Dutch police have arrested 57 people in the centre of Amsterdam after clashes broke out, reportedly involving young locals and Israeli football supporters.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof condemned "antisemitic attacks" and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two "rescue planes" were being sent to Amsterdam after what Israel's military described as "severe and violent incidents against Israelis".

A police spokeswoman told Dutch media that unrest had broken out around Dam Square in the heart of the capital, but did not say who was involved.

Supporters of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv had travelled to Amsterdam for a Europa Cup match against Ajax.

Schoof said he had followed developments with horror, adding that he had spoken to Netanyahu and emphasising that the "perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted".

There had already been arrests and trouble in Dam Square ahead of the match involving Maccabi fans and pro-Palestinian protesters, and there were reports of supporters setting off fireworks and tearing down a Palestinian flag on a nearby street.

But the unrest grew after the game. Police said it was unclear who had taken part in the riots, telling local media that those involved were wearing dark clothing.

Several videos circulated on social media, with one showing a man being kicked and beaten on the ground and another showing someone being run over. In some videos, people could be heard shouting pro-Palestinian slogans, although the footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke of a "pogrom" against Maccabi fans and Israeli citizens. Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders who leads the biggest party in parliament also spoke of a pogrom, saying "authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens".

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema had earlier sought to prevent trouble by moving pro-Palestinian protesters away from the Johan Cruyff Arena. But Dutch reports said a large group had then tried to head to the stadium, only to be stopped by riot police.

Herzog said on X that he trusted the Dutch authorities would act immediately to "protect, locate and rescue all Israelis and Jews under attack".

An Israeli football fan has described being attacked by several men in overnight violence that Amsterdam police say involved youths on scooters carrying out "hit-and-run" attacks that were hard to prevent.

Adi Reuben, a 24yr-old Maccabi Tel Aviv fan who was visiting Amsterdam for the club's Europa League match with Ajax, told the BBC he was kicked on the floor by a group of young men who confronted him when he was walking to his hotel.

He said more than 10 men came up to him and his friends and asked them where they were from.

"They shouted 'Jewish, Jewish, IDF, IDF',” Mr Reuben said, referring to the Israeli military.

"They started to mess with me and I realised I had to run, but it was dark and I didn't know where to go. I fell to the floor and ten people were kicking me. They were shouting ‘Palestine’.

"They were kicking me on the floor for about a minute, then they walked off, they weren’t afraid of anything.

“I realised I had full blood on my nose and my nose was broken and it is very painful."

Mr Reuben said he could not see properly for about 30 minutes after the attack. But he said he decided against going to hospital in Amsterdam because he had heard that taxi drivers were involved in the violence.

Instead he said he was flying to Israel on Friday afternoon on a flight organised by the Israeli government and would get medical treatment there.

"This was a specific attack that was organised beforehand,” he added.

Pnina, another Maccabi Tel Aviv supporter, also told Dutch media organisation NOS that the violence against Israelis appeared pre-planned.

"It seems like it was organised. There was a lot of people. They jumped on us... We hid in the hotels until it was safe to go outside," she said.

Esther Voet, editor-in-chief of a Dutch Jewish weekly newspaper, lives in the city centre and says she offered her home to shelter several Israeli fans, after she saw footage of the violence.

"I told them this is a Jewish home and you are safe here," she told Israeli public broadcaster Kann. "People were really scared. I never thought I would go through this in Amsterdam."

Dutch police said Israeli fans had suffered "serious abuses" during "hit-and-run" attacks many of which were carried out by young men on scooters.

Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla said it had proved difficult to prevent such attacks even though police had been present in the city centre in numbers. The force eventually decided to bring Maccabi supporters together and protect them before transporting them out of the area in buses, he said.

Five people were injured but had left hospital and between 20 and 30 more had been lightly hurt, he said.

The attacks overnight into Friday followed some tensions between Maccabi fans and people in Amsterdam over previous days, officials said.

On Wednesday Maccabi fans attacked a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag, police chief Holla said. Taxi drivers then headed towards a location where about 400 Maccabi fans had gathered but police were able to take them out of the area. There were further clashes in Dam Square overnight into Thursday but police were mostly able to keep the groups separate.

On Thursday evening before the match police accompanied pro-Palestinian demonstrators and mostly managed to keep them separate from football fans - but were then unable to prevent attacks later in the evening.

