Joe Biden’s final address to the nation struck an ominous tone after warning of the growing power of America’s ultra-wealthy, and cautioning that an emerging oligarchy threatens the foundations of US democracy.

The Wednesday prime-time Oval Office speech came as Biden prepares to hand the presidency back to Donald Trump, who he defeated in 2020 only to see return to power after Biden’s own dramatic exit from politics last summer.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said.

The president outlined some of his most pressing concerns, including what he described as a “crumbling” free press, the outsized influence of the military-industrial complex, rising disinformation, and the need to remove dark money from politics. He also called for constitutional amendments to ensure presidential accountability, arguing that no president should be immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.

His presidency, which began with promises to restore America’s soul, ends with him departing after a single term, having abandoned his re-election bid in July under pressure from his own party amid concerns about his age and fitness for office. His endorsed successor, Kamala Harris, subsequently lost to Trump in November’s election.

Despite facing low approval ratings in his final months, Biden sought to highlight his administration’s significant legislative achievements, including investments in infrastructure and clean energy, measures to reduce prescription drug costs, and steering the country through the pandemic’s aftermath. His administration also oversaw major conservation efforts and worked to rebuild US manufacturing.

Earlier on Wednesday, Biden announced a breakthrough ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, securing what could be seen as a final diplomatic victory of his presidency. The deal, which he first proposed last spring and which Trump’s team served as a catalyst in closing, could end a 15-month conflict that has pulverized Gaza, increasingly isolated the US on the global stage and saw the administration face widespread protests on college campuses and beyond.

“This plan was developed and negotiated by my team, and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration,” Biden said on the impending ceasefire deal. “That’s why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed, because that’s how it should be, working together as Americans.”

In a letter released ahead of the speech, Biden reflected on his journey from “a kid with a stutter” from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to the highest office in the land. “I have given my heart and my soul to our nation.”

The president has remained defiant about his decision to withdraw from the race, telling donors last week that he believed he “could have beaten Trump“ but chose to step aside to unify the Democratic party. He has also signaled his intention to remain politically active after leaving office, recently telling reporters: “I’m not going to be out of sight or out of mind.”

The farewell address continues a tradition dating back to George Washington, though Biden delivers his under particularly complex circumstances – leaving office after a single term to be succeeded by a predecessor he has repeatedly warned poses a threat to US democracy.

The speech caps a series of farewell appearances, including Monday’s address at the state department where Biden argued he had strengthened America’s global position.

For Biden, who entered national politics as a senator in 1972 and went on to serve as vice-president under Barack Obama, the farewell address marks the end of a political career stretching across nine presidencies and nearly every major moment in modern US history that’s transformed American life in ways both celebrated and contested.

“What I believe is that the America of our dreams is always closer than we think,” Biden said. “It’s up to us to make our dreams come true.”

Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, offered limited assurances on Wednesday that she would maintain the justice department’s traditional independence from the White House at her confirmation hearing before the Senate judiciary committee.

The consensus across the committee was that Bondi, the former Florida attorney general and longtime state prosecutor, was sufficiently qualified and experienced to lead the department in Trump’s second term.

But she walked a fine line between casting herself as a nonpolitical prosecutor and as a Trump loyalist, which was viewed with alarm by Democrats concerned that she will find it challenging to resist political pressure exerted by the president.

Bondi insisted that she would ensure the justice department would remain independent by continuing the policy that restricts the interactions with the White House and would not allow the FBI to pursue Trump’s perceived enemies, as identified by FBI director nominee Kash Patel.

“I will meet with the White House counsel and appropriate officials and follow the contacts policy,” Bondi said, adding later that there would “never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice”.

At the same time, Bondi expressly avoided saying that Trump lost the 2020 election, delivering the boilerplate response that Joe Biden became the president. And she dodged trickier hypotheticals like what she would do if Trump asked her to use the justice department for his own ends.

“I wouldn’t be attorney general if anyone asked me to do something improper and I felt I had to carry that out,” Bondi said, when asked if she would resign if Trump asked her to do something illegal.

Pressed on her own remarks on TV about her interest in “prosecuting the prosecutors” – comments widely seen as being aimed at the prosecutors who indicted Trump – Bondi pivoted to complain about a prosecutor who had doctored an application for a warrant during the Russia investigation.

The hearing was unlikely to allay concerns held by Democrats that she would be able to resist political interference by Trump given her personal loyalty to him, including when she supported Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims and joined his legal defense team at his first impeachment trial.

That loyalty to Trump has also raised hackles at the justice department, which prides itself on its independence from White House pressure and recalls with a deep fear how Trump in his first term ousted top officials when they stopped acquiescing to his demands.

