President Trump is showing mounting frustration at his inability to win confirmation of U.S. attorneys in blue states or break the filibuster's grip on the Senate. The G.O.P. has been uncharacteristically uncooperative.
Former President George W. Bush paid tribute to his late vice president, Dick Cheney, on Tuesday, calling him “a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence, and seriousness of purpose to every position he held.”
“Dick was a calm and steady presence in the White House amid great national challenges,” Bush wrote. “I counted on him for his honest, forthright counsel, and he never failed to give his best. He held to his convictions and prioritized the freedom and security of the American people.”
And even though the pair’s relationship was strained toward the end of their time in the White House — due in large part to Bush’s refusal to pardon Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby — the former president hailed Cheney as “among the finest public servants of his generation.”
“For those two terms in office, and throughout his remarkable career, Dick Cheney’s service always reflected credit on the country he loved,” Bush wrote.
One key Republican who has remained conspicuously silent in the hours since Cheney’s death was announced is President Donald Trump. Cheney’s twilight in American politics was marked by his opposition to the president.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he said in 2022 campaign advertisement for his daughter, Liz Cheney, another Trump foil. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.”
But many Republicans, even some who backed Trump in the aftermath of his failed bid to remain in the White House after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, offered their condolences.
“Vice President Cheney dedicated his life to serving our nation,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a key Trump ally, said in a post on X. “He was known for his love of his family and his country. Ann and I are praying for the Cheney family and all who knew him during this time.”
Their stand saw the Cheneys effectively run out of GOP politics, with Trump winning the general election last November and continuing to reshape the party in his image in the months since returning to the Oval Office.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But other key Republicans paid their respects Tuesday.
“As our nation mourns the loss of former Vice President Dick Cheney, we honor his devotion to serving our nation,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), the fourth-ranking House Republican, said on X. “My prayers are with the Cheney family during this difficult time.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement that Cheney, who grew up in Casper, Wyoming, would be remembered as “a towering figure who helped guide the course of history” in the state.
“From high school football star to White House Chief of Staff, Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President, Dick’s career has few peers in American life,” Barrasso wrote. “His unflinching leadership shaped many of the biggest moments in domestic and U.S. foreign policy for decades.”
The murder of Mexico’s most vocal anti-crime mayor shows that, despite President Claudia Sheinbaum’s crackdown on drug cartels, the battle is just beginning.
Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore is pushing to redraw the state’s congressional maps, announcing on Tuesday the creation of a commission that will propose new lines ahead of the 2026 midterms.
It sets up a clash between the two Democratic leaders in a blue-leaning state where any effort to redraw the map will net a single seat, given that Maryland Democrats already dominate the state’s congressional delegation with seven of its eight U.S House seats. It also comes as Democrats are ramping up their efforts to change maps to match President Donald Trump’s moves to redistrict red-leaning states to net additional seats for Republicans.
“My commitment has been clear from day one — we will explore every avenue possible to make sure Maryland has fair and representative maps,” Moore said in a statement Tuesday. “This commission will ensure the people are heard..”
The commission will be chaired by Maryland Democratic Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a close ally of Moore’s who he helped get elected to the Senate last year. Moore’s other appointees include Brian Frosh, the state’s former Democratic attorney general who served under former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, and Ray Morriss, the nonpartisan mayor of the city of Cumberland.
The other appointees of the commission include Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones, who has been public about her intent to launch a redistricting push, and Ferguson “or designee.”
Reached for comment on whether he’d join the commission, a spokesperson for Ferguson responded simply: “We’ll see.”
Moore, considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, is itching for Maryland to enter the national mid-decade redistricting fight that touched off earlier this year when Trump urged the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature to redraw districts to pick up five seats that favor Republicans ahead of next year's midterms.
Moore himself has characterized what Trump is doing as “nothing more than political redlining,” a reference to the discriminatory housing practice that kept Black Americans out of predominantly white neighborhoods by denying them mortgages.
Ferguson, who is white, in his letter last week also made a racial argument against moving to redraw state lines. He said Maryland, which has a governor, House speaker and attorney general who are all Black, has long fought against racial gerrymandering that was aimed at “diluting” the Black vote. It would be “hypocritical to say that it is abhorrent to tactically shift voters based on race, but not to do so based on party affiliation,” he wrote.
In California on Tuesday, voters take up a ballot measure, Proposition 50, the mid-decade gerrymander that is being led by Gov. Gavin Newsom. If it passes as expected, it would offset the GOP pickups that the Texas redistricting effort created.
This so-called "off year" election doesn't feature presidential or congressional races, but there are still several critical votes to watch tonight.
New York City will choose its next mayor, in a battle that has pitted a younger, progressive Democrat against a member of the party's old guard. The states of Virginia and New Jersey will elect new governors, and the outcome of these contests could be bellwethers for next year's congressional midterm elections.
Californians also will decide whether to redraw their US House district maps in a rare mid-decade redistricting, as Democrats try to counter Republicans' efforts to give their party an advantage in next year's midterm elections.
Here's what you need to know.
New York City mayoral race
All eyes will be on the Big Apple as Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman, attempts a political upset in his bid to become New York City's youngest mayor in over a century.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, shocked the political establishment when he bested former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary this summer. Cuomo, undeterred, has continued to campaign as an independent. Meanwhile, Republican Curtis Sliwa has resisted pressure to drop out of the race to clear a path for Cuomo.
If Mamdani wins, he will become the city's first Muslim mayor. Democrats around the country will be watching to see if his laser-focus on cost-of-living issues like rent, groceries and wages could serve as effective messaging in future races.
Though Mamdani heads into election night with a suggested polling lead, the gap between him and Cuomo has narrowed. In the final stretch of the campaign, Cuomo has hammered Mamdani on crime and public safety, and said the young politician lacks the experience to lead America's biggest city.
