Three people - including two police officers - have been killed in an explosion in Moscow, Russian authorities have said.

Two traffic police officers saw a "suspicious individual" near a police car on the city's Yeletskaya Street, and when they approached the suspect to detain him, an explosive device was detonated, Russia's Investigative Committee has said.

The two police officers died from their injuries, along with another individual who was standing nearby.

The attack comes two days after a senior Russian general was killed in a car bombing in the capital on Monday.

Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov died after an explosive device - which had been planted under a car - was detonated.

Investigate Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement on Telegram that a criminal case was being investigated in Moscow "regarding an attempt on the lives of traffic police officers".

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

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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has given details of an updated peace plan that offers Russia the potential withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the east that Moscow has demanded.

Giving details of the 20-point plan agreed by US and Ukrainian negotiators in Florida at the weekend, Zelensky said the Russians would give their response once the Americans had spoken to them.

Describing the plan as "the main framework for ending the war" Zelensky said it proposed security guarantees from the US, Nato and Europeans for a co-ordinated military response if Russia invaded Ukraine again.

On the key question of Ukraine's eastern Donbas, Zelensky said a "free economic zone" was a potential option.

The 20-point plan is seen as an update of an original 28-point document, agreed by US envoy Steve Witkoff with the Russians several weeks ago, which was widely seen as heavily geared towards the Kremlin's demands.

The Russians have insisted that Ukraine pulls out of almost a quarter of its own territory in the eastern Donetsk region in return for a peace deal. The rest is already under Russian occupation.

Zelensky told journalists that as Ukraine was against withdrawal, US negotiators were looking to establish a demilitarised zone or a free economic zone.

He said: "There are two options: either the war continues, or something will have to be decided regarding all potential economic zones."

He emphasised that an economic zone would also have to be set up around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant currently occupied by Russia, and that Russian troops would have to pull out of four other Ukrainian regions - Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv.

The US Department of Justice released its latest - and largest - tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files on Tuesday.

The 11,000-plus documents continue a stream of released information that began on Friday, the deadline mandated in a new law that required the department to publicly release all of its investigative files into the deceased paedophile and financier.

Many of the documents released on Tuesday are redacted with names and information blacked out, including names of people who the FBI appears to cite as possible co-conspirators in the Epstein case.

The justice department is facing criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle over the amount of redactions, which the law specifically states can only be done to protect the identity of victims or active criminal investigations.

President Donald Trump's name appeared more in these new documents than in previous releases. Many were media clippings that mention him, but one notable email from a federal prosecutor indicated Trump flew on Epstein's jet.

The justice department said some files "contain untrue and sensationalist claims" about Trump.

Being mentioned in the Epstein files does not indicate wrongdoing. BBC has requested comment from individuals named in our reporting.

Email exchange between 'A' and Ghislaine Maxwell about 'girls'

Of the thousands of pages included in this latest release, one 2001 email sent by a person identified as "A" stands out.

The message, to Epstein's accomplice and close associate Ghislaine Maxwell, says that "A" is at "Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family".

"A" then asks Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for sex trafficking of minors and other offences: "Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?"

In another email sent later that day, Maxwell writes back: "So sorry to dissapoint you, however the truth must be told. I have only been able to find appropriate friends."

The "A" email was sent from the address abx17@dial.pipex.com, with the sender's name shown as "The Invisible Man".

An image from a prior Epstein files release showed a different, but similar email - aace@dial.pipex.com - listed in Epstein's phone book under a contact titled "Duke of York".

Another exchange in the new files between Maxwell and "The Invisible Man" discusses a trip to Peru.

In October, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost use of his Duke of York title following scrutiny over his links with Epstein.

He has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, and said he did not "see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to his [Epstein's] arrest and conviction".

The BBC has contacted Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's team for a response.

FBI email lists out 10 alleged co-conspirators to Epstein

Among the documents released are emails appearing to be sent between FBI personnel in 2019 that mention 10 possible "co-conspirators" of Epstein.

The emails said six of the 10 co-conspirators had been served with subpoenas. This included three in Florida, one in Boston, one in New York City, and one in Connecticut.

Four subpoenas were yet to be served when the emails were sent, including to one "wealthy businessman in Ohio".

Another email sent to FBI New York gives an update on the co-conspirators. This time it appears to mention multiple names. Most are redacted from the file.

Two names were not redacted – (Ghislaine) Maxwell and Wexner.

An email says, "I do not know about Ohio contacting Wexner".

The email is presumably referring to Former Victoria's Secret CEO Les Wexner, who had a public friendship with Epstein. In 2019, Wexner said he was "embarrassed" by his ties to the financier.

Lawyers for Wexner told BBC News that "the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the Epstein investigation stated at the time that Mr. Wexner was neither a co-conspirator nor target".

"Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again," they said.

Possible co-conspirators in Epstein's crimes are a major focus for his victims, and for several lawmakers who have demanded more transparency from the DOJ.

"There's 10 co-conspirators potentially that we knew nothing about that the DOJ had been investigating," Democrat Congressman Suhas Subramanyam told BBC News on Tuesday.

Subramanyam, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, added that he was also "concerned" over the level of redactions that protect names of lawyers and people who are not victims. Lawmakers in both parties have said they are examining legal options to force more transparency.

The law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump states names and information that might be embarrassing or cause "reputational harm" are not allowed to be redacted and specifically asks the justice department for internal communications and memos detailing who was investigated and decisions concerning "to charge, not charge, investigate, or decline to investigate Epstein or his associates".

Justice Department says Epstein letter to Larry Nassar is a fake

A letter included in the released batch of documents got a lot of attention online. But, according to the justice department, it is fake.

The handwritten letter and envelope at first appeared to show Epstein writing to Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics doctor who is serving decades in prison for sexually abusing young female athletes.

"As you know by now I have taken the 'short route' home. Good luck!" the faux letter states. "We shared one thing…our love & caring for young ladies and the hope they'd reach their full potential."

The writer signs it, "Life is unfair, Yours, J. Epstein."

The letter had been deemed undeliverable, and was sent back to a Manhattan jail where Epstein was detained before his death.

The FBI was alerted to the returned letter and requested an analysis of it. That request was also included in the releases batch of documents.

The justice department on Tuesday called the letter a fake, noting several irregularities with the note and the envelope that held it.

"The writing does not appear to match Jeffrey Epstein's," the justice department wrote on X.

"The return address did not list the jail where Epstein was held and did not include his inmate number, which is required for outgoing mail," they added.

Officials pointed out the envelope bore a postmark from northern Virginia - noting that Epstein was detained in New York. It was also postmarked on 13 August 2019, three days after Epstein died.

Even before the justice department's announcement of it being fake, the documents raised immediate questions.

The return sender was listed as "J. Epstein" at "Manhattan Correctional" - but the correct name for the now-shuttered jail was "Metropolitan Correctional Center".

The documents released on Tuesday also show the analysis request by the FBI.

A FBI laboratory request stated that in August 2019, a sender listed as "J. Epstein" at "Manhattan Correctional" tried to send a letter to "Larry Nassar at 9300 S. Wilmot Road, Tucson, Arizona, 85756", the address of a federal prison.

Nassar is currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

Trump's travels aboard Epstein's private jet

Trump's name appears more in these files than in other batches of documents released by the justice department.

Notably, in a January 2020 email, a federal prosecutor in New York wrote that newly received flight records "reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)".

The recipient of the email was redacted.

Trump was listed as a passenger on "at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996", and Ghislaine Maxwell was present on at least four of those flights, the prosecutor wrote. Trump was also "listed as having traveled with, among others and at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany, and his son Eric".

