Former US Vice-President Kamala Harris has told the BBC she may run again for the White House.

In her first UK interview, Harris said she would "possibly" be president one day and was confident there will be a woman in the White House in future.

Making her strongest suggestion to date that she will make another presidential bid in 2028 after losing to Donald Trump last year, Harris dismissed polls that put her as an outsider to become the Democrats' pick for the next election.

Speaking to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Harris also turned her fire on her former rival, branding Trump a "tyrant", and said warnings she made about him on the campaign trail had been proved right.

As the Democratic party searches for answers about Republican Donald Trump's decisive victory one year ago, much of the blame has been directed at former President Joe Biden for not standing down sooner.

But there have also been questions raised about whether Harris could have run a better campaign and set out a clearer message on the number one issue, the economy.

In the BBC interview Harris entertained the prospect of another run at the White House, saying her grandnieces would, "in their lifetime, for sure", see a female president.

Asked if it would be her, she said, "possibly", confirming she is considering another run at the top job.

Harris said she had not yet made a decision, but underlined that she still sees herself as having a future in politics.

"I am not done," the former vice-president said. "I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it's in my bones."

Responding to odds that place her as an outsider to win a place on the Democratic ticket - even behind Hollywood actor Dwayne the Rock Johnson - she said she never listened to polls.

"If I listened to polls I would have not run for my first office, or my second office - and I certainly wouldn't be sitting here."

Harris also said she believed predictions she made about Donald Trump behaving as a fascist and running an authoritarian government had come true.

"He said he would weaponise the Department of Justice - and he has done exactly that."

She pointed to the suspension of late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel by ABC after he made a joke about Republican reaction to the death of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

His removal from the airwaves, celebrated by Trump, came after the Trump-appointed regulator threatened Kimmel's broadcasters.

"You look at what has happened in terms of how he has weaponised, for example, federal agencies going around after political satirists… His skin is so thin he couldn't endure criticism from a joke, and attempted to shut down an entire media organisation in the process."

Harris also slammed business leaders and institutions in America who have, in her view, too easily bowed to the president's demands.

"There are many… that have capitulated since day one, who are bending the knee at the foot of a tyrant, I believe for many reasons, including they want to be next to power, because they want to perhaps have a merger approved or avoid an investigation."

The White House was dismissive when asked for a response to Harris's comments about the president.

"When Kamala Harris lost the election in a landslide, she should've taken the hint - the American people don't care about her absurd lies," said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.

"Or maybe she did take the hint and that's why she's continuing to air her grievances to foreign publications."

Harris has just published her account of her rollercoaster campaign, 107 Days, the time that was left to her to run for the presidency after Biden withdrew from the race following months of speculation about his mental acuity.

In our full interview with the former vice-president, to be broadcast in the UK on Sunday at 09:00 GMT (05:00 EST), I pressed Harris several times on whether she ought to have urged Biden to make way for her sooner.

How much did she really know about his health? And a question that may haunt her - whether she would be president now, not Donald Trump, if Biden had withdrawn earlier?

The answer is plainly, unknowable - the great "if" that could have changed the fate of America.

Among the Democratic soul-searching, Harris' candidacy is often disparaged, her weaknesses as a leader pinpointed as the reasons for her defeat, not just the last-minute nature of Biden's decision.

When questioned about what went wrong, rather than plunge into deep analysis, her contention is because she started so late, it was almost impossible to win.

• Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed candidate or doomed campaign?

But having sat down with the Californian former prosecutor in the gilded surroundings of a luxury London hotel - rather than the increasingly golden surroundings of the Oval Office as Donald Trump glitzes up the decor - the possibility of power is something she is not willing to leave behind.

Previous hints of her future presidential ambition seemed coy, non-committal - "maybe, maybe not", or "I'm not focusing on that right now".

Her candour in our conversation was more striking. She was quick, eager even, to put herself in the frame for another tilt at power. But she stopped short of making any concrete commitment.

That may be surprising given the thoroughly bruising nature of a defeat she has described as traumatising. She and her team were devastated by the defeat, which came as a surprise to them.

"My god, my god, what will happen to our country?" Harris says she repeated when the result came through.

Her attempt to explain it focuses on how narrow the gap in actual votes was between her and Trump.

The popular vote was, indeed, very tight, with less than 2% in it. However, Harris was trounced by Trump in the all-important electoral college, where each state has a certain number of votes that tally up.

• What is the US electoral college, and how does it work?

Harris was willing to drop heavy hints about her own future. But there's less willingness from her, or frankly any other senior Democrats, grappling with their party's long-term dilemmas.

How does a centre-left party with mainstream leaders take on a right-wing populist leader? Is the answer to focus on Trump? Or is it to argue more forcefully for Main Street?

When I challenged the former vice-president on why her campaign did not better connect with working people, she said she needed more time to do that, and pointed to a longstanding drift away from her party among that group.

She regrets she didn't have long enough in 2024 to make her own pitch on bread- and-butter issues like housing, or childcare.

But if she had longer next time round, it's far from guaranteed her arguments would be more compelling, or more gladly received.

Kamala Harris still travels with the trappings of an entourage. Aides anxiously watch the clock as her every minute is planned with military precision. Non-stop travel, choreographed events in different capitals, a tiny number of carefully planned TV interviews.

This time, Harris is on the move for a book tour, not a presidential race. But maybe, if she has her way, this is the start of another campaign after all.

The full interview will be broadcast on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg at 0900 on Sunday 26 Oct 2025.

Pictures: Jeff Overs/BBC

Sign up for the Off Air with Laura K newsletter to get Laura Kuenssberg's expert political insight and insider stories every Thursday.

Donald Trump has said he would like China's help to deal with Russia as he seeks to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

"I'd like China to help us out with Russia," the US president said on board Air Force One, as he flew to Asia for a whirlwind tour, where he will meet China's Xi Jinping in South Korea.

It could be wishful thinking, however. China is Russia's biggest ally, and a vital support to Moscow since Western sanctions were imposed over its war in Ukraine.

Trump's comments come off the back of a difficult week for Kyiv - the US refused to give it Tomahawk cruise missiles, EU leaders did not release frozen Russian cash to help fund its defence, and there have been more deadly strikes.

Ending the Russia-Ukraine war has become a focal point for Trump in recent months, with a ceasefire deal so far eluding him, despite his campaign promises to solve the situation quickly. A summit with Putin in August failed to yield any tangible results, and Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Moscow.

"Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don't go anywhere," Trump said earlier this week.

On Wednesday, he announced new sanctions against Russia's two biggest oil companies - the first direct interventions the Trump administration has imposed on Russia over the war. What effect the blacklisting will have in the long-term is yet to be seen, but the Kremlin said it was "immune" to the sanctions.

• What's the significance of US sanctions on Russian oil?

While Trump's meeting with Xi on Thursday is still expected to focus on the hostile trade relations between the US and China, Trump said that he would talk to Xi about "everything", including the war in Ukraine.

"I'd like to see China help us out [with Russia]. I have a very good relationship... with President Xi. Very good," he said, adding that Xi wants to see the war end.

Earlier this week, Trump said that the Chinese president "can have a big influence on Putin".

Beijing has never criticised Russia's war in Ukraine, and has been accused by the US and its allies of aiding Russia's war effort - which Beijing denies - through its purchases of Russian oil and monthly supply of dual-use materials (those with both commercial and military applications).

Putin and Xi have previously touted their countries' relationship as a "friendship with no limits", and Russia hopes gas exports to China and other countries will replace the revenue lost after Western sanctions were imposed.

• Xi, Putin and Kim show united front at huge Chinese military parade
• Russia's Putin hails 'unprecedented' ties with China at talks in Beijing

The warm relations between Russia and China were on full display last month, when Putin, Xi and North Korea's Kim Jong Un met in Beijing for an extraordinary show of solidarity and military might.

As Trump made his comments on Air Force One, emergency crews in Ukraine were at the scene of more Russian strikes, including some in Kyiv where several people were killed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

"No country should be left alone in the face of such evil," he wrote on Telegram, reiterating the need for Ukraine's allies to step-up support.

Meanwhile, in Russia's Belgorod region, residents living near a dam were told to evacuate after a Ukrainian strike on the local reservoir caused damage that could lead to flooding.

Former Madagascan President Andry Rajoelina, who was ousted in a coup last week, has been stripped of his citizenship by the new regime.

The order, signed by new Prime Minister Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo, cited local laws stipulating that people who acquired foreign citizenship should lose their Malagasy nationality.

Rajoelina, 51, obtained French citizenship a decade ago, prompting calls for his disqualification from the 2023 presidential election. But he defied those calls and went on to win.

He fled the African island nation after weeks of protests over persistent power and water shortages, culminating in a military takeover led by Col Michael Randrianirina.

Rajoelina has said he has gone into hiding for his own safety, and his whereabouts remain unclear.

When he disclosed his French nationality months before Madagascar's last presidential election, he argued he had only secretly acquired it to make things easier for his children studying in France.