"We are looking back on 36 hours that really shocked me. Supporters from Israel have been attacked and some abused in a terrible way," Holla said.

"I'm particularly shocked by fact that we’ve had one of largest police actions and we were not able to control or prevent this violence."

Amsterdam's mayor Femke Halsema said the "war in the Middle East has threatened the peace in our city" and there had been a "terrible outburst of antisemitism".

She said Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were not considered to pose a threat of violence and there was no animosity between them and fans of Dutch club Ajax.

"I do understand that this reminds us of pogroms and that this happened in Amsterdam is reprehensible. Not only people got injured last night but the history of our city has been deeply damaged, the Jewish culture has been threatened," she said.

Some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have previously been involved in racist incidents in Israel, including cursing at the team’s Palestinian and Arab players and reportedly applying pressure on the team to oust them.

Fans of the team have also previously attacked protesters demonstrating against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Asked about video footage appearing to show Maccabi fans in Amsterdam chanting offensive slogans, Mayor Halsema said: "What happened last night has nothing to do with protest. There is no excuse for what happened."

Additional reporting Shaina Oppenheimer in Jerusalem

The US government has brought charges against an Iranian man in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Donald Trump before he was elected the next president.

The Department of Justice on Friday unsealed an indictment against Farhad Shakeri, 51, alleging he was tasked with “providing a plan” to kill Trump.

The US government said Mr Shakeri has not been arrested and is believed to be in Iran.

In a criminal complaint filed in Manhattan court, prosecutors allege that an official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard directed Mr Shakeri in September to devise a plan to surveil and kill Trump.

“The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

The Justice Department added that it had charged two others who were also recruited to kill an American journalist who was an outspoken critic of Iran.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.

Authorities across the US are investigating after reports of text messages sent to black Americans with references to “slave catchers”, plantations and picking cotton.

In a statement the FBI said it is “aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.”

The source of the messages and the total number sent are unclear, however, there are reports that they were received in at least 15 states and Washington DC.

Some of the messages mentioned the Trump campaign – which strongly denied any connection.

Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said: “The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

According to examples posted online and cited in news reports, the wording of the messages varied but generally instructed recipients to report to a “plantation” or wait to be picked up in a van, and referred to “slave” labour.

The messages appear to have started on Wednesday, the day after election day. Among the recipients were college students and children.

In a statement Derrick Johnson, head of the civil rights group NAACP, said: “These actions are not normal.”

“These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday's election results,” Johnson said.

Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, which is also investigating the messages, said: "These messages are unacceptable. We take this type of targeting very seriously.”

The messages were reportedly received across southern states, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, California, Washington DC and others, US media say.

One recipient, Hailey Welch, told a University of Alabama student newspaper that several students on the campus had also received the messages.

“At first I thought it was a joke, but everyone else was getting them. People were texting, posting on their stories, saying they got them,” Ms Welch told The Crimson White. “I was just stressed out, and I was scared because I didn’t know what was happening.”

In several states, top law enforcement officials said they were aware of the messages and encouraged residents to report them to the authorities if they received them.

The office of Nevada’s attorney general said it was working to “probe into the source of what appear to be robotext messages”.

The office of Louisiana's attorney general said it had discovered that some of the messages could be traced back to a VPN in Poland, but that "no original source" had been found so far.

The US government has brought charges against an Iranian man in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Donald Trump before he was elected the next president.

The Department of Justice on Friday unsealed an indictment against Farhad Shakeri, 51, alleging he was tasked with “providing a plan” to kill Trump.

The US government said Mr Shakeri has not been arrested and is believed to be in Iran.

In a criminal complaint filed in Manhattan court, prosecutors allege that an official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard directed Mr Shakeri in September to devise a plan to surveil and kill Trump.

“The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

The Justice Department added that it had charged two others who were also recruited to kill an American journalist who was an outspoken critic of Iran.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.

Dutch police have arrested 57 people in the centre of Amsterdam after clashes broke out, reportedly involving young locals and Israeli football supporters.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof condemned "antisemitic attacks" and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two "rescue planes" were being sent to Amsterdam after what Israel's military described as "severe and violent incidents against Israelis".

A police spokeswoman told Dutch media that unrest had broken out around Dam Square in the heart of the capital, but did not say who was involved.

