Brazil's parliament descended into chaos on Tuesday as conservative lawmakers continued to push a law which would reduce the prison sentence of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
One left-wing lawmaker was forcibly removed by police after trying to disrupt proceedings, while footage showed scuffles breaking out as security tried to restore order.
His conservative allies in Congress have proposed a law which would reduce sentences for coup-related offences, as well as free dozens of Bolsonaro supporters who stormed government buildings shortly after he left office.
Meanwhile, court documents showed that Bolsonaro's legal team filed an official request asking a court to grant him permission to leave prison for surgery.
The fate of Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist who was narrowly beaten by leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva three years ago, continues to be a divisive issue in Brazil, where his allies have explored several avenues to exonerate him.
The latest attempt to cut the 70-year-old's sentence has been to propose a law overhauling punishments for people in elected office, including significantly reducing sentences for the offences that Bolsonaro, and those convicted alongside him, were found guilty of.
One of the lawmakers behind the effort told AFP news agency it would see Bolsonaro's sentence cut to two years and four months in prison.
During Tuesday's heated debate on the proposal, leftist politician Glauber Braga briefly occupied the Speaker's chair, which he said was a protest against a "coup offensive".
The chamber had been due to vote on Braga's expulsion for his role in a previous altercation in Congress, one of a handful of removals proposed as part of a wider package of disciplinary reforms, including the changes to coup-related offences.
Police forcibly removed Braga amid a skirmish in the chamber. The TV feed was cut and reporters were removed from the chamber, a move condemned as censorship by a group representing journalists.
Braga later said he would not "accept as a done deal an amnesty for a group of coup plotters", AFP reported.
As of late Tuesday night, the law cutting Bolsonaro's sentence - which would require ratification by the legislature's second house - had not passed.
EPA
Bolsonaro was given a lengthy prison sentence in September after Supreme Court judges found he had proposed a coup to military leaders, and said that he knew of a plot to assassinate his rival Lula.
Several senior military figures, two former defence ministers and an ex-intelligence chief were also convicted as part of the coup investigation.
Bolsonaro and his supporters have long dubbed the investigation a "witch hunt".
His Liberal Party remains the largest in Congress, where conservative parties outnumber groupings sympathetic to Lula.
Lawmakers loyal to Bolsonaro previously launched an attempt to secure an amnesty, though that floundered in the face of national protests, with a significant cut to sentences now proposed as a compromise.
The Prince of Wales has paid tribute to pioneering elephant conservationist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who died aged 83 at his home in Nairobi on Monday.
Douglas-Hamilton spent his life studying and campaigning to protect African elephants, becoming a world-leading expert on their behaviour in the wild.
His groundbreaking research exposed the devastating effects of poaching - often at great risk to his own safety - and was instrumental in the banning of the international ivory trade.
Prince William praised the zoologist as "a man who dedicated his life to conservation and whose life's work leaves lasting impact on our appreciation for, and understanding of, elephants".
"The memories of spending time in Africa with him will remain with me forever," added Prince William, who is a royal patron for the African wildlife conservation charity, Tusk, of which Douglas-Hamilton was an ambassador.
"The world has lost a true conservation legend today, but his extraordinary legacy will continue," the charity's founder Charles Mayhew said in a statement.
Oria Douglas-Hamilton
Born in 1942 to an aristocratic British family in Dorset, England, Douglas-Hamilton studied biology and zoology in Scotland and Oxford before moving to Tanzania to research elephant social behaviour.
It was there at Lake Manyara National Park that he began documenting every elephant he encountered, eventually becoming so familiar with the herds he could recognise them by the unique shapes of their ears and wrinkles on their skin.
"The thing about elephants is that they have a lot in common with human beings," he said in a 2024 documentary about his work, A Life Among Elephants.
Friend and fellow conservationist Jane Goodall, who died in October, was featured in the documentary, and said he had shown the world that elephants are capable of feeling just like humans.
"I think his legacy will be one of a man who did so much to help people understand how majestic, how wonderful elephants are, and to learn more about their way of life," Goodall said.
