A former tattooist who left a woman "looking like a gargoyle" after giving her botched face fillers had been posing as a doctor at his aesthetics clinic, a BBC investigation has revealed. It comes as a leading practitioner warns of more "death and disfigurement" as plans to regulate the industry continue to be delayed.

Andrea covers her face when she leaves the house, because she worries people will laugh at her, two years after having cosmetic procedures.

"I see a gargoyle... something horrible, disgusting," she tells the BBC.

"I live a nightmare every single day."

The 60-year-old initially visited Reshape U cosmetics clinic in Hull in December 2021 for breast fillers.

She says she did "all the right things" to check the clinic's reputation and felt further reassured reading on its website that it had "won Best Aesthetics Clinic in Yorkshire in 2022 at the England Business Awards".

She was seen at the clinic by Sean Scott. Posts on social media pages for Reshape U and Faces by Sean at the time referred to him as Dr Sean Scott, Clinical Director. Videos posted by the same accounts in January and April 2023 show a plaque on his door in the clinic saying Dr Sean Scott, hPhd, Clinical Director.

However, the BBC has discovered Mr Scott is not medically trained. He said he "naively and regretfully" bought an honorary doctorate in business consultancy online and displayed the certificate in his clinic.

He says he did not portray himself as a medical doctor and claimed he informed clients who asked that he was not medically qualified. He says he stopped using the fake title on advice from Hull City Council (HCC) in 2024, with the authority telling him it was "misleading".

Andrea claims Mr Scott gave her antibiotics to take after her first breast filler procedure in December 2021. She says he gave her antibiotics again when she returned the following month for a second breast filler procedure.

"I trusted in everything that he said to me... because he knew what he was on about - he was the doctor," Andrea admits.

The General Medical Council, which regulates doctors, says only "medical professionals" can prescribe antibiotics and Botox and they should only do so if they have "adequate knowledge" of the patient.

Mr Scott has told the BBC he did not prescribe the antibiotics or Botox, and instead used a "registered prescriber with an authorised pharmacy" to obtain the medicine online.

• Call for tighter regulation after botched lip filler treatments
• Under-18s go to Wales for Botox after England bans practice
• Botox 'left woman unable to open eye for 16 weeks'
• LISTEN: Botched - the bogus doctor who left me 'looking like a gargoyle'

Two months after receiving breast fillers, Andrea says Mr Scott encouraged her to have facial fillers.

Dermal fillers are injections of hyaluronic acid, which are used to fill wrinkles and add volume to tissue.

Andrea claims Mr Scott told her he thought her cheeks were "uneven" and he could help "harmonise" her face.

Andrea had filler in her cheeks, chin and jaw but says her face started swelling and dark marks appeared. From there, she says the supposedly "simple procedure" turned into a catalogue of botched treatments.

Andrea claims Mr Scott told her the swellings were caused by an insect bite and says she was encouraged to have further treatments.

Mr Scott strongly denies the allegations, adding: "Never once did we perform any treatments while the client was showing any signs of swelling, bruising or any other side effect."

He said the only complaints Andrea initially made were that she "wasn't quite happy" with the treatments, and that was the reason she had "so many" follow-up appointments.

Mr Scott also claimed Andrea had visited other clinics for treatment during this period, including one which damaged her skin, and that his clinic treated this damage. Andrea says she only had one dermal filler treatment elsewhere, which she was happy with, three years before visiting Mr Scott.

Mr Scott was a tattooist for 33 years before opening Reshape U in 2019. He also runs an aesthetics training business, the Yorkshire Aesthetics Training Academy.

Over the course of 10 months, Andrea had more than 30 appointments with Mr Scott, including for fillers, Botox and threads. Mr Scott said he only carried out procedures at some of these appointments.

Andrea sold jewellery and borrowed money to pay for the treatments, which added up to thousands of pounds, but says the reaction got worse.

In October 2022, she says she went to hospital, barely able to open her eyes. In letters from plastic surgeons seen by the BBC, Andrea was told her reactions were caused by the cosmetic procedures.

A cosmetics expert who has since examined Andrea said her scarring was likely caused by an infection, which can occur from cosmetic procedures but is rare in a clean environment with good techniques.

The BBC is aware of at least three other complaints made about Mr Scott and the use of a fake qualification.

Two of those were made to registered practitioner service Save Face.

Director Ashton Collins said the people who reported "bad practice" by Mr Scott had chosen him because they were under the impression he was a doctor.

Health and safety officers from HCC visited Mr Scott's premises in 2024 after concerns were raised about his credentials.

The council said it had found a number of issues requiring improvement but no formal action was taken because the business was receptive to its requests.

'Learnt valuable lessons'

Mr Scott told the BBC the clinic had taken advice and "totally reviewed all our procedures" since then.

He added: "While we may have made mistakes in the beginning, we have always given 100% of our ability to our clients. We have learnt valuable lessons and progressed with ongoing training and development already."

Warnings about the aesthetics industry have been made for years.

In 2013, a review of the regulation of cosmetics concluded dermal fillers were "a crisis waiting to happen" because anyone can be a practitioner, "with no requirement for knowledge, training or previous experience".

In 2022, the Health and Care Act gave the government powers to introduce licensing for non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England. This is yet to be enacted.

The first death from a cosmetic procedure was recorded in the UK in 2024.

Dr Paul Charlson, who is an aesthetics doctor in East Yorkshire and member of the Joint Council for Cosmetics Practitioners (JCCP), warns there will be "more deaths and more disfigurement" unless the government "gets on with" enacting the legislation he helped to draw up alongside others across the industry.

"If the government said 'we want this in in six months', it could be done," he said.

The JCCP said it had dealt with an "explosion in complaints" from local councils about poor practice in the sector. In 2023, it was aware of complaints from two local authorities, compared with 65 by the end of 2024.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson did not comment on Dr Charlson's criticisms, but said it was "unacceptable" that people's lives were at risk from "inadequately trained operators in the cosmetic sector", and it was "urgently exploring options for further regulation".

They urged anyone considering cosmetic procedures to find a reputable, insured and qualified practitioner.

Andrea says she has been scarred both mentally and physically, suffering regularly with pain in her face and says she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I would never do it again and I would never advise anyone to do it," she says.

Share your experience of getting fillers with reporter Caroline Bilton caroline.bilton@bbc.co.uk. Please leave a contact number if you are happy for Caroline or the team to get in touch.

Pop star Chappell Roan has won BBC Radio 1's Sound of 2025 – the station's annual poll to identify music's biggest rising stars.

Her win caps a wild 12 months in which she rocketed from relative obscurity to the top of the charts, thanks to her colourful, 80s-influenced brand of synth-pop.

She was named winner by a panel of more than 180 musicians and experts, including Sir Elton John, Dua Lipa and Sound of 2014 winner Sam Smith.

Jack Saunders, who hosts Radio 1's New Music show, said: "No one deserves this accolade more than Chappell Roan. She was the most exciting artist of the last 12 months and is now set to be the artist of the next 12 months."

