OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman's sister, Ann Altman, has filed a lawsuit alleging that he regularly sexually abused her between 1997 and 2006.

The lawsuit, which was filed on 6 January in a US District Court in the Eastern District of Missouri, alleges that the abuse started when she was three and Mr Altman was 12.

In a joint statement on X, with his mother and two brothers, Mr Altman denied the allegations, saying "all of these claims are utterly untrue."

"Caring for a family member who faces mental health challenges is incredibly difficult," the statement added.

"This situation causes immense pain to our entire family."

In the filing, which has been seen by the BBC, Ms Altman alleged that the abuse, which took place over many years, included rape.

The lawsuit added the last instance of the alleged abuse took place when Mr Altman was an adult but she was still a minor.

The lawsuit requested a jury trial and damages in excess of $75,000 ($60,100).

Ms Altman has previously made similar allegations against her brother on social media platforms such as X.

Mr Altman is one of the technology world's most high profile figures.

In late 2022, OpenAi launched the ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.

Additional reporting by Lily Jamali

Thai police have charged a mahout after an elephant in his care gored a Spanish tourist to death last week.

Theerayut Inthaphudkij, 38, was charged with negligence causing death, local authorities said Monday.

The tourist - 22-year-old Blanca Ojanguren García - was bathing the elephant at the Koh Yao Elephant Care Centre in southern Thailand when she was attacked by the animal.

This has renewed concerns over Thailand's booming elephant tourism industry, which animal rights groups have long criticised as unethical and dangerous.

Activists say that elephant bathing is disruptive to natural grooming behaviours and could injure the animals, exposing them to unnecessary stress.

After the attack, experts weighed in to say that the elephant might have been stressed because of the interaction with tourists.

García sustained a head injury - and later died in the hospital - after the elephant, 45-year-old female Phang Somboon, pushed her with its tusk. Her boyfriend, who was travelling with her, witnessed the attack.

There are nearly 3,000 elephants held in tourist attractions across Thailand, according to an estimate by international charity World Animal Protection.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) told the BBC in a statement that "such incidents highlight the dangers to both humans and animals alike."

"Any 'sanctuary' that allows humans to touch, feed, bathe, or closely interact with elephants in any way is no place of refuge for elephants and puts the lives of tourists and animals in critical danger," said Peta senior vice president Jason Baker.

Similar charges of negligence have previously been pressed against mahouts whose elephants killed tourists.

In 2017, an elephant camp owner and a mahout were charged with recklessness causing death and injuries after an elephant killed a Chinese tour guide and injured two tourists in the Thai beach town, Pattaya. In 2013, a 27-year-old elephant had its tusks cut after it attacked and killed a woman.

García, a law and international relations student at Spain's University of Navarra, was living in Taiwan as part of a student exchange programme. She and her boyfriend arrived in Thailand on 26 December 2024.

Spain's foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, said the Spanish consulate in Bangkok was assisting García's family.

Additional reporting by Kelly Ng

The Washington Post announced it will lay off nearly 100 workers, or 4% of its staff, in an attempt to stem growing losses, according to media reports.

The cuts reportedly will affect mainly employees on the business side of the storied US newspaper owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The publication is among many news outlets struggling in the digital age as a growing number of online platforms compete for advertising revenues.

The layoffs, announced on Tuesday, come at a time of turmoil at the company after Mr Bezos broke with tradition and blocked an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the US presidential election in November.

In 2023, the Washington Post reported losses of $77m (£45m) and falling readership on its website. That same year, the newspaper announced it was offering workers voluntary buyouts in a bid to cut headcount by 10%.

Mr Bezos wrote an opinion piece explaining that blocking the endorsement was necessary because of growing public perception that the "media is biased."

Still, the newspaper said 250,000 of its readers canceled their subscriptions in protest.

Since then, several high-profile journalists, including investigative reporter Josh Dawsey, who confirmed on X that he was taking a job at The Wall Street Journal, have also left the newspaper. Managing editor Matea Gold is joining Post competitor The New York Times, the Times confirmed.

The apparent conflict between Bezos and the newspaper's top talent took a turn for the worse on Saturday when Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Ann Telnaes, said she was resigning from the Washington Post.

That came after the newspaper refused to publish a satirical cartoon that showed Mr Bezos and other tycoons kneeling before a statue of President-elect Donald Trump.

Last month, Mr Bezos announced Amazon would donate $1m to Trump's inauguration fund and make a $1m in-kind contribution. Mr Bezos also described Trump's re-election victory as "an extraordinary political comeback" and dined with him at the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Screaming Los Angeles residents left their cars behind to flee a fast-moving wildfire as it closed in on a picturesque celebrity enclave, eyewitnesses said, describing scenes straight out of a Hollywood disaster movie.

A windstorm whipped a seemingly typical brush fire into a raging inferno within a matter of hours on Tuesday, sending the blaze racing towards the Pacific Palisades area.

Thirty thousand people were ordered to evacuate as the conflagration surrounded the neighbourhood in the west of the city, exploding rapidly from 10 acres to several thousand in size.

Bordering Malibu, Pacific Palisades is a haven of hillside streets and winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and extending down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

But the Pacific Coast Highway, the main route in - or out - quickly became gridlocked, leading many motorists to ditch their vehicles near Sunset Boulevard as the flames drew near.

One resident, Marsha Horowitz, said firefighters told people to get out of their cars as the blaze, fanned by gusts sometimes topping 100mph (160km/h) in the mountains and foothills, approached.

"The fire was right up against the cars," she said.

• Latest updates from the wildfire

Another Pacific Palisades resident told ABC News that she rushed home from her job in Hollywood once she heard about the evacuations.

After abandoning her car, she went home to grab her cat. While running to safety, flaming pieces of palm tree fell on her.

"I'm getting hit with palm leaves on fire, I ran into a car," said the woman, who did not give her name.

"It's terrifying. It's like a horror movie. I'm screaming and crying going down the street."

Some evacuees described seeing homes burn as they fled.

Hollywood actor James Woods was among celebrities forced to flee their properties.

Actor Steve Guttenberg, also a Pacific Palisades resident, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys inside so the vehicles could be moved to make way for fire trucks.

"This is not a parking lot," Guttenberg told KTLA. "I have friends up there and they can't evacuate."

Bulldozers later cleared abandoned vehicles to open the route for emergency vehicles.

Jennifer Aniston, Bradley Cooper, Tom Hanks, Reese Witherspoon, Adam Sandler and Michael Keaton also have homes in the Pacific Palisades, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

People fled wildfire flames in the nearby Los Angeles suburb of Topanga Canyon, where Ewan McGregor has a home.