Trump replaced his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, after he recused himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia and, later, soured on his last attorney general, William Barr, after he refused to endorse Trump’s false 2020 election claims.

Bondi also faced questions from Democrats about possible conflicts of interest arising from her most recent work for the major corporate lobbying firm Ballard Partners, especially on behalf of government contractors like the Geo Group, a Bureau of Prisons contractor accused of mismanagement.

As the chair of Ballard’s corporate regulatory compliance practice, Bondi has also lobbied for major companies that have battled the justice department she will be tasked with leading, including in various antitrust and fraud lawsuits.

If she were presented with an instance of possible conflict of interest, “I will consult with the career ethics officials within the Department of Justice and make the appropriate decision”, Bondi said. She declined to say upfront whether she would recuse herself.

Bondi graduated in 1987 from the University of Florida and earned her law degree in 1990 from Stetson University. She was a county prosecutor in Florida before successfully running for Florida attorney general in 2010 in part due to regular appearances on Fox News.

During Bondi’s tenure as Florida attorney general, in 2013 her office received nearly two-dozen complaints about Trump University and her aides have said she once considered joining a multi-state lawsuit brought on behalf of students who claimed they had been cheated.

As she was weighing the lawsuit, Bondi’s political action committee received a $25,000 contribution from a non-profit funded by Trump. While Trump and Bondi both deny a quid pro quo, Bondi never joined the lawsuit and Trump had to pay a $2,500 fine for violating tax laws to make the donation.

Marco Rubio said that both Russia and Ukraine will have to make “concessions” in order to reach the peace deal promised by Donald Trump as he offered a full-throated defense of the president-elect’s vision for America’s role around the world – and his own hawkish record on foreign policy.

Rubio, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, told the Senate foreign relations committee that the war in Ukraine had become a “stalemate” and “has to end”; that the US should show China that it would pay “too high” a price for invading Taiwan; and that European countries have to stop treating US support for Nato as an “excuse to … spend on domestic needs”.

Speaking on the war in Ukraine, which Trump had vowed to end within 24 hours of taking office, Rubio said that there was “no way Russia takes all of Ukraine” – but also that Ukraine would not be able to retake all its sovereign territory held by Russia.

In order to reach a peace deal, Rubio continued, “there will have to be concessions made by the Russian Federation, but also by the Ukrainians and the United States.”

US sanctions relief on Russia may also enter the discussion, Rubio said, noting that they gave Washington “leverage” over Russia and that “sanctions and the release of sanctions” would “have to be part of this conversation in terms of bringing about a … resolution”.

Rubio, a notable hawk on China and Cuba whose nomination is expected to sail through the committee, sought to defend a muscular US foreign policy while also tailoring his views to a more Trump-friendly vision that matches the president-elect’s “America First” policy. Trump has called for less US involvement abroad in Ukraine and Nato, in a sharp departure from the position of the Biden administration and many Republican lawmakers.

“Prudence in the conduct of foreign policy is not an abandonment of our values,” Rubio said in his opening remarks. “It’s the commonsense understanding that while we remain the wealthiest and the most powerful nation on the Earth, our wealth has never been unlimited … Placing our core national interest above all else is not isolation.” It is a “commonsense realization”, he added.

“While America has far too often prioritized the global order above national interest, other nations continue to act as they will,” he also said. “Nations proceed in their own best interest.”

Rubio saved some of his harshest rhetoric for China, which he said had been “welcomed … into the global order and they took advantage of all of its benefits”. “They have repressed, and lied, and cheated, and hacked, and stolen their way into global superpower status,” he said.

Rubio’s position on China is popular among both Republicans and Democrats, who have increasingly warned about China as the main rival to the United States in the coming decades. In his remarks, Rubio said that the Chinese Communist party had a “parasitic relationship” with the people of China and warned that the country sought to dominate “critical minerals supplies throughout the world”.

Rubio’s nomination is expected to be less contentious than those of other Trump appointments, including Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for defense secretary who had been sharply criticised for his lack of experience and allegations of troubling behaviour, including sexual assault and excessive alcohol consumption.

But Rubio’s opening remarks were disrupted several times by protesters from leftwing activist groups who called him a “war hawk” and decried his record of support for sanctions abroad before being dragged out of the hearing room by Capitol police.

Medea Benjamin, an organiser for the activist group Code Pink who attended the hearing, said that the protesters were concerned that Trump was “surrounding himself with all of these war hawks, and Marco Rubio is one of them”.

In his opening remarks, the Senate foreign relations committee chair, Jim Risch, called Rubio his “great friend” and praised his record on foreign policy, including his aggressive stance on China and Cuba in holding them “accountable for their oppressive tyranny”.

Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony in Washington DC on Monday will have giants from across the business and tech worlds in attendance, perhaps personified most dramatically if Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg sit together at the US Capitol.

Musk, the world’s richest person and a top adviser to Trump; Amazon’s Bezos; and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta will be prominently placed together near members of Trump’s cabinet, according to an NBC News report on Wednesday, continuing their rapid public swing to the right as they cozy up to Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) power base.

Musk became the biggest donor of the 2024 election, with the electric-vehicles and space entrepreneur contributing more than a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump’s campaign.

It was announced in November that the Tesla CEO would co-head a newly created but ill-defined entity, called the department of government efficiency, tasked with reforming the vast apparatus of federal government employees.

Musk has been accused of using the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which he owns, to spread misinformation and propaganda to help the Trump campaign.

Bezos, the owner of online e-commerce giant Amazon and the Washington Post newspaper, broke from a long tradition and his largely hands-off attitude toward the Post’s editorial operations when he suddenly blocked his journalists from endorsing a presidential candidate, shortly before the paper was set to announce it was backing Kamala Harris for the White House – a race she lost decisively to Trump on 5 November.

The move sparked outrage, leading to resignations and a dramatic loss in subscriptions, while Bezos defended his decision. Amazon later donated $1m to the Trump’s inauguration fund, as did Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, announced last week that he would be getting rid of his company’s factchecking program and boosting more political content, in a move widely seen as facilitating more conservative commentary and bending to the newly empowered Trump’s arguments that the right is censored on social media.

Zuckerberg last week also scrapped DEI policies at Meta and relaxed restrictions on speech seen as protecting groups including LGBTQ+ people.

Zuckerberg will also co-host a lavish black-tie reception on Monday alongside the Republican mega-donor Miriam Adelson to celebrate before the three inaugural balls. The event was first reported by Puck News.

Meanwhile, the OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, announced last month that he would make a personal donation of $1m to the Trump inaugural fund.

Generous donors to the inauguration committee will be rewarded with dinners alongside the president-elect and his wife, Melania, before the ceremony and after their return to the White House on Monday.

The price of access is high, however, with the Guardian revealing that major donors to the inaugural committee are having to contribute twice as much to get direct access to Trump and the vice-president-elect, JD Vance, at private events around the swearing-in ceremony compared with the first inauguration in 2017, according to fundraising materials.

The ability to briefly interact with Trump and Vance requires donors to contribute at least $1m to the committee – the highest-tier ticket package – in a marked increase from the previous cycle when the same access cost $500,000.

The swearing-in ceremony taking place on 20 January coincides this year with Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday held on the third Monday in January to commemorate the life and work of the civil rights leader, who was assassinated in 1968.

And Trump will be sworn in in front of the US Capitol, on the same platform where his supporters on 6 January 2021 attacked police guarding the Capitol and then invaded the halls of Congress in an attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to block national lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election.

The sudden support of the planet’s wealthiest people has raised ethical questions and concerns that the billionaires may have ulterior motives. Trump’s economic policy proposals would cut taxes for the richest 5% of Americans and increase them for everyone else, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).

But it’s not only tech billionaires who have shown support for Trump’s upcoming presidency. Music stars Carrie Underwood and the Village People have booked gigs to perform at the inauguration, each releasing statements about the importance of music “uniting people” during politically divisive times.

Russia planned to conduct “acts of terrorism in the air”, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday, by plotting a wave of fire bomb attacks that could have brought down planes mid-flight around the world.

Warsaw had been involved in countering “acts of sabotage” conducted by Russia, Tusk added, before he referred to incendiary parcel attacks that took place in the UK, Germany and Poland during the summer.

“The latest information can confirm the validity of fears that Russia was planning acts of terrorism in the air not only against Poland,” Tusk told a news conference in Warsaw, though he did not offer more detail or explanation.

DHL parcels caught light at a warehouse in Birmingham and on the tarmac at Leipzig airport in July. Media reports said that the Lepizig parcel was about to be loaded onto a plane, while the Birmingham device travelled on a flight before causing a fire.

Two other incendiary devices were found in Poland and western leaders and intelligence officials believe the crude plot to post fire bombs by parcel was orchestrated by Russia, as a dry run for further attacks in the US.

A report in the New York Times earlier this week said that senior White House officials reviewed presumably eavesdropped details of conversations amongst senior officials in Russia’s GRU military intelligence. The Russians, the paper reported, had described the incendiary devices as a test run for an attack on the US.

Senior officials were dispatched by US president Joe Biden to warn Russian leader Vladimir Putin, via their counterparts, that Washington would hold Moscow responsible for “enabling terrorism” if the plot developed further.