An exclusive interview with the singer will be published by Radio 1 and BBC News in the coming weeks.

The 26-year-old has had a long path to success.

Born Kayleigh Amstutz, she was brought up in the conservative city of Willard, Missouri, where she attended church three times a week and was taught that being gay was a sin.

She signed her first record deal in 2017, based on the strength of a song she had uploaded to YouTube called Die Young.

Cast as a singer-songwriter in mould of Lorde and Lana Del Rey, she failed to make much of an impact, and was dropped by her label during the pandemic.

But by that stage, she had already recorded a song that would become her calling card.

Titled Pink Pony Club, it was inspired by a visit to an LA gay club, and helped her define a new sound - camp, liberated and packed with singalong choruses.

The experience also spawned her campy stage persona, which she has described as a "larger-than-life, drag queen version of myself".

After finding a new record label, she released her debut album, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess, in September 2023.

A slow-burning success, it only sold a few thousand copies in its first week of release. But word began to spread - and when she played California's Coachella Festival last April, the crowd that turned up for her mid-afternoon set was huge.

More importantly, the show was broadcast on YouTube - going viral after Roan leaned into the TV cameras and declared: "I'm your favourite artist's favourite artist." The performance has subsequently been watched more than a million times.

Around the same time, she released a stand-alone single called Good Luck, Babe, that talked about her experience of falling in love with her best friend.

"It's a pop song with a sad element to it," she told BBC News last year.

"It's very common in queer relationships, when someone is still coming to terms with their queerness, [that] they'll kiss 100 boys to 'stop the feeling', as the song says.

"And it's like, 'Sure, OK. Your time will come.'"

The single eventually reached number two in the UK charts, and The Rise And Fall Of The Midwest Princess became a number one album after it was re-released on vinyl last summer.

Since then, Roan has been nominated for six Grammy awards, including album of the year, and won best new artist at the Billboard Music Awards in December.

She has also experienced the downside of her sudden fame, and spoke out about the "creepy behaviour" of certain fans who "yelled" and "harassed" her at private moments; and who had approached her family and friends.

The singer has taken time off at the start of 2025 to work on new music, but will headline the Reading & Leeds festival this summer.

Sound of 2025 - The Top Five

• 1) Chappell Roan
• 2) Ezra Collective
• 3) Barry Can't Swim
• 4) Myles Smith
• 5) English Teacher

Previous winners of the BBC's Sound of list include Adele, Ellie Goulding, 50 Cent, PinkPantheress and girl group Flo.

Art-rock group The Last Dinner Party took the title last year, and went on to top the charts with their debut album, Prelude To Ecstasy.

Runners-up for this year's prize included jazz outfit Ezra Collective and dance producer Barry Can't Swim.

To qualify, artists could not have had more than two UK top 10 albums or two UK top 10 singles by 30 September 2024.

The rules were relaxed this year to recognise the challenges of achieving crossover success in the streaming era - when an artist can reach number one without becoming a household name.

TikTok will appear before the US Supreme Court on Friday in a last-ditch effort to overturn a ban, in a case testing the limits of national security and free speech.

The popular social media platform is challenging a law passed last year ordering the firm to be split from its Chinese owner or be blocked from the US by 19 January.

The US government is arguing that without a sale, TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.

But TikTok rejects that claim, arguing it has been unfairly targeted and the measure violates the free speech of its some 170 million American users.

Lower courts have sided with the government, but the case was complicated last month when President-elect Donald Trump weighed in on the dispute and asked for the enforcement of the law to be paused to grant him time to work out a deal.

Analysts have said it was not clear what the Supreme Court will decide, but that reversing the prior ruling - even with a future president's blessing - would be unusual.

"When you have a real government interest pitted against a real constitutional value, it ends up being a very close case," said Cardozo School of Law professor Saurabh Vishnubhakat.

"But in such close cases, the government often gets the benefit of the doubt."

A decision by Supreme Court could be made within days.

Congress passed the law against TikTok last year with support from both the Democratic and Republican parties. The moment marked the culmination of years of concern about the wildly popular platform, which is known for its viral videos and traction among young people.

The legislation does not forbid use of the app, but would require tech giants such as Apple and Google to stop offering it and inhibit updates, which analysts suggest would kill it over time.

TikTok is already banned from government devices in many countries, including in the UK. It faces more complete bans in some countries, including India.

The US argues that TikTok is a "grave" threat because the Chinese government could coerce its owner, ByteDance, to turn over user data or manipulate what it shows users to serve Chinese interests.

Last December, a three-judge appeals court decision upheld the law, noting China's record of acting through private companies and saying the measure was justified as "part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed" by the country.

TikTok has repeatedly denied any potential influence by the Chinese Communist Party and has said the law violates the First Amendment free speech rights of its users.

It has asked the Supreme Court to strike down the law as unconstitutional, or order its enforcement to be halted to enable a review of the legislation, which it said was based on "inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information".

Trump is set to take office the day after the law would come into force.

He had called for banning the app in the US during his first term, but changed his tune on the campaign trail.

The brief that Trump's lawyers filed late last month did not take a position on legal dispute, but said the case presented "unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national-security concerns on the other".

Noting his election win, it said Trump "opposes banning TikTok" and "seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office".

The filing came less than two weeks after Trump met TikTok's boss at Mar-a-Lago.

One of the president-elect's major donors, Jeff Yass of Susequehanna International Group, is a big stakeholder in the company.

However, Trump's nominee to serve as secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, is in favour of banning the platform.

Investors who have expressed interest in buying the TikTok include Trump's former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former LA Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.

Attorney Peter Choharis, who is part of a group that filed its own brief supporting the US government's case, said it was hard to predict what the court - which has a conservative majority - would do, noting that several recent court decisions have overturned longstanding precedent.

But he said even if Trump was granted the opportunity to try to work out a deal, he expected a ban eventually.

"I don't see any president, including future President Trump, being able to resolve this in a way that's satisfactory for US national security because I don't think ByteDance will agree to it," he said.

The prospect of losing TikTok in the US has prompted outcry from many users, some of whom filed their own legal action last year.

In their filing they said the decision that TikTok could be shuttered "because ideas on that platform might persuade Americans of one thing or another - even of something potentially harmful to our democracy - is utterly antithetical to the First Amendment".

Other groups weighing in on the dispute include the American Civil Liberties Union and Freedom of the Press Foundation, which argued that the US had failed to present "credible evidence of ongoing or imminent harm" caused by the social media app.

Mr Choharis said the government had a right to take measures to defend itself, arguing that the fight was not "about speech" or "content" but about the Chinese government's role.

"It's about control and how the Chinese Communist Party specifically, and the Chinese government more generally, pursue strategic aims using many internet firms and especially social media companies - specifically including TikTok," he said.

The Los Angeles wildfires are on track to be among the costliest in US history, with losses already expected to exceed more than $50bn (£40bn).

In a preliminary estimate, private forecaster Accuweather said it expected losses of between $52bn and $57bn as the blazes rip through an area that is home to some of the most expensive property in the US.