In recent weeks, he had faced demonstrations initially organised by youth movement Gen Z Mada and inspired by similar anti-government protests in Nepal, which were only exacerbated when his government responded with violence.

Rajoelina sacked his energy minister and then his government - but this did little to quell the calls for him to step down.

Protesters had hoped that Rajoelina would resign to pave the way for a smooth, democratic transition.

Instead, he clung to power, eventually leading to Madagascar's elite military unit, of which Randrianirina was chief, to seize power.

He has now been sworn in and has formed a new government, pledging to hold elections within two years.

A 69-year-old Japanese tourist has died after falling off the perimeter wall of the Pantheon in Rome, local media reports.

Morimasa Hibino is said to have fallen from a height of about seven metres (22.9 ft) at around 21:50 local time (19:50 GMT). A priest who was passing by alerted the police when he saw the man lying in the ditch, according to local newspaper la Repubblica.

Emergency services and firefighters reportedly had to force open a gate outside the ancient Roman temple, before finding the man dead in a ditch.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the death.

The man was sitting on the edge of the wall, lost his balance and fell, la Repubblica reported, citing police.

Investigators have obtained surveillance images and videos overlooking the spot where the man was sitting, local media reports.

The Pantheon is one of Italy's most visited attractions, with millions of tourists estimated to see it every year.

In a late-night communique on Thursday, the Cuban Government said that it had extradited a Chinese citizen, Zhi Dong Zhang, to the authorities in Mexico. Hours later, Mexico's security chief then confirmed his subsequent extradition to the United States on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

It brought to an abrupt end a months-long, audacious escape attempt by one of the world's most wanted fugitives.

Known by various aliases including Brother Wang, Pancho and HeHe, Zhi Dong Zhang is accused by the US Justice Department of masterminding a vast international ring of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering covering numerous nations but particularly China, Mexico and the US.

The list of charges against Mr Zhang is long but in essence US prosecutors and the Mexican Attorney General's office accuse him of being a major player in the global drug trade. They say he has laundered millions of dollars in drug money for both the Sinaloa Cartel and the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) as part of a worldwide drug distribution network.

"Brother Wang can be seen as a key link between Mexican cartels and Chinese chemical companies in sourcing the pre-cursor chemicals for fentanyl", explains former DEA agent, Mike Vigil, adding that he was also vital in converting drug funds into cryptocurrency.

If convicted, Zhi Dong Zhang can expect to share a similar fate as other drug kingpins like Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada in a high-security facility in the United States.

But how 'Brother Wang' ended up in custody in Havana is an extraordinary tale involving fleeing house arrest in Mexico City, reportedly through a hole in a wall, taking a private jet to Cuba and an ultimately failed attempt to enter to Russia.

Zhi Dong Zhang was arrested in Mexico City in a joint security operation in October 2024. He was initially held in a maximum-security prison but was later granted house arrest by a judge – a decision that President Claudia Sheinbaum called "outrageous".

Brother Wang's escape had all the hallmarks of another embarrassing episode for Mexico: a man considered a vital cog in the machinery of drug smuggling, able to disappear from under the noses of the Mexican authorities tasked with guarding him. El Chapo Guzman managed that feat twice, much to Washington's frustration, before he was finally put on a plane in handcuffs to the US.

That Mexican authorities were able to recover their prisoner and send him north came down to two things – an apparent stroke of luck in Russia and the strength of Mexico's security relationship with Havana.

When Zhang reached Cuba in July 2025, he set about making his next steps towards reaching a country with no extradition treaty with the US, officials say.

There is a direct commercial flight to Moscow from Havana and Zhang, they allege, was able to secure a seat on it using fake papers. However, the papers didn't get him past the immigration authorities in Russia. It has been reported that the Russians didn't fully appreciate who they had in their custody and, after he was briefly detained, they turned Zhang around and sent him back to Cuba.

On arriving back in Havana a second time, the Cuban security services were now aware of his real identity.

Security analysts believe the authorities in Cuba held onto him for several months to interrogate him at length before sending him back to Mexico and, inevitably, onwards to the US. Mexico's Public Security Secretary, Omar Harfuch, was quick to thank Cuba for their cooperation over 'Brother Wang' – ultimately, for sparing their blushes over another escaped high-profile prisoner.

As always following the arrest of an alleged kingpin, the question becomes how far their removal will affect the global drug trade.

Given Brother Wang has spent the past year either in prison, under house arrest or on the run, the question may be moot, Mr Vigil said, as his absence has already largely been felt in Mexico's criminal underworld:

"It's really not going to have an impact as the cartels already have individuals working for them who can start to replace to Brother Wang", says Mr Vigil. "Even in the case of El Chapo Guzman who was a much bigger figure, it had no impact on the global drug trade", he argues.

Over his first year in office, US President Donald Trump has pressured his Mexican counterpart to do more on the issue of fentanyl trafficking and President Sheinbaum's administration has duly responded in kind. She has significantly increased seizures of the drug compared to her predecessor and her administration has sent dozens of convicted drug cartel members to the US to serve sentences there. They included several high-level drug names like Rafael Caro Quintero, wanted for the murder of a DEA agent in 1985.

Her cooperation on the fentanyl issue, as well as on undocumented immigration, is considered the reason Mr Trump has refrained from imposing the same level of trade tariffs on Mexico as he has on other commercial partners.

Brother Wang's extradition will bring genuine satisfaction in Washington at having taken a key figure in Mexican cartels' financial operations out of circulation. That, in turn, will please the Sheinbaum administration in Mexico and strengthen their claim to be in lockstep with their US counterparts on security.

However, slowing or reducing the movement of pre-cursor chemicals for fentanyl from China to the Americas in any lasting way will take more than the extradition of one man.

Donald Trump has said he would like to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his upcoming trip to Asia.

"I would. If you want to put out the word, I'm open to it," the US president told reporters onboard Air Force One as he departed for the region, adding that he "had a great relationship" with Kim.

Trump made history during his first term, becoming the first sitting US president to set foot into North Korea when they last shook hands in 2019.

His trip to Malaysia and Japan will see him meet a number of world leaders including China's Xi Jinping, amid trade negotiations sparked by Trump's imposition of sweeping tariffs earlier this year.

Trump has taken an atypical approach to North Korea - a secretive communist totalitarian state largely isolated on the world stage - and its attempts at creating nuclear weapons, initially taunting Kim as a "little rocket man".

The pair met face-to-face three times during Trump's previous tenure in the White House but failed to agree a denuclearisation programme. North Korea has since conducted multiple tests of intercontinental missiles, its neighbours say.

Asked if he would recognise North Korea as a nuclear state, Trump told reporters late on Thursday: "I think they are sort of a nuclear power... They got a lot of nuclear weapons, I'll say that."

Kim has said he was open to meeting Trump again, provided the US stopped pursuing its "absurd" demand for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

"I still have a good memory of President Trump," Kim said in a speech last month, according to state media.

• Friends reunited? Trump faces a very different Kim Jong Un this time

South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who handles relations between the North and South, said there was a "considerable" chance the two leaders might meet while Trump is in South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum, according to news agency AFP.

A senior US official told reporters that a meeting was not in Trump's schedule, according to the Anadolu Agency - though their last meeting in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas came off the back of an invitation by Trump on social media.

Trump's first stop will be in Malaysia, where he will attend Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit.

He is expected to land in the South Korean city Busan on Wednesday ahead of the Apec summit.

He will meet South Korean leader Lee Jae Myung, who discussed peace on the Korean peninsula and the possibility of a Trump-Kim meeting while visiting the White House in August.

Lee told the BBC he was open to a deal between Trump and Kim in which North Korea agreed to freeze production of its nuclear weapons.

Trump's meeting with China's President Xi comes on the backdrop of a trade war between the two nations.

The two have agreed to hold off triple-digit tariffs threatened against one another while seeking a trade agreement - but that detente is in jeopardy after Trump said he would level a 100% trade levy on Chinese goods over Beijing's curbs on rare earth exports.

The minerals are essential for many electronics and China is currently responsible for around 90% of exports of their refined form.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the US had carried out another strike against a ship alleged to belong to drug traffickers.

The operation took place in the Caribbean Sea, against a group Hegseth identified as the Tren de Aragua criminal organisation.

Hegseth said "six male narco-terrorists" were on board and killed.

The US has carried out a series of strikes on ships in the region, in what President Donald Trump has described as an effort to curtail drug trafficking.

Hegseth posted a video on X showing the operation. The video begins by showing a boat in a crosshairs, before it explodes into a cloud of smoke.

This is the tenth strike the Trump administration has carried out against alleged drug traffickers since early September. Most have taken place off of South America, in the Caribbean, but on 21 and 22 October it carried out strikes in the Pacific Ocean.

Members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have raised concerns about the legality of the strikes and the president's authority to order them.

Trump said he has the legal authority to order the strikes, and has designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organisation.