One resident named Melanie told KTLA she tried to get out, but the path was engulfed by flames and she was forced back home.

She was trying to take Palisades Drive down to the Pacific Coast Highway and said had to make "a very fast U-turn because there were flames coming down the hill to the road".

"I would have been driving right into the fire," she said. "We're stuck up here. I don't see any flames but I know they're close by."

Residents in Venice Beach, some six miles (10km) away, reported seeing the flames, too.

Kelsey Trainor said ash fell all around as the fire jumped from one side of the road to the other.

"People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming," she told the Associated Press news agency.

"The road was just blocked, like full-on blocked for an hour."

Ellen Delosh-Bacher told the Los Angeles Times how she rushed from downtown Los Angeles to her home, where her 95-year-old mother and their two dogs live.

She, too, hit gridlock at Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive.

Ms Delosh-Bacher described fire exploding behind a nearby Starbucks and police rushing down the road shouting to stuck motorists: "Run for your lives!"

She left her car, keys still in the ignition and ran half a mile down to the beach.

"This is like an apocalypse," she said.

Immigration has long been a polarising issue in the West but Canada mostly avoided it - until now. With protests and campaign groups springing up in certain quarters, some argue that this - together with housing shortages and rising rents - contributed to Justin Trudeau's resignation. But could Donald Trump's arrival inflame it further?

At first glance, the single bedroom for rent in Brampton, Ontario looks like a bargain. True, there's barely any floor space, but the asking price is only C$550 (£300) a month in a Toronto suburb where the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom flat is C$2,261. Inspect it more closely, however, and this is actually a small bathroom converted into sleeping quarters. A mattress is jammed up next to the sink, the toilet is nearby.

The ad, originally posted on Facebook Marketplace, has generated hundreds of comments online. "Disgusting," wrote one Reddit user. "Hey 20-somethings, you're looking at your future," says another.

But there are other listings like it - one room for rent, also in Brampton, shows a bed squashed near a staircase in what appears to be a laundry area. Another rental in Scarborough, a district in Ontario, offers a double bed in the corner of a kitchen.

While Canada might have a lot of space, there aren't enough homes and in the past three years, rents across the country have increased by almost 20%, according to property consultancy Urbanation.

In all, some 2.4 million Canadian families are crammed into homes that are too small, in urgent need of major repairs or are seriously unaffordable, a government watchdog report released in December has suggested.

This accommodation shortage has come to a head at the same time that inflation is hitting Canadians hard - and these issues have, in turn, moved another issue high up the agenda in the country: immigration.

For the first time a majority of Canadians, who have long been welcoming to newcomers, are questioning how their cities can manage.

Politics in other Western countries has long been wrapped up in polarised debates surrounding immigration but until recently Canada had mostly avoided that issue, perhaps because of its geography. Now, however, there appears to be a profound shift in attitude.

In 2022, 27% of Canadians said there were too many immigrants coming into the country, according to a survey by data and research firm Environics. By 2024, that number had increased to 58%.

Campaign groups have sprung up too and there have been marches protesting against immigration in Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary, and elsewhere around the country.

"I would say it was very much taboo, like no one would really talk about it," explains Peter Kratzar, a software engineer and the founder of Cost of Living Canada, a protest group that was formed in 2024. "[But] things have really unfrozen."

Stories like that of the bathroom for rent in Brampton have fuelled this, he suggests: "People might say, like, this is all anecdotal evidence. But the evidence keeps popping up. You see it over and over again."

"People became concerned about how the immigration system was being managed," adds Keith Neuman, executive director at Environics. "And we believe it's the first time the public really thought about the management of the system."

• Who might replace Trudeau as Liberal Party leader?
• Why the Trudeau era has come to an end now
• What happens next for Canada?

Once the golden boy of Canadian politics, prime minister Justin Trudeau, resigned on 6 January during a crucial election year, amid this widespread discontent over immigration levels.

His approval levels before his resignation were just 22% - a far cry from the first year of his premiership, when 65% of voters said they approved of him.

Though immigration is not the main reason for his low approval levels nor his resignation - he cited "having to fight internal battles" - he was accused of acting too late when dealing with rising anxiety over inflation and housing that many blamed, in part, on immigration.

"While immigration may not have been the immediate cause of the resignation, it may have been the icing on the cake," says Professor Jonathan Rose, head of the department of political studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Under Trudeau's administration, the Canadian government deliberately chose to radically boost the numbers of people coming to the country after the pandemic, believing that boosting quotas for foreign students and temporary workers, in addition to skilled immigrants, would jumpstart the economy.

The population, which was 35 million 10 years ago, now tops 40 million.

Immigration was responsible for the vast majority of that increase - figures from Canada's national statistics agency show that in 2024, more than 90% of population growth came from immigration.

As well as overall migration levels, the number of refugees has risen too. In 2013, there were 10,365 refugee applicants in Canada - by 2023, that number had increased to 143,770.

Voter dissatisfaction with immigration was "more a symptom than a cause" of Trudeau's downfall, argues Prof Rose. "It reflects his perceived inability to read the room in terms of public opinion."

It's unclear who might replace Trudeau from within his own Liberal Party but ahead of the forthcoming election, polls currently favour the Conservative Party, whose leader Pierre Poilievre advocates keeping the number of new arrivals below the number of new homes being built.

Since Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November, Poilievre "has been speaking much more about immigration", claims Prof Rose - "so much that it has become primed in the minds of voters".

Certainly Trump's arrival for a second term is set to pour oil on an already inflamed issue in Canada, regardless of who the new prime minister is.

He won the US election in part on a pledge to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants - and since his victory, he has said that he will enlist the military and declare a national emergency to follow through on his promise.

He also announced plans to employ 25% tariffs on Canadian goods unless border security is tightened.

Drones, cameras and policing the border

Canada and the US share the world's longest undefended border. Stretching almost 9,000km (5,592 miles), much of it crosses heavily forested wilderness and is demarcated by "The Slash," a six-metre wide land clearing.

Unlike America's southern border, there are no walls. This has long been a point of pride between Ottawa and Washington - a sign of their close ties.

After Trump first entered office in 2017, the number of asylum claims skyrocketed, with thousands walking across the border to Canada. The number of claims went from just under 24,000 in 2016 to 55,000 a year by 2018, according to the Canadian government. Almost all crossed from New York state into the Canadian province of Quebec.