The insurance industry is also bracing for a major hit, with analysts from firms such as Morningstar and JP Morgan forecasting insured losses more than $8bn.

Nearly 2,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed in the fires, which has also claimed at least five lives.

With authorities still working to contain the fires, the scope of the losses is still unfolding.

"This is a terrible disaster," said Accuweather chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter.

The 2018 fire that broke out in northern California near the town of Paradise currently ranks as the disaster with highest insured costs, at roughly $12.5bn, according to insurance giant Aon.

That blaze, known as the Camp fire, killed 85 people and displaced more than 50,000.

The high property values in this case mean it is likely to end up as one of the top five costliest wildfires in the US, said Aon, which looks at insured losses.

Nearly 200,000 people in the Los Angeles area are under evacuation orders, with another 180,000 facing warnings.

Even after the situation is under control, Mr Porter said the events could have long-term affects on health and tourism.

It also spells trouble for the insurance industry, which was already in crisis.

Homeowners in the US with mortgages are typically required by banks to have property insurance.

But companies have been hiking prices - or cancelling coverage altogether - in the face of increasing risks of natural disaster such as fires, floods and hurricanes.

As companies stop offering coverage, people are turning in surging numbers to home insurance plans offered by state governments, which are typically more expensive while offering less protection.

In California, the number of policies offered through the state's Fair plan has more than doubled since 2020, from about 200,000 to more than 450,000 in September of last year.

Areas hit by the fires rank as some of the places with highest take-up, according to data from the programme, which was already warning of risks to its financial stability.

Denise Rappmund, a senior analyst at Moody's Ratings, said the fires would have "widespread, negative impacts for the state's broader insurance market".

"Increased recovery costs will likely drive up premiums and may reduce property insurance availability," she said, adding that the state was also facing potential long-term damage to property values and strain to public finances.

On a clear day, the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv are visible from the hill above Karnei Shomron, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

"I do feel different from Tel Aviv," said Sondra Baras, who has lived in Karnei Shomron for almost 40 years. "I'm living in a place where my ancestors lived thousands of years ago. I do not live in occupied territory; I live in Biblical Judea and Samaria."

For many settlers here, the line between the State of Israel, and the territory it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, has been erased from their narrative.

The visitors' audio-guide at the hill-top viewpoint describes the West Bank as "a region of Israel" and the Palestinian city of Nablus as the place where God promised the land to the Jews.

But formal annexation of this territory has so far remained a dream for settlers like Sondra, even while settlements - viewed as illegal by the UN's top court and most other countries - have mushroomed year after year.

Now many see an opportunity to go further, with the election of Donald Trump as the next US president.

"I was thrilled that Trump won," Sondra told me. "I very much want to extend sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. And I feel that's something Trump could support."

There are signs that some in his incoming administration might agree with her.

Mike Huckabee, nominated as Trump's new ambassador to Israel, signalled his support for Israeli claims on the West Bank in an interview last year.

"When people use the term 'occupied', I say: 'Yes, Israel is occupying the land, but it's the occupation of a land that God gave them 3,500 years ago. It is their land,'" he said.

Yisrael Gantz, head of the regional settlement council that oversees Karnei Shomron, says he has already noticed a change in tone from the incoming Trump administration as a result of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, which triggered the war on Gaza.

"Both here in Israel and in the US, they understand that we must apply sovereignty here," he told me. "It's a process. I can't tell you it will be tomorrow. But in my eyes, the dream of a two-state solution is dead."

US President Joe Biden has always maintained the US position in support of a future Palestinian state alongside Israel. Asked whether he was hearing something different from the incoming Trump administration, Mr Gantz replied, "Of course, yes."

But there are also signs that Israelis lobbying for annexation of the West Bank - some of them in cabinet positions - might be disappointed in Trump's decisions.

Their hopes have been fuelled by memories of his first term as president, during which he broke with decades of US policy - and international consensus - by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which were captured from Syria in 1967.

But supporting annexation of the West Bank would be a much bigger and thornier issue for Trump.

It would likely alienate Washington's other key ally, Saudi Arabia, complicating Trump's chances for a wider regional deal.

It could also alienate some moderate Republicans in the US Congress, concerned about the impact on West Bank Palestinians, and their future status under Israeli rule.

Settler leader Sondra Baras told me that West Bank Palestinians who did not want to live in Israel could "go wherever they want".

Challenged on why they should leave their homeland, she said: "I'm not kicking them out, but things change. How many wars did they start? And they lost."

"If sovereignty were to go forward, there would be a lot of yelling and screaming, absolutely," she continued. "But at some point, you create a fact that's irreversible."

Shortly after Trump's election victory last November, Israel's far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, publicly called for annexing the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"2025 must be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," he said.

Whether or not the new US president agrees, many Palestinians say discussion of formal annexation misses the point - that Israel is, in practice, already annexing territory here.

One of them is Mohaib Salameh. He leads me across the rubble of his family home, built on private Palestinian land, on the outskirts of Nablus. The building was ruled illegal by an Israeli court last year and demolished.

Israel has full control over security and planning in 60% of the West Bank on an interim basis, as outlined in the Oslo peace accords three decades ago.

While settlements are expanding, permits for Palestinian homes are almost never granted. And lawyers say demolitions like this are increasing.

"This is all part of policies to force us to leave," Mohaib said. "It's a policy of forced migration. What difference does it make to them [Israelis] if I build here or not? We pose no threat to them."

Palestinians are also increasingly being forced off their land by violent Israeli settlers - who have been sanctioned by the US and UK, but largely left unchallenged by Israeli courts at home.

Activists say more than 20 Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been expelled over the past few years by increasingly violent attacks, and that settlers are now encroaching into new areas outside Israel's interim civil control.

Mohaib told me that no US president had ever protected Palestinians, and that he doesn't believe Donald Trump will either.

America's next president is widely seen as a friend of Israel.

But he's also a man who also likes closing deals - and avoiding conflicts.

Venezuela's opposition says its leader María Corina Machado was briefly arrested and then freed after addressing a protest rally on the eve of President Nicolás Maduro's disputed inauguration.

Machado, 57, was "violently intercepted" in eastern Caracas and the motorcycle convoy in which she was riding was shot at, the opposition said, adding that she was forced to record several videos while being held.

Venezuela's information minister Freddy Nanez dismissed reports of Machado's detention as a "media distraction".

Maduro, 62, was declared the winner of last July's presidential election but the opposition and many countries, including the US, reject the result as fraudulent, and recognise the now-exiled opposition candidate Edmundo González as the legitimate president-elect.

González fled Venezuela in September and has been living in Spain, but this month he went on a tour of the Americas to rally international support.

The Maduro government has issued an arrest warrant for him, offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to his detention.

Machado, whom González replaced on the ballot after she was barred from running herself, has also been targeted. She went into hiding soon after the disputed elections, and was last seen in public in August before Thursday's rally.

