A senior adviser to president-elect Donald Trump says the incoming administration will focus on achieving peace in the war in Ukraine rather than winning back territory.

Bryan Lanza, a Republican party strategist, told the BBC the Trump administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his version of a "realistic vision for peace".

"And if President Zelensky comes to the table and says, well we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he shows to us that he's not serious," he said.

Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has occupied territory in the country's east.

Trump has already spoken to Zelensky since winning the US election - the pair held a phone call on Wednesday with billionaire Elon Musk also taking part.

“It was a short chat with Musk, but it was a good lengthy conversation with Trump, it lasted about half an hour,” a source in Ukraine's presidential office told the BBC.

“It was not really a conversation to talk about very substantial things, but overall it was very warm and pleasant.”

Trump has consistently said his priority is to end the war and stem the drain on US resources.

His Democrat opponents have accused him of cosying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and say his approach to the war amounts to surrender for Ukraine and will endanger all of Europe.

Last month, Zelensky presented a "victory plan" to the Ukrainian parliament that included a refusal to trade Ukraine’s territories and sovereignty.

During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in a day”, but gave no details. A paper written by two of his former national security chiefs in May said the US should continue supplying weapons, but make the support conditional on Kyiv entering peace talks with Russia.

Ukraine should not give up its hopes of getting all of its territory back from Russian occupation, the paper said, but it should negotiate based on current front lines.

Mr Lanza did not mention areas of eastern Ukraine, but he said regaining Crimea from Russia was unrealistic and "not the goal of the United States".

"When Zelensky says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace once Crimea is returned, we've got news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone," he told the BBC World Service’s Weekend programme.

"And if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you're on your own."

Mr Lanza said he had tremendous respect for the Ukrainian people, describing them as having the hearts of lions. But he said the US priority was "peace and to stop the killing".

"What we're going to say to Ukraine is, you know what you see? What do you see as a realistic vision for peace. It's not a vision for winning, but it's a vision for peace. And let's start having the honest conversation," he said.

Earlier this week, Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and said Trump's claim that he can help end the war in Ukraine "deserves attention at least".

Mr Lanza also criticised the support the Biden-Harris administration and European countries have given to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

"The reality on the ground is that the European nation states and President Biden did not give Ukraine the ability and the arms to win this war at the very beginning and they failed to lift the restrictions for Ukraine to win," he said.

Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives approved a $61bn (£49bn) package in military aid for Ukraine to help combat Russia's invasion.

The US has been the biggest arms supplier to Ukraine - between February 2022 and the end of June 2024, it delivered or committed weapons and equipment worth $55.5bn (£41.5bn), according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research organisation.

The Roman archaeological site of Pompeii will limit the number of daily visitors to the site to 20,000 a day after a steep rise in visitors.

A record high 36,000 tourists visited the site on the first Sunday of October, when entry was free, local media reported.

The park’s management said on Friday that the site would cap its daily visitor number from 15 November.

Pompeii, the Roman city buried in an eruption from nearby Mount Vesuvius in AD79, is one of the best-preserved Roman sites anywhere in the world.

Nearly 4 million people visited the main Pompeii site in 2023, a third more than the previous year. Visitor counts had been climbing in the run up to the pandemic and in 2023 were above pre-Covid levels.

More than 480,000 people visited in October 2024.

In October 2024, there were more than 480,000 visitors, putting the average at about 15,500 a day. The busiest month so far this year was May, when about 517,000 people visited, or some 16,700 a day.

The 20,000 cap is likely to only lead to tourists being turned away on a handful of occasions. A spokesperson for the park told Reuters that it had only exceeded 20,000 visitors when entry is free on the first Sunday of the month, as well as three or four fee-paying days.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the park's director, said that reducing the effects of human visitors at Pompeii was important for conservation and safety reasons.

The city was devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which preserved swathes of it almost intact under a layer of ash for over 1,000 years.

About a third of the site has yet to be excavated. It continues to be of huge interest to archaeologists, providing the most complete picture of daily Roman life anywhere in the world.

Earlier this year, archaeologists revealed frescos of mythical Greek figures including Helen of Troy and Apollo. The artworks were found in a banqueting hall with dramatic black walls and a mosaic floor made of more than 1 million white tiles.

Entry tickets to Pompeii start at €18 (£14.90; $19.30).

Senior US officials have reportedly said Washington will no longer accept the presence of Hamas representatives in Qatar, accusing the Palestinian group of rejecting the latest proposals to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage deal.

In anonymous briefings to the Reuters news agency, the officials said the Qatari government had agreed to tell Hamas to close its political office 10 days ago.

Hamas have had a political base in Doha since 2012, reportedly at the request of the Obama administration, to allow communication with the group.

The reports have been denied to the BBC by Hamas officials; Qatar has yet to comment.

The small but influential gulf state is a key US ally in the region. It hosts a major American air base and has handled many delicate political negotiations, including with Iran, the Taliban and Russia. Alongside the US and Egypt, the Qataris have also played a major role in rounds of so-far unsuccessful talks to broker a ceasefire in the year-long war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The latest round of talks in mid-October failed to produce a deal, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal. They have always called for a complete end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel has also been accused of rejecting deals. Days after being fired earlier this week, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of rejecting a peace deal against the advice of his security chiefs.

Dr H A Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), thinks the reports are credible. “I think we’re in the last phase before Hamas is forced to relocate,” he told me. “The writing on the wall has been there for months.”

The call for Hamas to be expelled from Qatar appears to be an attempt by the outgoing Biden administration to force some sort of peace deal before the end of his term in January.

Were Hamas to be forced to leave Doha, it is unclear where they would base their political office. Key ally Iran would be an option, although the assassination of former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July suggests they may be at risk from Israel if based there. It would also not give them anything close to the same diplomatic channels to the West.

A more likely option would be Turkey. As a Nato member but also a Sunni majority state, it would give the group a base from which to operate in relative safety. Last April President Erdogan hosted then Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and his delegation in Istanbul, where they talked about “what needs to be done to ensure adequate and uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and a fair and lasting peace process in the region".

The move would also most likely be welcomed by Ankara, which has often sought to position itself as a broker between east and west.

It is thought the personal safety of Hamas leadership is now a major concern for the group, which saw two leaders killed in less than four months. As well as Haniyeh’s death in July, in October Israel killed Yahya Sinwar in Gaza - he was the mastermind behind the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel.

According to the European Council of Foreign Relations, “Hamas has adopted a temporary model of collective leadership to mitigate the effect of future Israeli assassinations”.

Dr Hellyer thinks that nowhere “will give them protection from Israeli assassination attempts in the same way that being in Doha, where America has its largest military base in the region, did”.

The latest move comes as US officials appear increasingly frustrated with the approach the Israeli government has taken to ending the war. In October, the US Secretaries of State and Defense said if Israel did not allow more humanitarian aid into the territory within 30 days, they would face unspecified policy “implications”.

Last weekend a number of UN officials warned the situation in northern Gaza was “apocalyptic”. On Saturday the independent Famine Review Committee said there was a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas”.

The relationship between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu has deteriorated over the course of the war in Gaza, with increasing pressure from Washington to improve the humanitarian situation for the Palestinians and find some sort of negotiated settlement.

But, according to Dr Hellyer, US attempts at negotiation have been fatally flawed.

“By setting red lines and allowing Netanyahu to cross them without consequence, the Biden administration effectively encouraged further impunity. I don’t think any of this will change in the next 10 weeks,” he said.

Any overtures have been repeatedly rejected by Mr Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition, who will now also feel emboldened by the prospect of an incoming Donald Trump presidency.

While exactly what approach Donald Trump will take to the region remains uncertain, he is thought to be more likely to allow Israel to act on its terms.

He has previously said Israel should “finish what they started” in Gaza. During his last term in the White House, he took a number of steps deemed highly favourable to Israel, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

It has also been reported, however, that Trump told Netanyahu that he wants to see an end to the fighting by the time he takes office.

Either way, it seems likely that the current US administration will have less influence over the government in Jerusalem.

They may therefore believe the best way to force some sort of deal is to apply pressure on Hamas. Whether it pays off may depend on whether Qatar, so long a reliable ally, decides to go along with it.

Actor Tony Todd, best known for starring in the Candyman horror films, has died aged 69.

The American actor died at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, according to reports.

He starred as the title character in the horror series, depicting the ghostly Candyman character with a hook for a hand, summoned by saying his name five times in front of a mirror.

Todd continued as Candyman from the first film in 1992 through follow-ups in 1995 and 1999, and reprised the role in 2021 for a fourth film serving as a direct sequel to the original.

Throughout his 40-year career, Todd also featured in hundreds of films, stage productions and television dramas, including roles in the Transformers and Final Destination films.

In Candyman, Todd's titular character is the ghost of artist Daniel Robitaille, a black man who was lynched in the 19th Century.

The 1992 film sees Todd's character accidentally summoned to the real world by a graduate student in Chicago intrigued by the urban legend of the Candyman, setting off a chain of murderous events.

Speaking to the Guardian in 2019, Todd recalled the film's famous scene that sees Candyman swarmed with bees, during which he was stung 23 times and apparently paid a $1,000 bonus each time.

"Everything that’s worth making has to involve some sort of pain," he remarked.

On his Candyman character, he told the same interview: "I’ve done 200 movies, this is the one that stays in people’s minds. It affects people of all races. I’ve used it as an introductory tool in gang-intervention work: what frightens you? What horrible things have you experienced?"

Paying tribute, actor Virginia Madsen, who starred as student Helen Lyle in Candyman, said Todd "now is an angel. As he was in life".

She called him a "truly poetic man" with "a deep knowledge of the arts".

"I will miss him so much and hope he haunts me once in a while," she added. "But I will not summon him in the mirror!"

The original film's sequel - Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh - set three years later sees Todd's iconic lead appear again in New Orleans, encountering a descendant of his daughter.

The third film - Candyman: Day of the Dead - was released in 1999, but set in 2020 Los Angeles.

Todd, and others from the 1992 film, reprised their roles in the 2021 film.

In 2020, Todd called that version "brilliant", crediting the film's director Nia DaCosta as "a fan of body horror".

As part of her tribute, Madsen praised the "gift" that the film's co-writer Jordan Peele had given herself and Todd to "let us live again as lovers".

Before Candyman, one of Todd's earliest roles in film was in 1986 as Sgt Warren in war drama Platoon.

Donald Trump's transition team is already vetting potential candidates who could serve in his administration when he returns to the White House in January.

On Thursday, he made the first announcement naming his campaign co-manager Susan Summerall Wiles as his White House chief of staff.