Oria Douglas-Hamilton
But that work did not always come easy: he was charged at by elephants, almost killed by a swarm of bees and shot at by poachers. In 2010, a flood destroyed his research facility in Kenya and years of work was lost.
Despite the hardships, Douglas-Hamilton remained steadfast in his mission to raise awareness of the plight of African elephants, becoming one of the leading voices to alert the world of the ivory poaching crisis, which he described as "an elephant holocaust".
He later campaigned for an international ban on the commercial trade in ivory, and in 1989 the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species was signed, an international agreement between governments.
After the agreement failed to wipe out the trade completely, Douglas-Hamilton turned his attention to China and the US, the two main markets for ivory. Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-US President Barack Obama agreed to a near-total ban on its import and export in 2015.
Douglas-Hamilton established Save the Elephants in 1993, a charity dedicated to safeguarding the animals and deepening human understanding of their behaviour.
The organisation's CEO Frank Pope, who is also his son-in-law, said: "Iain changed the future not just for elephants, but for huge numbers of people across the globe. His courage, determination and rigour inspired everyone he met."
In his own words, Douglas-Hamilton expressed optimism for the future of his life's work.
"I think my greatest hope for the future is that there will be an ethic developed of human-elephant coexistence," he once said.
Iain Douglas-Hamilton is survived by his wife Oria, children Saba and Dudu, and six grandchildren.
Lady Gaga is in Australia for her Mayhem World Tour
An Australian man who was jailed in Singapore and deported for charging at pop star Ariana Grande has been ejected from a Lady Gaga concert in his home country.
Johnson Wen said on Instagram that he was "kicked out" of the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Tuesday night before the Lady Gaga show had started.
The 26-year-old, who has a history of disrupting concerts and celebrity events, was sentenced to nine days in jail by a Singapore court last month for grabbing Grande during the Asian premiere of Wicked: For Good.
Wen, who told the Singaporean judge in mitigation that he would "not do it again", had not disrupted the performance in Brisbane, but was removed because of his history of public nuisance.
Videos on social media showed security guards holding Wen by the arm and leading him out of the venue as the crowd both cheered and booed. The BBC has contacted Suncorp Stadium for comment.
In a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald, the venue said it was made aware that "a known serial offender may attempt to attend and disrupt" the concert by Lady Gaga, who is around halfway through her Mayhem World Tour.
"In the interest of the artist's safety, this individual was deemed a person of interest and not to be allowed to attend," it said.
Wen has gained notoriety since grabbing Grande at the Wicked: For Good premiere in the South East Asian city state, which is known for its strict laws, including on public behaviour.
"You seem to be attention-seeking, thinking only of yourself and not the safety of others when committing these acts," Singaporean judge Christopher Goh reportedly told Wen.
Other videos on Wen's social media accounts show him jumping on stage and disrupting performances by global stars like Katy Perry and The Weeknd.
The incident with Grande sparked outrage in Singapore. Fans accused Wen of "re-traumatising" the pop star and actress.
Grande has spoken of experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder after a suicide bomb attack at her May 2017 concert in Manchester, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds.
Watch: Trump claims "prices are coming down" as he rallies on affordability
President Donald Trump has told a campaign-style rally that consumer prices are falling "tremendously" as he sought to allay voter anxiety about the US cost of living.
In a speech at a casino in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, the president told supporters he had "no higher priority than making America affordable again".
But while gas and egg prices have fallen, other food is more expensive and Americans remain unhappy about the cost of housing, childcare and healthcare.
Democrats have capitalised on Trump's political vulnerability on the economy in recent off-cycle votes, leaving many Republicans uneasy about next year's midterms elections.
Tuesday's event in a swing district of Pennsylvania was the first of what the White House says will be a series of campaign-like rallies aimed at bringing its economic message to voters.
But at one point in his remarks, the Republican president again portrayed concerns about affordability as a Democratic "hoax".
In recent weeks, his administration has removed tariffs from dozens of food products and touted its rollback of fuel efficiency standards and Trump-branded retirement accounts for children as cost-of-living fixes.
In an excerpt from an interview with Politico released on Tuesday, Trump was asked what grade he would give the economy.