Earlier in the day, the UN expressed its alarm after it received reports of arbitrary detentions and intimidation in Venezuela ahead of the opposition marches.

It highlighted the arrest of Carlos Correa, the head of an NGO promoting press freedom, who was seized by unidentified hooded men earlier in the week.

Maduro's government has deployed thousands of police officers in Caracas, where the government-allied National Assembly plans to swear Maduro in for a third term in office.

The opposition for its part urged its supporters to turn out in droves in an effort to thwart the ceremony.

In the city of Valencia, police fired tear gas at protesters, according to Reuters.

In western Caracas, 70-year-old Niegalos Payares told the news agency that "I'm not afraid, I lost my fear a long time ago".

And in the city of Maracay, in central Venezuela, Roisa Gómez told a Reuters reporter that she was "fighting for my vote, which I cast for Edmundo González. They cannot steal the election."

Maduro was declared the winner of the presidential election by the government-dominated National Electoral Council (CNE) but the CNE has to this day failed to provide detailed voting data to back up this claim.

Earlier this month in Washington, González met US President Joe Biden, who said that Venezuela deserved a "peaceful transfer of power".

In Panama, González deposited thousands of voting tallies which the opposition collected in the country's bank for safekeeping.

The tallies have been the key evidence offered by the opposition to show that González, not Maduro won the election.

With the help of official election witnesses, they managed to collect 85% of the tallies and uploaded them to the internet.

Independent observers and media organisations which reviewed them say they show González beat Maduro by a landslide.

Dense fog and severe air quality levels have caused travel chaos in India's capital Delhi.

Visibility in several areas was reported to be zero in the early hours of Friday, disrupting flights, trains and road transport.

More than 150 flights have been delayed and dozens of trains are running behind schedule due to bad weather conditions, reports say.

This is a recurring problem in northern India every winter, where low temperatures between December and January trap pollutants close to the ground - which affects visibility - making travel difficult and the air hazardous.

The air quality index in Delhi was above 400 in several areas, according to the state-run Safar website. This is more than 25 times the safe limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Authorities in the capital have brought back pollution control measures, which include a ban on construction and demolition activities, and school classes going online.

Video and photos from Delhi and nearby cities showed a blanket of fog covering roads and farms and obscuring buildings.

The Delhi airport has issued an advisory warning passengers of possible disruptions due to low visibility.

"While landings and take offs continue at Delhi airport, flights that are not CAT III compliant may get affected," the advisory read. CAT III is a system which allows planes to land during conditions of poor visibility.

According to flight tracking website flightradar24, departures at Delhi airport were delayed by more than 30 minutes and arrivals by almost 20 minutes.

Several passengers took to social media to complain of chaos at the airport.

"No display of boarding gate and it seems no one knows the exact status," a user wrote on X (formerly twitter).

Meanwhile 26 trains to the city are running late due to fog, the Indian Railways said.

India's weather department has predicted light showers over the weekend, which are expected to improve visibility conditions.

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Firefighters in Los Angeles are battling a number of blazes in city suburbs, as tens of thousands of residents are forced to flee.

The rapidly changing situation is compounded by Santa Ana winds and extremely dry conditions. Currently authorities say there is no possibility of bringing the fires under control.

The Palisades fire, which is closest to the coast and also the largest, has ripped through picturesque suburbs which are home to many Hollywood stars. More than 1,000 buildings have already been destroyed.

Here's how the fires have spread and are affecting the Los Angeles area.

An overview of the current fires

Four major fires are currently being tackled.

The Palisades fire was first reported at 10:30 (18:30 GMT) on Tuesday, and grew in just 20 minutes from a blaze of 20 acres to more than 200 acres, then more than tenfold in a matter of a few more hours. At least 30,000 people have so far been ordered to leave their homes.

The Eaton fire grew to cover 1,000 acres within the first six hours of breaking out. It started in Altadena in the hills above Pasadena at around 18:30 local time on Tuesday.

The Hurst fire is located just north of San Fernando. It began burning on Tuesday at around 22:10 local time, growing to 500 acres, according to local officials. It has triggered evacuation orders in neighbouring Santa Clarita.

The latest of the four fires is the Woodley fire, currently 75 acres in size. It broke out at approximately 06:15 local time on Wednesday.

• Follow latest updates on the LA wildfires
• Watch: Smoke billows as thousands evacuate in LA
• 'Run for your lives!' residents abandon cars to flee fire on foot
• Timelapse shows rapid spread of Palisades wildfire
• Watch: Inside a neighbourhood totally lost in inferno
• Pacific Palisades: The celebrity LA area ravaged by wildfire

How did the Palisades fire spread?

The Palisades fire has so far burnt through more than 2,900 acres. The map above shows how rapidly the blaze spread, intensifying in a matter of hours. At just after 14:00 on Tuesday it covered 772 acres and within four hours it had expanded approximately to its current size.

Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate, as more than 1,400 firefighters try to tackle the blaze.

How does the Palisade fire compare in size with New York and London?

To give an idea of the size of the Palisades fire, we have superimposed it on to maps of New York and London.

As you can see, it is comparable in size with the central area of UK's capital, or with large areas of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

How the fires look from space

Another indication of the scale of the Palisades fire comes from Nasa's Earth Observatory.

The images captured on Tuesday show a huge plume of smoke emanating from California and drifting out to sea.

Effects of the Eaton fire

The Palisade fire is not the only one to have a devastating effect on neighbourhoods of Los Angeles.

The above images show the Jewish Temple in Pasadena before and during the Eaton fire.

The Jewish Temple and Centre's website says it has been in use since 1941 and has a congregation of more than 400 familes.

Indian cricket fans are still reeling from the team's crushing 1-3 defeat in the five-match Test series against Australia.

Once dominant in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, with historic victories over the mighty Australians over the past decade, the tourists fell short, exposing vulnerabilities in a side long thought invincible.

The series highlighted glaring issues - Indian batters struggled, and Jasprit Bumrah was the lone bowler to trouble Australia.

The loss not only cost India the coveted Border-Gavaskar Trophy but also denied them a spot in the World Test Championship (WTC) final, breaking their streak of back-to-back appearances in 2021 and 2023, where they lost to New Zealand and Australia respectively.

India's recent form is troubling - they have lost six of their last eight Tests, including a shocking 0-3 home whitewash against New Zealand.

The defeats have raised questions about the team's depth, the future of key players like captain Rohit Sharma and former skipper Virat Kohli, and their ability to rebuild.

With a team in transition and stalwarts fading, Indian Test cricket faces pressing challenges to sustain its legacy in a rapidly evolving landscape.

India's next red-ball challenge is a five-Test series in England starting July. England's conditions, known for dramatic shifts even within a session, will test players' technique, skills and adaptability to the limit.

India hasn't won a series in England since 2007, with only two prior victories (1971, 1986), highlighting the daunting task ahead. Adding to the pressure, recent failures against New Zealand and Australia leave selectors grappling with tough decisions on player selection and team combinations for this critical campaign.