California redistricting
California's Democratic leadership is asking voters for permission to redraw the state's congressional districts in the middle of the decade. That's unusual in California, which by law relies on a nonpartisan committee to draw its congressional maps once every decade, based on census data.
However, as Republican-led states like Texas and Missouri seek to hastily redraw their congressional maps to give their party an advantage in the 2026 midterm elections, California Governor Gavin Newsom wants to counter the losses with redistricting in his own state.
California's Proposition 50 would allow the temporary use of new congressional district maps through 2030. The campaign has drawn $158 million in donations, according to the Los Angeles Times, with Democratic proponents vastly outraising the Republican opposition effort.
Republicans in California, who hold only nine of the state's 52 US House seats, staunchly oppose the plan.
A University of California Berkeley/IGS Poll suggests 60% of likely California voters support Proposition 50, while 38% oppose it. The breakdown was highly partisan, with 93% of Democrats saying they would choose "yes" and 91% of Republicans choosing "no."
New Jersey governor's race
New Jersey is considered a blue state, but polls indicate a close race between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli. It's one of the two governor's races this year that could indicate how Americans feel about the current political climate.
Sherrill currently represents New Jersey's 11th District in Congress, and Ciattarelli is a former state assemblyman.
New Jersey is considered a Democratic-leaning state, but has had Republican governors. The last one, Chris Christie, served two terms between 2010 and 2018.
Rhetoric in the race has been heated. Ciattarelli and his supporters have run political advertisements featuring clips of Sherrill giving halting answers in interviews about her policies.
It also has drawn the attention of nationally known names from both parties. Democratic stars like former president Barack Obama and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg have campaigned with Sherrill. President Donald Trump attended a virtual rally for Ciattarelli, and conservative activist Jack Posobiec has backed him.
Virginia governor's race
Virginia's leadership usually swings between Democrats and Republicans, meaning the outcome of this year's gubernatorial election might serve as a bellwether for the electorate's mood.
No matter which candidate succeeds, the state will elect its first female governor this year. Voters will choose between Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a US congresswoman, and Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the state's current lieutenant governor.
If Earle-Sears wins, she will become the first black woman elected to lead a US state in the nation's history.
Virginia is bordered by the liberal-leaning Washington, DC to the north where many residents work in the nation's capitol or for the federal government. But the state also has deep pockets of conservative voters throughout its rural districts, and swing voters.
Spanberger has highlighted the economic impact of Trump's cuts to the federal government, which have impacted Virginia's employment. Earle-Sears has touted Virginia's economy under Republican leadership. But she also has leaned into cultural topics like transgender issues, which Republicans used successfully as a wedge issue in last year's presidential election.
The Donald Trump factor
Though he's not on the ballot, Trump's name looms over this election.
The New York City mayor's race is how the next leader of the city will deal with the Trump administration, which has meddled in the city's politics. Cuomo is pitching his experience as governor dealing with the first administration as a reason for voters to choose him.
The president has implied that he will penalize the city if voters choose Mamdani.
"It's gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York, because if you have a communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there," Trump said in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday. (Mamdani is not a communist.)
Trump kicked off the redistricting battle that led California to put Proposition 50 on the ballot, and has endorsed Ciattarelli in the New Jersey governor's race.
Bai Suocheng, the patriarch of the Bai family, was among the Myanmar warlords taken to Beijing in 2024
A Chinese court has sentenced five top members of an infamous Myanmar mafia to death as Beijing continues its crackdown on scam operations in South East Asia.
In all 21 Bai family members and associates were convicted of fraud, homicide, injury and other crimes, said a state media report published on the court website.
The family is among a handful of mafias that rose to power in the 2000s and transformed the impoverished backwater town of Laukkaing into a lucrative hub of casinos and red-light districts.
In recent years they pivoted to scams in which thousands of trafficked workers, many of them Chinese, are trapped, abused and forced to defraud others in criminal operations worth billions.
Mafia boss Bai Suocheng and his son Bai Yingcang were among the five men sentenced to death by the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court. Yang Liqiang, Hu Xiaojiang and Chen Guangyi were the other three.
Two members of the Bai family mafia were handed suspended death sentences. Five were sentenced to life imprisonment, while nine others were handed jail sentences ranging from three to 20 years.
The Bais, who controlled their own militia, established 41 compounds to house their cyberscam activities and casinos, authorities said.
These criminal activities involved more than 29 billion Chinese yuan ($4.1bn; £3.1bn). They also led to the deaths of six Chinese citizens, the suicide of one and multiple injuries, state media reported.
The harsh penalties handed down by the court are part of China's campaign to eradicate the vast scam networks in South East Asia - and send a stern warning to other criminal syndicates.
These families rose to power in the 2000s with the help of Min Aung Hlaing - who now leads Myanmar's military government. He had wanted to prop up allies in Laukkaing after ousting its former warlord.
Among the clans, the Bais were "absolutely number one", Bai Yingcang previously told state media.
"At that time, our Bai family was the most powerful in both the political and military circles," he said in a documentary about the Bai family, aired on Chinese state media in July.
In the same documentary, a worker at one of their scam centres recalled the abuse he had endured there: besides being beaten, he had his fingernails yanked out with pliers and two of his fingers severed with a kitchen knife.
Bai Yingcang is among those who were sentenced to death this week. He has also been separately convicted of conspiring to traffic and manufacture 11 tonnes of methamphetamine, state media reported.
The families' fall came in 2023 as political winds changed.
For years Beijing has pressed the Myanmar junta to rein in scam operations in Laukkaing.
In 2023, the Chinese police issued arrest warrants for the most prominent members of these families.
Bai Suocheng, the Bai family's patriarch, was among the warlords who were handed to Beijing from Myanmar in early 2024.
"Why is the Chinese government making so much effort to go after the four families?" a Chinese investigator said in the July documentary.
"It's to warn other people, no matter who you are, where you are, as long as you commit such heinous crimes against the Chinese people, you will pay the price."