Many of the figures who served under Trump in his first term do not plan to return, though a handful of loyalists are rumoured to be making a comeback.

But the US president-elect is now surrounded by a new cast of characters who may fill his cabinet, staff his White House and serve in key roles across government.

Here is a look at the some of the names being floated for the top jobs.

Robert F Kennedy Jr

The past two years have been quite a journey for the nephew of former President John F Kennedy.

An environmental lawyer by trade, he ran for president as a Democrat, with most of his family speaking out against his anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories as they endorsed Joe Biden's re-election.

He then switched to an independent candidacy but, failing to gain traction amid a series of controversies, dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.

In the last two months of the 2024 election cycle, he spearheaded a Trump campaign initiative called "Make America Healthy Again".

Trump recently promised he would play a major role related to public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Safety Administration (FDA).

RFK Jr, as he is known, recently asserted he would push to remove fluoride from drinking water because "it's a very bad way to deliver it into our systems" - though this has been challenged by some experts.

And in an interview with NBC News, Kennedy rejected the idea that he was "anti-vaccine", saying he wouldn't "take away anybody's vaccines" but rather provide them with "the best information" to make their own choices.

Rather than a formal cabinet position, Kennedy used the interview to suggest he could take on a broader role within the White House.

Susie Wiles

Trump's landslide victory over Kamala Harris was masterminded by campaign co-chairs Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who he referred to in his victory speech on Wednesday as "the ice baby".

She has since been confirmed to be the incoming chief of staff under the second Trump administration - Trump's first confirmed appointment for his second term - making her the first woman to take on the role.

Wiles, who Trump claimed "likes to stay in the background”, is considered one of the most feared and respected political operatives in the country.

Less than a year after she started working in politics, she worked on Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign and later became a scheduler in his White House.

In 2010, she turned Rick Scott, a then-businessman with little political experience, into Florida’s governor in just seven months. Scott is now a US senator.

Wiles met Trump during the 2015 Republican presidential primary and she became the co-chair of his Florida campaign, at the time considered a swing state. Trump went on to narrowly defeat Hillary Clinton there in 2016.

Wiles has been commended by Republicans for her ability to command respect and check the big egos of those in the president-elect's orbit, which could enable her to impose a sense of order that none of his four previous chiefs of staff could.

Elon Musk

The world's richest man announced his support for the former president earlier this year, despite saying in 2022 that "it's time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail into the sunset".

The tech billionaire has since emerged as one of the most visible and well-known backers of Trump and donated more than $119m (£91.6m) this election cycle to America PAC - a political action committee he created to support the former president.

Musk, the head of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of the social media platform X, also launched a voter registration drive that included a $1m (£771,000) give-away to a random swing-state voter each day during the closing stretch of the campaign.

Since registering as a Republican ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Musk has been increasingly vocal on issues including illegal immigration and transgender rights.

Both Musk and Trump have concentrated on the idea of him leading a new "Department of Government Efficiency", where he would cut costs, reform regulations and streamline what he calls a "massive, suffocating federal bureaucracy".

The would-be agency's acronym - DOGE - is a playful reference to a "meme-coin" cryptocurrency Musk has previously promoted.

Mike Pompeo

The former Kansas congressman served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then secretary of state during Trump's first administration.

A foreign policy hawk and a fierce supporter of Israel, he played a highly visible role in moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was among the key players in the implementation of the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

He remained a loyal defender of his boss, joking that there would be "a smooth transition to a second Trump administration" amid Trump's false claims of election fraud in late 2020.

He has been tipped as a top contender for the role of defence secretary, alongside Michael Waltz, a Florida lawmaker and military veteran who sits on the armed services committee in the US House of Representatives.

Richard Grenell

Richard Grenell served as Trump's ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and his acting director of national intelligence.

The Republican was also heavily involved in Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, in the swing state of Nevada.

Trump prizes Grenell's loyalty and has described him as "my envoy".

In September, he sat in on Trump's private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The former president has often claimed he will end the war in Ukraine "within 24 hours" of taking office and Grenell has advocated for setting up an autonomous zone in eastern Ukraine as a means to that end - an idea seen as unacceptable by Kyiv.

He's considered a contender for secretary of state or national security advisor, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

Karoline Leavitt

The Trump 2024 campaign's national press secretary previously served in his White House press office, as an assistant press secretary.

The 27-year-old Gen-Zer made a bid to become the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress in 2022, to represent a seat in her home state of New Hampshire, but fell short.

She is tipped to become the White House press secretary - the most public-facing position in the cabinet.

Tom Homan

Tom Homan served as the acting director of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during the first Trump administration, where he was a proponent of separating migrant children from their parents as a way to deter illegal crossings.

At the time, he made headlines for saying politicians who support sanctuary city policies should be charged with crimes. He later resigned from his Ice position in 2018, mid-way through the Trump presidency.

He has since emerged as a key figure in developing Trump's mass migrant deportation plan, and has been floated as a potential pick to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Homan spoke on the deportation plan last month in an interview with BBC's US partner CBS News, saying that "it's not going to be - a mass sweep of neighbourhoods."

"They'll be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find ‘em based on numerous, you know, investigative processes," he said.

When a politician insists they are not planning to call an election, it is best practice not to believe them.

Simon Harris is now among that rank of party leaders.

Having claimed for months that he wanted his government to serve its full term into next year, the temptation of positive polls has clearly proved too much.

In October the three parties of government agreed that the general election would take place this year - yesterday Harris officially called the election and asked the President Higgins to dissolve the Dáil.

But while this is the first major electoral test for the Fine Gael leader, for his political opponents there is just as much at stake.

At the last general election four years ago, Sinn Féin - the main opposition party in the Republic - surprised political rivals and pundits alike when they made significant gains, winning 37 seats and securing the most first preference votes of any party.

It marked a break with the two-party governing system, traditionally dominated by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, signalling a huge shift in support for the all-island party.

Senior party members acknowledged their tactics had been too cautious and could have won more seats if they had run more candidates.

They declared victory even though the larger parties refused to enter government with them, and insisted next time round that party president Mary Lou McDonald would be elected as the first female taoiseach (Irish prime minister).

But this time, there is little to no expectation of the party managing a repeat performance.

The first sign that all was not well came in the form of disappointing local government and European election results over the summer.

Sinn Féin put the losses and drop in opinion polls down to a range of factors and insisted it would "regroup" ahead of the general election, but time to do that has been much shorter than it would have liked.

There is also additional pressure on the party after it was revealed that two press officers provided references for a former party employee who was being investigated by police for child sex offences. They have since resigned.

Then, in October, it emerged that Sinn Féin senator Niall Ó Donnghaile had not quit the party in December 2023 for health reasons, as the party had said.

Mr Ó Donnghaile had been suspended from the party months earlier for sending inappropriate texts to a teenager.

McDonald had to answer questions in the Dáil over the party's handling of the issue.

An issue that has also proved tricky for Sinn Féin and other parties is failing to spell out how to manage immigration.

It has become a major social and political issue in Ireland after the country accepted a large number of Ukrainian refugees, alongside an increase in other sources of immigration.

Between March and December 2022 almost 68,000 people arrived in Ireland from Ukraine under the EU’s temporary protection directive.

That sudden and unprecedented influx placed significant pressure on Irish state resources, with the government having to take measures such as temporarily housing people in tents.

Ireland’s government was already struggling with a housing crisis before the increase in immigration.

Right-wing protesters have held a series of demonstrations at asylum accommodation centres and some buildings earmarked for asylum seekers have been burnt down.

Recent polling suggested that housing and immigration are major issues for voters - a fact that will not go unnoticed by the parties, but one they will all struggle with.

Bonanza budget

As for Fine Gael, Simon Harris goes into this election hoping for stronger results than his predecessor Leo Varadkar managed in 2020, when the party lost 15 seats.

Unable to form a government by itself, it sought to form a coalition government with Fianna Fáil and the Green Party - an agreement that took four months to negotiate.

There is no doubt Fine Gael has felt a bounce with Harris stepping into the top job.

He still faces a challenge to prove to voters that his party should continue to govern after almost two decades, but having thrown the electorate a bonanza budget with extra cash for lots of sectors, hope is high in the party that it will see an improved performance.

When it comes to Fianna Fáil, its leader Micheál Martin has spent the last four years rotating through the top two jobs in elected politics.

First as taoiseach, taking over from Leo Varadkar for the first half of the term as part of the coalition arrangements, before becoming Tánaiste (Irish deputy prime minister) and Ireland's foreign affairs minister in 2022 - a role that has seen him heavily engaged in political events north of the border too.

His party narrowly won the most seats in 2020, pipping Sinn Féin’s 37 seats with just one more.

Recent polls have shown the party sitting on about 20%.

Whether the party does better than last time or struggles against Fine Gael will determine how Fianna Fáil views Micheál Martin’s future as leader, after 13 years in the job.

The success of independent candidates and some of the smaller parties in the recent council elections is a factor that could back come into play this time.

Elections always bring twists and turns, soundbites from candidates who come to regret them and sometimes, a moment that truly shifts the dial.

The Republic of Ireland is now set to see all that as the campaign machine grinds into gear once more.

Authorities say at least 24 people have been killed after a bomb exploded at a railway station in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

Dozens of others were injured in the blast, which happened as a popular morning train was about to leave Quetta station in southwestern Pakistan for Peshawar.

A militant group, the Balochistan Liberation Army, said it carried out the bombing in what police are deeming a suicide attack.

There has been a recent surge in deadly attacks in the province, driven by demands for independence and control over local resources.

The city’s commissioner has said that 24 people were killed and about 50 injured in the blast.

Senior police official Muhammad Baloch said the explosion was thought to have been caused by a suicide bomber carrying 6-8kg of explosives. Among the dead and injured were both civilian and military, he told the BBC.

Videos shared on social media appear to show the moment the explosion happened on Saturday morning, with dozens of people visible at the platform.

There is also footage circulating of the aftermath, showing a number of injured people and debris spread across the station.

Abdul Jabbar was among the injured brought to the Civil Hospital. He said that he was entering the station, having purchased a ticket from the booking office, when the explosion happened.

"I can't describe the horror I faced today, it was like a judgement day has come," he said.

Muhammad Sohail arrived soon after the explosion had happened to catch his train to Multan.

"Everything was destroyed at the station, and people were laying down on the ground screaming for help," he said.

A separatist militant group, the Baloch Liberation Army, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a statement released on social media, the group said it targeted a Pakistan military unit that was returning from Quetta after completing a training course.

The chief minister of Balochistan called the act deplorable and the perpetrators "worse than animals". He said the authorities would pursue them and "bring them to their logical end".

