Protests have broken out in Syria over the burning of a Christmas tree near the city of Hama.

A video posted on social media showed masked gunmen setting fire to the tree on display in the main square of the Suqaylabiyah, a Christian-majority town in central Syria.

The main Islamist faction which led the uprising that toppled President Bashar al-Assad said the men responsible for the arson were foreign fighters and had been detained and that the tree would be swiftly repaired.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across the country, demanding the new Islamist rulers protect religious minorities.

In the Bab Touma neighbourhood of Damascus, protesters carried a cross and Syrian flags, chanting "we will sacrifice our souls for our cross".

"If we're not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don't belong here anymore," a demonstrator named Georges told AFP news agency.

Syria is home to many ethnic and religious groups, including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Christians, Druze, Alawite Shia and Arab Sunnis, the last of whom make up a majority of the Muslim population.

Just over two weeks ago, Bashar al-Assad's presidency fell to rebel forces, ending the Assad family's more than 50-year-rule.

How the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group will govern Syria remains to be seen. The group has a jihadist past, which it has distanced itself from, and an Islamist present.

As fighters marched to Damascus earlier this month, its leaders spoke about building a Syria for all Syrians.

Representatives have also said that the rights and freedoms of religious and ethnic minorities would be protected.

HTS remains designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US, EU and UK, though there are signs that a diplomatic shift may be underway.

On Friday, the US has scrapped a $10m (£7.9m) bounty on the head of HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, following meetings between senior diplomats and representatives from the group.

The US is continuing its military presence in Syria - it said it conducted airstrike in the northern city of Deir Ezzor that killed two ISIS operatives.

The presence of foreign fighters, Islamic extremists like ISIS or even regime supporters who have interest in causing insecurity and attacking minorities to shake the country's stability are the big challenge that the new Islamic leadership will face.

Four rioters have been given short jail terms for violence against football fans visiting Amsterdam for a Europa League match between Ajax and Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Sefa Ö, 32, was handed the longest sentence of six months in jail by Amsterdam district court, while another man was given 10 weeks and two others a month's detention each. A fifth defendant was given a community service order under the Netherlands' juvenile law.

The judge said a prison sentence for the four was appropriate given the seriousness of the actions and the context in which they took place.

The riots broke out in several areas of the Dutch capital in early November and led to international condemnation.

The five defendants sentenced on Tuesday were the first to be tried for hit-and-run attacks that erupted in the early hours of 8 November, after incidents that took place over two days.

The court said that there was a lot of video evidence showing Maccabi fans facing extreme violence, and also pointed to footage of supporters pulling down Palestinian flags as well as chanting slogans against Arabs. Taxis were also vandalised by the fans.

The court chairman added that there had already been unrest in the Netherlands because of the war in Gaza.

While the court took "the context" of the events into account, it said there had been "no justification for calling for and using physical violence against Israeli supporters".

• Amsterdam violence exposes tensions in society and spills over to politics
• New arrests made in Amsterdam over violence after football match

Sefa Ö was found to have given a karate-type kick to one victim, causing him to fall against a moving tram, as well as taking part in several other attacks.

The trial saw video footage appeared to show him kicking and hitting victims on Dam Square, Damrak and Zoutsteeg, and prosecutors said he had played a leading role in violence that had nothing to do with football.

Rachid O, 26, who was given 10 weeks in jail, was found to have taken part in a WhatsApp chat group called Buurthuis2, on which he referred to intended victims as "cowardly" Jews who he would never again get the chance to attack.

More than 900 people were in the group and thee court said the chat had been used to pass on information to "commit violence against people of Jewish descent and/or supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv".

Umutcan A, 24, was also found to have kicked one of the victims several times while taking part in an attack with other men and then kicked another fan on the ground. CCTV footage had shown him attacking several Maccabi fans, as well as grabbing one fan by the throat and seizing his football scarf.

He had written in messaging groups about a "Jew hunt" but told the trial he did not harbour hatred towards Jews.

Karanveer S, 26, had already been convicted of assault in 2022 and the court noted that did not deter him from taking part in last month's attacks.

The youngest of the five, Lucas D, 19, was found to have used violence against a police officer and taken part in a separate Snapchat group calling for violence against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.

The five all have two weeks in which to appeal.

The court said he had an illegal, high-explosive "cobra" firework in his possession at the time of his arrest. Prosecutors had called for Lucas D to be given a jail term.

Chief prosecutor René de Beukelaer had earlier rejected suggestions that the attacks had amounted to terrorism, because he said it was not the aim of the group to instill fear in the people they were targeting.

However, he did say there were instances of antisemitism exchanged on a messaging group.

"I can well understand that the Jewish community in Amsterdam was left afraid because of this violence, but that's different from saying that was the goal of the suspects," he told Amsterdam's AT5 TV channel earlier this month.

Hong Kong police have offered rewards of HK$1m (£103,000; $129,000) for information leading to the arrests of six pro-democracy activists living in the UK and Canada.

Among them is Tony Chung, the former leader of a pro-independence group who fled to the UK last year.

The group - which includes a former district councillor, an actor, and a YouTuber - have been lobbying for more democracy in the territory. All have been accused of violating the city's national security law.

Human Rights Watch said the warrants were "a cowardly act of intimidation that aims to silence Hong Kong people" and called on the UK and Canadian governments to push back.

Also on the wanted list is former district councillor Carmen Lau and activist Chloe Cheung. Both are based in the UK and lobby on behalf of two NGOs calling for more democracy in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong police have issued arrest warrants for political commentator and pollster Chung Kim-wah, who left Hong Kong for the UK in 2022, as well as two people based in Canada: former actor Joseph Tay, who co-founded the NGO HongKonger Station, and Youtuber Victor Ho.

Mr Ho has been charged with subversion while the other six have been accused inciting secession and collusion with a foreign country or external forces.

According to Hong Kong's public broadcaster RTHK, the arrest warrants were announced by the city's top police chiefs on Tuesday, who accused some of the wanted activists of repeatedly requesting foreign countries to impose sanctions and other measures against China and Hong Kong.

Mr Chung was first convicted in 2021 for calling for Hong Kong's secession and was released in June last year.

He posted on Instagram on Tuesday that it was "an honour to become the first Hongkonger to be charged twice under the National Security Law".

Mr Chung said the news came as no surprise to him as he breached a supervision order after his release from prison by fleeing to the UK last year.

"I knew this day would come. From the moment I decided to leave Hong Kong, I was fully aware that I would not be able to return for a long time," he wrote.

Ms Lau posted on X that the warrant would not stop her advocacy work. She called on the UK, US and EU governments to impose sanctions on "Hong Kong human rights perpetrators".

She also asked the British Labour government to "seriously reconsider its strategies for tackling transnational repression targeting Hong Kongers" and to look at blocking the expansion of China's embassy in Tower Hill.

Earlier this month, Tower Hamlets councillors voted unanimously to reject plans for the new Chinese embassy. However, the verdict is only advisory and not binding and it will be up to deputy prime minister and communities secretary Angela Rayner to decide whether to grant permission or not.

This is the third round of arrest warrants and bounties issued since the Beijing-imposed National Security Law was imposed.

The first two rounds were issued in July and December last year, and targeted former lawmaker Nathan Law - who told the BBC last year that his life has become more dangerous since the bounty was announced - and Simon Cheng, a former UK consulate employee detained in 2019 in a high-profile case. Both men are now based in the UK.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning backed the move on Tuesday in that the Chinese government supported Hong Kong "performing its duties in accordance with the law",

She added that Hong Kong is "a society governed by the rule of law and no one has extrajudicial privileges".

Hong Kong's controversial National Security Law was imposed in 2020 in response to the 2019 anti-government protests that rocked the city for months.

Beijing and Hong Kong authorities argue the law is necessary to maintain stability and deny it has weakened autonomy, but critics argue it has reduced the city's autonomy and made a wider range of dissenting acts illegal.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou believes dozens of people died when Cyclone Chido hit the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on 14 December, rather than thousands as some have feared.

Bayrou told BFMTV he thought the "alarmist and sometimes terrifying numbers put forward won't be borne out in reality".

The confirmed death toll on Mayotte so far is 35 but, in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone, local prefect François-Xavier Bieuville feared that it would "definitely be several hundred" and could reach thousands.

The prefect told France Info radio on Tuesday that investigations in the field were progressing well that "allow us to think that we will corroborate this figure of 35".

Defending his initial remarks, Bieuville insisted "I have never been alarmist, I was simply unable to give the number of victims".

Officials said it had been difficult to determine the scale of fatalities in the wake of the disaster 10 days ago, due to many areas of Mayotte being inaccessible and the fact that victims were buried within 24 hours in accordance with Islamic customs.

There is also uncertainty about the true population of Mayotte, a French Indian Ocean territory.

Officially it has 320,000 residents, but authorities estimate about 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented migrants may also be living there.

"I think [the number of dead] will be in the dozens and not in the thousands," the prime minister told BFMTV on Monday night.

The archipelago is one of the poorest parts of France, with many of its residents living in shanty towns.

