A new year, a new beginning.

The latest monthly figures on the economy hardly confirm a change of gear, but nor do they back up the worst doom-mongers claiming decline and recession. It is neither doom nor boom, but a new year makes an opportunity to wipe the slate clean on policy, on a sense of certainty, and perhaps above all, the vibes in the economy.

There is one chart that might explain quite a lot about both the state of and the prospects for the UK economy. And it might say a fair bit about the political direction of the UK too.

It is consumer confidence. These are the long-running surveys that essentially put the nation on the economic psychiatric couch. How do you feel about the economy's prospects? Are you likely to buy a major piece of equipment? How are your personal finances?

There is a solid data source of consistently asked questions going back five decades - it is the measure now called the GfK Consumer Confidence Barometer.

I've been reporting on this metric for half of its existence. It's an imperfect science but the basic idea to reach the net confidence number is the optimism score minus the pessimism score.

The patterns then were interesting and consistent. And it was important as a predictor for those in power to stay in power. "It's the Economy Stupid", remember.

But has something significant changed in the water? This chart is quite extraordinary and a version of it has been circulated at the top of government.

A quick narration is in order.

This chart breaks down the headline net confidence number by age cohort.

Broadly speaking they used to move together, they were "correlated".

Younger people have a generally sunnier starting point but that dims as they age - not a great surprise - and all age groups react to events similarly.

Over the past decade you can see correlated declines in consumer confidence across all age groups in reaction to the post-Brexit vote era and the impact of the pandemic.

An interesting takeaway is how devastating the Liz Truss mini-budget in 2022 was for all age groups. A loss of confidence in the 45-day government and in economic prospects.

And up until 2024 all those lines move in tandem.

But what happens in late 2024? Divergence. Big time.

The under-50s' consumer confidence goes higher, and soars for the under-30s to highs not seen since Brexit.

But take a look at the bottom two red lines. Over-50s' and over-60s' consumer confidence collapses toward Truss-era levels.

How can it be that the over 50s, and pensioners in particular, are living through another collapse in economic confidence, and yet the young adult population is much more positive?

Well the dotted line is the 2024 General Election. And while correlation does not mean causation, that is when this age-related break occurs.

Votes affecting vibes

A possible explanation from political economy is this - the flow of causality from economic sentiment to political sentiment has reversed.

Where how you felt about your finances influenced how you voted, now how you voted influences how you feel about your finances and the economic outlook for the country.

Young people broadly on the liberal left are now happier after enduring a rolling series of crises so far this decade, and with a government they largely voted for in 2024.

The older, who voted Conservative and Reform predominantly, are unhappy and unconvinced. They think the country has gone to the dogs even more than usual.

One possible factor is the tone set by social media and the emotive doom-scrolling and rage magnets embodied in their algorithms. Is this demographic seeing the Mad Max-style dystopia presented on their social media feeds and responding with this negative outlook?

There is also some evidence in the US of respondents to one consumer sentiment survey exhibiting a political tint on their sense of economic confidence. In the transition between the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations at the end of 2020, Democrats respondents' economic confidence surged from 67 to 96, while Republicans' crashed from 100 to 59.

The Biden administration then bemoaned what staffers called the "Vibecession" - the subsequent sense of economic malaise not really reflected in good economic numbers.

Rates a double-edged sword

There are other economic factors at play.

This rebound in confidence for the young coincides with when the Bank of England started cutting interest rates. Rate cuts are good for young home seekers and jobseekers, but bad for older savers.

There are significant economic consequences if this picture is correct too.

It might help explain the curiously high and nearly double-digit UK savings rate. That looks like a pandemic-style aberration. Older Britain is sat on its savings, despondent about the country and the economy, refusing to spend its money and weighing down GDP, even as pay rises for workers remain higher on average than the rate of inflation.

The takeaways from this chart are also well-reflected in the early financial results we are getting from businesses.

Many retail results have defied the gloom. Some bosses that complain the most about National Insurance rises seem to be reporting healthy sales and profits having basically paid for the tax.

Pub chain Mitchells & Butlers "traded very strongly across the festive season with like-for-like growth of 7.7%". Fullers had an "outstanding five-week Christmas and New Year season across all parts of the estate", 8% up on an already strong festive period last year.

Obviously challenges remain in the level of price rises. But inflation is on its way down to the 2% target, with a conscious attempt from government to limit regulated price rises for rail and water.

More rate cuts will come slowly, and the impact of previous cuts will also filter into the household sector.

A mortgage price war may be on its way to help a housing market rebound after months of Budget uncertainty.

The government will hope to draw a line under a tumultuous 2025, with what they hope is an investment boom typified by recent announcements on Heathrow and on a new northern train line.

So there's a platform to defy the doom. But could people's now politically charged perceptions of economic confidence be a brake on all that?

Sienna Rose is having a good month.

Three of her dusky, jazz-infused soul songs are in Spotify's Viral Top 50. The most popular, a dreamy ballad called Into The Blue, has been played more than five million times.

If she continues on this trajectory, Rose could become one of the year's hottest new stars.

There's only one problem: All the signs indicate she's not real.

Streaming service Deezer, which has developed tools to tackle AI music, told the BBC that "many of her albums and songs on the platform are detected and flagged" as computer generated.

Look closer and you'll see the indications of an AI artist. Rose has no social media presence, has never played a gig, has no videos, and has released an improbable number of songs in a short space of time.

Between 28 September and 5 December, she uploaded at least 45 tracks to streaming services. Even Prince, an artist known for restless creative mania, would have struggled to match that figure.

Her Instagram account, which is currently deactivated, featured a strangely homogenous series of headshots, all showing the gauzy, unreal lighting that's characteristic of AI image generators.

Then there's the music itself. Songs like Into The Blue and Breathe Again sit neatly next to Norah Jones or Alicia Keys, full of jazzy guitar lines and buttery smooth vocals.

But many listeners have noted what they have identified as "AI artefacts".

Play Under The Rain or Breathe Again and you'll hear a telltale hiss running throughout the tracks.

That's a common trait of music generated on apps like Suno and Udio - partly because of the way they start with white noise and gradually refine it until it resembles music.

It's this quirk that enables Deezer to flag AI songs.

"When the [software] adds all the layers and the instruments, it introduces errors," explains Gabriel Meseguer-Brocal, a senior research scientist for the streaming company.

"They're not perceptual, we cannot listen to them, but they're easy to spot if you do a few mathematical operations."

The errors act like a fingerprint, Meseguer-Brocal says, with a "unique signature" that means it's possible to detect which piece of software was used to create any piece of music.

For casual listeners, there are other signs: Inconsistent drum patterns, bland lyrics, and a singer who never strays from the melody or lets rip on the final chorus.

That "generic" sound has been the biggest clue for some of Sienna Rose's listeners.

"I was like, 'I like this', but there was something that was very 'uncanny valley'," said TikTok music critic Elosi57.

"So I went to look [at her profile] and I was like, 'This is AI'."

Another user posted on X: "Started listening to Olivia Dean (fantastic). Within two days Spotify recommended Sienna Rose, who has a similar, but more generic sound. Took me a few songs to realise she's AI."

Broadcaster Gemma Cairney told BBC Radio 4: "The photographs of her do look a little bit unreal... And having listened to the music, is there just some of the soul in the soul missing?"

To be fair, many others have fallen for Rose's songs.

Among them is pop star Selena Gomez, who used the Rose track Where Your Warmth Begins as the background for an Instagram post about Sunday's Golden Globes.

The song was later removed when questions about Rose's identity spread online, but Gomez's post took interest in Rose and her identity to a new level.

And many of the listeners who'd been playing Rose's music reacted with dismay when they learned she might not exist.

"Please tell me she's real," pined one on Threads.

"I'm disappointed cuz a couple of her songs came on and the music isn't BAD," agreed another on Bluesky. "[But] somebody said once you know then it sounds soulless' and I agree."

AI music ban

Of course, it's entirely possible that everyone has got it wrong, and Sienna Rose is a real singer who shuns the limelight. Maybe she's in witness protection. Perhaps she's a real singer, stuck in a contractual dispute with her label, and releasing music under a pseudonym.

If so, I'm sorry. It must be crushing to have your music labelled as soulless "slop". But that's indicative of the problem facing the entire music industry right now.

AI software is becoming so sophisticated that clone artists are competing with genuine musicians.

In Sweden this week, a chart-topping song was banned from the charts after journalists discovered the artist behind it, Jacub, didn't exist.

There are many people - both in tech companies and the business side of the music industry - who want to see AI succeed.

The costs of launching an act like Sienna Rose are practically zero, but her music is making an estimated £2,000 in royalties per week.

Compare that to the K-Pop industry, where labels invest an average of $1m (£750,000) per member of a girl or boy group per year, and you can see the attraction.

Interestingly, several of Rose's songs are credited to New York indie record label Broke - who have a track record in turning viral artists like bbno$ and Ndotz into chart stars.

If you visit their website, Rose isn't listed as one of their signings - but British dance act Haven are.

If that name rings a bell, it's because they got into trouble late last year for creating a song using an AI clone of Jorja Smith's voice.

Their song, Run, was removed from streaming services after record industry bodies issued takedown notices, alleging the track violated copyright - but was re-recorded with human vocals, and entered the UK Top 10 two weeks ago.

The BBC has contacted Broke to ask about their relationship with Sienna Rose, but has yet to receive a reply.

The BBC has also contacted another label, Nostalgic Records, which lists Rose on its website.

Nostalgic Records' biography claims she is "London-based" and says she is "not just a performer, but a storyteller of the heart".

Deezer says 34% of the songs uploaded to its streaming service - about 50,000 per day - are AI-generated.

"Eighteen months ago, it was around 5% or 6%," says Meseguer-Brocal. "It's kind of shocking how quickly it's increasing."

Still, Deezer hasn't gone as far as online music store Bandcamp, which this week announced it was banning all AI-generated music.

In a statement, Spotify defended the presence of artists like Rose on its playlists.

"It's not always possible to draw a simple line between 'AI' and 'non-AI' music," a spokesperson said. "Spotify does not create or own any music, and does not promote or penalise tracks created using AI tools."

In the meantime, a backlash against AI music is growing.

Last year, artists including Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Damon Albarn, the Pet Shop Boys and Annie Lennox released a "silent album" protesting against companies who train their AI models on copyrighted work without permission.

Speaking at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2024, pop star Raye told me she believed fans would always choose real music over algorithmically-generated filler.

"There's no reason to feel a threat," she said. "I don't write because I'm trying to be the best writer. I write because I'm trying to tell my story.

"I'm trying to lift off some weight I've been carrying or I'm trying to express myself and feel better."

At the same event, Kojey Radical said he wasn't worried about AI when he couldn't even trust his washing machine to start at the right time.

"Why is everyone trying to make me scared of the robots?" he laughed.

"I'm not scared of the robots. I will win."

Justice Secretary David Lammy has intervened to block the transfer of a killer to an open prison after it emerged he had released drill music with lyrics referencing the murder, under a pseudonym.

Jake Fahri was sentenced to life in 2009 for killing 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen by throwing an oven dish at him that shattered and severed the arteries in his neck.

He was released on licence in 2023 but was later recalled after the Sun published a story that alleged Fahri was making music, including about the murder, as balaclava-clad artist TEN.

Two years on, the Parole Board has said he should now be moved to an open prison - but a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said Lammy's intervention was for "public protection".

In its decision summary, the board had said Farhi had initially disputed that the music was "about his own life" but after being recalled to prison, he accepted that he was the artist TEN.

It added that Farhi "needed to reflect" on "why he failed to be open and honest with the professionals managing his case" but this "could be achieved" in an open prison.

Lammy's reversal has been welcomed by Mizen's mother Margaret, who told the Sun she was "shocked" by the Parole Board's initial recommendation.

"I would much prefer this decision didn't have to be made because he would have turned his life around. I'm really sad that he hasn't," she said.

But the reversal shows Farhi had "not changed his attitude".

"He got into the witness box at his trial and lied through his teeth. Clearly, he hasn't changed, and I'm glad the justice secretary has seen through it."

Farhi had been given a minimum 14 year prison term - but, as with all minimum terms, that is the point at which release can be considered, usually with conditions attached about the criminal's behaviour outside prison.

Music by TEN was showcased on BBC 1Xtra. who were unaware of his real identity at the time of broadcast.

There is fresh paint in Reform HQ - and a fresh face in its line-up.

Before Thursday, the last time Robert Jenrick walked into Millbank Tower, a fabled address in Westminster where lots of political campaigns have been run, was decades ago as an eager Conservative activist.

Now, he's Reform UK's biggest prize so far - the best-known Tory to defect, and a favourite of Conservative party members.

Like or loathe Jenrick's tactics he has campaigning guile, a knack for grabbing headlines, experience of government, knowledge of Parliament and, of course, insider knowledge of what Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and her team are up to.

So how will this big political character adapt to a new political tribe? And could his huge move be swallowed up by a big fight on the right, at a time when Reform UK are busy trying to appeal to the whole country?

From speaking to Jenrick yesterday, he is plainly deadly serious about his political future, hitching his wagon to the biggest party in the polls right now. But any defection brings with it deep questions about whether that person can be trusted.

Some Conservatives are accusing him of lying and treachery. They say he sat in meetings with colleagues in the last seven days discussing party strategy normally.

He even, one source claimed to me, told the chief whip when challenged on the morning of his defection that it was "nonsense" and that he was "gobsmacked".

Hours later, Jenrick did appear grinning alongside Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for the public handshake sealing the deal after, remember, being sacked.

Did he serially deny thinking about going to Reform in the last few months?

Yes.

Do we know now that he'd been talking to them since the autumn?

Yes to that too.

Jenrick's answer to accusations of lying, and to the evidence he misled people, is to claim he is the one now being truly honest about the state of the country and the demise of the Conservative Party. He told us that he'd only made a final decision to leave at Christmas.