In 2023, Canada and the US agreed to a tightened border deal that stopped most migrants from crossing the land border from one country to another. Under the agreement, migrants that come into contact with the authorities within 14 days of crossing any part of the border into either the US or Canada must return to whichever country they entered first — in order to declare asylum there.

The deal, reworked by Trudeau and Joe Biden, is based on the idea that both the US and Canada are safe countries for asylum seekers.

This time around, Canada's national police force – the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) – says it began preparing a contingency plan for increased migrant crossings at the border well ahead of Trump being sworn in.

This includes a raft of new technology, from drones and night vision goggles, to surveillance cameras hidden in the forest.

"Worst-case scenario would be people crossing in large numbers everywhere on the territory," RCMP spokesperson Charles Poirier warned in November. "Let's say we had 100 people per day entering across the border, then it's going to be hard because our officers will basically have to cover huge distances in order to arrest everyone."

Now, the national government has committed a further C$1.3bn (£555m) to its border security plan.

'We want our future back!'

Not everyone blames the housing crisis on the recent rise in immigration. It was "30 years in the making" because politicians have failed to build affordable units, argues Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.

Certainly the country has a long history of welcoming newcomers. "Close to 50% of the population of Canada is first or second generation," explains Mr Neuman. "That means either they came from another country, or one or both of their parents came from another country. In Toronto, Vancouver, that's over 80%."

This makes Canada "a very different place than a place that has a homogeneous population," he argues.

He has been involved in a survey examining attitudes towards newcomers for 40 years. "If you ask Canadians: what's the most important or distinctive thing about Canada, or what makes the country unique? The number one response is 'multiculturalism' or 'diversity'," he says.

Nonetheless, he says the shift in public opinion - and the rise in concerns about immigration - has been "dramatic".

"Now there is not only broader public concern, but much more open discussion," he says. "There are more questions being asked about how is the system working? How come it isn't working?"

At one of the protests in Toronto, a crowd turned out with hand-painted signs, some proclaiming: "We want our future back!" and "End Mass Immigration".

"We do need to put a moratorium on immigration," argues Mr Kratzar, whose group has taken part in some of them. "We need to delay that so wages can catch up on the cost of rents."

Accusations against newcomers are spreading on social media too. Last summer, Natasha White, who describes herself as a resident of Wasaga Beach in Ontario, claimed on TikTok that some newcomers had been digging holes on the beach and defecating in them.

The post generated hundreds of thousands of views and a torrent of anti-foreigner hatred, with many arguing that newcomers should "go home".

Tent cities and full homeless shelters

People I interviewed who work closely with asylum seekers in Canada say that the heightened concerns around the need for more border security is making asylum seekers feel unsettled and afraid.

Abdulla Daoud, executive director at the Refugee Center in Montreal, believes that the vulnerable asylum seekers he works with feel singled out by the focus on migrant numbers since the US election. "They're definitely more anxious," he says. "I think they're coming in and they're feeling, 'Okay, am I going to be welcomed here? Am I in the right place or not?'"

Those hoping to stay in Canada as refugees can't access official immigration settlement services until it has been decided they truly need asylum. This process once took two weeks but it can now take as long as three years.

Tent cities to house newly-arrived refugees and food banks with empty shelves have sprung up in Toronto. The city's homeless shelters are often reported to be full. Last winter, two refugee applicants froze to death after sleeping on Toronto's streets.

Toronto mayor Olivia Chow, an immigrant herself having moved to Canada from Hong Kong at age 13, says: "People are seeing that, even with working two jobs or three jobs, they can't have enough money to pay the rent and feed the kids.

"I understand the hardship of having a life that is not affordable, and the fear of being evicted, absolutely, I get it. But to blame that on the immigration system is unfair."

Trudeau: 'We didn't get the balance quite right'

With frustrations growing, Trudeau announced a major change in October: a 20% reduction in immigration targets over three years. "As we emerged from the pandemic, between addressing labour needs and maintaining population growth, we didn't get the balance quite right," he conceded.

He added that he wanted to give all levels of government time to catch up – to accommodate more people. But, given that he has since resigned, is it enough? And does the Trump presidency and the increasing anti-immigrant sentiment on that side of the border risk spilling further into Canada?

Mr Daoud has his own view. "Unfortunately, I think the Trump presidency had its impact on Canadian politics," he says. "I think a lot of politicians are using this as a way to fear-monger."

Others are less convinced that it will have much of an impact. "Canadians are better than that," says Olivia Chow. "We remember that successive waves of refugees helped create Toronto and Canada."

Politicians wading into the debate around population growth ahead of the next election will be conscious of the fact that half of Canadians are first and second-generation immigrants themselves. "If the Conservatives win the next election, we can expect a reduction in immigration," says Prof Jonathan Rose. But he adds that Poilievre will have to walk "a bit of fine line".

Prof Rose says: "Since immigrant-heavy ridings [constituencies] in Toronto and Vancouver will be important to any electoral victory, he can't be seen as anti-immigration, merely recalibrating it to suit economic and housing policy."

And there are a large number of Canadians, including business leaders and academics, who believe that the country must continue to pursue an assertive growth policy to combat Canada's falling birth rate.

"I really have high hopes for Canadians," adds Lisa Lalande of the Century Initiative, which advocates for policies that would see Canada's population increase to 100 million by 2100. "I actually think we will rise above where we are now.

"I think we're just really concerned about affordability [and] cost of living - not about immigrants themselves. We recognise they're too important to our culture."

Top picture credit: Getty Images

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Captivated by major new releases from Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Billie Eilish, music fans in the UK spent more on recorded music in 2024 than ever before, new figures show.

Streaming subscriptions and vinyl sales shot up, with consumers spending a total of £2.4 bn over the last 12 months.

That overtakes the previous high of £2.2bn, achieved at the peak of CD sales in 2001.

The biggest-selling album of the year was Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department which sold 783,820 copies; while Noah Kahan had the year's biggest single with Stick Season, which generated the equivalent of 1.99 million sales.

The figures came from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), which said subscriptions to services like Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music accounted for almost 85% of the money spent on music last year.

The market for vinyl records grew by 10.5%, with 6.7 million discs sold last year, generating £196m.

CD sales remained flat at £126.2m - although the format still sells more than vinyl in terms of units, with 10.5 million albums bought.

The head of ERA, Kim Bayley, called 2024 a "banner year" for music, with sales at more than double the low point of 2013.

"We can now say definitively - music is back," she added in a statement.

However, music industry revenue still lags far behind the 2001 figures in real terms.