The speaker of Pakistan's National Assembly, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, condemned the blast, saying those responsible were the "enemies of humanity".

Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province and the richest in terms of natural resources, but it is the least developed.

The region shares a volatile border with Iran and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and also boasts a vast coastline along the Arabian Sea.

US President-elect Donald Trump has announced his campaign manager, Susan Summerall Wiles, will serve as his White House chief of staff when he takes over the presidency next year.

In a statement, Trump said that Wiles "just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history" and "is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected".

"It is a well deserved honour to have Susie as the first-ever female chief of staff in United States history," he continued. "I have no doubt that she will make our country proud.”

Wiles, 67, is the first woman to be appointed White House chief of staff.

The Trump transition team is currently working to choose top members of the incoming Republican administration, including the heads of all 15 executive departments, such as the secretaries of state and defence, from 20 January.

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In his victory speech this week, Trump referred to Wiles as "the ice maiden" as she stood behind him on stage.

She operates mostly “in the back”, the president-elect said, but she is known as one of the most feared political operatives in the US.

"Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again," he added in his statement on Thursday, referring to his oft-repeated campaign slogan.

Who is Susie Wiles?

A profile by Politico earlier this year described Susie Wiles as feared but little known.

Less than a year after Wiles started working in politics, she joined Ronald Reagan’s campaign ahead of his 1980 election.

She went on to play a key role in transforming politics in Florida, where she lives.

In 2010, she turned Rick Scott, a then-businessman with little political experience, into Florida’s governor in just seven months. Scott is now a US senator.

Wiles met Trump during the 2015 Republican presidential primary and became the co-chair of his Florida campaign. He went on to win the state over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who put her in charge of his successful gubernatorial race two years later, described Wiles as “the best in the business”.

Wiles worked on the Trump campaign alongside Chris LaCivita, a veteran of Republican politics with decades of experience.

The two worked with Trump to formulate a winning presidential primary strategy.

In her Politico profile, the 67-year-old grandmother - who is the daughter of late American football player and broadcaster Pat Summerall - said that she comes from a "traditional" political background.

“In my early career things like manners mattered and there was an expected level of decorum," she said, describing the Republican party as significantly different than the one of several decades ago.

"And so I get it that the GOP of today is different," she said, referring to the Republican party, who are also called the Grand Old Party (GOP).

"There are changes we must live with in order to get done the things we’re trying to do."

The chief of staff is considered to be the president's top aide, and plays a crucial role in every president's administration.

They essentially serve as the manager of the White House and are responsible for putting together a president's staff. A chief leads the staff through the Executive Office of the President and oversees all daily operations and staff activities.

They also advise presidents on policy issues and are responsible for directing and overseeing policy development.

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A Brazilian businessman, with ties to one of the country's most powerful criminal groups, has been shot dead at Guarulhos Airport in São Paulo.

Antônio Vinicius Gritzbach had recently entered into a plea bargain with local prosecutors to provide information about Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) - or First Capital Command.

He received death threats from the gang as a result, local media reports.

Three others were injured in the attack, with footage online showing the aftermath. Police said officers had been deployed to the airport and surrounding area.

The moment two hooded men exited a car holding sub-machine guns and began firing outside the airport terminal was caught on security camera.

Gritzbach, a former member of the PCC, dropped his bag and tried to run away - but he was shot many times and died at the scene.

A cryptocurrency expert, Gritzbach had been in the process of telling officials how he helped the group launder millions of dollars.

Reports in Brazilian media suggest he was once considered a key player in the gang's operation.

As part of his plea deal, Gritzbach had promised to help investigators locate other members and hand over documents.

In exchange, São Paulo prosecutors are said to have offered Gritzbach a judicial pardon and a reduction of his sentence for money laundering.

The PCC was formed in the early 1990s and has gone on to become one of Brazil's most feared drug gangs. Its members, however, are not confined to Latin America.

Last year, a report by security services in Portugal alone suggested the group had 1,000 associates in the European country's capital, Lisbon.

São Paulo's organised crime taskforce estimated in 2023 that PCC makes almost $1bn (£773,000) from international cocaine trafficking.

Former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said Democrats might have fared better in Tuesday's election if President Joe Biden had exited the race sooner.

Pelosi - one of the most powerful politicians in Washington - told the New York Times that "had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race".

Her remarks are the latest finger pointing from Democrats after the party lost hold of the White House and potentially both chambers of Congress on Tuesday.

Pelosi is widely reported to have led the Democrats’ push to oust Biden, who ended up leaving the race at the end of July after weeks of pressure following a poor debate performance against Donald Trump.

As Biden ended his campaign, he quickly endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place. She suffered a bruising defeat to President-elect Trump on Tuesday.

Pelosi told the New York Times: "The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary."

An open primary would have involved a number of Democratic candidates competing to be elected by party members to succeed Biden as their White House nominee.

Pelosi argued that Harris would have done well in such a primary process and it would have made her "stronger going forward".

"But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened," the California congresswoman, who was re-elected to her 20th term in the House on Tuesday, said.

"And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different."

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• When does Trump become US president again?

Speaking to political news outlet Politico, Harris aides also laid the blame at Biden’s feet and said he should have bowed out sooner.

“We ran the best campaign we could, considering Joe Biden was president,” said one unnamed aide. “Joe Biden is the singular reason Kamala Harris and Democrats lost tonight.”

However, a former Biden aide told Axios, another political news outlet, that Harris was making excuses.

"How did you spend $1 billion and not win?” said the aide, adding an expletive.

An unnamed former Biden aide told Politico this week that former President Barack Obama’s advisers were to blame because they “publicly encouraged Democratic infighting to push Joe Biden out, didn’t even want Kamala Harris as the nominee”.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat, blamed the election loss on those who plotted to oust Biden.

“For those that decided and moved to break Biden, and then you got the election that you wanted, it’s appropriate to own the outcome and fallout,” he told political outlet Semafor in an interview.

Congressman Tom Suozzi, New York Democratic congressman, said the election loss was partly due to the party's focus on "being politically correct".

He said the party had struggled to counteract Republican attack lines on "anarchy on college campuses, defund the police, biological boys playing in girls' sports, and a general attack on traditional values".

Ritchie Torres, another New York Democratic congressman, posted on X, formerly Twitter, blaming "the far left”.

He said radicals within the party had “managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx’”.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 and 2020, accused the party in a lengthy statement of abandoning working people.

"While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change," he wrote. "And they’re right."

He argued Democrats probably wouldn't learn from the election outcome.

But Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison responded on X that Sanders' accusation was "straight up BS".

Like every parent in Valencia that day, Victor Matías had quickly changed his plans, fearing what could be on the way.

The rain was still thundering down, but by now - early evening - he had managed to leave work early, safely pick up his boys from nursery and was about to make their favourite dinner – croquetas.

The crispy fried rolls of mashed potatoes, stuffed full of cheese and ham, would be a treat for Izan, 5, and Rubén, 3, while their mum Marta finished her late shift at the supermarket in town.

We have pieced together the tragic chronology of what happened next.

Our picture emerges from the testimony of neighbours and relatives we spoke to, as well as what Victor was able to recall himself along with other first-hand accounts given to local media.

The crushing story of the Matías family has generated huge attention in Spain. Many have followed updates on “Los niños desaparecidosas” – the missing children - as they have been frequently described.

But this one family’s grief is many people’s grief as it’s a nightmare replicated across the Valencia region which was hammered by flash flooding nearly two weeks ago, killing at least 219 people.

More than 90 are still missing.

Utter devastation

When we arrived at the family home, a few days after the deluge, it was languishing in a sea of destruction.

That startling statistic - a year’s worth of rain had been dumped on some parts of Valencia in a matter of hours – became easy to believe as you took all this in.

Huge metal containers – broken free from their articulated lorries – rested at unfathomable angles amid a jumble of cars, crumpled furniture and treacherous mud.

One of the few things still intact was the door to what had been the boys’ bedroom; the bright, white individual letters spelling their names standing out in a sea of brown.

Picking his way through this mess was Jonathan Perez, their next-door neighbour, who began to relive the terrifying sequence of events. “It was madness” he said. “I’ve never seen such force.”

Jonathan explained to us how the raging torrent had scooped up trucks parked next door to the Matías family home with one smashing through an external wall.

He said that Victor had explained to him how he’d grabbed his sons in his arms as the water dragged them all outside.

Then – despite his desperate efforts to keep hold of them - they were gone.

Victor was found around four hours later, more than 200 metres away.

He had been clinging to a tree.

His mother – the boys' grandma – revealed that Victor had been ready to throw himself into the torrent and surrender to his fate, but then stopped.

He told himself he could not leave his wife alone.

Family paradise shattered

For 5 year old Izan and 3 year old Rubén, few places felt safer than the playground that was their house and garden.

Their aunt, Barbara Sastre, told us they were like little bugs - “bichetes” - an endearing description to convey how they buzzed around, that is, when they weren’t absorbed by their cartoons.

“They were such happy kids” she told us.

Izan and Rubén’s parents had bought the property from a man called Francisco Javier Arona.

Javi – as he’s known - told EFE, the Spanish news agency, that the home had become “a paradise" for the Matías family.

He said he himself had lovingly constructed the house in La Curra, a neighbourhood of Mas del Jutge, in a colonial style over three years.

Javi said he’d affixed ornamental amphoras and delicate clay stars beneath a sweeping arch.

Outside, there was little traffic in the cul-de-sac, meaning the boys could run around carefree with little perceptible danger.

Family house surrounded by trucks

The impending storm gathering overheard on 29 October was a very big danger, and so Victor closed his business early and picked up his boys from the nursey so that he could keep them safe and dry at home, as the rain fell harder and harder.

The force of the downpour became incredible, and soon the power was cut.

The brothers’ grandma, Antonia María Matías, a 72 year old cancer patient, told ABC Sevilla that she had called her son Victor at around 6pm and heard the brothers crying.

The water around them was rising all the time. But still, they were safe for now.

It may have been their haven, but the family home was also next to a lorry park.

Jonathan Perez, their next door neighbour, explained to us how this played a deadly role.

He said, “The father told us that there was a truck that hit the back of the house and the force of the water tore away everything.”

“Victor regained his footing and carried the boys in his arms. But then he realized he no longer had them. The water took everything in its path,” he explained.

Barbara Sastre, the boy’s aunt also told us at least one truck had sliced open the house in a blow that precipitated the boys and their dad being swept towards the nearby ravine.

The unnamed owner of the parking lot from where the trucks came told one newspaper they had not hit the family house. He insisted it was the strength of the water that did the fatal damage.

