Attorney General Pam Bondi took to X over the weekend with a bold statement: "President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in American history."

Her post was about efforts to release documents concerning the attempted assassination of Trump last July.

But the folks commenting in the replies had a completely different investigation in mind – the one into Jeffrey Epstein.

And they weren't buying it.

"Liar," snapped several people – along with many much harsher insults. One conservative YouTuber who mixes blistering tirades with Bitcoin promotions wrote: "I will vote for whatever President ... campaigns on arresting Pam Bondi over the cover up of the Epstein Files."

After folding into his coalition many non-traditional voters from the more fringe corners of the internet, Trump and members of his administration now find themselves coming face to face with the conspiratorial thinking they have stoked.

"This is the greatest cover-up by a president and for a president in history," said one member of a Facebook group devoted to sleuthing about the case. "Epstein is the story and don't let up."

At issue isn't so much the previously unreleased pictures of people like Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite in Epstein's company – which is not an indicator of any wrongdoing – but the sea of blacked-out redactions in the files themselves.

On the campaign trail last year, Trump suggested that he would support the release of investigation files. In February, Bondi said they were "sitting on my desk right now to review".

But after so much time and anticipation, Friday's release landed with a whimper.

Joe Uscinski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who studies conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking, says Trump's coalition is now more about scepticism and antagonism towards institutions - and less about traditional Republican Party goals.

Many in the movement, he says, believe that huge numbers of children are being used for sex trafficking, beliefs that are bolstered by Epstein's very real crimes as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon.

"People don't necessarily want documents released - they want documents released which tell them that what they believe is true."

The potential for political trouble is not lost on Trump's inner circle. In a Vanity Fair article published prior to the document release, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles described the people compelled to vote for Trump because of his promises on Epstein as "Joe Rogan listeners" – in other words, younger men who aren't traditionally into politics.

Wiles has called the story a "hit piece". But she has not disputed specific quotes, including her assertion that Trump has not yet solidified a lasting Republican majority.

"The people that are inordinately interested in Epstein are the new members of the Trump coalition, the people that I think about all the time – because I want to make sure that they are not [only] Trump voters, they're Republican voters," she told the magazine.

Polls and experts back up the chief of staff's concerns about the tenuous nature of Trump's coalition.

A survey released in early December by the right-wing Manhattan Institute think tank labelled nearly a third of Trump's supporters "New Entrant Republicans" – people who voted for the party for the first time in 2024. And the poll found that just over half of that category would "definitely" support a Republican in the 2026 mid-term elections.

"These voters are drawn to Trump but are not reliably attached to the Republican Party," the institute concluded.

• Trump's chief of staff disputes Vanity Fair story
• Image in Epstein files that features Trump reinstated after backlash
• Who and what are in the Epstein files?

The possible fragility of the Trump coalition is playing out on several different levels.

One crucial group is a collection of social media stars and podcasters who stand mostly outside traditional Republican circles but have clout and influence online.

They were instrumental in keeping social media attention on the Epstein story long after the convicted sex offender's death.

A group of influencers – including "Libs of TikTok" creator Chaya Raichik, conspiracy theorist and Turning Point USA activist Jack Posobiec, and elections organiser Scott Presler – were even invited to an event at the Department of Justice (DoJ) and given binders, which Bondi described as a "first phase" of Epstein document releases.

Little if anything new was in the binders, which caused a backlash. Outrage swelled further in July after the DoJ released a memo saying that there was no Epstein "client list" and rejecting conspiracy theories about his death in prison.

Yet following the most recent release, many of these same conservative influencers have been curiously silent.

Laura Loomer, a popular Maga social media influencer who has helped spread Epstein conspiracies online, claimed that they exonerated Trump from any wrongdoing.

"Maybe now the media will stop obsessing over these files," wrote Loomer, who has mentioned Epstein at least 200 times on X this year alone.