Cyclone Chido was the worst storm to hit the territory in 90 years, bringing winds of up to 260 km/h (160mph) and flattening areas where people lived in shacks with metal roofs.

France held a day of national mourning in the wake of the cyclone on Monday. President Emmanuel Macron visited the territory last week, and was heckled by angry locals demanding more aid in devastated areas.

Some survivors went for a week without water, communication or electricity.

Authorities restored water in the main points of the territory on Tuesday, Bieuville said. "Even if this water is still sometimes a little difficult to deliver, our fellow citizens have water."

He also said there was no fuel shortage any more and cars could now be filled up.

The prime minister had earlier said that a field hospital would also be operational by Tuesday morning.

Cyclone Chido moved on to continental Africa after hitting Mayotte, killing 120 people in Mozambique and 13 in Malawi.

Protests have broken out in Syria over the burning of a Christmas tree near the city of Hama.

A video posted on social media showed masked gunmen setting fire to the tree on display in the main square of the Suqaylabiyah, a Christian-majority town in central Syria.

The main Islamist faction which led the uprising that toppled President Bashar al-Assad said the men responsible for the arson were foreign fighters and had been detained and that the tree would be swiftly repaired.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across the country, demanding the new Islamist rulers protect religious minorities.

In the Bab Touma neighbourhood of Damascus, protesters carried a cross and Syrian flags, chanting "we will sacrifice our souls for our cross".

"If we're not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don't belong here anymore," a demonstrator named Georges told AFP news agency.

Syria is home to many ethnic and religious groups, including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Christians, Druze, Alawite Shia and Arab Sunnis, the last of whom make up a majority of the Muslim population.

Just over two weeks ago, Bashar al-Assad's presidency fell to rebel forces, ending the Assad family's more than 50-year-rule.

How the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group will govern Syria remains to be seen. The group has a jihadist past, which it has distanced itself from, and an Islamist present.

As fighters marched to Damascus earlier this month, its leaders spoke about building a Syria for all Syrians.

Representatives have also said that the rights and freedoms of religious and ethnic minorities would be protected.

HTS remains designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US, EU and UK, though there are signs that a diplomatic shift may be underway.

On Friday, the US has scrapped a $10m (£7.9m) bounty on the head of HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, following meetings between senior diplomats and representatives from the group.

The US is continuing its military presence in Syria - it said it conducted airstrike in the northern city of Deir Ezzor that killed two ISIS operatives.

The presence of foreign fighters, Islamic extremists like ISIS or even regime supporters who have interest in causing insecurity and attacking minorities to shake the country's stability are the big challenge that the new Islamic leadership will face.

A women's solidarity honour that was recently awarded to Justin Baldoni has been rescinded after the actor was accused by his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively of sexual harassment and mounting a campaign to "destroy" her reputation.

Baldoni was honoured by Vital Voices, a global non-profit organisation that focuses on empowering women, with the award earlier this month.

The organisation announced Monday evening that it rescinded the award after the legal complaint filed by Lively alleged "abhorrent conduct" by the actor, his studio and a crisis public relations team that it said was "contrary to the values" held by the non-profit.

Baldoni's legal team have told the BBC that the allegations are "categorically false" and said they hired a crisis manager because Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.

In the romantic drama, Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Baldoni.

The Voices of Solidarity Award was given to Baldoni on 9 December during an awards ceremony in New York, Vital Voices said in a statement. The award was presented by comedian Hasan Minhaj and celebrates "remarkable men who have shown courage and compassion in advocating on behalf of women and girls".

He posted about the award on his Instagram page, saying he was "deeply honoured and humbled" and noting the continued work to needed to be done to help future generations of men.

"My hope is that we can teach our boys, while they are still young, that vulnerability is strength, sensitivity is a super power, and empathy makes them powerful," he says in the post.

In a statement on Monday, Vital Voices explained it had revoked the award and notified Baldoni of the decision.

Less than two weeks after the awards ceremony, Lively, who is best known for her role on the TV show Gossip Girl, filed a legal complaint accusing Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image. She says in the complaint the attacks followed a meeting to address "repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour" by Baldoni and a producer on the movie.

According to the filing to the California Civil Rights Department, a list of 30 demands relating to the pair's alleged misconduct was made at the meeting to ensure they could continue to produce the film. The list included requests such as no more mention of Baldoni's "pornography addiction", no descriptions of genitalia and no addition of intimate scenes that weren't approved by her when she read the script.

Lively also accused Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios of leading a "multi-tiered plan" to wreck her reputation in the media and online, including hiring a crisis manager who led a "sophisticated, coordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan" against her and used a "digital army" to post social media content that seemed authentic.

Responding to the legal complaint, Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement on Saturday that the accusations were "categorically false".

Freedman accused Lively of making numerous demands and threats, including "threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film", which would end up "ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met".

He alleged that Lively's claims were "intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media".

A Russian cargo ship, Ursa Major, has sunk in the Mediterranean between Spain and Algeria after an explosion in the engine room, Russia's foreign ministry has confirmed.

It said 14 members of the crew were rescued and taken to the Spanish port of Cartagena but two others were missing.

Ursa Major left port in St Petersburg 12 days ago, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

The ship's owner said it was on its way to Vladivostok in Russia's Far East carrying two cranes for the port weighing 380 tonnes apiece, although the destination could not be confirmed independently.

Ursa Major was in the same area of the Med as another sanctioned Russian ship, Sparta, when it ran into trouble and the two ships had been spotted heading through the English Channel last week, reportedly under escort.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) reported that the Sparta was heading to Russia's naval base on the Syrian coast at Tartous to move military equipment out of Syria after the downfall of Bashar al-Assad.

A Kremlin official said on Monday that Russia was in contact with Syria's new rulers on the future of its two military facilities. at both diplomatic and military level.

Ursa Major's owner Oboronlogistika has been heavily involved in transporting cargo to Tartous, although Sparta's reported destination on Tuesday was Port Said in Egypt.

On Monday, the HUR reported that the Sparta had broken down off Portugal, but the problem had been fixed. Ursa Major was also known as Sparta III, so it was not clear which ship it was referring to.

It is not known what caused the explosion on Ursa Major as it passed between Oran in Algeria and the Spanish town of Aguilas. However, unverified video showed the ship listing badly on Monday.

It was built in 2009 and placed under sanction after Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine in 2022 because of the ship owner's role in delivering cargo to the Russian military.

Oboronlogistika said the cargo ship, which it described as the flagship of its fleet, was carrying 45-tonne hatch covers for icebreakers, as well as the large cranes for the port in Vladivostok.

An explosion at an ammunition and explosives factory in north-west Turkey has killed at least 12 people and injured four others.

The blast happened at 8:25 local time (5:25 GMT) in the capsule production section, the governor of the city of Balikesir, Ismail Ustaoglu, said.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the cause was not yet clear, but that authorities had ruled out sabotage.

Videos from the scene showed a fireball erupt from the factory, destroying part of the building, followed by plumes of dark smoke.

Further footage from the aftermath shows mangled parts of steel littering the surrounding area.

The explosion caused tremors throughout the Köteyli township, witnesses told CNN Turk.

Many fire crews were sent to deal with the blaze and health and security units were dispatched to the area, officials said.

"I wish God's mercy upon our deceased citizens and a speedy recovery to our injured," Mr Ustaoglu said in a post on social media

An investigation has been launched into the circumstances that led to the blast, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said.

The wife of detained Ugandan opposition politician Kizza Besigye has denounced as "cruel and inhumane" a ban on prisoners receiving visitors on Christmas Day.

Besigye, 68, has been charged in a military court with possession of pistols and attempting to purchase weapons abroad, which he denies. His trial has been delayed until next month.

Prison authorities say that as part of measures to prevent "potential security lapses", inmates would not be allowed visitors for seven days, starting on Christmas Eve.

Besigye's wife Winnie Byanyima, the head of the UN's organisation to tackle HIV and Aids, said she planned to camp outside the Luzira Prison so that she could see her husband and give him food on Christmas Day.

She told the BBC her husband remains "strong and persevering" in a "tiny little room" behind six prison gates, but she was worried that he could be "harmed".

"I'm not leaving Besigye's food at the gate [as directed]. I will go there and see my husband because I don't trust them with him even for a single day," Ms Byanyima said.

"Maybe I will take a tent and sleep there… if that's what they want," she added.

Besigye has contested and lost four presidential elections against President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.

But the veteran opposition politician has been less active in politics in recent years, and did not contest the 2021 election.

Besigye, however, returned to the headlines last month after he was dramatically abducted while visiting Kenya and forcibly taken to Uganda.

He was then charged along with an aide, Obeid Lutale. He, too, has denied the charges.

• How a Ugandan opposition leader disappeared in Kenya
• Who is Kizza Besigye?

The military court extended Besigye's detention until 7 January, dashing the hopes of his family that he will be home for Christmas.

Uganda Prisons Services spokesperson Frank Baine Mayanja told local media that the seven-day ban on visitors was intended to tighten security during the festive season, and to prevent escapes.