Whether you have sympathy for him, think his behaviour is appalling, or something in between, there's clearly a poisonous row raging over what he did. That row does nothing for the sense of trust in politicians.

He wouldn't be drawn on whether it was one of his own team who leaked his plans to defect, but you can be sure today won't be the last word on that.

One of the reasons for Jenrick's exit from the Tories is that he wanted to strike a more strident tone than his colleagues were willing to do. Political parties traditionally stand or fall on being able to disagree privately but agree in public. Without that discipline, it's chaos.

We asked him if he now agreed with Reform's position on benefits for bigger families – his answer was that the party "needs to think it through". Not exactly the same as the script.

And what about the NHS? Jenrick wasn't ready to agree with Farage's previous comments that it could possibly move to an insurance-based model. But it highlights an area where Reform will be under pressure to take a clearer position.

Political parties aren't just about what colour your banner or tie is, but what you believe in and stand for.

Once upon at time, Jenrick was seen as a 'Cameroon', a devotee of David Cameron's Waitrose-style politics: modern, socially liberal, middle-class-friendly. It is one thing to shift right, shaped by changes in the country and his own experience at the Home Office, for which he quit government in frustration. It's another to take the leap into a party that has a whole different system of beliefs.

And politicians are by nature ambitious people. Jenrick told me he hadn't been offered a job by Farage, but it's crackers to imagine that he doesn't want a prominent position.

How will his arrival go down with Reform's small number of other big names - Richard Tice or Zia Yusuf? Ambition - for themselves and their party, and, they'd say, the country - is what gets politicians out of bed in the morning. Sharing the spotlight is not something they all exactly love.

Jenrick told me he and Farage's previous barbs against each other were just "rough and tumble".

But given their exchanges have involved trading insults including fraud, hypocrite and unserious, we'll have to see how their working relationship evolves.

Jenrick's defection raises one of the biggest questions in politics right now; whether Reform UK can, as Jenrick says he wants to, "unite the right".

It has spent months miles ahead in the polls even as the Tories have pepped up a touch in recent weeks. But as Jenrick himself used to claim, there is a risk that if voters choose Reform that will split the votes on the right, making it easier for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to win next time round.

Truly "uniting the right" would require the Tories limping off - or, what right now seems far-fetched, the opposite. Or indeed doing a deal, which both groups swear blind they wouldn't.

There's no sign Badenoch has the appetite for anything other than a fight to the death.

As Chris Mason wrote yesterday, there is a risk that recruiting Jenrick and others gives Reform the flavour of being a repository for grumpy Conservatives, not the radical insurgent force Farage would like to claim. But nothing would suit Labour more than for the two to stay locked in combat, reminding the public of years of Tory spats and showing that both Reform and the Conservatives are focused on each other, not No 10.

Jenrick has clearly thought deeply about leaving the party that gave him his career and the opportunity to wield power. Over time, you can see that he has come to believe that the problems of the country need something more radical than either of the traditional big parties are prepared to countenance.

Reform will now have his knowledge and backing to help answer that call with a credible offer to the public. The Conservatives, in his view, need more than a fresh coat of paint.

Top image credit: Getty Images

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Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has insisted Britain is not broken after her former minister Robert Jenrick criticised the party for failing to campaign on that line.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, she said: "Ours is still one of the most successful, resilient and influential countries on Earth," adding that telling voters their "country is finished" only "drags them down".

She also insisted that the Conservatives were stronger after Jenrick was sacked, ahead of his defection to Reform.

In an interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg on Friday, Jenrick said a shadow cabinet meeting where colleagues failed to agree that the country was broken had been the final straw for him.

In her editorial, Badenoch said there were problems in the UK, some of which were getting worse, but that the country's best days lay ahead.

She insisted the Conservatives were best placed to offer solutions to the country's problems, saying that Reform were destined to fail as they welcomed "toxic people" who "destroy organisations".

"A movement built on grievance and serial disloyalty is doomed to fail, and they will be at each other's throats soon enough," the opposition leader wrote.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice praised Jenrick as "the only cabinet minister who resigned on a matter of principle from the Conservative government".

This was in reference to Jenrick's decision to resign from Rishi Sunak's government, saying it was not going far enough to find a solution to fast-rising immigration levels.

Tice continued: "That makes him uniquely qualified to actually to explain where things went so badly wrong on both legal and illegal immigration, which is to the fury of tens of millions of British people."

Badenoch said that Jenrick's defection "was never about principle, it was about ambition" and "every criticism he now makes occurred when he was in government".

The Conservative party are now a "stronger and more united team", she wrote.

Badenoch hopes her sacking of Jenrick will strengthen her position as Tory leader and make her look decisive.

But Reform UK now has a new, prominent MP who is intent on publicising what he sees are the many mistakes of his former party.

Four people have been taken to hospital and several people have been arrested after a protest outside the Iranian embassy in London.

One protester climbed across balconies onto the embassy roof removing a flag on Friday night before being detained, said police.

It added police officers had been injured after missiles were thrown at them, although the ambulance service has not said whether it was police or protesters who were taken to hospital.

Demonstrations have been taking place outside the embassy after widespread anti-government protests in Iran, where more than 2,600 protesters have been killed, according to a US-based human rights group.

The man who removed a flag from the embassy's roof was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage, trespass on diplomatic property and assaulting police, the Metropolitan Police said.

It added "a number" of people had also been arrested on suspicion of violent disorder and a section 35 dispersal order had been imposed outside the embassy "as a result of ongoing disorder".

"A significant police presence remains in place, including additional officers who have been deployed during the evening to prevent further disorder."

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said it was called at 20:45 GMT "to reports of an incident at the junction of Exhibition Road and Kensington Road".

Four people had been taken to hospital while two others were treated at the scene, it said.

Earlier this week the Iranian ambassador in London was summoned to the Foreign Office after the killings of protesters in Iran.

Last Saturday, two people were arrested at a protest outside the embassy where a protester also climbed onto the building's balcony and appeared to tear down the Iranian flag.

Taking paracetamol while pregnant is safe and there's no evidence it raises the risk of autism, ADHD and developmental issues in children, say experts behind a major new review.

Pregnant women "should feel reassured" by the findings, they say, which contradict controversial claims from US President Donald Trump last year that paracetamol "is no good" and pregnant women should "fight like hell" not to take it.

His views were criticised at the time by medical organisations worldwide. Experts say this latest review, in a Lancet journal, is rigorous and should end the debate over its safety.

But US health officials maintain that "many experts" have expressed concern over its use during pregnancy.

The US President shocked many doctors worldwide when he and his administration claimed paracetamol or a branded version called Tylenol - which is seen as the go-to painkiller for pregnant women - could be linked to autism in children, if taken during pregnancy.

Those claims led to confusion among women and concern among health experts, and prompted this new research.

Published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Women's Health, it looked at 43 of the most robust studies into paracetamol use during pregnancy, involving hundreds of thousands of women, particularly those comparing pregnancies where the mother had taken the drug to pregnancies where she hadn't.

The researchers say using these high-quality studies of siblings means they can dismiss other factors such as different genes and family environments, which makes their review "gold-standard".

The research also looked at studies with a low risk of bias and those that followed children for more than five years to check for any link.

"When we did this analysis, we found no links, there was no association, there's no evidence that paracetamol increases the risk of autism," lead study author and consultant obstetrician Professor Asma Khalil, told the BBC.

"The message is clear – paracetamol remains a safe option during pregnancy when taken as guided," she added.

This reinforces guidance from major medical organisations in the UK, US and Europe on the safety of the common painkiller.

Any previously-reported links between the drug and an increased risk of autism are likely to be explained by other factors, rather than a direct effect of the paracetamol itself, the review says.

"This is important as paracetamol is the first-line medication we recommend for pregnant women in pain or with a fever," said Prof Khalil, professor of maternal fetal medicine at City St George's, University of London.

Health advice warns that women can run the risk of harming their baby if they don't take paracetamol to bring down a high temperature or relieve pain when pregnant. This can increase the risk of miscarriage, premature birth or developmental problems in babies.

Medical experts not involved in the research have welcomed the study's findings, saying it will help reduce worry among women.

Prof Grainne McAlonnan, from King's College London, said expectant mothers "do not need the stress of questioning whether medicine most commonly used for a headache could have far reaching effects on their child's health".

"I hope the findings of this study bring the matter to a close," she said.

Prof Ian Douglas, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the review was "well-conducted" because it excluded studies of lower quality, where no account was taken of important differences between mothers who use or don't use paracetamol during pregnancy, such as underlying illnesses.

According to Prof Jan Haavik, molecular neuroscientist and clinical psychiatrist at the University of Bergen, the study provides "strong evidence" that use of paracetamol during pregnancy does not increase the risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability and "should effectively put this question to rest".

It is widely believed by scientists working in this field that autism is the result of a complex mix of factors, including genetic and environmental ones.

A spokesman from the US Department of Health and Human Services said "many experts" had expressed concern over the use of acetaminophen - the US name for paracetamol - during pregnancy.

For example, a review in August 2025 led by Dr Andrew Baccarelli, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, found that using acetaminophen during pregnancy may increase children's autism and ADHD risk, and urged caution over "especially heavy or prolonged use".

Months earlier, Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr had pledged to find out the cause of a steep rise in reported autism cases.

In a controversial speech in the Oval Office in September, the US president said doctors would be advised not to prescribe the pain reliever to pregnant women.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) then issued a letter to clinicians urging them to be cautious about the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy, while also saying it was still the only drug approved for treating fevers during pregnancy.

On its website, the FDA says "a causal relationship" between the drug and neurological conditions "has not been established".

Health officials in the UK have stressed that paracetamol remains the safest painkiller available to pregnant women.

Justice Secretary David Lammy has intervened to block the transfer of a killer to an open prison after it emerged he had released drill music with lyrics referencing the murder, under a pseudonym.

Jake Fahri was sentenced to life in 2009 for killing 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen by throwing an oven dish at him that shattered and severed the arteries in his neck.

He was released on licence in 2023 but was later recalled after the Sun published a story that alleged Fahri was making music, including about the murder, as balaclava-clad artist TEN.

Two years on, the Parole Board has said he should now be moved to an open prison - but a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said Lammy's intervention was for "public protection".

In its decision summary, the board had said Farhi had initially disputed that the music was "about his own life" but after being recalled to prison, he accepted that he was the artist TEN.

It added that Farhi "needed to reflect" on "why he failed to be open and honest with the professionals managing his case" but this "could be achieved" in an open prison.

Lammy's reversal has been welcomed by Mizen's mother Margaret, who told the Sun she was "shocked" by the Parole Board's initial recommendation.

"I would much prefer this decision didn't have to be made because he would have turned his life around. I'm really sad that he hasn't," she said.

But the reversal shows Farhi had "not changed his attitude".

"He got into the witness box at his trial and lied through his teeth. Clearly, he hasn't changed, and I'm glad the justice secretary has seen through it."

Farhi had been given a minimum 14 year prison term - but, as with all minimum terms, that is the point at which release can be considered, usually with conditions attached about the criminal's behaviour outside prison.

Music by TEN was showcased on BBC 1Xtra. who were unaware of his real identity at the time of broadcast.

There is fresh paint in Reform HQ - and a fresh face in its line-up.

Before Thursday, the last time Robert Jenrick walked into Millbank Tower, a fabled address in Westminster where lots of political campaigns have been run, was decades ago as an eager Conservative activist.

Now, he's Reform UK's biggest prize so far - the best-known Tory to defect, and a favourite of Conservative party members.

Like or loathe Jenrick's tactics he has campaigning guile, a knack for grabbing headlines, experience of government, knowledge of Parliament and, of course, insider knowledge of what Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and her team are up to.

So how will this big political character adapt to a new political tribe? And could his huge move be swallowed up by a big fight on the right, at a time when Reform UK are busy trying to appeal to the whole country?

From speaking to Jenrick yesterday, he is plainly deadly serious about his political future, hitching his wagon to the biggest party in the polls right now. But any defection brings with it deep questions about whether that person can be trusted.

Some Conservatives are accusing him of lying and treachery. They say he sat in meetings with colleagues in the last seven days discussing party strategy normally.

He even, one source claimed to me, told the chief whip when challenged on the morning of his defection that it was "nonsense" and that he was "gobsmacked".

Hours later, Jenrick did appear grinning alongside Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for the public handshake sealing the deal after, remember, being sacked.

Did he serially deny thinking about going to Reform in the last few months?

Yes.

Do we know now that he'd been talking to them since the autumn?

Yes to that too.

Jenrick's answer to accusations of lying, and to the evidence he misled people, is to claim he is the one now being truly honest about the state of the country and the demise of the Conservative Party. He told us that he'd only made a final decision to leave at Christmas.

Whether you have sympathy for him, think his behaviour is appalling, or something in between, there's clearly a poisonous row raging over what he did. That row does nothing for the sense of trust in politicians.

He wouldn't be drawn on whether it was one of his own team who leaked his plans to defect, but you can be sure today won't be the last word on that.

One of the reasons for Jenrick's exit from the Tories is that he wanted to strike a more strident tone than his colleagues were willing to do. Political parties traditionally stand or fall on being able to disagree privately but agree in public. Without that discipline, it's chaos.

We asked him if he now agreed with Reform's position on benefits for bigger families – his answer was that the party "needs to think it through". Not exactly the same as the script.

And what about the NHS? Jenrick wasn't ready to agree with Farage's previous comments that it could possibly move to an insurance-based model. But it highlights an area where Reform will be under pressure to take a clearer position.

Political parties aren't just about what colour your banner or tie is, but what you believe in and stand for.