The devices that caught light in Birmingham and Leipzig were originally posted from Lithuania, with at least one hidden in a massager. The simple method appeared to have exposed a weakness in security scanning for parcel services.

Safety procedures are said to have been quietly tightened up, though very few statements have been made to reassure the general public.

In September, the then-head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, told the Bundestag that, had the Leipzig package started burning during a flight, “it would have resulted in a crash”.

Photographs of the fire in Birmingham, published the Guardian in December, show a crate of parcels being carried by an electric vehicle bursting into a bright flame, suggesting that it could have created havoc had the parcel caught light mid air.

The light is consistent with a magnesium-based incendiary device. Magnesium fires are difficult to put out and are worsened if water is applied, knowledge that may not have been readily available to an under-pressure air crew. Special dry powder extinguishers are used instead.

Russia’s foreign ministry did not reply to requests for comment. Moscow has regularly denied any involvement in the courier depot explosions, as well as break-ins, arson and attacks on individuals that Western officials say were carried out by operatives paid by Russia.

Anxious and wildfire-weary Angelenos can expect a break in the extreme winds that have been fanning the flames destroying the region. And while welcome, the reprieve may be short-lived, the National Weather Service (NWS) said in a social media post Wednesday afternoon.

“Next week is a concern. While confident that we will NOT see a repeat of last week, dangerous fire weather conditions are expected,” the agency said.

Santa Ana winds on Monday and Tuesday will increase the chances of yet another red flag warning being issued, the NWS added.

Though the anticipated Santa Ana winds did not undo the week’s worth of progress fire crews made in the Palisades and Eaton fires, the blazes continue to tear through parts of Los Angeles county. So far the two largest fires have killed at least 25 people, burned over 40,000 acres and destroyed thousands of homes, places of worship and schools.

The National Weather Service issued the most extreme level of a red flag fire warningof a “particularly dangerous situation” in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

“The danger has not yet passed,” said the Los Angeles fire department chief, Kristin Crowley, during a Wednesday news conference. “So please prioritize your safety.”

Officials in San Bernardino county, just north-east of Los Angeles, reported that a new fire ignited on Wednesday afternoon, but firefighters successfully contained it to 34 acres. The county fire department confirmed there was no damage to structures and no reported injuries. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.

The deadly Palisades fire in the western suburbs of Los Angeles – the largest of the four wildfires – was still only 19% contained on Wednesday morning, more than a week after it ignited, and has destroyed thousands of properties and killed residents. But the Eaton fire, the next largest fire, in the Altadena area in north-eastern LA county, is now 45% contained – up 10% from Tuesday – with 14,100 acres burned. Officials said the Eaton fire is expected to stay within its existing footprint.

The shroud of noxious gray smoke had begun to lift over the region, but health officials warned that wind borne ash particles remained a danger, and urged residents to wear N95 or P100 masks. Ash particles cannot be detected by standard air monitoring instruments, and may not reflect in Air Quality index Levels.

Firefighters were also struggling to put out two smaller fires, the persistent Hurst fire in north Los Angeles and the newer Auto fire, in Ventura county.

As of Tuesday, 88,000 people remained under evacuation orders, with another 84,000 at risk of being placed under new orders should the fires spread. Officials raised the official death toll on Tuesday to 25 people – 18 from the Eaton fires and seven from the Palisades fire. That number is expected to rise as crews strive to reach some of the burnt wreckage across many square miles, with huge swaths still ablaze.

The fierce Santa Ana winds were expected to subside by Thursday, but the parched region is expected to remain in peril, with no significant chances of rain through 25 January, according to forecasters.

The last significant rain in Los Angeles was in early May last year, when the city’s downtown saw just 0.13in of rain, according to the Los Angeles Times. The lack of moisture in the area, along with the winds, is a recipe for dangerous wildfire conditions.

“Any kind of red flag warning is dangerous. But there’s a gradient even within that range of situations, and so we wanted a way to message the extreme of the extremes. And the [‘particularly dangerous situation’ warning] is what came from that,” the meteorologist Ryan Kittell told the LA Times.

Brief respite came on Tuesday, when winds were much tamer than what had been forecast, allowing firefighters to push forward efforts to contain the Palisades and Eaton fires. The weather service’s “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning expired on Wednesday afternoon. But forecasts say that extreme winds of 50mph to 70mph are possible in parts of Los Angeles and Ventura county until Wednesday night.

Estimates put economic losses due to the fire at between $250bn and $270bn, making it the costliest fire disaster in American history. Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass said she did not know a timeline for rebuilding.

“We are one city. We stand together,” she said. “The city and the county will do everything we can to expedite the rebuilding.”

