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A cigarette stub recovered from Mary McLaughlin’s flat provided the first clue to her killer’s identity – more than 30 years after she was strangled.

A matching DNA profile was later discovered hidden in the knot of the dressing gown cord used to murder the mother-of-eleven.

The breakthrough initially baffled cold case detectives as the prime suspect was a prisoner in Edinburgh when Mary, 58, was found dead in the west end of Glasgow.

But a governor’s log book confirmed serial sex offender Graham McGill was on parole when the grandmother was killed.

And it revealed he returned to his cell within hours of leaving Mary’s home in the early hours of 27 September 1984.

A new BBC documentary, Murder Case: The Hunt for Mary McLaughlin’s Killer, tells the story of the cold case investigation – as well as the devastating impact the murder had on Mary’s family.

Senior forensic scientist Joanne Cochrane said: “There are some murders that stay with you.

“Mary’s murder is one of the more disturbing cold cases that I’ve dealt with.”

Mary spent her last night out drinking and playing dominos in the Hyndland Pub, now the Duck Club, which looks onto Mansfield Park.

She left the bar, on Hyndland Street, alone between 22:15 and 22:30 to walk less than a mile home to her flat.

Along the way she called into Armando’s chip shop on Dumbarton Road, where she joked with staff as she bought fritters and cigarettes.

A taxi driver, who knew her as Wee May, later told how he saw a lone man following her as she walked bare foot along the road carrying her shoes.

The sequence of events which led to McGill ending up in Mary’s third-floor flat in Crathie Court is unknown but there was no sign of forced entry.

Once inside, he launched a savage attack on a woman who was more than double his age.

In an era before mobile phones, Mary was not in frequent contact with her large family who lived in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.

Once a week, one of her sons, Martin Cullen, would call in to see her.

But when the then 24-year-old turned up at the flat on 2 October 1984, there was no answer and a “horrible smell” when he opened the letterbox.

Mary was found dead inside, lying on her back on a bare mattress.

Her false teeth were on the floor and a new green dress she had worn to the pub had been put on her back-to-front.

Former senior investigating officer Iain Wishart described the crime scene as “particularly cruel”.

He added: “The tragic thing is that she would have been looking into his eyes when he committed the murder.”

A post-mortem examination concluded that Mary had died after being strangled at least five days earlier.

Detectives gathered more than 1,000 statements in the months that followed but the hunt for Mary’s killer resulted in a series of dead ends.

The following year the family were told the investigation had been closed but one CID officer urged Mary’s daughter, Gina McGavin: “Don’t give up hope.”

Mary had 11 children by two fathers and was well known in the local community.

But daughter Gina told the documentary there were tensions as she left her first six children and the five she had with a second partner.

She said: “I thought that there was a hidden killer within the family.”

Gina, who wrote a book about her mother’s murder, said she shared her suspicions with the police.

She added: “My siblings were of the same thinking as me in 1984.

“It was one of her own children that had been involved or knew something more but we couldn’t prove anything.”

By 2008, four separate reviews had failed to yield a profile of the suspect.

The fifth review was launched in 2014 and the eventual breakthrough was made possible by a new DNA-profiling facility at the Scottish Crime Campus (SCC) in Gartcosh, North Lanarkshire.

Previously experts could look at 11 individual DNA markers but the latest technology was capable of identifying 24.

This dramatically increased the odds of scientists obtaining a result from smaller or lower-quality samples.

Tom Nelson, director of forensics for the Scottish Police Authority, said in 2015 that the technology would make it possible to “reach back in time, with the potential to rekindle justice for those who had all but given up hope”.

The samples gathered in 1984 included locks of Mary’s hair, nail scrapings and cigarette ends.

Ms Cochrane, who is based at the SCC, was asked to review evidence from the scene that had been preserved in paper bags for 30 years.

She said: “They didn’t know about DNA profiling at that time.

“They didn’t know the potential held in these items.

“They couldn’t possibly have known the value that it might have had.”

The senior forensic scientist said the original inquiry team showed “amazing foresight” to preserve evidence.

The breakthrough eventually came from an Embassy cigarette end stubbed out on an ashtray on the living room coffee table.

It was of particular interest to the cold case team as Mary’s preferred brand was Woodbine.

Ms Cochrane said she hoped technological advances would enable her to obtain trace levels of DNA.

She told the documentary: “Then we get this Eureka moment, our Eureka moment, where the cigarette end, which previously didn’t give us a DNA profile is now giving us a full male profile.

“This is something we have never had before and it is the first evidentially significant piece of forensic science in the case.”

It was sent to the Scottish DNA database and compared against thousands of profiles of convicted criminals.

The result was delivered to Ms Cochrane in a form, via email.

She quickly scrolled to the bottom and saw a cross next to the box: “Direct Match”.

The expert said: “It was a real goose bumps moment.

“It identifies a person called Graham McGill and I can see on the form that comes back to me that he has got serious convictions for sexual offences.

“After more than 30 years we had an individual that matched that DNA profile.”

But the long-awaited development created a conundrum when it emerged McGill – who had convictions for rape and attempted rape – was a prisoner when Mary was murdered.

Records also showed he was not released until 5 October 1984 – nine days after the grandmother was last seen alive.

Former Det Sgt Kenny McCubbin was tasked with solving a mystery that did not make sense.

Ms Cochrane was also told more forensic evidence was needed to build a compelling case.

That quest led her to another “time capsule of DNA” – the dressing gown cord used to strangle Mary.

Ms Cochrane believed there was a fair chance the person who tightened the knot may have touched the material now concealed within it.

Under the glare of fluorescent lights in her lab she slowly untied it, piece by piece, to expose the fabric for the first time in more than three decades.

She said: “We found that key piece of evidence – DNA matching Graham McGill – on the knots within the ligature.

“He had tied that ligature around Mary’s neck and had tied those knots to strangle Mary.”

Separately, traces of McGill’s semen were also found on the grandmother’s green dress.

But Mr McCubbin, who has now retired, told the documentary the forensic evidence alone was not enough to secure a conviction.

He said: “It didn’t matter what DNA we had.

“He’s got the perfect alibi. How could he commit the murder if he was in prison?”

Records were hard to find as HMP Edinburgh had been rebuilt at the time of the murder and, in an era before computers, paperwork had been lost.

Mr McCubbin’s quest eventually took him to the National Records of Scotland, in the heart of Edinburgh, where he tracked down the governor’s journals.

And a single entry changed everything.

Next to a prison number was the name “G McGill” and the acronym “TFF”.

The former detective sergeant said: “That was Training For Freedom, which meant weekend home leave.”

The inquiry team discovered McGill was on two days weekend leave, with three days pre-parole leave added on, and returned to the prison on 27 September 1984.

Former senior investigating officer Mark Henderson said: “That was the golden nugget we were looking for.”

McGill was finally arrested on 4 December 2019 .

At the time, he was still being managed as a sex offender, but was working in the Glasgow area as a fabricator for a company based in Linwood, Renfrewshire.

Gina said the news came as a relief and added: “I never thought I would see it in my lifetime.”

McGill finally was found guilty after a four-day trial in April 2021 and jailed for a minimum of 14 years.

The judge, Lord Burns, told the High Court in Glasgow that McGill was 22 when he strangled Mary but stood in the dock as a 59-year-old.

He added: “Her family has had to wait all that time in order to discover who was responsible for that act knowing that whoever did it was probably at large in the community.

“They had never given up the hope that some day they would find out what had happened to her.”

The hiking trail through Temescal Canyon in western Los Angeles is a favourite of locals.

Towering above the twisting roads and manicured homes that make up the Pacific Palisades, urban hikers seeking an escape from America’s famously gridlocked city have a clear view of the pristine waters of the Pacific.

Now the green, brush-lined path in the canyons is grey and burned as far as the eye can see.

Yellow police tape surrounds the path up to the trail. Police guarding this area are calling it a “crime scene” and prevented BBC reporters, including me, from getting any closer.

It’s where investigators think the deadly blaze that destroyed so many homes in the area may have started.

A similar scene is playing out across town in the north of the city. There, the community of Altadena was levelled by a different fire that ignited in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Investigators in both locations are scouring canyons and trails, and examining rocks, bottles, cans – any debris left behind that might hold clues to the origins of these blazes, which are still unknown.

It’s the one thing on-edge and devastated Angelenos are desperate to know: how did these fires start?

Without answers, some in fire-prone California are filling in the gaps themselves. Fingers have been pointed at arsonists, power company utilities or even a blaze days prior in the Pacific Palisades that was snuffed out but may have re-ignited in the face of Santa Ana winds blowing at 80-100mph (128-160 kmph) last week.

Investigators are examining all those theories and more. They’re following dozens of leads in the hopes that clues in burn patterns, surveillance footage and testimony from first responders and witnesses can explain why Los Angeles saw two of the most destructive fire disasters in US history ignite on 7 January, so far killing 27 people and destroying more than 12,000 homes and businesses.

But this tragic mystery will take time to solve – possibly as long as a year.

“It’s just too early,” Ginger Colbrun, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles division of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) told the BBC.

“Everyone wants answers, we want answers, the community wants answers. They deserve an explanation. It just takes time.”

The first trace of the Palisades Fire may have been spotted by Kai Cranmore and his friends as they hiked in Temescal Canyon, on a trail frequented by nature lovers and California stoners alike.

It’s not uncommon for visitors to bring alcohol and music, relaxing in nature by Skull Rock – a landmark rock formation along the trail.

In a series of videos posted online, Mr Cranmore and his friends are seen running down the canyon on the morning of 7 January. His first videos show a small cloud of smoke billowing from a hill as they navigate through brush and rock formations in a desperate escape. Out of breath, they comment on having smelled fire before seeing smoke rising.

In further clips, that small cloud gets darker and flames can later be seen cresting over the hilltop.

“Dude, that’s right where we were standing,” one person exclaims in the video as flames whip in the distance. “We were literally right there,” another chimes in.

The videos of the hikers are being examined as part of the official investigation into the origin of the Palisades Fire, Ms Colbrun of the ATF confirmed, saying their experience is just one of many tips and potential leads that have been flagged to authorities.

“The investigators, they’re talking to everyone,” she said.

Some on the internet were quick to blame the group for the fire, noting how close they were to the blaze when it erupted. Even actor Rob Schneider posted about the hikers, asking his followers to help identify them.

In interviews with US media outlets, members of the hiking group noted how fearful they became as people started online attacks. One of the men said he deleted his social media accounts.

“It’s scary,” one of the group told the LA Times. “Just knowing as a matter of fact of our experience that we didn’t do it but then seeing the amount of people that have different theories is overwhelming.”

Ms Colbrun said investigators were also speaking to firefighters who responded to a blaze days earlier that sparked nearby in the same canyon. A persistent theory holds that a small fire on 1 January was never fully extinguished and reignited six days later as winds picked up.

