leaving the city.

“Visiting Prayagraj and bathing during Kumbh was on my bucket list for a long time so I’m happy to be here,” he said.

Months after mysterious black balls forced the closure of some of Sydney’s most famous beaches, small marble-like debris has begun washing up on the city’s shores again.

The balls – this time grey or white in colour – have prompted councils to shut nine beaches, including popular Manly and Dee Why, while authorities investigate.

Eight beaches including Bondi were closed for several days in October and a massive clean-up ordered after thousands of black deposits started appearing on the coast.

Testing by authorities determined those balls were most likely the result of a sewage spill.

Northern Beaches mayor Sue Heins said the latest balls “could be anything”, according to the Guardian Australia.

“We don’t know at the moment what it is and that makes it even more concerning,” she said.

“There’s something that’s obviously leaking or dropping… floating out there and being tossed around.”

In a post on Facebook on Tuesday, the Northern Beaches Council said they were alerted to the fresh debris by the New South Wales Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The agency and the council planned to collect the discoveries for testing and inspect other beaches in the area too.

Anyone who spotted the balls was urged to contact authorities, the council added.

Though widely reported to be “tar balls”, the debris in October was later found to contain everything from cooking oil and soap scum molecules, to blood pressure medication, pesticides, hair, methamphetamine and veterinary drugs.

Scientists said they resembled fat, oil, and grease blobs – often called fatbergs – which are commonly formed in sewerage systems.

However Sydney Water reported there were no known issues with waste systems in the city, and authorities still don’t know the source of the material, prompting some to express concerns about the safety of the city’s beaches.

“The EPA can’t explain the source of the human waste causing the fatbergs and it can’t assure the public that Sydney’s beaches are safe to use,” state politician Sue Higginson, from the Greens party, said in a statement in December.

A rare first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, set to be thrown away, is expected to sell for up to £40,000.

Errors helped an auctioneer identify the hardback as one of 500 copies from the book’s first print run.

Daniel Pearce, who runs NLB Auctions in Paignton, Devon, found it among the possessions of a deceased man from Brixham.

He said: “It’s our biggest find. The family are delighted, they didn’t expect it at all… it will be important money for them, and it has been sat on a shelf for 20 years.”

“It’s something everybody dreams of really,” said Mr Pearce.

“You pop into a property hoping to find something valuable.”

He said he found the copy on top of a pile of items earmarked for the bin.

Mr Pearce said from the first print run 200 were sent to bookshops and 300 were distributed to public libraries.

He said: “This is one of the 300. As it is a library edition, it is in cracking condition considering.

“Usually these come to the market beaten up and spines damaged. This one is great.”

Mr Pearce said on the first page of the book there was a £2 pencil mark, which was the cost the library sold it for when it was checked out.

He said the misspelling of philosopher’s on the back of the copy was among the things that identified it as a first edition.

“It is missing the ‘o’ at the end,” he said.

Other differences found in first editions include “inside the first couple of pages you will notice the title line has the numbers extending from 10 down to one”.

Mr Pearce said another copy, in a similar condition, sold in November for £42,000 including the fees.

“There are still a few out there,” he added.

“I believe they are the most expensive contemporary first edition you can get now.”

X

Nigerians on social media are mourning the death of a woman who was allegedly beheaded by a man reported to be her boyfriend in Nasarawa state.

Police arrested Timileyin Ajayi, a gospel singer, on Sunday with the severed head of his victim, 24-year-old Salome Adaidu, near a church.

He is alleged to have been carrying the head in a bag which drew attention from other people who accosted him before police took over and arrested him.

Other dismembered parts of the deceased’s body were alleged to be have been recovered later in his home.

Mr Ajayi has not commented on the allegations.

“The suspect was found with a fresh human head, and when we got to the scene, we rescued him from being mobbed,” Nasarawa police spokesman Ramhan Nansel was quoted by the Punch news website as saying.

The deceased was identified as a member of the National Youth Service Corps who was serving in the federal capital, Abuja.

Investigations into the incident are ongoing, the police said.

Ms Adaidu’s family has urged the Nigerian government to thoroughly investigate and prosecute those responsible for her death.

A friend of the deceased, Abby Simon, told BBC Pidgin that it was a sad experience for Ms Adaidu’s mum who lost her husband only seven months ago. She said the mother had fainted from the shock of losing her daughter.

She also said the deceased was not in a relationship with the suspect.