Erik Scott, fire captain of the LA fire department, told the LA Times on Tuesday that the wildfires are “the most devastating natural disaster to hit the Los Angeles area”.

“I’ve worked here for 20 years and I’ve never seen nor imagined devastation to be this extensive,” he said.

On Tuesday, Southern California Edison, the area’s largest electricity provider, shut off power for over 58,000 customers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties on Tuesday. The utility said more than 200,000 more customers could see their power shut off on Wednesday in anticipation of extreme winds.

The electricity provider has been under scrutiny in recent days as multiple lawsuits were filed against the company. Residents and business owners in neighborhoods close to the Eaton fire said they saw the base of a transmission tower on fire before the Eaton fire started.

The company has said it has received evidence preservation notices from insurance companies and noted that analysis of electrical circuit information showed no interruptions or anomalies around the time that the fire started.

Over 400 staff members at the Washington Post have sent a letter to Jeff Bezos asking for a meeting with him during a time of widespread concern about the future of the newspaper.

The letter, signed by top journalists and correspondents and sent on Tuesday evening, pleads for Bezos, who is known to rarely visit the Post’s office in Washington, to meet in person with leaders at the office.

“We are deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of transparency, and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent,” the letter reads. NPR first reported the letter.

“This is about retaining our competitive edge, restoring trust that has been lost, and re-establishing a relationship with leadership based on open communication,” it continues.

The letter claims these concerns are unrelated to Bezos’ recent decision to end its endorsement of US presidential candidates, which the letter writers acknowledge as “the owner’s prerogative”.

The Post lost 250,000 subscribers, or 10% of its subscription base, following its decision not to endorse. This reportedly was a massive contributor to the paper losing a whopping $100m in 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Digital visitors for the Washington Post website are also down, dropping from 114 million in November 2020 to 54 million in November 2024.

The plea from staff also comes a week after the Post laid off roughly 100 employees, a sign of the paper’s financial struggles. The cuts amounted to roughly 4% of the publication’s staff.

The company’s chief executive, Will Lewis, has been at the center of unease among staffers since he took his position in November of 2023.

The newsroom’s top editor, Sally Buzbee, stepped down in June after Lewis decided to reorganize the newsroom. Robert Winnett, the editor chosen by Lewis to replace her, withdrew from consideration after backlash from staff.

Several opinion staff writers resigned after the announcement that the Post would no longer endorse presidential candidates. Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist, quit the paper after it refused to print her cartoon depicting billionaires bowing to Trump.

The Post endorsed every Trump nominee for confirmation, except for Pete Hegseth for Department of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, Russell Vought for Office of Management and Budget, and Robert F Kennedy Jr for health secretary.

Italy’s interior minister has been urged to open an investigation into police in the northern city of Brescia amid allegations that seven female climate activists were made to take off their underwear and perform squats during questioning.

The activists were among 22 people brought to Brescia’s main police station on Monday morning after officers interrupted a protest held outside the Italian aerospace and defence firm Leonardo’s factory.

Activists have alleged that while there they were subjected to degrading treatment at the hands of police officers.

In a video posted online, one member of Extinction Rebellion, the global environmental movement, said: “They asked me to undress, take off my underwear and do three squats, ‘for checks’, according to them.”

The woman claimed the treatment was “only reserved for the females, not the males”.

A fellow Extinction Rebellion activist made the same claims in a separate video. The squat measure is usually only used on people suspected of crimes such as drug dealing.

The protest, which blocked the entrance to the Leonardo factory for a short time, was organised by Extinction Rebellion and its counterpart Last Generation, and the Free Palestine protest group.

The activists were held for about seven hours before being charged for the crimes of “seditious gathering” and for “unannounced demonstration”.

Gilberto Pagani, a lawyer representing the activists, said the seven women intended to make a formal complaint “in the next few days”.

After initially denying the allegations, Brescia police issued a statement saying that during the individual searches, carried out by female officers in the case of the women, the activists were asked to “bend down on their legs in order to find any dangerous objects”.

Rejecting any accusation of degrading treatment, it added: “The confidentiality and dignity of people were safeguarded at all times and the correct operating procedures were followed.”

Police accused the activists of “illegal conduct” that “undermined public order and safety”. This included forming a human chain blocking trucks from entering and leaving the Leonardo factory and “littering the walls with writing”.

The allegations by the women come as parliament debates a controversial security bill that takes aim at climate activists by criminalising people who block roads and railways, with fines and jail terms of up to two years. Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government is calling for swift approval of the bill in the senate after it was passed in the lower house in September.

Marco Grimaldi, a politician with the Green-Left Alliance, has called on Matteo Piantedosi, the interior minister, to open an investigation into what occurred in Brescia.