Once upon at time, Jenrick was seen as a 'Cameroon', a devotee of David Cameron's Waitrose-style politics: modern, socially liberal, middle-class-friendly. It is one thing to shift right, shaped by changes in the country and his own experience at the Home Office, for which he quit government in frustration. It's another to take the leap into a party that has a whole different system of beliefs.

And politicians are by nature ambitious people. Jenrick told me he hadn't been offered a job by Farage, but it's crackers to imagine that he doesn't want a prominent position.

How will his arrival go down with Reform's small number of other big names - Richard Tice or Zia Yusuf? Ambition - for themselves and their party, and, they'd say, the country - is what gets politicians out of bed in the morning. Sharing the spotlight is not something they all exactly love.

Jenrick told me he and Farage's previous barbs against each other were just "rough and tumble".

But given their exchanges have involved trading insults including fraud, hypocrite and unserious, we'll have to see how their working relationship evolves.

Jenrick's defection raises one of the biggest questions in politics right now; whether Reform UK can, as Jenrick says he wants to, "unite the right".

It has spent months miles ahead in the polls even as the Tories have pepped up a touch in recent weeks. But as Jenrick himself used to claim, there is a risk that if voters choose Reform that will split the votes on the right, making it easier for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to win next time round.

Truly "uniting the right" would require the Tories limping off - or, what right now seems far-fetched, the opposite. Or indeed doing a deal, which both groups swear blind they wouldn't.

There's no sign Badenoch has the appetite for anything other than a fight to the death.

As Chris Mason wrote yesterday, there is a risk that recruiting Jenrick and others gives Reform the flavour of being a repository for grumpy Conservatives, not the radical insurgent force Farage would like to claim. But nothing would suit Labour more than for the two to stay locked in combat, reminding the public of years of Tory spats and showing that both Reform and the Conservatives are focused on each other, not No 10.

Jenrick has clearly thought deeply about leaving the party that gave him his career and the opportunity to wield power. Over time, you can see that he has come to believe that the problems of the country need something more radical than either of the traditional big parties are prepared to countenance.

Reform will now have his knowledge and backing to help answer that call with a credible offer to the public. The Conservatives, in his view, need more than a fresh coat of paint.

Top image credit: Getty Images

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Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth says he would prefer to form a minority government than enter a coalition with another party after the Senedd election.

His comments came after an opinion poll published earlier this week suggested Plaid was on course to win the Welsh election on 7 May.

Previous polls have suggested Plaid and Reform UK are battling to come out on top - but with neither party winning enough seats to be able to pass laws and spending plans without the support of opposition politicians.

Polling expert Dr Jac Larner from Cardiff University said the latest poll could see Plaid win 45 seats, which would leave it four seats short of a majority in the new 96-seat parliament.

Recent polls have sparked ongoing speculation around how Plaid would govern if they won the election but failed to win more than half the seats.

Speaking to the Gwleidydda podcast on BBC's Radio Cymru, ap Iorwerth said it was his party's "wish" to form a minority government made up of only Plaid ministers.

He said the latest opinion poll "confirms what I've felt for a while, which is that we can - if we fight an effective election and build trust with people - lead a minority government and do that successfully".

He added that he was "determined that that minority government would make it clear from the start to whoever else is in that part of the [political] spectrum that we want to work together".

"We'll look at who we can work with, issue by issue, policy by policy, budget by budget and so on," he added.

"I think it could be the beginning of a period of mature cooperation within government."

Ap Iorwerth's interview with Gwleidydda was part of a series the podcast is doing with prominent figures from all the major parties.

Responding to ap Iorwerth's comments, Prof Richard Wyn Jones from the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University told the podcast: "Of course it's easier to say that when the opinion polls suggest at the moment they aren't far from a majority.

"If you've got a small minority, it much more difficult to run a government."

He also suggested the comments could be a way to "avoid questions and accusations" from the Conservatives and Reform UK that victory for Plaid Cymru at the election would still put Labour in a position of power.

What happens if there's no majority?

No party has ever won a majority in Cardiff Bay, and the upcoming changes to the voting system make it highly unlikely that will change at this election.

Labour has won the most seats at every previous Senedd contest, but without a majority it has always had to strike a deal of some kind with an opposition party.

At times that has led to formal coalitions. This is where at least one member of an opposition party joins the government's ministerial team – giving their party a voice at the cabinet table in exchange for its continued support.

Cardiff Bay has also seen agreements short of a full coalition, with the most recent example being the cooperation deal between Labour and Plaid Cymru between 2021 and 2024.

This saw the Welsh Labour government commit to deliver some Plaid Cymru policies, in exchange for Plaid's support when it came to passing the government's annual budget.

If his party wins the election, Rhun ap Iorwerth is hoping he can avoid both of the above options and run a minority government, where votes are agreed on a case by case basis.

Ultimately what the next first minister decides to do will depend entirely on the makeup of the new Senedd.

After all, as former US President Lyndon B. Johnson said: the first rule of politics is to learn how to count.

Sienna Rose is having a good month.

Three of her dusky, jazz-infused soul songs are in Spotify's Viral Top 50. The most popular, a dreamy ballad called Into The Blue, has been played more than five million times.

If she continues on this trajectory, Rose could become one of the year's hottest new stars.

There's only one problem: All the signs indicate she's not real.

Streaming service Deezer, which has developed tools to tackle AI music, told the BBC that "many of her albums and songs on the platform are detected and flagged" as computer generated.

Look closer and you'll see the indications of an AI artist. Rose has no social media presence, has never played a gig, has no videos, and has released an improbable number of songs in a short space of time.

Between 28 September and 5 December, she uploaded at least 45 tracks to streaming services. Even Prince, an artist known for restless creative mania, would have struggled to match that figure.

Her Instagram account, which is currently deactivated, featured a strangely homogenous series of headshots, all showing the gauzy, unreal lighting that's characteristic of AI image generators.

Then there's the music itself. Songs like Into The Blue and Breathe Again sit neatly next to Norah Jones or Alicia Keys, full of jazzy guitar lines and buttery smooth vocals.

But many listeners have noted what they have identified as "AI artefacts".

Play Under The Rain or Breathe Again and you'll hear a telltale hiss running throughout the tracks.

That's a common trait of music generated on apps like Suno and Udio - partly because of the way they start with white noise and gradually refine it until it resembles music.

It's this quirk that enables Deezer to flag AI songs.

"When the [software] adds all the layers and the instruments, it introduces errors," explains Gabriel Meseguer-Brocal, a senior research scientist for the streaming company.

"They're not perceptual, we cannot listen to them, but they're easy to spot if you do a few mathematical operations."

The errors act like a fingerprint, Meseguer-Brocal says, with a "unique signature" that means it's possible to detect which piece of software was used to create any piece of music.

For casual listeners, there are other signs: Inconsistent drum patterns, bland lyrics, and a singer who never strays from the melody or lets rip on the final chorus.

That "generic" sound has been the biggest clue for some of Sienna Rose's listeners.

"I was like, 'I like this', but there was something that was very 'uncanny valley'," said TikTok music critic Elosi57.

"So I went to look [at her profile] and I was like, 'This is AI'."

Another user posted on X: "Started listening to Olivia Dean (fantastic). Within two days Spotify recommended Sienna Rose, who has a similar, but more generic sound. Took me a few songs to realise she's AI."

Broadcaster Gemma Cairney told BBC Radio 4: "The photographs of her do look a little bit unreal... And having listened to the music, is there just some of the soul in the soul missing?"

To be fair, many others have fallen for Rose's songs.

Among them is pop star Selena Gomez, who used the Rose track Where Your Warmth Begins as the background for an Instagram post about Sunday's Golden Globes.

The song was later removed when questions about Rose's identity spread online, but Gomez's post took interest in Rose and her identity to a new level.

And many of the listeners who'd been playing Rose's music reacted with dismay when they learned she might not exist.

"Please tell me she's real," pined one on Threads.

"I'm disappointed cuz a couple of her songs came on and the music isn't BAD," agreed another on Bluesky. "[But] somebody said once you know then it sounds soulless' and I agree."

AI music ban

Of course, it's entirely possible that everyone has got it wrong, and Sienna Rose is a real singer who shuns the limelight. Maybe she's in witness protection. Perhaps she's a real singer, stuck in a contractual dispute with her label, and releasing music under a pseudonym.

If so, I'm sorry. It must be crushing to have your music labelled as soulless "slop". But that's indicative of the problem facing the entire music industry right now.

AI software is becoming so sophisticated that clone artists are competing with genuine musicians.

In Sweden this week, a chart-topping song was banned from the charts after journalists discovered the artist behind it, Jacub, didn't exist.

There are many people - both in tech companies and the business side of the music industry - who want to see AI succeed.

The costs of launching an act like Sienna Rose are practically zero, but her music is making an estimated £2,000 in royalties per week.

Compare that to the K-Pop industry, where labels invest an average of $1m (£750,000) per member of a girl or boy group per year, and you can see the attraction.

Interestingly, several of Rose's songs are credited to New York indie record label Broke - who have a track record in turning viral artists like bbno$ and Ndotz into chart stars.

If you visit their website, Rose isn't listed as one of their signings - but British dance act Haven are.

If that name rings a bell, it's because they got into trouble late last year for creating a song using an AI clone of Jorja Smith's voice.

Their song, Run, was removed from streaming services after record industry bodies issued takedown notices, alleging the track violated copyright - but was re-recorded with human vocals, and entered the UK Top 10 two weeks ago.

The BBC has contacted Broke to ask about their relationship with Sienna Rose, but has yet to receive a reply.

The BBC has also contacted another label, Nostalgic Records, which lists Rose on its website.

Nostalgic Records' biography claims she is "London-based" and says she is "not just a performer, but a storyteller of the heart".

Deezer says 34% of the songs uploaded to its streaming service - about 50,000 per day - are AI-generated.

"Eighteen months ago, it was around 5% or 6%," says Meseguer-Brocal. "It's kind of shocking how quickly it's increasing."

Still, Deezer hasn't gone as far as online music store Bandcamp, which this week announced it was banning all AI-generated music.

In a statement, Spotify defended the presence of artists like Rose on its playlists.

"It's not always possible to draw a simple line between 'AI' and 'non-AI' music," a spokesperson said. "Spotify does not create or own any music, and does not promote or penalise tracks created using AI tools."

In the meantime, a backlash against AI music is growing.

Last year, artists including Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Damon Albarn, the Pet Shop Boys and Annie Lennox released a "silent album" protesting against companies who train their AI models on copyrighted work without permission.

Speaking at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2024, pop star Raye told me she believed fans would always choose real music over algorithmically-generated filler.

"There's no reason to feel a threat," she said. "I don't write because I'm trying to be the best writer. I write because I'm trying to tell my story.

"I'm trying to lift off some weight I've been carrying or I'm trying to express myself and feel better."

At the same event, Kojey Radical said he wasn't worried about AI when he couldn't even trust his washing machine to start at the right time.

"Why is everyone trying to make me scared of the robots?" he laughed.

"I'm not scared of the robots. I will win."

It's a busy day at Woodlands Checkpoint, Singapore's main land crossing on the border with Malaysia, and thousands of cars are slowly trundling past the watchful eyes of customs officer Belinda Liaw and her team.

Suddenly Liaw steps forward, signalling at a white Toyota van to stop. Her team swarms the vehicle immediately, their blue-gloved fists knocking all over the chassis to check for false compartments. Others question the driver, rifle through his belongings and scour his mobile phone.

They are searching for vapes - which the Singapore government has spent months waging war against.

Vapes or e-cigarettes have been banned in the city-state since 2018. But in recent years drug-laced vapes, known by their street name K-pods, have become popular on the black market - unnerving a country known for its zero tolerance of drugs.

Authorities have launched a harsh crackdown, putting in place tough punishments with more targeted laws on the way. Now, if you get caught with an e-cigarette in Singapore, you could be jailed, sent to state rehab, or even caned. A massive public health campaign has blanketed the island, warning Singaporeans of the dangers of vaping.

It comes as many countries consider tighter regulation. A World Health Organization (WHO) bulletin has called Singapore's campaign a "turning point" that will "influence the next decade of global tobacco and drug policy".

Could others follow suit?

"Okay, you can go."

Back at Woodlands Checkpoint, Liaw and her team of customs officers wave off the driver they were searching - he was clean.

Most vapes come to Singapore from Malaysia. Liaw told the BBC they once found vaping supplies stacked inside air-conditioning equipment and cartons of light switches. Another time, they searched a bread van and discovered thousands of vapes nestled within trays of buns.

In recent months smugglers have changed tactics by bringing in smaller batches squirrelled away in various parts of the vehicle - hence the thorough knocking.

Elsewhere at the checkpoint, the BBC saw officers screening lorries with large X-ray machines before climbing inside to inspect cargo, slashing through plastic wrapping with pen-knives and peering inside pallets with torchlights.

"The [smugglers'] methods are evolving, so we're evolving too… we have to work harder to detect more cases and stop all these vapes from coming in," explained Liaw.

Singapore first banned vapes in 2018 as a precaution while it weighed up the evidence on its effects on health, stating it would be "irresponsible to make a hasty decision".

But an underground market for e-cigarettes continued to thrive online. Singaporean vapers have told the BBC that even after 2018 they could easily purchase vape supplies via forums and chat apps.

Then, in recent years, a new product emerged on the black market – K-pods. These are vapes laced with etomidate, a type of anaesthetic which has the same mind-numbing effect as ketamine, hence the nickname.

Soon, videos of young people passing out in public or acting erratically on public transport – all after puffing on K-pods - went viral. Last July, a random test of 100 seized vapes found about one third contained etomidate.

The news shocked Singapore. Many asked how this was possible in a country that prides itself for keeping out most drugs through severe punishments, even for marijuana use, and a mandatory death penalty for traffickers.

Authorities quickly swung into action. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong declared that vaping was now a drug issue and his government would crack down not only on K-pods but all vapes.