Supporters of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv had travelled to Amsterdam for a Europa Cup match against Ajax.

Schoof said he had followed developments with horror, adding that he had spoken to Netanyahu and emphasising that the "perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted".

There had already been arrests and trouble in Dam Square ahead of the match involving Maccabi fans and pro-Palestinian protesters, and there were reports of supporters setting off fireworks and tearing down a Palestinian flag on a nearby street.

But the unrest grew after the game. Police said it was unclear who had taken part in the riots, telling local media that those involved were wearing dark clothing.

Several videos circulated on social media, with one showing a man being kicked and beaten on the ground and another showing someone being run over. In some videos, people could be heard shouting pro-Palestinian slogans, although the footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke of a "pogrom" against Maccabi fans and Israeli citizens. Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders who leads the biggest party in parliament also spoke of a pogrom, saying "authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens".

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema had earlier sought to prevent trouble by moving pro-Palestinian protesters away from the Johan Cruyff Arena. But Dutch reports said a large group had then tried to head to the stadium, only to be stopped by riot police.

Herzog said on X that he trusted the Dutch authorities would act immediately to "protect, locate and rescue all Israelis and Jews under attack".

A Russian court has sentenced two Russian soldiers to life in prison for killing a family of nine in occupied Ukraine, in a rare example of the country holding its troops to account for alleged war crimes.

The entire Kapkanets family were killed in their home in the Donetsk region in October last year by Anton Sopov, 21, and Stanislav Rau, 28, prosecutors said. Among the victims were two children aged five and nine.

The family had been celebrating a birthday at the time, Ukraine's ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said a day after the killings.

Some details of the case are unclear, such as whether the soldiers pleaded guilty, as the trial was held behind closed doors due to military secrecy, Russian media reported.

Sopov and Rau were convicted of killing 53-year-old Eduard Kapkanets, his wife Tatiana, their adult sons with their wives, a nine-year-old granddaughter, a four-year-old grandson and a more distant relative of the family.

Ukrainian officials at the time said they believed the family was murdered for refusing to give up their house to the Russian troops.

State news agency Tass reported that the men had been convicted for murder "motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred".

The Ukrainian city of Volnovakha was captured by Russian forces just weeks after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Most of the town has been destroyed.

Russia denies all allegations of war crimes in Ukraine, despite well document evidence to the contrary.

This includes the bombing of a theatre in Mariupol which had been sheltering hundreds of people in March 2022 and the killing of hundreds of people in the town of Bucha that month.

Russian forces are also accused of running a network of torture chambers across occupied Ukraine, where civilians and prisoners of war are tortured and in some cases killed.

The UN has accused Russian forces in Ukraine of rapes, "widespread" torture and killings and the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Vladimir Putin's arrest.

Authorities across the US are investigating after reports of text messages sent to black Americans with references to “slave catchers”, plantations and picking cotton.

In a statement the FBI said it is “aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.”

The source of the messages and the total number sent are unclear, however, there are reports that they were received in at least 15 states and Washington DC.

Some of the messages mentioned the Trump campaign – which strongly denied any connection.

Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said: “The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

According to examples posted online and cited in news reports, the wording of the messages varied but generally instructed recipients to report to a “plantation” or wait to be picked up in a van, and referred to “slave” labour.

The messages appear to have started on Wednesday, the day after election day. Among the recipients were college students and children.

In a statement Derrick Johnson, head of the civil rights group NAACP, said: “These actions are not normal.”

“These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday's election results,” Johnson said.

Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, which is also investigating the messages, said: "These messages are unacceptable. We take this type of targeting very seriously.”

The messages were reportedly received across southern states, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, California, Washington DC and others, US media say.

One recipient, Hailey Welch, told a University of Alabama student newspaper that several students on the campus had also received the messages.

“At first I thought it was a joke, but everyone else was getting them. People were texting, posting on their stories, saying they got them,” Ms Welch told The Crimson White. “I was just stressed out, and I was scared because I didn’t know what was happening.”

In several states, top law enforcement officials said they were aware of the messages and encouraged residents to report them to the authorities if they received them.

The office of Nevada’s attorney general said it was working to “probe into the source of what appear to be robotext messages”.