Others - including several who were at the DoJ binder event - have not mentioned the document release at all, positively or negatively.

Their silence has been noted by other right-wing and far-right commentators, sparking online Maga infighting. And the row over the Epstein case is just one controversy currently roiling the movement, with arguments over free speech, anti-Semitism and Charlie Kirk's legacy bursting out into the open at an annual conference put on by Turning Point USA this week.

Jared Holt, senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that analyses online extremism, says the debate over the Epstein files is just one controversy contributing to the challenges facing the Maga movement.

"At the beginning of the year, Maga was a triumphant intimidating cultural force, now the train is falling off the tracks and there's no clear sign that it will be stabalising or rebounding anytime soon," he says.

"It seems like the die-hard Trump base has atrophied over the course of the year," Holt says, but notes that it's too soon to tell if the recent heavily redacted document drop will have any significant impact on the sorts of "Joe Rogan listeners" Wiles is concerned about.

Prominent voices in Congress have been less shy than the influencer class about criticising the justice department. Soon-to-be-ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene lambasted the release, calling it "NOT MAGA".

Thomas Massie, the Republican member of the House of Representatives from Kentucky who spearheaded legislation leading to the document release, spent the weekend lambasting the justice department online and on US weekend talk shows.

He accused Bondi and officials of being in violation of the law requiring the release of the files, and has joined forces with Democratic Representative Ro Khanna to push for greater transparency.

Massie has suggested that they could move to charge Bondi with "inherent contempt" for ignoring a congressional order - a move which could force further document disclosures.

Regardless of whether or not that happens, there may be further revelations in the next few days. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, has promised hundreds of thousands more documents before the end of the year.

Tony and Becs Wadley say they can't spend Christmas at home after insulation installed under a government scheme has caused black mould in several rooms, and their asthmatic son can't be inside the property.

Mr Wadley says the situation is tearing the family apart: ''It's awful. Elliott can't come into our house, it's as if he's been ostracised from his own home.''

The couple are among more than 300 people who have contacted the BBC in recent weeks to tell us about insulation that has gone wrong in their homes.

The government has been contacted for commented.

Mr and Mrs Wadley got a government grant to have energy efficiency measures fitted in their Gower Peninsula house because they hoped a warmer home would help Elliot's asthma. The grant covered the cost of insulating his bedroom walls.

But months after the work was completed, the Wadleys discovered black mould was growing behind the insulation boards. It was removed by the installer and replaced with a new insulation system. But this also had to be removed along with all the plaster after it became damp. Elliott, 19, hasn't entered the house since April, instead staying with his grandmother during university breaks.

''I miss him like you wouldn't believe'," says Mrs Wadley.

The family are going to stay with Mr Wadley's sister for Christmas so they can all be together.

Billions of pounds of public money has been spent on insulating homes over the last 15 years.

The Wadley's home was insulated under a government scheme known as ECO4. In October, the National Audit Office (NAO) spending watchdog found that 29% of internal wall insulation carried out under ECO4 had been so poorly installed it needed to be repaired.

It said there had been "weak" government oversight and regulatory ''failure''.

In response to the NAO report, Energy Consumer Minister Martin McCluskey, said at the time: "We are fixing the broken system by introducing comprehensive reforms to make this process clear and straightforward, and in the rare cases where things go wrong, there will be clear lines of accountability, so consumers are guaranteed to get any problems fixed quickly."

In the downstairs rooms of the Wadleys' home the insulation has also failed and has had to be removed. There is black mould on the walls while electric sockets hang loose with the wires exposed. The family says it has been in this condition for months.

The installer, Stellar Energy, says it has ''no record of any immediate safety hazards being flagged.'' It says the descriptions of the exposed wires and sockets was "highly inconsistent" with their standard operating procedures, which required all such work to be made safe.

Building surveyor, David Walter, says the insulation wasn't fitted correctly and says the installer ''didn't understand what they were doing and what they were doing to the building which is why we've got these problems.''