Jonathan, the neighbour, encapsulated the seething anger millions of Spaniards are feeling. Particularly, at the fact the official red alert sent to mobile phones came at 8pm - far too late.

“They were loving life and they hadn’t even started being people, they were three and five years old”, he said.

“With better coordination, better management, and an earlier alarm – even half an hour earlier – those kids could have been saved and those parents would not be going through hell.”

The frantic search for the boys

The whole neighbourhood in La Curra, stunned and shattered by the violence of the flooding, immediately began to search for the missing Izan and Rubén.

At least they did once the water had receded sufficiently for them to climb down from trees and clamber off their cars and try to re-orientate themselves.

They were helped by police officers from nearby Alicante, including a friend of Victor’s, who quickly arrived and began a desperate search.

But where to start?

Cars, bricks, bed frames had been carried hundreds of meters from where they once stood.

A team of firefighters from Mallorca and then Civil Protection volunteers from the island of Ibiza also came and scoured the most hard-to-reach areas.

Despite nearly two weeks of intensive daily searches, the brothers have not been found.

Life 'turned to dust'

In the hours before everything changed, Marta - the mother of the boys - had started her late shift at the shop, safe in the knowledge their dad would be picking them up from school and taking them home.

In the early hours of the next morning, she was told her boys were gone.

Relatives say they can’t describe what Marta is experiencing.

The boy’s grandma, Antonia María, said her son Victor’s life had been destroyed - in her own words “turned to dust”.

As he was recovering in hospital, Victor took to sleeping with his boys’ blankets - salvaged from the ruins of their family home - resting on his face.

It is the closest he can be to them now.

Smog starts slow.

At first, you cannot see it but you can smell it. It smells like something is burning. And it intensifies as the temperature drops.

Then the smoke and fog start to envelop you and the city around you. Now you can see it. You are walking through the smoke, a thick ceiling of it hanging overhead.

If you are not wearing a mask or you lower it for a moment, you will immediately inhale the bitter air.

Your throat might start to feel itchy and sore. As it gets worse, you start sneezing and coughing. But it's worse for others: children, the elderly, those with breathing difficulties. The hospitals know to expect the influx.

Lahore and its 13 million residents have now been choking for a week; the air quality index has passed the 1,000 mark repeatedly this month - anything above 300 is considered hazardous.

Pakistani officials have scrambled to respond to the crisis - its scale unprecedented even in a city which deals with smog at this time each year.

Schools are closed, workers have been told to stay home and people urged to stay indoors - part of a so-called “green lockdown”, which has also seen motorbike rickshaws, heavy vehicles and motorbike parking banned from hot spot areas.

By the end of the week, Lahore High Court had ordered all the markets in the Punjab province to close by 20:00 each night, with complete closures on Sundays. Parks and zoos have also been shut until 17 November.

The problem, according to Nasa scientist Pawan Gupta, is that pollution levels in the city “typically peak in late November and December”.

“So this is just beginning. The worst pollution days are probably still ahead of us,” he warned.

The smoke that has enveloped Lahore, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, can be seen from space - as can part of the cause.

Satellite images from the US space agency Nasa shows both the thick layer of smog and the multiple concentrations of fire in the region between the Indian capital, Delhi, and Pakistan’s Lahore.

The same image, six weeks earlier, shows clear skies and - crucially - far fewer fires.

A major cause of the smog is the fires which are caused by the burning of stubble after harvest by farmers in both Pakistan and India - a quick way to clear their fields ready for the next crops.

This year, Nasa estimates it will count “between 15,500 and 18,500 fires ”, according to Hiren Jethva, a senior research scientist at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Morgan State University, higher than most years.

According to Pakistan’s environment protection authorities, around 30% of Lahore’s smog comes from across the border in India. The Indian government has this year doubled fines for farmers caught stubble-burning as it tries to deal with the issue.

But much of Lahore’s air pollution comes from its five million motorbikes and millions of other vehicles’ exhausts. On Friday, Lahore's high court identified heavy traffic emissions as the main cause of the smog, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan.

Then there are the industries in the city’s outskirts - like the coal-fired brick kilns - adding even more pollution to the air.

And in the final months of the year, it all combines with cold air flowing down from Tibet, creating the smog which is currently sitting over the city.

It is clear the toxic air is making people sick.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Air Quality Index (AQI), a value of 50 or below indicates good air quality, while a value above 300 signals Hazardous air quality.

The WHO guidelines say the average concentration of PM2.5 level should be below five.

Abid Omar, founder of Pakistan’s Air Quality Initiative, which collects data from 143 air quality monitors across the country, says the readings in Lahore “have hit beyond index on every day in November”.

“Some locations in Lahore have exceeded 1,000,” he says, adding: “On Thursday we had one reading of 1,917 on the AQI scale."

By Tuesday, it was widely reported 900 people had been admitted to hospital in Lahore with breathing difficulties.

“More and more people are coming with complaints of asthma, itchy throats and coughing,” says Dr Irfan Malik, a pulmonologist at one of the biggest hospitals in Lahore.

He has already seen a surge in patients complaining of respiratory tract illnesses - “particularly worrying because we have not yet seen our first cold wave of the winter season”.

The danger is a constant concern for Lahore resident Sadia Kashif.

“Like every mother, I want to see my children run and play without fearing pollution,” she tells the BBC.

“I see my children struggle with coughs and breathing problems these days, and it is a painful reminder that our air has become extremely toxic.”

But the current “green lockdown” has left her unimpressed.

“It is easy for the government to shut down school rather than taking real steps to address the crisis,” says Kashif.

For years, authorities have struggled to find a solution to Lahore’s pollution problem.

The government hopes short fixes will provide reprieve, but says long term solutions - like improving public transport - will take time.

In the meantime, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz announced this week she intends to write a letter to her counterpart in Indian Punjab to invite them to engage in “climate diplomacy”, since it impacts both regions. Delhi says it is yet to hear from Pakistan on the issue.

However, Omar points out air pollution is not a seasonal problem but a persistent issue.

“Lahore is much more polluted than Delhi with pollution episodes that last longer and reach higher peaks,” he notes.

And it is getting worse, he believes. As per his own analysis of data, October has seen a 25% rise in pollution level compared to the same period last year.

Governments on both sides of the border need to act swiftly to deal with the issue, he argues.

“The roadmap to clean air is clear, but the present policies from both India and Pakistan aren’t enough to significantly reduce pollution.”

It has left him sceptical of the change in the near future.

“I tell people, blue skies are an indicator of good governance," Omar says.

Authorities across the US are investigating after reports of text messages sent to black Americans with references to “slave catchers”, plantations and picking cotton.

In a statement the FBI said it is “aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.”

The source of the messages and the total number sent are unclear, however, there are reports that they were received in at least 15 states and Washington DC.

Some of the messages mentioned the Trump campaign – which strongly denied any connection.

Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said: “The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

According to examples posted online and cited in news reports, the wording of the messages varied but generally instructed recipients to report to a “plantation” or wait to be picked up in a van, and referred to “slave” labour.

The messages appear to have started on Wednesday, the day after election day. Among the recipients were college students and children.

In a statement Derrick Johnson, head of the civil rights group NAACP, said: “These actions are not normal.”

“These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday's election results,” Johnson said.

Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, which is also investigating the messages, said: "These messages are unacceptable. We take this type of targeting very seriously.”

The messages were reportedly received across southern states, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, California, Washington DC and others, US media say.

One recipient, Hailey Welch, told a University of Alabama student newspaper that several students on the campus had also received the messages.

“At first I thought it was a joke, but everyone else was getting them. People were texting, posting on their stories, saying they got them,” Ms Welch told The Crimson White. “I was just stressed out, and I was scared because I didn’t know what was happening.”

In several states, top law enforcement officials said they were aware of the messages and encouraged residents to report them to the authorities if they received them.

The office of Nevada’s attorney general said it was working to “probe into the source of what appear to be robotext messages”.

The office of Louisiana's attorney general said it had discovered that some of the messages could be traced back to a VPN in Poland, but that "no original source" had been found so far.

Dutch police have arrested 57 people in the centre of Amsterdam after clashes broke out, reportedly involving young locals and Israeli football supporters.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof condemned "antisemitic attacks" and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two "rescue planes" were being sent to Amsterdam after what Israel's military described as "severe and violent incidents against Israelis".

A police spokeswoman told Dutch media that unrest had broken out around Dam Square in the heart of the capital, but did not say who was involved.

Supporters of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv had travelled to Amsterdam for a Europa Cup match against Ajax.

Schoof said he had followed developments with horror, adding that he had spoken to Netanyahu and emphasising that the "perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted".

There had already been arrests and trouble in Dam Square ahead of the match involving Maccabi fans and pro-Palestinian protesters, and there were reports of supporters setting off fireworks and tearing down a Palestinian flag on a nearby street.

But the unrest grew after the game. Police said it was unclear who had taken part in the riots, telling local media that those involved were wearing dark clothing.

Several videos circulated on social media, with one showing a man being kicked and beaten on the ground and another showing someone being run over. In some videos, people could be heard shouting pro-Palestinian slogans, although the footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke of a "pogrom" against Maccabi fans and Israeli citizens. Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders who leads the biggest party in parliament also spoke of a pogrom, saying "authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens".

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema had earlier sought to prevent trouble by moving pro-Palestinian protesters away from the Johan Cruyff Arena. But Dutch reports said a large group had then tried to head to the stadium, only to be stopped by riot police.

Herzog said on X that he trusted the Dutch authorities would act immediately to "protect, locate and rescue all Israelis and Jews under attack".

An Israeli football fan has described being attacked by several men in overnight violence that Amsterdam police say involved youths on scooters carrying out "hit-and-run" attacks that were hard to prevent.

Adi Reuben, a 24yr-old Maccabi Tel Aviv fan who was visiting Amsterdam for the club's Europa League match with Ajax, told the BBC he was kicked on the floor by a group of young men who confronted him when he was walking to his hotel.

He said more than 10 men came up to him and his friends and asked them where they were from.

"They shouted 'Jewish, Jewish, IDF, IDF',” Mr Reuben said, referring to the Israeli military.

"They started to mess with me and I realised I had to run, but it was dark and I didn't know where to go. I fell to the floor and ten people were kicking me. They were shouting ‘Palestine’.

"They were kicking me on the floor for about a minute, then they walked off, they weren’t afraid of anything.

“I realised I had full blood on my nose and my nose was broken and it is very painful."

Mr Reuben said he could not see properly for about 30 minutes after the attack. But he said he decided against going to hospital in Amsterdam because he had heard that taxi drivers were involved in the violence.