"The vapes themselves are just delivery devices. The real danger is what's inside," warned Mr Wong last August. "Right now, it's etomidate. In future, it could be something worse, stronger, far more dangerous drugs."

In September the government rolled out new penalties for vapers including state-mandated rehabilitation and fines of up to 10,000 Singapore dollars (£5,765; $7,780).

The punishments are more severe for sellers, particularly those caught with drug-laced vapes. They could be jailed for up to 20 years and receive up to 15 strokes of the cane - a painful punishment where convicts are flogged on their buttocks.

Foreigners face the same punishments and can also be deported.

Strict rules have been introduced in schools where students caught with vapes could face suspensions, expulsion, and also caning.

More penalties are expected in the next few months, as the government comes up with legislation targeting etomidate and other drugs that could be found in vapes.

"Vape bins" have been placed across the island for users to dispose their devices without penalty. Authorities have also been conducting roving patrols and bag checks at bus and metro stations to catch those reluctant to voluntarily give up their vapes.

A hotline has been set up for the public to report anyone suspected of vaping – more than 2,600 reports were lodged in the first nine weeks.

For the last few months, it has been hard to escape a massive anti-vaping public health campaign.

Local media outlets have run countless stories on the dangers of vaping, while adverts have been plastered everywhere on the island and on social media. Many of them reference popular movies and TV shows in an effort to reach out to youths.

One advert has the tagline "Final Destination - ICU". Another, called "Danger Things", depicts vaping as something out of a zombie movie and references the Netflix hit Stranger Things.

Yet another advert references the TV show Breaking Bad - about a chemistry teacher turned druglord - with the tagline "Breaking Dad".

These adverts highlight real-life case studies such as a father whose teen daughter died from a fall while intoxicated from using K-pods, and a vaper who needed his lungs "washed" four times.

Singaporean authorities, who arrested nearly 2,000 people for vaping offences between September and November, say their clampdown has yielded results. They point to a declining percentage of drug-laced vapes which now make up less than a tenth of seized e-cigarettes, according to police figures.

Not many in Singapore appear to publicly oppose this crackdown – the majority of Singaporeans have long supported the government's tough drug policies. But online and in private, there are some who complain that the new restrictions go too far.

One vaper, who asked to be identified with the pseudonym Michael, said it "wasn't right" that the government was "strong-arming" him into giving up vaping.

"Cigarettes are known to be bad for you, right? Yet they're legal. Vaping is a big question. So do you want something that you know is going to harm you, or will you take a chance?"

"That's a personal choice, I think, and to just blanket-ban [vapes], I think it's sloppy, it's lazy… let the people choose for themselves," said Michael, who says he uses regular vapes.

Another vaper, who wanted to be known by the pseudonym Toby, said he could understand the need for a harsh crackdown, particularly to protect teens from gaining access to drugs via vapes. "It's not the most popular move, but it certainly is the most efficient… it's cutting the head off a snake," he admitted.

But he pointed out that before the crackdown, most e-cigarette users in Singapore were, like him, using regular vapes and not K-pods.

He felt the ban was not fair because "one bad apple spoils the whole batch. I feel that for a lot of the adults who don't take drugs, they have to suffer [this ban]… and they would have to go back to smoking," said Toby, who plans to switch back to smoking cigarettes.

Other Singaporeans have also questioned if the proliferation of drug-laced vapes was in part caused by the government's 2018 ban.

An editorial in independent magazine Jom pointed out that the ban created "incentives for black marketers to create the most high-value, addictive products".

This, in turn, led to the rising popularity of K-pods and the need for a harsher crackdown, which the Jom editorial deemed "the Great Panic of 2025".

In response, a Singapore health ministry spokesperson told the BBC that the government banned vaping before it becomes as "entrenched" as cigarette smoking, to "pre-emptively stop new harmful and addictive products from entering the market and prevent a new set of associated health issues".

"The fact that a black market can sell illicit substances to a small minority cannot possibly be the justification to make abuse of the substance a legitimate mainstream habit."

The dean of the Saw Swee Hock School Of Public Health at the National University of Singapore, Teo Yik Ying, has argued that Singapore did the right thing as "an outright ban has contained the problem".

"In contrast, countries that legalised vapes saw demand explode and youth uptake surge while illicit actors thrive anyway. In other words, regulation in lieu of a ban does not prevent illicit trade – it amplifies it by creating a vast consumer base to serve," he wrote in a commentary published last year.

Singapore's stance stands in contrast to some countries, like the UK, which see vaping as a less dangerous alternative to cigarettes and thus useful for helping people quit smoking.

The National Health Service (NHS) notes that while vaping is "not completely harmless" and that non-smokers and youths should not take it up, it is "less harmful than smoking".

The NHS also states that vaping is "one of the most effective tools" for smoking cessation.

Peter Hajek, a clinical psychologist and director of the health and lifestyle research unit at the Queen Mary University of London, argues that banning vaping is "detrimental to public health".

"It stops smokers who find giving up nicotine difficult from using a method that would help them avoid smoking related cancers, heart disease and lung disease; and it protects the cigarette trade from its much less risky competitor," said Prof Hajek, who has received research funding from manufacturers of stop-smoking medications but has no links with any tobacco or e-cigarettes manufacturers.

Banning all vapes because some e-cigarettes could contain drugs was akin to "banning suitcases because some people can carry drugs in them," said Prof Hajek. "Just ban drug vapes."

But there is also growing concern about the health implications of e-cigarette use, as the number of vapers worldwide swells to an estimated 100 million.

In the UK, a rise of vaping among students has led schools to ask the government for help in tackling what has been described as a "public health emergency".

Research in recent years indicates that vaping could potentially harm users' health by impairing blood vessels and causing lung injuries.

The WHO's current advice states that vaping has "not been proven effective" at the population level in helping smokers quit cigarettes.

Both the WHO and US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) insist that e-cigarettes are not completely safe and more research needs to be done on vaping's long-term effects on health.

Singapore's government has made up its mind.

It argues that vape pods could contain much higher doses of nicotine than cigarettes, making vaping "more addictive" and thus tougher to quit.

Singapore also argues that vapes are not safe because they contain "cancer-causing" chemicals, toxins and heavy metals. Some organisations like Cancer Research UK point out that the levels of these chemicals are low and that "there is no good evidence that vaping causes cancer".

While the level of its crackdown is rarely seen elsewhere, Singapore is far from the only country that has restricted vaping. At least 46 countries now ban the sale of vapes, while another 82 have some form of regulation.

The UK's Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which would ban the sale of vapes to under-18s and restrict vape advertising, is making its way through parliament. Australia has made e-cigarettes available only through doctors' prescriptions to quit smoking, while Belgium has banned disposable vapes with plans for further restrictions. Malaysia is targeting to ban all vapes this year.

Much of these efforts are aimed at limiting vape access for youths, a key target market for e-cigarette companies. The WHO estimates there are at least 15 million children – aged 13 to 15 years old – who use e-cigarettes, and that children are nine times more likely than adults to vape.

"If we're not careful, we're going to get a [vaping] epidemic that starts with the younger generations that would just get worse over time," said Yvette van der Eijk, who researches tobacco policies with the National University of Singapore.

She pointed out that cigarette smoking was "an example of how things can turn out if you don't nip these kind of issues in the bud", and warned the world was at risk of "repeating history" if it does not curb vaping soon. A ban like Singapore's, she said, was "more prudent".

But few places in the world are like Singapore, whose tiny size and powerful government have enabled it to effectively enforce a strict ban.

There is also the question of how long any country, let alone Singapore, could sustain a prolonged and exacting war against vapes.

In recent months following the crackdown, vapers in Singapore say it is still possible to get their supplies.

And when it gets too difficult, they can simply cross the border into Indonesian and Malaysian towns, which have reportedly seen thriving demand for vapes from travelling Singaporeans. One Indonesian tourism official has touted the nearby island of Batam as an "alternative [place] to enjoy vapes".

Toby, the vaper who is switching to cigarettes, pointed out that Singapore's crackdown treats vaping as a vice, and "any vice is like a cockroach".

"You can try to kill it, try to enforce against it - but you can never fully get rid of it."

The first crewed Moon mission in more than 50 years could be launched by Nasa as soon as the first week of February.

The Artemis II mission, which will last about 10 days, could take its astronauts further into space than anyone has been before.

It aims to set the stage for an eventual human landing on the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s.

When does Artemis II launch?

Nasa's planned launch window opens on 6 February and runs into the spring. The US space agency wants the rocket to blast off before the end of April.

A date will not be set until final checks on its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion capsule - which carries the crew - and ground systems are completed.

The mission will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Who are the Artemis II crew and what will they be doing?

Artemis II's crew of four includes Nasa's commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch. A second mission specialist, Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, will also be on board.

The mission involves the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion.

Once they are safely in orbit, the astronauts will test how the Orion spacecraft handles. This will involve manually flying the capsule in Earth orbit to practise steering and lining up the spacecraft for future Moon landings.

They will then head out to a point thousands of kilometres beyond the Moon to check Orion's life‑support, propulsion, power and navigation systems.

The crew will also act as medical test subjects, sending back data and imagery from deep space.

They will work in a small cabin in weightlessness. Radiation levels will be higher than on the International Space Station, which is in low‑Earth orbit, but still safe.

On return to Earth, the astronauts will experience a bumpy return through the atmosphere and a splashdown off the west coast of the US, in the Pacific.

Will Artemis II land on the Moon?

No. This mission is to lay the ground for a lunar landing by astronauts in the Artemis III mission.

Nasa says the launch of Artemis III will take place "no earlier than" 2027. However, experts believe 2028 is the earliest possible date.

The final choice of a spacecraft to take the crew down to the lunar surface has not yet been made. It will either be SpaceX's Starship lander or a craft designed by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin.

New spacesuits made by US company Axiom are also not ready.

When Artemis III finally flies, the astronauts will be heading to the Moon's south pole.

After this, the aim is to have a sustained human presence on the Moon.

Artemis IV and V will begin building Gateway, a small space station circling the Moon. After that, there will be more Moon landings, extra sections added to Gateway, and new robotic rovers on the surface. More countries will be involved in keeping people living and working on and around the Moon for longer periods.

When was the last Moon mission?

The last crewed Moon mission was Apollo 17, which landed in December 1972 and returned to Earth later that month.

In all, 24 astronauts have travelled to the Moon and 12 of them have walked on its surface, all during the Apollo programme.

America first went in the 1960s, primarily to beat the Soviet Union to assert its geopolitical and technological dominance. Once that goal was achieved, political enthusiasm and public interest ebbed, as did the money for future Moonshots.

Artemis grew out of a desire to return humans to the Moon, this time for a longer-term presence built around new technology and commercial partnerships.

Do other countries plan to send astronauts to the Moon?

Several other countries have ambitions to put people on the Moon in the 2030s.​

European astronauts are set to join later Artemis missions and Japan has also secured seats.

China is building its own craft, targeting a first landing near the Moon's south pole by 2030.

Russia continues to talk about flying cosmonauts to the surface and building a small base sometime between about 2030 and 2035. Sanctions, funding pressures and technical setbacks mean its timetable is highly optimistic.

India has also expressed ambitions to one day see its own astronauts walking on the Moon.

Following the success of Chandrayaan 3's landing near the lunar south pole, India's space agency set out a goal of sending astronauts to the Moon by about 2040. This would be part of a push to move its human spaceflight programme beyond low Earth orbit.

Additional reporting by Kevin Church.

The Trump administration has named US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former UK prime minister Sir Tony Blair as two of the founding members of its "Board of Peace" for Gaza.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner will also sit on the "founding executive board", the White House said in a statement on Friday.

Trump will act as chairman of the board, which forms part of his 20-point plan to end the war between Israel and Hamas.

It is expected to temporarily oversee the running of Gaza and manage its reconstruction.

Also on the founding executive board are Marc Rowan, the head of a private equity firm, World Bank chief Ajay Banga and a US national security adviser, Robert Gabriel.

Each member would have a portfolio "critical to Gaza's stabilisation and long-term success", the White House statement said.

Trump had said on Thursday that the board had been formed, calling it the "Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place".

Further members of the board would be named in the coming weeks, the White House said.

Sir Tony was UK prime minister from 1997 to 2007 and took the UK into the Iraq War in 2003. After leaving office, he served as Middle East envoy for the Quartet of international powers (the US, EU, Russia and the UN).

It comes after the announcement of a separate 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), charged with managing the day-to-day governance of post-war Gaza.

Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA) which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control, will head that new committee.

The statement also said that Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and former UN Middle East envoy, would be the board's representative on the ground in Gaza working with the NCAG.

Trump's plan says an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) will also be deployed to Gaza to train and support vetted Palestinian police forces and the White House statement said that US Major General Jasper Jeffers would head this force to "establish security, preserve peace, and establish a durable terror-free environment".

The White House said that a separate "Gaza executive board" was being formed that would help support governance and includes some of the same names as the founding executive board as well as further appointees.

The US peace plan came into force in October and has since entered its second phase, but there remains a lack of clarity about the future of Gaza and the 2.1 million Palestinians who live there.

Under phase one, Hamas and Israel agreed a ceasefire in October, as well as a hostage-prisoner exchange, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and an aid surge.

Earlier this week Witkoff said phase two would see the reconstruction and full demilitarisation of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

"The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations," he warned, noting these include the return of the body of the last dead Israeli hostage. "Failure to do so will bring serious consequences."

However the ceasefire is fragile, with both sides accusing each other of repeated violations.

Almost 450 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since it came into force, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, while the Israeli military says three of its soldiers have been killed in attacks by Palestinian groups during the same period.

And humanitarian conditions in the territory remain dire, according to the UN, which has stressed the need for the unrestricted flow of critical supplies.

The White House has released the names of the members who will form the Trump administration's new "Board of Peace" for Gaza.