Queen Sirikit, the mother of Thailand's King Vajiralongkorn, has died aged 93.

She passed away "peacefully" in a Bangkok hospital at 21:21 local time (14:21 GMT) on Friday night, according to the Thai Royal Household Bureau.

Sirikit had "suffered several illnesses" while in hospital since 2019, including a blood infection this month, it added.

For more than six decades, Queen Sirikit was married to Thailand's longest-reigning monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in 2016.

Queen Sirikit suffered a stroke in 2012, after which she was rarely seen in public.

She met her future husband while studying music in Paris, where her father was stationed as Thai ambassador to France.

The couple married on 28 April 1950, just a week before King Bhumibol was crowned in Bangkok.

As a young couple in the 1960s, Queen Sirikit and King Bhumibol travelled around the world, meeting US presidents Dwight Eisenhower, the late Queen Elizabeth II - as well as Elvis Presley.

During that decade, she frequently made international best dressed lists.

In 1980, Queen Sirikit featured in a BBC documentary about the Thai monarchy, called Soul of a Nation.

In the rare interview, she said: "Kings and queens of Thailand have always been in close contact with the people and they usually regard the king as the father of the nation.

"That is why we do not have much private life, because we are considered father and mother of the nation."

She was seen as a key maternal figure for the country, with her birthday marked as Mother's Day.

In a late-night communique on Thursday, the Cuban Government said that it had extradited a Chinese citizen, Zhi Dong Zhang, to the authorities in Mexico. Hours later, Mexico's security chief then confirmed his subsequent extradition to the United States on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

It brought to an abrupt end a months-long, audacious escape attempt by one of the world's most wanted fugitives.

Known by various aliases including Brother Wang, Pancho and HeHe, Zhi Dong Zhang is accused by the US Justice Department of masterminding a vast international ring of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering covering numerous nations but particularly China, Mexico and the US.

The list of charges against Mr Zhang is long but in essence US prosecutors and the Mexican Attorney General's office accuse him of being a major player in the global drug trade. They say he has laundered millions of dollars in drug money for both the Sinaloa Cartel and the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) as part of a worldwide drug distribution network.

"Brother Wang can be seen as a key link between Mexican cartels and Chinese chemical companies in sourcing the pre-cursor chemicals for fentanyl", explains former DEA agent, Mike Vigil, adding that he was also vital in converting drug funds into cryptocurrency.

If convicted, Zhi Dong Zhang can expect to share a similar fate as other drug kingpins like Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada in a high-security facility in the United States.

But how 'Brother Wang' ended up in custody in Havana is an extraordinary tale involving fleeing house arrest in Mexico City, reportedly through a hole in a wall, taking a private jet to Cuba and an ultimately failed attempt to enter to Russia.

Zhi Dong Zhang was arrested in Mexico City in a joint security operation in October 2024. He was initially held in a maximum-security prison but was later granted house arrest by a judge – a decision that President Claudia Sheinbaum called "outrageous".

Brother Wang's escape had all the hallmarks of another embarrassing episode for Mexico: a man considered a vital cog in the machinery of drug smuggling, able to disappear from under the noses of the Mexican authorities tasked with guarding him. El Chapo Guzman managed that feat twice, much to Washington's frustration, before he was finally put on a plane in handcuffs to the US.

That Mexican authorities were able to recover their prisoner and send him north came down to two things – an apparent stroke of luck in Russia and the strength of Mexico's security relationship with Havana.

When Zhang reached Cuba in July 2025, he set about making his next steps towards reaching a country with no extradition treaty with the US, officials say.

There is a direct commercial flight to Moscow from Havana and Zhang, they allege, was able to secure a seat on it using fake papers. However, the papers didn't get him past the immigration authorities in Russia. It has been reported that the Russians didn't fully appreciate who they had in their custody and, after he was briefly detained, they turned Zhang around and sent him back to Cuba.

On arriving back in Havana a second time, the Cuban security services were now aware of his real identity.

Security analysts believe the authorities in Cuba held onto him for several months to interrogate him at length before sending him back to Mexico and, inevitably, onwards to the US. Mexico's Public Security Secretary, Omar Harfuch, was quick to thank Cuba for their cooperation over 'Brother Wang' – ultimately, for sparing their blushes over another escaped high-profile prisoner.

As always following the arrest of an alleged kingpin, the question becomes how far their removal will affect the global drug trade.

Given Brother Wang has spent the past year either in prison, under house arrest or on the run, the question may be moot, Mr Vigil said, as his absence has already largely been felt in Mexico's criminal underworld:

"It's really not going to have an impact as the cartels already have individuals working for them who can start to replace to Brother Wang", says Mr Vigil. "Even in the case of El Chapo Guzman who was a much bigger figure, it had no impact on the global drug trade", he argues.

Over his first year in office, US President Donald Trump has pressured his Mexican counterpart to do more on the issue of fentanyl trafficking and President Sheinbaum's administration has duly responded in kind. She has significantly increased seizures of the drug compared to her predecessor and her administration has sent dozens of convicted drug cartel members to the US to serve sentences there. They included several high-level drug names like Rafael Caro Quintero, wanted for the murder of a DEA agent in 1985.

Her cooperation on the fentanyl issue, as well as on undocumented immigration, is considered the reason Mr Trump has refrained from imposing the same level of trade tariffs on Mexico as he has on other commercial partners.

Brother Wang's extradition will bring genuine satisfaction in Washington at having taken a key figure in Mexican cartels' financial operations out of circulation. That, in turn, will please the Sheinbaum administration in Mexico and strengthen their claim to be in lockstep with their US counterparts on security.

However, slowing or reducing the movement of pre-cursor chemicals for fentanyl from China to the Americas in any lasting way will take more than the extradition of one man.

The US has placed sanctions on Colombia's left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, accusing him of failing to curb drug trafficking.

"President Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

Sanctions have also been imposed on Colombia's Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, as well as Petro's wife and eldest son. They include barring them from accessing assets and properties they may have in the US.

Colombia was once a close ally of Washington's war on drugs, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars annually in military assistance. But Petro and Trump have clashed frequently since Trump's return to power.

• US strikes on Latin American 'drug boats': What do we know, and are they legal?

Bessent said that since Petro, a former guerrilla, came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has "exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans".

He added that Trump was taking "strong action" and "would not tolerate" drug trafficking into the US.

The Treasury said Colombia was the world's top exporter of cocaine, which it says poses a "significant drug threat" to the US.

In a separate statement on Friday, the state department said it would will not certify Colombia's counter-narcotics efforts.

Petro denied the accusations. In a post on X, he said he had been fighting drug trafficking "for decades" and had helped the US to reduce its cocaine consumption.

"A complete paradox - but not one step back, and never on our knees," he said.

In recent weeks, the US military has ratcheted up activity in the southern Caribbean, striking vessels in international waters that it has alleged, without evidence, are carrying drugs.

Last week Trump announced the suspension of payments and subsidies to Colombia.

This came after Petro told BBC News in September airstrikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean were an "act of tyranny,", accusing US officials of murdering a Colombian citizen and violating his country's sovereignty.

Imposing sanctions on a head of state is rare but not unprecedented. The leaders of countries including Russia, North Korea and Venezuela have previously been sanctioned.

Queen Sirikit, the mother of Thailand's King Vajiralongkorn, has died aged 93.

She passed away "peacefully" in a Bangkok hospital at 21:21 local time (14:21 GMT) on Friday night, according to the Thai Royal Household Bureau.

Sirikit had "suffered several illnesses" while in hospital since 2019, including a blood infection this month, it added.

For more than six decades, Queen Sirikit was married to Thailand's longest-reigning monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in 2016.

Queen Sirikit suffered a stroke in 2012, after which she was rarely seen in public.

She met her future husband while studying music in Paris, where her father was stationed as Thai ambassador to France.

The couple married on 28 April 1950, just a week before King Bhumibol was crowned in Bangkok.

As a young couple in the 1960s, Queen Sirikit and King Bhumibol travelled around the world, meeting US presidents Dwight Eisenhower, the late Queen Elizabeth II - as well as Elvis Presley.

During that decade, she frequently made international best dressed lists.

In 1980, Queen Sirikit featured in a BBC documentary about the Thai monarchy, called Soul of a Nation.

In the rare interview, she said: "Kings and queens of Thailand have always been in close contact with the people and they usually regard the king as the father of the nation.

"That is why we do not have much private life, because we are considered father and mother of the nation."

She was seen as a key maternal figure for the country, with her birthday marked as Mother's Day.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the US had carried out another strike against a ship alleged to belong to drug traffickers.

The operation took place in the Caribbean Sea, against a group Hegseth identified as the Tren de Aragua criminal organisation.

Hegseth said "six male narco-terrorists" were on board and killed.

The US has carried out a series of strikes on ships in the region, in what President Donald Trump has described as an effort to curtail drug trafficking.