"Christmas causes excitement and majority of prisoners do not want to have Christmas inside. They must be planning on how to do a prison break and go outside," Mr Mayanja told NTV Uganda.

The Prison Services had initially announced a ban of almost a month on prison visits, but then reduced the ban to seven days.

Ms Byanyima told the BBC she was also concerned about the recent change of leadership at Luzira prison, questioning why a "young and inexperienced" official had been put in charge of it.

"It is very suspicious and makes me doubt their intentions," she said.

"I do not trust his [Besigye's] life with those who abducted him. I will seek to see him as often as I can," Ms Byanyima added.

Mr Mayanja said the changes in leadership were an "administrative issue" and had nothing to do with Besigye.

He added that Ms Byanyima should trust the authorities to take care of her husband because "we have the means and mechanism of keeping him alive".

"I think she should let us do our job," Mr Mayanja said.

This is the second time Besigye, who has had run-ins with Museveni's government for the last two decades, is spending the Christmas holidays in prison.

In 2005, he was arrested while returning from a political rally ahead of the 2006 presidential polls and charged with treason. The charges were thrown out by the courts.

He was also charged with rape in a separate case. The charges were later dropped. He said all the allegations were part of a campaign of political persecution

In the latest case, Besigye has objected to being tried by a military court, saying he should be tried in a civilian court if there was any case against him.

Museveni has defended the use of military courts to try civilians.

He said any crime involving a gun was dealt with in a military court to ensure the country's stability as civilian courts took too long to deal with cases.

Hundreds of civilians have been tried in Uganda's military courts, even though the Constitutional Court has ruled against the practice.

Opposition parties have frequently complained about restrictions on political activities, alleging that Museveni fears political competition.

Museveni's supporters deny the allegation, and say he has maintained stability during his rule of almost 40 years.

You may also be interested in:

• TikToker jailed for 32 months for insulting Uganda's president
• Uganda's Stella Nyanzi bares breasts in protest at jail sentence
• Top designer vows to regrow dreadlocks cut after Uganda arrest
• How an ex-rebel has stayed in power for more than 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

One of the founders of the Medellin drug cartel has returned to Colombia after serving more than 20 years in jail in the US for drug trafficking.

Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, now 67 years old, was deported by the US government and landed in Bogota on Monday a free man.

Ochoa was one of the founding members of the notorious cartel and had been a senior lieutenant to infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar.

The Medellin cartel dominated the cocaine trade and waged a violent campaign against the Colombian state before Escobar was killed in 1993.

On his arrival in Bogota, immigration officials ran Ochoa's fingerprints through their database, the country's immigration agency said.

Confirming that he is not wanted by Colombian authorities, it said that Ochoa was freed "to be reunited with his family".

Amid a sea of reporters in the airport terminal, Ochoa was greeted by his relatives and hugged his daughter.

In 2001, Ochoa was flown to the US after being arrested in Colombia in 1999 along with about 30 other alleged traffickers.

He had already served a jail sentence in Colombia in the early 90s for his role as one of bosses of the Medellin cartel. Along with his brothers, he was the first major trafficker to surrender under a programme that protected cartel members from extradition to the US if they pleaded guilty to minor offences in Colombia.

Ochoa and his brothers were released from prison in 1996, but Ochoa was arrested once again during the so-called Millennium operation over his involvement in the cocaine smuggling business in the US in the late 1990s.

In 2003, Ochoa was sentenced to more than 30 years in a US court for his involvement in the cartel that brought an average of 30 tonnes of cocaine into the US each month between 1997 and 1999.

During the 1980s, he was one of the top operators in Escobar's Medellin ring, a supplier in its prime of 80% of the US cocaine market.

The defunct Medellin cartel, along with the Cali cartel, was one of the most powerful and feared drug networks of the 1980s.

Its violent campaigns of bombings and assassinations led to extraditions of drugs suspects between Colombia and the US to be suspended, before being resumed in 1997.

A Nasa spacecraft is attempting to make history with the closest ever approach to the Sun.

The Parker Solar Probe is plunging into our star's outer atmosphere, enduring brutal temperatures and extreme radiation.

It's out of communication for several days during this burning hot fly-by and scientists will be waiting for a signal, expected on 27 December, to see if it has survived.

The hope is the probe could help us to better understand how the Sun works.

Dr Nicola Fox, head of science at Nasa, told BBC News: "For centuries, people have studied the Sun, but you don't experience the atmosphere of a place until you actually go visit it.

"And so we can't really experience the atmosphere of our star unless we fly through it."

Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018, heading to the centre of our Solar System.

It has already swept past the Sun 21 times, getting ever nearer, but the Christmas Eve visit is record-breaking.

At its closest approach, the probe is 3.8 million miles (6.2 million km) from our star's surface.

This might not sound that close, but Nasa's Nicola Fox puts it into perspective: "We are 93 million miles away from the Sun, so if I put the Sun and the Earth one metre apart, Parker Solar Probe is four centimetres from the Sun - so that's close."

The probe will have to endure temperatures of 1,400C and radiation that could frazzle the onboard electronics.

It's protected by a 11.5cm (4.5 inches) thick carbon-composite shield but the spacecraft's tactic is to get in and out fast.

In fact, it will be moving faster than any human made object, hurtling at 430,000mph - the equivalent of flying from London to New York in less than 30 seconds.

So why go to all this effort to "touch" the Sun?

Scientists hope that as the spacecraft passes through our star's outer atmosphere - its corona - it will solve a long standing mystery.

"The corona is really, really hot, and we have no idea why," explains Dr Jenifer MIllard, an astronomer at Fifth Star Labs.

"The surface of the Sun is about 6,000C or so, but the corona, this tenuous outer atmosphere that you can see during solar eclipses, reaches millions of degrees - and that is further away from the Sun. So how is that atmosphere getting hotter?"

The mission should also help scientists to better understand solar wind - the constant stream of charged particles bursting out from the corona.

When these particles interact with the Earth's magnetic field the sky lights up with dazzling auroras.

But this so called space weather can cause problems too, knocking out power-grids, electronics and communication systems.

"Understanding the Sun, its activity, space weather, the solar wind, is so important to our everyday lives on Earth," says Dr Millard.

Nasa scientists face an anxious wait over Christmas while the spacecraft is out of touch with Earth.

Nicola Fox says that as soon as a signal is beamed back home, the team will text her a green heart to let her know the probe is OK.

She admits she's nervous about the audacious attempt, but she has faith in the probe.

"I will worry about the spacecraft. But we really have designed it to withstand all of these brutal, brutal conditions. It's a tough, tough little spacecraft."

The House Ethics Committee report on Donald Trump ally Matt Gaetz released on Monday revealed fresh details about the former congressman's alleged behaviour, at least one new accusation and insights into the panel's investigation.

From at least 2017 to 2020, the committee concluded that the former Florida congressman regularly paid women for "engaging in sexual activity", had sex with a 17-year-old girl, used or possessed illegal drugs, accepted gifts beyond House limits and helped a woman obtain a passport, according to the report.

Gaetz, who resigned from the US House of Representatives in November - days before the report was scheduled to be made public and after Trump announced him as his pick for US attorney general - denied the committee's findings and has accused it of conducting an unfair investigation.

Here are four parts of the much-anticipated report that stand out.

A winding money trail

House investigators said Gaetz paid more than $90,000 (£71,843) to women for sex and drugs, but created a complicated web of transactions that were hard to trace, according to the report.

"The committee was unable to determine the full extent to which Representative Gaetz's payments to women were compensation for engaging in sexual activity with him," the report found.

He allegedly used his friend Joel Greenberg, currently serving 11 years in prison for crimes he said he committed with Gaetz, as a frequent go-between and logged onto Greenberg's account on SeekingArrangement.com, which bills itself as a "luxury dating site", to interact with young women.

Gaetz also paid women directly, sometimes through platforms such as Venmo, according to the report. But the committee said he often used another person's PayPal account or an account linked to an email address with a fake name.

He also obscured payments, the panel wrote. In one example, he gave a college student a cheque made out to "cash" with "tuition reimbursement" in the memo line. The woman said she received it after a group encounter, which "could potentially be a form of coercion because I really needed the money".

Gaetz has posted on social media that he gave money to women he was involved with as gifts, not payments. The committee found that two women, aged 27 and 25, did not consider their relationships transactional.

Another woman who was considered his girlfriend invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked if she was given money for sex or drugs, or to pay others.

The committee attempted to prove Gaetz frequently paid for sex through a text message that described his inability to pay at one point.

His then-girlfriend said in the message that he and Greenberg were "a little limited in their cash flow" and asked a group of women "if it can be more of a customer appreciation week".

A few months later, according to the committee, she wrote: "Btw Matt also mentioned he is going to be a bit generous cause of the 'customer appreciation' thing last time."

Sex, drugs, and a passport application

The committee also said Gaetz bought illegal drugs or reimbursed people for them.

It gives examples of his alleged cocaine and ecstasy/MDMA use, but focused on what appeared to be a heavy marijuana habit. He allegedly asked women to bring marijuana cartridges to meetings and events, and created the fake-name email account to buy marijuana.