The Palisades Fire is thought to have erupted around 10:30 local time on 7 January, but several hikers told US media they’d smelled smoke earlier that morning as they used the trail.

A security guard who works near the trail told the BBC he’d seen smoke or dust for several days in the area. The morning of the blaze he was patrolling the neighbourhood bordering the canyon and called firefighters as a plume of smoke formed.

But Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone was dismissive of speculation the the two fires in the Palisades, nearly a week apart, could be connected.

“I don’t buy it. Personally, I don’t buy it,” he told the BBC. “I believe that a week is too long for a fire to get re-established that wasn’t fully contained.” He acknowledged such incidents do happen but they are rare.

While Chief Marrone’s agency is not leading the probe into the Palisades Fire, he said investigators were also examining the possibility of arson.

“We had numerous fires in the LA County region almost simultaneously, which leads us to believe that these fires were intentionally set by a person,” Chief Marrone said.

He adds that about half of the brushfires the agency typically responds to are intentionally set.

Chief Marrone has been primarily focused on the other side of town, dousing the Eaton Fire that tore through much of Altadena. It levelled whole neighbourhoods, destroyed blocks of businesses and killed at least 17 people.

The agency is working with Cal Fire, California’s state-wide fire agency, to investigate the cause of that blaze and where it ignited.

The Eaton Fire erupted shortly after sunset on 7 January – hours after firefighters became overwhelmed in the Palisades.

Jeffrey Ku captured what could be some of the earliest footage of the fire.

A Ring doorbell camera on his home captured the moment his wife came to pull him outside. “Hey babe, I need you to come out here right now,” she tells him as her hair whips in the fierce winds. “We have a very big problem.”

“Oh no!” Mr Ku can be heard saying as bright orange flames light up the sky.

At that point, the fire was still small. It was blazing under a large metal utility tower on the mountainside.

In a series of videos, Mr Ku documented how quickly it spread – each update carrying more worry in his voice as he and his wife packed what they could to leave.

“Please God, please God save us, save our house. Please God, please,” he says in one – the whole sky now glowing yellow-orange. Sirens echo around him.

The large metal utility tower Mr Ku recorded is now a focus for fire investigators.

Utility providers have been blamed for some of California’s worst fires, including the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. In 2019, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) agreed a $13.5bn (£10.2bn) settlement with victims of the Camp Fire and other wildfires in the state.

In the week since the Eaton Fire, there have already been at least five lawsuits filed against Southern California Edison, the power provider that operates the tower seen in Mr Ku’s video.

The company says it has not found any evidence that its equipment was responsible for the fire and is reviewing the lawsuits.

In a statement, it said its preliminary analysis of transmission lines across the canyon showed there were “no interruptions or operational/electrical anomalies in the 12 hours prior to the fire’s reported start time until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire”.

Additionally, the company said its distribution lines to the west of Eaton Canyon “were de-energized well before the reported start time of the fire” as part of its fire safety shut-off program.

Chief Marrone told the BBC that investigators were looking into all possibilities, including whether the tower may have been where a spot fire ignited – meaning the initial blaze could have been started elsewhere but then spread to the tower through flying embers.

He explained the tower where the fire was spotted is not like those seen in neighbourhoods. Rather than a wooden pole with a small, easy-to-blow transformer or slim wires, this was a massive metal transmission tower with high voltage lines as thick as a fist.

These types of lines aren’t typically the cause of fires because they’re computerised, he said, and the system automatically turns off power once there is an issue.

He noted, though, that investigators were looking into whether Southern California Edison’s systems operated properly that night and cut power.

Cal Fire cautioned against casting any blame so early in the probe.

“We want to make very sure that we’re not pointing any fingers in any direction because we’ve seen what happens when someone is falsely accused,” Gerry Magaña, deputy chief of operations, told the BBC in an interview.

“It causes chaos.”

Additional reporting from Hannah Green and Emma Pengelly

Dame Joan Plowright, one of Britain’s most celebrated stage and screen stars and the widow of Sir Laurence Olivier, has died at the age of 95.

Her career spanned 60 years and included an Oscar nomination for the 1991 film Enchanted April.

She married Olivier in 1961 after starring opposite him as his daughter in The Entertainer, and became a leading member of the National Theatre, which he set up.

In a statement, her family said they were “so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being”.

Her family said: “It is with great sadness that the family of Dame Joan Plowright, the Lady Olivier, inform you that she passed away peacefully on January 16 2025 surrounded by her family at Denville Hall aged 95.

“She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire.

“She cherished her last 10 years in Sussex with constant visits from friends and family, filled with much laughter and fond memories.”

They added: “She survived her many challenges with Plowright grit and courageous determination to make the best of them, and that she certainly did.

“Rest in peace, Joan…”

She had been retired for a decade, having lost her eyesight and been registered blind.

Born in Scunthorpe, Plowright became a leading lady in London’s West End in the 1950s, and first appeared opposite Olivier in John Osborne’s The Entertainer at the Royal Court in 1957.

He was still married to Gone With The Wind star Vivien Leigh at the time, and Plowright was married to her first husband Roger Gage.

Plowright and Olivier fell in love, and their acting partnership earned them both Bafta nominations for the film version of The Entertainer, which came out in 1960.

That year, Plowright also made her breakthrough in the US in A Taste of Honey on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for her performance.

Her other notable plays included George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, about Joan of Arc, in 1963, which for which she was named best actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

And she won a Society of West End Theatre Award – later renamed the Olivier Awards after her husband – in 1978 for Filumena.

She received another Bafta nomination that same year for her performance in the film version of Equus alongside Richard Burton.

In Enchanted April, her role as the elegant but peevish Mrs Fisher earned her a Golden Globe as well as a nomination for the Oscar for best supporting actress in 1993.

Dame Joan was one of a generation of great acting dames, and appeared opposite Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith in the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini.

More recently, she was famously seen reminiscing and enjoying repartee with Dame Judi, Dame Maggie and Dame Eileen Atkins in the 2018 BBC documentary Nothing Like A Dame.

In a clip from the show, which went viral online, a slightly disguntled Dame Maggie is seen telling Dame Judi she was “always asked first” when acting roles were offered.

The exchange was initially missed by Dame Joan because one of her hearing aids had fallen out, but she then joined in the joke, also recounting a similar story. She was then offered a spare hearing aid by the late Dame Maggie, who died in September 2024.

Dame Joan was part of an “extraordinary” acting company that her husband assembled when the National Theatre began life at the Old Vic theatre in the early 1960s, according to playwright David Hare.

Others included Maggie Smith, Michael Redgrave, Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon.

“She represented, at that point, a new realism in the theatre – a working class background, obviously, like many of her contemporaries,” Hare told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One.

“And she had the not very easy task of being Laurence Olivier’s wife while Laurence Olivier was running the theatre, and she handled that situation extremely well.”

Hare added: “I’ll also remember her as an incredibly wise and witty woman. She was very good fun, and she liked to laugh, and she used humour all the time to defuse some of the tensions that grew up around her husband.”

When he first worked with her at the age of 23, Hare said he was “totally out of my depth, and she never treated me with anything but friendliness, courtesy and wit”.

The National Theatre’s current director, Rufus Norris, said Dame Joan’s “contribution as one of the central pillars of the National Theatre cannot be overstated”.

She delivered “an extraordinary series of celebrated performances” in plays including Uncle Vanya, Saint Joan, The Master Builder, Much Ado About Nothing and Three Sisters, he said.

“In many of these she acted alongside Sir Laurence Olivier, her partner in art and life.

“Joan’s influence offstage on the nascent National Theatre was similarly profound, and her remarkable talent and dedication to her craft have left an enduring legacy as an actor.

“She remained a personal friend to and champion of the National Theatre throughout its history.”

West End theatres will dim their lights for two minutes in tribute to Dame Joan on Tuesday.

UK Theatre and Society Of London Theatre co-chief executive Hannah Essex said: “Dame Joan Plowright was an iconic and deeply respected figure in the world of theatre, leaving an indelible mark on the industry she shaped with her talent and dedication.

“We are honoured to contribute to the celebration of her extraordinary career and extend our heartfelt condolences to her family and loved ones.”

There was also a tribute from the operators of the Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe, which was named after her in the 1990s.

“We are saddened to hear that Dame Joan Plowright, the esteemed British actress whose career spanned over six decades, has passed away at the age of 95,” a statement said.

“Born in Brigg she became one of the most distinguished actors of her generation.”

Plowright’s father Bill founded the Scunthorpe Little Theatre Club, which still performs at the venue.

As protesters gather in Washington DC on Saturday for this year’s Women’s March, Vanessa Wruble, one of its founders, will be 2,500 miles away, at her farm in the Californian desert.

“I didn’t even know it was still a thing,” she told the BBC from her five-acre animal sanctuary near Joshua Tree, which features a zebra, mini cows and horses, peacocks and chickens.

Eight years ago, on the eve of the first Women’s March, Wruble had been consumed by it. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, Wruble, along with a handful of other female activists, scrambled to pull together a mass protest against the newly elected president.

“We basically did not stop, we did not sleep,” Wruble said. “It felt like we were doing something important.”

The January 2017 march became the largest single-day protest in US history, bringing an estimated 500,000 people to DC, and drawing millions to sister marches across the country. And in the months that followed, the Women’s March organisation developed into the most visible arm of the so-called “resistance” – a loose coalition of grassroots progressive groups, never-Trump Republicans and Democratic leaders who opposed the 45th president and his agenda.

The resistance was angry, and it was motivated. The movement was widely credited with helping flip control of the House of Representatives from Republicans to Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections and for mobilising hundreds of women to enter politics across the country.

But in the wake of Trump’s decisive win against Vice-President Kamala Harris in November, much of that energy has dwindled, spurring questions about the resistance movement’s failures as well as its future. Activists and Democrats are also reckoning with the reality that the votes of millions of women helped put Trump back in the White House.

The first march had come together at an impressive clip, transforming from a couple of disconnected Facebook posts from women calling for a protest into a blueprint for a national movement within weeks.

By 21 January, hundreds of thousands of people were pouring into the nation’s capital, bringing crowds nearly three times the size of Trump’s inauguration the day before. In Washington and at coordinated events across the US, women carried signs railing against Trump and sported pink knit “pussyhats” – a pointed reference to the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals.

“I had never seen anything this crowded, you could barely move,” said Sharon Baseman, a Democratic activist in Michigan who travelled to DC for the 2017 march. “It was overwhelming and it was inspiring.”

In the years that followed, the Women’s March remained the face of the fight against Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda. The movement helped unite the Democratic Party against Trump, a strategy enabled them to retake the White House in 2020.