Hegseth posted a video on X showing the operation. The video begins by showing a boat in a crosshairs, before it explodes into a cloud of smoke.

This is the tenth strike the Trump administration has carried out against alleged drug traffickers since early September. Most have taken place off of South America, in the Caribbean, but on 21 and 22 October it carried out strikes in the Pacific Ocean.

Members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have raised concerns about the legality of the strikes and the president's authority to order them.

Trump said he has the legal authority to order the strikes, and has designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organisation.

In a late-night communique on Thursday, the Cuban Government said that it had extradited a Chinese citizen, Zhi Dong Zhang, to the authorities in Mexico. Hours later, Mexico's security chief then confirmed his subsequent extradition to the United States on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

It brought to an abrupt end a months-long, audacious escape attempt by one of the world's most wanted fugitives.

Known by various aliases including Brother Wang, Pancho and HeHe, Zhi Dong Zhang is accused by the US Justice Department of masterminding a vast international ring of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering covering numerous nations but particularly China, Mexico and the US.

The list of charges against Mr Zhang is long but in essence US prosecutors and the Mexican Attorney General's office accuse him of being a major player in the global drug trade. They say he has laundered millions of dollars in drug money for both the Sinaloa Cartel and the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) as part of a worldwide drug distribution network.

"Brother Wang can be seen as a key link between Mexican cartels and Chinese chemical companies in sourcing the pre-cursor chemicals for fentanyl", explains former DEA agent, Mike Vigil, adding that he was also vital in converting drug funds into cryptocurrency.

If convicted, Zhi Dong Zhang can expect to share a similar fate as other drug kingpins like Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada in a high-security facility in the United States.

But how 'Brother Wang' ended up in custody in Havana is an extraordinary tale involving fleeing house arrest in Mexico City, reportedly through a hole in a wall, taking a private jet to Cuba and an ultimately failed attempt to enter to Russia.

Zhi Dong Zhang was arrested in Mexico City in a joint security operation in October 2024. He was initially held in a maximum-security prison but was later granted house arrest by a judge – a decision that President Claudia Sheinbaum called "outrageous".

Brother Wang's escape had all the hallmarks of another embarrassing episode for Mexico: a man considered a vital cog in the machinery of drug smuggling, able to disappear from under the noses of the Mexican authorities tasked with guarding him. El Chapo Guzman managed that feat twice, much to Washington's frustration, before he was finally put on a plane in handcuffs to the US.

That Mexican authorities were able to recover their prisoner and send him north came down to two things – an apparent stroke of luck in Russia and the strength of Mexico's security relationship with Havana.

When Zhang reached Cuba in July 2025, he set about making his next steps towards reaching a country with no extradition treaty with the US, officials say.

There is a direct commercial flight to Moscow from Havana and Zhang, they allege, was able to secure a seat on it using fake papers. However, the papers didn't get him past the immigration authorities in Russia. It has been reported that the Russians didn't fully appreciate who they had in their custody and, after he was briefly detained, they turned Zhang around and sent him back to Cuba.

On arriving back in Havana a second time, the Cuban security services were now aware of his real identity.

Security analysts believe the authorities in Cuba held onto him for several months to interrogate him at length before sending him back to Mexico and, inevitably, onwards to the US. Mexico's Public Security Secretary, Omar Harfuch, was quick to thank Cuba for their cooperation over 'Brother Wang' – ultimately, for sparing their blushes over another escaped high-profile prisoner.

As always following the arrest of an alleged kingpin, the question becomes how far their removal will affect the global drug trade.

Given Brother Wang has spent the past year either in prison, under house arrest or on the run, the question may be moot, Mr Vigil said, as his absence has already largely been felt in Mexico's criminal underworld:

"It's really not going to have an impact as the cartels already have individuals working for them who can start to replace to Brother Wang", says Mr Vigil. "Even in the case of El Chapo Guzman who was a much bigger figure, it had no impact on the global drug trade", he argues.

Over his first year in office, US President Donald Trump has pressured his Mexican counterpart to do more on the issue of fentanyl trafficking and President Sheinbaum's administration has duly responded in kind. She has significantly increased seizures of the drug compared to her predecessor and her administration has sent dozens of convicted drug cartel members to the US to serve sentences there. They included several high-level drug names like Rafael Caro Quintero, wanted for the murder of a DEA agent in 1985.

Her cooperation on the fentanyl issue, as well as on undocumented immigration, is considered the reason Mr Trump has refrained from imposing the same level of trade tariffs on Mexico as he has on other commercial partners.

Brother Wang's extradition will bring genuine satisfaction in Washington at having taken a key figure in Mexican cartels' financial operations out of circulation. That, in turn, will please the Sheinbaum administration in Mexico and strengthen their claim to be in lockstep with their US counterparts on security.

However, slowing or reducing the movement of pre-cursor chemicals for fentanyl from China to the Americas in any lasting way will take more than the extradition of one man.

More than 20 nations supporting Ukraine have pledged to "take Russian oil and gas off the global market" as part of efforts to pressure President Vladimir Putin to end the war.

"We're choking off funding for Russia's war machine," said UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, after hosting a summit of the "coalition of the willing" in London.

The UK and US have in recent days sanctioned Russia's two biggest oil companies, while the EU targeted Moscow's liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was also in London, said "pressure" on Russia was the only way to stop the fighting. However, no long-range missile deliveries to Ukraine were announced at the summit.

Zelensky has long argued that US-made Tomahawks and European missiles would help make the war costs heavier for Moscow by hitting key military targets - including oil refineries and weapons depots - deep inside Russia.

But during last week's talks in Washington, US President Donald Trump indicated to Zelensky that he was not ready to supply Tomahawks.

On Thursday, President Putin warned that if "such weapons are used to strike Russian Federation territory the response will be... overwhelming".

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Speaking at a joint press conference after the London summit, Starmer said Putin was "not serious about peace", and therefore Ukraine's allies agreed a "clear plan for the rest of the year" on supporting Ukraine.

The UK prime minister said this also included targeting Russia's sovereign assets to "unlock billions to help finance Ukraine's defence". He gave no further details.

On Thursday, EU leaders agreed to help support Ukraine's "financial needs" for the next two years - but stopped short of agreeing to use frozen Russian assets worth €140bn (£122bn).

Asked about a so-called "reparations loan" for Ukraine funded by the Russian assets, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she hoped a decision would be made by Christmas Eve

In London, the "coalition of the willing" also pledged to strengthen Ukraine's air defences" amid almost daily Russian air assaults on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure.

Zelensky warned that Russia "wants to make the winter cold a tool of torment", adding that "they want to break us".

Further support for Ukraine's energy infrastructure was among the issues discussed at the summit - however, no specific announcements were made.

Ukraine and its western allies have publicly agreed with President Trump's proposal that the fighting should be immediately frozen along the vast front line for negotiations to begin.

Russia has rejected this idea, repeating demands that Kyiv and its allies describe as de facto capitulation by Ukraine.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has said he will pause his province's anti-tariff advertisement campaign in the US, after it prompted President Donald Trump to terminate trade talks.

Ford said he made the decision after speaking to Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday, adding that the TV spot will be paused on Monday "so that trade talks can resume".

It will still run over the weekend on US networks, he said, including during the Major League Baseball World Series games.

Carney told reporters earlier on Friday that Canada is prepared to resume trade talks with the US "when the Americans are ready".

Trump criticised the advert late on Thursday night in a Truth Social post, calling it "FAKE" and "egregious". He said trade talks were "HEREBY TERMINATED".

The advert, which was sponsored by the Ontario government, quotes former US President Ronald Reagan, a Republican and icon of US conservatism, saying tariffs "hurt every American".

The video takes excerpts from a 1987 national radio address by Reagan that focused on foreign trade.

Trump's termination of trade talks came after the Ronald Reagan Foundation, which is charged with preserving Reagan's legacy, released a statement saying the advert had used "selective" audio and video of the former president's remarks.

It accused the advert of misrepresenting Reagan's address, and said the Ontario government had not sought permission to use it.

On Friday, Ford said the intention of the advert was "to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build" and the impact of tariffs.

"We've achieved our goal, having reached US audiences at the highest levels," Ford said.

Earlier in the day, the Ontario premier shared the full 1987 radio address on free and fair trade by Reagan, saying that the former president knew Canada and the US "were stronger together".

The US has imposed a 35% levy on all Canadian goods - though most are exempt under an existing free trade agreement. It has also slapped sector-specific levies on Canadian goods include a 50% levy on metals and 25% on automobiles.

Those sector-specific tariffs have especially hurt Ontario, where the bulk of Canada's automanufacturing industry is based.

Since his election earlier this year, Prime Minister Carney has attempted to strike a deal that would ease the tariffs. Three-quarters of Canadian exports are sold to the US, making its economy particularly vulnerable.

A woman who raped and murdered 12 year-old Lola Daviet in Paris has been handed a rare whole-life sentence in a case that has shocked France.