Kim Yong Nam served under three generations of Pyongyang's ruling dynasty
Kim Yong Nam, North Korea's former ceremonial head of state and a lifelong supporter of the ruling dynasty, has died aged 97, according to state media.
He held the role of president of Pyongyang's rubber-stamp Supreme People's Assembly from 1998 to 2019.
Kim Yong Nam served in various diplomatic roles under the regimes of the country's founder Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il, and his grandson Kim Jong Un - though was not related to the family.
He died of multiple organ failure on 3 November, according to the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The agency described him as an "old-generation revolutionary who left extraordinary achievements in the development history of our party and country". A state funeral has been held for him.
Kim Yong Nam was born when the Korean peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule, into what KCNA called a family of "anti-Japanese patriots". He attended Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang and also studied in Moscow, before beginning his career in the 1950s.
Starting out as a low-ranking official in the ruling party, he rose to become foreign minister and then served as chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly for nearly all of Kim Jong Il's reign.
Even as real power remained in the hands of the ruling Kim family, Kim Yong Nam was often seen as the face of North Korea on the international stage.
In 2018, he led a North Korean delegation to South Korea during the Winter Olympics, where he met the South's then-president Moon Jae-in.
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un's influential sister, was part of the delegation.
Kim Yong Nam also previously met two other former South Korean presidents: Kim Dae-jung in 2000, and Roh Moo-hyun in 2007 - on both occasions, at inter-Korean summits respectively.
South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young offered condolences, saying he had "meaningful conversations about peace in the Korean peninsula" with Kim Yong Nam.
Former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong Ho, who has since resettled in the South, told the BBC that Kim Yong Nam never uttered a word that was regarded as problematic by the regime.
"[He] never made his own opinions known... He had no close [allies] or enemies. He never showed any creativity. He never put out a new policy. He only repeated what the Kim family have said before," said Thae, who was most recently the leader of South Korea's presidential advisory council on unification.
"Kim Yong Nam is the perfect role model of how to survive for a long time in North Korea," Thae said, adding that he avoided criticism from within the party by maintain a "clean" reputation.
Unlike many other high-ranking officials in the North, Kim Yong Nam was never demoted even as power was handed down through three generations of the Kim family clan. He retired in April 2019.
His longevity was rare as many other officials have been purged, sent to labour camps, or even killed if they are deemed to have acted against the state's policies.
For example, Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of his uncle Chang Song Thaek in 2013 for "acts of treachery", state media reported then.
Moment Philippines floods move shipping containers
At least three people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes as a typhoon ripped through the central Philippines, the country's disaster agency said.
Typhoon Kalmaegi has flooded large areas, including entire towns on the island of Cebu.
Videos show people sheltering on rooftops, while cars and shipping containers have been swept through the streets.
A military helicopter deployed to assist relief efforts crashed in northern Mindanao island, the Philippine Air Force (PAF) said. It is not yet clear if there were any survivors of the crash.
The typhoon, locally named Tino, has weakened since making landfall early on Tuesday, but has continued to bring winds of more than 80mph (130km/h).
It is forecast to move across the Visayas islands region and out over the South China Sea by Wednesday.
"The situation in Cebu is really unprecedented," provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro said in a Facebook post.
"We were expecting the winds to be the dangerous part, but... the water is what's truly putting our people at risk," she said.
"The floodwaters are just devastating."
Don del Rosario, 28, was among those in Cebu City who sought refuge on an upper floor as the storm raged.
"I've been here for 28 years, and this is by far the worst we've experienced," he told the AFP news agency.
In a statement, the PAF said a rescue helicopter went down near Agusan del Sur on Mindanao island.
"Communication with the helicopter was lost, which immediately prompted the launch of a search and rescue operation," it said, adding that further details will be released "as they become verified".
In total, almost 400,000 people were moved from the typhoon's path, Rafaelito Alejandro, deputy administrator at the Office of Civil Defence, told a news conference.
AFP via Getty Images
The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year.
The latest comes barely a month after back-to-back typhoons killed over a dozen people and wrought damage to infrastructure and crops.
Super Typhoon Ragasa, known locally as Nando, struck in late September, followed swiftly by Typhoon Bualoi, known locally as Opong.
In the months before, an extraordinarily wet monsoon season caused widespread flooding, sparking anger and protests over unfinished and sub-standard flood control systems that have been blamed on corruption.
On 30 September, dozens were killed and injured after a powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the central Philippines, with Cebu bearing the brunt of the damage.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to present his government's first federal budget on Tuesday, and has warned Canadians to expect "sacrifices" as he aims to transform an economy battered by US President Donald Trump's tariffs.
Carney has said the spending plan will see both significant cuts and "generational investments" to strengthen the economy and reduce the country's reliance on US trade.
The plan is also expected to lay out how Canada will pay for billions of dollars in defence spending to fulfil the new Nato commitment to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035.
Analysts have suggested the federal deficit could exceed C$70bn ($50bn; £38bn), up from $51.7bn last year.
The fiscal plan is seen as a major test for Carney, a former central banker for Canada and the UK who has promised to make Canada's economy the strongest in the G7 group of wealthy nations.
"We used to take big, bold risks in this country. It is time to swing for the fences again," he said in a pre-budget speech last month.
Canada, which trades primarily with the US, has a particular exposure to tariff shocks.
Carney has said he is setting a goal for the country to double its non-US exports in the next decade.
Joy Nott, a partner at KPMG Canada who focuses on trade and customs, told the BBC that "Canadian companies need government support during the transition of moving from one market to another".
That includes everything from finding money to travel on trade missions abroad to market research and navigating regulatory approvals when entering new markets.
It takes time and money to overcome "those historic hurdles that we've seen, that prevented them from doing it", Ms Nott said.
Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne underscored the "made-at-home" message on Monday as he bought new shoes - a political pre-budget tradition for federal finance ministers - at a Quebec business that supplies footwear worldwide as well as to Canada's armed forces and RCMP officers.
The firm was "emblematic of who we are as a nation", he told reporters as he stood in the company's manufacturing facility.
"We're moving from reliance to resilience, from uncertainty to prosperity, we're going to do the kind of things that make this country stronger," Champagne said.
While he said the budget would be focused on "investments", Carney has also promised to balance the federal operating budget - day-to-day spending on government programmes - over the next three years.
Over the summer, federal ministries were asked to find ways to cut up to 15% from programme spending in the coming years, as the government seeks savings to fund spending into things like trade infrastructure, housing, and tariff-impacted industries.
It is still unclear where the Carney's Liberal Party will find the support they need to pass the spending package. The Liberals, who are three seats short of a majority in the House of Commons, need at least one other party to help pass the fiscal plan.
Canada faces a potential snap election if the budget vote, which is a confidence vote, fails. Though that is an unlikely scenario so soon after Canadians went to the ballot box in the spring.
"I don't think any of the other parties want to run an election right now," said Elizabeth McCallion, a political science professor at the University of Toronto.
The most likely support would come from the left-wing NDP, who are currently in the midst of a leadership race after a devastating election performance in April.
Prof McCallion said it was possible some NDP members of Parliament would abstain from voting to allow the budget to pass.
She said Carney also faced the risk of "push back against austerity" measures expected in the budget.
Trump has imposed a 35% tariff on Canadian imports, although most goods are exempt from the levies because they fall under a US-Mexico-Canada free trade deal. However, separate global US tariffs on metals, autos, and lumber are hitting those sectors in the country particularly hard.
There are signs the trade uncertainty is weighing on Canada's economy and unemployment is on the rise.
The Bank of Canada projects the country's GDP will grow by 1.2% in 2025, 1.1% in 2026 and 1.6% in 2027.
Heartbreak High is an Australian comedy drama on Netflix
Australia is to introduce laws requiring streaming platforms to invest a minimum amount of money in homegrown content, the government said on Tuesday.
Platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime and any other streamers with over one million subscribers will have to contribute at least 10% of their local expenditure, or 7.5% of revenue, on Australian content.
Legislation will be introduced to parliament this week and will apply to drama, documentaries, arts and educational programmes.
Arts minister Tony Burke and communications minister Anika Wells said the move would help to protect acting jobs. The streaming services have not yet commented.
'Extraordinary shows'
"We have Australian content requirements on free-to-air television and pay television, but until now, there has been no guarantee that we could see our own stories on streaming services," Burke said.
"Since their introduction in Australia, streaming services have created some extraordinary shows. This obligation will ensure that those stories – our stories – continue to be made."
The broadcaster said that the new content requirements were meant to be in place by July last year but concerns over how they would interact with a free trade agreement with the US led to the plans being put on hold.
The government cited difficulty engaging in negotiations with the US while it was holding an election.
After President Trump was elected, there was then concern about whether the rules might prompt the US administration to impose retaliatory tariffs against Australia.
A Ukrainian soldier from an artillery unit of the 59th Assault Brigade in the Dnipropetrovsk region of eastern Ukraine last month. Until now, the country’s troops have served under open-ended contracts.
Alan Bates has been campaigning for Post Office victims for over 20 years
Post Office campaigner Sir Alan Bates has reached a settlement with the government, more than 20 years after he started campaigning for justice for victims of the Horizon scandal.
Sir Alan led a group of 555 subpostmasters who took part in a landmark legal action against the Post Office.
The sum paid to Sir Alan has not been made public.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 subpostmasters were wrongly prosecuted after the faulty Horizon IT system indicated shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts.
Hundreds more poured their own savings into their branch to make up apparent shortfalls in order to avoid prosecution.
Marriages broke down, and some families believe the stress led to serious health conditions, addiction and even premature death.
A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said: "We pay tribute to Sir Alan Bates for his long record of campaigning on behalf of victims.
"We can confirm that Sir Alan's claim has reached the end of the scheme process and been settled."
The Department has now paid "over £1.2 billion to more than 9,000 victims".
The Post Office/Horizon scandal reached new heights in the public consciousness after Sir Alan's campaign for justice was portrayed in the ITV drama series Mr Bates vs the Post Office.
Earlier this year, Sir Alan accused the government of putting forward a "take it or leave it" offer of compensation amounting to less than half of his claim.
Many victims have previously complained about being forced to accept low offers of compensation, without the benefit of legal help.
Last month, the government announced that all victims who are claiming compensation will now be entitled to free legal advice to help them with their offers.
There are four different compensation schemes, which are aimed at different groups of victims.
Individual eligibility for compensation depends on the particular circumstances of each case.
However, the schemes have been criticised for being too slow and complicated, with many of the worst-affected victims receiving far less than their original claims.
"People know how patriotic I am - I love my country.
"I've always said how important the monarchy is to my family.
"I'm lucky enough to have travelled around the world and all people want to talk to me about is our monarchy. It makes me proud."
The ex-Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder played 115 times for his country and captained the Three Lions for six years between 2000 and 2006.
He played in three World Cups for England, as well as two European Championships.
Beckham emerged from Manchester United's academy in 1992 and spent 11 years in the first team before joining Real Madrid in 2003 in a £25m deal.
He played for four years in the Spanish capital before joining Major League Soccer team LA Galaxy. He had two loan spells at AC Milan during his time in Los Angeles, before finishing his career at Paris St-Germain in 2013.
But Beckham's impact extends far beyond the pitch.
Born in east London, he played a role in securing the 2012 Olympics for London.
He has worked with humanitarian aid organisation Unicef since 2005 and had a fund named in his honour in 2015 to mark a decade-long partnership between the two.
Beckham became an ambassador for the King's Foundation in 2024, supporting King Charles' education programme and efforts to ensure young people have a greater understanding of nature.
