European leaders say "intensive work" will continue in the coming days on a US-led plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war, after a joint phone call with President Donald Trump.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said they "agreed that this was a critical moment - for Ukraine, its people and for shared security across the Euro-Atlantic region".

A White House official confirmed the call took place but did not give details.

It comes the day after Trump called European leaders "weak", suggesting the US could scale back support for Ukraine.

In the wide-ranging Politico interview published on Tuesday, Trump also claimed Ukraine was "using war" to avoid holding elections, prompting President Volodymyr Zelensky to reply he was "ready" for them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

The three European leaders issued identical statements shortly after their call with Trump on Wednesday.

They read: "The leaders discussed the latest on the ongoing US-led peace talks, welcoming their efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace for Ukraine, and to see an end to the killing.

"Intensive work on the peace plan is continuing and will continue in the coming days."

Earlier on Wednesday, Zelensky wrote on social media that a 20-point document on how to end the war would be handed over to the US in "the near future" after "our joint work with President Trump's team and partners in Europe".

The Ukrainian leader provided no further details.

The original US draft peace plan - widely leaked to media last month - had 28 points, and was seen as favouring Russia. Ukraine has since held separate talks with US and European negotiators, seeking to change some key clauses such as territorial issues and security guarantees.

Zelensky is under increasing pressure from Trump to agree to a peace deal to end the war, with the US president urging Kyiv to "play ball" by ceding territory to Moscow.

Zelensky has repeatedly refused to do so, seeking instead an immediate ceasefire on the vast front line and iron-clad security guarantees for Kyiv in any future settlement.

The Ukrainian leader is on a diplomatic tour of Europe following intensive talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators over the weekend which failed to produce a deal to which Kyiv could agree.

Zelensky has been pressing his European allies to help deter the US from backing an agreement that could leave Ukraine exposed to future attacks by Russia.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Trump's "very important" statements on Ukraine, including saying Moscow would win the war and that Kyiv would need to hand over land, align with Russia's view.

"In many ways, on the subject of Nato membership, on the subject of territories, on the subjects of how Ukraine is losing land, it is in tune with our understanding," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Last week, Putin repeated his warning that Ukrainian troops must completely withdraw from Ukraine's eastern Donbas region or Russia will seize it, rejecting any compromise over how to end the war.

The US Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates for the third time this year despite growing divisions, as policymakers aim to prop up the slowing labour market.

The central bank said on Wednesday it was lowering the target for its key lending rate by 0.25 percentage points, putting it in a range of 3.50% to 3.75% - its lowest level in three years.

It remains unclear where rates will go in the months ahead. Policymakers disagree about how the Fed should balance competing priorities: a weakening job market on the one hand, and rising prices on the other.

The Fed's economic projection released on Wednesday suggests one rate cut will take place next year, although new data could change this.

The decision to lower rates on Wednesday was not unanimous, suggesting widening divisions among central bankers over the outlook for the US economy.

Three Fed officials broke ranks and dissented.

Stephen Miran, who is on leave from his post leading Trump's Council of Economic Advisers, voted for a larger 0.5 percentage point cut.

Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Jeffrey Schmid, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, voted to hold rates steady.

A data blackout during the longest-ever US government shutdown, which ended in November, has left policymakers partially in the dark about the state of the economy. But concerns about a slowing job market continue to outweigh inflation fears, at least for now.

The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% to 4.4% in September, Labor Department figures showed in a delayed report released last month. Cutting interest rates is aimed at stimulating the job market by creating lower borrowing costs for businesses.

Fears about tariff-driven inflation had taken centre stage earlier this year when Trump pushed forward with sweeping tariffs on many of the country's largest trading partners.

Inflation is still above the Fed's 2% target. In September, it hit 3% for the first time since January.

But while tariffs appear to be boosting some consumer prices, recent milder-than-expected inflation readings have allowed the Fed to focus on boosting the labour market by lowering rates, analysts said.

Dissents and disagreements

Still, policymakers remain divided over the path forward for interest rates.

"The current committee is more divided than it has been in a very long time," said Matthew Pallai, chief investment officer at Nomura Capital Management.