Dahbia Benkired, aged 27, must spend at least 30 years in prison after a panel of judges and a jury decided to impose the country's harshest possible penalty.

A whole-life term is extremely rare in France and Benkired is the first woman to receive it.

Those who have been given the sentence include serial killer and rapist Michel Fourniret and jihadist Salah Abdeslam, who took part in the 2015 Paris attacks which killed 130 people.

Lola was murdered in October 2022. Her body was discovered in a plastic storage box in the courtyard of the building where she lived in north-eastern Paris.

Benkired is an Algerian immigrant who was under orders to leave the country. French right-wing and far-right politicians have seized on the case.

Lola's mother Delphine Daviet and her brother Thibault were in court to hear the verdict. Her father Johan Daviet died in 2024, aged 49.

The prosecutor in trial had argued for Benkired to received the longest sentence possible. Benkired was examined by psychiatric experts and found to have "psychopathic" traits but otherwise sane.

The prosecutor told a panel of three judges and six jurors: "Make no mistake no drug treatment can fundamentally transform Ms Benkired's personality. When there is no illness, there is no treatment."

Before jurors began their deliberations on Friday, Benkired told the court: "I ask for forgiveness and what I did is horrible.

"That's all I have to say."

The US has placed sanctions on Colombia's left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, accusing him of failing to curb drug trafficking.

"President Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

Sanctions have also been imposed on Colombia's Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, as well as Petro's wife and eldest son. They include barring them from accessing assets and properties they may have in the US.

Colombia was once a close ally of Washington's war on drugs, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars annually in military assistance. But Petro and Trump have clashed frequently since Trump's return to power.

• US strikes on Latin American 'drug boats': What do we know, and are they legal?

Bessent said that since Petro, a former guerrilla, came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has "exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans".

He added that Trump was taking "strong action" and "would not tolerate" drug trafficking into the US.

The Treasury said Colombia was the world's top exporter of cocaine, which it says poses a "significant drug threat" to the US.

In a separate statement on Friday, the state department said it would will not certify Colombia's counter-narcotics efforts.

Petro denied the accusations. In a post on X, he said he had been fighting drug trafficking "for decades" and had helped the US to reduce its cocaine consumption.

"A complete paradox - but not one step back, and never on our knees," he said.

In recent weeks, the US military has ratcheted up activity in the southern Caribbean, striking vessels in international waters that it has alleged, without evidence, are carrying drugs.

Last week Trump announced the suspension of payments and subsidies to Colombia.

This came after Petro told BBC News in September airstrikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean were an "act of tyranny,", accusing US officials of murdering a Colombian citizen and violating his country's sovereignty.

Imposing sanctions on a head of state is rare but not unprecedented. The leaders of countries including Russia, North Korea and Venezuela have previously been sanctioned.

Out of a single room, with no DNA testing facilities or cold storage units of its own, the forensics team at Gaza's Nasser hospital face the challenges brought by peace.

Over the past eleven days, 195 bodies have been returned to Gaza by Israeli authorities, in exchange for the bodies of 13 Israeli hostages, under the terms of Donald Trump's ceasefire deal.

Photographs released by Gaza's medical authorities show some of the bodies badly decomposed, and arriving in civilian clothes or naked except for underwear, some with multiple signs of injury. Many have their wrists tied behind their backs, and doctors say some bodies arrived blindfolded or with cloth roped around their necks.

The forensic team at Nasser hospital are working with almost no resources to answer vast questions about torture, mistreatment and identity.

The head of the unit, Dr Ahmed Dheir, said one of their biggest limitations is a lack of cold storage space. The bodies arrive in Gaza thoroughly frozen and can take several days to thaw out, ruling out even basic identification methods like dental history, let alone any deeper investigation or post-mortem (autopsy).

"The situation is extremely challenging," he said. "If we wait for the bodies to thaw, rapid decomposition begins almost immediately, putting us in an impossible position [because] we lose the ability to examine the remains properly. So the most viable method is to take samples and document the state of the bodies as they are."

The BBC has viewed dozens of photographs of the bodies, many of them shared by Gaza's health authorities, others taken by colleagues on the ground.

We spoke to several of those involved in examining the bodies in Gaza, as well as families of the missing, human rights groups, and Israeli military and prison authorities.

We also spoke to three forensic experts outside the region, including one specialising in torture, to educate ourselves about the medical processes involved in this kind of investigation – all agreed that there were questions that were difficult to answer without post-mortems.

Dr Alaa al-Astal, one of the forensic team at Nasser hospital, said some of the bodies arriving there showed "signs of torture", such as bruises and marks from binding on the wrists and ankles.

"There were extremely horrific cases, where the restraint was so tight that blood circulation to the hands was cut off, leading to tissue damage and clear signs of pressure around the wrists and ankles," he said.

"Even around the eyes, when the blindfolds were removed, you could see deep grooves - imagine how much force that took. The pressure left actual marks where the blindfold had been tied."

Dr Astal also mentioned the loose cloths tied around the necks of some bodies as needing further investigation.

"In one case, there was a groove around the neck," he said. "To determine whether the death was due to hanging or strangulation, we needed to perform a post-mortem, but because the body was frozen, it was not dissected."

Sameh Yassin Hamad, a member of the Hamas-run government committee responsible for receiving the bodies, said there were signs of bruising and blood infiltration indicating that the bodies had been severely beaten before death. He also said there were stab wounds on the chest of face of some of them.

Some of the images we saw from the unit clearly show deep indentations or tightly-fastened cable-ties on the wrists and arms and ankles. One photograph appears to show the bruising and abrasion that would confirm that ties had been used while the person was still alive.

Other bodies showed only deep indentation marks, meaning a post-mortem would be needed to determine whether the ties had been used before or after death. Cable-ties are sometimes used when transporting bodies in Israel.

When we asked Israel's military about the evidence we gathered, it said it operates strictly in accordance with international law.

We showed the photographs we were given to the outside forensic experts. The images represent a fraction of the bodies transferred to Gaza by the Red Cross.

All three experts said that some of the markings raised questions about what had happened, but that it was difficult to reach concrete conclusions about abuse or torture without post-mortems.

"What is happening in Gaza is an international forensic emergency," said Michael Pollanen, a forensic pathologist and professor at the University of Toronto. "Based upon images like this, there is an imperative for complete medical autopsies. We need to know the truth behind how deaths occurred, and the only way to know the truth is to do autopsies."

But even with limited forensic data, doctors at Nasser hospital say the routine cuffing of wrists behind the body rather than in front, along with the marks observed on the limbs, points to torture.

"When a person is naked, with their hands tied behind their back, and visible restraint marks on their wrists and ankles, it indicates that they died in that position," Dr Dheir told us. "This is a violation of international law."

And there is strong evidence to suggest widespread abuse of detainees - including civilians - in Israeli custody in the months after the war began in October 2023, particularly in the military facility of Sde Teiman.

"At least in the first eight months of the war, the detainees from Gaza were cuffed behind their backs, and had their eyes covered, 24 hrs, 7 days a week, for months," said Naji Abbas, head of the Prisoners and Detainees Programme at the Israeli human rights organisation, Physicians for Human Rights (PHRI).

"We know that people developed serious infections on their skin, hands and legs because of the cuffs."

We have spoken to several people who worked at Sde Teiman over the past two years, who confirm that detainees were cuffed hand and foot – even while undergoing medical treatments, including surgery.

One medic who worked there said he had campaigned to loosen the cuffs, and that the treatment of detainees there was "dehumanisation".

But many of those detained during the Gaza war are held as unlawful combatants, without charge.

One complication for doctors at Nasser Hospital now is determining which of the returned bodies are Hamas fighters killed in combat, which are civilians and which are detainees who died in Israeli custody.

Some of the bodies returned by Israel are still wearing Hamas headbands or military boots, but doctors say most are either naked or in civilian clothing, making it difficult to distinguish their role, interpret their injuries, and assess human rights violations.

Photographs seen by the BBC show mostly naked or decomposed bodies. One dressed in civilian clothing and trainers has what officials say are two small bullet wounds in his back.

Sameh Yassin Hamad, from Gaza's Forensics Committee, said that Israel had sent back identification with only six of the 195 bodies it had returned – and that five of those names turned out to be wrong.

"Since these bodies were held by the Israeli authorities, they will have full data about them," said Dr Dheir. "But they haven't shared that information with us through the Red Cross. We were sent DNA profiles for around half the total number of dead, but have not received any details about the dates or circumstances of death, or the time or place of detention."

We asked Israel's army about the details in this report, including striking allegations by Gaza's forensic team that Israel had removed single fingers and toes from the bodies for DNA testing.

Israel's military said "all bodies returned so far are combatants within the Gaza Strip." It denied tying any bodies prior to their release.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, Shosh Bedrosian, on Wednesday described the reports from Gaza as "just more efforts to demonise Israel" and suggested the media focus instead on the experience of Israeli hostages.