The torrent of activists who had been primed by the Women’s March turned out for other causes, too: #MeToo demonstrations, the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence and the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 as well as the nationwide racial justice protests in the summer of 2020 over the police killing of George Floyd.

The first march gave Democrats a sense of solidarity, and a feeling of wanting to do more, said Dana Fisher, a professor of sociology at American University and author of American Resistance, from the Women’s March to the Blue Wave.

“The 2017 march activated a ton of left-leaning people who had never done anything political before. They paid attention, and they went to town hall meetings, and they joined different organisations,” Professor Fisher said. “People got the sense that they weren’t alone.”

And experts say that engagement carried over to the 2018 midterms, when a record number of female candidates – most of them Democrats – ran for Congress.

Women made “monumental gains” after 2017, according to Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.

“There was a record number of women running for and winning office across levels of office,” she said, “that has led to a record level of women’s representation, which largely sustains itself”.

The Women’s March this year has been rebranded as the People’s March, co-hosted with a number of other progressive organisations including Planned Parenthood, National Women’s Law Center and Sierra Club.

Tamika Middleton, the managing director of the Women’s March, said Saturday’s march was focused on building a coalition, adding that those in the progressive movement needed to come together like they did in 2017.

“We’re seeing attacks on women, on reproductive rights, on LGBTQ folks… and we’re realising that we really have to build some coordination across the movement to build the kind of mass movement that can fight back,” she said.

So far, there is no sign that Saturday’s event will match the magnitude of 2017. Organisers say they expect around 50,000 people to show up – a fraction of the attendance at the initial protest.

“I haven’t heard anything about the Women’s March this year, I didn’t know it was happening,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run for Something, a non-profit launched in 2017 that supports first-time progressive candidates running for local and state office.

“There are valuable questions to be asked, like what is the purpose of a march this time around?” she said. “It is a tough case to make right now.”

The march itself has become something of an afterthought. What was once a watershed moment of defiance at the outset of the first Trump administration has seemingly faded from view.

“I think you’ll find there really is not the appetite to march. I also think that it would be ineffective to march,” said Wruble, one of the early founders. “We need to look at what we’re doing and reassess how we go about doing it.”

Wruble was pushed out of the Women’s March soon after its first year, later saying her Jewish heritage played a role in that. Her exit was part of a raft of internal conflict that roiled the organisation from the start. The original co-chairs, Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, and Bob Bland, have since left the group. They did not return the BBC’s request for comment.

But the broader problem, according to activists and Democrats, is that the central premise of the resistance movement went unfulfilled.

After all, as protesters gather this weekend, Donald Trump will arrive in Washington to kick off celebrations for his inauguration. And he will be sworn in as president on Monday on the back of a decisive win (he lost the popular vote in 2016, but narrowly won it last November).

The incoming president will also preside over a government firmly under his party’s control, with Republicans holding narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Trump’s November victory was helped by continued Republican gains among working-class voters, including black and Latino men. And despite pre-election discussion of a possible landslide for Harris among female voters, Trump also made inroads among white women, especially working-class women.

Ms Dittmar said that while the commonly accepted narrative was women would continue to drift away from Trump, in fact, among non-college educated white women “that support for him was just being affirmed, it got stronger”.

Trump has won a majority of white women voters in all three elections he’s contested, following a pattern set by every Republican presidential candidate since at least the 1990s.

But for many who oppose Trump, it is striking that he did so this time despite a series of new factors they hoped might doom his candidacy: his role in ending the national right to abortion; a jury finding him liable in a civil trial for sexually assaulting columnist E Jean Carroll in the 1990s; and a re-election campaign which saw misogynistic attacks on his opponent.

Rebecca Gau, a 53-year-old executive director of an education non-profit in Arizona, had been a loyal Republican until Trump’s ascension, casting her first vote for a Democrat in 2020 for Joe Biden and again in November for Harris.

Ms Gau said she thinks Democrats focused too heavily on abortion rights during the election over kitchen table issues like the economy, which exit polls showed was a primary concern of voters.

Some of the fear and uncertainty about what a Trump administration might do was also missing this time around, she added, giving voters permission to prioritise other concerns, like the grocery prices and border security.

“We’ve been through all that before, and the sky didn’t fall,” she said of Trump’s first administration.

Democrats, too, have been muted in their response to Trump’s election, with the party divided on how to confront the president-elect and his allies after campaigning for months that he was an existential threat to democracy.

Some congressional Democrats have sought to work across the aisle, with dozens joining Republicans last week to support a hardline bill on undocumented immigrants. A group of Democratic senators recently released a video that proclaimed, “we are not here because of who we are against”.

Even California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has repeatedly clashed with Trump over the years and has already vocalised plans to shield his state from federal intervention, has taken a more conciliatory tone in recent days in the wake of devastating wildfires there.

“We’re a little leaderless right now, which is hard,” said Littman, of Run for Something. “We’re in disarray because there’s nothing to be in array behind.”

For Wruble, a break from politics came long before November’s loss.

In 2022, struggling with burnout after years of organising, Wruble moved west. She gave up her rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn and set up camp in Joshua Tree permanently, slowly constructing her farm, Kaleidoscope Desert.

She shows no signs of wanting back in. The farm takes up most of her focus. During our interview earlier this month, she was interrupted several times by her ranch hand asking questions about the various animals.

“We need more dog food in the house,” Wruble said after one such interlude. “These are the kind of problems I deal with now.”

But for other supporters of the Women’s March who are still in the fight, Saturday’s event brings a sense of optimism in a moment of despair.

“My friends who are super progressive and were devastated after the election are in a mode of, the only thing we can do is show up and not be quiet, and not let people think that all women support Trump,” said Gau.

But, she said, the march itself will do little to pull in the women who did cast a ballot for him.

“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it,” she added, “but it’s not going to draw them back”.

Donald Trump has made an impact on the Middle East even before he sits down in the Oval Office to start his second term as president.

He cut through the delaying tactics that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in alliance with his ultra-nationalist coalition partners, had used to avoid accepting the ceasefire deal that Joe Biden put on the negotiating table last May.

American pressure on Hamas and other Palestinian groups is a given. Under Biden, pressure on Israel was the lever that was never pulled. Trump starts his second term claiming credit, with reasonable justification, for getting the ceasefire deal in Gaza over the line. He can bask in some glory.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, is dealing with a coalition crisis. The entire principle of doing a deal with Hamas is repugnant to the ultra-nationalist politicians who have supported his government.

One of them, the National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says his party, Jewish Power, will only support the government if it resumes the war, cuts off all aid to Gaza and destroys Hamas. If that does not happen, he will resign.

That will be of no importance to Donald Trump. The push for a Gaza ceasefire demonstrated that Trump would put the interests of his presidency before the political requirements of Israel’s prime minister.

Joe Biden, on the other hand, was prepared to risk votes in swing states in the US presidential election because of his determination to support Israel, despite his own misgivings about the way that Israel was killing civilians in Gaza and depriving them of food, medical care, shelter and clean water.

Israel’s nationalist right was delighted when Trump won his landslide victory in November. They assumed that Trump would give them even more licence than Biden had. The reality might be more complicated than that.

Just as Israel is not the same country that Trump left behind when he left office in 2021, Trump may not be the president that they encountered the first time around.

The first signs of how Trump would approach the Middle East as president – and the conclusion to draw from it – came on a hot early summer day during Trump’s second year as president.

If you live outside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, you can be forgiven if you don’t remember the events of that day – 14 May 2018. After all the terrible bloodshed since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, specific days that led up to the war in Gaza can be easily forgotten.

But in a world where most people get their news online, it was also declared to be the ultimate split-screen moment.

On one side of the news feeds was the Trump administration’s most photogenic couple, the first daughter Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner who was also the president’s senior adviser. They were opening the new American embassy in Jerusalem.

Moving it from Tel Aviv and recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was one of Trump’s campaign promises, aimed mostly at evangelical Christians who made up a big share of his electoral base.

For the delighted audience of Israeli politicians and wealthy American donors to Donald Trump and Israel, Ivanka and Jared’s presence was the icing on a long overdue cake.

On the other side of the screen Israeli soldiers were shooting into Gaza to kill and wound Palestinians who were trying to break through the border fence.

Between 50 and 60 Palestinians were killed that day. Many more suffered gruesome bullet wounds.

It was the culmination of an event that Hamas, Gaza’s rulers, had called the “Great March of Return”. Thousands were taking part.

Small groups, mostly young men, were advancing on the wire. About a kilometre back were thousands of peaceful demonstrators. Families were picnicking on the sand. They screamed and fled when Israeli drones bombed them with tear gas.

Hamas commanders must have concluded it would take more than mass protest to break into Israel.

On 7 October 2023, in a much bigger and better planned assault that took Israel by surprise, Hamas breached the border. Its men killed around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and took 251 others into Gaza as hostages.

In the war that followed, Israel has exacted a terrible revenge, leaving most of Gaza in ruins and killing almost 50,000 according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel insists that those figures are exaggerated. But a new study in the British medical journal, The Lancet, suggests that the Palestinian ministry of health has “under-reported mortality by 41%”.

All American presidents support Israel. But the lesson Israel’s nationalist right took from their side of the split screen was that Donald Trump would be unusually accommodating.

The embassy move showed Trump was prepared to break with conventional wisdom that he believed was an obstacle to US interests.

He abandoned the long-standing policy of Israel’s Western allies, and most other countries, to keep their embassies in Tel Aviv until a peace deal with the Palestinians decided Jerusalem’s permanent status.

The embassy opening celebration came the week after he pulled the US out of the nuclear deal with Iran, which he called “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into”.

He also had the satisfaction of derailing his predecessor Barack Obama’s biggest foreign policy achievement.

Trump’s ditching of the Iran agreement was the triumphant end to a long campaign for Netanyahu.

In March 2019 Donald Trump went further by accepting Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Syrian territory which Israel had occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.

Recognising Israel’s annexation of the Golan broke with a Western consensus since the aftermath of World War Two that states should not acquire territory through military action.

In 2020 the Trump administration gave Israel another prize. Jared Kushner brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel on one side and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan and Bahrain. The US gave all four countries sweeteners in return for their co-operation.

They were persuaded to abandon the long-standing Arab peace initiative, that promised Israel full recognition in return for allowing Palestinians to establish their own state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. For Israel it amounted to a free gift.

Biden, like Trump in his first term, wanted to extend the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia. Recognition of Israel by the Saudis, the keeper of Islam’s two holiest shrines, the leader of the Sunni Muslim world and the richest and most powerful Arab state, would be hugely significant.

In return, the Saudis would get a comprehensive security pact with the US, which would of course include more arms deals.

It was about more than lucrative business opportunities for all concerned, though they existed and were attractive.

The argument was that it would stabilise the turbulent Middle East. The US-Saudi security deal would also be a good way for Washington to outflank the Chinese, whose rise to global power includes a strong interest in the Gulf, its oil, money and strategic position.