A trip he took to the Bahamas "was paid for by an associate of Representative Gaetz with connections to the medical marijuana industry, who allegedly also paid for female escorts to accompany them", according to the report.

One woman felt the use of drugs and alcohol at parties had impaired her ability "to really know what was going on or fully consent".

"Indeed, nearly every woman that the committee spoke with could not remember the details of at least one or more of the events they attended with Representative Gaetz and attributed that to drug or alcohol consumption," the report said.

His then-girlfriend, who was 21 when they met and "was paid tens of thousands of dollars" during their two-year relationship", often participated in encounters with women and acted as an intermediary, according to the report.

A woman told the committee she was 17 at the time she had sex with Gaetz twice at a party in 2017 - at least once in front of other people - while under the influence of ecstasy. The woman, who had just completed her junior year in high school, then received $400 from him.

She also told the panel she did not tell Gaetz she was a minor and the committee did not find any evidence that the former congressman knew she was underage.

In 2021, Greenberg pleaded guilty to sex trafficking the girl.

Gaetz also allegedly directed his chief of staff to expedite a passport application for a woman he was sleeping with, whom he said was a voter in his district. He also allegedly gave her $1,000.

Gaetz violated House rules that bar using his position for special favours, according to the committee, which wrote: "The woman was not his constituent, and the case was not handled in the same manner as similar passport assistance cases".

Accusations of obstruction

The committee dedicated a great deal of the report to detailing how Gaetz allegedly obstructed its investigation, including failing to produce evidence he said would "exonerate" him.

The report concluded he "continuously sought to deflect, deter, or mislead the Committee in order to prevent his actions from being exposed".

Gaetz, who has accused the committee of being "weaponised" against him and leaking information to the press, alleged the panel was working on behalf of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, according to the report. Last year he helped lead an effort to oust then-Speaker McCarthy from his role.

While Gaetz claimed he had "voluntarily produced tens of thousands of records," he gave the committee "only a couple hundred records, more than 90% of which was either irrelevant or publicly available," the report found.

One sore point was a trip to the Bahamas, where the committee said he withheld information. Ultimately it concluded he violated rules on gifts because the trip was too high in value.

The committee also cited the Justice Department's probe into the allegations against Gaetz as a reason for delays.

Some witnesses asked the committee to use statements they had given to the department, but it refused to share them because they had not issued charges and because it said it could deter future witnesses in other cases from coming forward.

Committee chairman dissents

The report ends with a single-page statement from Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest "on behalf of dissenting committee members" who are not named.

Those members do not challenge the committee's findings, but disagree with releasing the report after Gaetz resigned from the House, which has not happened since 2006, they write.

It "breaks from the Committee's long-standing practice, opens the Committee to undue criticism, and will be viewed by some as an attempt to weaponise the Committee's process".

With just weeks left in office, US President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates - potentially thwarting President-elect Donald Trump's plans to expand federal executions during his upcoming administration.

Biden's move was swiftly condemned by Republicans, with some accusing the president of siding with criminals over law-abiding Americans.

Federal executions were relatively rare before Trump's first term in office, which finished with a flurry of executions that ended a 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition.

He has vowed to resume the practice when he returns to the White House in January, setting the stage for possible legal battles early in the administration.

Here's what we know.

Biden's decision met with criticism

On Monday, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 death row inmates, switching their penalty to life without parole.

Only three inmates were left to face the death penalty, including convicted Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers, who was sentenced to death for killing 11 worshippers and wounding seven during a shooting at a the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.

The third, Dylann Roof, was sentenced to death in 2017 for a mass shooting that left nine black parishioners dead at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

While the move was widely praised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, it was quickly condemned by some Republicans, as well as Trump's transition team and political allies.

In a statement, Trump communications director Steven Cheung said that "these are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones.

"President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House," he added.

Texas Republican Chip Roy, for example, tweeted that the decision was "unconscionable" and an abuse of power "to carry out a miscarriage of justice".

Another Republican, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, said that "when given the choice between law-abiding Americans or criminals, Joe Biden and the Democrats choose criminals every time."

Some family members also expressed anger.

On Facebook, Heather Turner - whose mother was killed in a 2017 bank robbery - called the commutations a "gross abuse of power".

"At no point did the president consider the victims," she wrote. "He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands."

The commutations do not apply to the approximately 2,200 death row inmates convicted by state courts, over which the president holds no authority.

What has Trump said about the death penalty?

Over the course of his election campaign, Trump vowed to resume federal executions and make more people eligible to receive the death penalty, including those convicted of raping children or drug and human-trafficking cases, as well as migrants who kill US citizens or police officers.

"These are terrible, terrible, horrible people who are responsible for death, carnage and crime all over the country," Trump said when he announced his presidential candidacy in 2022.

"We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts," he added.

There are more than 40 federal laws that can, in theory, result in the death penalty, ranging from murders committed during a drug-related shooting to genocide.

Almost all - with the exception of espionage and treason - explicitly involve the death of a victim.

Trump, however, has provided few details on how he plans to accomplish his campaign pledge.

Despite the lack of clarity, Trump's vows to expand the federal death penalty have elicited strong warnings from human rights advocates.

In an 11 December statement, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union said Trump's "chilling" plans amount to an expansion of the "killing spree he initiated in the final six months of his first presidency".

"He's already shown us that he will act on these promises," the statement said.

The inmates executed during the waning days of Trump's first administration included Lisa Montgomery, the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953, and Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row.

What can Trump actually do?

Trump's efforts to expand the death penalty to crimes that do not involve murder are likely to face legal challenges.

In 2008, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that those convicted of raping children cannot be executed, adding that it's unclear if the death penalty could be applied to crimes in which a victim is not killed.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, cases with child victims are particularly prone to wrongful convictions, can be "extremely emotional" and pit family members against one another.

Any further expansion of crimes that are eligible for the federal death penalty would require Congress to act and change the law.

In 2024, two bills - both sponsored by Florida Republican and Trump ally Anna Paulina Luna - sought to expand the use of capital offences to include possession of child pornography, as well as the trafficking, exploitation and abuse of children.

Both failed to pass in the House of Representatives.

Trump is also unlikely to be able to quickly re-populate the pool of federal death row inmates, as most death penalty cases take years and are subject to lengthy appeals processes.

While he does not have any direct authority over state executions, some experts have warned that Trump's pro-death penalty stance may trigger more executions at a state level.

"His rhetoric can and has spurred draconian measures and attitudes by leaders in states on several issues, including in the context of the criminal legal system," Yasmin Cader, a deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality told CNN.

In addition to the federal government and US military, 27 US states still have the death penalty on the books.

A Gallup poll conducted in October found that a slim majority of Americans - 53% - support the death penalty for convicted murderers, up from 50% a year before.

Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine is the birthplace of one of the world's favourite carols.

But there are few signs of Christmas in the city this year. Just a dusting of snow on deserted streets and skeletal buildings - and the constant sound of heavy shelling.

Pokrovsk is Russia's next target. Its troops are now less than two miles (three kilometres) from the city centre.

And it's not just buildings and homes that are being destroyed. Ukraine accuses Russia of trying to erase its cultural identity too – including its associations with that well-known carol.

Most of Pokrovsk's population has already fled. The gas supply's been turned off and many homes are without electricity and water. Those who remain, like 59-year-old Ihor, only break cover to find the bare essentials. He says it's like living on a powder keg – you never know when or where the next shell will land.

Oksana, 43, says she's too frightened to leave her home, but goes out during a lull in the shelling to find wood and coal to keep warm.

She tells me she hopes Ukraine's armed forces can hold on to the city, but she thinks that's unlikely. Pokrovsk, she says, will probably fall.

The city has already prepared for the worst. The statue of its famous composer, Mykola Leontovych, has already been removed. The music school that bore his name now lies boarded up and empty.

Leontovych may not be well known in the West. But the tune he composed is familiar around the world - with its chime-like vocals. It's thought that Leontovych wrote the early scores of the composition, based on a Ukrainian folk chant, while he was living and working in Pokrovsk between 1904 and 1908.

In Ukraine it's known as Shchedryk. To most of the world it became known as the Carol of the Bells, after American composer Peter Wilhousky wrote English lyrics for the song. The tune's use in the Hollywood film Home Alone helped boost its popularity.

Viktoria Ametova calls it "a masterpiece - the signature song of Pokrovsk". She too was until recently teaching music in the city, in the school that bore Leontovych's name.

She's now moved to the relative safety of Dnipro. It's where many of Pokrovsk's former residents are still trying to keep the memories of their former home alive.

Beneath a salvaged portrait of Leontovych, Viktoria watches as 13-year-old Anna Hasych strikes the familiar chords of the carol on a piano.

The Hasych family fled Pokrovsk this summer. But they're determined not to forget the place they still call home. Anna's mother, Yulia, says she's glad to see her daughters practising Shchedryk. "We won't forget the history of our town," she says.

For Anna, the tune brings back memories. "When I played it at home it seemed happy. It reminded me of winter and Christmas," she says. "Now it's more of a sad song to me because it reminds me of home, and I really want to go back."