With the US president as chair, the board will oversee the work of a committee of Palestinian technocrats tasked with the temporary governance of Gaza - and its reconstruction.

Each member of the "Board of Peace" is expected to be in charge of a portfolio that will be "critical to Gaza's stabilisation", the White House added. But it is not yet clear who will be responsible for which priorities.

So who is on the board?

Sir Tony Blair

Former UK Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair had long been talked about as a potential member of Trump's "Board of Peace, with the US president confirming back in September that he had expressed an interest in joining the body.

The former Labour Party leader was the UK prime minister from 1997 to 2007 and took the country into the Iraq War in 2003, a decision which means some may view his presence on the board as controversial.

After leaving office, he served as Middle East envoy for the Quartet of international powers - the United Nations, European Union, US and Russia - from 2007 to 2015.

Sir Tony is the only founding member of the executive board who is not a US citizen.

Sir Tony previously described Trump's plans for Gaza as the "best chance of ending two years of war, misery and suffering".

Marco Rubio

As US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is central to the Trump administration's approach to foreign policy.

Before Trump's return to office, Rubio had spoken out against a ceasefire in Gaza, saying that he wanted Israel "to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on".

But he has since praised the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal signed in October as the "best" and "only" plan.

Also in October, Rubio criticised a move by the Israeli parliament towards annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Steve Witkoff

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, a real estate magnate and golf partner to Trump, will also be on the board.

Earlier this month, Witkoff announced the start of phase two of Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza, adding that it would see the reconstruction and full demilitarisation of Gaza - including the disarmament of Hamas.

He added that he expects Hamas to "comply fully with its obligations" under the deal, or face "serious consequences".

Witkoff has been a central figure in US-led efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, including holding a five-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in December.

Jared Kushner

Jared Kushner, the US president's son-in-law, has also played a key role in the Trump administration's foreign policy negotiations.

Alongside Witkoff, Kushner has often worked as a US mediator for the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars.

In November, he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss key sticking points in the peace deal.

At a talk at Harvard University in 2024, Kushner said "Gaza's waterfront property could be very valuable... if people would focus on building up livelihoods."

Marc Rowan

Billionaire Marc Rowan is the CEO of Apollo Global Management, a large private equity firm headquartered in New York.

Rowan was seen as a contender to become US treasury secretary for Trump's second term.

Ajay Banga

Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank, has advised a number of senior US politicians, including President Barack Obama, during his lengthy career.

Born in India in 1959, Banga became a US citizen in 2007, and later served as the CEO of Mastercard for more than a decade.

Former US President Joe Biden nominated him to lead the World Bank in 2023.

Robert Gabriel

Robert Gabriel, a US national security adviser, will be the final member of the "founding executive board".

Gabriel has worked with Trump since his 2016 presidential campaign, shortly after which, according to PBS, he became a special assistant to Stephen Miller, another of Trump's key current advisers.

Nickolay Mladenov

The White House statement also said that Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and former UN Middle East envoy, would be the board's representative on the ground in Gaza.

He will oversee a separate 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), charged with managing the day-to-day governance of post-war Gaza.

The NCAG will be led by Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA) which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control, will head that new committee.

Taking paracetamol while pregnant is safe and there's no evidence it raises the risk of autism, ADHD and developmental issues in children, say experts behind a major new review.

Pregnant women "should feel reassured" by the findings, they say, which contradict controversial claims from US President Donald Trump last year that paracetamol "is no good" and pregnant women should "fight like hell" not to take it.

His views were criticised at the time by medical organisations worldwide. Experts say this latest review, in a Lancet journal, is rigorous and should end the debate over its safety.

But US health officials maintain that "many experts" have expressed concern over its use during pregnancy.

The US President shocked many doctors worldwide when he and his administration claimed paracetamol or a branded version called Tylenol - which is seen as the go-to painkiller for pregnant women - could be linked to autism in children, if taken during pregnancy.

Those claims led to confusion among women and concern among health experts, and prompted this new research.

Published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Women's Health, it looked at 43 of the most robust studies into paracetamol use during pregnancy, involving hundreds of thousands of women, particularly those comparing pregnancies where the mother had taken the drug to pregnancies where she hadn't.

The researchers say using these high-quality studies of siblings means they can dismiss other factors such as different genes and family environments, which makes their review "gold-standard".

The research also looked at studies with a low risk of bias and those that followed children for more than five years to check for any link.

"When we did this analysis, we found no links, there was no association, there's no evidence that paracetamol increases the risk of autism," lead study author and consultant obstetrician Professor Asma Khalil, told the BBC.

"The message is clear – paracetamol remains a safe option during pregnancy when taken as guided," she added.

This reinforces guidance from major medical organisations in the UK, US and Europe on the safety of the common painkiller.

Any previously-reported links between the drug and an increased risk of autism are likely to be explained by other factors, rather than a direct effect of the paracetamol itself, the review says.

"This is important as paracetamol is the first-line medication we recommend for pregnant women in pain or with a fever," said Prof Khalil, professor of maternal fetal medicine at City St George's, University of London.

Health advice warns that women can run the risk of harming their baby if they don't take paracetamol to bring down a high temperature or relieve pain when pregnant. This can increase the risk of miscarriage, premature birth or developmental problems in babies.

Medical experts not involved in the research have welcomed the study's findings, saying it will help reduce worry among women.

Prof Grainne McAlonnan, from King's College London, said expectant mothers "do not need the stress of questioning whether medicine most commonly used for a headache could have far reaching effects on their child's health".

"I hope the findings of this study bring the matter to a close," she said.

Prof Ian Douglas, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the review was "well-conducted" because it excluded studies of lower quality, where no account was taken of important differences between mothers who use or don't use paracetamol during pregnancy, such as underlying illnesses.

According to Prof Jan Haavik, molecular neuroscientist and clinical psychiatrist at the University of Bergen, the study provides "strong evidence" that use of paracetamol during pregnancy does not increase the risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability and "should effectively put this question to rest".

It is widely believed by scientists working in this field that autism is the result of a complex mix of factors, including genetic and environmental ones.

A spokesman from the US Department of Health and Human Services said "many experts" had expressed concern over the use of acetaminophen - the US name for paracetamol - during pregnancy.

For example, a review in August 2025 led by Dr Andrew Baccarelli, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, found that using acetaminophen during pregnancy may increase children's autism and ADHD risk, and urged caution over "especially heavy or prolonged use".

Months earlier, Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr had pledged to find out the cause of a steep rise in reported autism cases.

In a controversial speech in the Oval Office in September, the US president said doctors would be advised not to prescribe the pain reliever to pregnant women.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) then issued a letter to clinicians urging them to be cautious about the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy, while also saying it was still the only drug approved for treating fevers during pregnancy.

On its website, the FDA says "a causal relationship" between the drug and neurological conditions "has not been established".

Health officials in the UK have stressed that paracetamol remains the safest painkiller available to pregnant women.

From Mariia's 16th-floor flat, the calm waters of the Black Sea stretch out into the horizon beneath the fading twilight.

"Up here you can see and hear when the drones come," she says, standing by a wall-length, floor-to-ceiling window. When they hit buildings and homes in the city of Odesa down below "we see all the fires too".

Her daughter Eva, who is nine, has learned the shapes and sounds of the objects that zoom through the sky on a daily basis. She proudly shows off a list of social media channels she checks when the air raid alerts go off.

"She knows whether what's coming is a risk or a threat, and that calms her down," her father Sergii says.

There is scarcely a place in Ukraine that has not been targeted since Russia launched its full-scale invasion nearly four years ago.

But in recent weeks Odesa – Ukraine's third largest city – has come under sustained attack. Through strikes on port and energy infrastructure, Russia is trying to cripple the region's economy and dent the population's morale.

Moscow, however, does not just hit facilities. Its drones, mostly as big as a motorcycle, regularly crash into high-rise buildings like Masha's, exploding on impact and blowing glass and debris inward. The consequences are often deadly.

"A few months ago Eva said she was afraid the drone would come too fast and we wouldn't have time to hide," Mariia says. "But I explained that if it came towards us, it would get louder and louder and then we'd know we have to run."

Mariia, Sergii and Eva are originally from Kherson, a region 200km (125m) to the east of Odesa which is now in large part occupied by Russia.

They left as soon as the invasion started in 2022 and mother and daughter briefly moved to Germany as refugees. But Sergii and Mariia could not bear the distance, so the family reunited in Ukraine and moved to Odesa.

Now, as attacks on the region intensify, Sergii wonders whether the family should prepare to leave again. "War is only about economics, and Odesa for the Russians is about infrastructure, so they will do their best to conquer it," he says.

Tucked in south-western Ukraine, Odesa was an economic powerhouse before the war. But now that Russia occupies the majority of Ukraine's coastline, the region has become even more vital. Its three ports are Ukraine's largest and include the country's only deep-water port. With land crossings disrupted, 90% of Ukraine exports last year were shipped by sea.

But in wartime the region's importance is also its weakness.

Last month, Vladimir Putin threatened to cut off Ukraine's access to the sea in retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on the "shadow fleet" tankers Russia uses to circumvent sanctions.

That threat has translated into concrete impact. For two years, Russia's attempts to thwart Odesa's economy have been near-relentless - but the last few weeks have been particularly difficult.

Aerial attacks on the ports have destroyed cargo and containers and damaged infrastructure; crew members on foreign merchant ships operating in the Gulf of Odesa have been injured or killed by drones; and 800 air-raid alerts in a year repeatedly halted port operations.

The result last year was a 45% decrease in exports of agricultural products, vital to Odesa's economy.

The day after a drone strike this week set a Panamanian-flagged ship alight and severely injured one of its crew members, regional government head Oleh Kiper said that shipowners entering Odesa ports "clearly understand that they are entering a war zone" and that the ships were insured.

But if such attacks continue, in the long run foreign companies may be put off trading with the port.

As the strikes surge, air sirens go off frequently, but not everyone heeds them. Standing in front of a destroyed gym the morning after an overnight drone strike that injured seven people, Maryna Averina of the State Emergency Service concedes people have become "very careless about their own safety".

A recent air raid alert lasted for most of the day. "Sitting in a shelter for 16 hours is simply unrealistic," Averina says, as gym staff emerge from the destroyed building with whatever objects they have managed to salvage from the rubble and mangled metal inside.

While many Ukrainians are now sadly accustomed to the drone and missile strikes, they are increasingly frayed by the relentless attacks that cut off electricity and heating in the middle of a particularly biting winter.

In December, almost a million people in Odesa were left with no power. "We were among the first regions to experience what it means to go through the winter period without electricity and without heating," says Oleh Kiper.

A month later, as temperatures hover around -1C, the supply remains severely disrupted.

Ada, 36, is strolling on the beach, unfazed by the wail of air alert sirens mingling with the squawking of seagulls. The drone attacks have ramped up but, she says, "the shelling isn't as scary as this cold is".

Nearby, a young mum named Yana agrees. Recently, she says, the situation across the board "has been really, really difficult". At one point, a drone crashed into her flat, and another one hit the block soon afterwards.

Then came the power cuts. She and her family bought an expensive generator, but running it for seven hours costs around $10 - a significant expense in a country where the average monthly salary is around $500 (£375).

"We've all been living like this for four years now, unfortunately. We're as helpless as flies, and everything is just being decided between the authorities," she says, while struggling to keep her shrieking toddler out of the icy water.

"Maybe we're being punished for something – the whole nation, not just a few, but everyone."

Further down the beach, Kostya is fishing on a jetty stretching out into the sea. He says he is not worried about the Russians advancing to the city. "I don't think they'll make it here. [The Ukrainians] will break their legs first."

But, he adds, things are painful, and scary. And like many Ukrainians he still seems to struggle to accept that war came to his country four years ago, waged by a neighbour he once knew so well.

In his youth, Kostya served in the army and swore an oath to the Soviet Union. "I never imagined that I would see something like this in my old age," he says.

While Russian propagandists have long insisted that Ukraine's independence since 1991 is a historical mistake, Odesa's past role as the jewel in the crown of the Russian empire means it still holds particularly strong symbolic importance for Moscow.

Vladimir Putin has repeatedly referred to Odesa as a "Russian city" and frequently invoked the notion of "liberating Novorossiya", a historical region of the Russian empire that encompassed parts of modern southern and eastern Ukraine, including Odesa.

"They wanted and they still want to seize Odesa, just like many other regions, but today everything possible and impossible is being done by our military to prevent this from happening," insists the regional government leader.

Oleh Kiper has made it a personal mission to sever any perceived remaining ties that Odesa has with Russia. He is a staunch supporter of a 2023 Law on Decolonisation, which directed local authorities to rid their cities of any street names, monuments or inscriptions that could be linked to Russia's imperial past.

Among the statues to be removed was a monument to the founder of Odesa, Russian Empress Catherine the Great, while streets named after Russian and Soviet figures were renamed. Pushkin Street became Italian Street, and Catherine Street is now European Street. Kiper also champions the usage of Ukrainian in a city where Russian is still very widely spoken.

Asked about the resistance he meets from Odesites who are proud of their heritage as a multicultural port to the world, he is defiant.

"The enemy is doing far more than we are to ensure that a Russian-speaking city becomes Ukrainian," says Kiper. "It is forcing people to understand who the Russians are and whether we need them at all."

The following day, as temperatures dropped to -6C, the city marked one month of partial blackouts, and air raid alerts were in force for four hours. The port of Chernomorsk, east of Odesa, was again hit by a ballistic missile, injuring a crew member on a civilian ship.

As is the case with the rest of Ukraine, if Russia cannot have Odesa, it seems determined to continue crippling it.

Additional reporting by Liubov Sholudko

A soon as Meri-Tuuli Auer saw the subject line in her junk folder, she knew it was no ordinary spam email. It contained her full name and her social security number - the unique code Finnish people use to access public services and banking.