But that left the Palestinians. The Saudis wrote and tabled the Arab peace initiative back at the turn of the century. They insist that they were not prepared to trade Palestinian rights to get a deal with Israel and the US before 7 October. But Hamas, and other Palestinians, believed that was happening.

It was the latest sign, they believed that the Palestinian cause had, as the Hamas leader and chief ceasefire negotiator Khalil al Hayya told me in Doha in October last year, “been forgotten and removed from the table”.

He said they attacked Israel 12 months earlier because “Palestinian rights aren’t being considered by anyone.

“It was necessary to raise an alarm in the world to tell them that here’s a people who have a cause and have demands that must be met. This was a blow to Israel, the Zionist enemy.”

The Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s effective ruler, has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

Even so, the Saudis have made clear they are still interested in a US-brokered deal to normalise relations with Israel. Prince Mohammed’s stipulation, expressed publicly, is that his price is irrevocable progress towards Palestinian independence.

Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has said already that a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a “huge priority” for the president.

In December he told a conservative commentator in the US that it was necessary to “eliminate these terrorist organisations”, release the hostages and move towards a deal with Riyadh.

He indicated that had Trump not lost the 2020 election to Biden, they would have made the deal by forming a common front against Iran, Saudi Arabia’s rival on the other side of the Gulf, rather than “putting the Palestinian issue right in the centre”.

The trouble with that approach is that Saudi Arabia has, very publicly, linked its co-operation with Palestinian rights.

The Biden administration agreed that the key to a grand bargain that could change the Middle East was not just Arab acceptance of Israel, but Israel’s acceptance of Palestinian rights.

On 14 January as he prepared to leave office, Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken made that clear in a speech to the Atlantic Council in Washington. Blinken, a staunch supporter of Israel whose speech was interrupted by hecklers accusing him of genocide in Gaza, also had hard words for Israel.

“Israelis must decide what relationship they want with the Palestinians. That cannot be the illusion that Palestinians will accept being a non-people without national rights.

“Seven million Israeli Jews and some five million Palestinians are rooted in the same land. Neither is going anywhere.”

He added: “Israelis must abandon the myth that they can carry out de-facto annexation without cost and consequence to Israel’s democracy, to its standing, to its security.”

Those de facto, cost-free annexations were exactly what many Israeli hard-right wingers were hoping Trump would allow. Perhaps he will. He is no friend of the Palestinians.

But his Western allies are already hoping that transactional Trump may be more flexible than Joe Biden – a self-proclaimed Zionist – would ever be, especially if he wants the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords.

Peace in the Middle East is perhaps the greatest prize in global diplomacy, because it is so elusive and at the moment so distant.

What price is Donald Trump prepared to accept for a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel?

Prince Mohammed bin Salman has named his – a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the Palestinians will never get an independent state.

Donald Trump is unlikely to be able to bully Mohammed bin Salman into changing his position. The Saudi Arabia of MBS is too assertive for that, and an invitation to Riyadh for the president of China would make the Americans nervous.

It is a time of hard choices. President Trump will have a lot to think about when he re-enters the White House after his inauguration.

Top picture credit: Getty Images

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After lying hidden beneath metres of volcanic rock and ash for 2,000 years, a “once-in-a-century” find has been unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in Italy.

Archaeologists have discovered a sumptuous private bathhouse – potentially the largest ever found there – complete with hot, warm and cold rooms, exquisite artwork, and a huge plunge pool.

The spa-like complex sits at the heart of a grand residence uncovered over the last two years during a major excavation.

“It’s these spaces that really are part of the ‘Pompeii effect’ – it’s almost as if the people had only left a minute ago,” says Dr Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, who has revealed the new find exclusively to BBC News.

Analysis of two skeletons discovered in the house also shows the horror faced by Pompeii’s inhabitants when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79.

The bodies belonged to a woman, aged between 35 and 50, who was clutching jewellery and coins, and a younger man in his teens or early 20s.

They had barricaded themselves into a small room, but were killed as a tsunami of superheated volcanic gas and ash – known as a pyroclastic flow – ripped through the town.

“This is a dramatic place, and everything you find here tells you about the drama,” says Pompeii conservator, Dr Ludovica Alesse.

A third of the ancient city still lies hidden beneath volcanic debris from the disaster, but the new excavation – the most extensive in a generation – provides new insights into ancient Roman life.

The archaeologists have been followed by a documentary team from the BBC and Lion TV, for a series called Pompeii: The New Dig.

An entire block of Pompeii has now been uncovered, revealing a laundry and bakery, as well as the large private house. It’s thought these were all owned by one wealthy individual, possibly Aulus Rustius Verus, an influential Pompeii politician.

The discovery of the bathhouse is further confirmation of his elite status, says Dr Zuchtriegel.

“There are just a few houses that have a private bath complex, so it was something really for the wealthiest of the wealthy,” he says. “And this is so huge – it’s probably the biggest bath complex in a Pompeiian private home.”

Those lucky enough to use the suite of bathing rooms would have undressed in a changing room with vibrant red walls and a mosaic floor dotted with geometric patterns inlaid with marble from across the Roman Empire.

They would then head to the hot room, taking a dip in a bath and enjoying the sauna-like warmth, provided by a suspended floor that allowed hot air to flow underneath and walls with a cavity where the heat could circulate.

Next they would move to the brightly-painted warm room, where oil would be rubbed into the skin, before being scraped off with a curved instrument called a strigil.

Finally, they would enter the largest and most spectacular room of all – the frigidarium, or cold room. Surrounded by red columns and frescoes of athletes, a visitor could cool off in the plunge pool, which is so large 20-30 people could fit in it.

“In the hot summers, you could sit with your feet in the water, chatting with your friends, maybe enjoying a cup of wine,” says Dr Zuchtriegel.

The bathhouse is the latest find to emerge from this extraordinary house.

A huge banqueting room with jet black walls and breathtaking artwork of classical scenes was found last year. A smaller, more intimate room – painted in pale blue – where residents of the house would go and pray to the gods was also unearthed.

The residence was mid-renovation – tools and building materials have been found throughout. In the blue room a pile of oyster shells lie on the floor, ready to be ground up and applied to the walls to give them an iridescent shimmer.

Next door to this beautiful space, in a cramped room with barely any decoration, a stark discovery was made – the remains of two Pompeiians who failed to escape from the eruption.

The skeleton of a woman was found lying on top of a bed, curled up in a foetal position. The body of a man was in the corner of this small room.

“The pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius came along the street just outside this room, and caused a wall to collapse, and that had basically crushed him to death,” explains Dr Sophie Hay, an archaeologist at Pompeii.

“The woman was still alive while he was dying – imagine the trauma – and then this room filled with the rest of the pyroclastic flow, and that’s how she died.”

Analysis of the male skeleton showed that despite his young age, his bones had signs of wear and tear, suggesting he was of lower status, possibly even a slave.

The woman was older, but her bones and teeth were in good condition.

“She was probably someone higher up in society,” says Dr Hay. “She could have been the wife of the owner of the house – or maybe an assistant looking after the wife, we just don’t know.”

An assortment of items were found on a marble table top in the room – glassware, bronze jugs and pottery – perhaps brought into the room where the pair had tucked themselves away hoping to wait out the eruption.

But it’s the items clutched by the victims that are of particular interest. The younger man held some keys, while the older woman was found with gold and silver coins and jewellery.

These are kept in Pompeii’s vault, along with the city’s other priceless finds, and we were given a chance to see them with archaeologist, Dr Alessandro Russo.

The gold coins still gleam as if they were new, and he shows us delicate gold and natural pearl earrings, necklace pendants and intricately etched semi-precious stones.

“When we find this kind of object, the distance from ancient times and modern times disappears,” Dr Russo says, “and we can touch a small piece of the life of these people who died in the eruption.”

Dr Sophie Hay describes the private bathhouse complex as a once-in-a-century discovery, which also sheds more light on a darker side of Roman life.

Just behind the hot room is a boiler room. A pipe brought water in from the street – with some syphoned off into the cold plunge pool – and the rest was heated in a lead boiler destined for the hot room. The valves that regulated the flow look so modern it’s as if you could turn them on and off even today.

With a furnace sitting beneath, the conditions in this room would have been unbearably hot for the slaves who had to keep the whole system going.

“The most powerful thing from these excavations is that stark contrast between the lives of the slaves and the very, very rich. And here we see it,” says Dr Sophie Hay.

“The difference between the sumptuous life of the bathhouse, compared to the furnace room, where the slaves would be feeding the fire toiling all day.

“A wall is all that could divide you between two different worlds.”

The excavation is in its final weeks – but new discoveries continue to emerge from the ash. Limited numbers of visitors are allowed to visit the dig while it’s ongoing, but eventually it will be fully opened to the public.

“Every day here is a surprise,” says Dr Anna Onesti, director of the excavation.

“Sometimes in the morning I come to work thinking that it’s a normal working day – and then I discover we found something exceptional.

“It’s a magic moment for the life of Pompeii, and this excavation work offers us the possibility to share this with the public.”

All websites on which pornographic material can be found, including social media platforms, must introduce “robust” age-checking techniques such as demanding photo ID or running credit card checks for UK users by July.

The long-awaited guidance, issued by regulator Ofcom, has been made under the Online Safety Act (OSA), and is intended to prevent children from easily accessing pornography online.

Research indicates the average age at which young people first see explicit material online in the UK is 13 – with many being exposed to it much earlier.

“For too long, many online services which allow porn and other harmful material have ignored the fact that children are accessing their services”, said Ofcom boss Melanie Dawes, adding: “today, this starts to change.”

Ofcom confirmed to the BBC this meant user-to-user services such as social media platforms must implement “highly effective checks” – which in some cases might mean “preventing children from accessing the entire site”.

However, some porn sites and privacy campaigners have warned the move will be counterproductive, saying introducing beefed-up age verification will only push people to “darker corners” of the internet.

The media regulator estimates that approximately 14 million people watch online pornography in the UK.

But it is so readily available that campaign groups have raised concerns that children see it at a young age – with one in 10 children seeing it by age nine, according to a survey by the Children’s Commissioner.

“As age checks start to roll out in the coming months, adults will start to notice a difference in how they access certain online services,” said Dame Melanie.

The rules also require services which publish their own pornographic content – including with generative AI tools – to begin introducing age checks immediately.

Age verification platform Yoti called such technology “essential” for creating safe spaces online.

“It is important that age assurance is enforced across pornographic sites of all sizes, creating a level playing field, and providing age-appropriate access for adults,” said chief regulatory and policy officer Julie Dawson.

However Aylo, parent company of the website Pornhub, told the BBC this sort of age verification was “ineffective, haphazard and dangerous”.