Trump was previously married to Marla Maples, Tiffany's mother, from 1993 to 1999.

The prosecutor also wrote that "on one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers; on another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then-20-year-old", with the third passenger's name redacted.

"On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case."

The timing of the trips coincide with years in which federal prosecutors were examining Maxwell's conduct and travels as part of the criminal case they brought against her. She was ultimately found guilty of conspiring with Epstein to recruit and sexually abuse minors.

But throughout the files released on Tuesday, many of the other mentions of Trump's name are simply in press clippings mentioning him, his campaigns, and other news moments.

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in regards to Epstein.

In a statement accompanying Tuesday's release, the Department of Justice said the new files "contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election".

"To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already," the justice department said.

Fake video of Epstein included

Among one of the odder entries in Tuesday's document drop was a fake video showing an Epstein-like figure in a prison cell, which raised questions of how it had appeared in the department's official files.

Other documents showed that a man from Florida sent an email to federal investigators in March 2021 with a link to the video. He asked if it was real, but it is not.

BBC Verify used a reverse image search to find a copy of the video had been uploaded to YouTube in October 2020. The user who posted it said the clip had been created using 3D graphics.

According to a 2023 report by the Bureau of Prisons, no video recording from inside Epstein's cell on the day of his death exists.

The fake video's inclusion in this release gives a glimpse of the questions that federal authorities have received from the general public, many of whom, having heard conspiracy theories or harboured doubts for years, want answers about Epstein's life and death.

Shayan Sardarizadeh contributed to this report.

The US State Department said it would deny visas to five people, including a former EU commissioner, for seeking to "coerce" American social media platforms into suppressing viewpoints they oppose.

"These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states - in each case targeting American speakers and American companies," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Thierry Breton, the former top tech regulator at the European Commission, suggested that a "witch hunt" was taking place.

Breton was described by the State Department as the "mastermind" of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes content moderation on social media companies.

However, it has angered some US conservatives who see it as seeking to censor right-wing opinions. Brussels denies this.

Breton has clashed with Elon Musk, the world's richest man and owner of X, over obligations to follow EU rules.

The European Commission recently fined X €120m (£105m) over its blue tick badges - the first fine under the DSA. It said the platform's blue tick system was "deceptive" because the firm was not "meaningfully verifying users".

In response, Musk's site blocked the Commission from making adverts on its platform.

Reacting to the visa ban, Breton posted on X: "To our American friends: Censorship isn't where you think it is."

Clare Melford, who leads the UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was also listed.

US Undersecretary of State Sarah B Rogers accused the GDI of using US taxpayer money "to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press".

A GDI spokesperson told the BBC that "the visa sanctions announced today are an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship".

"The Trump Administration is, once again, using the full weight of the federal government to intimidate, censor, and silence voices they disagree with. Their actions today are immoral, unlawful, and un-American."

Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that fights online hate and misinformation, was also handed a ban.

Rogers called Mr Ahmed a "key collaborator with the Biden Administration's effort to weaponize the government against US citizens".

Also subject to bans were Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, a German organisation that the State Department said helped enforce the DSA.

The BBC has reached out to the CCDH and HateAid for comment.

Rubio said that steps had been taken to impose visa restrictions on "agents of the global censorship-industrial complex who, as a result, will be generally barred from entering the United States".

"President Trump has been clear that his America First foreign policy rejects violations of American sovereignty. Extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech is no exception," he added.

Multiple people are reported to be injured following an explosion and fire at a nursing home in Bristol, Pennsylvania, officials say.

Emergency crews were called to the Silver Lake Nursing Home at about 14:00 local time (19:00GMT) on Tuesday. Firefighters believe some people may still be trapped inside the building.

An emergency management official told CBS, the BBC's US partner, that the fire remains active and part of the structure has collapsed. It's not clear how many people are injured, and the cause of explosion is still under investigation.

Images and videos posted on social platforms by local media outlets show a partially collapsed building with massive flames billowing out of it.

Local utility provider PECO said its crews had responded to reports of a gas odour at the facility in Bristol Township in the afternoon.

While they were on site, an explosion occurred, a company spokesperson said. Natural gas and electric service to the building were subsequently shut off.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro offered his prayers for the community and said he was in contact with local officials and first responders on the scene.

Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick urged people to avoid the area.

"My team and I are in direct communication with local officials and emergency responders, and we are closely monitoring developments as authorities work to secure the scene," he wrote on X.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has given details of an updated peace plan that offers Russia the potential withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the east that Moscow has demanded.

Giving details of the 20-point plan agreed by US and Ukrainian negotiators in Florida at the weekend, Zelensky said the Russians would give their response once the Americans had spoken to them.

Describing the plan as "the main framework for ending the war" Zelensky said it proposed security guarantees from the US, Nato and Europeans for a co-ordinated military response if Russia invaded Ukraine again.

On the key question of Ukraine's eastern Donbas, Zelensky said a "free economic zone" was a potential option.

The 20-point plan is seen as an update of an original 28-point document, agreed by US envoy Steve Witkoff with the Russians several weeks ago, which was widely seen as heavily geared towards the Kremlin's demands.

The Russians have insisted that Ukraine pulls out of almost a quarter of its own territory in the eastern Donetsk region in return for a peace deal. The rest is already under Russian occupation.

Zelensky told journalists that as Ukraine was against withdrawal, US negotiators were looking to establish a demilitarised zone or a free economic zone.

He said: "There are two options: either the war continues, or something will have to be decided regarding all potential economic zones."

He emphasised that an economic zone would also have to be set up around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant currently occupied by Russia, and that Russian troops would have to pull out of four other Ukrainian regions - Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv.

Venezuela has accused the United States of the "greatest extortion" at an emergency session of the UN Security Council in New York.

Washington's seizure of two Venezuelan oil tankers was "worse than piracy," the Venezuelan ambassador to the UN said.

The emergency meeting of the Security Council was called to discuss the seizure of the tankers, which took place off the coast of Venezuela earlier this month.

The US has also said it was pursuing a third Venezuelan oil tanker.

President Trump has accused Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro of leading a drugs cartel and said gangs had operated with impunity for too long.

On 16 December, Trump ordered a naval blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. The US president has said the US will keep or sell the crude oil contained on tankers it has seized, as well as the vessels themselves.

The US has deployed 15,000 troops and a range of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers, and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.

The stated aim of the deployment - the largest to the region since the US invaded Panama in 1989 - is to stop the flow of fentanyl and cocaine to the US.

The US has also targeted more than 20 vessels in the Pacific and the Caribbean in recent months, killing at least 90 people, as part of President Trump's campaign against gangs he accuses of transporting drugs in the region.

Some experts say the strikes could violate laws governing armed conflict.

Venezuela's envoy to the UN said the US was subjecting his country to the "greatest extortion" in its history.

Speaking at the UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Samuel Moncada said "we are in the presence of a power that acts outside of international law, demanding that Venezuelans vacate our country and hand it over."

Regarding the US seizure of Venezuelan oil, he added: "We are talking about pillaging, looting and recolonisation of Venezuela.

"The government of the United States does not have jurisdiction in the Caribbean."

Referring to the Venezuelan oil industry, he said: "What does that have to do with drugs?"

In response, the US Ambassador to the UN, Michael Waltz, told the Security Council the US does not recognise Mr Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.

"Maduro's ability to sell Venezuela's oil enables his fraudulent claims to power and his narco-terrorist activities," Mr Waltz said.

On a visit to a trade fair in Caracas, President Maduro said "the Security Council is giving overwhelming support to Venezuela."