“Nobody deserves to die this way. Even if she was his girlfriend, she didn’t deserve to die this way,” she said.

The deceased’s sister, Patience Adaidu, told local TV outlet News Central that she was disappointed at the way the police were handling the case and called for help from Nigerians.

“Police have not given us any information about my sister… They have not answered our questions… We demand justice, we need help from Nigerians.”

Nigerians on social media have been sending messages of support following the incident.

“RIP Salome Adaidu. Your killer will never have rest even after death,” Avni James said.

Amara Josephine said on X: “That gruesome image of that young lady saddens my heart. I pray for her family.”

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Starbucks says it is reversing rules for its cafes in North America that allowed people to use their facilities even if they had not bought anything.

The changes, which are set to come into force from 27 January, are a U-turn from a policy introduced six years ago that allowed people to linger in Starbucks outlets and use their toilets without making a purchase.

The move is part of the “back to Starbucks” strategy – a plan announced by the firm’s new boss as he tries to tackle flagging sales.

The world’s biggest coffee chain says its new code of conduct – which also addresses harassment and bans smoking and outside alcohol – aims to make its stores more welcoming.

“Implementing a Coffeehouse Code of Conduct… is a practical step that helps us prioritise our paying customers who want to sit and enjoy our cafes”, a Starbucks spokesperson told BBC News.

“These updates are part of a broader set of changes we are making to enhance the cafe experience as we work to get back to Starbucks.”

The company said the new rules will be displayed at every store and staff will be instructed to ask anyone who violates the code of conduct to leave. That includes allowing employees to call the police when necessary.

In 2018, Starbucks decided to allow free access to its coffee shops and toilets after the controversial arrest of two men at one of its Philadelphia cafes.

Other changes set to be introduced later this month include offering one free refill of hot or iced coffee for customers who buy a drink to consume on the premises.

Starbucks has been trying to boost flagging sales as it grappled with a backlash to price increases and boycotts sparked by the Israel-Gaza war.

Brian Niccol, who previously headed the Mexican food chain Chipotle, was brought into Starbucks last year to help turn the business around.

Mr Niccol has been trying to improve the customer experience at Starbucks’ cafes by revamping its menus and coffee shops.

Starbucks said the policy change only applied to North America and not its UK stores.

However, it has not yet responded to requests for comment on the details of its UK policy.

At least 24 people have died in the Los Angeles fires as two major blazes continue to burn across the sprawling US city.

Firefighters made progress over the weekend in containing the Palisades and Eaton fires but warn that the return of high winds – forecast until Wednesday – could see these two spread again, or fuel new ones.

The fires are already among the most destructive in LA’s history when measured by the number of buildings destroyed. Rebuilding work will cost “tens of billions” of dollars, US President Joe Biden has said.

An area to the north-west of the city centre is described by officials as “particularly dangerous”.

A red flag warning – indicating a high level of fire danger – is in place until 18:00 (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday, with the strongest Santa Ana winds expected on Tuesday.

Nearby, the largest fire is in the Palisades area, and has burnt through more than 23,000 acres. It is still only about 14% contained, despite the efforts of thousands of firefighters.

The blaze is moving east, threatening the exclusive neighbourhood of Brentwood, home to the Getty Center, a world-famous art museum that has evacuated its staff.

Another fire, Eaton, is more deadly than Palisades so far – responsible for 16 of the deaths.

• Follow live updates

The overall destruction is immense, with more than 12,000 structures – homes, outbuildings, sheds, mobile homes and cars – destroyed. Celebrities Mel Gibson and Paris Hilton are among those who have lost their homes.

Tens of thousands of homes are also without power.

The fires could turn out to be the costliest in US history, with damage projected at up to $150bn, according to a preliminary estimate by AccuWeather.

There are three active fires in the wider area, while a smaller fire is nearly contained, say California fire officials:

• Palisades: The first fire to erupt a week ago and the biggest in the region. It has scorched more than 23,000 acres as of Tuesday, including the upmarket Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, and is only 14% contained
• Eaton: Affecting the northern part of LA, blazing through areas such as Altadena. It is the second biggest fire in the area, burning more than 14,000 acres. It is now 33% contained
• Hurst: Located just north of San Fernando, it began burning last Tuesday. It has grown to 799 acres, but is almost fully contained
• Auto: Broke out on Monday. It has reportedly been stopped from moving forwards after spanning 56 acres, according to Ventura County officials

The earlier Kenneth, Archer, Sunset, Lidia, Woodley and Olivas fires have been contained.