The biggest headache for selectors is the form of batting stalwarts Sharma and Kohli after dismal outings in Australia and earlier against New Zealand.

Sharma managed just 31 runs in three Tests in Australia, with his poor form seeing him dropping himself for the final game. Kohli fared slightly better with 190 runs in nine innings, but 100 runs of his total came in one knock. His dismissals followed a pattern - caught in the slips or behind the stumps - pointing to a glaring technical flaw or mental fatigue under pressure.

Since January 2024, Sharma has managed just 619 runs in 16 Tests with one century. Kohli's numbers are worse over time - averaging 32 in Tests since 2020 with only two centuries.

Once a late-blooming Test opener and blazing match-winner, Sharma now struggles to find his ideal batting position. Meanwhile, Kohli's surreal decline - after a decade of dominance and swagger- has left cricket's former titan in an extended slump.

From Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin Tendulkar to Kohli, the baton of Indian batting greatness has passed seamlessly. But a worthy successor to Kohli remains elusive.

KL Rahul has the class but lacks the hunger for consistent big scores. Rishabh Pant is a thrilling maverick, equally capable of winning or losing a match. Shubman Gill, touted as the next Big Thing, has struggled overseas despite his undeniable pedigree and needs careful nurturing.

Punjab's young left-hander Abhishek Sharma, mentored by Yuvraj Singh, is highly rated, while Nitish Kumar Reddy impressed on debut in Australia with his fearless performances in tough situations.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, India's top Test run-scorer in Australia this series, has been the standout among young batsmen. With panache, patience, technical assurance, and explosive strokes, he looks poised to become Kohli's successor as the team's talisman.

India's talent pool is brimming across departments. Jasprit Bumrah, with his 32-wicket haul against Australia, has cemented his status as a fast-bowling colossus. Backed by Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, and a dozen promising quicks, India boasts a formidable pace arsenal for all formats.

That said, Bumrah is a once-in-a-generation talent and needs careful workload management. Overburdening him, as in the Australia series, risks breakdowns that could impede the attack. Shami, after lengthy stints in rehab, also requires careful handling. Together, they form one of modern cricket's most formidable pace pairs.

With Ravichandran Ashwin's sudden retirement and Ravindra Jadeja's lukewarm showing in Australia, India's spin depth looks thin. However, Washington Sundar has shown promise on home pitches, while young spinners Ravi Bishnoi and Tanush Kotian, who joined the squad mid-series in Australia, are knocking on the doors of Test cricket.

Smarting from recent losses to New Zealand and Australia, the Indian cricket board is moving swiftly to usher in a transition. Selectors have been directed to shortlist potential Test players from the second round of the domestic Ranji Trophy, resuming 23 January.

All players, including Sharma and Kohli, are likely to be asked to play domestic cricket - a move that could help them regain form.

Managing a team in transition poses complex challenges requiring patience, empathy, and clear vision. Knee-jerk reactions or external pressure could worsen the situation instead of providing solutions.

Whether Sharma and Kohli can overcome their crisis remains to be seen, but India's wealth of talent should lift the current gloom surrounding Indian cricket.

It's worth recalling that in 2011, after winning the ODI World Cup, India was whitewashed 4-0 in Test series against England and Australia. Cricket seemed to hit rock bottom.

But, within months, a revival led by young talents like Kohli, Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Jadeja, Ashwin, and others saw India rise to become the world's top team across formats, holding that position for nearly a decade.

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is travelling to China in a bid to boost trade and economic ties, as she faces pressure over government borrowing costs hitting their highest level in years.

The three day-visit has been criticised by some Conservatives who claim she should have cancelled the trip to prioritise dealing with economic issues at home.

Government borrowing costs have hit their highest levels for several years, meaning that uses up more tax revenue, leaving less money to spend on other things.

Economists have warned this could mean spending cuts affecting public services or tax rises that could hit people's pay or businesses' ability to grow.

On Thursday, the pound fell to its lowest level in more than a year - but the Treasury said markets continued to "function in an orderly way".

Travelling to China with the chancellor are senior financial figures, including the governor of the Bank of England and the chair of HSBC.

There she will meet China's Vice Premier He Lifeng in Beijing before flying to Shanghai for discussion with UK firms operating in China.

The government is looking to revive an annual economic dialogue with China that has not been held since the pandemic.

Ties have been strained in recent years by growing concerns about the actions of China's Communist leaders, allegations of Chinese hacking and spying and its jailing of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong.

The Conservatives have criticised the chancellor for proceeding with the planned trip rather than staying in the UK to address the cost of government borrowing and slide in the value of the pound.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride accused Reeves of being "missing in action" and said she should have stayed in the UK.

But Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, standing in for Reeves in the Commons on Thursday, said the trip was "important" for UK trade and there was "no need for an emergency intervention".

Former chancellor Philip Hammond also told the World at One programme on Thursday that he "wouldn't personally recommend the chancellor cancels her trip to China. This can wait until she gets back next week".

Governments generally spend more than they raise in tax so they borrow money to fill the gap, usually by selling bonds to investors.

Interest rates - known as the yield - on government bonds have been going up since around August, a rise that has also affected government bonds in the US and other countries.

The yield on a 10-year bond has surged to its highest level since 2008, while the yield on a 30-year bond is at its highest since 1998, meaning it costs the government more to borrow over the long term.

Reeves has previously committed only to make significant tax and spend announcements once a year at the autumn Budget.

But if higher borrowing costs persist, there is the possibility of cuts to spending before that or at least lower spending increases than would otherwise happen.

Any further spending cuts could be announced in the chancellor's planned fiscal statement on 26 March , ahead of a spending review that has already asked government departments to find efficiency savings worth 5% of their budgets.

On a clear day, the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv are visible from the hill above Karnei Shomron, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

"I do feel different from Tel Aviv," said Sondra Baras, who has lived in Karnei Shomron for almost 40 years. "I'm living in a place where my ancestors lived thousands of years ago. I do not live in occupied territory; I live in Biblical Judea and Samaria."

For many settlers here, the line between the State of Israel, and the territory it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, has been erased from their narrative.

The visitors' audio-guide at the hill-top viewpoint describes the West Bank as "a region of Israel" and the Palestinian city of Nablus as the place where God promised the land to the Jews.

But formal annexation of this territory has so far remained a dream for settlers like Sondra, even while settlements - viewed as illegal by the UN's top court and most other countries - have mushroomed year after year.

Now many see an opportunity to go further, with the election of Donald Trump as the next US president.

"I was thrilled that Trump won," Sondra told me. "I very much want to extend sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. And I feel that's something Trump could support."

There are signs that some in his incoming administration might agree with her.

Mike Huckabee, nominated as Trump's new ambassador to Israel, signalled his support for Israeli claims on the West Bank in an interview last year.

"When people use the term 'occupied', I say: 'Yes, Israel is occupying the land, but it's the occupation of a land that God gave them 3,500 years ago. It is their land,'" he said.