He part-owns League Two side Salford City alongside former United and England team-mate Gary Neville, and is also co-owner of MLS side Inter Miami.
Image source, Press Association
Image caption,
Beckham made his England debut in 1996 and went on to earn 115 caps for his country
They look like simple stones, but they were state of the art tools millions of years ago, made with great skill and precison
The very first humans millions of years ago may have been inventors, according to a discovery in northwest Kenya.
Researchers have found that the primitive humans who lived 2.75 million years ago at an archaeological site called Namorotukunan used stone tools continuously for 300,000 years.
Evidence previously suggested that early human tool use was sporadic: randomly developed and quickly forgotten.
The Namorotukunan find is the first to show that the technology was passed down through thousands of generations.
According to Prof David Braun, of George Washington University, in Washington DC, who led the research, this find, published in the journal Nature Communications, provides incredibly strong evidence for a radical shake-up in our understanding of human evolution.
"We thought that tool use could have been a flash in the pan and then disappeared. When we see 300,000 years of the same thing, that's just not possible," he said.
"This is a long continuity of behaviour. That tool use in (humans and human ancestors) is probably much earlier and more continuous than we thought it was."
David Braun
The stone tools were so sharp that the researchers could cut their fingers on some of them
Archaeologists spent ten years at Namorotukunan uncovering 1,300 sharp flakes, hammerstones, and stone cores, each made by carefully striking rocks gathered from riverbeds. These are made using a technology known as Oldowan and is the first widespread stone tool-making method.
The same kinds of tools appear in three distinct layers. The deeper the layer the further back the snapshot in time. Many of the stones were specially chosen for their quality, suggesting that the makers were skilled and knew exactly what they were looking for, according to the senior geoscientist on the research team, Dr Dan Palcu Rolier of the University of São Paulo in Brazil.
"What we see here in the site is an incredible level of sophistication," he told BBC News.
"These guys were extremely astute geologists. They knew how to find the best raw materials and these stone tools are exceptional. Basically, we can cut our fingers with some of them."
Geological evidence suggests that tool use probably helped these people survive dramatic changes in climate.
The landscape shifted from lush wetlands to dry, fire-swept grasslands and semideserts," said Rahab N. Kinyanjui, senior scientist at the National Museums of Kenya.
These sharp environmental changes would normally force animal populations to adapt through evolution or move away. But the toolmakers in the region managed to thrive by using technology rather than biological adaptation, according to Dr Palcu Rolier.
"Technology enabled these early inhabitants of East Turkana to survive in a rapidly changing landscape - not by adapting themselves, but adapting their ways of finding food."
The evidence of stone tools at different layers shows that for a long and continuous period, these primitive people flew in the face of biological evolution, finding a way of controlling the world around them, rather than letting the world control them.
And this happened at the very beginning of the emergence of humanity, according to Dr Palcu Rolier.
"Tool use meant that they did not have to evolve by modifying their bodies to adapt to these changes. Instead, they developed the technology they needed to get access to the food: tools for ripping open animal carcasses and digging up plants."
David Braun
The Namorotukunan site, located in Kenya's Turkana Basin, lies close to the ancient course of a long dried up major river which once attracted settlements of early humans and their ancestors
There is evidence for this at the site: of animal bones being broken, being cut with these stone tools, which means that through these changes, they were consistently able to use meat as a way of sustenance.
"The technology gives these early inhabitants an advantage, says Dr Palcu Rolier.
"They are able to access different types of foods as environments change, their source of sustenance is changing, but because they have this technology, they can bypass these challenges and access new food."
David Braun
Archaeologists excavate a 2.58 million year old site in northern Kenya at the site of Namorotukunan
At around 2.75 million years ago, the region was populated by some of the very first humans, who had relatively small brains. These early humans are thought to have lived alongside their evolutionary ancestors: a pre-human group, called australopithecines, who had larger teeth and a mix of chimpanzee and human traits.
The tool users at Namorotukunan were most likely one of these groups or possibly both.
And the finding challenges the notion held by many experts in human evolution that continuous tool use emerged much later, between 2.4 and 2.2 million years ago, when humans had evolved relatively larger brains, according to Prof Braun.
"The argument is that we're looking at a pretty substantial brain size increase. And so, often the assertion has been that tool use allowed them to feed this large brain.
"But what we're seeing at Namorotukunan is that these really early tools are used before that brain size increase."
"We have probably vastly underestimated these early humans and human ancestors. We can actually trace the roots of our ability to adapt to change by using technology much earlier than we thought, all the way to 2.75 million years ago, and probably much earlier."
On Saturday night a train from Doncaster bound for London was dramatically diverted after an alarm was raised on board. A man armed with a large knife, who is believed to have joined the train at Peterborough, carried out a vicious attack on multiple victims. Within 20 minutes a suspect had been arrested in Cambridgeshire, more than 70 miles from the train's intended destination of King's Cross in London.
Eleven people were treated in hospital, where one person remains in a stable but critical condition. The BBC has spoken to train passengers and stabbing victims alongside video and police statements to build a picture of how the attack and the emergency response unfolded.
'You need to run, you need to run'
The attack started just over an hour after the LNER train left Doncaster. At 19:29 it had pulled out of Peterborough station, where the suspect had apparently boarded. Just five minutes later the alarm was pulled near the middle of the train in coach J.
Amira Ostalski and a friend, both students at Nottingham University, had got on the train at the previous stop of Grantham and were travelling to London to "have some fun".
Amira was seated watching a film when she saw a man in a white shirt leap out of his seat about five rows in front of her followed by screams of "knife, knife". Amira then spotted a man holding a large kitchen knife and fled towards the rear of the train with her friend.