As families of those missing gather at the hospital gates, Dr Dheir and his staff are under intense pressure to identify the dead and provide answers about what happened to them.

So far, only some 50 bodies have been positively identified – mostly through basic details like height, age and obvious previous injuries. Another 54 have been buried, unidentified and unclaimed, because of intense pressure on space at the unit.

Many families of the missing attended the burial of the unnamed dead this week, just in case one of them was theirs.

"Honestly, it's hard to bury a body when you don't know whether it's the right one or not," said Rami al-Faraa, still searching for his cousin.

"If there was [DNA] testing, we'd know where he is – yes or no," said Houwaida Hamad, searching for her nephew. "My sister would know if the one we're burying is really her son or not."

Donald Trump's ceasefire deal has brought some relief for Gaza, but little closure for the families of most of those missing, left burying a body in place of a brother, husband or son.

Georgia's former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has appeared in court charged with large-scale money laundering - a shocking turnaround for one of the most loyal allies of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, widely seen as Georgia's de facto leader.

Prosecutors said when his home was raided by investigators earlier this month they discovered $6.5m (£4.9m) in cash.

Garibashvili, 43, twice served as prime minister during the Ivanishvili years – first from 2013-15 and then again from 2021 until January last year.

Now he has pleaded guilty to corruption charges that could carry a 12-year jail term and he has been granted bail of one million Georgian lari ($368,000; £277,000).

The charges against the former prime minister are the latest in a string of detentions of ex-government officials.

But the case against Garibashvili is the first prosecution of a senior member of Georgia's governing elite, and it comes amid the ruling party's authoritarian pivot away from the West.

While serving first as defence minister and then as prime minister between 2019 and 2024, he is alleged to have "secretly and covertly engaged in various types of business activities and received a particularly large amount of income of illegal origin".

He is accused of laundering this income and falsely declaring money as gifts from family members.

His lawyer, Amiran Giguashvili, confirmed his client was working with authorities.

"The court took into account that Mr Irakli agrees to the charges, does not hide from the investigation and co-operates," he told the BBC.

The corruption case marks a dramatic fall for a politician who worked in Ivanishvili's companies before entering politics in 2011 as part of the billionaire's Georgian Dream party, which has been in power since 2012.

In February 2014, he signed Georgia's Association Agreement with the European Union.

However, in recent years he has led Georgia's shift away from the EU. He developed close ties with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and said Nato's enlargement was one of the main reasons for the war in Ukraine.

According to Georgian political analyst Ghia Nodia, the former prime minister's downfall reflects Bidzina Ivanishvili's mistrust of his former political appointees.

"Ivanishvili is really the driver, he decided for some reason that there is some kind of treason in his team," Nodia said.

"At this point, he trusts [current PM Irakli] Kobakhidze but stopped trusting his closest lieutenant, not just Garibashvili, but also [ex-security chief] Liluashvili and others."

Meanwhile, Georgia's political turmoil continues, a year after Georgian Dream won contested parliamentary elections which the then president refused to recognise.

There have been daily protests since the government's announcement in November 2024 that it would halt membership talks with the EU, and most opposition leaders are now in jail.

New legislations have targeted civil society, pro-opposition media, and journalists and activists have been imprisoned.

"Ivanishvili seems like [he's] under siege," says Ghia Nodia. "He believes these crazy deep state conspiracies that the West wants to destroy him through these continuous protests in Georgia."

An NBA player and coach are among dozens of people arrested as part of a sweeping FBI investigation into illegal sports betting and rigged, mafia-linked poker games.

Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups were named by federal prosecutors in two separate indictments on Thursday.

Rozier, 31, is among six people arrested over alleged betting irregularities, including other NBA players who may have faked injuries to influence gambling markets.

Billups, a Hall of Fame player who has coached the Portland Trail Blazers since 2021, is one of 31 people charged in a separate illegal poker game case involving retired players and the mafia.

That case, which prosecutors said involved four of the five major crime families in New York, uncovered an alleged scheme to lure victims into playing rigged poker games alongside high-profile sports stars before stealing millions of dollars.

They did so using technology including special contact lenses and glasses that could read pre-marked cards and an X-ray table, according to authorities.

In a statement, the NBA said that Rozier and Billups were being placed on immediate leave as it reviews the federal indictments.

"We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority," the statement read.

Rozier's lawyer denied the allegations to CBS News, the BBC's US news partner, saying: "Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight."

Rozier is due to appear in federal court in Orlando later on Thursday, while Billups was arrested in Portland and will appear in court there.

FBI Director Kash Patel held a news conference with other prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday where he announced the two indictments. He called the arrests "extraordinary" and said there was a "co-ordinated takedown across 11 states".

"We're talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation," he said.

US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr, said all defendants are innocent until proven guilty, but warned: "Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out."

NBA games under scrutiny

Prosecutors said the first case involved players and associates who allegedly used information not available to the public to manipulate bets on major gambling platforms.

Nocella called it "one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalised".

• EXPLAINED: What we know about the arrests

Seven NBA games between February 2023 and March 2024 have been identified as part of the case. Rozier is said to have been involved in one between the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans, when he was playing for the Hornets.

Rozier is alleged to have told a friend that he would leave the game early due to injury. The friend and his associates then placed bets, or directed others to bet, "more than $200,000" that Rozier would underperform expectations in the game, prosecutors said.

He left the game after nine minutes, they said, which resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in betting profits for those involved.

During the game, Rozier played roughly nine minutes and scored just five points because of a sore right foot, according to the official NBA match report.

Before that game, he averaged 35 minutes of playing time and about 21 points per game.

"As the NBA season tips off, his career is already benched, not for injury but for integrity," New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

Rozier's lawyer James Trusty said in a statement that prosecutors "appear to be taking the word of spectacularly in-credible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case."

Trusty said he had been representing Rozier for more than a year and said prosecutors characterised Rozier as a subject, not a target, until they informed him FBI agents were arresting the player at a hotel on Thursday morning.

Former NBA player Damon Jones was also arrested as part of the investigation.

Jones is said to have been involved in two of the identified games - when the Los Angeles Lakers met the Milwaukee Bucks in February 2023, and a January 2024 game between the Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

Sports betting was outlawed in most of the US from 1992 until 2018, when the Supreme Court turned regulation of the practice over to the states.

Since the federal ban was struck down, sports betting has exploded with major sports leagues and media companies making deals with gambling firms to get in on the billion-dollar industry.

Rigged poker games and the mafia

The second indictment announced on Thursday involves 31 defendants alleged to have participated in a scheme to rig illegal poker games and steal millions of dollars.

The case involved 13 members and associates of the Bonanno, Genovese and Gambino crime families in New York.

Nocella said the targeted victims were lured to play games with former professional athletes, including Billups and Jones, in Las Vegas, Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons.

Victims were "fleeced" out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game, he said.

He said defendants used "very sophisticated technology" like altered off-the-shelf shuffling machines that could read the cards. Some of the defendants used special contact lenses and glasses to read pre-marked cards, and an X-ray table that could read cards when they were face-down.

"What [the victims] didn't know is that everybody else at the poker game - from the dealer to the players were in on the scam," Nocella said.

Tisch said when people refused to pay, the organised crime families used threats and intimidation to get people to hand over the money.

The charges include robbery, extortion, wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal gambling.

The conspiracy cheated victims out of $7m (£5.2m), with one losing $1.8 million, officials said.

"This is only the tip of the iceberg," Christopher Raia, the FBI assistant director of the New York field office, said, adding the FBI is working day and night to ensure members of mafia families "cannot continue to wreak havoc in our communities".

Michael Smuss, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland who resisted the Nazis, has died aged 99 in Israel.

He joined the ghetto uprising as a teenager in 1943, helping to make petrol bombs. Taken prisoner, he survived concentration camps and a death march before the end of World War II.

After the war, he became an artist and Holocaust educator. The embassies of Germany and Poland in Israel paid tribute to him on social media.

"He repeatedly risked his life during the Holocaust, fighting for survival and helping other prisoners in the Warsaw Ghetto – even after he was captured by the Nazis and deported to concentration camps," the German embassy stated on X.

The Polish embassy said Smuss "lectured youth on the history of Polish Jews and expressed his memories through art. His legacy endures."

The Polish embassy and the Holocaust Educational Trust, a UK charity, called Smuss the last surviving fighter of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. However, in 2018, Israeli officials and international media, including the BBC, reported that Simcha Rotem, who had just died aged 94, was the last surviving fighter of the uprising.

Last month, Germany's ambassador to Israel awarded Smuss with the German Federal Cross of Merit, in recognition of his contribution to Holocaust education and promoting dialogue between the two countries, the embassy said.

"Thousands of people, especially young people in Germany, have learned from his testimonies."

Smuss was born in 1926 in the Free City of Danzig, a city-state that is now Gdansk, Poland. He later moved to Lodz before being deported to the Warsaw Ghetto with his father.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews were crammed into the ghetto, where they faced poverty, starvation, disease and cold.