Yisrael Gantz, head of the regional settlement council that oversees Karnei Shomron, says he has already noticed a change in tone from the incoming Trump administration as a result of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, which triggered the war on Gaza.

"Both here in Israel and in the US, they understand that we must apply sovereignty here," he told me. "It's a process. I can't tell you it will be tomorrow. But in my eyes, the dream of a two-state solution is dead."

US President Joe Biden has always maintained the US position in support of a future Palestinian state alongside Israel. Asked whether he was hearing something different from the incoming Trump administration, Mr Gantz replied, "Of course, yes."

But there are also signs that Israelis lobbying for annexation of the West Bank - some of them in cabinet positions - might be disappointed in Trump's decisions.

Their hopes have been fuelled by memories of his first term as president, during which he broke with decades of US policy - and international consensus - by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which were captured from Syria in 1967.

But supporting annexation of the West Bank would be a much bigger and thornier issue for Trump.

It would likely alienate Washington's other key ally, Saudi Arabia, complicating Trump's chances for a wider regional deal.

It could also alienate some moderate Republicans in the US Congress, concerned about the impact on West Bank Palestinians, and their future status under Israeli rule.

Settler leader Sondra Baras told me that West Bank Palestinians who did not want to live in Israel could "go wherever they want".

Challenged on why they should leave their homeland, she said: "I'm not kicking them out, but things change. How many wars did they start? And they lost."

"If sovereignty were to go forward, there would be a lot of yelling and screaming, absolutely," she continued. "But at some point, you create a fact that's irreversible."

Shortly after Trump's election victory last November, Israel's far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, publicly called for annexing the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"2025 must be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," he said.

Whether or not the new US president agrees, many Palestinians say discussion of formal annexation misses the point - that Israel is, in practice, already annexing territory here.

One of them is Mohaib Salameh. He leads me across the rubble of his family home, built on private Palestinian land, on the outskirts of Nablus. The building was ruled illegal by an Israeli court last year and demolished.

Israel has full control over security and planning in 60% of the West Bank on an interim basis, as outlined in the Oslo peace accords three decades ago.

While settlements are expanding, permits for Palestinian homes are almost never granted. And lawyers say demolitions like this are increasing.

"This is all part of policies to force us to leave," Mohaib said. "It's a policy of forced migration. What difference does it make to them [Israelis] if I build here or not? We pose no threat to them."

Palestinians are also increasingly being forced off their land by violent Israeli settlers - who have been sanctioned by the US and UK, but largely left unchallenged by Israeli courts at home.

Activists say more than 20 Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been expelled over the past few years by increasingly violent attacks, and that settlers are now encroaching into new areas outside Israel's interim civil control.

Mohaib told me that no US president had ever protected Palestinians, and that he doesn't believe Donald Trump will either.

America's next president is widely seen as a friend of Israel.

But he's also a man who also likes closing deals - and avoiding conflicts.

Donald Trump has said that a meeting is being arranged between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The US president-elect gave no timeline for when the meeting might take place.

"He wants to meet and we are setting it up," he said in remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump has promised to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine soon after he takes office on 20 January and has expressed scepticism about US military and financial support for Kyiv.

Donald Trump has said that a meeting is being arranged between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The US president-elect gave no timeline for when the meeting might take place.

"He wants to meet and we are setting it up," he said in remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump has promised to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine soon after he takes office on 20 January and has expressed scepticism about US military and financial support for Kyiv.

Elon Musk took his endorsement of Germany's far-right party to the next level on Thursday, hosting a live chat with its frontwoman, Alice Weidel.

The 74-minute conversation ranged across energy policy, German bureaucracy, Adolf Hitler, Mars and the meaning of life.

The world's richest man unequivocally urged Germans to back Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in forthcoming elections.

It's the tech billionaire's latest, controversial foray into European politics.

There'd been a considerable build-up to this discussion as Elon Musk faced accusations of meddling in Germany's snap election.

But the interview, conducted in English, was arguably as much a chance for the AfD to reach international audiences via Musk's X platform.

Knowing of his close relationship with Donald Trump, Alice Weidel made sure to express her support for the US president-elect and his team.

She insisted her party was "conservative" and "libertarian" but had been "negatively framed" by mainstream media as extremist.

Sections of the AfD have been officially classed as right-wing extremist by German authorities.

A BBC News investigation last year found connections between some party figures and far-right networks, while one leading light on the party's hard right, Björn Höcke, was fined last year for using a banned Nazi phrase – though he denied doing so knowingly.

During the conversation, Weidel declared that Hitler had in fact been a "communist", despite the notable anti-communism of the Nazi leader, who invaded the Soviet Union.

"He wasn't a conservative," she said. "He wasn't a libertarian. He was this communist, socialist guy."

She also described Hitler as an "antisemitic socialist".

On other matters, she and Musk chimed – and at times giggled - over Germany's infamous bureaucracy, its "crazy" abandonment of nuclear power, the need for tax cuts, free speech and "wokeness".

In a sometimes stilted and, at times, surprising conversation, one surreal moment came when Weidel asked Mr Musk if he believed in God.

The reply – for those who wish to know – was that he's open to the idea as he seeks to "understand the universe as much as possible".

Despite all the anticipation that exchange, surely, had not been on many people's bingo card.

The AfD, which also opposes Berlin's weapons aid to Ukraine, is polling second in Germany, with a snap federal election scheduled for 23 February.

However, it won't be able to take power as other parties won't work with it.

That hasn't stopped Elon Musk from hailing Weidel as the "leading candidate to run Germany".

He's justified his intervention by citing his significant investments in the country - notably a huge Tesla plant just outside Berlin.

And he's dismissed characterisation of the AfD as far-right while previously labelling the social democratic Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, a "fool".

Scholz, whose chances of retaining the chancellery look remote, later insisted that he was "staying cool" about Elon Musk's attacks.

A hardline Sri Lankan monk who is a close ally of ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has been sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred.

Galagodaatte Gnanasara was convicted on Thursday for the remarks, which date back to 2016.

Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks the second time that Gnanasara, who has repeatedly been accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.

The sentence, handed down by the Colombo Magistrate's Court, comes after a presidential pardon he received in 2019 for a six-year sentence related to intimidation and contempt of court.

Gnanasara was arrested in December for remarks he made during a 2016 media conference, where he made several derogatory remarks against Islam.

On Thursday, the court said that all citizens, regardless of religion, are entitled to the freedom of belief under the Constitution.

he was also given a fine of 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees ($5; £4). Failure to pay the fine would result in an additional month of imprisonment, the court's ruling added.

Gnanasara has filed an appeal against the sentence.

He was a trusted ally of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad following mass protests over the island nation's economic crisis in 2022.

During Rajapaksa's presidency, Gnanasara, who also leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was appointed head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.

After Rajapaksa's ouster, Gnanasara was jailed last year for a similar charge related to hate speech against the country's Muslim minority but was granted bail while appealing his four-year sentence.