Matteo Orfini, a politician with the centre-left Democratic party, claimed a similar incident took place in Bologna. “A woman was forced to undress and was treated in an unacceptable manner,” he added. “We ask Piantedosi to immediately verify and to intervene if [the allegations] are confirmed.”

Orfini questioned whether the alleged events were an indication of “a climate created by a government” that sought to aggravate the situation “and criminalise dissent”.

Italy’s interior minister has been urged to open an investigation into police in the northern city of Brescia amid allegations that seven female climate activists were made to take off their underwear and perform squats during questioning.

The activists were among 22 people brought to Brescia’s main police station on Monday morning after officers interrupted a protest held outside the Italian aerospace and defence firm Leonardo’s factory.

Activists have alleged that while there they were subjected to degrading treatment at the hands of police officers.

In a video posted online, one member of Extinction Rebellion, the global environmental movement, said: “They asked me to undress, take off my underwear and do three squats, ‘for checks’, according to them.”

The woman claimed the treatment was “only reserved for the females, not the males”.

A fellow Extinction Rebellion activist made the same claims in a separate video. The squat measure is usually only used on people suspected of crimes such as drug dealing.

The protest, which blocked the entrance to the Leonardo factory for a short time, was organised by Extinction Rebellion and its counterpart Last Generation, and the Free Palestine protest group.

The activists were held for about seven hours before being charged for the crimes of “seditious gathering” and for “unannounced demonstration”.

Gilberto Pagani, a lawyer representing the activists, said the seven women intended to make a formal complaint “in the next few days”.

After initially denying the allegations, Brescia police issued a statement saying that during the individual searches, carried out by female officers in the case of the women, the activists were asked to “bend down on their legs in order to find any dangerous objects”.

Rejecting any accusation of degrading treatment, it added: “The confidentiality and dignity of people were safeguarded at all times and the correct operating procedures were followed.”

Police accused the activists of “illegal conduct” that “undermined public order and safety”. This included forming a human chain blocking trucks from entering and leaving the Leonardo factory and “littering the walls with writing”.

The allegations by the women come as parliament debates a controversial security bill that takes aim at climate activists by criminalising people who block roads and railways, with fines and jail terms of up to two years. Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government is calling for swift approval of the bill in the senate after it was passed in the lower house in September.

Marco Grimaldi, a politician with the Green-Left Alliance, has called on Matteo Piantedosi, the interior minister, to open an investigation into what occurred in Brescia.

Matteo Orfini, a politician with the centre-left Democratic party, claimed a similar incident took place in Bologna. “A woman was forced to undress and was treated in an unacceptable manner,” he added. “We ask Piantedosi to immediately verify and to intervene if [the allegations] are confirmed.”

Orfini questioned whether the alleged events were an indication of “a climate created by a government” that sought to aggravate the situation “and criminalise dissent”.

From Neanderthals to royal courts, history seems awash with women upping sticks to join men’s families, but researchers have found that the tables were turned in Britain’s Celtic communities.

Researchers studying DNA from iron age individuals in Britain have found evidence that men moved to join their wives’ families – a practice known as matrilocality.

Dr Lara Cassidy, first author of the research from Trinity College Dublin said the findings challenged assumptions that most societies were patrilocal, with men staying put.

“Potentially there are periods in time where matrilocality is much more common and that has really important knock-on effects for how we view women in the past and their roles and their influences in society,” she said.

“There’s an awful habit that we still have when we look at women in the past to view them solely within the domestic sphere with little agency, and studies like this are highlighting that this is not the case at all. In a lot of societies today and in the past, women wield huge influence and huge power, and it’s good to remember that,” she said.

Writing in the journal Nature, archaeologists report how they studied the genomes of more than 50 individuals buried in a cluster of cemeteries in Dorset. Most of these individuals were associated with the Durotriges tribe, a Celtic group that occupied the central southern coast of Britain from about 100BC to AD100.

These sites have previously been of interest to experts, not only because iron age burials are rare but because the women tended to be buried with valuable items more often than the men.

“That is suggesting not much of a status difference between men and women, or even perhaps higher-status burials for women,” said Cassidy. “How that actually then translates into the role of women in the society, that’s hard to say. And that’s why genetic data adds another important dimension there.”

Cassidy and colleagues analysed DNA and mitochondrial DNA – genetic material from within the cells’ powerhouses – revealing that the majority of individuals were related to each other.

Crucially, many shared the same mitochondrial DNA – genetic material that is passed down only from mothers to their offspring. “They all were female-line descendants, [from the] same woman,” said Cassidy.

The team say this genetic evidence and modelling work suggest the community was matrilocal: in other words, the women stayed put, with men moving into the group to join their wives.