"The Fed's policy over the next few meetings will come down to a risk management exercise where one risk is considered more significant than the other," he added.

The central bank's so-called dot plot, a quarterly anonymous economic forecast, showed on Wednesday a median expectation for one additional 0.25 percentage point cut in 2026.

That prediction was unchanged from the previous dot plot in September.

Central bankers are poised to have a bit more clarity next week, with the expected release of official data on the labour market and inflation for November.

The incoming data could shift policymakers' outlook, potentially bolstering calls for further easing next year if there are new signs that the job market is stalling.

The central bank's latest cut also comes ahead of an expected announcement from the White House about Trump's pick to replace Jerome Powell, whose term as Fed chair ends next May.

Trump could announce his pick as soon as within the next few weeks.

Kevin Hassett, a long-time conservative economist and key Trump economic adviser, is seen as the front-runner to succeed Powell.

A Trump loyalist, Hassett served as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers during Trump's first term and now leads the National Economic Council.

He has been a stalwart defender of Trump's economic policies, downplaying data showing signs of weakness in the US economy, doubling down on allegations of bias at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and backing Trump's handling of the Fed.

Hassett's allegiance to the president has drawn questions from analysts about whether he would act independently and how much sway he would have with other members of the board.

Other names that have been floated for the Fed chair include economist Kevin Warsh, current Fed Governor Christopher Waller and even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Trump is "still making up his mind, and he's looking for someone who will be in his way of thinking," Thomas Hoenig, a distinguished senior fellow at the Mercatus Center, told the BBC.

The candidates, he added, "have to project that they will be independent, or the markets will become quite nervous - and that will create more volatility".

Fans of codebreaking, maths and brainteasers can now try their hand at the latest cryptic Christmas challenge set by GCHQ, the UK's intelligence agency.

GCHQ released their annual Christmas card on Wednesday, filled with puzzles and hidden codes designed to help children aged 11-18 test a range of problem-solving skills.

The card was created by "schoolchildren as well as spies", according to GCHQ, after hundreds of young people entered a design competition in the lead-up to the festive period.

It contains seven puzzles set by "GCHQ's in-house puzzlers", geared towards testing a range of problem-solving skills, including "intuitive reasoning" and "lateral thinking".

The quiz starts with Question 1:

Somewhere on the card is a special seven letter word which has no repeated letters, and no letters which are next to each other in the alphabet. Can you find it? * Answer at the bottom of the page

Students were asked to draw their response to the question: "What do you think GCHQ looks like on Christmas Day?". They were challenged to embed hidden codes, and ciphers into their designs.

Three winners were selected by a panel of judges across three age groups.

The famously tricky puzzles "aren't meant to be solved alone", GCHQ said, adding: "We believe the right mix of minds means we can solve seemingly impossible problems."

"Puzzles are at the heart of GCHQ's work to keep the country safe from hostile states, terrorists and criminals; challenging our teams to think creatively and analytically every day", said GCHQ Director Anne Keast-Butler.

She said she hoped the puzzle encourages the next generation "to explore STEM subjects and consider the rewarding careers available in cybersecurity and intelligence".

Meanwhile, the spy agency's "Chief Puzzler", known only as "Colin", said the puzzles are designed to test "the same blend of skills our teams use every day to keep the country safe."

* The answer is: Special (the clue is written into the text)

Rushed out in under three weeks, Nicolas Sarkozy's new book "A Prisoner's Diary" has plenty of colour about what it's like for a former president to find himself in the isolation wing of a French jail.

We learn that prisoner number 320535 had a 12 square metre cell, equipped with a bed, desk, fridge, shower and television. There was a window, but the view was blocked by a massive plastic panel placed outside.

"It was clean and light enough," writes Sarkozy. "One could almost have thought one was in a bottom-of-the-range hotel – were it not for the reinforced door with an eye-hole for the prison guards to look through."

Sarkozy, 70, was released from La Santé prison in Paris last month after serving 20 days of a five-year jail sentence for taking part in an election campaign funding conspiracy. This is his 216-page memoir.