But for one Ukrainian military band, Shchedryk has become a song to inspire resistance. They're even playing it in the trenches – using weapons as improvised instruments.

They may be musicians, but their commander reminds me that they're soldiers first. All have spent time on the front line. Colonel Bohdan Zadorozhnyy, the head of the band and its conductor, says the song helps lifts soldiers spirits. "Those beats and rhythms cheer up the guys on the front line and inspire them to fight," he says.

22-year-old Roman uses a rocket launcher casing, filled with rice, to shake vigorously in time with the music. Shchedryk, he says, is the "pride of our country, it's freedom, it's in our souls, I get goosebumps from this song".

Colonel Zadorozhnyy says Shchedryk shows that Ukraine is a civilised nation, now at war, fighting for its identity.

Pokrovsk may well fall into Russian hands. But its people are doing all they can to preserve their culture and identity.

The director of Pokrovsk's History Museum, Angelina Rozhkova, has already salvaged and transferred most of its prized possessions to safety – including artefacts from Leontovych's life in Pokrovsk.

Russia, she says, doesn't just want to take Ukraine's territory – "It wants to destroy our culture and everything precious to us".

Angelina says the people of Pokrovsk understand they may never go back, "but our heart and souls do not accept that". Hence they're doing everything they can to preserve the past. The new motto is "keeping and saving, equals winning".

It's hard to say you're winning when your city's being destroyed. But its people, like Leontovych's music, are displaying extraordinary resilience.

Leontovych's life came to an abrupt end in 1921 when he was shot by a Soviet agent. His composition had become a symbol for the fight for Ukraine's independence. It still is.

Additional reporting by Hanna Chornous and Anastasiia Levchenko

Residents in an Australian region engulfed by bushfires were given two hours to return home to collect their belongings before Christmas on Tuesday, as emergency crews try to contain the blaze.

Communities around the Grampians, in Victoria, have been evacuated amid warnings from authorities that conditions there in the days ahead could be the worst since Australia's most severe fire season on record, the so-called "Black Summer" of 2019-20.

The bushfires have already burnt over 41,000 hectares (101,000 acres) of land in the past week, however there have been no deaths or loss of property.

Intense heat forecast for Boxing Day has also prompted a string of fire warnings across the country.

Throughout Victoria, temperatures are expected to reach 40C (104F) and be accompanied by strong dry winds, while parts of South Australia and New South Wales could also face bushfire conditions on Thursday into Friday.

"We're expecting to see extreme fire danger across almost the entire state," Luke Hegarty, a spokesman for Victoria's State Control Centre, said.

"This is the most significant fire danger that the state has seen – across the whole sections of state that we're talking about – since Black Summer. It's important that people understand that Thursday is a day with serious potential," he added.

Four interstate firefighting forces and two incident management teams - made up of over 100 personnel - will land in Victoria in the coming days to provide reprieve for emergency crews that have been working around the clock to fight the current fires.

The decision to give families around the Grampians temporary access to their homes "to get Christmas items … presents and the like" on Tuesday morning was made by the state's Country Fire Authority (CFA) chief officer, Jason Heffernan.

"[This is] to ensure if the residents of Halls Gap will be relocated for Christmas, at least they will have what they need," he told Seven's Sunrise programme.

Mary Ann Brown, who lives on the southern edge of the Grampians National Park, told the ABC that her community are on edge heading into the holidays.

"We are not out of the woods until we get a really good drop of rain and that may not come until March or April, so it's going to be a long summer."

Parts of Australia have been on high alert for bushfire danger this summer, following several quieter seasons compared with the 2019-20 fires which were linked to hundreds of deaths and swept across 24 million hectares of land.

The country has reeled from disaster to disaster in recent years, experiencing both record breaking floods and extreme heat, as it feels the effects of climate change.

The factory was scheduled to be operational by March 2025, and was set to be BYD's first EV plant outside of Asia.

The workers, hired by Jinjiang Construction Brazil, lived in four facilities in Camaçari city.

At one such facility, workers were made to sleep on beds without mattresses, according to prosecutors.

Each bathroom was also shared among 31 workers, forcing them to get up extremely early in order to be ready for work.

"The conditions found in the lodgings revealed an alarming picture of precariousness and degradation," the MPT said.

"Slavery-like conditions", as defined by Brazilian law, include debt bondage and work that violates human dignity.

The MPT added that the situation also constitutes "forced labour", as many workers had their wages withheld and faced excessive costs for terminating their contracts.

BYD said affected workers had been moved to hotels.

It added that it had conducted a "detailed review" of the working and living conditions for subcontracted employees, and asked on "several occasions" for the construction firm to make improvements.

BYD, short for Build Your Dreams, is one of the world's largest EV makers.

It sold more electric vehicles than Elon Musk's Tesla in the last three months of 2023, as the two battled for top spot in the sector.

The company has also been expanding its foothold in Brazil, which is its largest overseas market by a wide margin.

It first opened a factory in São Paulo in 2015, producing chassis for electric buses.

Last year, it announced that it would invest 3 billion reais ($484.2m) in Brazil to build an EV manufacturing plant.

EV sales in China have been boosted by government subsidies. which encourage consumers to trade their petrol-powered cars for EVs or hybrids.

But there is a growing backlash abroad against what some see as the Chinese government's unfair support for domestic car makers.

Major markets like the US and EU have placed tariffs on EVs from China, with more tariffs expected during the incoming administration of US president-elect Donald Trump.

A women's solidarity honour that was recently awarded to Justin Baldoni has been rescinded after the actor was accused by his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively of sexual harassment and mounting a campaign to "destroy" her reputation.

Baldoni was honoured by Vital Voices, a global non-profit organisation that focuses on empowering women, with the award earlier this month.

The organisation announced Monday evening that it rescinded the award after the legal complaint filed by Lively alleged "abhorrent conduct" by the actor, his studio and a crisis public relations team that it said was "contrary to the values" held by the non-profit.

Baldoni's legal team have told the BBC that the allegations are "categorically false" and said they hired a crisis manager because Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.

In the romantic drama, Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Baldoni.

The Voices of Solidarity Award was given to Baldoni on 9 December during an awards ceremony in New York, Vital Voices said in a statement. The award was presented by comedian Hasan Minhaj and celebrates "remarkable men who have shown courage and compassion in advocating on behalf of women and girls".

He posted about the award on his Instagram page, saying he was "deeply honoured and humbled" and noting the continued work to needed to be done to help future generations of men.

"My hope is that we can teach our boys, while they are still young, that vulnerability is strength, sensitivity is a super power, and empathy makes them powerful," he says in the post.

In a statement on Monday, Vital Voices explained it had revoked the award and notified Baldoni of the decision.

Less than two weeks after the awards ceremony, Lively, who is best known for her role on the TV show Gossip Girl, filed a legal complaint accusing Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image. She says in the complaint the attacks followed a meeting to address "repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour" by Baldoni and a producer on the movie.

According to the filing to the California Civil Rights Department, a list of 30 demands relating to the pair's alleged misconduct was made at the meeting to ensure they could continue to produce the film. The list included requests such as no more mention of Baldoni's "pornography addiction", no descriptions of genitalia and no addition of intimate scenes that weren't approved by her when she read the script.

Lively also accused Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios of leading a "multi-tiered plan" to wreck her reputation in the media and online, including hiring a crisis manager who led a "sophisticated, coordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan" against her and used a "digital army" to post social media content that seemed authentic.

Responding to the legal complaint, Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement on Saturday that the accusations were "categorically false".

Freedman accused Lively of making numerous demands and threats, including "threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film", which would end up "ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met".

He alleged that Lively's claims were "intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media".

Two-year-old Shaina is hooked up to an intravenous drip at one of the few functioning hospitals in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Her mother, Venda, desperately hopes it will alleviate the acute malnutrition the emaciated young girl is suffering from.

Shaina is one of 760,000 children who are on the brink of famine in Haiti.

Terrified of the gang warfare raging in her neighbourhood, for weeks Venda was too frightened to leave her home to seek treatment for her daughter.

Now that she has made it to the paediatric ward, she hopes it is not too late for Shaina.

"I want to get proper care for my child, I don't want to lose her," she says tearfully.

Haiti has been engulfed in a wave of gang violence since the assassination in 2021 of the then-president, Jovenel Moïse, and now an estimated 85% of the capital is under gang control.

Even inside the hospital, Haitians are not safe from the fighting, which the UN says has killed 5,000 people this year alone and left the country on the verge of collapse.

The hospital's medical director explains that the previous day, police clashed with gang members in the emergency ward among terrified patients.

The victims of the violence are everywhere. One ward is full of young men with gunshot wounds.

Pierre is one of them.

He says he was walking home from work when he was caught in the crossfire of one street battle, with a bullet ripping through his collar bone.

"I think if the government were more stable and had put in place better youth programmes, they would not get involved in the gangs," he says of the young men who make up a large proportion of the groups terrorising the capital.

To combat the growing violence, the UN Security Council authorised the establishment of a Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in October 2023.