Since Smuss spoke German, he was taken outside to work in a factory repairing and repainting helmets, he recounted in a video recorded for the Sumter Museum in the US in 2022.

He joined the Jewish Resistance in the ghetto, and he and others started stealing as much paint thinner as possible to make petrol bombs.

"We filled up bottles which were put up on the roofs of all the houses close to the entrance of the ghetto with the expectation that once they're going to come, we'd be throwing them down", he said.

When the Nazis came to empty the camp on 19 April 1943, the uprising began. The resistance fought back with weapons they had exchanged for warm clothes from Italian soldiers who had been sent from Africa to the Russian front.

The resistance, which Smuss called "the greatest uprising in this war against Germany", lasted 28 days.

"It was very rough... no shower, no food. They were burning up, liquidating one house after another, full of smoke burning in your eyes," he said.

He described thousands of bodies lying in front of houses and "the smell of gas and decomposed bodies".

He, among some others, was taken prisoner on 29 April.

They were put on a train to the Treblinka extermination camp. As he witnessed people dying on the journey, "my heart became a stone", he said.

Along the way, the train was stopped by employers looking to retrieve workers that had been taken from their factories. Another German came looking for experienced workers, and Smuss offered himself and those he knew.

"When we left on the train to Treblinka, I was sure that my life was over," he told The Jerusalem Post earlier this year. "But when the train came to a halt, I felt with all of my being that on this day I was not going to die."

He was moved and endured forced labour at other camps, and finally a death march to Dachau, before his Nazi captors fled incoming American troops.

He told The Jerusalem Post that his father was killed trying to escape one camp, while his mother and sister, who had been able to stay in Lodz, survived.

Smuss initially returned to Poland, but then moved to the US, where he worked, studied and started a family.

After experiencing trauma symptoms, he moved to Israel in 1979 alone to seek help, where he took up art and educating others about the Holocaust.

He is survived by his wife.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said "a lot of countries" have offered to be part of an international security force for Gaza - a key part of President Donald Trump's peace plan - but added Israel would have to be comfortable with participants.

Speaking on a visit to Israel, Rubio said talks on forming the International Stabilization Force (ISF) were continuing and that it would come into effect "as soon as it possibly can".

It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be deployed without an understanding with Hamas.

He said the Israel-Hamas ceasefire had made "historic" progress since it began two weeks ago, but warned to expect "ups and downs and twists and turns".

"There is no plan B," he said. "This is the best plan. It's the only plan. And it's one that we think can succeed."

Rubio said conditions had to be created "so that never again will we see what happened on 7 October, so that you can actually be in a place [Gaza] that no longer has elements operating within it that are a threat to Israel or to their own people for that matter".

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.

At least 68,280 Palestinians have been killed by the Israel military campaign that followed, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the United Nations as reliable.

Rubio said Hamas will be disarmed, as required by Trump's plan. "If Hamas refuses to demilitarise, it'll be a violation of the agreement and that'll have to be enforced," he said.

"Hamas cannot govern and cannot be involved in governing the future of Gaza," he added.

Rubio's visit caps a week in which senior American officials, including Vice-President JD Vance, came to Israel. It's a sign that Washington is determined to make Trump's plan for Gaza succeed and is concerned that actions by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government might collapse it. In Israeli media, the effort has been described as "Bibi-sitting", a play with the prime minister's nickname.

In recent days, multiple reports have suggested the White House's frustration with the Israeli government, fuelled by the military's deadly response to an attack it blamed on Hamas in Gaza last weekend and the vote in the Israeli parliament towards the annexation of the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, while Vance was visiting.

The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported that American officials said they would "not tolerate any surprises from Israel that could jeopardise the ceasefire", and that they were expecting advance notice from Israel before any strikes in Gaza. "In practice," the report said, "the US [was] taking over certain security authorities from Israel".

In public, Netanyahu, whose coalition relies on the support of ultra-nationalist ministers, has rejected reports that Washington is making decisions on Israel's behalf, describing the country's relationship as a partnership.

The apparent pressure from the country's most important ally, at a time when Israel faces unprecedented isolation, risks derailing his strategy to frame the war in Gaza as a victory at home. This narrative will be essential in the campaign for the next parliamentary election, which should be held by October 2026.

Both Rubio and Vance tried to strike a positive tone in their public statements – both said they were optimistic the ceasefire would hold – while also acknowledging that the negotiations over the remaining points would be difficult and long.

Those issues include the scale of the Israeli withdrawal, the future governance of Gaza and the formation of the ISF, as well as the disarmament by Hamas, and they offered no indication of how those talks would proceed.

Rubio said there were "a lot of countries" that offered to take part in the ISF. "Obviously, as you put together this force, it'll have to be people that Israel's comfortable, or countries that Israel's comfortable with as well," he added, without elaborating.

This appeared to be a reference to Turkey, which has become a major player in the negotiations, amid reports Israel has vetoed the country's involvement.

The scope of the ISF's mission remains unclear, as countries appear to be concerned with the possibility that its forces might end up confronting Hamas fighters if there is no agreement with the group over the ISF deployment.

Seeing the peace plan through is "not going to be an easy ride", Rubio said. "There are going to be bumps along the road, but we have to make it work."

Bavarian police have seized millions of euros worth of forged art claiming to show works by Picasso, Rembrandt and Kahlo in an operation spanning Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Authorities in Bavaria said the main suspect is a 77-year-old German man who, along with 10 alleged accomplices, is facing charges of conspiracy and fraud.

Investigators first became suspicious when the septuagenarian ringleader attempted to sell two supposedly original paintings by Picasso on the art market.

He then wanted to sell De Staalmeesters, a famous oil painting by Dutch old master Rembrandt, for 120 million Swiss francs (£113m) - despite the original hanging in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (BLKA) said the forged De Staalmeesters - which is sometimes referred to as the Masters of the Clothmakers' Guild - was owned by an 84-year-old Swiss woman.

She is now being investigated by the Amberg public prosecutor's office, the BLKA and Swiss authorities after the forged piece was confiscated in Switzerland.

At the time, after being examined by an art expert, the police said: "It was, as suspected, a copy and not a lost masterpiece by Rembrandt van Rijn."

The painting was seized during a co-ordinated series of dawn raids across Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein on Wednesday 15 October.

During the searches, a large number of suspected art forgeries were found and seized, the BLKA said, along with "documents, records, mobile phones, storage media and cloud data".

• Rembrandt to Picasso: Five ways to spot a fake masterpiece
• How do you know if a Banksy painting is real?

Bavarian police said the main suspect attempted to sell a further 19 counterfeit works, purportedly by world-famous artists for between €400,000 (£349,000) and €14m (£12.2m).

They included copies of work by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo as well as Flemish old master Peter Paul Rubens, Italian sculptor Amedeo Modigliani and Spain's Joan Miró.

He was assisted by 74-year-old German man who "prepared expert reports specifically to confirm the authenticity of the artworks".

The BLKA said that he and the main suspect were arrested on the day of the raids before being conditionally released.

The police said that the investigation is in progress.

"Among other things, all confiscated paintings will be examined in detail by experts and appraisers in the coming weeks," police said.

Luiz Inácio da Silva has announced he will run for a fourth term as Brazil's president in the nation's elections in 2026.

The 79-year-old had indicated during his last election campaign that it would be his last - but stressed he did not feel his age in comments during a state visit to Indonesia on Thursday.

"I'm about to turn 80 years old, but you can be sure I have the same energy I had when I was 30. And I will run for a fourth term in Brazil," Lula told reporters.

The decision to run comes despite Lula suffering health problems in office after winning in the tightest run-off election in the South American nation's history.

Already Brazil's oldest president when inaugurated, in December last year he underwent surgery for a brain bleed caused by a blow to the head he sustained in a fall in the presidential palace.

The left-wing leader beat then-incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by 51% to 49% in 2022.

The right-wing firebrand is unlikely to be able to challenge Lula again, as he is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a military coup aimed at keeping him in power after he lost the last election.

Bolsonaro's incarceration has drawn the ire of US President Donald Trump, prompting him to impose a 50% tariff on imports of Brazilian goods.

However, the two described having a "friendly" call earlier in October as Lula seeks to reduce those levies, and are expected to meet on Sunday.

Lula, who turns 80 on Monday, has himself been imprisoned - for 18 months on corruption charges - but was freed in 2018 after the case was overturned.

He has hinted at a possible fourth run for president since returning to office, but had so far stopped short of a formal announcement.

Brazil's constitution limits presidents to two consecutive terms. Lula previously served a two-term stint between 2003 and 2011.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the US had carried out another strike against a ship alleged to belong to drug traffickers.

The operation took place in the Caribbean Sea, against a group Hegseth identified as the Tren de Aragua criminal organisation.

Hegseth said "six male narco-terrorists" were on board and killed.