The email was full of details about Auer no one else should know.

The sender knew she had been having psychotherapy through a company called Vastaamo. They said they had hacked into Vastaamo's patient database and that they wanted Auer to pay €200 (£175) in bitcoin within 24 hours, or the price would go up to €500 within 48 hours.

If she did not pay, they wrote, "your information will be published for all to see, including your name, address, phone number, social security number and detailed patient records containing transcripts of your conversations with Vastaamo's therapists".

"That's when the fear set in," Auer, 30, tells me. "I took sick leave from work, I closed myself in at home. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want people to see me."

She was one of 33,000 Vastaamo patients held to ransom in October 2020 by a nameless, faceless hacker.

They had shared their most intimate thoughts with their therapists including details about suicide attempts, affairs and child sexual abuse.

In Finland, a country of 5.6 million people, everyone seemed to know someone who had their therapy records stolen. It became a national scandal, Finland's biggest-ever crime, and the then Prime Minister Sanna Marin convened an emergency meeting of ministers to discuss a response.

But it was already too late to stop the hacker.

Before sending the emails to Vastaamo's patients, the hacker had published the entire database of records stolen from the company on the dark web and an unknown number of people had read or downloaded a copy. These notes have been circulating ever since.

Auer had told her therapist things that she didn't even want her closest family members to know - about her binge drinking, and a secret relationship she'd been having with a much older man.

Now, her worst fears had come true.

But instead of destroying her, the hack made her realise she was far more resilient than she could have ever imagined.

Auer's flat, on the outskirts of Helsinki, looks joyful. Barbie memorabilia fills her shelves and there's a pole-dancing pole in the centre of her living room. But don't be fooled by how things seem on the surface, Auer says. She has struggled with depression and anxiety for most of her life.

"I'm outgoing and very confident and I love being around people," Auer says, "but I get that inkling that they all think I'm stupid and ugly, and that my life is a continuum of mistakes."

Auer first sought help in 2015. She told her Vastaamo therapist about her mental health problems, her drinking and a relationship she'd had aged 18 with an older man she'd kept secret from her family. She says she trusted her therapist completely and with his help she made real progress. She had no idea what he had written in his notes of their conversations.

By the time she received the ransom email, news had already broken about the Vastaamo hack. Three days earlier, the extortionist had begun to drip-feed therapy notes on the dark web in batches of 100 a day, in the hope of putting pressure on the company to pay the much larger ransom - the bitcoin equivalent of around £400,000 - that he had been demanding from them for weeks.

Auer says she felt compelled to look through them.

"I had never used the dark web before. But I was thinking to myself, I just have to see if my records are there."

When she discovered they were not, she closed the file and didn't read anyone else's records, she says. But she saw how other people on the dark web were mocking patients' misery. "A 10-year-old child had gone to therapy, and people found it funny."

And a few days later, when it became clear the records of every Vastaamo patient had been published, Auer's mental health began to deteriorate.

Unsure who was responsible, or who might have read her most private thoughts, she became terrified to take public transport, leave home, or even open the door to the postman. She doubted the hacker would be found.

Finnish detectives also feared they wouldn't find the suspect given the volume of data they had to sift through.

"I couldn't even imagine the scale of it. This isn't a normal case," says Marko Lepponen, the detective who led the investigation for the Finnish police.

But after two years of investigation, in October 2022, they named their suspect: Julius Kivimäki, a known cybercriminal.

In February 2023 Kivimäki was arrested in France and transported back to Finland to face charges.

No courtroom is large enough for to accommodate the 21,000 former Vastaamo patients who had registered themselves as plaintiffs in the criminal case, so screenings were held in public spaces including cinemas to give them an opportunity to watch the trial.

Determined to see Kivimäki face justice, Auer attended one of the screenings and was struck by how unremarkable he looked.

"He looks just like a regular Finnish young man," she tells me. "It made me feel like it could have been anyone."

When he was found guilty, and sentenced to six years and seven months in prison, she says it felt like a validation.

"Whatever sentence he was given could never make up for everything. The victims' suffering was seen by the court - I was thankful for that."

Kivimäki continues to deny being responsible for the hack.

In the months after she learned about the hack, Auer requested a hard copy of her records from Vastaamo.

Her notes sit in a thick stack on the table between us as she tells me what happened.

Even though their records were released more than five years ago, Vastaamo patients continue to be victimised. Someone has even built a search engine that allows users to find records on the dark web just by typing in a person's name.

Auer agrees to share some of her leaked therapy records with me.

"The patient is mostly angry, impulsive, bitter," she says, reading some of the first notes her therapist wrote about their sessions. "The patient recounts their past in a rambling manner. There is some interpersonal difficulty stemming from the patient's weak-tempered nature, typical for their age."

When she read them for the first time she was heartbroken, Auer says. "I was hurt by how he had described me. It made me feel sorry for the person I had been."

She says the data breach has eroded patient trust. "There are a lot of people who were Vastaamo clients who had gone to therapy for years but are now never going to book another therapy session."

The lawyer representing Vastaamo's victims in a civil case against the hacker has told me she knows of at least two cases where people have taken their own lives after learning their therapy notes had been stolen.

Auer decided to confront her fears head on. She posted on social media about the hack, letting everyone know that she had been one of the victims.

"It was a a lot easier for me to know that everyone who knew me already knew," she says. She spoke to her family about what was in her leaked records, including the secret relationship she had never told them about before. "People were very supportive."

Finally, she chose to take back control of her story by publishing a book about her experiences. Loosely translated, the title is Everyone Gets to Know.

"I crafted it into a narrative. At least I can tell my side of the story – the one that's not visible in the patient records."

Auer has come to accept that her secrets will always be out there.

"For my own wellbeing, it's just better not to think about it."

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Last year, many of us went protein-mad in the hopes of boosting our strength and fitness. But over the past few months, fibre has become the hot topic on social media - with only 4% of us getting the recommended daily amount.

Videos of people sprinkling chia seeds on top of porridge and nutritionists lauding the benefits of red kidney beans and chickpeas are filling up people's TikTok feeds.

The NHS recommends adults eat 30g of fibre a day but most people in the UK aren't eating even close to that, with the average daily consumption at around 16.4g a day, and women eating less than men.

Many nutritionists say the buzz over fibre isn't a bad thing. For a long time, fibre was seen as an "unsexy nutrient", explains dietitian Kate Hilton, mainly due to connotations with our bowels and flatulence, unlike protein which has long been associated with working out and getting fit.

"When I first saw all the posts on fibre, I was pretty thrilled," says nutritionist Kristen Stavridis. "It feels like the messages around gut health are finally getting through to people."

As well as benefitting your gut, eating more fibrous food - like brown rice and jacket potatoes - has other benefits too.

"People who have a higher fibre intake will live longer, have less cardiovascular disease, fewer cancers and are at a lower risk of conditions like diabetes," says Kevin Whelan, professor of Dietetics at King's College London. He adds that some studies suggest it can help our mental health, too.

Yeshe Sander, 24, from Birmingham, says upping the fibre in her diet to 30g a day has helped her feel "so much better" physically and mentally.

She grew up with parents who tried to get her to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and have a fibre-rich diet but, as she entered her mid-teens, she decided to rebel.

"I wanted nothing to do with healthy food," Yeshe says. "As a teenager, I would eat huge amounts of chocolate, doughnuts, cookies."

At college, her favourite quick meals included instant noodles with white toast or frozen pizza.

"It was only when I got a bit older, in my early 20s, that I thought maybe they were onto something," Yeshe says of her parents.

After feeling sluggish, low and lacking motivation, she re-examined her diet and started to eat more healthily again. After increasing her fibre intake, Yeshe noticed the difference.

"Now I can see it so clearly: when I'm eating more fibre, my mental health gets better," Yeshe says, "and my anxiety and low mood is reduced."

Breakfast is her favourite meal and she recommends eating porridge with a variety of toppings as a way to get some fibre in the morning.

What is fibre and why is it so important for our diet?

Dietary fibre is a chain of sugar molecules produced by plants that cannot be digested by humans. It is found in fruits, vegetables, grains, beans and nuts.

The effects of fibre were first discovered in the 1970s, when it was believed that fibre was just "hard roughage stuff" that helped our bodies get rid of waste, explains Whelan.

"Now we know it's so much more than that - it has health benefits way beyond the bowel."

Fermentable fibres in foods like oats and legumes help the good bacteria in our large intestine grow, enriching our gut microbiome.

Insoluble fibres, found in wholegrain bread, bran and the skins of fruit and vegetables, help our poo travel through the gut.

Viscous fibres, found in oats, seeds and some fruits and vegetables, slow down the speed sugar is absorbed and reduce sugar spikes in the bloodstream.

All these different types of fibre, among others, help keep us healthy, Whelan says.

When speaking about the health benefits of fibre consumption, Whelan points to numerous large-scale epidemiological studies, which record a large group of people's eating habits alongside which diseases they go on to develop.

While these studies don't always take into account other factors – like demographics, environment, awareness of diet – he says there are also clinical trials that suggest fibre has health benefits for many parts of the body.

Some studies also suggest a high-fibre diet can help improve mental health, says Whelan. A healthy microbiome, fed with prebiotic fibre that boosts health bacteria in the gut, can potentially reduce anxiety and depression risk.

"There is a two-way communication between our brain and our gut, the gut-brain axis," he says. Clinical trials suggest certain fibres – prebiotic fibres that feed the microbiome – can help improve mood.

One surprising finding from Whelan's research was that fibre helped improve cognition in people over 60.

'My skin's better, I've got more energy'

Vicky Owens says boosting her fibre intake after a health scare last year has had huge benefits.

As a business owner with little time to devote to cooking, her diet mainly consisted of takeaways and ready meals.

Then the 25-year-old started experiencing unexplained symptoms including panic attacks, gastric issues and swollen, itchy eyes, which, she says, baffled her doctor.

She began to re-evaluate her lifestyle and after an acupuncturist suggested she shake up her diet, it dawned on Vicky she was eating next to no fibre.

She began to cut out ultra-processed foods, instead opting for fresh fruit and vegetables, whole wheat pastas and oats.

Eventually, she started to see huge benefits."

My skin's better, I've got more energy," Vicky says, "and I think as a whole everything's so much more balanced now."

How to add more fibre to your diet

Small switches are a great way to add more fibre to your meals, says dietitian Hilton. Here are some ideas how to do that:

• Replace white bread with seeded wholegrain bread
• Swap snacks like crisps and chocolate for almonds, kiwis and popcorn
• Add seeds, nuts, fruit or almond butter to your porridge or yogurt
• Change white rice for brown or wholegrain rice, or go half and half
• Add avocado, hummus or salad to your sandwich
• If you like to start your day with cereal, go for something like wheat biscuits, bran flakes or bran sticks

Here's a sample meal plan from Stavridis on how you can hit 30g fibre in a day (note that fibre quantities vary by brand and portion size):

• Breakfast: Two slices of thick seeded wholemeal toast (7g fibre), with a sliced banana (1.5g fibre) and honey
• Lunch: Baked potato (5g fibre), 100g of baked beans (4g fibre), cheese, tuna, side salad of mixed leaves, followed by one kiwi (2g fibre)
• Snack: One serving (20g) of popcorn (2g fibre)
• Dinner: Beef mince bolognese with kidney beans (5g) and whole wheat spaghetti (6.5g)

People in the UK eat a lot of convenience and ultra-processed foods, which don't typically contain much fibre, says Hilton.

"The carbohydrates that we consume tend to not be things like whole grains and we have a lot more of a reliance on things like meats to get our proteins, rather than beans or vegetarian sources," she adds.

Stavridis points out that the recent fixation on protein may have affected some people's fibre intake too, as some people prioritised it at the cost of other nutrients.

Though protein is important for our health, she says people should stop "obsessing over protein and start tracking fibre" and ensure they're getting a healthy diet overall.

While eating more fibre is a good thing for most people, for some with conditions like Crohn's disease and diverticulitis, it is often not recommended and medical advice should be sought before any dietary changes.

Too much too fast can also cause problems, explains Cara Wheatley-McGrain from the Mindful Gut, a wellbeing company which supports people to change their diets.

"Increase slowly - if we suddenly make a dramatic change, our gut goes 'hang on a minute', and we can end up with bloating and constipation."

And make sure to drink plenty of water, she recommends.

While Wheatley-McGrain is "really happy" fibre is finally being taken seriously on socials, she does not want to add additional pressure on young people who are constantly met with a barrage of different diets and eating regimes.

"We need to navigate that to make the best choices for ourselves," she says. "Add some fibre to your diet slowly, notice how it feels and take it from there."

The Trump administration has named US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former UK prime minister Sir Tony Blair as two of the founding members of its "Board of Peace" for Gaza.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner will also sit on the "founding executive board", the White House said in a statement on Friday.

Trump will act as chairman of the board, which forms part of his 20-point plan to end the war between Israel and Hamas.

It is expected to temporarily oversee the running of Gaza and manage its reconstruction.

Also on the founding executive board are Marc Rowan, the head of a private equity firm, World Bank chief Ajay Banga and a US national security adviser, Robert Gabriel.

Each member would have a portfolio "critical to Gaza's stabilisation and long-term success", the White House statement said.

Trump had said on Thursday that the board had been formed, calling it the "Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place".

Further members of the board would be named in the coming weeks, the White House said.

Sir Tony was UK prime minister from 1997 to 2007 and took the UK into the Iraq War in 2003. After leaving office, he served as Middle East envoy for the Quartet of international powers (the US, EU, Russia and the UN).

It comes after the announcement of a separate 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), charged with managing the day-to-day governance of post-war Gaza.

Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA) which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control, will head that new committee.

The statement also said that Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and former UN Middle East envoy, would be the board's representative on the ground in Gaza working with the NCAG.