Stellar Energy told the BBC the design was ''technically correct for a stone house and was installed...in strict accordance with the mandatory technical specifications of ECO4.''

Mr Wadley says he wouldn't have signed up for the grant if he'd known what would happen. ''You wouldn't put your family through this. Nobody would. Somebody needs to take responsibility.''

Stellar Energy says it ''sincerely regrets any distress this situation has caused the family'' and says its priority is ''providing a final resolution to ensure the home meets the high standards'' it strives for.

Scott Proudman contacted the BBC about the botched external wall insulation fitted to his Bristol home in 2021.

His family had been eligible for a government grant because of his eight-year-old daughter's disabilities. Born 24 weeks premature, she has cerebral palsy, a partial visual impairment and a shunt. She was recently diagnosed with autism.

''I feel like a failure every time I come home because this was meant to be something to look after my family, to make life easier, and it hasn't," he says.

When the work was done, insulation boards were fixed to the outside of the house and render was applied to make it waterproof. But the render has been falling off for years.

Building surveyor Mr Walter, says poor design and poor workmanship has caused the render to disintegrate. He says rainwater will very likely get under the cracked render and behind the insulation and will likely cause dampness inside.

''It's like a timebomb. It's going to get worse and worse, affecting the inside of the property," he says.

Mr Walter says all of the render and insulation will have to come off and will cost tens of thousands of pounds to put right.

Right now the family is stuck with the repair bill because the installer, SPMS Wales, is being liquidated and Mr Proudman says they weren't given the required guarantee for the work. Trustmark, the organisation responsible for overseeing quality, says it can't help because the company lost its accreditation soon after the work was completed.

Mr Proudman says he chose the company ''because it was on a government website and was Trustmark registered. I can't believe how few rights consumers have.''

Brett Langdon, a director at SPMS Wales says he is ''very sorry the Proudmans have ended up in this situation'' and says all works ''were done to the manufactures specification.'' He says he gave a guarantee to the Proudmans but has told the BBC he can't remember who the guarantee is with. He says the delamination of the render was "due to a failure of the system".

In a statement TrustMark said it was ''very sorry to hear about what's happened to Mr and Mrs Proudman and Mr and Mrs Wadley and the conditions both families' homes have been left in. It is totally unacceptable and we are in discussions with the relevant Scheme Providers and guarantee providers to help resolve these situations.''

And it said it underlined ''the need for reform to the current system''.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a pill version of the weight-loss drug Wegovy, according to maker Novo Nordisk.

It marks a first in this new era of weight-loss medications with Wegovy being the only so far to gain approval for the pill version of their GLP-1 drug, which has only been available as an injection.

Wegovy's Danish makers Novo Nordisk said the once-daily pill was a "convenient option" to the inject-able and would provide the same weight loss as the shot. It comes after Wegovy was approved by the FDA specifically for weight loss.

Others like Ozempic, which has similar weight-loss effects, were primarily approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.

The BBC has contacted the FDA for comment.

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"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

The joke is met by groans that echo through a warehouse in Lambeth, London.

We're at a joke-testing session with Talking Tables, a London company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder and chief executive, Clare Harris grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," Ms Harris says.

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially the neighbours or friends who've joined this year.

"You want the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," Ms Harris says.

Joke selection takes place on the upper level of the warehouse, where a handful of staff from across the company gather to pitch and assess the latest jokes they have come up with.

The jokes being worked through today will be the last few to make it into crackers for 2026.

The firm works at least a year in advance of the next batch of crackers.

"What do monkeys sing at Christmas?" asks Ms Harris. "Jungle bells, jungle bells."

On this occasion, there are more emphatic "noes" than groans, and Ms Harris accepts defeat this time around. It won't be found in a cracker next year.

"We have a database," she says. "But each year we make sure we bring our favourites from when we've used them at home."