The conclusion was supported by considerable diversity in the Y chromosome of the men, with males showing significantly lower levels of genetic relatedness to other individuals, and by males being more likely to have different mitochondrial DNA than that which was widely shared.

The team then looked at DNA from other iron age burial sites across Britain, again finding signs of matrilocal communities. “It’s looking that this is quite widespread across the island by that period,” said Cassidy.

While the study does not reveal whether the iron age societies had tribal groupings organised specifically around the maternal line, or suggest there was a matriarchy, the results offer new insights into the communities.

“Matrilocality is a strong predictor of female social and political empowerment,” Cassidy said, noting that if the women stayed put, they were more likely to inherit, control land, be players in the local economy, and have influence.

Writing in an accompanying article, Dr Guido Alberto Gnecchi Ruscone from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said the findings echoed Roman writings that depicted Celtic women, such as Boudicca, as empowered figures.

“Although Roman writers often exoticised these societies,” he wrote, “the genetic evidence shown by Cassidy and colleagues validates some of their claims about the special role that women had in Celtic Britain.”

The Italian government is seeking to clamp down on fake and paid-for online reviews in an effort to protect the country’s hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions from misleading and damaging content.

Under a draft law announced this week, which still needs to be approved in parliament, anyone wanting to write an online review would be required to provide verifiable ID and proof that they visited the place in question.

While fake reviews are already illegal in the country, policing the violations is challenging.

According to the draft law, reviews will have to be posted within 15 days of the visit and must be relevant and detailed. If false, they can be removed at the request of the business in question.

In addition, businesses will be able to seek the removal of reviews that are more than two years old if they are no longer relevant. Reviews that are paid-for or sponsored via incentives will also be illegal.

It is unclear who will decide whether or not a review is fake, but the responsibility of checking the appraisals and handing out eventual fines will be given to Italy’s anti-trust watchdog.

“Today marks an important step for the protection of our businesses,” said Daniela Santanché, Italy’s tourism minister. “Reviews, which thanks to this regulatory intervention will actually be truthful, are fundamental for the success of companies and for the trust of consumers and tourists.”

Italy’s ministry of enterprises said fake or manipulated reviews affected between 6% and 30% of the revenue of businesses in the hospitality and tourism sector.

Codacons, the Italian consumer group, said the bill was “a necessary step to protect consumers and businesses”.

The measure was also welcomed by the business federation Fipe-Confcommercio. “The plague of false reviews has for too long put the catering sector and public establishments at risk, creating economic damage and compromising consumer confidence,” said Roberto Calugi, the federation’s general director.

“It is no longer tolerable that business activities suffer the consequences of fraudulent and untruthful judgments, which often translate into unfair competition and hidden advertising.”

However, others expressed concerns about privacy and fears that the ban on anonymous reviews might drastically reduce the number of online comments about hotels and restaurants.

“Fake reviews are a problem for fair competition between companies because they can have a big impact on sales, and are also a problem for consumers who can be misled,” Michele Carrus, the chair of the consumer association Federconsumatori, told Reuters. “The problem needed to be addressed. It’s difficult to do it the right way, but I’m confident we can achieve that during the parliamentary debate.”

Catia Silvestri, who manages L’Antico Caffè della Pigna in central Rome, welcomed the regulations but said that, on the whole, she was in favour of reviews. “Everyone should be able to express their opinions,” she said. “Fortunately, we haven’t had any issues. Reviews are subjective, but can help to ensure an establishment always provides good quality.”

Joe Biden has said the “soul of America” is still at stake in a valedictory message implicitly admitting that the national divisions that spurred him to run for the White House remain unbridged at end of his four-year presidency.

The acknowledgment came in a farewell letter issued ahead of a televised speech from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, when he will deliver his final address as president before being replaced by Donald Trump next week.

“I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake,” Biden wrote in what is likely to be a theme reprised in his speech. “And, that’s still the case.”

The admission was an oblique recognition that Biden’s legacy – touted in a long catalogue of claimed achievements at the end of the letter – is overshadowed by the impending return of Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday after his election victory over Vice-President Kamala Harris in November.

Biden made it explicit when he was campaigning for the presidency in 2020 that he was motivated by a desire to defeat Trump and cast the contest against him as a battle for America’s “soul”.

He returned to the theme in a speech in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in 2022, in which he cast Trump as a “threat to this country” and said he and his Maga (make American great again) followers did not respect the US constitution.

With the message now eclipsed by Trump’s political comeback, Biden predicted – without naming Trump – that the values he had campaigned on would endure, despite the very different values espoused by the man who will be his successor as well as his predecessor.

“America is an idea stronger than any army and larger than any ocean,” he wrote.