Adjusted for inflation, the industry made the equivalent of £4bn in 2001, when Dido's was the year's biggest album, with sales of 1.9 million.

There are also lingering questions over how artists get paid in the streaming economy. According to the Musicians Union, almost half of working musicians in the UK earn less than £14,000 a year.

Elsewhere, ERA said video was the most popular form of home entertainment, with cinephiles and telly addicts spending more than £5bn on streaming services, movie rentals and DVDs.

The biggest-selling title of the year was the comic book movie Deadpool & Wolverine, with sales of 561,917, more than 80% of which were digital.

Video games saw a drop in revenue, from £4.8bn in 2023 to £4.6bn last year.

The figures reflect a year of high-profile flops, with A-list games like Concord, Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones all failing to find an audience.

There was also a huge shift away from boxed physical games, whose sales fell by 35%.

The biggest-selling game of the year was once again EA Sports FC 25 – formerly known as FIFA – which sold 2.9m copies, 80% of them in digital formats.

However, only four of the games in the top 10 were new releases, and two of those were updates to existing franchises.

The power of Nintendo's Switch was also apparent, with half of the top 10 including games comprised of titles that are exclusive to the console.

Head teachers say they face "difficult choices" over what their schools can afford, as a new report says they could be forced into further cuts next year.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says costs will outpace funding for schools in 2025-26.

Schools say that means they will struggle to fund the government's proposed pay rise for teachers, as well as the support needed for children with special educational needs.

The Department for Education (DfE) said it would work with schools and local authorities to provide a "fair funding system that directs public money to where it is needed".

The IFS estimates that school funding will rise by 2.8% in the 2025-26 financial year. But Wednesday's report warns that costs are likely to rise by 3.6%, leaving schools facing tough choices.

Staff pay usually takes up the majority of a school budget. The government has suggested teachers' pay should go up by 2.8% for the school year beginning September 2025, in line with plans for school spending.

While spending on schools has grown in recent years - redressing previous cuts - the cost of supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) has also increased.

Marlborough St Mary's School in Wiltshire has had to find money from its existing budget to support pupils like six-year-old Thomas, who is waiting for an autism assessment.

His mum, Penny Reader, says Year One pupil Thomas loves everything about space and creatures who live under the sea.

He has one-to-one support at school, but was declined an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) - which sets out a child's legal right to support and additional funding - last year. A tribunal date to appeal that decision has been set for November.

Mrs Reader says it is "utterly insane" that the school does not get additional funding to support Thomas, who would previously hide in the classroom getting distressed and upset.

"He just couldn't cope with the other children," Mrs Reader says. "It was too noisy, too chaotic for him."

Now, Thomas loves being at school and can join in with all of his lessons, she says.

"It's just so reassuring," says Mrs Reader. "It's so lovely to see him thrive.

"Without that, Thomas wouldn't be here. That funding has made such a huge difference."

Head teacher Dan Crossman says the school is in an in-year deficit, spending more money than it has got coming in.

He says he faces a choice between meeting the needs of the children, or balancing the books.

Additional funding to support pupils with Send often takes a long time to materialise, he says.

So, Mr Crossman employs six teaching assistants to meet the needs of children awaiting additional support, such as through an EHCP.

"It means that they are safe. It means that they are happy, and it means that they have the opportunity to learn in a mainstream school," he says.

Mr Crossman says schools face "really hard" decisions, like staff redundancies and cutting counselling services.

The school has received financial support from a private donor to set up a forest school.

But Mr Crossman says such resources should come from "core budgets" rather than private investment.

The IFS says per-pupil spending in mainstream schools rose by about 11% between 2019 and 2024, when adjusted for inflation.

But much of that increase was absorbed by the rising cost of Send provision, meaning the actual increase was only about 5%.

The new analysis comes as the government considers its spending plans for 2026 onwards.

Steve Hitchcock, head teacher of St Peter's Primary School in Devon, and the region's National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) representative, says he has also had to come up with innovative ways to raise more money.

He says sourcing top-up funding is now a "really important part" of his role.

"Just in this last year I've managed to find £20,000 myself, which is just going out to our very generous community," he says.

The "absolutely fantastic" parent-teacher association has also raised £20,000 in the last year through sponsored challenges, film nights and discos at the school.

In the past, this money would go to "cherry-on-top" activities like play equipment. But now, it has to fund basic curriculum resources like buying paper, Mr Hitchcock says.

Staff costs take up 85% of the school's budget. Mr Hitchcock says pay rises are "very important" to recruit and retain staff, and to make sure it's a competitive profession.

The government's recommended 2.8% pay rise for teachers next year is being considered by the independent teacher pay review body.

Education unions have already described the proposal as being disappointingly low, but Mr Hitchcock says he does not know where he will find the extra money, even without any further increases.

"A nearly 3% pay rise is going to mean I have to find £30,000, which just isn't possible," he says.

"We were hoping desperately that this government would have a different approach to funding schools. It's going to be enormously challenging for the whole profession."

Daniel Kebede, National Education Union general secretary, says schools have "no capacity to make savings without cutting educational provision".

Julie McCulloch, from the Association of School and College Leaders, says the financial pressures facing the sector are a "death by a thousand cuts".

"Schools and colleges have been expected to absorb relentless financial pressures over the past 15 years, and they have done an incredible job in minimising the impact on students," she added. "But we cannot go on like this."

The Department for Education said school funding will increase to almost £63.9bn in the next financial year, including £1bn for children and young people with high needs.

A spokesperson said the government is "determined to fix the foundations of the education system".

Additional reporting by Hope Rhodes.

Luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce will expand its Goodwood factory and global headquarters to meet the growing demand for bespoke models.

It will invest more than £300 million so it can build more highly-customised versions of its cars for its super-rich clientele.

The 120-year old British brand came under full control of German carmaker BMW in 2003 and officially opened the site in West Sussex the same year. Rolls Royce says this expansion secures its future in the UK.

Rolls-Royce sold 5,712 cars in 2024, the third highest total in its history.

While that number may seem tiny compared with the millions of cars delivered each year by mainstream manufacturers, Rolls-Royce operates in a highly rarefied market.

The brand said it "does not disclose prices" but it is understood its cheapest model, the Ghost saloon, sells from about £250,000 upwards. Its Cullinan sports utility vehicle and electric Spectre models are thought to start at around £340,000.

In comparison, the average UK house price was £297,000 last year, according to Halifax.

The price of bespoke models can vary widely. When it comes to the most elaborate creations, the final product can cost several times the base price of the car.