Cracker joke material comes from a variety of sources including the internet, word of mouth and the company's own joke books.

Asked whether they've yet succumbed to the lure of artificial intelligence, Ms Harris responds with a firm denial.

She says the aim of the session is to work out what their favourites were and which delivered the greatest emotional reaction.

"Does it do what we want around the Christmas table?" she asks.

Chloe Lloyd, from the sales team, pitches a joke she has heard earlier that day.

"What does the moon do when it needs a haircut?," she asks. 'Eclipse it!"

That's an instant hit, the group says.

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people around the Christmas table  you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play vocalisation," says Prof Sophie Scott, the director of University College London's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have found the lack of such interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," says Prof Scott.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," Prof Scott says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

And it is not just humans that laugh.

Laughing, says Prof Scott, is an invitation to play and build social bonds. Rats and a number of other mammals do it too.

But what is actually happening inside the brain when we hear a joke?

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which shows which parts of the brain are working harder, Prof Scott and her team has been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

Testing involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral "crunchy" noise, or pre-recorded laughter, and to then examine which parts of the brain are working hardest.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of activation," says Prof Scott.

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also brain areas involved in both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Put all of this together, says Prof Scott, and people hearing a joke have a complex set of neural responses that underpin the laughter we hear - they not only listen to and understand the joke, but prime the motor functions needed to prepare to laugh, and have their response influenced by images from memory.

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," Prof Scott says.

It means people are not just responding to funny words or jokes, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Laughter, says Prof Scott, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you know people," says Prof Scott, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

Probably not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

In 2001 Prof Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, in Hatfield, set up LaughLab, the scientific search for the world's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged on those jokes by 350,000 people around the world, Prof Wiseman has a better idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

"But they also need to be poor jokes, jokes that make us groan," Prof Wiseman adds.

The more "terrible" the joke, he says the better.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us find them funny.

"That's a shared experience around the table and I think it's lovely."

Donald Trump has sparked a renewed disagreement with Denmark after appointing a special envoy to Greenland, the Arctic island he has said he would like to annex.

Trump announced on Sunday that Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, would become the US's special envoy to Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Writing on social media, the US president said Landry understood how "essential Greenland is to our national security" and would advance US interests.

Greenland's prime minister said the island must "decide our own future" and its "territorial integrity must be respected".

The move angered Copenhagen, which will call the US ambassador for "an explanation".

Governor Landry said in a post on X it was an honour to serve in a "volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the United States", saying the role would not affect his duties as Louisiana governor.

Denmark's foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, described the appointment as "deeply upsetting" and warned Washington to respect Danish sovereignty.

He told Danish broadcaster TV2: "As long as we have a kingdom consisting of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, we cannot accept actions that undermine our territorial integrity."

Greenland's Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said the territory was willing to cooperate with the United States and other countries, but only on the basis of mutual respect.

He said: "The appointment of a special envoy does not change anything for us. We decide our own future. Greenland belongs to Greenlanders, and territorial integrity must be respected."

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has revived his long-standing interest with Greenland, citing its strategic location and mineral wealth.

He has refused to rule out using force to secure control of the island, a stance that has shocked Denmark, a Nato ally that has traditionally enjoyed close relations with Washington.

Greenland, home to about 57,000 people, has had extensive self-government since 1979, though defence and foreign policy remain in Danish hands. While most Greenlanders favour eventual independence from Denmark, opinion polls show overwhelming opposition to becoming part of the US.

The dispute comes as strategic competition in the Arctic grows, with melting ice opening new shipping routes and increasing access to valuable mineral resources.

Greenland's location between North America and Europe also makes it central to US and Nato security planning and puts it on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States.

The US Coast Guard is in "active pursuit" of another vessel in international waters near Venezuela, an official has told the BBC's US partner CBS News, as tensions in the region continue to escalate.

US authorities have already seized two oil tankers this month - one of them on Saturday.