'He ran right towards us... we decided to hide in a taxi', says eyewitness
In the next carriage, coach H, YouTuber Olly Foster heard shouts of "run, run, there's a guy literally stabbing everyone", and initially thought it was a Halloween prank. But as passengers began pushing through the carriage Olly could see "blood all over the chair" he had leaned on, covering his hand in blood.
Olly then saw an older man, thought to be an LNER staff member, who "blocked" the attacker from stabbing a younger girl, leaving him with a gash on his head and neck.
Nottingham Forest fan Joe, 24, was not meant to be on the train. He had watched the team's football match against Manchester United earlier and missed a connecting train in Grantham.
Joe was texting his friends about his plans for the night when people came rushing through the carriage. "You need to run, you need to run," someone told Joe. He started running but when he turned to look behind him saw "a tall black male" holding "a bloodied knife".
Matt Kingston took his headphones out as he saw a group of people heading his way in coach H and also began running down the train. Another Nottingham Forest fan Alistair Day, 58, was next to the train's cafe bar in coach G, and saw people fleeing down the train with blood on their clothes.
Sheltering inside the cafe
The train's cafe bar transformed into an impromptu hiding space for those fleeing the attacker. Alistair said he saw around a dozen people inside this enclosed buffet counter in coach G and they were "trying to close up the shutters" to protect themselves from the assailant. Matt had managed to get inside the booth with the others.
Alistair saw the man near the door waving a knife and trying to open the shutters, which by then had been locked. A video he provided to the BBC from inside the cafe bar shows multiple passengers inside, with at least one on the phone to emergency services. Alistair and another witness, Tom McLaughlan, told the BBC they saw a Nottingham Forest fan move to confront the attacker. "He wasn't the biggest guy. We tried to stop him," Alistair said.
It appears they were referring to Stephen Crean who later told the BBC the man pulled out a large knife when he confronted him outside the cafe bar. "He's gone for me and there was a tussle in the arms and that's where my hand, the fingers are really bad, four cuts through them, sliced. And then he raised it and must have caught me when I was ducking and diving and caught me on the head."
PA Media
Stephen Crean sustained injuries to his head and hand
Stephen said he had been trying to give another passenger time to close the door to the cafe bar. "That door still wasn't shut behind me, because I could still see him struggling to close it. So until I knew it was I wasn't moving away from it."
Matt said the attacker then walked past the locked door while waving the knife around. "He then returned back up the train and passed us again." At that point a young man told Matt he'd been stabbed in the chest "so I helped with putting pressure on the wound and helped hold him up".
Another victim of the train attack was Scunthorpe United footballer Jonathan Gjoshe, who was slashed across the bicep and later needed an operation.
Alarm raised and train diverted
As soon as the alarm was raised the train driver, Andrew Johnson, a Royal Navy veteran, sprang into action and contacted the control centre. The decision was made to divert the train, which was travelling at 125mph (201km/h), to a slow track, which allowed it stop at Huntingdon Station just minutes after the emergency services were first called.
The East of England Ambulance Service received the first emergency call at 19:38. A minute later, Cambridgeshire police received a report about multiple stabbings on a train. Together, they mobilised a response team outside Huntingdon Station, just under 300m away from the police force's headquarters. At 19:41 the train arrived at the station, a minute before British Transport Police were also called to the incident.
Escape at Huntingdon Station
Watch: Police rush to scene of Cambridgeshire train attack
CCTV footage captured by a business in its car park shows passengers running up platform two towards the main station building. A dramatic TikTok video, filmed from a bridge on Brampton Road overlooking the rail tracks and station, shows police officers running towards the train along the same platform.
Tom saw two men who appeared to have been stabbed "covered in blood" as he fled the train. Alistair said he saw a man who had been in the cafe bar with him being carried towards an ambulance by paramedics. "I just want to know he's okay," he said.
Emergency services took 10 people to hospital where a further victim was treated. Six patients have since been discharged.
The LNER staff member who remains in a critical but stable condition "undoubtedly saved people's lives" by trying to stop the attacker, British Transport Police said.
Forced to flee again
CCTV footage shows a man climbing a fence at the station at 19:43 to an adjacent car park while holding a knife.
Amira, who had been hiding at the back of coach G armed with a metal tray to fight off the attacker if necessary, had run to the car park with her friend for safety when they got off the train.
But they saw the man walk in their direction. Fearing for their lives, they hid in a taxi. An image captured by Amira's friend through its windscreen shows the man being detained by six police officers near several bins in the car park, around 50m (160ft) from the fence.
Video filmed from a separate taxi nearby shows the officers armed with guns, Tasers and accompanied by a dog detaining a man on the ground. Clicks from the Taser are audible in the footage.
By 19:50 police had two men in custody, 32-year-old Anthony Williams, and a 35-year-old man who was released a day later after police established he was not involved. On Monday morning Williams appeared in court charged with 10 counts of attempted murder over the train attack.
Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, had a glittering - if controversial - career in American public life.
He served as President Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff in the 1970s, before spending a decade in the House of Representatives.
President George H. W. Bush made him defence secretary during the first Gulf War and the US invasion of Panama.
In 2001, Cheney became one of the most powerful vice presidents in history.
He was a key architect of President George W. Bush's 'War on Terror' after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and an early advocate of the invasion of Iraq.
But, in his final years, he became a bitter critic of the Republican party under the leadership of President Donald Trump.
"In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic," Cheney said.
Getty Images
Dick Cheney became one of the most powerful Vice Presidents in history, during George W. Bush's time in office
Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on 30 January 1941.
His father worked for the US Department of Agriculture, while his mother had been a successful softball player in the 1930s.
When he was 13, his family moved to Casper, an oil town in Wyoming. In 1959, Cheney entered Yale on a scholarship, but failed to graduate.
He confessed that he fell in with “some kindred souls, young men like me who were not adjusting very well [to Yale] and shared my opinion that beer was one of the essentials of life.”
He went on to gain a Master's degree in political science from the University of Wyoming but - like his future boss, George W. Bush, he continued to party.