In 2018, he was sentenced to six years for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a political cartoonist who is widely believed to have been disappeared. However, he only served nine months of that sentence because he received a pardon by Maithripala Sirisena who was the country's president at the time.

The daughter of late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos has been banned from drinking on planes and in airports after she and her husband got into a drunken brawl with another passenger on board a Jetstar flight.

Analisa Josefa Corr and James Alexander Corr caused a "disturbance" with their "disorderly behaviour" while intoxicated on a flight from Hobart to Sydney on 29 December, Australia police said.

Ms Corr has been accused of "grabbing and shaking another passenger while exiting the aircraft toilet", police said. The pair were escorted off the flight.

They pleaded not guilty to charges of not complying with safety instructions and consuming alcohol not provided by the crew, but on Friday agreed to a booze ban while on bail.

If found guilty, they could be fined up to A$13,750 ($8,520; £6,925) for each charge.

Ms Corr has also denied a charge of assaulting a fellow passenger on board the aircraft, which carries up to two years in prison.

They have each also been asked to offer up A$20,000, which would be forfeited they breach any bail conditions.

Ms Corr, 53, is Marcos' Australia-raised daughter with former Sydney model Evelin Hegyesi - which makes her the half-sister of the Philippines' current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

On Instagram Ms Corr describes herself as an interior designer.

Mr Corr, 45, is a former soldier, according to Australian media.

In its statement on the case, police urged travellers to be "mindful of their behaviour at airports".

"You don't want to start the new year with a significant fine or worse, behind bars," said Australian Federal Police Sergeant Luke Stockwell.

"The AFP is increasing patrols at all major airports during the holidays and will not tolerate dangerous, disruptive or abusive behaviour from travellers," he added.

Jetstar did not directly comment on the incident, but a spokesman said the company will "never tolerate disruptive behaviour on our aircraft".

"The safety and wellbeing of customers and crew is our number one priority," he added.

Benin forces have suffered heavy losses in an attack near the border with insurgency-hit Niger and Burkina Faso, authorities have said.

Colonel Faizou Gomina, the national guard's chief of staff, said one of Benin's most well-equipped military positions had been hit in the north on Wednesday evening.

"We've been dealt a very hard blow," Col Gomina added.

The country has in recent years witnessed increasing attacks in the northern region blamed on jihadist groups based in neighbouring countries.

More than 120 Beninese military officers were killed between 2021 and December 2024, a diplomatic source told AFP news agency.

Last month, gunmen killed three soldiers and wounded four others who were guarding an oil pipeline in the north-east.

Col Gomina did not provide a death toll for Wednesday's attack, but the main opposition party, The Democrats, said about 30 soldiers had been killed in the Alibori region, Reuters news agency reports.

A security source put the death toll at 28, according to AFP.

"We are continuing cleaning-up operations. Forty assailants have been neutralised so far," the military source added.

Col Gomina said the position attacked had been "one of the strongest and most militarised" and called on military commanders to improve their operational strategies in order to counter security threats.

"Wake up, officers and section chiefs, we have battles to win," he said.

In 2022, Benin deployed nearly 3,000 troops to curb cross-border incursions and reinforce security in the north.

You may also be interested in:

• 'I thought I would die' - freed captive tells BBC of life in West African jihadist base
• West Africa faces up to policing its terror triangle
• Find out more about Benin

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

The planet has moved a major step closer to warming more than 1.5C, new data shows, despite world leaders vowing a decade ago they would try to avoid this.

The European Copernicus climate service, one of the main global data providers, said on Friday that 2024 was the first calendar year to pass the symbolic threshold, as well as the world's hottest on record.

This does not mean the international 1.5C target has been broken, because that refers to a long-term average over decades, but does bring us nearer to doing so as fossil fuel emissions continue to heat the atmosphere.

Last week UN chief António Guterres described the recent run of temperature records as "climate breakdown".

"We must exit this road to ruin - and we have no time to lose," he said in his New Year message, calling for countries to slash emissions of planet-warming gases in 2025.

Global average temperatures for 2024 were around 1.6C above those of the pre-industrial period - the time before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels - according to Copernicus data.

This breaks the record set in 2023 by just over 0.1C, and means the last 10 years are now the 10 warmest years on record.

The Met Office, Nasa and other climate groups are due to release their own data later on Friday. All are expected to agree that 2024 was the warmest on record, although precise figures vary slightly.

Last year's heat is predominantly due to humanity's emissions of planet-warming gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are still at record highs.

Natural weather patterns such as El Niño - where surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm - played a smaller role.

"By far and away the largest contribution impacting our climate is greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere," Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, tells the BBC.

The 1.5C figure has become a powerful symbol in international climate negotiations ever since it was agreed in Paris in 2015, with many of the most vulnerable countries considering it a matter of survival.

The risks from climate change, such as intense heatwaves, rising sea-levels and loss of wildlife, would be much higher at 2C of warming than at 1.5C, according to a landmark UN report from 2018.

Yet the world has been moving closer and closer to breaching the 1.5C barrier.

"When exactly we will cross the long-term 1.5C threshold is hard to predict, but we're obviously very close now," says Myles Allen of the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, and an author of the UN report.

The current trajectory would likely see the world pass 1.5C of long-term warming by the early 2030s. This would be politically significant, but it wouldn't mean game over for climate action.

"It's not like 1.49C is fine, and 1.51C is the apocalypse - every tenth of a degree matters and climate impacts get progressively worse the more warming we have," explains Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a research group in the US.

Even fractions of a degree of global warming can bring more frequent and intense extreme weather, such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall.

In 2024, the world saw blistering temperatures in west Africa, prolonged drought in parts of South America, intense rainfall in central Europe and some particularly strong tropical storms hitting north America and south Asia.

These events were just some of those made more intense by climate change over the last year, according to the World Weather Attribution group.

Even this week, as the new figures are released, Los Angeles has been overwhelmed with destructive wildfires fuelled by high winds and a lack of rain.

While there are many contributing factors to this week's events, experts say conditions conducive to fires in California are becoming more likely in a warming world.

It wasn't only air temperatures that set new marks in 2024. The world's sea surface also reached a new daily high, while the total amount of moisture in the atmosphere reached record levels.

That the world is breaking new records is not a surprise: 2024 was always expected to be hot, because of the effect of the El Niño weather pattern - which ended around April last year - on top of human-caused warming.

But the margin of several records in recent years has been less expected, with some scientists fearing it could represent an acceleration of warming.

"I think it's safe to say that both 2023 and 2024 temperatures surprised most climate scientists - we didn't think we'd be seeing a year above 1.5C this early," says Dr Hausfather.

"Since 2023 we've had around 0.2C of extra warming that we can't fully explain, on top of what we had expected from climate change and El Niño," agrees Helge Gößling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany

Various theories have been suggested to explain this 'extra' warmth, such as an apparent reduction in the low-level cloud cover that tends to cool the planet, and prolonged ocean heat following the end of El Niño.

"The question is whether this acceleration is something persistent linked to human activities that means we will have steeper warming in the future, or whether it is a part of natural variability," Dr Gößling adds.