“It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world. That idea is that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We’ve never fully lived up to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.”

He added: “History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. We just have to keep the faith and remember who we are.”

With Trump vowing to undo many of his legislative achievements, Biden said part of his legacy had been to make the country more secure after “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” – a reference to the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol when a Trump-supporting mob tried to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

“Four years ago, we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities. We were in the grip of the worst pandemic in a century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War,” the president wrote. “But we came together as Americans, and we braved through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous, and more secure.”

He hailed his administration for ending the Covid-19 pandemic through a nationwide vaccine program and said it had engineered a successful economic recovery that created 16m jobs – despite persistent worries over inflation that damaged his popularity and contributed to Harris’s election defeat.

It had been “the privilege of my life” to serve the country for 50 years, Biden said, first as a senator, before becoming vice-president and, finally, president.

“Nowhere else on earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the resolute desk in the oval office as president of the United States,” he wrote.

The surfing community is paying tribute to the Quiksilver founder Alan “Greeny” Green, who died from cancer on Tuesday at his home in Torquay, Victoria aged 77.

Considered a pioneer of surfwear, Green started making wetsuits in 1969 along with friends and Rip Curl co-founders Brian Singer and Doug “Claw” Warbrick.

Green went on to found Quiksilver with his friend John Law in Torquay, focusing on a transformative boardshorts design with Velcro fly, metal press studs and a “yoke waist” (sitting high at the back and lower at the front).

“They hugged your back and still hung low on your hips,” Green said in the book The Mountain and the Wave: The Quiksilver Story. “They were distinctive, functional, comfortable boardshorts, and two-toned yokes made them different from the rest. Surfers seemed to like them.”

Green’s wife, Barbara, chose the company name Quiksilver after seeing it in a novel. The word is said to evoke a sense of fluidity, elusiveness and change which summarised the brand’s ethos.

Green grew up in Pascoe Vale, Melbourne, and would travel 90 minutes away to go surfing in Torquay.

The surfer Kelly Slater, who had a 23-year partnership with Quiksilver before his departure from the sponsor last year, paid tribute to Green on Instagram, writing: “Love you, Greeny. You were one of a kind and a great friend and mentor for so many. I’ll miss you forever.”

The Surfworld Gold Coast chair and Surfing Hall of Fame inductee Rod Brooks wrote: “The word ‘legend’ gets thrown around a lot in the surfing scene, but yesterday … a true legend … passed away.”

Green is survived by his wife and three children, including daughter Roxy, whose name inspired Quiksilver’s sister brand for women.

And just like that, Sex and the City enthusiasts may no longer be able to stand on the steps of character Carrie Bradshaw’s famous Manhattan home after its owner asked city officials to let her block them with an iron gate.

The move follows years of fans of the show and spinoff movies crowding around – and at times trespassing on – the stoop of the iconic brownstone in the city’s trendy West Village neighborhood, which served as the exterior of Bradshaw’s apartment, the lead in the hit HBO series played by Sarah Jessica Parker.

In a 14 January application to New York City’s landmarks preservation commission, which was first reported by the Substack newsletter Feed Me, the owner of 66 Perry Street explained her request to restrict access to the approach to her building, asking to be able to install an iron gate at the bottom of the steps.

The owner, identified by the New York Times as Barbara Lorber, said: “The front of my home appeared in the Sex and the City TV series as the exterior of character Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment. My fault: I felt sorry for the young location scout who was a recent grad from NYU Film School. He told me if he didn’t secure this house, he would lose his first real job in the business.”

She continued, to the outlet: “At the time, no one knew the show would turn into anything long lasting … much less the iconic fantasy vehicle and touchstone for NYC’s magic that it has become.” She added: “My home is now a global tourist destination … At any hour of the day or night, there are groups of visitors in front of the house taking flash photos, engaging in loud chatter, posting on social media, making TikTok videos or just celebrating the moment.”

Despite installing a “No Trespassing – Private Property” sign on a chain a few years ago, Lorber said that many visitors do not respect the chain and instead climb over it, pose, dance or lie down on the steps. She added that some visitors climb to the top to stare into the windows, try to open the main entrance door or ring the doorbells at night when drunk.

Lorber said that visitors had also spray-painted graffiti on the steps and carved their initials into the main door frame.

“After 20-plus years of hoping the fascination with my stoop would die away and fans would find a new object for their devotion, I have acknowledged we need something more substantial. In order to regain a reasonable quality of life for our tenants and ourselves, we need to install a proper gate,” she said.

The authorities have granted her permission to install a gate, although there is more discussion in the offing on the design.

Since airing on HBO in 1998, Sex and the City – which features the lives of four professional female friends living in New York City – gained worldwide popularity.