There are relatively few buyers who can afford to pay so much for a car. Among those who can are celebrities, who often do not mind flaunting their wealth.

Among them are US stars Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj, as well as British rapper Stormzy who was banned from driving after being caught using a mobile phone behind the wheel of his Wraith in London.

'Holographic paint and one-off artworks'

For some customers, simply owning a Rolls-Royce isn't exclusive enough. In recent years, the company has increasingly focused on building highly-customised versions of its cars, which can then be sold at even higher prices.

Rolls-Royce describes this strategy as "creating value for clients through individualised products and experiences and providing opportunities for meaningful personal expression".

In practice, this has included cars with holographic paint, containing one-off artworks, or featuring intricate hand-stitched embroidery. One model, designed as a homage to the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, includes features made out of solid 18-carat gold.

Rolls-Royce is not alone in this. Other high-end manufacturers such as Bentley, McLaren and Ferrari also offer detailed customisation.

But making individually tailored cars, while profitable, is a labour-intensive process that requires time and space. At the same time, like other manufacturers the company is preparing for a future in which conventional cars will be phased out and replaced by electric models.

Rolls-Royce said the extension of its factory would "create additional space for the increasingly complex and high value bespoke and coachbuild projects sought by clients who define luxury as something deeply personal to them".

It added that the plan would "also ready the manufacturing facility for the marque's transition to an all-battery electric vehicle future".

The carmaker has already been granted planning permission for the expansion of the Goodwood plant, which was built in 2003 and initially housed 300 workers. There are currently more than 2,500 people working on the site.

"This represents our most substantial financial commitment to Goodwood since its opening," said the Rolls Royce chief executive, Chris Brownridge.

"It is a significant vote of confidence in the Rolls-Royce marque, securing our future in the UK," he added.

As a luxury carmaker focused on export markets, Rolls-Royce is insulated from many of the challenges currently facing the wider European motor industry. However, it has been affected by a fall in demand in China, one of its most important markets.

Earlier this year, Mr Brownridge said rising demand for personalised vehicles was helping to offset that decline.

The announcement comes weeks after another famous British brand generated controversy while setting out its own plans for the future.

Jaguar – a part of Jaguar Land Rover – is to be relaunched as an all-electric marque and moved sharply upmarket as part of a major restructuring at the company.

In December, it unveiled a dramatically styled concept car, which together with a new logo and a divisive online advert sparked a social media storm – and generated plenty of column inches.

Scottish producer Barry Can't Swim is one of the new superstars of dance music, his colourful and woozy grooves winning over packed crowds from Glastonbury to Coachella, and earning Brit Award and Mercury Prize nominations in 2024.

Now, he has started the new year with another accolade - after coming third on the BBC's Sound of 2025 list.

It confirms him as one of pop's breakout names, after five years on a steady upward trajectory, gaining more fans, exposure and acclaim with each release.

When Barry Can't Swim put out his first single in December 2019, it was the latest in a string of projects from Edinburgh-born musician Joshua Mainnie.

He didn't know this was the one that would take off. If he had, he might have thought a bit harder about the name.

"I've just got a mate who's called Barry and he can't swim," he told BBC Radio 6 Music in 2023.

"And when I chose the name, I really wasn't anticipating it was going to become my full-fledged career and everyone was going to think my name's Barry.

"There was really no more thought to it than that. And now I'm sort of stuck with it."

Barry/Joshua has his eagle-eyed, cash-conscious grandfather to thank for setting him on the path to a music career.

"I started playing piano when I was about 10," he told BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders in an interview revealing his place on the Sound of list.

"My granddad actually saw an advert in a paper for a piano that was going for free, and he picked it up and left it with my mum and dad, and they were like 'we don't have space for this'.

"And that was it. I just started learning how to play."

After catching the music bug, he formed bands in his teens inspired by groups like the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses, who fused indie and dance in the Madchester scene of the late 1980s and early 90s.

Sound of 2025 - The Top Five

• 5) English Teacher
• 4) Myles Smith
• 3) Barry Can't Swim
• 2) Revealed on Thursday
• 1) Revealed on Friday

Those acts were "some of the first people to really try and create a hybrid of the music that I loved, which was 60s psychedelic rock with more modern electronic music", he says.

"And that's exactly what I was trying to do - incorporate the more traditional form of songwriting and melody of 60s music with electronic production.

"That makes it sound a lot better than it was, by the way. But that's what I was trying to do, at least for a bit."

Mainnie decided to dedicate himself to dance music after discovering the nightclubs around Edinburgh's Cowgate as a student, while studying music at Edinburgh Napier University.

"My earliest producing really came from clubbing, really, and going out and just falling in love with dance music that way. So it was a natural progression from bands to electronic music."

Barry Can't Swim's sound is bright, euphoric and highly danceable, with hazy house rhythms, trance pianos and infectious vocal snippets combining in songs that are intoxicating shots of sonic sunshine.

His debut album When Will We Land? includes exotic-sounding samples of Galician folk and Brazilian funk, as well as a recording of his friend Jack Loughrey aka SomeDeadBeat reciting a poem at 4am.

It was one of 12 albums shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize, and Mainnie was nominated for best dance act at the 2024 Brit Awards.

Live, his sound is beefed out by a drummer, second synth player and guest vocalists, while 32-year-old Mainnie dances behind his keyboard in colourful shirts - occasionally emerging to throw shapes at the front of the stage.

He drew a huge crowd to the Park Stage at Glastonbury last summer, sold out three nights at Brixton Academy in November, and will headline a night of the All Points East Festival in east London in August.

He also does DJ sets - but says it "kind of annoys" him when people just refer to him as a DJ.

"I've been playing instruments for decades and was producing for five years before I even touched a set of decks," he told Rolling Stone.

Now, the two sides of his live performance feed off each other, he told Radio 1's Saunders.

"When I'm DJ-ing a lot, I really miss playing live. And when I'm playing live, I miss DJ-ing.

"Weirdly, it informs what I've been writing in the reverse. Like, when I spend a lot of time playing live with the band, I end up writing clubby music because I long for it.

"And then vice versa - when I'm out DJ-ing, I just miss the more live elements of making music.

"So I feel like I have a passion for both equally and mutually, and I think that's why it's been so easy to transition from DJ-ing into - not just a band, but the music that I make lends itself well to live performance of electronic music. It still holds the basic principles of traditional songwriting, but with electronic production."