Funded primarily by the US, the Kenyan-led force deployed to Haiti six months ago tasked with restoring law and order.

On a patrol in downtown Port-au-Prince, the ferocity of the gang violence is clear.

Kenyan officers drive along the streets in heavily armoured personnel carriers (APC) through once bustling areas of the capital that now lie deserted. Shops and houses are boarded up.

Burnt out cars and debris are piled high along the side streets - barricades built by the gangs to block access.

The convoy weaves its way through the rubble when suddenly it comes under fire.

Bullets slam into the APC's armour as the Kenyan police shoot back with their assault rifles through gun ports in the vehicle's walls.

After nearly an hour of back-and-forth gunfire, the convoy moves on.

But it is not long before there are signs of more horrific gang violence. A human body burns in the middle of the street.

One of the Kenyan police in our APC says he suspects it was a gang member cornered and killed by a rival group, his body set alight to send a gruesome warning.

The Kenyan officers on our patrol are by now well accustomed to seeing this sort of brutality on the streets of Port-au-Prince, but they also tell us they are exhausted.

Four hundred officers arrived in June - but they are hugely outnumbered. In July, Haiti's government estimated there were 12,000 armed gang members in the country.

The Kenyans were promised additional personnel. When the UN authorised the mission, a force of 2,500 was envisioned, but that support, which was supposed to arrive in November, has yet to materialise.

Despite the situation, the force's leadership remains optimistic. Commander Godfrey Otunge is under pressure from the Kenyan government to make a success of this mission.

The mission commander says there is "overwhelming support" for the MSS in Haiti.

"The population are demanding that our team extend and go to other places and pacify," he says.

The uphill struggle they face is clear at a former Haitian police station, which had been occupied by a gang but has now been re-taken by the Kenyan forces.

It is still entirely surrounded by gangs and, as officers head up to the roof, they come under sniper fire.

The Kenyan officers shoot back while urging everyone to remain low.

The Kenyan officers say some of their much-delayed additional forces will arrive by the end of this year, bringing their total to 1,000.

And the support is urgently needed. There are areas in Port-au-Prince which are under such tight gang control they are virtually impenetrable for the police.

In one such area, Wharf Jérémie, almost 200 civilians were killed by a single gang over the space of one weekend earlier in December.

In total, as many as 100 gangs are estimated to be operating in the Port-au-Prince area, with boys as young as nine joining their ranks.

And the problem only appears to be growing. According to the UN children's agency, Unicef, the number of children recruited to the gangs has soared by 70% in a year.

One of the gang leaders to whom they flock is Ti Lapli, whose real name is Renel Destina.

As head of the Gran Ravine gang, he commands more than 1,000 men from his fortified headquarters high above Port-au-Prince.

Gangs like his have exacerbated an already dire situation in Haiti, and are known to slaughter, rape and terrorise civilians.

Gran Ravine is infamous for carrying out kidnappings for ransom, a practice which has earned Ti Lapli a place on the FBI's wanted list.

Ti Lapli tells us that he and his gang members "love our country a lot" - but when pressed on the rapes and murders gangs like his inflict on civilians, he claimed his men "do things they weren't supposed to do [to members of rival gangs] because the same is done to us".

The reason children join Gran Ravine is simple, he says: "The government doesn't create any jobs, it's a country with no economic activity whatsoever. We are living on trash, it's basically a failed state."

He failed to acknowledge the strangulating impact gangs like his have on Haiti's economy. Often afraid to leave their homes for work, civilians are regularly extorted for money, too.

With 700,000 residents forced to flee their homes due to the violence inflicted by groups such as Gran Ravine, the capital's schools have become camps for internally displaced people.

Negociant is one of those who has had to seek shelter.

She sits with her five children, squeezed onto the small section of a school balcony they now call home.

"Just weeks ago I was living in my own house," she says. "But gangs took over my neighbourhood."

She explains that she left for an area of the city called Solino, until that too was overrun by gangs and she fled along with hundreds of other people.

"Today, again, I'm on the run to save my life and my children," she says.

A Nasa spacecraft is attempting to make history with the closest ever approach to the Sun.

The Parker Solar Probe is plunging into our star's outer atmosphere, enduring brutal temperatures and extreme radiation.

It's out of communication for several days during this burning hot fly-by and scientists will be waiting for a signal, expected on 27 December, to see if it has survived.

The hope is the probe could help us to better understand how the Sun works.

Dr Nicola Fox, head of science at Nasa, told BBC News: "For centuries, people have studied the Sun, but you don't experience the atmosphere of a place until you actually go visit it.

"And so we can't really experience the atmosphere of our star unless we fly through it."

Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018, heading to the centre of our Solar System.

It has already swept past the Sun 21 times, getting ever nearer, but the Christmas Eve visit is record-breaking.

At its closest approach, the probe is 3.8 million miles (6.2 million km) from our star's surface.

This might not sound that close, but Nasa's Nicola Fox puts it into perspective: "We are 93 million miles away from the Sun, so if I put the Sun and the Earth one metre apart, Parker Solar Probe is four centimetres from the Sun - so that's close."

The probe will have to endure temperatures of 1,400C and radiation that could frazzle the onboard electronics.

It's protected by a 11.5cm (4.5 inches) thick carbon-composite shield but the spacecraft's tactic is to get in and out fast.

In fact, it will be moving faster than any human made object, hurtling at 430,000mph - the equivalent of flying from London to New York in less than 30 seconds.

So why go to all this effort to "touch" the Sun?

Scientists hope that as the spacecraft passes through our star's outer atmosphere - its corona - it will solve a long standing mystery.

"The corona is really, really hot, and we have no idea why," explains Dr Jenifer MIllard, an astronomer at Fifth Star Labs.

"The surface of the Sun is about 6,000C or so, but the corona, this tenuous outer atmosphere that you can see during solar eclipses, reaches millions of degrees - and that is further away from the Sun. So how is that atmosphere getting hotter?"

The mission should also help scientists to better understand solar wind - the constant stream of charged particles bursting out from the corona.

When these particles interact with the Earth's magnetic field the sky lights up with dazzling auroras.

But this so called space weather can cause problems too, knocking out power-grids, electronics and communication systems.

"Understanding the Sun, its activity, space weather, the solar wind, is so important to our everyday lives on Earth," says Dr Millard.

Nasa scientists face an anxious wait over Christmas while the spacecraft is out of touch with Earth.

Nicola Fox says that as soon as a signal is beamed back home, the team will text her a green heart to let her know the probe is OK.

She admits she's nervous about the audacious attempt, but she has faith in the probe.

"I will worry about the spacecraft. But we really have designed it to withstand all of these brutal, brutal conditions. It's a tough, tough little spacecraft."

Former US President Bill Clinton has been admitted to a hospital after developing a fever, according to a spokesman for the Democrat.

"He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving," Angel Ureña wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

He said Clinton was admitted to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC on Monday evening for tests and observation after developing the fever.

Mr Ureña's statement did not give more details on the Arkansas Democrat's condition, though US media reports indicate Clinton is expected to recover.

A source close to Clinton told NBC News that the situation is "not urgent" and the former president would be "fine." The news network reported Clinton was awake and alert.

This is the latest health scare for the 42nd US president, who served in the White House from 1993 to 2001.

Clinton, 78, was last admitted to the hospital for six days in 2021 in California after developing an infection in his blood. He is also known to have suffered with heart issues in the past.

In 2004, aged 58, he had a quadruple bypass surgery after doctors found signs of extensive heart disease and, ten years later, he had a clogged artery opened after complaining of chest pains.

Not long after his second surgery, the ex-president - known for his love of fatty foods - went vegan. He told Politico in 2016, "I might not be around if I hadn't become a vegan. It's great."

Clinton was active on the presidential campaign trail this year, as he travelled the country to boost Vice-President Kamala Harris's bid for president.

Last month, he released his latest book, Citizen: My Life After the White House.

Israel's defence minister has for the first time acknowledged that Israel killed Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

Israel Katz made the comments in a speech vowing to target the heads of the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen, which has been firing missiles and drones at Israel.

Haniyeh was killed in a building where he was staying in the Iranian capital in an attack widely attributed to Israel.

Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said some progress had been made towards agreeing a ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas, but he could not give a timeline for when a deal would be reached.

It comes after a senior Palestinian official told the BBC that talks between Hamas and Israel were 90% complete, but key issues remained.

In his speech, Katz said Israel would "strike hard" at the Houthis and "decapitate" its leadership.

"Just as we did with Haniyeh, [Yahya] Sinwar, and [Hassan] Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do so in Hodeida and Sanaa," he said, referring to Hezbollah and Hamas leaders who have all been killed this year.

Haniyeh, 62, was widely considered Hamas's overall leader and played a key role in negotiations aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

After his assassination, Hamas named Yahya Sinwar, its leader in Gaza and one of the chief architects of the 7 October attacks, as the group's overall leader.

Sinwar was killed by the Israeli military in a chance encounter in Gaza in October and the group is still in the process of choosing a new leader.