It claimed pornography use changed significantly in US state Louisiana after similar age verification controls came into force, with its website’s traffic dropping 80% in the state.

“These people did not stop looking for porn, they just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age,” it claimed.

“In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.”

Ofcom has published what it calls a “non-exhaustive” list of technologies that may be used to verify ages, which includes:

• Open banking
• Photo ID matching
• Facial age estimation
• Mobile network operator age checks
• Credit card checks
• Digital identity services
• Email-based age estimation

The rules specifically state that “self-declaration of age” is no longer considered a “highly effective” method of checking ages – and therefore is not acceptable.

It also states that pornographic content should not be accessible to users before they have completed an age check.

Other age verification firms have responded positively to the news.

“The regulator’s long-awaited guidance on age assurance means adult content providers now have the clarity they need to get their houses in order and put in place robust and reliable methods to keep explicit material well away from underage users,” said Lina Ghazal, head of regulatory and public affairs at Verifymy.

But privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch warned that many age-checking methods could be circumvented, and should not be seen as a panacea.

“Children must be protected online, but many technological age checking methods are ineffective and introduce additional risks to children and adults alike including security breaches, privacy intrusion, errors, digital exclusion and censorship,” said boss Silkie Carlo.

“We must avoid anything like a digital ID system for the internet that would both eradicate privacy online and fail to keep children safe,” she added.

The official portraits of US President-elect Donald Trump and his second-in-command JD Vance have been released ahead of their inauguration on Monday.

Both Trump and Vance are pictured in blue suits, white collared shirts and blue ties, with Trump wearing a small US flag pin on his lapel.

Trump’s expression contrasts with Vance’s, with the president-elect’s head tilted slightly downward, one eyebrow raised and his lips pressed together.

Vance smiles at the camera, with his arms crossed, in a more relaxed pose.

The new image of Trump has drawn comparisons to his 2023 mugshot, which was taken in Fulton County Jail after he was charged with attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden in the state of Georgia – a charge Trump denied.

The now-famous image was used by Trump to fundraise for his campaign.

The Trump-Vance transition said in a press release that the portraits “go hard”.

The portrait Trump opted for this time differs markedly with the image used in 2017, when he first became president.

While he wears similar attire, he smiles broadly at the camera in the earlier portrait.

“Trump may be embracing a defiant image, transforming a moment of legal adversity into a symbol of resilience and strength,” Quardricos Driskell, a political science professor at George Washington University, told the BBC.

“The stark contrast to his earlier, more traditional portrait could also signify a shift in his public persona, emphasizing a tougher, more combative stance as he prepares to assume office for a second time.”

The portraits were released by the Trump transition team just days before Trump and Vance’s inauguration on 20 January.

The official portraits of Trump and his former Vice-President Mike Pence were not released until nine months after they were both sworn in.

The official portraits of US President-elect Donald Trump and his second-in-command JD Vance have been released ahead of their inauguration on Monday.

Both Trump and Vance are pictured in blue suits, white collared shirts and blue ties, with Trump wearing a small US flag pin on his lapel.

Trump’s expression contrasts with Vance’s, with the president-elect’s head tilted slightly downward, one eyebrow raised and his lips pressed together.

Vance smiles at the camera, with his arms crossed, in a more relaxed pose.

The new image of Trump has drawn comparisons to his 2023 mugshot, which was taken in Fulton County Jail after he was charged with attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden in the state of Georgia – a charge Trump denied.

The now-famous image was used by Trump to fundraise for his campaign.

The Trump-Vance transition said in a press release that the portraits “go hard”.

The portrait Trump opted for this time differs markedly with the image used in 2017, when he first became president.

While he wears similar attire, he smiles broadly at the camera in the earlier portrait.

“Trump may be embracing a defiant image, transforming a moment of legal adversity into a symbol of resilience and strength,” Quardricos Driskell, a political science professor at George Washington University, told the BBC.

“The stark contrast to his earlier, more traditional portrait could also signify a shift in his public persona, emphasizing a tougher, more combative stance as he prepares to assume office for a second time.”

The portraits were released by the Trump transition team just days before Trump and Vance’s inauguration on 20 January.

The official portraits of Trump and his former Vice-President Mike Pence were not released until nine months after they were both sworn in.

A looming TikTok ban has connected Chinese and American citizens like never before, as they swap jokes and memes in what one user described as a “historic moment”.

It’s all unfolding on a popular Chinese social media app called RedNote, or Xiaohongshu (literally translates as Little Red Book), which doesn’t have the usual internet firewall that separates China from the rest of the world.

It has been drawing self-professed US “TikTok refugees” seeking a new home on the internet – despite the fact that their own government is seeking a TikTok ban because of national security concerns.

Americans now find themselves in direct contact with 300 million Mandarin speakers in China and elsewhere – while in the real world, Beijing is bracing for a tumultuous Trump presidency that could strain its fragile ties with Washington.

At the heart of the US ban is the fear that China is using TikTok to spy on Americans.

The app has faced accusations that user data is ending up in the hands of the Chinese government – because of a Beijing law that requires local companies to “support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work”. TikTok denies this has ever happened, or that it would happen.

But the possibility doesn’t seem to worry some US users – 700,000 new users have signed on to RedNote in the last two days, making it the most downloaded free app in the US App store.

“The reason that our government is telling us that they are banning TikTok is because they’re insisting that it’s owned by you guys, the Chinese people, government, whatever,” said one new RedNote user, Definitelynotchippy.

She goes on to explain why she is on RedNote: “A lot of us are smarter than that though so we decided to piss off our government and download an actual Chinese app. We call that trolling, so in short we’re here to spite our government and to learn about China and hang out with you guys.”

TikTok, although owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is headquartered in Singapore and says it is run independently. In fact, China’s version of TikTok is another app called Douyin. RedNote, on the other hand, is a Chinese company based in Shanghai and among the few social media apps available both in China and outside.

So Washington’s fears over TikTok would extend to RedNote as well.

That’s why American users on RedNote are referring to themselves as “Chinese spies” – continuing a TikTok trend where people have been bidding farewell to their “personal Chinese spy” who has allegedly been surveilling them over the years.

RedNote is now full of posts where ex-TikTok users are in search of a replacement. One post says: “I’m looking for my Chinese spy. I miss you. Please help me find him.”

And Chinese users have answered: “I’m here!”

The honest, funny conversations on RedNote may not be what Chinese President Xi Jinping had in mind when he spoke about “strengthening people-to-people cultural exchanges” between China and the US.

But that is certainly what is happening as excited Chinese users welcome curious Americans to the app.

“You don’t even need to travel abroad, you can just talk to foreigners here,” said one Chinese RedNote user in a video that has received more than 6,000 likes.

“But it’s honestly insane, no-one would have expected that we could meet like this one day, openly communicate like this.”

Food, streaming shows and jobs have been the most popular topics: “Is life in America similar to how it looks on [the US TV show] Friends?”

Other Chinese users demanded a “tax” for using the platform – cat photos.

“Cat tax from California,” reads one post in response. “Here’s my offering – the shorthair is a boy named Bob and the calico is a girl named Marley.”

Still others are using the platform to ask Americans for help with their English homework.

One post reads: “Dear TikTok refugees, could you please tell me the answer to question 53? Is the answer T (true) or F (false)?”

Help came quickly: some 500 people have since answered.

The flood of new American users appears to have caught RedNote off guard – reports say the company is hiring English moderators.

And others are trying to cash in on RedNote’s new-found US stardom as well: language-learning app Duolingo put out a graph showing a 216% jump in its user base, compared to this time last year.

RedNote’s rising popularity is not guaranteed to last though.

There is no reason to assume it won’t face blowback for the same reasons as TikTok: concerns that it could be used by China to spy on Americans.

It’s unclear how long Beijing would be open to such unfettered exchanges – control of the internet is key to its repressive regime.

The irony of the situation was flagged by one Chinese user, who posted: “Don’t we have a (fire)wall? How come so many foreigners can enter, when clearly I can’t leave?”

Typically, Chinese internet users have been unable to directly interact with foreigners. Global platforms like Twitter and Instagram and search engines like Google are blocked in China, though people use VPNs to circumvent these restrictions. Sensitive topics – from history to dissent – or anything seen as critical of China’s government and ruling Communist party is swiftly censored.

It’s unclear how much RedNote is censored – it’s largely used by younger and middle-aged women in China, where they share images and videos. It’s not like Weibo, another Chinese app, where discussions and airing of grievances is far more common, leading to posts often being taken down.

But a handful of new RedNote users say they have already received reports that their posts have violated guidelines, including one who asked in a post if the app was “LGBT friendly”.

Another said they had asked “What [sic] Chinese think about gay people?” and received a similar notification, that they had violated “public moral order” guidelines.

And Chinese users keep reminding Americans on the app “not to mention sensitive topics, such as politics, religion and drugs”.

One Chinese user also advised them to stick to the “One China policy”, the diplomatic pillar of the US-China relationship – according to which the US recognises and has formal ties with China rather than Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its own.

The US government has not commented on RedNote so far, and neither has Beijing.

But Chinese state media seems upbeat about it, with Global Times even interviewing a US user who said she would “love to interact with Chinese users”.

RedNote’s American fate is anyone’s guess – but for now, at least online, the US-China rivalry is taking a break. Thanks to cat pictures.

Actor and director Justin Baldoni has hit back at Blake Lively, his co-star in the film It Ends With Us, by filing a lawsuit against her and her husband Ryan Reynolds.

It comes after Lively filed a legal complaint against Baldoni in December, alleging sexual harassment and that he had campaigned to “destroy” her reputation.

Now, Baldoni has responded by suing for $400m (£326m) damages on claims of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy, according to US media.

Representatives for Lively, Reynolds and their publicist, who is also named in the case, are yet to respond to Baldoni’s lawsuit.

In the latest step in their bitter legal battle, lawyers for Baldoni, 40, has claimed Lively and her team made a “duplicitous attempt to destroy” him.

His attorney Bryan Freedman said the actress and her partners had disseminated “grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media”.

He also said Lively and her team had “attempted to bulldoze reputations and livelihoods for heinously selfish reasons”.

The dispute stems from the production of It Ends With Us, which was adapted from a novel about domestic abuse by Colleen Hoover.

Released last August, the film was a box office success, bringing in more than $350m (£280m) globally.

But it appeared on the press tour that all was not well between the co-stars, who were not pictured on the red carpet together during the premiere in New York, with Baldoni skipping one in London altogether.

Four months after the film’s launch, Lively filed a legal complaint against Baldoni, accusing him and the boss of his studio Wayfarer of sexual harassment plus “other disturbing behaviour” and a “hostile work environment” on set.

Lively’s complaint went further, claiming that Baldoni and his crisis management team had deliberately set out to ruin her reputation online.