Instead he said he was flying to Israel on Friday afternoon on a flight organised by the Israeli government and would get medical treatment there.

"This was a specific attack that was organised beforehand,” he added.

Pnina, another Maccabi Tel Aviv supporter, also told Dutch media organisation NOS that the violence against Israelis appeared pre-planned.

"It seems like it was organised. There was a lot of people. They jumped on us... We hid in the hotels until it was safe to go outside," she said.

Esther Voet, editor-in-chief of a Dutch Jewish weekly newspaper, lives in the city centre and says she offered her home to shelter several Israeli fans, after she saw footage of the violence.

"I told them this is a Jewish home and you are safe here," she told Israeli public broadcaster Kann. "People were really scared. I never thought I would go through this in Amsterdam."

Dutch police said Israeli fans had suffered "serious abuses" during "hit-and-run" attacks many of which were carried out by young men on scooters.

Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla said it had proved difficult to prevent such attacks even though police had been present in the city centre in numbers. The force eventually decided to bring Maccabi supporters together and protect them before transporting them out of the area in buses, he said.

Five people were injured but had left hospital and between 20 and 30 more had been lightly hurt, he said.

The attacks overnight into Friday followed some tensions between Maccabi fans and people in Amsterdam over previous days, officials said.

On Wednesday Maccabi fans attacked a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag, police chief Holla said. Taxi drivers then headed towards a location where about 400 Maccabi fans had gathered but police were able to take them out of the area. There were further clashes in Dam Square overnight into Thursday but police were mostly able to keep the groups separate.

On Thursday evening before the match police accompanied pro-Palestinian demonstrators and mostly managed to keep them separate from football fans - but were then unable to prevent attacks later in the evening.

"We are looking back on 36 hours that really shocked me. Supporters from Israel have been attacked and some abused in a terrible way," Holla said.

"I'm particularly shocked by fact that we’ve had one of largest police actions and we were not able to control or prevent this violence."

Amsterdam's mayor Femke Halsema said the "war in the Middle East has threatened the peace in our city" and there had been a "terrible outburst of antisemitism".

She said Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were not considered to pose a threat of violence and there was no animosity between them and fans of Dutch club Ajax.

"I do understand that this reminds us of pogroms and that this happened in Amsterdam is reprehensible. Not only people got injured last night but the history of our city has been deeply damaged, the Jewish culture has been threatened," she said.

Some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have previously been involved in racist incidents in Israel, including cursing at the team’s Palestinian and Arab players and reportedly applying pressure on the team to oust them.

Fans of the team have also previously attacked protesters demonstrating against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Asked about video footage appearing to show Maccabi fans in Amsterdam chanting offensive slogans, Mayor Halsema said: "What happened last night has nothing to do with protest. There is no excuse for what happened."

Additional reporting Shaina Oppenheimer in Jerusalem

The US government has brought charges against an Iranian man in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Donald Trump before he was elected the next president.

The Department of Justice on Friday unsealed an indictment against Farhad Shakeri, 51, alleging he was tasked with “providing a plan” to kill Trump.

The US government said Mr Shakeri has not been arrested and is believed to be in Iran.

In a criminal complaint filed in Manhattan court, prosecutors allege that an official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard directed Mr Shakeri in September to devise a plan to surveil and kill Trump.

“The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

The Justice Department added that it had charged two others who were also recruited to kill an American journalist who was an outspoken critic of Iran.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.

Authorities across the US are investigating after reports of text messages sent to black Americans with references to “slave catchers”, plantations and picking cotton.

In a statement the FBI said it is “aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.”

The source of the messages and the total number sent are unclear, however, there are reports that they were received in at least 15 states and Washington DC.

Some of the messages mentioned the Trump campaign – which strongly denied any connection.

Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said: “The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

According to examples posted online and cited in news reports, the wording of the messages varied but generally instructed recipients to report to a “plantation” or wait to be picked up in a van, and referred to “slave” labour.

The messages appear to have started on Wednesday, the day after election day. Among the recipients were college students and children.

In a statement Derrick Johnson, head of the civil rights group NAACP, said: “These actions are not normal.”

“These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday's election results,” Johnson said.

Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, which is also investigating the messages, said: "These messages are unacceptable. We take this type of targeting very seriously.”

The messages were reportedly received across southern states, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, California, Washington DC and others, US media say.

One recipient, Hailey Welch, told a University of Alabama student newspaper that several students on the campus had also received the messages.

“At first I thought it was a joke, but everyone else was getting them. People were texting, posting on their stories, saying they got them,” Ms Welch told The Crimson White. “I was just stressed out, and I was scared because I didn’t know what was happening.”

In several states, top law enforcement officials said they were aware of the messages and encouraged residents to report them to the authorities if they received them.

The office of Nevada’s attorney general said it was working to “probe into the source of what appear to be robotext messages”.

The office of Louisiana's attorney general said it had discovered that some of the messages could be traced back to a VPN in Poland, but that "no original source" had been found so far.

The UN's Human Rights Office has condemned the high number of civilians killed in the war in Gaza, saying its analysis shows close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period were women and children.

The agency said the high number was largely due to Israel's use of weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas, although some deaths may have been the result of errant projectiles by Palestinian armed groups.

The report said it found "unprecedented" levels of international law violations, raising concerns about "war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes".

Israel has in the past said it targets Hamas and takes steps to mitigate risk to civilians by using precise munitions.

The BBC contacted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment in response to Friday's report.

The UN agency said it verified the details of 8,119 people killed in Gaza from November 2023 to April 2024.

Its analysis found around 44% of verified victims were children and 26% women. The ages most represented among the dead were five to nine-year-olds.

About 80% of victims were killed in residential buildings or similar housing, the agency added.

The report said the data indicates "an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare".

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures the UN sees as reliable, has reported a death toll of more than 43,300 people over the past 13 months. Many more bodies are believed to remain under the rubble of bombarded buildings.

The health ministry said it obtained full demographic data for a majority of those killed and reported that children account for one in three of that number.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said in a statement that "this unprecedented level of killing, and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law".

He cited the laws of distinction, which requires warring parties to distinguish between combatants and civilians, proportionality, which prohibits attacks where harm to civilians outweighs military advantage, and precautions in attacks.

Türk called for a "due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law".

The IDF has previously told the BBC in response to criticism that it "will continue to act, as it always has done, according to international law".

The report also said the way the warring parties have conducted the conflict in Gaza has "caused horrific human suffering".

The UN said Palestinian armed groups have waged war from densely-populated areas and indiscriminately used projectiles, likely contributing to the death toll, while the IDF has destroyed civilian infrastructure and "left many of those alive, injured, displaced and starving, without access to adequate water, food or healthcare".

The situation is worst in north Gaza, which aid groups say has been under siege since early October when Israel launched a new ground offensive against Hamas.

The UN said no food aid entered the north during the first two weeks of October.

This prompted the US to issue an ultimatum to Israel to increase aid by 12 November or risk losing some military support.

Jan Egeland, the head of aid organisation Norwegian Refugee Council, told the BBC on Friday that he saw "devastation, despair, beyond belief" on a recent visit to Gaza.

"There is hardly a building that is not damaged. And large areas looked like Stalingrad after the Second World War. You cannot fathom how intense this indiscriminate bombing has been on this trapped population," he said.

"It's evident that it is first and foremost children and women who are paying a price for this senseless war," he added.

Israel launched its current military offensive in Gaza after Hamas' attack on 7 October 2023 that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages back to Gaza.

Beyoncé has made history by becoming the most-nominated artist of all time at the Grammy Awards, overtaking her husband Jay-Z.

The couple had been tied on 88 nominations each - but Beyoncé has now pulled ahead thanks to recognition for her latest album, Cowboy Carter.

She picked up her 89th nomination in the best pop solo performance category on Friday, for the song Bodyguard. The full shortlists for the 2025 awards are currently being announced.

Beyoncé is already the Recording Academy's most-honoured artist, with 32 wins as a solo artist and a further three as part of Destiny's Child.

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• Grammy Awards 2023: Beyoncé makes history

However, she has never won the coveted album of the year trophy, despite four nominations in the category.

Most recently, Harry Styles beat her to that prize at the 2023 ceremony, where Beyoncé's disco odyssey Renaissance had been the bookmakers' favourite to win.

Earlier this year, Jay-Z appeared to scold Grammy voters for Beyonce's lack of recognition in the top category as he accepted a lifetime achievement prize.

"I don't want to embarrass this young lady," he told the audience. "But she has more Grammys than everyone and never won album of the year.

"So even by your own metrics, that doesn't work. Think about that. The most Grammys; never won album of the year. That doesn't work."

She is widely expected to pick up her fifth nod for album of the year as the full nominations for the 2025 Grammys are revealed on Friday.

Other artists expected to be in the running for the top prize include Taylor Swift for The Tortured Poets Department, Billie Eilish for Hit Me Hard And Soft, and Chappell Roan for The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess.

The nominations for all 94 Grammy categories are being revealed in a livestream on the ceremony's YouTube Channel, featuring Kylie Minogue, Mark Ronson and Victoria Monét.

British star Raye picked up several early nominations, including songwriter of the year and best new artist.

The Rolling Stones were also on the shortlist for best rock album for Hackney Diamonds, their first album of original material since 2016.

This story will be updated as the shortlist comes into focus.

Nigeria has announced that free emergency Caesarean sections will be made available to "poor and vulnerable" women in an ambitious plan to bring down the high number of mothers dying in childbirth.

At 1,047 deaths per 100,000 live births, Africa's most populous nation has the fourth highest maternal mortality rate in the world and the lack of access to Caesareans is thought to be one of the reasons.

Many pregnant women, particularly in rural Nigeria are unable to receive emergency medical care partly due to the cost.

“No woman should lose her life simply because she can’t afford a C-section,” Health Minister Muhammad Pate said while announcing the "powerful move".

While the price may vary across Nigeria's different states, on average, a Caesarean costs around 60,000 naira ($36;£28) which can be beyond the reach of many.

More than 40% of Nigerians live below the international extreme poverty line of $2.15 per day, according to 2023 data from Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics.

The Maternal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative launched on Thursday will now allow all eligible women to access Caesarean sections in public hospitals.

To be a beneficiary, one must be registered under the country’s public health insurance scheme.

"By removing financial barriers to this life-saving procedure, we ensure that no woman in need is denied critical care due to cost," Pate added.

The health scheme covers emergency situations only, Tashikalmah Hallah, a communication adviser to the health minister, told the BBC.