Trump's plan says an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) will also be deployed to Gaza to train and support vetted Palestinian police forces and the White House statement said that US Major General Jasper Jeffers would head this force to "establish security, preserve peace, and establish a durable terror-free environment".

The White House said that a separate "Gaza executive board" was being formed that would help support governance and includes some of the same names as the founding executive board as well as further appointees.

The US peace plan came into force in October and has since entered its second phase, but there remains a lack of clarity about the future of Gaza and the 2.1 million Palestinians who live there.

Under phase one, Hamas and Israel agreed a ceasefire in October, as well as a hostage-prisoner exchange, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and an aid surge.

Earlier this week Witkoff said phase two would see the reconstruction and full demilitarisation of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

"The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations," he warned, noting these include the return of the body of the last dead Israeli hostage. "Failure to do so will bring serious consequences."

However the ceasefire is fragile, with both sides accusing each other of repeated violations.

Almost 450 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since it came into force, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, while the Israeli military says three of its soldiers have been killed in attacks by Palestinian groups during the same period.

And humanitarian conditions in the territory remain dire, according to the UN, which has stressed the need for the unrestricted flow of critical supplies.

The chief constable of West Midlands Police has retired after damning criticism of a decision to ban Israeli fans from a match against Aston Villa.

Craig Guildford's retirement was confirmed on Friday after both Downing Street and the home secretary said this week they had lost confidence in his leadership.

He faced numerous calls to resign after apologising for providing incorrect evidence to MPs, which included the denial that AI was used in a report which led to the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the game on 6 November.

Announcing his retirement, Guildford, 52, did not offer an apology and blamed what he described as the "political and media frenzy" for his decision to step down.

"I have carefully considered my position and concluded that retirement is in the best interests of the organisation, myself and my family," he said.

"It has been the honour of my career serving as the chief constable of West Midlands Police."

In a statement to reporters, West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Simon Foster said he welcomed the decision and was "pleased this outcome had been reached".

"That has prevented what might otherwise have been a complex procedure that would have caused significant distraction, impact and cost to West Midlands Police and the wider West Midlands," he added.

Foster said he was pleased the outcome was reached "having regard to due process and the law".

"It was important this matter was resolved in a balanced, calm, fair, measured and respectful manner."

The backlash came after a preliminary review by the policing watchdog found "confirmation bias" influenced the decision to bar supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending Villa Park.

His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Andy Cooke said several "inaccuracies" had been included in a report given to Birmingham's safety advisory group by West Midlands Police, including reference to a non-existent fixture between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham.

In evidence to MPs, Guildford initially suggested the erroneous information had been identified in a Google search or through social media, but in a letter to the Home Affairs Committee (HAC) published on Wednesday he said it was the result of using Microsoft Copilot, an AI tool.

Sir Andy said the force had also "overstated" the extent to which disorder at a previous match in Amsterdam was attributable to Maccabi fans.

Other criticisms included exaggerating the number of Dutch police officers deployed during that fixture.

He also found the force in its advice had overstated the threat posed by the Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters, while understating the risks posed to the Israeli fans.

In its response to the criticism, West Midlands Police said it was "extremely sorry" for the errors, adding: "None of this was done with an intent of deliberate distortion or discrimination."

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said Guildford had done "the right thing" in retiring.

"The findings of the chief inspector were damning," the Birmingham Ladywood MP said. "They set out a catalogue of failings that have harmed trust in West Midlands Police."

She thanked him for his years of service and paid tribute to the work of officers at the force who "keep their community safe every day".

"Today marks a crucial first step to rebuilding trust and confidence in the force amongst all the communities they serve," she added.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism has also called for Foster to resign.

In a statement, chief executive Gideon Falter accused West Midlands Police of having "lied and obfuscated, victim-blaming Jews instead of taking on the Islamists".

"His retirement, after the pitiful failure of West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster to sack him, should result in the resignation of Mr Foster as well," he said.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct said it would continue to look into the force's actions following Guildford's retirement.

Director general Rachel Watson said it had been examining a "wealth of evidence" and would assess whether any independent conduct investigations should be carried out.

"If that is the case, we've said we are prepared to use our powers of initiative to independently investigate in the absence of formal referrals," she added.

'Sacrificed for doing his job'

Independent MP Ayoub Khan, whose Birmingham Perry Barr constituency includes Villa Park, where the match took place, said Guildford's retirement marked a "dark and shameful chapter".

When the decision to ban Maccabi fans was taken in November, Khan backed plans to either cancel or relocate the match.

He has also repeatedly called for the chief constable to remain in post.

"We've all just witnessed one of the biggest injustices of our time," he added.

"A chief constable has been sacrificed not for gross misconduct in public office but for doing his job."

Repeating remarks he made in the Commons on Wednesday, he said Guildford was "thrown under the bus because he didn't conform to political pressure".

Guildford first became a police constable in 1994 and has served as the head of West Midlands Police since 2022.

He had many successes in his three years heading the force, which included improving the handling of 999 calls and and recording a 6% fall in crime by October 2025.

Foster said deputy chief constable Scott Green has been appointed acting chief constable as the force sought to "rebuild trust and confidence" in the West Midlands.

Green has appointed Jen Mattinson as acting deputy chief constable, the force confirmed.

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An employment tribunal has found a group of nurses had their dignity violated, after an NHS trust allowed a transgender colleague to use the women's changing room.

This judgement - whilst only binding on those directly involved in the case - will be carefully analysed for its wider implications for the NHS and beyond, especially given it deals with the fault line between opposing views on sex and gender.

At the heart of the case was the question of whether the nurses' rights were infringed by County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust when it allowed Rose Henderson, a biological male who identifies as a woman, to use the female changing rooms.

The panel did not criticise Rose, and all the claims related directly to them were dismissed by the panel. Claims the trust had victimised the nurses were also dismissed.

However, it concluded that although a transgender person has protections from discrimination and harassment, that "does not translate into a positive 'right' on the part of a trans woman to use the female changing room (or for that matter of a trans man to use the male changing room)".

The tribunal rooted its findings in last year's Supreme Court ruling that in the 2010 Equality Act, a woman is defined by biological sex not gender identity.

As the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land you would expect that, but it is not necessarily straightforward.

In December 2024, a judgement in Scotland involving another NHS nurse, Sandie Peggie, who also complained about a trans woman colleague using the female changing rooms, came to a notably different conclusion.

She was found to have faced harassment from the NHS trust for a limited period for how it handled her complaint, but claims of discrimination were dismissed. Sandie Peggie is appealing against the judgement.

In contrast to the Darlington ruling, the Scottish tribunal appeared to work on the basis that that a trans person had the automatic right to use facilities aligned with their gender rather than biological sex.

Immediately afterwards, legal experts questioned whether there is the case law to back this up.

Although neither case would normally have impact beyond those involved, it is a sign of how the similarities and differences in these judgements will be picked over.

Associate professor of law at University of Oxford, Michael Foran, thinks there will be more cases like this.

"Many organisations have been led to believe that there is a legal right to access single sex spaces based on self-identification," he says.

"Cases such as this show that this was a misreading which disregards the rights of women as set out in both equality law and the workplace health and safety law."

Whilst the Darlington nurses have been describing their delight at the employment tribunal finding, the NHS trust is taking time before it comments.

The gender critical campaign group, Sex Matters, says the Darlington judgement is "clear and sensible" - and that it should be a final warning to employers to "return to sex-based policies and rules"

Translucent, a group which campaigns for trans rights, says employers have a duty to ensure everyone is accommodated and that "while the Supreme Court ruling "has made it harder" for service providers, "most people are inclusive, and cases like this are quite rare".

And these cases add to pressure on the government to publish new guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on what this all means for businesses who are dealing with the day-to-day practicalities of operating toilets, changing rooms and other single sex spaces.

The chief constable of West Midlands Police has retired after damning criticism of a decision to ban Israeli fans from a match against Aston Villa.

Craig Guildford's retirement was confirmed on Friday after both Downing Street and the home secretary said this week they had lost confidence in his leadership.

He faced numerous calls to resign after apologising for providing incorrect evidence to MPs, which included the denial that AI was used in a report which led to the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the game on 6 November.

Announcing his retirement, Guildford, 52, did not offer an apology and blamed what he described as the "political and media frenzy" for his decision to step down.

"I have carefully considered my position and concluded that retirement is in the best interests of the organisation, myself and my family," he said.

"It has been the honour of my career serving as the chief constable of West Midlands Police."

In a statement to reporters, West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Simon Foster said he welcomed the decision and was "pleased this outcome had been reached".

"That has prevented what might otherwise have been a complex procedure that would have caused significant distraction, impact and cost to West Midlands Police and the wider West Midlands," he added.

Foster said he was pleased the outcome was reached "having regard to due process and the law".

"It was important this matter was resolved in a balanced, calm, fair, measured and respectful manner."

The backlash came after a preliminary review by the policing watchdog found "confirmation bias" influenced the decision to bar supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending Villa Park.

His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Andy Cooke said several "inaccuracies" had been included in a report given to Birmingham's safety advisory group by West Midlands Police, including reference to a non-existent fixture between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham.

In evidence to MPs, Guildford initially suggested the erroneous information had been identified in a Google search or through social media, but in a letter to the Home Affairs Committee (HAC) published on Wednesday he said it was the result of using Microsoft Copilot, an AI tool.

Sir Andy said the force had also "overstated" the extent to which disorder at a previous match in Amsterdam was attributable to Maccabi fans.

Other criticisms included exaggerating the number of Dutch police officers deployed during that fixture.

He also found the force in its advice had overstated the threat posed by the Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters, while understating the risks posed to the Israeli fans.

In its response to the criticism, West Midlands Police said it was "extremely sorry" for the errors, adding: "None of this was done with an intent of deliberate distortion or discrimination."

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said Guildford had done "the right thing" in retiring.

"The findings of the chief inspector were damning," the Birmingham Ladywood MP said. "They set out a catalogue of failings that have harmed trust in West Midlands Police."

She thanked him for his years of service and paid tribute to the work of officers at the force who "keep their community safe every day".

"Today marks a crucial first step to rebuilding trust and confidence in the force amongst all the communities they serve," she added.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism has also called for Foster to resign.

In a statement, chief executive Gideon Falter accused West Midlands Police of having "lied and obfuscated, victim-blaming Jews instead of taking on the Islamists".

"His retirement, after the pitiful failure of West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster to sack him, should result in the resignation of Mr Foster as well," he said.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct said it would continue to look into the force's actions following Guildford's retirement.

Director general Rachel Watson said it had been examining a "wealth of evidence" and would assess whether any independent conduct investigations should be carried out.

"If that is the case, we've said we are prepared to use our powers of initiative to independently investigate in the absence of formal referrals," she added.

'Sacrificed for doing his job'

Independent MP Ayoub Khan, whose Birmingham Perry Barr constituency includes Villa Park, where the match took place, said Guildford's retirement marked a "dark and shameful chapter".

When the decision to ban Maccabi fans was taken in November, Khan backed plans to either cancel or relocate the match.

He has also repeatedly called for the chief constable to remain in post.

"We've all just witnessed one of the biggest injustices of our time," he added.

"A chief constable has been sacrificed not for gross misconduct in public office but for doing his job."

Repeating remarks he made in the Commons on Wednesday, he said Guildford was "thrown under the bus because he didn't conform to political pressure".

Guildford first became a police constable in 1994 and has served as the head of West Midlands Police since 2022.

He had many successes in his three years heading the force, which included improving the handling of 999 calls and and recording a 6% fall in crime by October 2025.

Foster said deputy chief constable Scott Green has been appointed acting chief constable as the force sought to "rebuild trust and confidence" in the West Midlands.

Green has appointed Jen Mattinson as acting deputy chief constable, the force confirmed.

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Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his secret hideout these days, knows he is now a marked man. He will not be sitting on his veranda anytime soon.

When discussing what the United States might do next to help the protesters in Iran, US President Trump has mentioned Qassem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The former, Iran's all-important military strategist in the Middle East, was killed on 3 January 2020 in a drone strike just outside Baghdad's international airport on the president's order. The latter, who was the leader of IS, killed himself and two children by detonating a suicide vest on 27 October 2019 when US forces raided his hideout in northern Syria after the approval of the president.

But Ayatollah Khamenei also has the fate of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to consider.

He was killed on 27 September 2024 in an Israeli air raid while 60 feet underground beneath a high-rise residential building in Beirut, where he was meeting his top lieutenants.

The kidnapping of President Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela recently, in a daring commando-style raid by US forces in Caracas, can't be far from the Ayatollah's mind.

But it is not clear what impact the removal of the Iranian leader would have on the future of the protests that have been going on in Iran, or indeed on the future of the Islamic Republic. If indeed he's removed from power.

President Trump is now weighing up his options. So where does this leave the Supreme Leader and his regime?

A hated figure for Iranians

The 86-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei has been a hated figure for most Iranians.

For years, protesters up and down the country have been calling for his downfall. He has been a terrible leader for the country. His regime has been among the most repressive in the world.

During his 36-year rule in the name of Islam, he has pursued relentless anti-American and anti-Western policies, while relying on Russia and China for survival. He pursued a half-baked nuclear policy that has brought the country the second-heaviest international sanctions in history after Russia, making the country poorer and struggling.

His attempts to project power in the Middle East set the region on fire. His calls for the destruction of Israel have led to wars with Israel.

In recent protests, Ayatollah Khamenei gave the green light to the security forces to massacre protesters.

Internet shutdowns in Iran make it difficult to have a clear view of the extent of the bloodbath, but thousands were killed by the security forces, not only in towns and cities but also in villages, which is indicative of the extent of the protests.

His removal, either through surgical strikes or a commando raid, would certainly force a change at the top of the regime, perhaps opening the path to changes in policies and in the direction the country may take.