Baldoni’s legal team told the BBC at the time the allegations were “categorically false”, and said they hired a crisis manager because Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.

Now, Baldoni is alleging in his 179-page complaint that he is not at fault, and that the high-profile battle is “not a case about celebrities sniping at each other in the press”.

“When plaintiffs have their day in court, the jury will recognise that even the most powerful celebrity cannot bend the truth to her will,” it said.

David Lynch, the American filmmaker whose works include the surrealist cult classics Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks, has died aged 78.

Lynch’s death was announced on his official Facebook page by his family.

“There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us,” the post said.

“But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’ … It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

Lynch revealed in August last year he was battling emphysema, a chronic lung disease, from “many years of smoking”.

Considered by many a maverick filmmaker, he received three best director Oscar nominations throughout his career for his work on Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man and Mulholland Drive.

His last major project was Twin Peaks: The Return, which was broadcast in 2017, and continued the TV series that ran for two seasons in the early 1990s.

He won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival for Wild at Heart in 1990.

The star of that film, Nicolas Cage, told the BBC World Service’s Newshour programme he was one of the main reasons he fell in love with cinema.

“I used to see his movie Eraserhead in Santa Monica,” he said. “He’s largely instrumental for why I got into filmmaking. He was one of a kind. He can’t be replaced.”

Fellow film director Steven Spielberg said he was a “singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade”.

“The world is going to miss such an original and unique voice,” Spielberg said in a statement to Variety.

Director Ron Howard paid tribute on social media, calling him a “gracious man and fearless artist who followed his heart & soul proved that radical experimentation could yield unforgettable cinema”.

Musician Moby, for whom Lynch directed the video for Shot In The Back Of The Head, said he was “just heartbroken”.

Many of Lynch’s films were known for their surrealist, dreamlike quality.

Eraserhead, his first major release in 1977, was filled with dark, disturbing imagery.

“While his imagination clearly has an eye for the viscerally potent, this remains an unremarkable feat by his later standards,” a BBC reviewer said of the film in 2001.

In a May 2024 interview with BBC Radio Three’s Sound of Cinema, Lynch described the process of working with late composer Angelo Badalamenti, who designed many of the soundscapes that accompanied his vision.

“And then I say, ‘no that’s still too fast, it’s not dark enough, it’s not heavy and foreboding enough,’” Lynch recalled.

His body of work was recognised at the Oscars in 2020 when he was given an honorary Academy Award.

The director said last year that, despite his emphysema diagnosis, he was in “excellent shape” and would “never retire”.

He added the diagnosis was the “price to pay” for his smoking habit.

But his condition deteriorated within months. In a November interview with People magazine, he said he needed oxygen to walk.

Born in Missoula, Montana, Lynch first began a career in painting before switching to making short films during the 1960s.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has delayed a cabinet vote to approve the Gaza ceasefire deal, due on Thursday, accusing Hamas of seeking last-minute changes to the agreement.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a “loose end” was being tied up and that he was confident the ceasefire would still begin on Sunday as planned.

Although Israeli negotiators agreed to the deal after months of talks, it cannot be implemented until it is approved by the security cabinet and government.

Hamas said it was committed to the deal, but the BBC understands it was trying to add some of its members to the list of Palestinian prisoners that would be released under the deal.

The delay came after Israeli strikes in Gaza following Wednesday’s announcement of a deal killed more than 80 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A few hours before the Thursday morning meeting was due, Netanyahu accused Hamas of trying to “extort last minute concessions”.

The cabinet would not convene until Hamas accepted “all elements of the agreement,” a statement from his office read.

Blinken said such a delay was to be expected in such a “challenging” situation.

“It’s not exactly surprising that in a process and negotiation that has been this challenging and this fraught, you may get a loose end,” he told a press conference in Washington.

“We’re tying up that loose end as we speak.”

He said the US was “confident” the deal would come into force on Sunday as planned, and that the ceasefire would then persist.

Israeli media reported that the cabinet was expected to meet on Friday to approve the deal and that the alleged issue had been resolved, although this was not officially confirmed.

A majority of Israeli ministers are expected to back the deal, but late on Thursday Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said his right-wing party would quit Netanyahu’s government if it was approved.

“The deal that is taking shape is a reckless deal,” Ben-Gvir told a news conference, adding it would “erase the achievements of the war”.

However, he said his Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party would not seek to topple the government should the deal be ratified.

He urged the leader of the other far-right party in government, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist party, to join him in resigning.

Ohad Tal, the party’s chair in Israel’s parliament, told BBC Radio 4 that it was “debating” whether to leave Netanyahu’s government over the deal.

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official told the BBC that the group was committed to the agreement announced by the mediators.

The head of Hamas’s delegation, Khalil al-Hayya, officially informed Qatar and Egypt of its approval of all the terms of the agreement, the official told the BBC.

But BBC Gaza correspondent Rushdi Abualouf understands that Hamas was attempting to add the names of one or two symbolic members to the list of prisoners that would be released under the deal.

The first six-week phase of the deal would see 33 hostages – including women, children and elderly people – exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israeli troops would also withdraw to the east, away from densely populated areas of Gaza.

Displaced Palestinians would be able to start returning to their homes and hundreds of aid lorries would be allowed entry to the territory each day.

Negotiations for the second phase – which should see the remaining hostages released, a full Israeli troop withdrawal and a return to “sustainable calm” – would start on the 16th day.

The third and final stage would involve the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies and the reconstruction of Gaza – something which could take years.

Israeli air strikes continued after the deal was announced on Wednesday. At least 12 people were killed in Gaza City, where a doctor told the BBC staff “did not rest for one minute” during the “bloody night”.

Strikes were carried out on 50 targets in Gaza since the deal’s announcement, the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Security Agency said in a statement.

The prime minister of Qatar – which mediated negotiations – called for “calm” on both sides before the start of the first six-week phase of the ceasefire deal.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and others – in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 46,788 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter, while aid agencies struggle to get help to those in need.

Israel says 94 of the hostages are still being held by Hamas, 34 of whom are presumed dead. There are four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.

China’s economy grew 5% in 2024, Beijing announced on Friday – one of the slowest rates of growth in decades.

The country has been struggling to shake off a protracted property crisis, high local government debt and youth unemployment.

Beijing set an annual growth target of “around 5%” and last month, President Xi Jinping said the world’s second largest economy was on track to meet that goal.

“As always, we grow in wind and rain, and we get stronger through hard times. We must be full of confidence,” he said.

Experts broadly agreed – the World Bank had said lower borrowing costs and rising exports meant China could achieve annual growth of 4.9%.

Investors, however, are bracing themselves: the threat of President-elect Donald Trump’s tariffs on $500bn (£409bn) worth of Chinese goods looms large.

Yet that is not all that stands in the way of China achieving its growth targets next year.

Business and consumer confidence is low and the Chinese yuan will continue to weaken as Beijing cuts interest rates in a bid to boost growth.

Here are three reasons why Xi has bigger challenges than Trump’s tariffs:

There is a growing chorus of warnings that China’s economy will slow in 2025. One major driving factor of last year’s growth is now at risk: exports.

China has relied on manufacturing to help exit the slowdown – so, it has been exporting a record number of electric vehicles, 3D printers and industrial robots.

The US, Canada and the European Union have accused China of making too many goods and imposed tariffs on Chinese imports to protect domestic jobs and businesses.

Experts say Chinese exporters may now focus on other parts of the world. But those countries are likely to be in emerging markets, which don’t have the same levels of demand as North America and Europe.

That could impact Chinese businesses that are hoping to expand, in turn hitting suppliers of energy and raw materials.

Xi wants to transform China from the world’s factory for cheap goods into a high-tech powerhouse by 2035 but it’s unclear how manufacturing can continue to be such a big growth driver in the face of rising tariffs.

In China, household wealth is largely invested in the property market. Before the real estate crisis, it accounted for almost a third of China’s economy – employing millions of people, from builders and developers to cement producers and interior designers.

Beijing has implemented a slew of policies to stabilise the property market and the the financial markets watchdog, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), has said it will vigorously support reforms.

But there are still too many empty homes and commercial properties, and that oversupply continues to force down prices.

The property market slump is expected to bottom out this year, but Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs says the downturn will be a “multi-year drag” on China’s economic growth.

It’s already hit spending hard – in the last three months of 2024, household consumption contributed just 29% to China’s economic activity, down from 59% before the pandemic.

That is one of the reasons Beijing has stepped up exports. It wants to help offset sluggish domestic spending on new cars, luxury items and almost everything else.

The government has even introduced programmes like consumer goods trade-ins, where people can exchange their washing machines, microwaves and rice cookers.

But experts wonder whether these kinds of measures alone are sufficient without addressing deeper issues in the economy.

They say people will need more money in their pockets before pre-Covid levels for spending return.

“China needs to bring back the animal spirit of the population and we are still far from that,” said Shuang Ding, Chief Economist for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Bank.

“If the private sector starts to invest and innovate that could increase income and the job outlook, and people will have more confidence to consume.”

Steep public debt and unemployment have also affected savings and spending.

Official figures suggest the youth jobless rate remains high compared to before the pandemic, and that wage rises have stalled.

President Xi has promised to invest in the cutting-edge industries that the government calls “new productive forces”.

Until now, that has helped China become a leader in goods like renewable energy products such as solar panels and electric vehicle batteries.

Last year, China also overtook Japan as the world’s biggest car exporter.

But the lacklustre economic picture, uncertainty over tariffs and other geopolitical uncertainties mean the appetite of foreign businesses for investment in China is subdued.

It’s not about foreign or domestic investment – it’s that businesses don’t see a bright future, said Stephanie Leung from wealth management platform StashAway.

“They would like to see a more diversified set of investors coming in.”

For all of these reasons, experts believe the measures to support the economy will only partially alleviate the impact of potential new US tariffs.

Beijing must either undertake big, bold measures or accept that the economy is not going to grow so fast, Goldman Sachs’ Chief China Economist Hui Shan wrote in a recent report, adding: “We expect them to choose the former.”

“China needs to stabilise property markets and create sufficient jobs to ensure social stability,” Mr Ding from Standard Chartered Bank said.

According to researcher China Dissent Monitor, there were more than 900 protests in China between June and September 2024 led by workers and property owners – 27% more than the same period a year earlier.

These sort of social strains as a result of economic grievances and an erosion of wealth will be a concern for the Chinese Communist Party.

After all, explosive growth turned China into a global power, and the promise of increased prosperity has largely helped its leaders keep a tight lid on dissent.

Gabriel Hoces repeats a word seven times when he discusses what it’s like to work in Denmark – “trust”.

“No one is trying to micromanage you, or look over your shoulder,” says Mr Hoces, who works for a tech firm in Copenhagen. “Bosses aren’t coming in to check if you put in eight or nine hours a day, as they mainly only care if you completed your projects.