Containment describes the progress firefighters make in controlling the spread of flames. It is often listed as a percentage. For example, if a fire is 14% contained, that means fire crews have established barriers around 14% of the fire’s perimeter.

Natural barriers include roads, rivers and oceans. Firefighters can also create barriers using equipment such as bulldozers, hoses and shovels to remove vegetation down to the bare soil, meaning there is nothing for the fire to burn.

A fire being 100% contained doesn’t mean it has been extinguished, but rather that the flames have been fully encircled and the spread has been effectively stopped.

Detectives continue to investigate the possible causes.

Lightning – the most common source of fires in the US – has been ruled out as a cause for the Palisades and Eaton fires.

There has been no official indication so far that arson or utility lines – the next two biggest culprits in sparking fires – caused any of the conflagrations.

However, in the case of the Eaton fire, legal cases have been filed against the electrical company, Southern California Edison Company (SCE), claiming there is evidence that the blaze – one of the largest – was ignited due to negligence of the firm’s overhead wires.

SCE has vowed to “review the complaint when it is received”, pointing out that “the cause of the fire continues to be under investigation”.

A spokeswoman added that the company “remains committed” to supporting communities affected by the fires.

On Friday, SCE said authorities were investigating whether its infrastructure was involved in the ignition of the separate Hurst fire.

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California’s very wet years of 2022-23 brought about a huge growth of vegetation, which dried out in the drought of last year, creating abundant kindling.

Conditions have been ripe for wildfires thanks to a combination of an exceptionally dry period – downtown LA has only received 0.16 inches (0.4cm) of rain since October – and powerful offshore gusts known as the Santa Ana winds.

• What are the Santa Ana winds?

A political row about the city’s preparedness has erupted after it emerged some fire crews’ hoses ran dry.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has called for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to hydrants and why the Santa Ynez Reservoir was closed for maintenance and empty when the fire broke out.

“Losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors,” he wrote.

• Fact-checking criticism of California Democrats over fires

LA Mayor Karen Bass, who was on a previously arranged trip to Ghana when the fires began, has faced intense questions about the region’s preparedness and the water issues. On Saturday, she deflected questions about her handling of the emergency.

Before the fires broke out, the city of LA’s fire chief warned in a memo that budget cuts were hampering the department’s ability to respond to emergencies. But another official, the LA County fire chief, denied his department had been unprepared.

Although strong winds and lack of rain are driving the blazes, experts say climate change is altering the background conditions and increasing the likelihood of such fires.

Much of the western United States including California experienced a decades-long drought that ended just two years ago, making the region vulnerable.

“Whiplash” swings between dry and wet periods in recent years created a massive amount of tinder-dry vegetation that was ready to burn.

US government research is unequivocal in linking climate change to larger and more severe wildfires in the western US.

“Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.

Fire season in southern California is generally thought to stretch from May to October – but the Governor Newsom has pointed out earlier that blazes are now a perennial issue. “There’s no fire season,” he said. “It’s fire year.”

• A simple guide to climate change
• Stuck in traffic as flames approached: Why LA is hard to evacuate

No one can say when the Los Angeles fires will finally go out. The city is bracing for continued burning and a possible spread amid the latest wind warnings.

The Santa Ana winds that fanned the flames are set to strengthen, with strong gusts on Tuesday before the severity is expected to drop. There are now new red flag warnings for dangerous wind storms.

The other conditions that fed the fire – dry brush and lack of precipitation – continue as well.

Have you been affected by the fires in California? Get in touch here.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

Months after mysterious black balls forced the closure of some of Sydney’s most famous beaches, small marble-like debris has begun washing up on the city’s shores again.

The balls – this time grey or white in colour – have prompted councils to shut nine beaches, including popular Manly and Dee Why, while authorities investigate.

Eight beaches including Bondi were closed for several days in October and a massive clean-up ordered after thousands of black deposits started appearing on the coast.

Testing by authorities determined those balls were most likely the result of a sewage spill.

Northern Beaches mayor Sue Heins said the latest balls “could be anything”, according to the Guardian Australia.

“We don’t know at the moment what it is and that makes it even more concerning,” she said.

“There’s something that’s obviously leaking or dropping… floating out there and being tossed around.”

In a post on Facebook on Tuesday, the Northern Beaches Council said they were alerted to the fresh debris by the New South Wales Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The agency and the council planned to collect the discoveries for testing and inspect other beaches in the area too.