Russia and China accused the US of bullying and aggression.

The US was "illegally destroying" civilian vessels in the Caribbean Sea, the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the UN meeting.

He warned that other countries could be next.

The US actions against Venezuelan vessels, he said, were "a template for future acts of force against Latin American states."

Meanwhile, China's envoy to the UN, Sun Lei, called on the US to "immediately halt relevant actions and avoid further escalation of tensions."

Fifty-two residents of a Ukrainian village have been taken to Russia by invading forces in a cross-border raid on the village of Hrabovske, authorities in Kyiv say. Thirteen Ukrainian soldiers were also captured in the border village in the northeastern Sumy region.

The attack occurred at night on Saturday, when about 100 Russian troops attacked the village, said Viktor Trehubov, a spokesman for Ukraine's military Joint Forces Task Force.

The civilians were first rounded up in a church and then taken across the border to Russia, he told the BBC.

It was unusual for invading forces to take civilians to Russia before establishing a firm presence in occupied territory, he added.

Russia has so far not commented on the fate of civilians from Hrabovske, but reports from Ukraine indicate they may have been taken to Belgorod, a major regional centre about 50 miles (80 km) inside Russia.

"My friends' mother has been taken there. There is no way of contacting her even though they tried," said Volodymyr Bitsak, a member of the Sumy regional council. "As far as I know, they've been taken to the city of Belgorod and are being held at an unknown location."

Lt-Col Trehubov told the BBC on Tuesday evening that fighting was still ongoing in the southern part of Hrabovske, but Deep State, a Ukrainian website monitoring the battlefield situation, said later that the village had been captured by Russian forces.

The defence ministry in Moscow said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces had been "hit" at Hrabovske and several other villages in Sumy region.

Meanwhile, in the eastern region of Donetsk, the Ukrainian military said it had withdrawn troops from the embattled town of Siversk "to preserve the lives of our soldiers".

Russia's capture of the town brings its forces closer to the Donetsk "fortress belt cities" of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, about 35km (21 miles) to the west.

Ukrainian authorities have been working to move civilians away from parts of the Sumy region bordering Russia. But Viktor Babych, a deputy head of the Sumy regional administration, says 56% of residents in border areas are refusing to be leave, and 32,000 civilians including 604 children remain there.

Most of the 52 civilians captured in the cross-border raid on Hrabovske were elderly people who had refused official evacuation orders.

"It was a smash and grab," said Lt-Col Trehubov. "They quickly rounded everyone up and quickly removed them. This had never happened before. We had never had such raids before."

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said children had been captured too.

"I'm surprised there were children. I'm simply surprised that parents treated their children like that," Zelensky told reporters. "I think they simply did not expect to be taken [to Russia] by Russian military."

The vast majority of civilians had already been evacuated from the village, whose pre-war population is reported to be about 700 people.

Ukraine's ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets says the civilians "were held incommunicado and in improper conditions" by Russian troops invading Hrabovske before being taken out of Ukraine.

"Such actions are a serious violation of international humanitarian law. They violate the laws and customs of war by unlawfully detaining and forcefully deporting civilians," he says.

Multiple people are reported to be injured following an explosion and fire at a nursing home in Bristol, Pennsylvania, officials say.

Emergency crews were called to the Silver Lake Nursing Home at about 14:00 local time (19:00GMT) on Tuesday. Firefighters believe some people may still be trapped inside the building.

An emergency management official told CBS, the BBC's US partner, that the fire remains active and part of the structure has collapsed. It's not clear how many people are injured, and the cause of explosion is still under investigation.

Images and videos posted on social platforms by local media outlets show a partially collapsed building with massive flames billowing out of it.

Local utility provider PECO said its crews had responded to reports of a gas odour at the facility in Bristol Township in the afternoon.

While they were on site, an explosion occurred, a company spokesperson said. Natural gas and electric service to the building were subsequently shut off.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro offered his prayers for the community and said he was in contact with local officials and first responders on the scene.

Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick urged people to avoid the area.

"My team and I are in direct communication with local officials and emergency responders, and we are closely monitoring developments as authorities work to secure the scene," he wrote on X.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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Christmas is a time when families get together if they can - and, until this year, the Murdochs were no different. With members of the media dynasty spread across the globe, full family gatherings were rare, although in 2008, according to biographer Michael Wolff, the Murdochs spent the festive season together on a flotilla of private yachts.

But more often in recent years it was Rupert - for many decades the most influential media titan in the world - and his daughter Elisabeth who would make time for each other.

She would certainly have room this year to host her father at the luxurious home she has renovated on the edge of the Cotswolds. But after a bruising closed-court battle in Nevada that became public and an eventual agreement that shut Elisabeth and two of her siblings out of the family firm for good, relations are likely still too strained for even the Murdoch family peacemaker to suggest communal tree-decorating.

Rupert's eldest child by his second wife, Elisabeth is the co-founder and executive chairman of the production company, Sister, which is behind hit television series, including Black Doves, The Split and This is Going To Hurt. In my experience, she is generous, intelligent and hard-working.

Friends are fiercely loyal and protective of her privacy. Nobody I have spoken to has a bad word to say about her. Many acknowledge, though, that it has been an incredibly testing year on the family front - even if Elisabeth, her younger brother, James, and elder half-sister, Prudence, are each around a billion dollars richer.

Money doesn't compensate for a father who, in his mid-90s, decided to rip his family apart because he believed it was in the interests of his business. The Murdochs have never been a traditional family - one reason why their story is said to have inspired the power struggles and backstabbing in the acclaimed TV drama, Succession. But this time, the schism feels more permanent. And as one person put it to me, the TV show concluded too early by killing off Logan Roy: there was more drama to come.

'James and Rupert will never patch up differences'

James Murdoch's relationship with his father and older brother Lachlan appears irreconcilable. Earlier this year, he described his dad as a "misogynist" in an interview in US magazine The Atlantic, and referred to some of Rupert's behaviour in the courtroom fight as "twisted".

He is known to feel betrayed and angered by Rupert's decision to force him, Elisabeth and Prudence formally to cut ties with Fox Corp and News Corp. Driven by fears over the more liberal direction they might want the companies to take after his death, the media mogul tried to change the terms of a trust that gave his four oldest children equal control when he dies.

Lachlan, who Rupert had already chosen to run the business, is now - definitively - the only one who will take the reins after his father's demise.

Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch actually lost the first round of their court fight. The trust had been set up in 1999, when Rupert divorced Anna, the mother of Lachlan, Elisabeth and James.

The judge ruled that changing it was in bad faith. But behind the scenes, the warring sides eventually came to an agreement. James, Elisabeth and Prudence agreed to sell their shares. They have accepted terms that include not being allowed to buy any equity in the family company in future.

"It's a sad ending," Claire Atkinson, whose biography of Rupert Murdoch will come out next year, told us on The Media Show.

"These kids worked in the business, they grew up in the business, and the press release said, 'You can't buy shares in this company,' and effectively said, 'Don't let the door hit you on the way out.'"

She also told me: "This break is extremely permanent. It feels like James and Rupert will never patch up their differences."

Lachlan Murdoch has been quoted as saying that the resolution is "good news for investors" and "gives us clarity about our strategy going forward".

Ironically, his successful leadership of Fox Corp, where he's been CEO since 2019 (he became chairman of Fox and also News Corp in 2023 when his father became chairman emeritus), made the deal more costly.

Fox Corp has seen its share price double under Lachlan and the Trump presidency has brought a ratings bonanza. It raised the amount he had to pay his siblings to get them out - a presumably unwelcome side effect.