Who or what would replace him is unclear. Chaos and lawlessness may follow. But more likely, the Revolutionary Guard would try to fill the vacuum and establish military rule.

Some in the regime could even welcome the removal of Ayatollah Khamenei from the equation, says Arash Azizi, lecturer at Yale University and author of What Iranians Want.

"A significant section of the ruling elite in Iran is ready to make some changes. Do away with Khamenei. Do away with some of the core policies and the core institutions of the Islamic Republic.

"So they might even welcome US attacks as an opportunity to accelerate that process."

'There are the rulers and the ruled'

The current speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, 64, is a member of the Revolutionary Guard with an authoritarian streak. He has discarded his uniform for civilian clothes. He has been vocal in support of the regime.

But Ayatollah Khamenei never trusted him fully. Regime insiders suspected him of being a wolf in sheep's clothing, waiting in the wings for the right moment.

It is also possible that relatively moderate figures in the regime could jostle their way to the top.

Former President Hassan Rouhani comes to mind. He has been positioning himself as a serious candidate for the moderates Islamists and the reformists in the event of the passing of the leader.

Ali Ansari, founding director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews, believes that reformists are largely irrelevant.

"Basically, reformists don't really exist... They're there as a sort of pastiche, cosmetic, whatever. They've been completely marginalised.

"There are basically the rulers and the ruled."

But the name that many people in the streets of Iranian towns and cities have been shouting is that of the son of the former Shah of Iran, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who is 65 and has been living in exile in Washington for most of his life.

In recent years, Reza Pahlavi has grown in popularity inside Iran, where many look to the Shah's era, particularly the 1970s, with nostalgia. It was an era when Iranians were among the most well-off nations, as long as they did not talk politics.

But Reza Pahlavi is by no means a unifying figure. In fact, many argue he has been divisive. Failing to unite the Iranian opposition abroad under one banner, he has opted to go it alone, claiming that the nation is behind him.

And even if he were the sole leader Iranians were craving for inside the country, it is not hard to see that he is in an impossible position to take over. He has no organisational base in Iran to rely on to arrange his ascent to power.

Many argue that his surprising popularity inside Iran during recent protests stems from the fact that many protesters saw him as the only contender for power standing against a detested regime.

These protesters may prefer someone who has absolutely no connection with the regime and who wants better relations with the West.

"Right now, there's very little that will accommodate the protesters because these protests are about something bigger," says Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.

"It's about completely transforming Iranian governance away from the individuals and the system that have been in place for almost five decades now."

But having a lot of time to himself in the bunker, Ayatollah Khamenei may be reviewing in his mind what has been going on in the past three weeks and how he got here.

He may take satisfaction from the fact that the regime has so far remained loyal to him. There are no signs of significant dissent or disloyalty in the Revolutionary Guard, which was created to safeguard the regime in the first place.

President Trump's words have given the impression that possible US attacks on the bases of the Revolutionary Guard and other security forces may weaken and fracture them and give space to the protesters to come out in even bigger numbers to topple the regime.

He has instigated protesters to continue to speak out and occupy government buildings. "Help is on its way," he said.

It is possible that protesters who have largely withdrawn from the streets in the face of the frightening willingness of the security forces to shoot to kill may be encouraged by President Trump's instigation and come out again.

Certainly, many of them now believe that they need foreign intervention if they are going to be able to put an end to the regime.

But even if help is not on its way, Iranians know that they will come out again sooner or later, having learned a few lessons from the most recent spate of protests.

Ploughing on with an iron fist

In the past 16 years, Iranians have come out to protest Ayatollah Khamenei several times.

The last round was in 2022 after the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, while she was held in police custody for not wearing her hijab properly.

A wave of protests ensued throughout the country under the banner of "Woman, Life, Freedom," which went on for several weeks and was eventually put down by sheer force and brutality meted out by the security forces.

Back then, it was the pressure on women from Islamists that brought people out on the streets; many thought enough was enough.

The protests this time have been about the economy and about bread. Traders can't function with the falling value of the currency, the rial. Many others cannot make ends meet. Poverty is spreading fast under international sanctions and, perhaps more importantly, under mismanagement.

At the same time, Iran is facing shortages of water, electricity, and, importantly, gas - while sitting on the second-largest reserves of natural gas in the world. Neglect has led to catastrophic environmental degradation that may last forever.

The Supreme Leader has agreed that traders and shopkeepers, who started to protest late last month, had a genuine grievance. They had said the constantly falling value of the currency had made it impossible for them to do business.

The Ayatollah has said that the country's officials are trying to sort the problem. But he also said that the problem was created by the enemies.

According to Ali Ansari, a lack of investment in utilities has been devastating for the country. "The problems that the regime has are deeply structural and go back years.

"So even their own economists are saying that if we were going to address the problems we have now - for instance, the inability to supply basic utilities to the public - this is because we did not invest in the infrastructure 20 years ago."

Ayatollah Khamenei knows he has no solutions for many of these issues, particularly the economy, which can only deteriorate. But, despite the bloodbath of recent weeks, this is no time to lose confidence, he might think; he must plough on with an iron fist.

After all, he might think he has been blessed to rule the country to spread pure Islam and satisfy God.

Top image credits: AFP via Getty Images / WANA/Reuters and Reuters/Handout/AFP via Getty Images

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President Zelensky has called Ukraine's air defence supplies "insufficient", having revealed several systems were "without missiles" until Friday morning.

"I can say this openly because today I have those missiles," the president said, adding that the country had received a "substantial package" earlier in the day.

His comments follow days of intense Russian bombardment of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, which has left thousands of people without heating and electricity during a bitterly cold winter.

Schools in Kyiv will shut until February, the capital's mayor announced later in the day, as the city continues to face severe energy shortages amid temperatures which have dropped as low as -19C.

Zelensky called on Ukraine's allies to provide "rapid deliveries" of available missiles, and said shipments did not mean "that winter will end for us tomorrow".

"And it doesn't mean that tomorrow the enemy will stop bombing us," he wrote on social media.

Ukraine relies on its Western partners for several vital air defence systems, which Zelensky said required a "constant supplies of missiles".

"Securing these packages takes enormous effort, blood, and human lives."

He criticised countries that "stockpiled" such ammunition: "If we are at war, we really need it. And in some countries, there is no war."

On Friday evening, he said Ukraine had "intelligence information" that Russia was preparing for large-scale strikes.

"Supplies are insufficient," he wrote on Telegram. "We are trying to speed things up, and it is important that our partners hear us.

Earlier this week, Kyiv declared a state of emergency in its energy sector and appointed former prime minister Denys Shmyhal as energy minister to tackle the situation.

Ukrainian officials also accused Moscow of deliberately exploiting an extraordinarily cold winter.

Shmyhal told Ukraine's parliament on Friday that Moscow was "betting it can break us through energy terror", and ordered state companies to increase their energy imports.

Thousands of energy workers are racing to restore power across the country through repairing plants and substations bombarded by Russian strikes.

Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said most of the capital had been left without heating and a "huge shortage of electricity" for the first time in the war.

He told Reuters news agency that electricity levels had dropped to less than half of what was needed.

Curfews in the city, introduced after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have been eased to allow residents to access emergency hubs providing heating and electricity.

Klitschko had suggested earlier this week that residents should leave Kyiv if possible, to help ease pressure on critical resources.

Also on Friday, Zelensky said Ukrainian negotiators were on their way to the US for further talks on a potential ceasefire.

He said he hoped proposals would be signed with the US during next week's World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland "if everything is finalised and if there is agreement from the American side".

Meanwhile, Russian strikes continued into Friday, including in the central Ukrainian city of Nikopol, where officials said two people had been killed.

When are we expecting a change to colder weather?

A colder than normal January?

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A life-extending prostate cancer drug is to be made available to thousands of men in England in a matter of weeks, after a campaign by a patient and a charity.

Abiraterone has been provided on the NHS in Scotland and Wales since 2023 but not in England and Northern Ireland, except in the most severe cases.

The drug is already prescribed for patients in the UK with very advanced prostate cancer that has spread.

But from now on the drug will be available on the NHS in England to high-risk patients whose cancer has not yet metastasised - potentially saving hundreds of lives.

Amy Rylance, assistant director of health improvement at charity Prostate Cancer UK, said the decision was "a momentous, life-saving victory for the thousands of men whose lives will now be saved".

She praised the BBC for keeping "a spotlight on this issue" through its coverage over the past few years.

The charity estimates 7,000 men a year will now start the treatment, with some 1,470 avoiding later news that their cancer has got worse.

The charity suggests some 560 lives will be saved.

The drug will be available in weeks, NHS England says, with around 2,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the last three months getting access to the treatment if it is of clinical benefit.

Abiraterone stops cancer spreading by starving the disease of the hormones it needs to grow.

Giles Turner, from Brighton, was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer in March 2023.

He approached BBC News later that year after hearing that abiraterone was provided by the NHS in Scotland and Wales but not in England.

"I was shocked and angered that my postcode meant I was denied free access to a treatment that could halve my risk of dying and give me the best chance of a cure," he told the BBC.

He chose to pay for treatment with the drug, costing him £250 a month.

He told us then that he felt "very fortunate" to be able to afford it, but outraged for others who could not.

Mr Turner began his campaign for a change of policy.

At the time, NHS England said it was reviewing the drug's use for a wider range of men.

But the following year officials told Prostate Cancer UK that there was no funding available. This was repeated by ministers in early 2025.

"Today's wonderful news is the culmination of all our determined and dogged efforts" said Mr Turner.

"I'm beyond happy that men like me now have fair access to the most effective treatment, that so many lives will now be saved, and that so many families will be spared heartbreak."

But he added that he was frustrated that nearly three years had passed since he raised the issue.

Prostate Cancer UK's argument that many lives could be extended by the drug was based on the findings of a trial called STAMPEDE, published in 2022.

It found improved odds of survival among men given the drug alongside usual care.

The Institute of Cancer Research said two years of abiraterone halved the risk of prostate cancer coming back and reduced the risk of death by 40%.

Researchers had been frustrated that the health watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) had not approved the use of the drug for newly diagnosed patients.

But for NICE and the medical regulator the MHRA to consider extending a drug's usage they need detailed and time-consuming applications.

In October 2022, abiraterone had gone "off patent" - which means the legal protection granted to the original brand making it (granting them exclusive rights to manufacture and sell it) had expired.

Once it became a generic medicine - with other companies now having the right to buy and sell it - there was limited incentive for companies to seek approval for it to be prescribed for a wider group of patients.

Ministers and health authorities in Scotland and Wales found a way within existing protocols to start supplying the drug to the NHS.

But there was no such shift in England.

NHS England said because money had been saved on other medicines it was now possible to fund the extension of the drug's availability.

National clinical director for cancer at NHS England, Prof Peter Johnson, said: "The life-extending treatment available on the NHS within weeks will mean thousands of men can kick-start their year with the news that they will have a better chance of living longer and healthier lives.

"The NHS will continue to work hard to offer people the most effective and evidence-based treatments, with several new prostate cancer drugs rolled over the last five years."

Health and social care Secretary Wes Streeting said: "When you're living with prostate cancer, every day with your loved ones matters.

"I'm delighted the NHS have taken the steps needed to make the drug available, giving thousands of men access to abiraterone - a treatment that significantly improves survival rates and can give patients precious extra years of life."

Responding to the news, STAMPEDE trial co-lead Prof Gert Attard, at the UCL Cancer Institute, said: "This is a hugely welcome moment for patients. Our research showed clearly that abiraterone can save lives when offered earlier to men at high risk of their cancer spreading.

"Funding for this disease indication is already available in Scotland and Wales, so we are delighted that NHS England has acted on this evidence and will now make this highly effective treatment routinely available."

Prostate Cancer UK is engaging with the decision-makers in Northern Ireland to try to ensure that they rapidly follow suit.

The charity said it was writing to politicians in Northern Ireland to press the government in Stormont.

Stormont has yet to comment on any plans to change how abiraterone is prescribed.

The exiled son of the last Iranian shah (king) has called on the world to help protesters topple Iran's government, saying he is confident "the Islamic Republic will fall - not if, but when".

Reza Pahlavi, an opposition leader based in the US, called for "surgical" strikes on Iran's Revolutionary Guards which he said "will facilitate our task and prevent more loss of life".

More than 2,000 protesters have been killed, according to human rights groups, in demonstrations that started over the economy on 28 December and turned into calls for the end of the rule of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei.

The Iranian government has called the protests "riots" backed by Iran's enemies.

Pahlavi has emerged as a prominent figure in Iran's fragmented opposition and has previously urged Iranians to escalate their protests.

However protesters have been met with deadly force by authorities, masked by a near total shutdown of the internet and communication services.

Speaking at a news conference in Washington, Pahlavi vowed to return to Iran and laid out a plan for creating a new constitution in the country.

He claimed that sections of Iran's security apparatus had refused to take part in the crackdown and that the Iranian authorities had brought in fighters from foreign militias to quell the protests.

Asked about future leadership in Iran, Pahlavi said: "It's for the Iranian people to decide."

"I am trying to help them liberate themselves."

He said he supported a governing programme based on the principles of Iran's territorial integrity, a separation of religion and state, individual liberties and the right of the Iranian people to decide on the form of democratic government they want.

The current wave of protests began after shopkeepers in Tehran went on strike over the rising cost of living and the depreciating value of the currency.

They quickly spread across the country and turned against Iran's clerical establishment, particularly the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The slogans chanted by demonstrators have included "Death to the dictator" and "Seyyed Ali [Khamenei] will be toppled this year".

According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 2,453 protesters have been killed since the unrest began, as well as 14 children, 156 people affiliated with the security forces or government, and 14 uninvolved civilians.

It reports that another 18,470 protesters have been arrested.