"At the moment it's very hard to say."

Despite this uncertainty, scientists stress that humans still have control over the future climate, and sharp reductions in emissions can lessen the consequences of warming.

"Even if 1.5 degrees is out the window, we still can probably limit warming to 1.6C, 1.7C or 1.8C this century," says Dr Hausfather.

"That's going to be far, far better than if we keep burning coal, oil and gas unabated and end up at 3C or 4C - it still really matters."

The planet has moved a major step closer to warming more than 1.5C, new data shows, despite world leaders vowing a decade ago they would try to avoid this.

The European Copernicus climate service, one of the main global data providers, said on Friday that 2024 was the first calendar year to pass the symbolic threshold, as well as the world's hottest on record.

This does not mean the international 1.5C target has been broken, because that refers to a long-term average over decades, but does bring us nearer to doing so as fossil fuel emissions continue to heat the atmosphere.

Last week UN chief António Guterres described the recent run of temperature records as "climate breakdown".

"We must exit this road to ruin - and we have no time to lose," he said in his New Year message, calling for countries to slash emissions of planet-warming gases in 2025.

Global average temperatures for 2024 were around 1.6C above those of the pre-industrial period - the time before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels - according to Copernicus data.

This breaks the record set in 2023 by just over 0.1C, and means the last 10 years are now the 10 warmest years on record.

The Met Office, Nasa and other climate groups are due to release their own data later on Friday. All are expected to agree that 2024 was the warmest on record, although precise figures vary slightly.

Last year's heat is predominantly due to humanity's emissions of planet-warming gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are still at record highs.

Natural weather patterns such as El Niño - where surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm - played a smaller role.

"By far and away the largest contribution impacting our climate is greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere," Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, tells the BBC.

The 1.5C figure has become a powerful symbol in international climate negotiations ever since it was agreed in Paris in 2015, with many of the most vulnerable countries considering it a matter of survival.

The risks from climate change, such as intense heatwaves, rising sea-levels and loss of wildlife, would be much higher at 2C of warming than at 1.5C, according to a landmark UN report from 2018.

Yet the world has been moving closer and closer to breaching the 1.5C barrier.

"When exactly we will cross the long-term 1.5C threshold is hard to predict, but we're obviously very close now," says Myles Allen of the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, and an author of the UN report.

The current trajectory would likely see the world pass 1.5C of long-term warming by the early 2030s. This would be politically significant, but it wouldn't mean game over for climate action.

"It's not like 1.49C is fine, and 1.51C is the apocalypse - every tenth of a degree matters and climate impacts get progressively worse the more warming we have," explains Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a research group in the US.

Even fractions of a degree of global warming can bring more frequent and intense extreme weather, such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall.

In 2024, the world saw blistering temperatures in west Africa, prolonged drought in parts of South America, intense rainfall in central Europe and some particularly strong tropical storms hitting north America and south Asia.

These events were just some of those made more intense by climate change over the last year, according to the World Weather Attribution group.

Even this week, as the new figures are released, Los Angeles has been overwhelmed with destructive wildfires fuelled by high winds and a lack of rain.

While there are many contributing factors to this week's events, experts say conditions conducive to fires in California are becoming more likely in a warming world.

It wasn't only air temperatures that set new marks in 2024. The world's sea surface also reached a new daily high, while the total amount of moisture in the atmosphere reached record levels.

That the world is breaking new records is not a surprise: 2024 was always expected to be hot, because of the effect of the El Niño weather pattern - which ended around April last year - on top of human-caused warming.

But the margin of several records in recent years has been less expected, with some scientists fearing it could represent an acceleration of warming.

"I think it's safe to say that both 2023 and 2024 temperatures surprised most climate scientists - we didn't think we'd be seeing a year above 1.5C this early," says Dr Hausfather.

"Since 2023 we've had around 0.2C of extra warming that we can't fully explain, on top of what we had expected from climate change and El Niño," agrees Helge Gößling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany

Various theories have been suggested to explain this 'extra' warmth, such as an apparent reduction in the low-level cloud cover that tends to cool the planet, and prolonged ocean heat following the end of El Niño.

"The question is whether this acceleration is something persistent linked to human activities that means we will have steeper warming in the future, or whether it is a part of natural variability," Dr Gößling adds.

"At the moment it's very hard to say."

Despite this uncertainty, scientists stress that humans still have control over the future climate, and sharp reductions in emissions can lessen the consequences of warming.

"Even if 1.5 degrees is out the window, we still can probably limit warming to 1.6C, 1.7C or 1.8C this century," says Dr Hausfather.

"That's going to be far, far better than if we keep burning coal, oil and gas unabated and end up at 3C or 4C - it still really matters."

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is travelling to China in a bid to boost trade and economic ties, as she faces pressure over government borrowing costs hitting their highest level in years.

The three day-visit has been criticised by some Conservatives who claim she should have cancelled the trip to prioritise dealing with economic issues at home.

Government borrowing costs have hit their highest levels for several years, meaning that uses up more tax revenue, leaving less money to spend on other things.

Economists have warned this could mean spending cuts affecting public services or tax rises that could hit people's pay or businesses' ability to grow.

On Thursday, the pound fell to its lowest level in more than a year - but the Treasury said markets continued to "function in an orderly way".

Travelling to China with the chancellor are senior financial figures, including the governor of the Bank of England and the chair of HSBC.

There she will meet China's Vice Premier He Lifeng in Beijing before flying to Shanghai for discussion with UK firms operating in China.

The government is looking to revive an annual economic dialogue with China that has not been held since the pandemic.

Ties have been strained in recent years by growing concerns about the actions of China's Communist leaders, allegations of Chinese hacking and spying and its jailing of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong.

The Conservatives have criticised the chancellor for proceeding with the planned trip rather than staying in the UK to address the cost of government borrowing and slide in the value of the pound.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride accused Reeves of being "missing in action" and said she should have stayed in the UK.

But Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, standing in for Reeves in the Commons on Thursday, said the trip was "important" for UK trade and there was "no need for an emergency intervention".

Former chancellor Philip Hammond also told the World at One programme on Thursday that he "wouldn't personally recommend the chancellor cancels her trip to China. This can wait until she gets back next week".

Governments generally spend more than they raise in tax so they borrow money to fill the gap, usually by selling bonds to investors.

Interest rates - known as the yield - on government bonds have been going up since around August, a rise that has also affected government bonds in the US and other countries.

The yield on a 10-year bond has surged to its highest level since 2008, while the yield on a 30-year bond is at its highest since 1998, meaning it costs the government more to borrow over the long term.

Reeves has previously committed only to make significant tax and spend announcements once a year at the autumn Budget.

But if higher borrowing costs persist, there is the possibility of cuts to spending before that or at least lower spending increases than would otherwise happen.

Any further spending cuts could be announced in the chancellor's planned fiscal statement on 26 March , ahead of a spending review that has already asked government departments to find efficiency savings worth 5% of their budgets.