Despite the payout, Atkinson says, "There is a fracture in the company and a fracture in the family."

So where do the Murdochs go from here, privately and corporately?

Court battles, rifts and an ageing patriarch

Elisabeth and her half-sister Prudence are said to be concentrating on moving on.

Their father turned 94 in March, with the court battle in full swing. The sisters are mindful that he won't be around forever and I am told they are hoping at some point to repair the rift.

However much they have felt betrayed by him (and there is no doubt, they have felt it, very painfully), there's an understanding of the dwindling number of years he has left.

But Christmas may still be too soon for reconciliation. Lachlan hosted his annual party for the Australian elite at his harbour-side Sydney home earlier this month. Fox Corp may operate out of the US, but he is said to prefer the laid-back nature of Australian life, even if the trade-off is business calls in the middle of the night because of the time difference, as well as a lot of flights.

Atkinson says he is popular and well-liked within the business. "The difficulty that Lachlan has is that he's been in charge for years, but everybody is always going to project that every decision is Rupert's. He's never going to want to say, 'Hey, that's me,' and so I think it's a little hard to come out from Dad's shadow."

At the same time, Rodney Benson, professor of media, culture, and communication at New York University, says that while Rupert remains a presence in the company "what's really unique about Lachlan's approach, or what will be unique about his approach, won't fully emerge".

Lachlan's 'business over politics' strategy

Fox News is the financial cash cow, which may explain Rupert Murdoch's concerns that his children might have wanted to change its political affiliations.

Under Lachlan, there's been a successful strategy to expand into digital and streaming, most notably the ad-supported video-on-demand service, Tubi.

In September, US President Donald Trump said Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch were expected to be part of a group of investors trying to buy TikTok in the US. On Thursday, TikTok parent company ByteDance announced to staff that it had signed an agreement to sell a portion of TikTok to a group of mostly US based investors. Lachlan and Rupert were not named as part of the deal.

Presenting the Fox Corporation's results for July to September, Lachlan said Tubi had achieved rapid revenue growth and growth in view time, confirming its position as the top premium advertising-based video-on-demand platform in the US.

"And I'm happy to say Tubi reached profitability this past quarter," he added. "It's a great milestone."

He also said Fox News had maintained strong ratings throughout the quarter, cementing its status as the most-watched cable network in prime time, and leading to the highest advertising revenue for July-September quarter in Fox's history.

Rupert Murdoch's 70-year career saw him as "both an interventionist editor-in-chief figure and a political kingmaker", according to Paddy Manning, an investigative journalist who wrote The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch. But he adds, "Lachlan is less of the journalist and powerbroker than his father, and more of a businessman.

"If you look at the signature deals that Lachlan has made over his career, they have not been designed to increase his political influence. From digital real estate to sports betting to commercial radio to Tubi, Lachlan's investment decisions are focused on the bottom line, not burnishing his political credentials."

But Prof Benson suggests the significant debt the Murdoch businesses have taken on as part of the settlement with Lachlan's siblings increases pressure to make profit, and therefore to pursue "politically sensationalistic… outrage journalism".

"The proven way to be profitable in cable/streaming news is not by becoming more centrist and civil, it's by becoming more extreme, more polarising, and more willing to stir outrage," he says.

Rupert has had a hotline to major political figures for decades. In September he was on President Trump's guestlist for the state banquet at Windsor Castle. I'm told he spent nearly two weeks in London and was in the News UK office most days.

While Lachlan now runs the company, his father is still very much involved. Rupert's been described to me, at 94, as still "the sharpest person in the room" and a "phenomenon who loves papers and has ink in his veins". His voice may be a little softer, but he is mentally as strong and influential as ever, I'm told.

At one point the editor of the Times introduced Rupert to a slightly startled young journalist on the newsdesk and asked him to show the boss the paper's recently launched Live app and what it showed around reader engagement on specific stories.

Rupert also spoke to Fraser Nelson, the former Spectator editor now Times columnist, who usually sits at the open plan table in the office. They discussed the company's pivot to video and the work Nelson had been trialling around short form video. Rupert also wanted to talk to his paper's new star about whether Nigel Farage would end up in government.

A family 'deeply divided'

Three months on from the family trust dispute settlement, Mr Manning claims that the Murdochs are "deeply divided".

"While Lachlan works closely with his father, I understand he remains estranged from his elder siblings," he alleges.

Rupert Murdoch and his children Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence were all approached for comment.

Presciently, Anna Murdoch - Lachlan, James and Elisabeth's mother - predicted much of the fallout back in the 1980s.

In her novel Family Business, Anna, a journalist and author, wrote about the rise of a fictional newspaper dynasty and explored sibling rivalry, jealousy and how parental power can negatively impact family relationships. The plot of the book, published while her children were in their teens, follows how a newspaper owner's children are shaped by a parent who turns them into competitors in a power struggle.

A decade after it was published - by which time the pair had divorced and Rupert had married third wife Wendy Deng - Anna gave an interview to an Australian women's magazine, during which she was asked which of her children would be best suited to take over from her ex-husband.

"Actually I'd like none of them to," she said. "I think they're all so good that they could do whatever they wanted really. But I think there's going to be a lot of heartbreak and hardship with this [succession]. There's been such a lot of pressure that they needn't have had at their age."

The family trust, agreed between Rupert and Anna as part of their divorce settlement, was her way of safeguarding her children's futures, by ensuring they had equality after Rupert's death. But that blew up - through a court fight in Nevada and a settlement.

And with that, relations with three of his six children may have blown up too - perhaps for good.

Top picture credits: Getty Images and Reuters

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An email sent from an individual named "A", saying they are at Balmoral and asking Ghislaine Maxwell for "inappropriate friends", is among the latest tranche of Epstein files released on Tuesday.

The message, sent to Maxwell on 16 August 2001, begins: "I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family." Later in the email, the sender asks: "How's LA? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?" before signing off "see ya A xxx".

Balmoral Castle is a royal residence.

The emails do not indicate any wrongdoing. The BBC has contacted Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's team for a response. The former prince has previously denied all wrongdoing.

He has also previously said he did not "see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to his [Epstein's] arrest and conviction".

LIVE: Email by 'A' from 'Balmoral' asked Ghislaine Maxwell for 'inappropriate friends', Epstein files show

The message was sent from email address "abx17@dial.pipex.com" entitled "The Invisible Man" and forms part of the more than 11,000 files published on Tuesday.

In an email sent back to this address on the same day, Maxwell wrote: "So sorry to dissapoint [sic] you, however the truth must be told. I have only been able to find appropriate friends."

A different email address - aace@dial.pipex.com - is listed in Epstein's phone book under a contact labelled "Duke of York", a previously released image showed.

A further exchange between Maxwell and "The Invisible Man" also published on Tuesday's shows the alias attached to both of the email addresses.

The messages, sent in February 2002, discuss a trip to Peru.

Maxwell initially forwarded an email to "The Invisible Man" at abx17@dial.pipex.com with details of plans for a visit to the South American country asking "What do you think [?]".

The forwarded email comes from an address labelled "Juanesteban Ganoza" and makes suggestions on possible activities including a small lunch and horse riding.

It also said: "About the girls... how old is he? I doubt it that he will find someone here, but we can try,"

A reply from "The Invisible Man" is sent to Maxwell via the other address "aace@dial.pipex.com" with comments including: "As far as food is concerned I am very easy and will fit in with whatever he plans […] As for girls well I leave that entirely to you and Juan Estoban!"

The sender signs off "Masses of love A xxx".