Told he would have to spend 23 hours out of 24 in his room – and that contact with anyone other than a prison employee was forbidden – the former president chose not to take the option of a daily walk in the yard, "more like a cage than a place of promenade".

Instead he took his daily exercise on a running machine in the tiny sports room, which "became – in my situation – a veritable oasis".

There is plenty more like this: how he was kept awake on his first night by a neighbour in the isolation wing singing a song from The Lion King and rattling his spoon along the bars of his cell.

How he was "touched by the kindness, delicacy and respect of the prison staff… each one of who addressed me by the title Président".

And how he was able to cover the walls of his cell with postcards from all the people writing to express their support.

"Touching and sincere, it bore witness to a deep personal bond even though I'd left office so long ago," he writes.

The details fascinate. Perhaps more consequential are the ruminations on fate, justice and politics.

Sarkozy was sent to jail after a court found him guilty of criminal association for allowing subordinates to try to raise election money 20 years ago from Libya's Colonel Gaddafi.

At the end of the trial in October, the judge – who could have allowed Sarkozy to remain at liberty pending his appeal – ruled instead that he should go to jail. Three weeks after his incarceration, he was allowed out following a plea from his lawyers.

The former president strongly denies the charges against him, and claims to be the victim of a politically-motivated cabal within the French justice system.

This is all rehearsed again in the book. Indeed at one point Sarkozy compares himself with France's most famous victim of justice, Alfred Dreyfus – the Jewish officer who was sent to Devil's Island on a trumped-up espionage charge.

"For any impartial observer who knows their history, the similarities are striking," he writes.

"The Dreyfus affair originated from fake documents. So did mine… Dreyfus was degraded in front of the troops, when they stripped him of his decorations. I was dismissed from the Legion of Honour, in front of the whole nation.

"And Dreyfus was imprisoned in the Santé – a place which I now know well," he writes.

Sarkozy's dismissal from the Legion of Honour - in which as president he had served as Grand Master – is the occasion to settle accounts in the book with France's current president Emmanuel Macron.

From being a close supporter of Macron, Sarkozy now says he has "turned the page – without going so far as to enter systematic opposition to his politics or person.

"Emmanuel Macron already has too many declared enemies, vilifiers and disappointed friends for me to add to their number."

Sarkozy's beef is that Macron never had the "courage" to call him in person to explain why he was being discharged from the Legion. "Had he telephoned, I would have understood his arguments and accepted the decision," he writes. "Not doing it showed his motives were at the very least insincere."

But it is Sarkozy's relations with another political leader – Marine Le Pen – which have attracted most attention in France among reviewers of the book. This is because of the unwonted affection that the former president displays to his one-time arch-rival.

"I appreciated the public declarations she made following my conviction, which were brave and totally unambiguous," he writes.

Sarkozy telephoned to thank her and he says they had a friendly conversation, at the end of which he undertook not to be party to any future "Republican Front" designed to keep her National Rally from winning an election.

Later he goes on: "Many voters [for the RN] today were supporters of me when I was politically active… Insulting the leaders of the RN is to insult their voters, that is to say people who are potentially our voters.

"I have a lot of differences with the leaders of the RN… But to exclude them from the Republican fold would be a mistake."

Such accolades from the mainstream are rare for Marine Le Pen and her young co-leader Jordan Bardella.

Coming from a former president who still wields much influence among the traditional French right, the words are like political gold dust.

Italian cooking has been awarded special cultural heritage status by the United Nations' cultural agency Unesco.

National favourites including pizza are already on Unesco's list of "intangible cultural heritage", but now Italian cooking traditions and the way they are practiced and transmitted have been awarded.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has been pushing for her country's cuisine to be recognised since her election, said: "For us Italians, cuisine is not just food or a collection of recipes. It is so much more: it is culture, tradition, work, wealth."

For millions of fans the news confirms what they already believed - from Sicilian Cannoli to Calabrian 'Nduja - Italian is the best.

The announcement was made during a Unesco assembly meeting in the Indian capital Delhi on Wednesday.