Anyone who spotted the balls was urged to contact authorities, the council added.

Though widely reported to be “tar balls”, the debris in October was later found to contain everything from cooking oil and soap scum molecules, to blood pressure medication, pesticides, hair, methamphetamine and veterinary drugs.

Scientists said they resembled fat, oil, and grease blobs – often called fatbergs – which are commonly formed in sewerage systems.

However Sydney Water reported there were no known issues with waste systems in the city, and authorities still don’t know the source of the material, prompting some to express concerns about the safety of the city’s beaches.

“The EPA can’t explain the source of the human waste causing the fatbergs and it can’t assure the public that Sydney’s beaches are safe to use,” state politician Sue Higginson, from the Greens party, said in a statement in December.

A bright comet could be visible in skies across the globe over the coming days for the first time in 160,000 years.

Nasa said the future brightness of a comet is “notoriously hard” to predict, but that Comet C/2024 G3 (Atlas) could remain bright enough to be seen by the naked eye.

On Monday, the comet was at perihelion, the point at which it is closest to the Sun, which influences how bright it appears. Experts say it could be visible from Monday night.

While the exact locations for possible visibility are unknown, experts believe the comet, which could shine as bright as Venus, may be best observed from the southern hemisphere.

The comet was spotted last year by Nasa’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System.

Dr Shyam Balaji, researcher in astroparticle physics and cosmology at King’s College London, said “current orbital calculations indicate it will pass about 8.3 million miles from the Sun”, which classifies it as a “sun-skirting” comet.

The university described the comet as a once-in-160,000-years event.

Dr Balaji said opportunities to spot the comet may occur “in the days around perihelion, depending on local conditions and the comet’s behaviour”.

“As with all comets, its visibility and brightness can be unpredictable,” he added.

Mr Balaji said people who live in the southern hemisphere – where the comet is predicted to be best observed from – should “look toward the eastern horizon before sunrise, [and] after perihelion, try the western horizon after sunset.”

But Mr Balaji added that while it is expected to be “quite bright”, predictions on comet brightness are “notoriously uncertain”, with many ending up fainter than initially predicted.

For the northern hemisphere – including the UK – viewing may be challenging do to the comet’s relativity to the Sun.

You can check with BBC Weather online to see if the skies are clear enough for a possible sighting where you are.

Mr Balaji advised people wanting to spot the comet to find a location away from light pollution and use a pair of binoculars or a small telescope.

He warned observers to be cautious around sunrise and sunset, and said to track the comet’s position to find where it may appear in the sky.

Meanwhile, astronomers have been following the comet’s path.

On Saturday, Nasa astronaut Don Pettit, shared a photograph on social media of the comet taken from the International Space Station.

“It is totally amazing to see a comet from orbit. Atlas C2024-G3 is paying us a visit,” he wrote.

Nato has launched a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year.

Nato chief Mark Rutte said the mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”, would involve more patrol aircraft, warships and drones.

His announcement was made at a summit in Helsinki attended by all Nato countries perched on the Baltic Sea – Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden.

While Russia was not directly singled out as a culprit in the cable damage, Rutte said Nato would step up its monitoring of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” – ships without clear ownership that are used to carry embargoed oil products.

Tensions between Nato countries and Russia have been mounting relentlessly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“There is reason for grave concern” over infrastructure damage, Rutte said. He added that Nato would respond to such accidents robustly, with more boarding of suspect vessels and, if necessary, their seizure.

He declined to share more details on the number of assets that will take part in the Baltic Sentry initiative, as he said this could change regularly and that he did not wish to make “the enemy any wiser than he or she is already”.

Undersea infrastructure is essential not only for electricity supply but also because more than 95% of internet traffic is secured via undersea cables, Rutte said, adding that “1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles) of cables guarantee an estimated 10 trillion-dollar worth of financial transactions every day”.

In a post on X, he said Nato would do “what it takes to ensure the safety and security of our critical infrastructure and all that we hold dear”.

There has been an uptick in unexplained damage to undersea infrastructure in the Baltic in recent months.

The most recent accident to undersea infrastructure saw an electricity cable running between Finland and Estonia be cut in late December.

Finnish coast guard crew boarded the oil tanker Eagle S – which was sailing under a Cook Islands flag – and steered it into Finnish waters, while Estonia deployed a patrol ship to protect its undersea power cable.

On Monday, Risto Lohi of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation told Reuters that the Eagle S was threatening to cut a second power cable and a gas pipe between Finland and Estonia at the time it was seized.

Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in December that damage to submarine infrastructure had become “so frequent” that it cast doubt on the idea the damage could be considered “accidental” or “merely poor seamanship”.

Tsahkna did not accuse Russia directly. Neither did Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who on Sunday said that while Sweden was not jumping to conclusions or “accusing anyone of sabotage without very strong reasons”, it was also “not naive”.

“The security situation and the fact that strange things happen time and time again in the Baltic Sea also lead us to believe that hostile intent cannot be ruled out.”

“There is little evidence that a ship would accidentally and without noticing it… without understanding that it could cause damage,” he said.

TikTok users in the US are migrating to a Chinese app called RedNote with the threat of a ban just days away.

The move by users who call themselves “TikTok refugees” has made RedNote the most downloaded app on Apple’s US App Store on Monday.

RedNote is a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.

It has about 300 million monthly users and looks like a combination of TikTok and Instagram. It allows users, mostly young urban women, to exchange lifestyle tips from dating to fashion.

Supreme Court justices are due to rule on a law that set a 19 January deadline for TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban in the country.

TikTok has repeatedly said that it will not sell its US business and its lawyers have warned that a ban will violate free speech protections for the platform’s 170 million users in the US.

Meanwhile, RedNote has welcomed its new users with open arms. There are 63,000 posts on the topic “TikTok refugee”, where new users are taught how to navigate the app and how to use basic Chinese phrases.

“To our Chinese hosts, thanks for having us – sorry in advance for the chaos,” a new US user wrote.

But like TikTok, there have also been reports of censorship on RedNote when it comes to criticism of the Chinese government.

In Taiwan, public officials are restricted from using RedNote due to alleged security risks of Chinese software.

As more US users joined RedNote, some Chinese users have also jokingly referred to themselves as “Chinese spies”, a reference to US officials’ concerns that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.

RedNote’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, translates to Little Red Book, but the app says it is not a reference to Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s book of quotations with the same name.

But security concerns have not deterred users from flocking to RedNote.

Sarah Fotheringham, a 37-year-old school canteen worker in Utah, says the move to RedNote is a way to “snub” the government.

“I’m just a simple person living a simple life,” Ms Fotheringham told the BBC in a RedNote message.

“I don’t have anything that China doesn’t, and if they want my data that bad they can have it.”

Marcus Robinson, a fashion designer in Virginia, said he created his RedNote account over the weekend to share his clothing brand and “be ahead of the curve”.

Mr Robinson told the BBC he was was only “slightly hesitant” about accepting the terms and conditions of using the app, which were written in Mandarin.

“I wasn’t able to actually read them so that was a little concerning to me,” he said, “but I took my chance.”

While a ban will not make TikTok disappear immediately, it will require app stores to stop offering it – which could kill it over time.

But even if TikTok dodges a ban, it may prove helpless against users moving to alternative platforms.

Some social media users tell the BBC that they find themselves scrolling on RedNote more than TikTok.

“Even if TikTok does stay I will continue to use my platform I’ve created on RedNote,” Tennessee tech worker Sydney Crawley told the BBC.

Ms Crawley said she got over 6,000 followers within 24 hours of creating her RedNote account.

“I will continue to try to build a following there and see what new connections, friendships, or opportunities it brings me.”

Ms Fotheringham, the canteen worker, said RedNote “opened my world up to China and its people”.

“I am now able to see things I never would have seen,” she said. “Regular Chinese people, finding out about their culture, life, school, everything, it has been so much fun.”

The community so far has been “super welcoming”, said Mr Robinson, the designer.

“I love RedNote so far … I just need to learn how to speak Mandarin!”

Svitlana says she never considered betraying her country, “not for a second.”

“My husband would’ve never forgiven me,” she says, as we meet in her flat near Kyiv.

The 42-year-old had been waiting for news of her husband Dima, an army medic captured by Russia, for more than two years when she suddenly received a phone call.

The voice at the end of the phone told her that if she committed treason against Ukraine, Dima could be eligible for better treatment in prison, or even early release.

“A Ukrainian number called me. I picked up, and the man introduced himself as Dmitry,” Svitlana explains. “He spoke in a Russian accent.”

“He said, ‘You can either burn down a military enlistment office, set fire to a military vehicle or sabotage a Ukrainian Railways electrical box.'”

There was one other option: to reveal the locations of nearby air defence units — vital military assets that keep Ukraine’s skies safe from Russian drones and missiles.