In his early 20s, Cheney was twice convicted of drink driving. The incidents focused his mind on the future.
"I was headed down a bad road if I continued on that course," he said.
Getty Images
Dick Cheney (l) and his mentor, Donald Rumsfeld (r), at the White House in 1975
In 1959, when he became eligible to be drafted for military service, Cheney made the most of every legal avenue to avoid putting on a uniform.
He obtained a string of deferments, first so that he could finish his college course and then when his new wife, Lynne became pregnant.
"I don't regret the decisions I made," he said later. "I complied fully with all the requirements of the statutes, registered with the draft when I turned 18. Had I been drafted, I would have been happy to serve."
Surprisingly this did not become a major campaign issue when he was running for the Vice-Presidency, even after Cheney questioned the ability of the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry - himself a Vietnam veteran - to serve as commander in chief.
Getty Images
Cheney (r) was a vital part of President Gerald Ford's team at the White House
Dick Cheney's first taste of Washington came in 1968 when he worked for William Steiger, a young republican representative from Wisconsin.
Legend has it that he caught the eye of Donald Rumsfeld, former defence secretary, then about to take over at the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) under President Richard Nixon.
Rumsfeld mentored Cheney, first in the OEO, and then in the Ford White House.
When Gerald Ford made Rumsfeld his defence secretary in 1975, Cheney found himself chief of staff at the White House. He was just 34 years old.
Eschewing the standard limousine for his battered VW Beetle, Dick Cheney proved a popular and approachable master of ceremonies.
"He made the system run," said Brent Scowcroft, Ford's national security adviser. "Everybody had access to the president, but it was smooth, orderly. He didn't try to be a deputy president."
Getty Images
As a Congressman, Dick Cheney supported President Reagan's increase in defence spending
When Ford lost the presidency in 1976, Cheney returned to Wyoming and stood for its House of Representatives seat.
But, weeks into the campaign and smoking three packets of cigarettes a day, he had the first of his many heart attacks.
While he was recuperating, Lynne continued to campaign on his behalf - and Cheney was returned with an impressive 59% of the vote.
During his decade in the House, he gained himself the reputation as a drier-than-dry conservative, enthusiastically supporting Ronald Reagan's huge Cold War increases in defence spending.
More controversially, he opposed the release of Nelson Mandela from jail and was one of only 21 congressmen to vote against the prohibition of armour-piercing "cop killer" bullets.
Getty Images
President George H. W. Bush (r) made Dick Cheney his defense secretary in 1989
Early in 1989, he was given the chance of higher office when President George H. W. Bush's nominee for defence secretary, Senator John Tower, was forced to withdraw amid allegations of heavy drinking and womanising.
Bush needed a congressman with a good reputation to take over at the Pentagon. He chose Dick Cheney and the Senate approved the choice without opposition.
Cheney's years at defence were some of the most momentous since the end of World War Two. The Berlin Wall and the Soviet empire collapsed and the United States was left to rethink its whole doctrine.
Although hawkish by nature, he oversaw a huge post-Cold War reduction in the military budget - where the number of servicemen and women fell from 2.2 million to 1.8 million.
Getty Images
Soldiers briefing Dick Cheney, the new defense secretary, in 1989
Most of all, though, his time at the Pentagon will be remembered for the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq.
He took the lead in advocating military force against Saddam Hussein, whose troops had invaded Kuwait.
He persuaded Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to allow the deployment of more than 400,000 United States troops on his territory in the lead-up to Operation Desert Storm.
Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh to plan the attack with his generals. After a five week air campaign, coalition forces began a ground war.
Within 100 hours, Iraq's army had been routed.
Getty Images
Dick Cheney visits American troops in Saudi Arabia during the build up to the Gulf War in 1990
Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf received the ticker-tape parades. But Dick Cheney, as much as his soldiers, deserved credit for the success of Desert Storm.
Bill Clinton's presidential election victory in 1992 saw Cheney leave Washington once again.
This time he became CEO of Halliburton, a huge multinational company that is a leading supplier of equipment to the oil industry. There he remained, until summoned back to public life by George Bush Jnr.
Initially, he was asked to chair the search for someone to be vice president. But, having reviewed his recommendations, the young presidential candidate asked Dick Cheney if he would join him on the ticket.
Getty Images
Initially, Dick Cheney was asked to chair the search for a vice presidential candidate - before taking on the role himself
After the attacks on 11 September 2001, Cheney was isolated from the president for a number of weeks - taken to an "undisclosed location" - in order to secure the succession if George W. Bush should be killed.
He was a leading advocate of US military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, and saw his defeat as the finishing of old business.
Cheney was a strong supporter of waterboarding captured terrorist suspects, declaring himself to be a "strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation techniques".
But it was his close links to, and long experience in Congress which made him a new type of vice-president. Cheney kept offices in the Capitol building as well as near the commander-in-chief, so as to be at the heart of the legislative process.
He played an influential role in keeping Bush's tax policies conservative, and rolling back environmental protections that were hampering American businesses.
Getty Images
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney check their watches in the Oval Office
Cheney had the ear of the president at all times and was never slow in using his privileged access to by-pass other senior members of the administration.
He did so to some effect in 2001, when he persuaded Bush to sign an order stripping captured foreign terrorist suspects of their legal rights.
This was to the anger of the Secretary of State, Colin Powell who first heard about the decision when it was broadcast on the news channel, CNN.
In October 2002, and later in July 2007, while President Bush was undergoing medical procedures, Cheney became acting president for a few hours under the terms of the 25th Amendment.
But his inability to shepherd legislation through Congress brought accusations that Mr Cheney was a liability.
And, even though George W Bush said that he would retain his running mate for 2004, there was pressure in Republican circles to dump him.
The president stood firm and Cheney played a central role in the decisive victory against John Kerry and his running mate John Edwards.