Hassan Nasrallah meanwhile was the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah - he was assassinated in Beirut in September as Israel dramatically escalated its military campaign against Hezbollah, with which it had been trading near daily cross-border fire since the day after the 7 October attacks.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls north-western Yemen, began attacking Israeli and international ships in the Red Sea shortly after Israel began targeting Hamas in Gaza last October.

The group has vowed to continue until the war in Gaza ends.

On Saturday, Israel's military said its attempts to shoot down a projectile launched from Yemen were unsuccessful and the missile struck a park in Tel Aviv. A Houthi spokesman said the group hit a military target using a hypersonic ballistic missile.

Last week Israel launched strikes against what it said were Houthi military targets, hitting ports as well as energy infrastructure in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. The US and UK have also attacked Houthi targets as part of an operation to protect international shipping.

Hamas attacked Israel in October last year, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

In response, Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza which has continued for more than a year and has killed 45,317 people according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip.

That figure includes 58 people killed by Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, Hamas officials said. Local medical officials said that at least 11 people were killed in three separate strikes on the al-Mawasi area, which had been designated a "safe zone" by the Israeli military. Israel said it was targeting a Hamas fighter.

On Monday Israel said three of its soldiers had been killed in the northern Gaza Strip.

Humanitarian and rights groups have warned of a catastrophic situation for civilians in Gaza.

On Sunday Oxfam said just 12 trucks had distributed food and water in northern Gaza over the past two-and-a-half months and blamed the Israeli military for "deliberate delays and systematic obstructions".

"For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours," Oxfam added.

The Israeli authorities said the report was "deliberately and inaccurately" ignoring the "extensive humanitarian efforts made by Israel in the northern Gaza Strip".

Israel insisted that specific shipments "including food, water, and medical supplies" had been sent to northern areas of Gaza, including Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia, where the Israeli military has for several months been carrying out a military operation that it says is targeting Hamas fighters who had regrouped there.

The Oxfam report comes after rights groups Amnesty accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Israel of committing "acts of genocide" by deliberately depriving Palestinian civilians in Gaza of adequate access to water.

Israel's foreign ministry described the Amnesty report as "entirely false and based on lies" while the Israeli foreign ministry's spokesman said Human Rights Watch was "once more spreading its blood libels... The truth is the complete opposite of HRW's lies".

A long-awaited report into former Republican US Representative Matt Gaetz is expected to be released on Monday.

It follows an investigation by the House Ethics Committee into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use by Gaetz, who was briefly lined up for a top job in the cabinet of President-elect Donald Trump.

A draft of the report seen by the BBC's US partner CBS News - described as a final version - reportedly says there is "substantial evidence" that Gaetz broke state laws relating to sexual misconduct while in office.

Gaetz, 42, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, saying he is the victim of a smear campaign. He has not commented on the latest developments.

The 37-page draft seen by CBS is quoted as saying: "The committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favours or privileges, and obstruction of Congress."

From 2017 to 2020, Gaetz made payments totalling more than $90,000 (£72,000) to 12 different women "that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use", CBS quotes the draft as saying.

The draft also reportedly contains testimony that Gaetz paid for sex with a 17-year-old at a party in 2017, giving her $400 "which she understood to be payment for sex". Gaetz has denied having sex with a minor.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) - which Trump had initially planned for Gaetz to lead - also investigated an allegation that he had sex with a minor but ultimately did not file any criminal charges against him.

• Ethics committee votes to release report
• What to know about the Gaetz investigation
• The rise and fall of Gaetz in eight wild days

Gaetz represented Florida's first congressional district in the US House of Representatives, having come to power in the same election in 2016 that propelled his ally Trump to the White House the first time.

He was named last month as Trump's DoJ nominee. Gaetz promptly resigned from Congress, seemingly putting him out of reach of the ethics committee.

But an intense debate erupted over whether or not the report should be released. Gaetz then withdrew his name from consideration for the DoJ role, saying he hoped to avoid a "needlessly protracted Washington scuffle".

Gaetz's slated role as attorney general was one of those that required the confirmation of US senators - which looked increasingly unlikely.

The secretive ethics committee had investigated Gaetz on and off since 2021 - not only on the claims about sex and drugs, but also on allegations he accepted bribes and misused campaign funds. In all cases, he strongly denied any wrongdoing.

House Republicans previously blocked Democratic efforts to unveil the results of the report, but two of them later voted to do so, according to CBS.

Responding last week to news that the document would be released after all, Gaetz posted on X: "I was charged with nothing: FULLY EXONERATED. Not even a campaign finance violation. And the people investigating me hated me."

He added: "Instead, House Ethics will reportedly post a report online that I have no opportunity to debate or rebut as a former member of the body."

Gaetz also wrote: "It's embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanised, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now."

A suspect has been arrested in New York over the death of a woman who was set on fire on a subway train in Brooklyn.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch described the incident on Sunday as "one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being".

She said the woman was sleeping on a stationary F train to Brooklyn when she was approached by the suspect who used a lighter to ignite her clothing.

The victim died at the scene, she said, adding that the suspect had been taken into custody after he was detained on another subway train.

Police said the woman, who has not been named, was sleeping in a subway carriage at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn at about 07:30 local time (12:30 GMT) when a man approached her.

There was no interaction before the attack, police said, adding that they did not believe the two people knew each other.

The man got off the train as police officers on patrol in the station rushed to the fire.

"What they saw was a person standing inside the train car fully engulfed in flames," Ms Tisch said.

Police are still working to identify the victim and the motive for the attack.

Russian scientists have unveiled the remains of a 50,000-year-old baby mammoth found in thawing permafrost in the remote Yakutia region of Siberia during the summer.

They say "Yana" - who has been named after the river basin where she was discovered - is the world's best-preserved mammoth carcass.

Weighing in at over 100kg (15st 10lb), and measuring 120cm (4ft) tall and 200cm long, Yana is estimated to have been only about one-year-old when she died.

Before this find, only six similar discoveries had been found in the world - five in Russia and one in Canada.

Yana was found in the Batagaika crater, the world's largest permafrost (ground that is permanently frozen) crater, by people living nearby.

The residents "were in the right place at the right time", the head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory said.

"They saw that the mammoth had almost completely thawed out" and decided to build a make-shift stretcher to lift the mammoth to the surface, said Maxim Cherpasov.

"As a rule, the part that thaws out first, especially the trunk, is often eaten by modern predators or birds," he told the Reuters news agency.

But "even though the forelimbs have already been eaten, the head is remarkably well preserved", he added.

A researcher at the museum, Gavril Novgorodov, told Reuters the mammoth "probably got trapped" in a swamp, and was "thus preserved for several tens of thousands of years".

Yana is being studied at the North-Eastern Federal University in the region's capital Yakutsk.

Scientists are now conducting tests to confirm when it died.

It is not the only pre-historic discovery to have been found in Russia's vast permafrost in recent years - as long-frozen ground starts to thaw because of climate change.

Just last month, scientists in the same region showed off the remains of a partial, mummified body of a sabre-tooth cat, thought to be just under 32,000-years-old.

And earlier this year the remains of a 44,000-year-old wolf were also uncovered.

"I feel bad, I still do," said Eidwicht, as she stood in the Christmas market close to the spot where the car sped through on Friday, killing five people and injuring more than two hundred others.

"My granddaughter was here. I rang her because my daughter told me that something had happened here. And she didn't answer for two hours."

There is deep sadness here - and anger directed at the government and migrants. "It can't go on like this," said Eidwicht.

A Saudi refugee aged 50 has been arrested for the attack but the motive is unknown.

Officials say Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, was an "untypical" attacker. Germany's Christmas markets and festivals have come under attack before, mainly from extreme Islamists.

Abdulmohsen has been described as critical of Islam and he also voiced support on social media for the far-right Alternative for Germany party, hailing the party for fighting the same enemy as him "to protect Germany".

The AfD has not commented on those posts - and the party is planning a procession of mourning in Magdeburg later on Monday, with national party leader Alice Weidel attending.

Her party is currently riding high in the opinion polls ahead of federal elections on 23 February, especially in states like Saxony-Anhalt in the former East Germany.

This attack has brought two big elections issues to the fore, security and immigration, and AfD figures have highlighted both since the attack.

Despite the suspect's many statements expressing hostility to Islam, the head of the AfD in Sachsen-Anhalt, Martin Reichardt, said in a statement "the attack in Magdeburg shows that Germany is being drawn into political and religious fanaticism that has its origins in another world".

In a post on X, Weidel said the government's discussion of new security laws following the attack "must not distract from the fact that Magdeburg would not have been possible without uncontrolled immigration. The state must protect its citizens through a restrictive migration policy and consistent deportations!"

A counter-demonstration will also be held and anti-racism groups in Magdeburg have accused the AfD of exploiting the attack.

David Begrich from Miteinander e.V. said people in the city needed a chance to catch their breath.

"In the migrant communities, there is great concern about being made into a scapegoat," he said. "We don't want that. We want to organise solidarity across society, but at the same time we are also sensitive to the voices of those who are now reacting with fear and uncertainty."