In a later exchange, in March 2002, Maxwell forwards an email to aace@dial.pipex.com, which begins: "Thought you would like to see what I sent."

The email then appears to copy in a note sent to someone else beginning: "I just gave Andrew your telephone no [sic].

"Some sight seeing some 2 legged sight seeing (read intelligent pretty fun and from good families) and he will be very happy."

In October, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost use of his prince and Duke of York titles following scrutiny over his links with Epstein.

The US Department of Justice has been releasing documents, known as the Epstein files, relating to two criminal investigations into the convicted sex offender during his lifetime.

Congress passed a law mandating the files be released in their entirety by 19 December.

Not all the files have yet been released.

Andrew has been referenced in previous documents. Simply appearing in the photos or documents is not itself evidence of wrongdoing.

Also among the newly released documents is a formal request from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) dating to April 2020 asking for assistance from the British authorities "to interview H.R.H Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward" relating to two criminal investigations.

One of the two related to Epstein.

On the Epstein investigation, the DOJ's note reads "the investigation to date has revealed that Prince Andrew may have been a witness to and/or participant in certain events of relevance to the ongoing investigation".

The document also underlined that Andrew was not a "target" of the investigation and no evidence had been gathered that he had committed any crime under US law.

Attached to the document is a list of areas the US authorities had sought to cover in an interview - it included names and identifying features of any females Prince Andrew met through Epstein and/or Maxwell as well as the history of his relationship with both.

US President Donald Trump has also featured in documents within this latest release including a reference in a 2020 email from an assistant US attorney which suggested he had travelled on Epstein's private jet "many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)".

In 2024, Trump wrote: "I was never on Epstein's Plane". He has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

The DOJ has also said some files released on Tuesday "contain untrue and sensationalist claims" against Trump.

The US Department of Justice released its latest - and largest - tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files on Tuesday.

The 11,000-plus documents continue a stream of released information that began on Friday, the deadline mandated in a new law that required the department to publicly release all of its investigative files into the deceased paedophile and financier.

Many of the documents released on Tuesday are redacted with names and information blacked out, including names of people who the FBI appears to cite as possible co-conspirators in the Epstein case.

The justice department is facing criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle over the amount of redactions, which the law specifically states can only be done to protect the identity of victims or active criminal investigations.

President Donald Trump's name appeared more in these new documents than in previous releases. Many were media clippings that mention him, but one notable email from a federal prosecutor indicated Trump flew on Epstein's jet.

The justice department said some files "contain untrue and sensationalist claims" about Trump.

Being mentioned in the Epstein files does not indicate wrongdoing. BBC has requested comment from individuals named in our reporting.

Email exchange between 'A' and Ghislaine Maxwell about 'girls'

Of the thousands of pages included in this latest release, one 2001 email sent by a person identified as "A" stands out.

The message, to Epstein's accomplice and close associate Ghislaine Maxwell, says that "A" is at "Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family".

"A" then asks Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for sex trafficking of minors and other offences: "Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?"

In another email sent later that day, Maxwell writes back: "So sorry to dissapoint you, however the truth must be told. I have only been able to find appropriate friends."

The "A" email was sent from the address abx17@dial.pipex.com, with the sender's name shown as "The Invisible Man".

An image from a prior Epstein files release showed a different, but similar email - aace@dial.pipex.com - listed in Epstein's phone book under a contact titled "Duke of York".

Another exchange in the new files between Maxwell and "The Invisible Man" discusses a trip to Peru.

In October, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost use of his Duke of York title following scrutiny over his links with Epstein.

He has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, and said he did not "see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to his [Epstein's] arrest and conviction".

The BBC has contacted Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's team for a response.

FBI email lists out 10 alleged co-conspirators to Epstein

Among the documents released are emails appearing to be sent between FBI personnel in 2019 that mention 10 possible "co-conspirators" of Epstein.

The emails said six of the 10 co-conspirators had been served with subpoenas. This included three in Florida, one in Boston, one in New York City, and one in Connecticut.

Four subpoenas were yet to be served when the emails were sent, including to one "wealthy businessman in Ohio".

Another email sent to FBI New York gives an update on the co-conspirators. This time it appears to mention multiple names. Most are redacted from the file.

Two names were not redacted – (Ghislaine) Maxwell and Wexner.

An email says, "I do not know about Ohio contacting Wexner".

The email is presumably referring to Former Victoria's Secret CEO Les Wexner, who had a public friendship with Epstein. In 2019, Wexner said he was "embarrassed" by his ties to the financier.

Lawyers for Wexner told BBC News that "the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the Epstein investigation stated at the time that Mr. Wexner was neither a co-conspirator nor target".

"Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again," they said.

Possible co-conspirators in Epstein's crimes are a major focus for his victims, and for several lawmakers who have demanded more transparency from the DOJ.

"There's 10 co-conspirators potentially that we knew nothing about that the DOJ had been investigating," Democrat Congressman Suhas Subramanyam told BBC News on Tuesday.

Subramanyam, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, added that he was also "concerned" over the level of redactions that protect names of lawyers and people who are not victims. Lawmakers in both parties have said they are examining legal options to force more transparency.

The law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump states names and information that might be embarrassing or cause "reputational harm" are not allowed to be redacted and specifically asks the justice department for internal communications and memos detailing who was investigated and decisions concerning "to charge, not charge, investigate, or decline to investigate Epstein or his associates".

Justice Department says Epstein letter to Larry Nassar is a fake

A letter included in the released batch of documents got a lot of attention online. But, according to the justice department, it is fake.

The handwritten letter and envelope at first appeared to show Epstein writing to Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics doctor who is serving decades in prison for sexually abusing young female athletes.

"As you know by now I have taken the 'short route' home. Good luck!" the faux letter states. "We shared one thing…our love & caring for young ladies and the hope they'd reach their full potential."

The writer signs it, "Life is unfair, Yours, J. Epstein."

The letter had been deemed undeliverable, and was sent back to a Manhattan jail where Epstein was detained before his death.

The FBI was alerted to the returned letter and requested an analysis of it. That request was also included in the releases batch of documents.

The justice department on Tuesday called the letter a fake, noting several irregularities with the note and the envelope that held it.

"The writing does not appear to match Jeffrey Epstein's," the justice department wrote on X.

"The return address did not list the jail where Epstein was held and did not include his inmate number, which is required for outgoing mail," they added.

Officials pointed out the envelope bore a postmark from northern Virginia - noting that Epstein was detained in New York. It was also postmarked on 13 August 2019, three days after Epstein died.

Even before the justice department's announcement of it being fake, the documents raised immediate questions.

The return sender was listed as "J. Epstein" at "Manhattan Correctional" - but the correct name for the now-shuttered jail was "Metropolitan Correctional Center".

The documents released on Tuesday also show the analysis request by the FBI.

A FBI laboratory request stated that in August 2019, a sender listed as "J. Epstein" at "Manhattan Correctional" tried to send a letter to "Larry Nassar at 9300 S. Wilmot Road, Tucson, Arizona, 85756", the address of a federal prison.

Nassar is currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

Trump's travels aboard Epstein's private jet

Trump's name appears more in these files than in other batches of documents released by the justice department.

Notably, in a January 2020 email, a federal prosecutor in New York wrote that newly received flight records "reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)".

The recipient of the email was redacted.

Trump was listed as a passenger on "at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996", and Ghislaine Maxwell was present on at least four of those flights, the prosecutor wrote. Trump was also "listed as having traveled with, among others and at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany, and his son Eric".

Trump was previously married to Marla Maples, Tiffany's mother, from 1993 to 1999.