The US has carried out a series of strikes on ships in the region, in what President Donald Trump has described as an effort to curtail drug trafficking.

Hegseth posted a video on X showing the operation. The video begins by showing a boat in a crosshairs, before it explodes into a cloud of smoke.

This is the tenth strike the Trump administration has carried out against alleged drug traffickers since early September. Most have taken place off of South America, in the Caribbean, but on 21 and 22 October it carried out strikes in the Pacific Ocean.

Members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have raised concerns about the legality of the strikes and the president's authority to order them.

Trump said he has the legal authority to order the strikes, and has designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organisation.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has said he will pause his province's anti-tariff advertisement campaign in the US, after it prompted President Donald Trump to terminate trade talks.

Ford said he made the decision after speaking to Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday, adding that the TV spot will be paused on Monday "so that trade talks can resume".

It will still run over the weekend on US networks, he said, including during the Major League Baseball World Series games.

Carney told reporters earlier on Friday that Canada is prepared to resume trade talks with the US "when the Americans are ready".

Trump criticised the advert late on Thursday night in a Truth Social post, calling it "FAKE" and "egregious". He said trade talks were "HEREBY TERMINATED".

The advert, which was sponsored by the Ontario government, quotes former US President Ronald Reagan, a Republican and icon of US conservatism, saying tariffs "hurt every American".

The video takes excerpts from a 1987 national radio address by Reagan that focused on foreign trade.

Trump's termination of trade talks came after the Ronald Reagan Foundation, which is charged with preserving Reagan's legacy, released a statement saying the advert had used "selective" audio and video of the former president's remarks.

It accused the advert of misrepresenting Reagan's address, and said the Ontario government had not sought permission to use it.

On Friday, Ford said the intention of the advert was "to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build" and the impact of tariffs.

"We've achieved our goal, having reached US audiences at the highest levels," Ford said.

Earlier in the day, the Ontario premier shared the full 1987 radio address on free and fair trade by Reagan, saying that the former president knew Canada and the US "were stronger together".

The US has imposed a 35% levy on all Canadian goods - though most are exempt under an existing free trade agreement. It has also slapped sector-specific levies on Canadian goods include a 50% levy on metals and 25% on automobiles.

Those sector-specific tariffs have especially hurt Ontario, where the bulk of Canada's automanufacturing industry is based.

Since his election earlier this year, Prime Minister Carney has attempted to strike a deal that would ease the tariffs. Three-quarters of Canadian exports are sold to the US, making its economy particularly vulnerable.

More than 20 nations supporting Ukraine have pledged to "take Russian oil and gas off the global market" as part of efforts to pressure President Vladimir Putin to end the war.

"We're choking off funding for Russia's war machine," said UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, after hosting a summit of the "coalition of the willing" in London.

The UK and US have in recent days sanctioned Russia's two biggest oil companies, while the EU targeted Moscow's liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was also in London, said "pressure" on Russia was the only way to stop the fighting. However, no long-range missile deliveries to Ukraine were announced at the summit.

Zelensky has long argued that US-made Tomahawks and European missiles would help make the war costs heavier for Moscow by hitting key military targets - including oil refineries and weapons depots - deep inside Russia.

But during last week's talks in Washington, US President Donald Trump indicated to Zelensky that he was not ready to supply Tomahawks.

On Thursday, President Putin warned that if "such weapons are used to strike Russian Federation territory the response will be... overwhelming".

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Speaking at a joint press conference after the London summit, Starmer said Putin was "not serious about peace", and therefore Ukraine's allies agreed a "clear plan for the rest of the year" on supporting Ukraine.

The UK prime minister said this also included targeting Russia's sovereign assets to "unlock billions to help finance Ukraine's defence". He gave no further details.

On Thursday, EU leaders agreed to help support Ukraine's "financial needs" for the next two years - but stopped short of agreeing to use frozen Russian assets worth €140bn (£122bn).

Asked about a so-called "reparations loan" for Ukraine funded by the Russian assets, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she hoped a decision would be made by Christmas Eve

In London, the "coalition of the willing" also pledged to strengthen Ukraine's air defences" amid almost daily Russian air assaults on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure.

Zelensky warned that Russia "wants to make the winter cold a tool of torment", adding that "they want to break us".

Further support for Ukraine's energy infrastructure was among the issues discussed at the summit - however, no specific announcements were made.

Ukraine and its western allies have publicly agreed with President Trump's proposal that the fighting should be immediately frozen along the vast front line for negotiations to begin.

Russia has rejected this idea, repeating demands that Kyiv and its allies describe as de facto capitulation by Ukraine.

Georgia's former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has appeared in court charged with large-scale money laundering - a shocking turnaround for one of the most loyal allies of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, widely seen as Georgia's de facto leader.

Prosecutors said when his home was raided by investigators earlier this month they discovered $6.5m (£4.9m) in cash.

Garibashvili, 43, twice served as prime minister during the Ivanishvili years – first from 2013-15 and then again from 2021 until January last year.

Now he has pleaded guilty to corruption charges that could carry a 12-year jail term and he has been granted bail of one million Georgian lari ($368,000; £277,000).

The charges against the former prime minister are the latest in a string of detentions of ex-government officials.

But the case against Garibashvili is the first prosecution of a senior member of Georgia's governing elite, and it comes amid the ruling party's authoritarian pivot away from the West.

While serving first as defence minister and then as prime minister between 2019 and 2024, he is alleged to have "secretly and covertly engaged in various types of business activities and received a particularly large amount of income of illegal origin".

He is accused of laundering this income and falsely declaring money as gifts from family members.

His lawyer, Amiran Giguashvili, confirmed his client was working with authorities.

"The court took into account that Mr Irakli agrees to the charges, does not hide from the investigation and co-operates," he told the BBC.

The corruption case marks a dramatic fall for a politician who worked in Ivanishvili's companies before entering politics in 2011 as part of the billionaire's Georgian Dream party, which has been in power since 2012.

In February 2014, he signed Georgia's Association Agreement with the European Union.

However, in recent years he has led Georgia's shift away from the EU. He developed close ties with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and said Nato's enlargement was one of the main reasons for the war in Ukraine.

According to Georgian political analyst Ghia Nodia, the former prime minister's downfall reflects Bidzina Ivanishvili's mistrust of his former political appointees.

"Ivanishvili is really the driver, he decided for some reason that there is some kind of treason in his team," Nodia said.

"At this point, he trusts [current PM Irakli] Kobakhidze but stopped trusting his closest lieutenant, not just Garibashvili, but also [ex-security chief] Liluashvili and others."

Meanwhile, Georgia's political turmoil continues, a year after Georgian Dream won contested parliamentary elections which the then president refused to recognise.

There have been daily protests since the government's announcement in November 2024 that it would halt membership talks with the EU, and most opposition leaders are now in jail.

New legislations have targeted civil society, pro-opposition media, and journalists and activists have been imprisoned.

"Ivanishvili seems like [he's] under siege," says Ghia Nodia. "He believes these crazy deep state conspiracies that the West wants to destroy him through these continuous protests in Georgia."

New York Attorney General Letitia James has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.

James appeared in court in US District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, on Friday during a brief hearing where her legal team asked for a speedy trial.

Speaking outside of the courthouse after the arraignment, James accused Trump of using the justice system as a "vehicle of retribution" against her and other critics.

She previously brought brought charges against others he considers political enemies.

"There's no fear today," she said, as supporters outside cheered. On Friday, a judge set a trial date of 26 January.

The federal government alleges James bought a three-bedroom home in Norfolk using a mortgage loan that required her to use the property as her secondary residence, and did not allow for shared ownership or "timesharing" of the home.

The indictment claims the property "was not occupied or used" by James as a secondary residence, but instead was "used as a rental investment property" and was being rented to a family of three.

The "misrepresentation" allowed James to obtain favourable loan terms that would not have been available for an investment property, prosecutors claim.

Sources have told US media that James bought the home for her great-niece in 2020 and that the relative never paid rent for the home.

James' legal team also said in court filings this week that they plan to challenge the appointment of US attorney Lindsey Halligan to James' case.

Trump appointed Ms Halligan, his former personal attorney, to oversee the case after another US prosecutor, Erik Siebert, resigned. Siebert reportedly was ousted after he told the justice department he had not found sufficient evidence to charge James.

James' attorneys also are filing a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that it is "vindictive".

She is one of several Trump critics who are under investigation or have faced criminal charges in recent weeks. The justice department charged Trump's former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey with making false statements to Congress.

Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, is charged with sending and wilfully retaining national defence information.

Trump last month called on his social media site Truth Social for Attorney General Pam Bondi, to bring charges against his political opponents.

"We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility," he wrote.

James brought a civil fraud case against Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, in 2022. Trump was later found liable of falsifying records to secure better loan deals, leading to a $500m (£376m) fine.

The penalty was thrown out by an appeals court, which called the fine excessive, though it upheld that Trump was liable for fraud.