As Dmitry set out his proposal, Svitlana says she recalled instructions that the Ukrainian authorities had distributed to all families in the event of being approached by Russian agents: buy as much time as possible, record and photograph everything, and report it.

Svitlana did report it, and took screenshots of the messages, which she showed to the BBC.

The Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, told her to stall the Russians while they investigated. So she pretended to agree to firebomb a local railway line.

As we sit in her immaculate sitting room, with air raid sirens periodically wailing outside, she plays me recordings she made on her phone of two of the voice calls with Dmitry, made via the Telegram app. During the call, he gives instructions on how to make and plant a Molotov cocktail.

“Pour in a litre of lighting fluid and add a bit of petrol,” Dmitry explains. “Go to some sort of railway junction. Make sure there are no security cameras. Wear a hat – just in case.”

He also gave Svitlana a tutorial in how to put her phone on airplane mode once she was 1-2km away from her intended target, to avoid her signal being picked up by mobile phone masts that could be used by investigators.

“Do you know what a relay box is? Take a photo of it. This should be the target for her arson attack,” explained Dmitry, who demanded proof of completion of the task.

“Write today’s date on a piece of paper and take a photo with this piece of paper.”

In return, Dmitry said he could arrange a phone call with her husband, or for a parcel to be delivered to him.

Later, the SBU told Svitlana that the man she’d been talking to was indeed in Russia, and she should break off contact. Svitlana told Dmitry she’d changed her mind.

“That’s when the threats began,” says Svitlana, “He said they’d kill my husband, and I’d never see him again.

For days, he kept calling, saying: “Your husband is being tortured, and it’s your fault!”

“How concerned were you that he might go through with the threats to harm Dima?” I ask Svitlana. Her eyes moisten. “My heart ached, and I could only pray: ‘God, please don’t let that happen.'”

“One part of me said ‘this person has no connection with the prisoners.’ The other part asks: ‘What if he really can do it? How would I live with myself?'”

In a statement to the BBC, the SBU said co-operating with Russian agents “will in no way ease the plight of the prisoner; on the contrary, it may significantly complicate their chances of being exchanged.”

The authorities are urging all relatives to come forward immediately if they are approached by Russian agents.

Those who do, they say, will be “protected,” and treated as victims.

But if relatives agree to commit sabotage or espionage, says the SBU, “this may be classified as treason. The maximum punishment is life imprisonment.”

The authorities regularly publicise arrests of Ukrainians who allegedly commit arson or reveal the location of military sites to Russia.

Pro-Kremlin media is awash with videos purporting to show Ukrainians torching army vehicles or railway electrical boxes.

Some of the culprits do it for money, paid by suspected Russian agents, but it is thought there are attacks carried out by desperate relatives, too.

Petro Yatsenko, from the Ukrainian military’s Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, says around 50% of all families of PoWs are contacted by Russian agents.

“They’re in a very vulnerable position and some of them are ready to do anything,” Petro says, “but we are trying to educate them that it won’t help [their loved ones in captivity].”

Petro says an act such as setting fire to a military vehicle isn’t considered a significant material loss to the Ukrainian Armed Forces:

“But it can destabilise the unity of Ukrainian society, so that’s the main problem.

And, of course, if someone shares the location of, for example, air defence systems, that’s a big problem for us too,” he admits.

The authorities don’t publish the numbers of Ukrainians held as prisoners of war, but the number is thought to be more than 8,000.

A source in Ukrainian intelligence told the BBC the number of cases where relatives agree to work with Russia is small.

The Russian government told the BBC in a statement that the allegations it uses prisoners’ families as leverage are “groundless,” and Russia treats “Ukrainian combatants humanely and in full compliance with the Geneva Convention.”

The statement goes on to accuse Ukraine of using the same methods:

“Ukrainian handlers are actively attempting to coerce residents of Russia to commit acts of sabotage and arson within Russian territory, targeting critical infrastructure and civilian facilities.”

Svitlana’s husband Dima was released from captivity just over three months ago.

The couple are now happily back together, and enjoy playing with their four-year-old son, Vova.

How did Svitlana feel when her husband was finally set free?

“There were tears of joy like I’ve never cried before,” she says, beaming. “It felt like I had snatched my love from the jaws of death.”

Dima told his wife the Russians didn’t act on their threats to punish him for her refusal to co-operate.

When Svitlana told him about the calls, he was shocked.

“He asked me how I held up,” she says, and winks. “Well, as I always say, I’m an officer’s wife.”