Thriving scene

Barry Can't Swim is part of a new wave of intelligently feelgood dance music heroes alongside the likes of Sound of 2023 runner-up Fred Again, Sound of 2024 listee Peggy Gou and Sound of 2025 nominees Confidence Man.

Mainnie says "more leftfield" electronic music like his "definitely feels like it's got a bigger audience than it's ever had".

"I don't really know what's happened in the past few years, but the music I was listening to, and some of the artists that I was listening to a few years ago when I was going clubbing that were quite niche - now they're almost pop stars.

"And you're like, what's happened? But it's amazing. It's such an amazing thing for the scene."

Almost pop stars?

If Barry/Joshua hasn't reached that status already, he surely will in 2025.

One act from the BBC Sound of 2025 top five will be announced on Radio 1 and BBC News every day this week, culminating with the winner on Friday.

Sign up for our morning newsletter and get BBC News in your inbox.

"I thought I was done crying," says teacher Amy Goldsmith.

"I'm two and a half years into my world having been turned upside down and I would very much like that to be over."

Like hundreds of other teachers, Amy is stuck, unable to go ahead with her divorce because of long delays working out the value of her pension.

This is needed by the courts to decide whether it should be shared with her ex-partner, and without which it is almost impossible to reach a financial settlement.

"I was in limbo over my relationship and naively thought I could get the paperwork and move on," she said.

"I'm now in another limbo and just feel totally impotent."

Amy, 43, is waiting for the valuation from Teachers' Pensions - which runs the teachers' pensions scheme (TPS) on behalf of the Department for Education.

But it has been struggling to meet demand.

The government, which described the calculations as "extremely complex" and requiring a specialised role to complete, said it aims to clear most of the current backlog by the end of February.

A Freedom of Information request - submitted by a member of a teachers' pensions CETV support group and seen by the BBC - suggests just under 2,000 teachers were waiting for CETV valuations at the start of December 2024.

The Department for Education said that number dropped to 1,344 as of 6 January 2025, but that new cases are always coming in.

Amy, from Bristol, teaches history, geography and psychology at a secondary school in Wiltshire.

She has been waiting since July 2024 for a document known as a Cash Equivalent Transfer Valuation, or CETV and can not get divorced without it.

'Hugely stressful'

Both parties in a divorce need to provide accurate information about their finances - including any property, savings, and pensions - even if the split in assets is otherwise straightforward.

"I was initially told [the Teachers' Pension Scheme] would be in touch within 10 working days," she said.

"But then the person I spoke to said they had no timescale for the calculations to be completed. So holding my breath was not recommended."

Amy feels that the delay is making a highly emotional situation much worse.

"I can't have closure and get on with my life," she said.

"You don't wake up one morning and say, 'Oh, we'll get divorced'. I've been through the wringer. It's been hugely stressful."

David Quinton, from Gloucestershire, lectures in construction skills at a further education college. He first applied for his CETV in October 2023 and is still waiting, unable to get divorced without one.

He said: "This is the first time I've ever been divorced, so I hadn't heard of [a CETV] before.

"It's exhausting. It's taken a toll on me mentally because I want to move on with my life and I'm sure my ex-wife wants to do the same. It's financially taking a toll as well. I'm still paying a mortgage on a house."

David has also racked up hundreds of pounds in solicitors' fees because of the protracted divorce process.

He has written a series of complaints to the Teachers' Pension Scheme and his MP, Simon Opher, has raised his case in parliament.

The Teachers' Pension Scheme is one of the biggest in the country, with about two million members.

David said: "There are people mentally on the edge. They see no light at the end of the tunnel.

"The Department for Education have given us stock answers... and there's been no offer of compensation."

Complicated calculations

Steve Webb, former MP for Thornbury and Yate and pensions minister from 2010 until 2015, works at an independent pensions consultancy.

He said: "When a pension scheme works out what your pension is worth, it has to do some complicated calculations.

"But a court judgement means all these public sector schemes have to do some extra complicated calculations. They all need to agree so the teachers and the nurses and the civil service schemes all do it the same way.

"So that's taken time to agree and then they need expert staff to actually do all of these calculations. All of that is just taking time."

The judgement, also known as the McCloud pension remedy, found in 2018 that the government discriminated against younger members of public service pension schemes.

It resulted in the government making changes to public service pension schemes, and calculating valuations in a new way.

Backlog to be cleared

In an update issued on the Teachers' Pensions website in December, the service apologised for the inconvenience caused by the delays.

It said they were due firstly to an embargo on new CETVs between March and July 2023 in order to take account of a change in the way valuations are made.

And once the backlog had built up, new rules came into force after the McCloud judgment meaning that in many cases two calculations were necessary rather than one.

The Department for Education said the delays are not a result of having too few staff and that it is working through cases in date order wherever possible.

It said it aims to clear the "majority" of the current backlog by the end of February 2025, apart from some "small groups".

'No support'

Music teacher Steph Collishaw, 53, from Frome, in Somerset, has been waiting for her CETV since May 2024.

"It's made me feel really angry because I've worked for 29 years and have paid into the pension scheme all that time," she said.

"But when I need to depend on information that is rightfully mine, it's simply not there."

She said her divorce proceedings have become drawn out and she is currently unable to remortgage as her husband's name is still on the title deeds of her house.

And like many caught up in this delay, she has become sceptical of promises that things will improve quickly.

"I could be sitting here in another six months' time, still waiting on my CETV and I have no idea if that's going to happen or not.

"You're just trying to live in a vacuum of information and there is nothing there to support you."

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A prominent Nigerian atheist, who has just been freed after serving more than four years in prison for blasphemy, is now living in a safe house as his legal team fear his life may be in danger.

Mubarak Bala, 40, was convicted in a court in the northern city of Kano after, in a surprise move, he pleaded guilty to 18 charges relating to a controversial Facebook post shared in 2020.

"The concern about my safety is always there," he told the BBC in an exclusive interview as he tucked into his first meal as a free man.

Nigeria is a deeply religious society and those who may be seen as having insulted a religion - whether Islam or Christianity – face being shunned and discriminated against.

Blasphemy is an offence under Islamic law – Sharia - which operates alongside secular law in 12 states in the north. It is also an offence under Nigeria's criminal law.

Bala, who renounced Islam in 2014, said there were times during his incarceration that he felt he "may not get out alive". He feared he could have been targeted by guards or fellow inmates in the first prison he was in, in Kano, which is a mainly Muslim city.

"Freedom is here, but also there is an underlying threat I now have to face," he said. "All those years, those threats, maybe they're out there."