Social welfare units in public hospitals will help determine eligibility and identify those who cannot afford the procedure, Mr Hallah added.

Pate said maternal mortality remained "unacceptably high".

Caesareans are seen as essential for preventing obstructed labour in cases where a woman’s pelvis is too small, the baby is in a breech position, or is too large to exit the birth canal.

Without intervention, a constricted baby may fatally rupture the uterus, or cause tears that catastrophically haemorrhage.

While offering to support the new initiative, the World Bank's Trina Haque, described it as a "game-changer".

“If implemented right, this initiative will deliver. We’re here to support every step of the way,” Kazadi Mulombo, the WHO country rep, said.

Causes of maternal deaths include severe haemorrhage, high blood pressure (pre-eclampsia and eclampsia), unsafe abortions and obstructed or prolonged labour.

The new policy will “improve maternal and child health outcomes in the country”, Rhoda Robinson, executive director of HACEY, an NGO advocating for healthcare access for vulnerable populations in Nigeria.

“Especially for women from low-income communities who might resort to alternative and often unsafe care options,” she told the BBC.

Mabel Onwuemena, national coordinator of the Women of Purpose Foundation, another NGO advocating for better maternal health access in Africa, praised the initiative and urged the Nigerian government to expand it to include free drugs and ultrasound to pregnant women.

More BBC stories from Nigeria:

• Should I stay or should I go? The dilemma for young Nigerians
• Why Nigeria's economy is in such a mess
• 'I've been sleeping under a bridge in Lagos for 30 years'

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

US President-elect Donald Trump has announced his campaign manager, Susan Summerall Wiles, will serve as his White House chief of staff when he takes over the presidency next year.

In a statement, Trump said that Wiles "just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history" and "is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected".

"It is a well deserved honour to have Susie as the first-ever female chief of staff in United States history," he continued. "I have no doubt that she will make our country proud.”

Wiles, 67, is the first woman to be appointed White House chief of staff.

The Trump transition team is currently working to choose top members of the incoming Republican administration, including the heads of all 15 executive departments, such as the secretaries of state and defence, from 20 January.

• Follow live updates as Trump assembles senior team
• A quick guide to Donald Trump

In his victory speech this week, Trump referred to Wiles as "the ice maiden" as she stood behind him on stage.

She operates mostly “in the back”, the president-elect said, but she is known as one of the most feared political operatives in the US.

"Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again," he added in his statement on Thursday, referring to his oft-repeated campaign slogan.

Who is Susie Wiles?

A profile by Politico earlier this year described Susie Wiles as feared but little known.

Less than a year after Wiles started working in politics, she joined Ronald Reagan’s campaign ahead of his 1980 election.

She went on to play a key role in transforming politics in Florida, where she lives.

In 2010, she turned Rick Scott, a then-businessman with little political experience, into Florida’s governor in just seven months. Scott is now a US senator.

Wiles met Trump during the 2015 Republican presidential primary and became the co-chair of his Florida campaign. He went on to win the state over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who put her in charge of his successful gubernatorial race two years later, described Wiles as “the best in the business”.

Wiles worked on the Trump campaign alongside Chris LaCivita, a veteran of Republican politics with decades of experience.

The two worked with Trump to formulate a winning presidential primary strategy.

In her Politico profile, the 67-year-old grandmother - who is the daughter of late American football player and broadcaster Pat Summerall - said that she comes from a "traditional" political background.

“In my early career things like manners mattered and there was an expected level of decorum," she said, describing the Republican party as significantly different than the one of several decades ago.

"And so I get it that the GOP of today is different," she said, referring to the Republican party, who are also called the Grand Old Party (GOP).

"There are changes we must live with in order to get done the things we’re trying to do."

The chief of staff is considered to be the president's top aide, and plays a crucial role in every president's administration.

They essentially serve as the manager of the White House and are responsible for putting together a president's staff. A chief leads the staff through the Executive Office of the President and oversees all daily operations and staff activities.

They also advise presidents on policy issues and are responsible for directing and overseeing policy development.

• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• When does he become president again?
• What happens to his legal cases now
• How he pulled off an incredible comeback

At least one thing was taken for granted before voting day - women across the US were going to turn out for Kamala Harris.

Just as months of relentless polling showed Harris in a virtual tie with Donald Trump, many of those same surveys told the story of a yawning gender gap.

It was a strategy Harris’s team was betting on, hoping that an over-performance among women could make up for losses elsewhere.

It didn’t happen.

Across the country, the majority of women did cast their ballots for Harris, but not by the historic margins she needed. Instead, if early exit polls bear out, Harris’s advantage among women overall - around 10 points - actually fell four points short of Joe Biden’s in 2020.

Democrats suffered a 10 point drop among Latino women, while failing to move the needle among non-college educated women at all, who again went for Trump 63-35, preliminary data suggests.

The shortfall was not for lack of trying.

Throughout her 15-week campaign, much of Harris’s messaging was aimed directly at women, most obviously with her emphasis on abortion.

On the trail, Harris made reproductive rights a cornerstone of her pitch. She repeatedly reminded voters that Trump had once bragged about his role in overturning Roe v Wade - a ruling that ended the nationwide right to an abortion.

“I will fight to restore what Donald Trump and his hand-selected Supreme Court justice took away from the women of America,” Harris said at her closing address in DC last week.

• Follow live updates
• The shifts that delivered Trump a big win

Her most powerful advertisements featured women who had suffered under state abortion bans - deemed “Trump abortion bans” by Harris - including those who said they were denied care for miscarriages.

The strategy, it seemed, was to harness the same enthusiasm for abortion access that drove Democrats’ unexpected success in the 2022 midterms.

Abortion rights remain broadly popular - this Gallup poll in May suggested only one in 10 Americans thought it should be banned.

And even these election results seemed to underline that. Eight out of the 10 states where abortion was on the ballot voted in favour of abortion rights.

But that support did not translate into support for Harris.

Abortion did matter to women, it just didn’t matter enough, said Evan Ross Smith, a pollster and campaign consultant.

“Voters - particularly the women - who feel strongest about abortion are already voting for Democrats,” he said. But Democrats were unable to raise the salience of abortion for women who didn’t yet see it as a pressing issue.

“The abortion argument did not penetrate at all with non-college educated women, did not move them an inch. And they lost ground with Latinos,” Mr Smith said.

• Results: Who did each state vote for?
• These are the seven things Trump says he will do as president
• Analysis - Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed candidate or doomed campaign?

For many, the decisive issue proved to be the economy.

In pre-election surveys and preliminary exit data, inflation and affordability continued to top lists of voters' concerns. And for these voters, Trump was the overwhelming favourite.

Jennifer Varvar, 51, an independent from Grand Junction, Colorado said she had not even considered a vote for Harris because of the financial stress she faced over the past four years.

“For me and my family, we’re in a worse position now than we ever have been financially. It’s a struggle. I have three boys to put food on the table for,” she said. Things had been better under Trump, she said, and that’s why she voted for him.

But if gender didn't divide the electorate in the way some expected, it still played a part in the Harris defeat, say some analysts.

There have been many explanations offered for Trump’s resounding victory but for some there is one thing that stands out.

“I do think that the country is still sexist and is not ready for a woman president,” said Patti Solis Doyle, who managed Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, to Politico.

Unlike Clinton, who explicitly leaned into her gender and the history-making potential of her campaign, Harris was noticeably reluctant to do the same.

There is a widespread belief that the country is more ready for a woman president now than when Clinton ran a second time in 2016. But it's still an open question.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in October suggested 15% of those surveyed would not be able to vote for a female president.

And Donald Trump, who doubled down on masculinity in this election, may have played a part in exploiting that.

• Trump attempts to woo the manosphere

“He framed being president as being a tough guy in a dangerous world… he framed that as the job description," said Mr Smith.

“And that’s one of the hardest possible job descriptions for a woman to successfully meet, in the minds of many Americans.”

An Israeli football fan has described being attacked by several men in overnight violence that Amsterdam police say involved youths on scooters carrying out "hit-and-run" attacks that were hard to prevent.

Adi Reuben, a 24yr-old Maccabi Tel Aviv fan who was visiting Amsterdam for the club's Europa League match with Ajax, told the BBC he was kicked on the floor by a group of young men who confronted him when he was walking to his hotel.

He said more than 10 men came up to him and his friends and asked them where they were from.

"They shouted 'Jewish, Jewish, IDF, IDF',” Mr Reuben said, referring to the Israeli military.

"They started to mess with me and I realised I had to run, but it was dark and I didn't know where to go. I fell to the floor and ten people were kicking me. They were shouting ‘Palestine’.

"They were kicking me on the floor for about a minute, then they walked off, they weren’t afraid of anything.

“I realised I had full blood on my nose and my nose was broken and it is very painful."

Mr Reuben said he could not see properly for about 30 minutes after the attack. But he said he decided against going to hospital in Amsterdam because he had heard that taxi drivers were involved in the violence.

Instead he said he was flying to Israel on Friday afternoon on a flight organised by the Israeli government and would get medical treatment there.

"This was a specific attack that was organised beforehand,” he added.

Pnina, another Maccabi Tel Aviv supporter, also told Dutch media organisation NOS that the violence against Israelis appeared pre-planned.

"It seems like it was organised. There was a lot of people. They jumped on us... We hid in the hotels until it was safe to go outside," she said.

Esther Voet, editor-in-chief of a Dutch Jewish weekly newspaper, lives in the city centre and says she offered her home to shelter several Israeli fans, after she saw footage of the violence.

"I told them this is a Jewish home and you are safe here," she told Israeli public broadcaster Kann. "People were really scared. I never thought I would go through this in Amsterdam."

Dutch police said Israeli fans had suffered "serious abuses" during "hit-and-run" attacks many of which were carried out by young men on scooters.

Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla said it had proved difficult to prevent such attacks even though police had been present in the city centre in numbers. The force eventually decided to bring Maccabi supporters together and protect them before transporting them out of the area in buses, he said.

Five people were injured but had left hospital and between 20 and 30 more had been lightly hurt, he said.

The attacks overnight into Friday followed some tensions between Maccabi fans and people in Amsterdam over previous days, officials said.

On Wednesday Maccabi fans attacked a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag, police chief Holla said. Taxi drivers then headed towards a location where about 400 Maccabi fans had gathered but police were able to take them out of the area. There were further clashes in Dam Square overnight into Thursday but police were mostly able to keep the groups separate.

On Thursday evening before the match police accompanied pro-Palestinian demonstrators and mostly managed to keep them separate from football fans - but were then unable to prevent attacks later in the evening.

"We are looking back on 36 hours that really shocked me. Supporters from Israel have been attacked and some abused in a terrible way," Holla said.