The office of Louisiana's attorney general said it had discovered that some of the messages could be traced back to a VPN in Poland, but that "no original source" had been found so far.

Donald Trump's transition team is already vetting potential candidates who could serve in his administration when he returns to the White House in January.

On Thursday, he made the first announcement naming his campaign co-manager Susan Summerall Wiles as his White House chief of staff.

Many of the figures who served under Trump in his first term do not plan to return, though a handful of loyalists are rumoured to be making a comeback.

But the US president-elect is now surrounded by a new cast of characters who may fill his cabinet, staff his White House and serve in key roles across government.

Here is a look at the some of the names being floated for the top jobs.

Robert F Kennedy Jr

The past two years have been quite a journey for the nephew of former President John F Kennedy.

An environmental lawyer by trade, he ran for president as a Democrat, with most of his family speaking out against his anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories as they endorsed Joe Biden's re-election.

He then switched to an independent candidacy but, failing to gain traction amid a series of controversies, dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.

In the last two months of the 2024 election cycle, he spearheaded a Trump campaign initiative called "Make America Healthy Again".

Trump recently promised he would play a major role related to public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Safety Administration (FDA).

RFK Jr, as he is known, recently asserted he would push to remove fluoride from drinking water because "it's a very bad way to deliver it into our systems" - though this has been challenged by some experts.

And in an interview with NBC News, Kennedy rejected the idea that he was "anti-vaccine", saying he wouldn't "take away anybody's vaccines" but rather provide them with "the best information" to make their own choices.

Rather than a formal cabinet position, Kennedy used the interview to suggest he could take on a broader role within the White House.

Susie Wiles

Trump's landslide victory over Kamala Harris was masterminded by campaign co-chairs Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who he referred to in his victory speech on Wednesday as "the ice baby".

She has since been confirmed to be the incoming chief of staff under the second Trump administration - Trump's first confirmed appointment for his second term - making her the first woman to take on the role.

Wiles, who Trump claimed "likes to stay in the background”, is considered one of the most feared and respected political operatives in the country.

Less than a year after she started working in politics, she worked on Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign and later became a scheduler in his White House.

In 2010, she turned Rick Scott, a then-businessman with little political experience, into Florida’s governor in just seven months. Scott is now a US senator.

Wiles met Trump during the 2015 Republican presidential primary and she became the co-chair of his Florida campaign, at the time considered a swing state. Trump went on to narrowly defeat Hillary Clinton there in 2016.

Wiles has been commended by Republicans for her ability to command respect and check the big egos of those in the president-elect's orbit, which could enable her to impose a sense of order that none of his four previous chiefs of staff could.

Elon Musk

The world's richest man announced his support for the former president earlier this year, despite saying in 2022 that "it's time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail into the sunset".

The tech billionaire has since emerged as one of the most visible and well-known backers of Trump and donated more than $119m (£91.6m) this election cycle to America PAC - a political action committee he created to support the former president.

Musk, the head of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of the social media platform X, also launched a voter registration drive that included a $1m (£771,000) give-away to a random swing-state voter each day during the closing stretch of the campaign.

Since registering as a Republican ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Musk has been increasingly vocal on issues including illegal immigration and transgender rights.

Both Musk and Trump have concentrated on the idea of him leading a new "Department of Government Efficiency", where he would cut costs, reform regulations and streamline what he calls a "massive, suffocating federal bureaucracy".

The would-be agency's acronym - DOGE - is a playful reference to a "meme-coin" cryptocurrency Musk has previously promoted.

Mike Pompeo

The former Kansas congressman served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then secretary of state during Trump's first administration.

A foreign policy hawk and a fierce supporter of Israel, he played a highly visible role in moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was among the key players in the implementation of the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

He remained a loyal defender of his boss, joking that there would be "a smooth transition to a second Trump administration" amid Trump's false claims of election fraud in late 2020.

He has been tipped as a top contender for the role of defence secretary, alongside Michael Waltz, a Florida lawmaker and military veteran who sits on the armed services committee in the US House of Representatives.

Richard Grenell

Richard Grenell served as Trump's ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and his acting director of national intelligence.

The Republican was also heavily involved in Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, in the swing state of Nevada.

Trump prizes Grenell's loyalty and has described him as "my envoy".