Best-selling British author Neil Gaiman has reportedly been accused of sexual misconduct by eight women, including four who previously spoke out.

The fantasy graphic novel and science fiction writer – whose books Good Omens, American Gods and The Sandman have been adapted for television – was the subject of a New York Magazine cover story on Monday.

The article – which details fresh claims made against him based on interviews with eight women – follows last year’s release of Tortoise Media’s podcast Master, which reported the initial accusations.

Gaiman’s representatives have denied the allegations, telling the US publication that he and the women had engaged in consensual encounters.

In July 2024, Tortoise Media reported that Gaiman had been accused of sexual assault and released a podcast series which covered allegations made by five women.

On Monday, New York Magazine and its website Vulture reported allegations from eight women – four of whom also participated in Tortoise’s podcast – claiming to have had similar experiences with Gaiman.

One of the women, who had been babysitting Gaiman’s five-year-old child, alleges that he offered her a bath in his garden before joining her in the tub naked, asking her to sit on his lap, and that he sexually assaulted her.

While the article states that all of the accusers had at some point played along with Gaiman’s desires to some extent by calling him “master” and continuing to communicate with him, the women allege that consent and specific BDSM activities which they say took place had not been discussed and agreed upon prior to them happening.

Gaiman’s representative’s previously told Tortoise that “sexual degradation, bondage, domination, sadism and masochism may not be to everyone’s taste, but between consenting adults, BDSM is lawful”.

The BBC has contacted Gaiman’s representatives for further comment.

A police report accusing Gaiman of a sexual assault was made in January 2023, but the investigation was eventually dropped.

Since the allegations first surfaced, several of Gaiman’s film and TV projects have been affected.

Season three of Prime Video’s Good Omens will now end with one 90-minute episode, with Gaiman no longer involved in the production.

Disney has paused production on its film adaptation of another Gaiman title, The Graveyard Book, while Netflix has cancelled Dead Boy Detectives, although it’s not clear if this was related to the allegations.

Season two of The Sandman is still expected to be released this year on Netflix, however, as well as Prime Video’s series adaptation of Anansi Boys.

The BBC has contacted Netflix, Prime Video and Disney for a comment.

Leeds Playhouse is hosting a musical adaptation of Gaiman’s dark fantasy horror children’s novella Coraline from April. It told BBC News in November it was moving ahead with the project. The venue has been approached for a response to the latest allegations.

Headline, which has published several of Gaiman’s works, declined to comment on the allegations against the Portsmouth-born author.

Spain is planning to impose a tax of up to 100% on the value of properties bought by non-residents from countries outside the EU, such as the UK.

Announcing the move, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the “unprecedented” measure was necessary to meet the country’s housing emergency.

“The West faces a decisive challenge: To not become a society divided into two classes, the rich landlords and poor tenants,” he said.

Non-EU residents bought 27,000 properties in Spain in 2023, he told an economic forum in Madrid, “not to live in” but “to make money from them”.

“Which, in the context of shortage that we are in, [we] obviously cannot allow,” he added.

The move was designed to prioritise available homes for residents, the Spanish prime minister said.

Sánchez did not provide any more details on how the tax would work nor a timeline for presenting it to parliament for approval, where he has often struggled to gather sufficient votes to pass legislation.

His office described the proposed measure as a way to limit the purchase of homes by “non-resident non-EU foreigners”. In Spain, people are classed as non-residents if they live in the country for less than 183 days in a single year.

It added: “The tax burden that they will have to pay in case of purchase will be increased up to 100% of the value of the property, in line with countries such as Denmark and Canada.”

Currently non-residents can be expected to pay 6-10% in tax on the property’s value depending on the region and if the property is new or not.

The Spanish government said the proposal would be finalised “after careful study”.

Prospective British buyers told BBC News the proposal had made them think again about buying in Spain.

Michele Hayes, from Manchester, who spent the weekend house-hunting south of Alicante, had wanted a property for family to visit and to spend time during her retirement.

“We could look at buying quickly before the tax comes in, but we don’t know what could happen in the future,” she said.

“Selling could be tough if we can no longer sell to non-residents, especially a holiday home property in a touristy area.”

The 59-year-old said she empathised with their housing issue, but said she wanted to add to the local economy and asked: “How many working Spanish people want to live in holiday homes in these tourist areas anyway?”

Martin Craven, from London, said he had been looking to buy in Spain this year.