"I'm particularly shocked by fact that we’ve had one of largest police actions and we were not able to control or prevent this violence."

Amsterdam's mayor Femke Halsema said the "war in the Middle East has threatened the peace in our city" and there had been a "terrible outburst of antisemitism".

She said Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were not considered to pose a threat of violence and there was no animosity between them and fans of Dutch club Ajax.

"I do understand that this reminds us of pogroms and that this happened in Amsterdam is reprehensible. Not only people got injured last night but the history of our city has been deeply damaged, the Jewish culture has been threatened," she said.

Some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have previously been involved in racist incidents in Israel, including cursing at the team’s Palestinian and Arab players and reportedly applying pressure on the team to oust them.

Fans of the team have also previously attacked protesters demonstrating against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Asked about video footage appearing to show Maccabi fans in Amsterdam chanting offensive slogans, Mayor Halsema said: "What happened last night has nothing to do with protest. There is no excuse for what happened."

Additional reporting Shaina Oppenheimer in Jerusalem

The most prominent Islamic scholar in Gaza has issued a rare, powerful fatwa condemning Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the devastating war in the Palestinian territory.

Professor Dr Salman al-Dayah, a former dean of the Faculty of Sharia and Law at the Hamas-affiliated Islamic University of Gaza, is one of the region’s most respected religious authorities, so his legal opinion carries significant weight among Gaza’s two million population, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim.

A fatwa is a non-binding Islamic legal ruling from a respected religious scholar usually based on the Quran or the Sunnah - the sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad.

Dr Dayah’s fatwa, which was published in a detailed six-page document, criticises Hamas for what he calls “violating Islamic principles governing jihad”.

Jihad means “struggle” in Arabic and in Islam it can be a personal struggle for spiritual improvement or a military struggle against unbelievers.

Dr Dayah adds: “If the pillars, causes, or conditions of jihad are not met, it must be avoided in order to avoid destroying people’s lives. This is something that is easy to guess for our country’s politicians, so the attack must have been avoided.”

For Hamas, the fatwa represents an embarrassing and potentially damaging critique, particularly as the group often justifies its attacks on Israel through religious arguments to garner support from Arab and Muslim communities.

The 7 October attack saw hundreds of Hamas gunmen from Gaza invade southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign to destroy Hamas, during which more than 43,400 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

• Israel Gaza war: History of the conflict explained
• What is Hamas and why is it fighting with Israel in Gaza?

Dr Dayah argues that the significant civilian casualties in Gaza, together with the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and humanitarian disaster that have followed the 7 October attack, means that it was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Islam.

Hamas, he says, has failed in its obligations of “keeping fighters away from the homes of defenceless [Palestinian] civilians and their shelters, and providing security and safety as much as possible in the various aspects of life... security, economic, health, and education, and saving enough supplies for them.”

Dr Dayah points to Quranic verses and the Sunnah that set strict conditions for the conduct of jihad, including the necessity of avoiding actions that provoke an excessive and disproportionate response by an opponent.

His fatwa highlights that, according to Islamic law, a military raid should not trigger a response that exceeds the intended benefits of the action.

He also stresses that Muslim leaders are obligated to ensure the safety and well-being of non-combatants, including by providing food, medicine, and refuge to those not involved in the fighting.

“Human life is more precious to God than Mecca,” Dr Dayah states.

His opposition to the 7 October attack is especially significant given his deep influence in Gaza, where he is seen as a key religious figure and a vocal critic of Islamist movements, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

His moderate Salafist beliefs place him in direct opposition to Hamas’s approach to armed resistance and its ties to Shia-ruled Iran.

Salafists are fundamentalists who seek to adhere the example of the Prophet Muhammad and the first generations who followed him.

Dr Dayah has consistently argued for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate that adheres strictly to Islamic law, rather than the political party-based systems that Hamas and other groups advocate.

“Our role model is the Prophet Muhammad, who founded a nation and did not establish political parties that divide the nation. Therefore, parties in Islam are forbidden,” he said in a sermon he gave at a mosque several years ago.

He has also condemned extremism, opposing jihadist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and has used all of his platforms to issue fatwas on various social and political issues, ranging from commercial transactions, social disputes over marriage and divorce, to the conduct of political violence.

The fatwa adds to the growing internal debate within Gaza and the broader Arab world over the moral and legal implications of Hamas’s actions, and it is likely to fuel further divisions within Palestinian society regarding the use of armed resistance in the ongoing conflict with Israel.

Sheikh Ashraf Ahmed, one of Dr Dayah’s students who was forced to leave his house in Gaza City last year and flee to the south of Gaza with his wife and nine children, told the BBC: “Our scholar [Dr Dayah] refused to leave his home in northern Gaza despite the fears of Israeli air strikes. He chose to fulfil his religious duty by issuing his legal opinion on the attack”.

Ahmed described the fatwa as the most powerful legal judgment of a historical moment. “It’s a deeply well researched document, reflecting Dayah’s commitment to Islamic jurisprudence,” he said.

New floods have hit the region of Girona in north-eastern Spain, sweeping away around 30 cars in the town of Cadaqués, according to Spanish media reports.

Videos posted by a local journalist showed a torrent of water gushing down the street and a pile of cars blocking a bridge early on Friday.

No casualties were reported in the latest round of flooding to hit the country.

More than 200 people were killed last week, most in the Valencia area, in one of the worst floods in Europe this century.

The disaster ignited intense anger at the authorities for not issuing emergency alerts sooner.

Flooding in Cadaqués in the early hours of Friday morning caused around 30 vehicles to pile up under a bridge, Catalonia's fire service said on X. No one was injured or trapped, the emergency responders added.

More potentially dangerous weather is expected in the region overnight.

Catalonia's meteorological service issued a rain warning from Friday evening until Saturday afternoon for the area of Alt Emporda, where Cadaqués is located. The weather agency warned rain intensity could exceed 20 mm (0.7 inches) in 30 minutes.

The agency recorded 76.8 mm (3 inches) of rain in Cadaqués on 7 and 8 November, with more than 100 mm (4 inches) logged in two other towns nearby.

Spain received 72% more rainfall from 1 October to 5 November than the normal value for that time period, according to Aemet, Spain's weather agency.

The rainfall, which experts said was intensified by climate change, led to flash floods that trapped people in their cars.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House effectively slammed the door on the two cases involving federal criminal charges against him.

A state case against him for allegedly conspiring to interfere with Georgia’s election in 2020 will go on hold until after his term in office ends - if it's still alive by then.

But next week, the fate of the remaining case – his conviction on 34 felony counts in New York – will be determined. It could stand, or it could be swept away in the same political and legal tide that has allowed him to escape the others.

Justice Juan Merchan will decide by Tuesday whether to grant Trump’s pre-election request to throw out his conviction. Should Justice Merchan side with Trump, it would almost wipe clean his slate of criminal woes.

But should the judge uphold the conviction, he would proceed to sentencing later this month. It would likely spark even more delay attempts from Trump and open up an unprecedented new front for America’s criminal justice system.

“This is truly uncharted territory,” said Anna Cominsky, a professor at the New York Law School.

Will Trump’s case get thrown out?

In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records. The convictions stemmed from Trump’s attempt to cover up reimbursements to his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who in 2016 paid off an adult film star to remain silent about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

Trump’s lawyers argue that a recent US Supreme Court ruling granting presidents a degree of immunity from criminal prosecution applies to certain aspects of his New York case, and therefore the indictment and conviction should be tossed.

During the trial, Justice Merchan dismissed attempts by Trump’s lawyers to throw out the case on immunity grounds. But that was before the US Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favour this summer – and before Trump decisively won re-election.

Justice Merchan has set a deadline of 12 November to decide whether to grant Trump’s request.

If he throws out the conviction, that will be the end of the case.

But if he denies the defense's request, Trump’s much-delayed sentencing will remain scheduled for 26 November.

An unprecedented sentencing – with jail unlikely

Even if Justice Merchan upholds the conviction and keeps the scheduled sentencing, Trump’s team is almost certain to seek more delays and appeals.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney, did not respond to inquiries about whether he planned to seek a delay.

Because Trump will be tied up with a presidential transition and the legal questions about sentencing a president are so complex, some scholars see very little chance it will stay on the calendar.

“I think the most likely outcome in the state case is the judge putting off sentencing until after Trump's term in office,” said Daniel Charles Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School.

“To actually impose a sentence would raise any number of messy issues in the short term,” including political ones, he said.

If Trump does find himself in a Manhattan courtroom later this month, deciding his fate still would be an unprecedented challenge.

Under the law, Trump faces a range of sentences, including fines, probation and up to four years in prison. But many options are rendered impractical by his imminent return to the White House.

“Sentencing a sitting president may be one of the most complicated, fraught sentencing decisions you can imagine,” Ms Cominsky said.

“It’s hard to imagine what sentence could be imposed that would not impede a president’s ability to do their job or compromise the president’s security."

Few expect Justice Merchan to sentence Trump to a stint behind bars at this point.

“He’s a 78-year old man with no criminal history, who has been convicted of a non-violent felony,” said retired New York Supreme Court Justice Diane Kiesel. “I don’t think a judge would give a person under those sentences an incarceration sentence.”

Even if Justice Merchan did reach for such a sentence, Trump’s team would almost certainly appeal it, delaying actual punishment.

Trump could leave a sentencing hearing with the legal equivalent of a slap on the wrist. Justice Merchan could ask the former president to pay a relatively small fine in the three- or four-figure range.

He could also give Trump an unconditional discharge; “basically, goodbye,” as Justice Kiesel puts it.

Trump has no pardon power here

The only thing that is certain is that Trump cannot make this conviction go away on his own.

Trump has explored the possibility of pardoning himself from potential criminal charges in the past, and could do so for his federal indictments when he becomes president in January.

But he cannot pardon himself in New York, as the conviction occurred in state court.

His fate, at the moment, is in the hands of the court. But regardless of the outcome, Trump will likely avoid the most serious punishments facing him.

“He is a very lucky man,” Justice Kiesel said.

Donald Trump's transition team is already vetting potential candidates who could serve in his administration when he returns to the White House in January.

On Thursday, he made the first announcement naming his campaign co-manager Susan Summerall Wiles as his White House chief of staff.

Many of the figures who served under Trump in his first term do not plan to return, though a handful of loyalists are rumoured to be making a comeback.

But the US president-elect is now surrounded by a new cast of characters who may fill his cabinet, staff his White House and serve in key roles across government.

Here is a look at the some of the names being floated for the top jobs.