“There’s a lot of trust in Denmark in that way, and I don’t feel a hierarchy at my job. It’s all very democratic.”

It is no surprise to Mr Hoces, a married father of two young daughters, that Denmark is consistently among the top-five countries in the world for work-life balance rankings.

Only 1.1% of Danes have to work 50 or more hours a week, according to the most recent global figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). That’s a significantly lower proportion than the world average of 10.2%.

By contrast, the figure for the UK is 10.8% and the US is 10.4%.

Meik Wiking, author of the book The Art of Danish Living, has long regarded his home country as a shining example of what other countries should aspire to mimic with their workplace policies.

“Danes are actually happy at work,” he tells the BBC. “Almost 60% of Danes say they would continue to work if they won the lottery and became financially independent.”

Mr Wiking, who is also the boss of Danish think tank The Happiness Research Institute, shares several policies that help generate a strong work-life balance in Denmark.

These include the right to a minimum five weeks of paid vacation per year, in addition to public holidays. In the UK most workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid leave, but in the US it can be as low as just 11 days.

Denmark also offers a very generous six months of paid maternity and paternity leave. In the UK the father, or non-birthing partner, typically gets one to two weeks of paid leave.

In the US there is only a federal guarantee of unpaid parental leave, although some states, such as California, now offer paid time away from work after the birth of a child. And federal employees can get 12-weeks of paid leave.

Mr Wiking is another Dane who cites the concept of bosses trusting their employees to do the right thing. He uses the example of staff at the Tivoli Gardens amusement park in Copenhagen, where they follow the three-metre rule.

The idea is that you are CEO of everything within a radius of three metres. “If you see garbage within your three-metre radius you pick it up, and if you see a guest looking for something, you stop and ask them if you can help,” says Mr Wiking.

He adds that when staff take ownership of their own space it can help them feel empowered and appreciated, which goes a long way to contributing to a healthy sentiment about their workplace.

Janine Leschke, a professor in the department of management, society and communication at the Copenhagen Business School, says Denmark is definitely “not a work culture where you have to show up and be available all day, all evening, to show that you’re working hard all the time”.

Instead, she says flexibility during the workday gives employees the time they need to, say, pick up their children from school or day care. “The day doesn’t have to officially end at five or six, and that’s appealing to a lot of Danes with kids.”

Mr Hoces has noticed how some employers in the US may expect their staff to be available over weekends, to answer the odd email or message. That kind of overtime doesn’t fit with his outlook on a positive work-life balance.

“If I was expected to take calls on the weekend, that would be a huge red flag to me, and I would likely change jobs,” he says. “But so far that hasn’t happened to me or anyone I know.”

Casper Rouchmann, a Copenhagen-based CEO and founder of tech firm SparkForce, says his relaxed leadership policy would be familiar to most Danes. “You don’t need to ask me to leave early,” he says. “No one takes advantage of my kindness.”

Mr Rouchmann adds that the element of trust is so ingrained in Danish culture, visitors to Denmark are often aghast at how far it can go. He also highlights Denmark’s generous welfare state, and the fact that firms have to give financial compensation to staff who are made redundant.

“If you lose your job, the government is there to help,” adds Mr Rouchmann.

As much as other countries can learn from Denmark’s work-life balance, he says it has some downsides. “Some people can rely too much on that safety net, and it might say to them that they don’t have to take real risks, which is why we can be less entrepreneurial compared to the US.”

Samantha Saxby, an American human resources expert, says Denmark has such a good work-life balance because the country “prioritises collective well-being”.

By contrast, she says the US “has long emphasised individual achievement and ambition, which has driven tremendous innovation, but often at the cost of work-life balance”.

Yet Ms Saxby, who is director of marketing for the US National Human Resources Association, says that companies in the US and elsewhere around the world may be finally following the lead of Denmark and the other equally happy Nordic nations.

“Progressive organisations are introducing benefits like unlimited paid time off, mental health days, and wellness programs, to encourage employees to prioritise self-care,” she says. “These measures not only alleviate pressure, but also demonstrate that employers value their workforce’s overall well-being.

“More companies are recognising that well-rested and balanced employees bring fresh ideas, better problem-solving skills, and greater engagement. Employees are beginning to feel empowered to take the time they need without sacrificing career growth.”

BT has abandoned its scheme to turn green street cabinets into electric vehicle (EV) charging points having completed only one of the 60,000 conversions it initially said it was aiming for.

The metal cases, seen on streets around the UK, are usually used for phone and broadband cables.

When it announced the project in January 2024, BT said repurposing the cabinets was a “unique opportunity” to address a “key barrier” to people switching away from petrol and diesel cars.

However, the scheme has now been scrapped with the firm saying it will be focusing on “the Wi-Fi connectivity challenge surrounding EV’s” instead.

“It’s disappointing that it’s not going to proceed,” Stuart Masson from automotive website The Car Expert told BBC News.

“The good news that we are seeing in the industry is that the overall rollout of electric charging points is accelerating faster than had been predicted a couple of years ago,” he added.

However, he said that most of the charging points are in busier areas rather than on streets nearer to people’s homes, meaning BT’s decision was still a setback.

Mr Masson welcomed its pledge to improve wi-fi infrastructure around EV charging points.

“It’s very frustrating when you turn up to a charging point, you go to log into the app… and you can’t get a connection because you’re buried in a multi-storey car park somewhere and there’s no signal,” he said.

“If BT can make a dent in that then that would be really good.”

Many green cabinets are coming towards the end of their lifespans as BT upgrades to fibre broadband.

But only one of them, in East Lothian, was ever actually turned into a public charging point.

It will now close in February, according to The Fast Charge newsletter, which broke the story.

The charger currently shows as “out of order” on the Evve Charge app, which shows the locations of EV chargers in the UK.

East Lothian Council told the BBC there were still many EV charging options in the area.

A spokesperson said: “East Lothian has one of the highest numbers of electric vehicle chargers per head of population among Scotland’s local authorities, with more than 370 public places to plug in cars.”

A BT Group spokesperson said the trial tested “a great deal about the challenges that many on-street EV drivers are facing with charging and where BT Group can add most value to the UK EV ecosystem.”

They added: “Other emerging needs we’ve identified include the wi-fi connectivity challenge surrounding EV’s – our pilots will now shift in focus to explore this further.”

The government has set a target of 300,000 public charging points by 2030.

Its own statistics show there are 73,334 public charging devices in the UK – a 37% increase on a year ago.

Nearly a third of these are in Greater London, according to EV charging company Zapmap.

The Department for Transport responded to BT’s decision by stressing that 2024 was “a record-breaking year for EV infrastructure,” with nearly 20,000 EV charging points added in the past 12 months.

“This comes alongside £6bn of private investment in the pipeline by 2030, helping EV owners drive with the confidence that they will never be too far away from a chargepoint,” it said in a statement.

The car industry however has voiced concerns about the speed with which the UK is attempting to transition to EVs.

Ford said in November 2024 that the government’s timetable for moving away from internal combustion engine cars would not work without further financial incentives.

The following month the government launched a consultation with the automotive and charging industries to shape its phase-out of petrol and diesel cars.

It said it had invested £2.3bn to support the switch to EVs, as it reasserted its target to stop sales of new fossil fuel-powered cars by 2030.

As light snow fell outside, worshippers gathered at Lincoln United Methodist Church in Chicago to pray and plan for what will happen when Donald Trump takes office next week, when the president-elect has promised to begin the largest expulsion of undocumented immigrants in US history.

“The 20th [of January] is going to be here before we know it,” Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington told the congregation, after passing out steaming cups of Mexican hot chocolate and coffee to warm the crowd of about 60.

Located in Pilsen, a mostly Latino neighbourhood, the church has been a long-time hub for pro-immigration activists in the city’s large Hispanic community. But Sunday services are now English-only, since in-person Spanish-language services were cancelled.

The decision to move them online was made over fears that those gatherings might be targeted by anti-immigration activists or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The incoming president has said he will deport millions of illegal immigrants, threatened workplace raids, and reports suggest that he could do away with a longstanding policy that has made churches off-limits for ICE arrests.

According to one parishioner, American-born David Cruseno, “the threat is very real. It’s very alive”.

Cruseno said his mother entered the country illegally from Mexico but has been working and paying taxes in the US for 30 years.

“With the new administration coming in, it’s almost like a persecution,” he told the BBC. “I feel like we’re being singled out and targeted in a fashion that’s unjust, even though we co-operate [with] this country endlessly.”

But across the country, over 1,400 miles (2,253km) to the south in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, another mostly immigrant community has a very different take on the impending inauguration – a sign of how Latino communities have become starkly divided on illegal immigration and Donald Trump’s approach to the US-Mexico border.

“Immigration is essential… but the right way,” said resident David Porras – a rancher, farmer and botanist.

“But with Trump, we’re going to do it correctly.”

The region is separated from Mexico only by the dark, shallow, narrow waters of the river and patches of dense vegetation and mesquite – locals say that the day-to-day realities of living on the border have increasingly opened their eyes to what many see as the dangers of illegal immigration.

“I’ve had families [of migrants] come knocking on my backdoor, asking for water, for shelter,” said Amanda Garcia, a resident of Starr County, where nearly 97% of residents identify as Latino, making it the most Latino county in the US outside of Puerto Rico.

“We had once incident where a young lady was by herself with two men, and you could tell she was tired – and being abused.”

Over dozens of interviews in two of the Rio Grande Valley’s constituent counties – Starr and neighbouring Hidalgo – residents described a litany of other border-related incidents, ranging from waking up to migrants on their property to witnessing busts of cartel stash houses used for drugs, or dangerous high-speed chases between authorities and smugglers.

Many in the overwhelmingly Latino part of Texas are themselves immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Once a reliable Democratic stronghold in otherwise “Red” Texas, Starr County swung in Trump’s favour in the 2024 election – the first time the county was won by Republicans in over 130 years.

Nationally, Trump garnered about 45% of the Latino vote – a mammoth 14 percentage-point bump compared to the 2020 election.

The victory in Starr County, locals say, was in no small part due to Trump’s stance on the border.

“We live in a country of order and laws,” said Demesio Guerrero, a naturalized US citizen originally from Mexico who lives in the town of Hidalgo, across the international bridge from the cartel-plagued Mexican city of Reynosa.

“We have to be able [to say] who comes in and out,” added Mr Guerrero, speaking in Spanish just metres from a brown, tall metal barrier that represents the end of the US. “Otherwise, this country is lost.”

Like other Trump supporters in the Rio Grande Valley, Mr Guerrero said – repeatedly – that he “is not against immigration”.

“But they should do it the right way,” he said. “Like others have.”

Trump “is not anti-immigrant, or racist at all,” agreed Marisa Garcia, a resident of Rio Grande City in Starr County.