• WATCH: The cost of being an atheist

He could have been inside for much longer if it was not for an appeals court judge who reduced the initial 24-year sentence last year, describing it as "excessive".

Walking out of the prison in the capital, Abuja, Bala looked tired, but cheerful dressed in a white T-shirt, khaki shorts and flip-flops. He emerged with his beaming lawyer by his side.

"Everything is new to me. Everything is new," he said as he took in his new-found liberty.

Bala, an outspoken religious critic, was arrested after a group of lawyers filed a complaint with the police about the social media post.

He then spent two years in prison awaiting trial before being convicted in 2022.

At the time Bala's guilty plea baffled many, even his legal team, but he stands by his decision, saying that it relieved the pressure on those who stood by him, including his lawyers, friends and family.

"I believe what I did saved not only my life, but people in Kano," he said.

"Especially those that were attached to my case, because they are also a target."

His conviction was widely condemned by international rights groups and sparked a debate about freedom of speech in Nigeria.

His detention also sent shockwaves across Nigeria's small atheist and humanist communities, and his release has come as a relief to many, but there are still concerns.

"It's thanks and no thanks," said Leo Igwe, the founder of the Humanist Association of Nigeria.

"Thanks, that he's out, thanks that he's a free man. But no thanks, because there is a dent on him as if he committed a crime. For us at the Humanist Association, he committed no crime."

As for Bala, he is keen to catch up on lost time – including getting to know his young son who was just six weeks old when he was imprisoned. But he said he had no regrets.

"My activism, my posting on social media, I always knew the worst would happen, When I made the decision to come out, I knew I could be killed. I knew the dangers, and I still decided to do it."

More Nigeria stories from the BBC:

• 'Pregnant' for 15 months: Inside the 'miracle' fertility scam
• 'Terrible things happened' - inside TB Joshua's church of horrors
• Chibok girls feel let down 10 years after Nigeria kidnapping

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

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

Although Babatunde Fashola, affectionately known as Baba, is 22 years old, he is less than 70cm (2ft 4in) tall.

He has cerebral palsy and requires lifelong care. He can neither speak nor walk and is fed via a tube attached to his stomach.

As a baby, he was abandoned by his parents but 10 years ago, he found a home at the Cerebral Palsy Centre in the Nigerian city of Lagos.

"Baba weighs about 12kg [26lb]. He is doing well," the facility's founder, Nonye Nweke, tells me when I visit.

Ms Nweke and her staff work around the clock to support him and other youngsters living with permanent brain damage.

Although there is a lack of official data, cerebral palsy is believed to be one of the most common neurological disorders in Nigeria. In 2017, a medical professor from the University of Lagos said 700,000 people had the condition.

For many of those living with cerebral palsy in the country, their condition was caused by a common phenomenon among newborns - neonatal jaundice.

This is caused by a build-up of bilirubin, a yellow substance, in the blood, meaning the babies' skins have a yellow tinge.

Professor Chinyere Ezeaka, a paediatrician at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, tells the BBC that more than 60% of all babies suffer from jaundice.

Most babies recover within days. More severe cases need further medical intervention - and even then the condition is easily treatable.

Children are basically exposed to ultra-violet light to dissolve the excess bilirubin in their red blood cells. The treatment lasts a few days depending on the severity.

However, in Nigeria this treatment is often not immediately available, which is why the country is among the five with the most neurological disorders caused by untreated jaundice in the world, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Any treatment for neonatal jaundice "must occur within the first 10 days of life, else [the condition] could cause permanent brain damage and severe cerebral palsy", says Prof Ezeaka.

To make matters worse, the West African country lacks facilities to care for those with neurological disorders. There are just three cerebral palsy centres, all privately run, in Nigeria, which has a population of more than 200 million.

Ms Nweke - a single mother - set up the Cerebral Palsy Centre after struggling to find support for her own daughter, Zimuzo.

"When I took her to a day-care [centre], they asked me to take her back because other mothers would withdraw their children. As a mum, I must say it was quite devastating," Ms Nweke tells the BBC.

Zimuzo is now 17, and Ms Nweke's Cerebral Palsy Centre provides full-time support for others with similar experiences.

On the day I visit, colourful playtime mats and toys are neatly arranged on the floor. Mickey Mouse and his friends converse on a wide-screen television in the lounge.

Twelve youngsters, some as young as five, gaze at the TV, their bright environment ignored for a moment. They are all immobile and non-speaking.

At lunchtime, caregivers help the youngsters eat. Some take in liquified food through tubes attached to their stomachs.

Carefully and slowly, the carers support their heads with pillows and push the contents of their syringes into the tubes.

The youngsters are fed every two hours and require regular muscular massages to prevent stiffness.

But they are the lucky 12 receiving free care from the Cerebral Palsy Centre, which is funded exclusively by donors.

The facility has a long waiting list - Ms Nweke has received more than 100 applications.

But taking on more youngsters would require extra financial support. The cost of caring for someone at the centre is at least $1,000 (£790) a month - a huge amount in a country where the national minimum wage is about $540 a year.

"As a mum, I must say it's quite overwhelming. You have moments of depression, it gives you heartaches and it is quite expensive - in fact it's the most expensive congenital disorder to manage," Ms Nweke says.

"And then of course, it keeps you away from people because you don't discuss the same things. They are talking of their babies, walking, enjoying those baby moments. You are not doing that. You are sad," she adds.

Ms Nweke explains that she adopted Zimuzo from an orphanage.

A few months after taking her new daughter home, Ms Nweke realised Zimuzo was not developing in the same way as the children around her were. She was assessed at a hospital and diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Ms Nweke was told she could take Zimuzo, who was then just a few months old, back to the orphanage and adopt another baby instead, but she refused.

"I decided to keep her and I began researching what the disorder was about, the treatment and type of care my child would need - she's my life.

"I was also told by the doctors she won't live beyond two years. Well here we are - 17 years later," says a smiling Ms Nweke.

A lack of awareness and adequate medical support hinders the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal jaundice in Nigeria.

Ms Nweke also says the common local belief that children with congenital disorders are spiritually damaged or bewitched leads to stigmatisation.

Some children with neurological disorders - mostly in Nigeria's rural areas - are labelled witches. In some cases, they are abandoned in prayer houses or cast out of their families.

Ms Nweke is not alone in her mission to dispel myths and improve care.

The Oscar Project - a charity aimed at improving the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal jaundice - recently began operating in Lagos.

The project is named after Vietnamese-born British disability advocate, Oscar Anderson, whose untreated jaundice caused his cerebral palsy.