AP
Cheney played a decisive role in George W Bush's re-election
There was one exception to his conservatism which emerged during the campaign.
He opposed a constitutional ban on gay marriage - supported by President Bush - because his daughter Mary was a lesbian.
Cheney announced that - although the final decision should be left to individual states - he was personally in favour of marriage equality. "Freedom means freedom for everyone," he said.
His reputation became damaged when it emerged that Halliburton had won the contract to restore Iraq's oil industry, and that he was to receive $500,000 in deferred compensation from the company.
More controversy was to follow. In 2005, his former chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on charges relating to the leaking of a CIA agent's identity to the press.
Getty Images
Dick Cheney with his wife Lynne and his youngest daughter Mary
And in 2006, after intense pressure from politicians and the media, Cheney was forced to take responsibility for accidentally shooting a hunting companion.
Harry Whittington, 78, was left with 30 pellets in his body, leading to a minor heart attack. Mr Cheney later called the incident "one of the worst days of my life".
The unfortunate episode became fodder for US late-night comedians and was seized upon by opponents as a damaging political metaphor - showing Cheney blasting away at the wrong target.
The vice president also grew worried that terrorists might try and assassinate him, by sending an electronic signal to his pacemaker - having seen a fictional version of this plot on the TV series, Homeland.
"I was aware of the danger that existed," he late wrote. "I knew from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible."
The pacemaker was taken out and replaced with one that had no connection to wifi.
Getty Images
Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney in 2015. Both became leading critics of President Donald Trump
After eight-years as vice-president, the man widely seen as the architect of President Bush's "war on terror" left office in January 2009.
He became a critic of the Obama administration's national security policies, opposing plans to close the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He lashed out at his vice presidential successor, Joe Biden, calling him "dead wrong" for saying another attack on the scale of 11 September 2001 was unlikely.
After a full heart transplant in 2012, he remained an active political figure. And, despite decades working for Republican presidents, he became a bitter opponent of President Donald Trump.
Having initially endorsed him in 2016, Cheney was appalled by allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election and Trump's seemingly casual attitude towards Nato.
He supported his older daughter, Liz, as she became a leading Republican 'never Trump' in the House of Representatives - and condemned the refusal to accept the result of the 2020 election.
It was an action that guaranteed that he will be remembered with mixed emotions on both sides of the political aisle.
For years, Cheney was a hero to the Republican right for his forthright manner and dry-as-dust ideological beliefs - and reviled by the left, who accused him of working for the interests of the oil industry.
But, he ended up supporting gay marriage and a Democratic party presidential candidate - while his frequent attacks on Donald Trump destroyed his relationship with his former party.
The chancellor's pitch: the Budget will be painful, due to the actions of others, but it will be worth it, to tackle debt, help public services and promote growth.
How does that add up?
Rachel Reeves pinned the need for expected tax rises on the actions of previous governments – post-Brexit trading arrangements, austerity – as the underlying reasons for a disappointing assessment by the official forecasters of the economy's productivity.
That productivity has been held back by years of poor investment, and improvements have been slow. Lower productivity means weaker growth in the economy, hitting tax income and affecting assumptions about how much money the chancellor has to find to meet her financial rules.
Reeves also pointed to other external forces - tariffs and supply chain disruption – for the underwhelming performance of growth and inflation.
But some of these were foreseeable. Even if the official assessment is worse than thought, productivity - a measure of the output of the economy per hour worked - has long been problematic.
And when it comes to external factors, President Trump's trade hostilities, for example, are expected to have a very limited impact on growth.
Economists say the chancellor may need tax rises totalling some £30bn to meet her financial rules by a comfortable margin.
Reeves accused past Conservative governments of prioritising political convenience, but her fiscal position also reflects similar actions by her own government.
The public purse is having to find several billions of pounds to fund U-turns over welfare and Winter Fuel Payments.
Analysts, including those at the Bank of England, also point to the chancellor's own tax rises in last year's Budget as hindering growth and employment, and adding to inflation pressures this year.
It was always risky for Reeves to suggest she wouldn't be back for another hefty tax raid. She met her financial rules by only a slim margin last year. The gamble didn't pay off, but it can't just be blamed on ill winds from elsewhere.
It now appears that taxes are going to rise – and significantly. The chancellor argues money is needed to support the extra funding that has been put into public services, but the performance of these services depends on more than just cash.
Official figures indicate that in the year after Labour came to power, the public sector, and in particular healthcare, became less efficient as productivity dropped. There's more work to be done if we're to get bang for our buck.
For the actual detail on which taxes will rise, we'll have to wait until the Budget.
But by skirting around the issue of whether manifesto pledges will be adhered to, while claiming to have inherited a dire environment, the chancellor has stoked speculation that income tax rates may rise.
The pledges of not increasing the main rates of VAT, employee National Insurance Contributions and income tax always seemed risky to economists – the "big three" account for the majority of tax take. But they are also the most visible taxes for the public, and their inclusion in the manifesto made them appear taboo, glass only to be broken in cases of emergency.
A rise in, say, income tax rates may come to pass (perhaps accompanied with a cut in National Insurance to offset the impact on workers). But it may not.
The Budget is still being put together. The door to breaking manifesto pledges may have been deliberately nudged open so that if it doesn't come to pass, then an alternate package of tax rises, however large, would be greeted with relief.
There are a multitude of other options to consider– a levy on banks or the gambling industry, a further freezing of the thresholds at which different rates of taxes on incomes become applicable (so-called fiscal drag), a change in the liability of partnerships for National Insurance and even the tax treatment of pension levies have all been mooted.
And those tax rises will still be substantial, and felt primarily in the pockets of the better off.
Finding tax rises of the tune of £20-£30bn - sucking that amount out of the economy - is impossible without affecting incomes or profits, which risks damaging the outlook for growth.
However big the tax bill, this Budget may not deliver everything the chancellor wishes for.
Login