Germans are asking how the attack could have happened, when security was already heightened at Christmas markets and when authorities had clearly investigated the suspect several times in recent years.

The threat he posed was considered "too unspecific", according to one assessment, while one tip-off against him in September 2023 appears to have fallen through the cracks.

In another apparent security failing, the driver was also able to get through a gap that had been left open for emergency access when it should have been filled by a police van.

Stallholders at the Christmas market have now been allowed to come back, to throw away old food and remove their equipment and stocks.

None that I approached wanted to speak to the BBC. It's all too raw.

There has also been hostility towards journalists over the past few days, especially after some 2,000 people joined a protest by the far right in Magdeburg on Saturday night.

The Association of German Journalists said there had been aggression and threats against the press and appealed for greater police protection.

The BBC team joined mourners gathered in Cathedral Square for a live stream of the vigil for victims of the attack and many who spoke to them said it was important to show solidarity at a time of terrible distress.

But one woman struck a note of caution. There are "some Nazis here, who don't like journalists," she said. "Please be careful."

The crocodile who starred in 1980s hit film Crocodile Dundee has died in Australia.

Burt, who was thought to be over 90 years old, appeared alongside Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski in the 1986 movie.

News of his death was confirmed by staff at Crocosaurus Cove in Darwin, a reptile and aquarium attraction where Burt had lived since 2008.

In a statement posted on Instagram, the wildlife centre wrote: "It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Burt, the iconic saltwater crocodile and star of the Australian classic Crocodile Dundee.

"Burt passed away peacefully over the weekend, estimated to be over 90 years old, marking the end of an incredible era."

In the film, character Mick Dundee (Hogan) swaps the Australian outback for the jungle of New York after meeting American reporter Sue Charlton (Kozlowski), who eventually falls in love with him.

The croc is famously seen in the scene where Kozlowski's character is attacked as she kneels next to a creek.

Burt, who was captured in the 1980s in the Northern Territory's Reynolds River, was described by Crocasourus Cove as having a "bold" personality.

"Burt was a confirmed bachelor - an attitude he made clear during his earlier years at a crocodile farm," the centre's statement continued.

"His fiery temperament earned him the respect of his caretakers and visitors alike, as he embodied the raw and untamed spirit of the saltwater crocodile."

"Burt was truly one of a kind. He wasn't just a crocodile; he was a force of nature and a reminder of the power and majesty of these incredible creatures.

"While his personality could be challenging, it was also what made him so memorable and beloved by those who worked with him and the thousands who visited him over the years.

The statement concluded: "Visitors from around the globe marvelled at his impressive size and commanding presence, especially at feeding time."

It's not unusual for saltwater crocodiles to live beyond 70 years old, especially in captivity.

Burt will be honoured with a commemorative sign at the attraction.

Crocodile Dundee remains the highest grossing Australian film of all time, taking $47,707,598 (Australian dollars).

It also spawned two sequels, 1988's Crocodile Dundee II and 2001's Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.

Hogan and Kozlowski got married in 1990 but later divorced.

A documentary on the making of the film is expected to be released next year.

Greenland has once again said it is not for sale after US President-elect Donald Trump said he wanted to take control of the territory.

"Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland," its prime minister said on Monday, a day after Trump repeated comments about the Arctic island that he first made several years ago.

Greenland, which is an autonomous Danish territory, is home to a large US space facility and lies on the shortest route from the US to Europe, meaning it is strategically important for America.

There was no immediate response to Trump's comments from Denmark.

Writing on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Sunday, the US president-elect said: "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity."

His comments prompted a sharp rebuke from Greenland's Prime Minister Mute Egede, who said: "We are not for sale and we will not be for sale."

"We must not lose our long struggle for freedom. However, we must continue to be open to co-operation and trade with the whole world, especially with our neighbours," he said.

Trump's controversial remarks came hours after he announced that he intended to nominate Ken Howery, his former ambassador to Sweden, to be the new ambassador to Denmark.

Mr Howery said he was "deeply humbled" by the nomination and looked forward to working with the staff at the US embassy in Copenhagen and the US consulate in Greenland to "deepen the bonds between our countries".

Trump's original suggestion in 2019 that the US acquire Greenland, which is the world's largest island, led to a similarly sharp rebuke from leaders there.

The then Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederickson, who still holds the role, described the idea as "absurd", leading Trump to cancel a state trip to the country.

He is not the first US president to suggest buying Greenland. The idea was first mooted during the 1860s under the presidency of Andrew Johnson.

Separately on Sunday, Donald Trump threatened to reassert control over the Panama Canal, one of the world's most important waterways - accusing Panama of charging excessive fees for access to it.

Panama's president later said "every square metre" of the canal and surrounding area belonged to his country.

Hollywood stars America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel have publicly backed US actress Blake Lively after she filed a legal complaint against It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni.

Ms Lively filed the legal complaint over the weekend against Mr Baldoni, alleging sexual harassment and a campaign to "destroy" her reputation.

Mr Baldoni's legal team told the BBC on Saturday that the allegations are "categorically false".

Ferrera, Tamblyn and Biedel, who starred with Lively in 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, issued a joint statement on Instagram on Sunday saying they "stand with her in solidarity".

Coleen Hoover, the author of It Ends With Us, also showed her support, describing Ms Lively as "honest, kind, supportive and patient".

Lawyers for Ms Lively say the legal complaint follows a meeting earlier this year to address "repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour" by Baldoni, her co-star and a producer on the movie.

In their statement, Ferrera, Tamblyn and Biedel said: "As Blake's friends and sisters for over 20 years, we stand with her in solidarity as she fights back against the reported campaign waged to destroy her reputation.

"Throughout the filming of It Ends with Us, we saw her summon the courage to ask for a safe workplace for herself and colleagues on set, and we are appalled to read the evidence of a premeditated and vindictive effort that ensued to discredit her voice."

They added: "Most upsetting is the unabashed exploitation of domestic violence survivors' stories to silence a woman who asked for safety. The hypocrisy is astounding.

"We are struck by the reality that even if a woman is as strong, celebrated, and resourced as our friend Blake, she can face forceful retaliation for daring to ask for a safe working environment," the statement added.

"We are inspired by our sister's courage to stand up for herself and others."

Lawyers for Mr Baldoni said they hired a crisis manager because Ms Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.

In the drama It Ends With Us, Ms Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Mr Baldoni.

In a post to her Instagram stories, Colleen Hoover, the author of the novel on which the film was based, also voiced her support: "@BlakeLively you have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient since the day we met.

"Thank you for being exactly the human that you are.

"Never change. Never wilt."

She then linked to a New York Times article titled We Can Bury Anyone: Inside A Hollywood Smear Machine.

Hoover also re-posted the statement from Ferrara, Biedel and Tamblyn, adding: "This statement from these women and Blake's ability to refuse to sit down and 'be buried' has been nothing short of inspiring."

The meeting between Ms Lively and Mr Baldoni, together with others involved in the movie's production plus Ms Lively's actor husband Ryan Reynolds, took place on 4 January 2024, and it aimed to address "the hostile work environment" on set, according to Ms Lively's legal filing.

Mr Baldoni attended the meeting in his capacity as co-chairman and co-founder of the company that produced the film, Wayfarer Studios. He was also the film's director.

In the legal complaint, Ms Lively's lawyers allege that both Mr Baldoni and the Wayfarer chief executive officer, Jamey Heath, engaged in "inappropriate and unwelcome behaviour towards Ms Lively and others on the set of It Ends With Us".

In the filing to the California Civil Rights Department, a list of 30 demands relating to the pair's alleged misconduct was made at the meeting to ensure they could continue to produce the film.

Among them, Ms Lively requested that there be no more mention of Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath's previous "pornography addiction" to Ms Lively or to other crew members, no more descriptions of their own genitalia to Ms Lively, and "no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex, or on camera climaxing by BL [Blake Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project", says the complaint.

Ms Lively also demanded that Mr Baldoni stop saying he could speak to her dead father.

Ms Lively's legal team further accuse Mr Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios of leading a "multi-tiered plan" to wreck her reputation.

She alleges this was "the intended result of a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others from speaking out about the hostile environment that Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath created".

Responding to the legal complaint, Mr Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said on Saturday: "It is shameful that Ms Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives."

Mr Freedman accused Ms Lively of making numerous demands and threats, including "threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film", which would end up "ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met".

He alleged that Ms Lively's claims were "intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media".

In a statement via her attorneys to the BBC, Ms Lively said: "I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted."

She also denied that she or any of her representatives had planted or spread negative information about Mr Baldoni or Wayfarer.

The film was a box-office hit, although some critics said it romanticised domestic violence.

The suspect accused of killing UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson has pleaded not guilty to New York state murder and terrorism charges.

Luigi Mangione, 26, appeared in court on Monday to be arraigned on 11 state criminal counts, including murder a crime of terrorism.

He also faces with federal stalking and murder charges that could lead to a death penalty sentence.

Prosecutors allege that Mangione shot Thompson in central Manhattan before going on the run. Authorities later arrested him at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania.

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