Sunday's pursuit related to a "sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela's illegal sanctions evasion", a US official said. "It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order."

Washington has accused Venezuela of using oil money to fund drug-related crime, while Venezuela has described the tanker seizures as "theft and kidnapping".

US President Donald Trump last week ordered a "blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving the country.

Venezuela - home to the world largest proven oil reserves - has accused the Trump administration of trying to steal its resources.

US authorities have not yet officially confirmed Sunday's pursuit, and the exact location and name of the tanker involved is not yet known.

As of last week, more than 30 of the 80 ships in Venezuelan waters or approaching the country were under US sanctions, according to data compiled by TankerTrackers.com.

Saturday's seizure saw a Panamanian-flagged tanker boarded by a specialised tactical team in international waters.

That ship is not on the US Treasury's list of sanctioned vessels, but the US has said it was carrying "sanctioned PDVSA oil". In the past five years the ship also sailed under the flags of Greece and Liberia, according to records seen by BBC Verify.

"These acts will not go unpunished," the Venezuelan government said in response to Saturday's incident. It added that it intended to file a complaint with the UN Security Council and "other multilateral agencies and the governments of the world".

Venezuela is highly dependent on revenues from its oil exports to finance its government spending.

In recent weeks, the US has built up its military presence in the Caribbean Sea and has carried out deadly strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling boats, killing around 100 people.

It has provided no public evidence that these vessels were carrying drugs, and the military has come under increasing scrutiny from Congress over the strikes.

The Trump administration has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading a designated-terrorist organisation called Cartel de los Soles, which he denies.

This year is on course to be the UK's hottest since records began, according to the Met Office, as climate change continues to drive temperatures to new heights.

With just over a week still to go, the average UK air temperature across 2025 is on track to end up at about 10.05C.

A cooler Christmas could affect final figures, but it is likely that 2025 will edge out the current record of 10.03C from 2022, the Met Office says.

Along with a lack of rainfall, the persistent warmth left the country vulnerable to droughts and wildfires through the spring and summer, with temperatures peaking at 35.8C.

While temperatures vary naturally from year to year, scientists could not be clearer that human-caused climate change is driving the UK's rapidly warming trend.

By the end of 2025, the UK's 10 warmest years on record will all have taken place in the last two decades, in measurements going back to the late 1800s.

"Anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change is causing the warming in the UK as it's causing the warming across the world," said Amy Doherty, a climate scientist at the Met Office.

"What we have seen in the past 40 years, and what we're going to continue to see, is more records broken, more extremely hot years [...] so what was normal 10 years ago, 20 years ago, will become [relatively] cool in the future," she told BBC News.

The Met Office's projection uses observed temperatures up to 21 December and assumes that the remaining days of the year follow the long-term December average.

As a result, the Met Office cannot say with certainty that 2025 will be the hottest year, but it is the most likely outcome.

It would be the sixth time this century that the UK has set a new annual temperature record, following 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014 and 2022.

"In terms of our climate, we are living in extraordinary times," said Mike Kendon, also of the Met Office.

"The changes we are seeing are unprecedented in observational records back to the 19th Century," he added.

The expected new record of 2025 has been built on persistent heat through the spring and summer.

Those long, hot, sunny days may feel like a distant memory as we head towards Christmas, but both spring and summer were the UK's warmest ever recorded.

Each month from March to August was more than 2C above the long-term average between 1961 and 1990.

And while temperatures may not have reached the peaks of 40C seen in July 2022, hot spells happened repeatedly.

Four separate - albeit relatively short-lived - heatwaves were declared across much of the country.

The UK Health Security Agency also issued several heat-health alerts through the summer.

Spring and summer were also marked by low rainfall. Spring was particularly dry - the UK's sixth driest since 1836.

Combined with the warm weather helping to dry out the soils, this lack of rainfall pushed large parts of the country towards drought.