"A plus-plus-plus-plus-plus," he said.
In a sign the policy pivot might be cutting through, Trump's approval rating rose three points to 41% in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Charlie Neuenschwander
Alaina Hunt was laid in off in April
But many Americans remain downbeat on the economy.
Alaina Hunt, 37, who lost her job as a designer at a construction company in Oklahoma City, told the BBC her position was in part a casualty of Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminium.
The construction sector "really took a hard hit very early on", she said. Ms Hunt says she has applied for at least 75 jobs in web design and development since April, to no avail, amid a broader slowdown in hiring.
She says rising grocery bills - about $25 extra per week - have added to the strain.
"I was able to scrape by a lot easier in years before," said Ms Hunt, who voted for Kamala Harris. "I don't think that the federal government is listening at all."
Economic data paints a mixed picture.
US consumer confidence fell in November to its lowest level since the spring.
But the stock market continues to hover near record highs. And forecasters expect the economy to expand by 1.9% this year, slower than last year's 2.8% but still better than expected.
Some recent data also indicate the job market may be picking up, after a significant hiring slowdown earlier this year.
As of September, inflation stood at 3%, the same rate as in January when the president took office and stubbornly above the Federal Reserve's 2% target.
It is still way below a peak of 9.1% under former President Joe Biden when the US faced its worst inflation in four decades.
Overall prices have surged 25% over the last five years, generating widespread frustration, despite wage growth over that period.
Beth Richardson
Beth Richardson, a 45-year-old from Kansas, said she had been floored by some of the prices at the grocery store near her, recalling a pack of Mentos gum she picked up recently that rang up to almost $5 with tax.
"I'm like, I'm just going to go die now because this cannot be," she said.
Ms Richardson was laid off from her job in sales support at a tech-related company in late 2023, after the firm shifted jobs overseas. She voted for Kamala Harris last year.
She said while she knew presidents were often blamed for economic forces over which they had little control, she felt in this case Trump and his policies, like tariffs, were "shooting ourselves in the foot".
On Tuesday night, Trump called tariffs his "favourite word", pointing to hundreds of billions of dollars of US revenue from import taxes.
The White House blames Biden and the Fed, arguing high interest rates are hurting the economy.
The US central bank has twice reduced rates to about 3.9% and may cut them again on Wednesday.
Many Trump supporters have said they still back the president, despite feeling the pinch themselves.
John Mohring, 60, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, has backed Trump since 2016, though rising prices worry him.
Mr Mohring, who works in construction and has lived alone since his wife died three years ago, said grocery prices started rising before Trump returned to the White House "and it doesn't seem like it's going down".
He now typically spends $100 on groceries just for himself, even when avoiding buying meat and sticking with cheaper items.
Still, Mr Mohring said he backed the Trump administration's sweeping tariffs on imported goods and his border policies.
"I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt," Mr Mohring added.
Brad Smith, a corn and soybean farmer in north-western Illinois, was hurt earlier this year when China, previously a major buyer of US soybeans, froze its purchases amid a trade war with Washington.
But the market, he said, had been gradually recovering since late October, when the two countries reached a trade agreement and China resumed some purchases.
Trump on Monday also announced a $12bn aid package for US farmers.
Mr Smith said he still believed in Trump's plans for the economy, despite being getting caught in the crossfire.
"There's probably bigger things at play other than just the soybean and corn market," Mr Smith said.
The former chief executive of Nexperia, a Dutch chipmaker, said Dutch officials had known for years that the company’s Chinese owner sought to move its technology to China.
The former chief executive of Nexperia, a Dutch chipmaker, said Dutch officials had known for years that the company’s Chinese owner sought to move its technology to China.
President Trump vacillated between demonizing immigrants and assuring a crowd of his supporters that life was better than ever under his administration.
The abrupt decision to revise the plan added new uncertainty and possible delays into the government’s distribution of $3.9 billion in homelessness relief.
Nicole Sperling, a Times reporter who covers Hollywood and the streaming revolution, breaks down the competing bids from Netflix and Paramount to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
Login