The prosecutor also wrote that "on one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers; on another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then-20-year-old", with the third passenger's name redacted.

"On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case."

The timing of the trips coincide with years in which federal prosecutors were examining Maxwell's conduct and travels as part of the criminal case they brought against her. She was ultimately found guilty of conspiring with Epstein to recruit and sexually abuse minors.

But throughout the files released on Tuesday, many of the other mentions of Trump's name are simply in press clippings mentioning him, his campaigns, and other news moments.

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in regards to Epstein.

In a statement accompanying Tuesday's release, the Department of Justice said the new files "contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election".

"To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already," the justice department said.

Fake video of Epstein included

Among one of the odder entries in Tuesday's document drop was a fake video showing an Epstein-like figure in a prison cell, which raised questions of how it had appeared in the department's official files.

Other documents showed that a man from Florida sent an email to federal investigators in March 2021 with a link to the video. He asked if it was real, but it is not.

BBC Verify used a reverse image search to find a copy of the video had been uploaded to YouTube in October 2020. The user who posted it said the clip had been created using 3D graphics.

According to a 2023 report by the Bureau of Prisons, no video recording from inside Epstein's cell on the day of his death exists.

The fake video's inclusion in this release gives a glimpse of the questions that federal authorities have received from the general public, many of whom, having heard conspiracy theories or harboured doubts for years, want answers about Epstein's life and death.

Shayan Sardarizadeh contributed to this report.

A British national in Australia has had his visa cancelled and faces deportation for allegedly displaying Nazi symbols.

The 43-year-old man living in Queensland was arrested and charged earlier this month, after allegedly using a social media account to post the Nazi swastika, promote pro-Nazi ideology and call for violence towards the Jewish community.

The man was taken into immigration detention this week in Brisbane and is due to face court in January. Police have been cracking down on the use of prohibited symbols amid a recent rise in antisemitism and right-wing extremism.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said: "He came here to hate - he doesn't get to stay."

"If you come to Australia on a visa, you are here as a guest," Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Wednesday.

Last month, Burke also revoked the visa of Matthew Gruter, a South African national who had been living in Australia since 2022, after he was seen attending a neo-Nazi rally in front of the New South Wales parliament.

Like Gruter, the British man can appeal his visa being revoked. He can leave Australia voluntarily or wait to be deported to his home country.

It is understood police are assessing whether to delay deporting the man so he can face court next month.

Earlier this year, Australia tightened its hate crime laws, introducing mandatory jail terms for displaying hate symbols or performing a Nazi salute.

Police began investigating the British man in October over alleged posts on X. The social media platform blocked his account, prompting him to create a new one with a similar name where he continued posting offensive and harmful content, police said.

Authorities searched the man's home in Caboolture, on the outskirts of Brisbane, in late November and seized phones, weapons and several swords with swastika symbols.

He was charged with three counts of displaying banned Nazi symbols and one count of using the internet to cause offense.

"We want to ensure these symbols are not being used to fracture social cohesion," Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt said earlier this month.

"If we identify instances where this is happening, we will act swiftly to disrupt the behaviour, prosecute those involved and protect the dignity, safety and cohesion of our diverse community."

The US State Department said it would deny visas to five people, including a former EU commissioner, for seeking to "coerce" American social media platforms into suppressing viewpoints they oppose.

"These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states - in each case targeting American speakers and American companies," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Thierry Breton, the former top tech regulator at the European Commission, suggested that a "witch hunt" was taking place.

Breton was described by the State Department as the "mastermind" of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes content moderation on social media companies.

However, it has angered some US conservatives who see it as seeking to censor right-wing opinions. Brussels denies this.

Breton has clashed with Elon Musk, the world's richest man and owner of X, over obligations to follow EU rules.

The European Commission recently fined X €120m (£105m) over its blue tick badges - the first fine under the DSA. It said the platform's blue tick system was "deceptive" because the firm was not "meaningfully verifying users".

In response, Musk's site blocked the Commission from making adverts on its platform.

Reacting to the visa ban, Breton posted on X: "To our American friends: Censorship isn't where you think it is."

Clare Melford, who leads the UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was also listed.

US Undersecretary of State Sarah B Rogers accused the GDI of using US taxpayer money "to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press".

A GDI spokesperson told the BBC that "the visa sanctions announced today are an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship".

"The Trump Administration is, once again, using the full weight of the federal government to intimidate, censor, and silence voices they disagree with. Their actions today are immoral, unlawful, and un-American."

Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that fights online hate and misinformation, was also handed a ban.

Rogers called Mr Ahmed a "key collaborator with the Biden Administration's effort to weaponize the government against US citizens".

Also subject to bans were Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, a German organisation that the State Department said helped enforce the DSA.

The BBC has reached out to the CCDH and HateAid for comment.

Rubio said that steps had been taken to impose visa restrictions on "agents of the global censorship-industrial complex who, as a result, will be generally barred from entering the United States".

"President Trump has been clear that his America First foreign policy rejects violations of American sovereignty. Extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech is no exception," he added.

Multiple people are reported to be injured following an explosion and fire at a nursing home in Bristol, Pennsylvania, officials say.

Emergency crews were called to the Silver Lake Nursing Home at about 14:00 local time (19:00GMT) on Tuesday. Firefighters believe some people may still be trapped inside the building.

An emergency management official told CBS, the BBC's US partner, that the fire remains active and part of the structure has collapsed. It's not clear how many people are injured, and the cause of explosion is still under investigation.

Images and videos posted on social platforms by local media outlets show a partially collapsed building with massive flames billowing out of it.

Local utility provider PECO said its crews had responded to reports of a gas odour at the facility in Bristol Township in the afternoon.

While they were on site, an explosion occurred, a company spokesperson said. Natural gas and electric service to the building were subsequently shut off.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro offered his prayers for the community and said he was in contact with local officials and first responders on the scene.

Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick urged people to avoid the area.

"My team and I are in direct communication with local officials and emergency responders, and we are closely monitoring developments as authorities work to secure the scene," he wrote on X.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro has been permitted to leave prison to undergo surgery on Christmas Day following approval from Brazil's Supreme Court, court documents show.

Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup after he lost the last election in 2022.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Tuesday granted permission for Bolsonaro to temporarily leave prison and be transferred to a hospital on Wednesday for a hernia operation on 25 December.

Bolsonaro, 70, has faced ongoing health complications since being stabbed in the abdomen during a 2018 presidential campaign.

In April, the right-wing former president underwent intestinal surgery. By November, Justice Moraes, who also oversaw his trial, mandated that Bolsonaro be given full-time medical care.

Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's son, posted a video to X on Wednesday with the caption: "Keep praying for the president."

Bolsonaro was found guilty in September for plotting a coup d'etat after he lost the 2022 election to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The former leader is serving his sentence in a federal police jail in Brasilia, the capital, after being deemed a flight risk and removed from home detention.

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of people in Brazil's main cities gathered to protest against a bill trying to significantly reduce the time Bolsonaro spends in jail.

Lawmakers passed the bill last week after it was approved by the lower house. Legal experts have estimated it could reduce Bolsonaro's sentence to less than three years.

In response, Brazil's president Lula promised to veto the bill.

"With all due respect to the Congress, when it reaches my desk, I will veto it," Lula told journalists last week, while acknowledging his veto could be overridden by the largely conservative Congress.

US President Donald Trump, who had previously called the investigation into Bolsonaro a "witch hunt", welcomed the bill being passed. The US also lifted sanctions that had been placed on Justice Moraes in July.