Through the summer, official droughts were declared across several regions in England and Wales, by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales respectively.

Parts of eastern Scotland also entered "significant water scarcity", according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Recent rainfall has eased the situation across much of the country and most areas are no longer in official drought. But water levels are still below average in some places.

"There's a huge deficit to be made up, and there's a huge implication, not just for people who are farming the land [and] growing food, but our rivers, our aquifers, our availability of drinking water," said Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology at the University of Reading.

The repeated swings between drought and flooding were making it very hard for communities to adapt to increasing weather extremes, she added.

The prolonged dry, warm weather created ideal conditions for wildfires too.

By late April, the area of the UK burned by wildfires had already reached a new annual record, according to data from the Global Wildfires Information System going back to 2012.

More than 47,100 hectares (471 sq km or 182 sq miles) has now been burned throughout 2025 - smashing the previous high of 28,100 hectares of 2019.

As the UK continues to heat up - driven by humanity's greenhouse gas emissions - scientists expect the UK to experience more weather extremes.

"The conditions that people are going to experience are going to continue to change as they have in the last few years [with] more wildfires, more droughts, more heatwaves," said Dr Doherty.

"But also it's going to get wetter in the winter half-year, so from October to March [...] the rain that does fall will fall more intensely, and in heavier rain showers, causing that kind of flooding that we've been seeing this year as well," she added.

The UK has not been alone in experiencing extreme heat this year. The world is on course for its second or third warmest year ever recorded, according to the European Copernicus climate service.

But the international consensus on tackling climate change is also being tested, with the US and some other leading producers of fossil fuels rowing back on their net zero commitments.

Additional reporting by Justin Rowlatt and Kate Stephens

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Donald Trump has sparked a renewed disagreement with Denmark after appointing a special envoy to Greenland, the Arctic island he has said he would like to annex.

Trump announced on Sunday that Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, would become the US's special envoy to Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Writing on social media, the US president said Landry understood how "essential Greenland is to our national security" and would advance US interests.

Greenland's prime minister said the island must "decide our own future" and its "territorial integrity must be respected".

The move angered Copenhagen, which will call the US ambassador for "an explanation".

Governor Landry said in a post on X it was an honour to serve in a "volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the United States", saying the role would not affect his duties as Louisiana governor.

Denmark's foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, described the appointment as "deeply upsetting" and warned Washington to respect Danish sovereignty.

He told Danish broadcaster TV2: "As long as we have a kingdom consisting of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, we cannot accept actions that undermine our territorial integrity."

Greenland's Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said the territory was willing to cooperate with the United States and other countries, but only on the basis of mutual respect.

He said: "The appointment of a special envoy does not change anything for us. We decide our own future. Greenland belongs to Greenlanders, and territorial integrity must be respected."

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has revived his long-standing interest with Greenland, citing its strategic location and mineral wealth.

He has refused to rule out using force to secure control of the island, a stance that has shocked Denmark, a Nato ally that has traditionally enjoyed close relations with Washington.

Greenland, home to about 57,000 people, has had extensive self-government since 1979, though defence and foreign policy remain in Danish hands. While most Greenlanders favour eventual independence from Denmark, opinion polls show overwhelming opposition to becoming part of the US.

The dispute comes as strategic competition in the Arctic grows, with melting ice opening new shipping routes and increasing access to valuable mineral resources.

Greenland's location between North America and Europe also makes it central to US and Nato security planning and puts it on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States.

Vince Zampella, who co-created the widely-popular video game Call of Duty, has died in a car crash in California, aged 55.

Zampella's death was confirmed by Electronic Arts, which owns Respawn Entertainment, a game studio he co-founded.

The influential video game developer died after his car crashed and caught fire on a highway in Los Angeles on Sunday, US media report.

"This is an unimaginable loss, and our hearts are with Vince's family, his loved ones, and all those touched by his work," a spokesperson for Electronic Arts told the BBC.