“I definitely wouldn’t consider trying to get in before this tax, because who knows what else they could do, a retrospective tax or a tax on existing owners,” the 62-year-old said.

“I’ll be looking at Cyprus now instead.”

Julian, 54, from Surrey, said Spain was his first choice to buy a holiday home, but now it “looks more risky” than other countries.

“I would want to be out there four to six months a year, also travelling, spending money, buying food and drink, paying taxes,” the 54-year-old said.

“Here in the UK, we also have problems with landlords buying multiple properties and driving up the rest, but this policy is losing sight of those of us who want to spend money in the country. “

It is one of a dozen planned measures announced by the Spanish prime minister on Monday aimed at improving housing affordability in the country.

Other measures announced include a tax exemption for landlords who provide affordable housing, transferring more than 3,000 homes to a new public housing body, and tighter regulation and higher taxes on tourist flats.

“It isn’t fair that those who have three, four or five apartments as short-term rentals pay less tax than hotels,” Sánchez said.

President-elect Donald Trump would have been convicted of illegally trying to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election – which he lost – if he had not successfully been re-elected in 2024, according to the man who led US government investigations into him.

The evidence against Trump was “sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Special Counsel Jack Smith wrote in a partially released report.

Trump hit back, saying Smith was “deranged” and his findings were “fake”.

Trump was accused of pressurising officials to reverse the 2020 result, knowingly spreading lies about election fraud and seeking to exploit the riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. He denied any wrongdoing.

Trump, who was president at the time of the alleged crimes, subsequently spent four years out of office – but was successfully re-elected to the White House in November. He will return to the presidency next week.

• Five things in final 2020 election report into Trump

After his success in the 2024 vote, the various legal issues that he had been battling have largely evaporated. The interference case has now been dismissed.

Smith says in the report he “stands fully behind” the merits of bringing the prosecution and the strength of the case.

He went on to say it was only the fact the US Constitution forbids the prosecution of a sitting president that ended it.

“But for Mr Trump’s election [in 2024] and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”

Some of the material in Smith’s report was already known thanks to a public filing in October, which gave details of Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn his defeat.

But the report, which was released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) to Congress, gives further detail on why Smith pursued the case, and ultimately closed it.

• It justifies the case against Trump by accusing him of “unprecedented efforts to unlawfully retain power” through “threats and encouragement of violence against his perceived opponents”
• Running through Mr Trump’s “criminal efforts” were election fraud claims he knew to be false, it says
• The report details “significant challenges” faced by investigators, including Trump’s use of social media to target witnesses, courts, and justice department employees
• Denying the case was politically motivated, Smith says: “The claim from Mr Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the [President Joe] Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable”
• Smith further reflects in the accompanying letter: “While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters”

The 137-page document was sent to Congress after midnight on Tuesday, after a period of legal jostling that culminated in a judge clearing the way for the first part of Smith’s report to be released.

The judge, Aileen Cannon, ordered a hearing later in the week on whether to release the second part of the report – which focuses on separate allegations that Trump illegally kept classified government documents at his home in Florida.

Posting on his Truth Social website, Trump maintained his innocence, taunting Smith by writing that the prosecutor “was unable to get his case tried before the election, which I won in a landslide”.

Trump added: “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”

• Jack Smith resigns from Justice Department
• Trump avoids prison or fine in hush-money case sentencing

Smith was appointed in 2022 to oversee the US government investigations into Trump. Special counsels are chosen by the DoJ in cases where there is a potential conflict of interest.

In the interference case, Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the result of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.

Both this case and the separate classified documents case resulted in criminal charges against Trump, who pleaded not guilty and sought to cast the prosecutions as politically motivated.

But Smith closed the cases after Trump’s election in November, in accordance with DoJ regulations that forbid the prosecution of a sitting president.

The report explains: “The department’s view that the [US] Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind.”

It adds that prosecutors found themselves at a crossroads: “The [2024] election results raised for the first time the question of the lawful course when a private citizen who has already been indicted is then elected president.”

Tuesday’s release comes after a period of legal back-and-forth, during which Judge Cannon put a temporary stop on releasing the whole Smith report, over concerns that it could affect the cases of two Trump associates charged with him in the separate classified documents case.

Walt Nauta, Trump’s personal aide, and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, are accused of helping Trump hide the documents.

Unlike Trump’s, their cases are still pending – and their lawyers argued that the release of Smith’s report could prejudice a future jury and trial.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of US politics in his US Election Unspun newsletter.

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