Jesse Romero, a conservative Catholic podcaster, has some choice words for Pope Leo XIV.

"The Pope should tell us how to get to heaven," says Romero. "He has no authority over the government; he has to stay in his lane."

As a Donald Trump supporter, he is angry about criticism made by the American-born Pope and US bishops about his mass deportation policy.

With one in five Americans identifying as Catholic, the Church plays an important role in American life - and politics.

Catholics like Vice President JD Vance, and influential legal activist Leonard Leo, were an important part of Donald Trump's electoral success. They are at the heart of the cabinet too, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon holding key offices.

But the issue of immigration has become a faultline between Church leadership and the government, as well as amongst parishioners themselves.

When cardinals gathered at the papal conclave in May, Romero had hoped for a "Trump-like Pope," with a similar outlook to the president.

Instead, Pope Leo XIV has spoken repeatedly about his concerns over how migrants are treated in the US, calling for "deep reflection" on the matter in November. The pontiff evoked the gospel of Matthew, adding that "Jesus says very clearly, at the end of the world, we're going to be asked, 'How did you receive the foreigner?"

A week later the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued a rare "Special Message" voicing their "concern for the evolving situation impacting immigrants in the United States".

The bishops said they were "disturbed" at what they called "a climate of fear and anxiety". They added that they "oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people" and "pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence".

It was a significant intervention, the first time the USCCB had used such a communique in a dozen years. It was backed by the Pope, who called the statement "very important" and urged all Catholics and "people of goodwill, to listen carefully" to it.

Picking a fight with the Pope

"I think the relationship is quite tense," says David Gibson, director of Fordham University's Center on Religion and Culture.

Conservatives had hoped that Pope Leo would bring a change from his predecessor Pope Francis's focus on issues of social justice and migration, according to Gibson.

"Many of them are angry. They want to tell the church to shut up," and to confine itself to issues such as abortion, Mr Gibson says.

White House border czar, Tom Homan - himself a Catholic - has said that the Church "is wrong", and that its leaders "need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church". And in October, the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected the Chicago born Pope's suggestion that US treatment of immigrants was "inhuman" and not in line with "pro-life" beliefs.

Gibson argues that the government's calculation "is that there are enough American Catholics, especially white American Catholics, who support the Republican Party and Donald Trump, that it's politically beneficial at the end of the day to pick a fight with the Pope. That's an unprecedented calculus."

Nearly 60% of white Catholics approve of how Trump is handling immigration, according to a new study by the think tank the Public Religion Research Institute. That figure is around 30% for Hispanics, who are 37% of the US Catholic population.

The growing power and prominence of right-wing Catholics in the political sphere is exemplified by JD Vance, a convert to the religion who says his politics are shaped by his faith. Although he has argued that current policy is not at odds with Church teaching, he has also said that there is a responsibility to remember the humanity of people who are in the country illegally.

But some Catholics say that is not what is currently happening. Jeanne Rattenbury is a parishioner at St Gertrude Catholic Church in Chicago. The city has been a focus of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement.

In November, Ms Rattenbury took part in a 2,000 strong celebration of Mass outside an ICE detention centre in the Broadview neighbourhood of Chicago. The "People's Mass" was one of a series of actions by the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL). The goal, she says, "was to bring Communion to people inside, to minister to them, which is something that used to be allowed and is not being allowed".

The CSPL has now filed a federal lawsuit alleging it was blocked from providing religious ministry.

"I am proud to be a Catholic when the Catholic Church, from the Pope to the bishops, are saying immigrants have a right to be treated with respect. They have a right to have their inherent human dignity respected", Ms Rattenbury says.

Such is the strength of feeling that a church near Boston has used its Christmas nativity scene to make the point that Jesus was a refugee.

St Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, replaced baby Jesus with a hand-painted notice saying "ICE was here".

Some in the community have complained, and the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston ordered that the display be removed, saying it was divisive and contravened rules on sacred objects. So far, the church has not done so.

While many US Catholics maintain conservative positions on issues such as abortion, in line with that of the Church, they are also more likely to see themselves as progressive than white evangelical Christians, who overwhelmingly voted Republican in the last three elections. Around a third of white Catholics on the other hand have consistently voted for the Democratic Party.

And nearly a third of Catholics in the US were born in other countries. "This is a church that was built on immigration," says David Gibson. "The Catholic brand in the United States is an immigrant church."

'Inconsistent with the Gospel'

Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima, Washington State, was one of the 216 who supported the USCCB's Special Message. Just five bishops voted against it and three abstained.

"There's a fundamental disagreement of how the church sees immigrants in our parishes, from how the current administration views immigrants.

"We see a lot more positives in those immigrants."

He says he is not arguing for open borders, a point that Pope Leo has also made, but is against "indiscriminate deportation".

"The deportations we are seeing of our parishioners and of our people in the United States [are] not surgical, [or] targeted to criminals," the bishop says.

He estimates that around half of the families in his predominantly Hispanic diocese have someone in their household facing some sort of issue with their immigration status. Priests too are often immigrants themselves, putting the Church in an increasingly tenuous position.

Bishop Tyson says that more than a third of clergy he has ordained have at some point been on a temporary visa before gaining a green card, a process that in the current climate can feel precarious.

"I have a seminarian in the Chicago area. He's on a T-visa, but [ICE] showed up, and he was afraid that he was going to be picked up," he said.

"Anybody can have their paperwork revoked, [so] we have our men carrying their papers with them at all times."

Bishop Tyson argues that current US policy goes against Catholic teaching.

"It should weigh heavily on the consciences of Catholics in public life who support indiscriminate deportation. It is inconsistent with the Gospel of Life."

For Jesse Romero though, it is US bishops and the Pope who are going against Catholic doctrine. He argues the Catechism is clear that immigrants should keep to all laws, including those about whether they should be in the country.

"We have a large swath of bishops in the Catholic Church of America that have a more modernist, liberal, progressive view of Scripture and theology."

Romero says he prays for their conversion. While he accepts the Pope and the bishops as leaders of the faith, "it doesn't mean that in their private opinions, they're going to get everything right. They're men".

"The only person that is sinless is Jesus. He's perfect. Everybody else, we've got to pray for each other."

The killing of a Hindu man during recent violent protests in Bangladesh has pushed already strained ties between Dhaka and Delhi into a deeper crisis.

As the two neighbours accuse each other of destabilising relations, questions are growing over whether their once close, time-tested relationship is fraying beyond repair.

In India, the episode has sparked protests by Hindu nationalist groups. The man who was killed - Dipu Chandra Das, 27 - a member of Bangladesh's Hindu minority, was accused of blasphemy and beaten to death by a mob last week in Mymensingh, in northern Bangladesh.

The incident happened as violent protests broke out over the murder of Sharif Osman Hadi, a prominent student leader, in the capital, Dhaka.

Hadi's supporters alleged that the main suspect, who they say is linked to the Awami League - the party of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina - had fled to India, further fuelling anti-India sentiment in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. Bangladeshi police, however, said there was no confirmation that the suspect had left the country.

• Hasina's conviction is testing India-Bangladesh ties

In recent days, the South Asian neighbours have suspended visa services in several cities, including Delhi, and accused each other of failing to ensure adequate security for their diplomatic missions.

The two countries have also summoned each other's high commissioners to raise their security concerns.

"I sincerely hope tensions don't escalate further on both sides," Riva Ganguly Das, a former Indian high commissioner to Dhaka, told the BBC, adding that the "volatile situation" in Bangladesh made it difficult to predict which way things would go.

Anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh is not new.