"We're equipping health facilities at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels with the equipment to treat jaundice, primarily light boxes, but also detection and screening equipment," Toyin Saraki, who oversaw the launch, tells the BBC.

Project Oscar, backed by consumer health firm Reckitt, is training 300 health workers in Lagos. The hope over the first year is to reach 10,000 mothers, screen 9,000 children and introduce new protocols to try and prevent babies with jaundice from developing cerebral palsy.

In a country where the public health system is overstretched, the government has little to say about the disorder, although it lauded the Oscar project's goals.

Treatment for neonatal jaundice is significantly cheaper than the cost of lifelong care, doctors say.

First launched in Vietnam in 2019, Project Oscar has helped about 150,000 children in the Asian country.

Mr Anderson, 22, says he wants to prevent other children experiencing what he has been through.

"People with disabilities are not to be underestimated," he tells the BBC.

He is working to ensure screening for every newborn infant for neonatal jaundice, and, with the support and courage of mums, midwives and medical professionals, ensure there is better understanding and quicker treatment.

However, achieving this is a hugely ambitious goal in Africa's most-populous country, where thousands of babies are born each year with neonatal jaundice.

Regardless, Mr Anderson is determined to defy the odds.

"The work doesn't stop until every baby is protected against neonatal jaundice," he says.

More Nigeria stories from the BBC:

• Disabled Nigerian vlogger: 'I'm destined for something great'
• The Nigerian watch-lover lost in time
• Should I stay or should I go? The dilemma for young Nigerians
• 'I wasn't me any more' - a photographer tackles her postnatal depression
• Nigeria cost-of-living crisis sparks exodus of doctors

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

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

A former senior UK Special Forces officer has told a public inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan that the SAS had a "golden pass allowing them to get away with murder".

The accusation was published by the Afghanistan Inquiry on Wednesday as part of a release of material summarising seven closed hearings with members of UK Special Forces.

The officer, a former operations chief of staff for the Special Boat Service (SBS) - the UK's naval special forces - was one of several senior officers who registered concerns back in 2011 that the SAS appeared to be carrying out executions and covering them up.

In one email from the time, the officer wrote that the SAS and murder were "regular bedfellows" and described the regiment's official descriptions of operational killings as "quite incredible".

Asked by the inquiry during the closed hearings whether he stood by his assertion that the SAS's actions amounted to murder, the officer replied: "Indeed."

Pressed by the inquiry counsel about his decision not to report his concerns further up the chain of command in 2011, he said he regretted his lack of action at the time. He agreed that there had been a "massive failure of leadership" by UK Special Forces.

The former SBS operations chief of staff was one of several senior officers from the Royal Navy's special forces regiment who gave evidence to the inquiry behind closed doors in 2024.

The inquiry, which is examining night raids by UKSF between 2010 and 2013, follows years of reporting by BBC Panorama into allegations of murder and cover up by the SAS.

• SAS war crimes inquiry obtains huge cache of new evidence, BBC reveals
• How a British special forces raid went wrong, and a young family paid the price
• SAS unit repeatedly killed Afghan detainees, BBC finds

Only the inquiry team and representatives from the Ministry of Defence have been allowed to attend the closed hearings. The public, members of the media, and lawyers for the bereaved families are not allowed to be present.

The material released on Wednesday summarises the testimony from these hearings. Taken together, the documents – totalling hundreds of pages – paint a picture of the SAS's arrival in Afghanistan in 2009 and the way in which it took over hunting the Taliban from the SBS.

Senior SBS officers told the inquiry of deep concerns that the SAS, fresh from aggressive, high-tempo operations in Iraq, was being driven by kill counts – the number of dead they could achieve in each operation.

Another senior SBS officer who gave evidence was asked whether he stood by his concerns in 2011 that the SAS was carrying out extra-judicial killings.

"I thought and think that on at least some operations [the SAS] was carrying out murders," he said.

A junior SBS officer who also gave evidence to the inquiry behind closed doors described a conversation in which a member of the SAS who had recently returned from Afghanistan told him about a pillow being put over the head of someone before they were killed with a pistol.

"I suppose what shocked me most wasn't the execution of potential members of the Taliban, which was of course wrong and illegal, but it was more the age and the methods and, you know, the details of things like pillows," the junior officer said.

He clarified that some of those killed by the SAS had been children, according to the conversation he relayed. Asked by the inquiry counsel if he meant some of those killed would be as young as 16, he replied: "Or younger 100%".

The junior officer told the inquiry that he feared for his safety should his name be linked to testimony that the SAS had been allegedly murdering civilians.

These SBS officers were part of a small group that was privately raising doubts back in 2011 about the veracity of SAS operational reports coming back from Afghanistan.

In one email, one of the senior officers, who held a post at the SBS headquarters in Poole at the time, wrote to a senior colleague: "If we don't believe this, then no one else will and when the next WikiLeaks occurs then we will be dragged down with them."

The two senior officers were in a position to interpret the language in the regiment's reports, having served with SBS operational units in Afghanistan prior to the arrival of the SAS, when the naval unit was forced to take what it saw as a back seat, pursuing anti-narcotics operations rather than hunting the Taliban.

As well as believing that the SAS may have committed murders, they described in their emails what they viewed as a cover-up in Afghanistan. The second officer told the inquiry chair: "Basically, there appears to be a culture there of 'shut up, don't question'."

At the time, support staff in Afghanistan were sceptical about the SAS's accounts of their operations, judging them not credible.

But rather than taking the concerns seriously, a reprimand had been issued "to ensure that the staff officers support the guys on the ground", another senior SBS officer wrote.

He told the inquiry that in the eyes of the Special Forces' commanding officer in Afghanistan, the SAS could do no wrong, and described the lack of accountability for the regiment as "astonishing".

The documents released on Wednesday also reveal new details about an explosive meeting in Afghanistan in February 2011, during which the Afghan special forces that partnered the SAS angrily withdrew their support.

The meeting followed a growing rift between the SAS and the Afghan special forces over what the Afghans saw as unlawful killings by members of the SAS.

One Afghan officer present at the meeting was so incensed that he reportedly reached for his pistol.

Describing the meeting in a newly released email, the SBS officer wrote: "I've never had such a hostile meeting before – genuine shouting, arm waving and with me staring down a 9mm barrel at one stage – all pretty unpleasant."

After intervention from senior members of UKSF, the Afghan units agreed to continue to working alongside the SAS. But it would not be the last time they withdrew their support in protest.

"This is all very damaging," the SBS officer concluded his email.

Additional reporting by Conor McCann

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