In September, he sat in on Trump's private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The former president has often claimed he will end the war in Ukraine "within 24 hours" of taking office and Grenell has advocated for setting up an autonomous zone in eastern Ukraine as a means to that end - an idea seen as unacceptable by Kyiv.

He's considered a contender for secretary of state or national security advisor, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

Karoline Leavitt

The Trump 2024 campaign's national press secretary previously served in his White House press office, as an assistant press secretary.

The 27-year-old Gen-Zer made a bid to become the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress in 2022, to represent a seat in her home state of New Hampshire, but fell short.

She is tipped to become the White House press secretary - the most public-facing position in the cabinet.

Tom Homan

Tom Homan served as the acting director of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during the first Trump administration, where he was a proponent of separating migrant children from their parents as a way to deter illegal crossings.

At the time, he made headlines for saying politicians who support sanctuary city policies should be charged with crimes. He later resigned from his Ice position in 2018, mid-way through the Trump presidency.

He has since emerged as a key figure in developing Trump's mass migrant deportation plan, and has been floated as a potential pick to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Homan spoke on the deportation plan last month in an interview with BBC's US partner CBS News, saying that "it's not going to be - a mass sweep of neighbourhoods."

"They'll be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find ‘em based on numerous, you know, investigative processes," he said.

The UN's Human Rights Office has condemned the high number of civilians killed in the war in Gaza, saying its analysis shows close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period were women and children.

The agency said the high number was largely due to Israel's use of weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas, although some deaths may have been the result of errant projectiles by Palestinian armed groups.

The report said it found "unprecedented" levels of international law violations, raising concerns about "war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes".

Israel has in the past said it targets Hamas and takes steps to mitigate risk to civilians by using precise munitions.

The BBC contacted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment in response to Friday's report.

The UN agency said it verified the details of 8,119 people killed in Gaza from November 2023 to April 2024.

Its analysis found around 44% of verified victims were children and 26% women. The ages most represented among the dead were five to nine-year-olds.

About 80% of victims were killed in residential buildings or similar housing, the agency added.

The report said the data indicates "an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare".

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures the UN sees as reliable, has reported a death toll of more than 43,300 people over the past 13 months. Many more bodies are believed to remain under the rubble of bombarded buildings.

The health ministry said it obtained full demographic data for a majority of those killed and reported that children account for one in three of that number.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said in a statement that "this unprecedented level of killing, and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law".

He cited the laws of distinction, which requires warring parties to distinguish between combatants and civilians, proportionality, which prohibits attacks where harm to civilians outweighs military advantage, and precautions in attacks.

Türk called for a "due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law".

The IDF has previously told the BBC in response to criticism that it "will continue to act, as it always has done, according to international law".

The report also said the way the warring parties have conducted the conflict in Gaza has "caused horrific human suffering".

The UN said Palestinian armed groups have waged war from densely-populated areas and indiscriminately used projectiles, likely contributing to the death toll, while the IDF has destroyed civilian infrastructure and "left many of those alive, injured, displaced and starving, without access to adequate water, food or healthcare".

The situation is worst in north Gaza, which aid groups say has been under siege since early October when Israel launched a new ground offensive against Hamas.

The UN said no food aid entered the north during the first two weeks of October.

This prompted the US to issue an ultimatum to Israel to increase aid by 12 November or risk losing some military support.

Jan Egeland, the head of aid organisation Norwegian Refugee Council, told the BBC on Friday that he saw "devastation, despair, beyond belief" on a recent visit to Gaza.

"There is hardly a building that is not damaged. And large areas looked like Stalingrad after the Second World War. You cannot fathom how intense this indiscriminate bombing has been on this trapped population," he said.

"It's evident that it is first and foremost children and women who are paying a price for this senseless war," he added.

Israel launched its current military offensive in Gaza after Hamas' attack on 7 October 2023 that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages back to Gaza.

Beyoncé has made history by becoming the most-nominated artist of all time at the Grammy Awards, overtaking her husband Jay-Z.

The couple had been tied on 88 nominations each - but Beyoncé has now pulled ahead thanks to recognition for her latest album, Cowboy Carter.

She picked up her 89th nomination in the best pop solo performance category on Friday, for the song Bodyguard. The full shortlists for the 2025 awards are currently being announced.

Beyoncé is already the Recording Academy's most-honoured artist, with 32 wins as a solo artist and a further three as part of Destiny's Child.

• Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter review: Gatekeepers be damned
• Beyoncé locked out of Country Music Awards
• Grammy Awards 2023: Beyoncé makes history

However, she has never won the coveted album of the year trophy, despite four nominations in the category.

Most recently, Harry Styles beat her to that prize at the 2023 ceremony, where Beyoncé's disco odyssey Renaissance had been the bookmakers' favourite to win.

Earlier this year, Jay-Z appeared to scold Grammy voters for Beyonce's lack of recognition in the top category as he accepted a lifetime achievement prize.

"I don't want to embarrass this young lady," he told the audience. "But she has more Grammys than everyone and never won album of the year.

"So even by your own metrics, that doesn't work. Think about that. The most Grammys; never won album of the year. That doesn't work."

She is widely expected to pick up her fifth nod for album of the year as the full nominations for the 2025 Grammys are revealed on Friday.

Other artists expected to be in the running for the top prize include Taylor Swift for The Tortured Poets Department, Billie Eilish for Hit Me Hard And Soft, and Chappell Roan for The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess.

The nominations for all 94 Grammy categories are being revealed in a livestream on the ceremony's YouTube Channel, featuring Kylie Minogue, Mark Ronson and Victoria Monét.

British star Raye picked up several early nominations, including songwriter of the year and best new artist.

The Rolling Stones were also on the shortlist for best rock album for Hackney Diamonds, their first album of original material since 2016.

This story will be updated as the shortlist comes into focus.

Nigeria has announced that free emergency Caesarean sections will be made available to "poor and vulnerable" women in an ambitious plan to bring down the high number of mothers dying in childbirth.

At 1,047 deaths per 100,000 live births, Africa's most populous nation has the fourth highest maternal mortality rate in the world and the lack of access to Caesareans is thought to be one of the reasons.

Many pregnant women, particularly in rural Nigeria are unable to receive emergency medical care partly due to the cost.

“No woman should lose her life simply because she can’t afford a C-section,” Health Minister Muhammad Pate said while announcing the "powerful move".

While the price may vary across Nigeria's different states, on average, a Caesarean costs around 60,000 naira ($36;£28) which can be beyond the reach of many.

More than 40% of Nigerians live below the international extreme poverty line of $2.15 per day, according to 2023 data from Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics.

The Maternal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative launched on Thursday will now allow all eligible women to access Caesarean sections in public hospitals.

To be a beneficiary, one must be registered under the country’s public health insurance scheme.

"By removing financial barriers to this life-saving procedure, we ensure that no woman in need is denied critical care due to cost," Pate added.

The health scheme covers emergency situations only, Tashikalmah Hallah, a communication adviser to the health minister, told the BBC.

Social welfare units in public hospitals will help determine eligibility and identify those who cannot afford the procedure, Mr Hallah added.

Pate said maternal mortality remained "unacceptably high".

Caesareans are seen as essential for preventing obstructed labour in cases where a woman’s pelvis is too small, the baby is in a breech position, or is too large to exit the birth canal.

Without intervention, a constricted baby may fatally rupture the uterus, or cause tears that catastrophically haemorrhage.

While offering to support the new initiative, the World Bank's Trina Haque, described it as a "game-changer".

“If implemented right, this initiative will deliver. We’re here to support every step of the way,” Kazadi Mulombo, the WHO country rep, said.

Causes of maternal deaths include severe haemorrhage, high blood pressure (pre-eclampsia and eclampsia), unsafe abortions and obstructed or prolonged labour.

The new policy will “improve maternal and child health outcomes in the country”, Rhoda Robinson, executive director of HACEY, an NGO advocating for healthcare access for vulnerable populations in Nigeria.

“Especially for women from low-income communities who might resort to alternative and often unsafe care options,” she told the BBC.

Mabel Onwuemena, national coordinator of the Women of Purpose Foundation, another NGO advocating for better maternal health access in Africa, praised the initiative and urged the Nigerian government to expand it to include free drugs and ultrasound to pregnant women.

More BBC stories from Nigeria:

• Should I stay or should I go? The dilemma for young Nigerians
• Why Nigeria's economy is in such a mess
• 'I've been sleeping under a bridge in Lagos for 30 years'

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

Anticyclonic gloom

When will the weather change?