The cultural agency described Italian cuisine as a "means of connecting with family and the community, whether at home, in schools, or through festivals, ceremonies and social gatherings".

Koshary, the spicy dish of lentils, rice, and pasta available at countless Egyptian food stalls, was also added to the list of intangible cultural heritage.

Other countries have had their "practices, skills, traditions and social practices related to foodways" recognised by Unesco, a spokesperson from the agency told the BBC.

Previous examples include "Washoku, traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese, notably for the celebration of New Year, Breakfast culture in Malaysia: dining experience in a multi-ethnic society, or the Gastronomic meal of the French," the spokesperson added.

Speaking to La Repubblica, the Rome-based daily newspaper, chef Michelangelo Mammoliti said the news filled him with a great sense of pride both personally as an Italian, as well as professionally as a chef.

"Italy is one of the nations where regional cuisine has a very big impact on culture and traditions," said the chef, whose restaurant La Rei Natura in Piedmont is the only new three-star restaurant in the 2026 Michelin Guide.

Italy's industry leaders and government ministers will be hoping that the move further boosts tourism to the country, which already welcomes 80 million international visitors annually.

Luigi Scordamaglia, CEO of Filiera Italia, which represents all the food and wine companies in the production chain, told Ansa news agency that the move from Unesco marked a success "for the entire Made in Italy supply chain".

Mr Scordamaglia also spoke about the role of the Mediterranean diet in promoting good health.

He added: "When we talk about the Mediterranean diet, we're talking about our wonderful Italian cuisine, which shares its principles, first and foremost those of balance and variety."

Swimming pool culture in Iceland; the practice of Cuban Son music and dance; and the art of playing, singing and making the lahuta from Albania also entered Unesco's list of intangible cultural heritage.

Italian cooking has been awarded special cultural heritage status by the United Nations' cultural agency Unesco.

National favourites including pizza are already on Unesco's list of "intangible cultural heritage", but now Italian cooking traditions and the way they are practiced and transmitted have been awarded.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has been pushing for her country's cuisine to be recognised since her election, said: "For us Italians, cuisine is not just food or a collection of recipes. It is so much more: it is culture, tradition, work, wealth."

For millions of fans the news confirms what they already believed - from Sicilian Cannoli to Calabrian 'Nduja - Italian is the best.

The announcement was made during a Unesco assembly meeting in the Indian capital Delhi on Wednesday.

The cultural agency described Italian cuisine as a "means of connecting with family and the community, whether at home, in schools, or through festivals, ceremonies and social gatherings".

Koshary, the spicy dish of lentils, rice, and pasta available at countless Egyptian food stalls, was also added to the list of intangible cultural heritage.

Other countries have had their "practices, skills, traditions and social practices related to foodways" recognised by Unesco, a spokesperson from the agency told the BBC.

Previous examples include "Washoku, traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese, notably for the celebration of New Year, Breakfast culture in Malaysia: dining experience in a multi-ethnic society, or the Gastronomic meal of the French," the spokesperson added.

Speaking to La Repubblica, the Rome-based daily newspaper, chef Michelangelo Mammoliti said the news filled him with a great sense of pride both personally as an Italian, as well as professionally as a chef.

"Italy is one of the nations where regional cuisine has a very big impact on culture and traditions," said the chef, whose restaurant La Rei Natura in Piedmont is the only new three-star restaurant in the 2026 Michelin Guide.

Italy's industry leaders and government ministers will be hoping that the move further boosts tourism to the country, which already welcomes 80 million international visitors annually.

Luigi Scordamaglia, CEO of Filiera Italia, which represents all the food and wine companies in the production chain, told Ansa news agency that the move from Unesco marked a success "for the entire Made in Italy supply chain".

Mr Scordamaglia also spoke about the role of the Mediterranean diet in promoting good health.

He added: "When we talk about the Mediterranean diet, we're talking about our wonderful Italian cuisine, which shares its principles, first and foremost those of balance and variety."

Swimming pool culture in Iceland; the practice of Cuban Son music and dance; and the art of playing, singing and making the lahuta from Albania also entered Unesco's list of intangible cultural heritage.