“We’re just tired of them [undocumented immigrants] coming and thinking they can do whatever they want on our property or land, and taking advantage of the system,” she added. “It’s not racist to say that things need to change, and we need to benefit from it also.”

Support for deportations is so strong that the Texas State Government offered Donald Trump 1,400-acres (567 hectares) of land just outside Rio Grande City to build detention facilities for undocumented migrants – a controversial move the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas described as “mass caging” that will “fuel civil rights violations”.

While the patch of land – nestled between a peaceful farm-to-market road and the Rio Grande – is currently quiet, officials in town believe it could ultimately be a boon for the area.

“If you look at it from a developmental way, it’s great for the economics of the city,” Rio Grande City manager Gilberto Millan told the BBC.

“It’s got some negative connotations to it, obviously, being a detention area,” he said. “You can see it that way, but obviously you need a place to house these people.”

The number of migrants coming in through Mexico has been trending sharply downwards – with last month’s crossings at the lowest they’ve been since January 2020

But the issue is still very much alive on the streets of cities like Chicago, far from the southern border.

It is one of several Democrat-run cities which have enacted so-called “sanctuary city” laws that limit local police co-operation with federal immigration authorities.

In response, since 2022, Republican governors in southern states like Texas and Florida have sent thousands of immigrants northward in buses and planes.

Tom Homan, who was chosen by Trump to lead border policy, told a gathering of Republicans in Chicago last month that the midwestern city would be “ground zero” for mass deportations.

“January 21st, you’re going to look for a lot of ICE agents in your city looking for criminals and gang members,” Homan said. “Count on it. It will happen.”

Many local politicians, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the state’s governor, JB Pritzker, have continued to back sanctuary city laws, dubbed the “Welcoming City” ordinance here.

But the policy is not universally loved. In November, Trump made gains in many Latino neighbourhoods.

Recently, two Democratic Hispanic lawmakers attempted to change the ordinance and allow some co-operation by Chicago police with federal authorities. Their measure was blocked Wednesday by Johnson and his progressive allies.

For now, the worshipers at Lincoln United Methodist are making plans and watching carefully as they see how Trump’s plans play out.

“I’m scared, but I can’t imagine what people without papers are feeling,” said D Camacho, a 21-year-old legal immigrant from Mexico who was among the congregation at the church on Sunday.

Mexican consular officials in Chicago and elsewhere in the US have also said they are working on a mobile app that will allow Mexican migrants to warn relatives and consular officials if they are being detained and could be deported.

Officials in Mexico have described the system as a “panic button”.

Organisers at Lincoln United are also reaching out to legal experts, advising locals on how to take care of their finances or arrange childcare in case of deportation and helping to create identification cards with details of an immigrant’s family members and other information in English.

And several second-generation immigrants here said they were working to improve their Spanish, in order to be able to pass along legal information or translate for migrants being interviewed by authorities.

“If someone with five children gets taken, who will take the children in? Will they go to social services? Will the family be divided?” said Rev Emma Lozano – Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington’s mother and a long-time community activist and church elder.

“Those are the kinds of questions people have,” she said. “‘How can we defend our families – what is the plan?’”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space company has blasted its first rocket into orbit in a bid to challenge the dominance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The New Glenn rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 02:02 local time (07:02 GMT).

It firmly pits the world’s two richest men against each other in a commercial space race, vying to fly bigger and more powerful rockets.

Both want to populate the skies with more satellites, run private space stations, and provide transport for regular trips by people to the Moon.

“Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt!” Musk wrote in a post to Bezos on X.

Dave Limp, CEO of Bezos’s space company Blue Origin, said he was “incredibly proud”.

“We’ll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring,” he added.

Bezos’s team overcame technical barriers that caused delays earlier this week when ice formation halted a launch.

Blue Origin’s employees and crowds gathered near Cape Canaveral cheered as the 98 meters-high rocket hurtled into orbit.

But the company failed to land New Glenn’s main rocket engine, or booster, onto a platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

It had hoped that the booster would be reusable for future launches but after about 20 minutes of flight, the company confirmed it had lost the engine.

Bezos’s company Blue Origin has struggled to match the pace set by SpaceX. But this launch will be seen as a major step forward for the business.

The New Glenn rocket was named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit Earth more than 60 years ago.

The rocket is more powerful than SpaceX’s most commonly used rocket, the Falcon 9. It can also carry more satellites, and Bezos wants to use it as part of his Project Kuiper, which aims to deploy thousands of low-earth satellites to provide broadband services.

That project would compete directly with Musk’s Starlink service.

Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin 25 years ago, claiming he wanted “millions of people working and living in space.”

For years the venture has sent a smaller, reusable rocket called New Shepard to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. It has carried passengers and payloads, including Bezos himself in 2021.

But Blue Origin has been dramatically outperformed by SpaceX, which launched its rockets 134 times last year.

And SpaceX’s new generation of rocket, called Starship, is more powerful still. The company hopes to launch it in its seventh test flight later today.

Some experts say a successful New Glenn rocket will create real competition between the two companies and could drive down the costs of space operations.

“What you are going to see are these two companies challenge each other to make even greater strides,” suggests Dr Simeon Barber at the Open University in the UK.

Governments have historically spent billions on building rockets and sending missions into space.

But US space agency NASA is increasingly moving away from relying only on public money and has issued huge contracts to private companies to provide rockets and other space services.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already received billions of dollars worth of space contracts.

His close relationship with the next US president, Donald Trump, could strengthen his company further.

Former Hollyoaks actor Paul Danan, who was also known for reality TV shows like Celebrity Love Island and Celebrity Big Brother, has died at the age of 46.

Danan’s management company said he was “known for his television presence, exceptional talent and unwavering kindness”, and had been “a beacon of light to so many”.

Paying tribute, former EastEnders actor Michael Greco remembered him as “a genuine and caring man”.

Calum Best, who fronted an ITV2 series with Danan in 2006, paid tribute to him as “one of the funniest, kindest, and most real people” he has ever known and a “creative genius”.

Danan had been due to appear at Warrington Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, charged with possessing several bags of cocaine and a “quantity” of cannabis, the PA Media news agency reported.

He had also been accused last October of driving while under the influence of drugs in the Cheshire town.

Danan’s cause of death has not been made public but police said it was not being treated as suspicious.

A statement from Avon and Somerset Police said: “Officers attended a property in Brislington, Bristol, at around 5.20pm yesterday (Wednesday 15 January) where sadly a man in his 40s was declared deceased by paramedics.”

Announcing his death on Thursday, Independent Creative Management said: “His untimely departure will leave irreplaceable voids in the lives of all who knew him.”

Danan appeared with Best in the ITV2 travelogue series Calum, Fran and Dangerous Danan. “Life wasn’t always easy for him,” Best said. “But he faced it with such heart and courage, and that inspired so many of us.”

TV presenter Hayley Palmer also paid tribute, posting a photo of them together with the message: “I’m in absolute bits. Love you forever @pauldanan.”

She added: “Paul was a one-off character, he was soooo funny! We were great friends and did a Radio Show on Love Sport Radio together and I would fall off my chair with laughter!”

Actor Adam Deacon posted that he had “just heard the devastating news about Paul Danan tragically passing away”.

“I had the pleasure of working with him, and he was a genuinely kind and compassionate person,” he added.

EastEnders actor Dean Gaffney added his tribute on Instagram, writing: “You had your demons, but my god you had a heart of gold, RIP Mr Paul Danan.”

Danan, who was born and raised in Essex, had small roles in EastEnders as a child then went to London’s Italia Conti drama school before joining Hollyoaks at 19 in 1997.

His character Sol Patrick was a tearaway and a fan favourite – and something of a heartthrob – on the soap.

Long-serving scriptwriter Richard Burke said Danan was “a Hollyoaks icon”, and perfectly captured “Sol’s vulnerability hidden beneath a spiky exterior”.

“Often misguided, never unwatchable, you loved Sol as you either knew someone like him, fancied someone like him, or feared that maybe you were him,” Burke said.

“Paul brought to life Sol’s journey from teenage tearaway to leading man with such charm and heart that no matter what trouble Sol was in, you were always on his side.”

Danan asked to leave the show after four years and Sol was last seen fleeing the village with Jess Holt.

He moved to Los Angeles, where he spent three and a half years trying to build a career.

“But I tried to party and do well, and you can’t become a Hollywood star if you are partying as well,” he told BBC Radio Bristol last year.

“I was young, I was 22, 23, and I came back very skinny with a tan but with no work. So I came back and… suddenly there was reality TV so I thought, I’ll do that and make up the money.”

Danan’s other work included his podcast The Morning After With Paul Danan, which lasted from 2019 until 2023.

TV appearances included E4’s Celebrity Coach Trip and Channel 4 sketch comedy programme The Kevin Bishop Show. The actor had also said he would like to return to Hollyoaks.

He told Whatsonstage in 2018 that the show “was the greatest foundation of learning for me”.

“It made me become a better actor. I had so much fun, but being in a soap is one of the hardest jobs in acting.”

He also discussed the difficulties of finding acting work.

“It’s been difficult to get the industry to take me seriously as an actor. They see me as Paul from Celebrity Love Island or Celebrity Big Brother. I just think I’m versatile.”

Danan appeared on Celebrity Love Island in 2005 and returned in 2006.

On Celebrity Big Brother in 2017, he was voted out fifth and said he was “gutted” by his departure, but he left viewers with some memorable moments including pressing the fire alarm button instead of the diary room one.

At the height of his fame, Danan was something of a fixture in the tabloid press, pictured at various celebrity parties and events.

His name was used for Dananagram, a parody Instagram account spoofing 90s and 00s celebrities, and he later told BBC Radio 5 Live he had joined forces with the people behind it.

The account posts retro photos of celebrities – allegedly from Danan’s old camera – and has more than 85,000 followers.

The account posted a tribute to Danan on Thursday. “For 6+ years we considered him a close friend and creative partner,” it said.

“We had many plans together to expand this page beyond an Instagram account – we’ve lost a really special, kind and funny person.”

In 2020, Danan launched drama classes in Bristol, his adopted home, for adults with mental health or addiction issues, or who have been through trauma or been in prison.

“It’s been amazing and honestly I’ve changed people’s lives,” Danan said.

Last year, the actor spoke about his own health struggles after he ended up in intensive care with pneumonia.

He told the Sun on Sunday that hospital staff had told him to stop smoking in any form. Having given up cigarettes in the last couple of years, Danan said he had become “obsessed” with disposable vapes.

He has also discussed previous issues with drugs, including addictions to cocaine and codeine, which he used to “self-soothe” after losing acting parts in his 20s while in the US.

He also said that he had spent more than £1m on rehab over the years, and had once overdosed on heroin.