Robert F Kennedy Jr

The past two years have been quite a journey for the nephew of former President John F Kennedy.

An environmental lawyer by trade, he ran for president as a Democrat, with most of his family speaking out against his anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories as they endorsed Joe Biden's re-election.

He then switched to an independent candidacy but, failing to gain traction amid a series of controversies, dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.

In the last two months of the 2024 election cycle, he spearheaded a Trump campaign initiative called "Make America Healthy Again".

Trump recently promised he would play a major role related to public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Safety Administration (FDA).

RFK Jr, as he is known, recently asserted he would push to remove fluoride from drinking water because "it's a very bad way to deliver it into our systems" - though this has been challenged by some experts.

And in an interview with NBC News, Kennedy rejected the idea that he was "anti-vaccine", saying he wouldn't "take away anybody's vaccines" but rather provide them with "the best information" to make their own choices.

Rather than a formal cabinet position, Kennedy used the interview to suggest he could take on a broader role within the White House.

Susie Wiles

Trump's landslide victory over Kamala Harris was masterminded by campaign co-chairs Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who he referred to in his victory speech on Wednesday as "the ice baby".

She has since been confirmed to be the incoming chief of staff under the second Trump administration - Trump's first confirmed appointment for his second term - making her the first woman to take on the role.

Wiles, who Trump claimed "likes to stay in the background”, is considered one of the most feared and respected political operatives in the country.

Less than a year after she started working in politics, she worked on Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign and later became a scheduler in his White House.

In 2010, she turned Rick Scott, a then-businessman with little political experience, into Florida’s governor in just seven months. Scott is now a US senator.

Wiles met Trump during the 2015 Republican presidential primary and she became the co-chair of his Florida campaign, at the time considered a swing state. Trump went on to narrowly defeat Hillary Clinton there in 2016.

Wiles has been commended by Republicans for her ability to command respect and check the big egos of those in the president-elect's orbit, which could enable her to impose a sense of order that none of his four previous chiefs of staff could.

Elon Musk

The world's richest man announced his support for the former president earlier this year, despite saying in 2022 that "it's time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail into the sunset".

The tech billionaire has since emerged as one of the most visible and well-known backers of Trump and donated more than $119m (£91.6m) this election cycle to America PAC - a political action committee he created to support the former president.

Musk, the head of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of the social media platform X, also launched a voter registration drive that included a $1m (£771,000) give-away to a random swing-state voter each day during the closing stretch of the campaign.

Since registering as a Republican ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Musk has been increasingly vocal on issues including illegal immigration and transgender rights.

Both Musk and Trump have concentrated on the idea of him leading a new "Department of Government Efficiency", where he would cut costs, reform regulations and streamline what he calls a "massive, suffocating federal bureaucracy".

The would-be agency's acronym - DOGE - is a playful reference to a "meme-coin" cryptocurrency Musk has previously promoted.

Mike Pompeo

The former Kansas congressman served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then secretary of state during Trump's first administration.

A foreign policy hawk and a fierce supporter of Israel, he played a highly visible role in moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was among the key players in the implementation of the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

He remained a loyal defender of his boss, joking that there would be "a smooth transition to a second Trump administration" amid Trump's false claims of election fraud in late 2020.

He has been tipped as a top contender for the role of defence secretary, alongside Michael Waltz, a Florida lawmaker and military veteran who sits on the armed services committee in the US House of Representatives.

Richard Grenell

Richard Grenell served as Trump's ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and his acting director of national intelligence.

The Republican was also heavily involved in Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, in the swing state of Nevada.

Trump prizes Grenell's loyalty and has described him as "my envoy".

In September, he sat in on Trump's private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The former president has often claimed he will end the war in Ukraine "within 24 hours" of taking office and Grenell has advocated for setting up an autonomous zone in eastern Ukraine as a means to that end - an idea seen as unacceptable by Kyiv.

He's considered a contender for secretary of state or national security advisor, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

Karoline Leavitt

The Trump 2024 campaign's national press secretary previously served in his White House press office, as an assistant press secretary.

The 27-year-old Gen-Zer made a bid to become the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress in 2022, to represent a seat in her home state of New Hampshire, but fell short.

She is tipped to become the White House press secretary - the most public-facing position in the cabinet.

Tom Homan

Tom Homan served as the acting director of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during the first Trump administration, where he was a proponent of separating migrant children from their parents as a way to deter illegal crossings.

At the time, he made headlines for saying politicians who support sanctuary city policies should be charged with crimes. He later resigned from his Ice position in 2018, mid-way through the Trump presidency.

He has since emerged as a key figure in developing Trump's mass migrant deportation plan, and has been floated as a potential pick to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Homan spoke on the deportation plan last month in an interview with BBC's US partner CBS News, saying that "it's not going to be - a mass sweep of neighbourhoods."

"They'll be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find ‘em based on numerous, you know, investigative processes," he said.

A senior official at COP29 climate change conference in Azerbaijan appears to have used his role to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals, the BBC can report.

A secret recording shows the chief executive of Azerbaijan's COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, discussing "investment opportunities" in the state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor.

"We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed," he says.

A former head of the UN body responsible for the climate talks told the BBC that Soltanov's actions were "completely unacceptable" and a "betrayal" of the COP process.

As well as being the chief executive of COP29, Soltanov is also the deputy energy minister of Azerbaijan and is on the board of Socar.

Azerbaijan's COP29 team has not responded to a request for comment.

Oil and gas accounts for about half of Azerbaijan's total economy and more than 90% of its exports, according to US figures.

COP29 will open in Baku on Monday and is the 29th annual UN climate summit, where governments discuss how to limit and prepare for climate change, and raise global ambition to tackle the issue.

However, this is the second year in a row the BBC has revealed alleged wrongdoing by the host government.

The BBC has been shown documents and secret video recordings made by the human rights organisation, Global Witness.

It is understood that one of its representatives approached the COP29 team posing as the head of a fictitious Hong Kong investment firm specialising in energy.

He said this company was interested in sponsoring the COP29 summit but wanted to discuss investment opportunities in Azerbaijan's state energy firm, Socar, in return. An online meeting with Soltanov was arranged.

During the meeting, Soltanov told the potential sponsor that the aim of the conference was "solving the climate crisis" and "transitioning away from hydrocarbons in a just, orderly and equitable manner".

Anyone, he said, including oil and gas companies, "could come with solutions" because Azerbaijan’s "doors are open".

However, he said he was open to discussions about deals too – including on oil and gas.

Initially, Soltanov suggested the potential sponsor might be interested in investing in some of the "green transitioning projects" Socar was involved in - but then spoke of opportunities related to Azerbaijan's plans to increase gas production, including new pipeline infrastructure.

"There are a lot of joint ventures that could be established," Soltanov says on the recording. "Socar is trading oil and gas all over the world, including in Asia."

Soltanov then described natural gas as a "transitional fuel", adding: "We will have a certain amount of oil and natural gas being produced, perhaps forever."

The UN climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, acknowledges there will be a role for some oil and gas up to 2050 and beyond. However, it has been very clear that "developing… new oil and gas fields is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5C".

It also goes against the agreement the world made at the last global climate summit to transition away from fossil fuels.

Soltanov appeared eager to help get discussions going, telling the potential sponsor: "I would be happy to create a contact between your team and their team [Socar] so that they can start discussions."

A couple of weeks later the fake Hong Kong investment company received an email - Socar wanted to follow up on the lead.

Attempting to do business deals as part of the COP process appears to be a serious breach of the standards of conduct expected of a COP official.

These events are supposed to be about reducing the world's use of fossil fuels – the main driver of climate change – not selling more.

The standards are set by the UN body responsible for the climate negotiations, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The UN said it could not comment directly on our findings but remarked that "the same rigorous standards" are applied to whoever hosts the conference, and that those standards reflect "the importance of impartiality on the part of all presiding officers".

Its code of conduct for COP officials states they are "expected to act without bias, prejudice, favouritism, caprice, self-interest, preference or deference, strictly based on sound, independent and fair judgement.

"They are also expected to ensure that personal views and convictions do not compromise or appear to compromise their role and functions as a UNFCCC officer."

Christiana Figueres, who oversaw the signing of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global temperature rises to well below 2C, told the BBC that she was shocked anyone in the COP process would use their position to strike oil and gas deals.

She said such behaviour was "contrary and egregious" to the the purpose of COP and "a treason" to the process.

The BBC has also seen emails between the COP29 team and the fake investors.

In one chain, the team discusses a $600,000 (£462,000) sponsorship deal with a fake company in return for the Socar introduction and involvement in an event about "sustainable oil and gas investing" during COP29.

Officials offered five passes with full access to the summit and drafted a contract which initially required the firm to make some commitments to sustainability. Then it pushed back, one requirement was dropped and "corrections" were considered to another.

The BBC asked Azerbaijan's COP29 team and Socar for comment. Neither responded to the requests.

The findings come a year after the BBC obtained leaked documents that revealed plans by the UAE to use its role as host of COP28 to strike oil and gas deals.

COP28 was the first time agreement was reached on the need to transition away from fossil fuels.

Dutch police have arrested 57 people in the centre of Amsterdam after clashes broke out, reportedly involving young locals and Israeli football supporters.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof condemned "antisemitic attacks" and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two "rescue planes" were being sent to Amsterdam after what Israel's military described as "severe and violent incidents against Israelis".

A police spokeswoman told Dutch media that unrest had broken out around Dam Square in the heart of the capital, but did not say who was involved.

Supporters of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv had travelled to Amsterdam for a Europa Cup match against Ajax.

Schoof said he had followed developments with horror, adding that he had spoken to Netanyahu and emphasising that the "perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted".

There had already been arrests and trouble in Dam Square ahead of the match involving Maccabi fans and pro-Palestinian protesters, and there were reports of supporters setting off fireworks and tearing down a Palestinian flag on a nearby street.

But the unrest grew after the game. Police said it was unclear who had taken part in the riots, telling local media that those involved were wearing dark clothing.

Several videos circulated on social media, with one showing a man being kicked and beaten on the ground and another showing someone being run over. In some videos, people could be heard shouting pro-Palestinian slogans, although the footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke of a "pogrom" against Maccabi fans and Israeli citizens. Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders who leads the biggest party in parliament also spoke of a pogrom, saying "authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens".

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema had earlier sought to prevent trouble by moving pro-Palestinian protesters away from the Johan Cruyff Arena. But Dutch reports said a large group had then tried to head to the stadium, only to be stopped by riot police.

Herzog said on X that he trusted the Dutch authorities would act immediately to "protect, locate and rescue all Israelis and Jews under attack".