A section of Bangladeshis has always resented what they see as India's overbearing influence on their country, especially during Hasina's 15-year rule before she was deposed in an uprising last year.

The anger has grown since Hasina took refuge in India and Delhi, so far, hasn't agreed to send her back despite several requests from Dhaka.

In the aftermath of Hadi's killing, some young leaders are reported to have made provocative anti-India statements.

In recent weeks, Bangladeshi security forces had to stop protesters from marching toward the Indian high commission in Dhaka.

Last week, a mob pelted the Indian assistant high commission building in Chittagong with stones, prompting outrage from Delhi. Police later detained 12 people in connection with the incident, but they were released later without any charge.

There were counter rallies in India. Bangladesh strongly objected to a protest by a Hindu group outside its diplomatic premises in Delhi, calling it "unjustifiable".

"I have not seen this kind of suspicion and mistrust between the two sides before," Humayun Kabir, a former senior Bangladeshi diplomat, said.

He added that both sides should protect each other's diplomatic missions according to established norms.

Some readers may find the details below disturbing.

The brutal lynching of Das, a garment factory worker, has only added to the anger on the Indian side.

He was accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad and was lynched by a mob, who then tied his body to a tree and set it on fire.

Videos of the killing were widely shared on social media, triggering outrage on both sides of the border.

Bangladesh's interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, said there was "no place for such violence in the new Bangladesh", promising that no one involved in the killing would be spared.

Bangladeshi police say they have arrested 12 people in connection with the killing of Das.

Analysts say his killing has once again raised questions over the safety of minorities and civil society activists in Bangladesh, with religious fundamentalists becoming more assertive and intolerant after Hasina's exit.

Radical Islamists have desecrated hundreds of Sufi shrines, attacked Hindus, prevented women from playing football in some areas and have also curtailed music and cultural shows.

Human rights groups have also expressed increasing concerns over rising mob violence in Bangladesh in the past year.

"Hardline elements of society now see themselves as the mainstream, and they don't want to see pluralism or diversity of thought in the country," Asif Bin Ali, a Bangladeshi political analyst, said.

"These radical elements are dehumanising people and institutions by setting a narrative that they are pro-India. That gives a green light to others on the ground to attack them."

Many in Bangladesh suspect Islamist radicals to be part of the mob that vandalised and set fire to the buildings of two Bangladesh dailies - The Daily Star and Prothom Alo - and a cultural institution last week, accusing them of being pro-India.

Civil society activists in Bangladesh have criticised the interim administration for failing to stop the recent violence. Even before the protests, the interim government was under scrutiny as it struggled to maintain law and order and deliver results amid the political turmoil.

Experts like Ashok Swain argue that right-wing leaders on both sides are making provocative statements for their own benefit, inflaming tension and public anger.

"A large section of the Indian media is also playing up events in Bangladesh and portraying that the country is descending into communal chaos," says Mr Swain, a professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University in Sweden.

"People should realise that stability in Bangladesh is key to India's security, particularly in the north-east," he says.

With the interim administration in Dhaka facing criticism over its lack of control and legitimacy, there is broad consensus that an elected government would be better positioned to address Bangladesh's domestic and foreign challenges.

The country is scheduled to hold elections on 12 February but until then, Yunus has the difficult task of avoiding further violence.

With Ms Hasina's Awami League banned from taking part in the polls, it's widely expected that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) will emerge as the winner.

But Islamist political parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami can pose a challenge to the BNP.

There are worries that there could be more violence in the coming days as hardline religious parties exploit anti-India sentiments.

"The biggest victim of this anti-India politics is not India, it's Bangladeshi citizens themselves – like secular minded individuals, centrists and minorities," warns Asif Bin Ali.

He says the current narrative shows that anyone or any institution who criticises fundamentalists can be "dehumanised by labelling them pro-India, and attacks on them can be justified".

Policy makers in India are aware of the changing dynamics in Bangladesh.

An Indian parliamentary panel said developments in Bangladesh pose "the greatest strategic challenge" to Delhi since the country's independence war in 1971.

Former Bangladeshi diplomats like Humayun Kabir feel that India should accept the ground reality and reach out to Bangladesh to rebuild trust.

"We are neighbours and inter-dependent," Mr Kabir says.

Delhi has already indicated that it will engage with an elected government in Bangladesh and that could pave the way for a diplomatic reboot.

Until then, experts on both sides caution that anger on the street must not be allowed to further strain bilateral ties.

An email sent from an individual named "A", saying they are at Balmoral and asking Ghislaine Maxwell for "inappropriate friends", is among the latest tranche of Epstein files released on Tuesday.

The message, sent to Maxwell on 16 August 2001, begins: "I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family." Later in the email, the sender asks: "How's LA? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?" before signing off "see ya A xxx".

Balmoral Castle is a royal residence.

The emails do not indicate any wrongdoing. The BBC has contacted Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's team for a response. The former prince has previously denied all wrongdoing.

He has also previously said he did not "see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to his [Epstein's] arrest and conviction".

LIVE: Email by 'A' from 'Balmoral' asked Ghislaine Maxwell for 'inappropriate friends', Epstein files show

The message was sent from email address "abx17@dial.pipex.com" entitled "The Invisible Man" and forms part of the more than 11,000 files published on Tuesday.

In an email sent back to this address on the same day, Maxwell wrote: "So sorry to dissapoint [sic] you, however the truth must be told. I have only been able to find appropriate friends."

A different email address - aace@dial.pipex.com - is listed in Epstein's phone book under a contact labelled "Duke of York", a previously released image showed.

A further exchange between Maxwell and "The Invisible Man" also published on Tuesday's shows the alias attached to both of the email addresses.

The messages, sent in February 2002, discuss a trip to Peru.

Maxwell initially forwarded an email to "The Invisible Man" at abx17@dial.pipex.com with details of plans for a visit to the South American country asking "What do you think [?]".

The forwarded email comes from an address labelled "Juanesteban Ganoza" and makes suggestions on possible activities including a small lunch and horse riding.

It also said: "About the girls... how old is he? I doubt it that he will find someone here, but we can try,"

A reply from "The Invisible Man" is sent to Maxwell via the other address "aace@dial.pipex.com" with comments including: "As far as food is concerned I am very easy and will fit in with whatever he plans […] As for girls well I leave that entirely to you and Juan Estoban!"

The sender signs off "Masses of love A xxx".

In a later exchange, in March 2002, Maxwell forwards an email to aace@dial.pipex.com, which begins: "Thought you would like to see what I sent."

The email then appears to copy in a note sent to someone else beginning: "I just gave Andrew your telephone no [sic].

"Some sight seeing some 2 legged sight seeing (read intelligent pretty fun and from good families) and he will be very happy."

In October, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost use of his prince and Duke of York titles following scrutiny over his links with Epstein.

The US Department of Justice has been releasing documents, known as the Epstein files, relating to two criminal investigations into the convicted sex offender during his lifetime.

Congress passed a law mandating the files be released in their entirety by 19 December.

Not all the files have yet been released.

Andrew has been referenced in previous documents. Simply appearing in the photos or documents is not itself evidence of wrongdoing.

Also among the newly released documents is a formal request from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) dating to April 2020 asking for assistance from the British authorities "to interview H.R.H Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward" relating to two criminal investigations.

One of the two related to Epstein.

On the Epstein investigation, the DOJ's note reads "the investigation to date has revealed that Prince Andrew may have been a witness to and/or participant in certain events of relevance to the ongoing investigation".

The document also underlined that Andrew was not a "target" of the investigation and no evidence had been gathered that he had committed any crime under US law.

Attached to the document is a list of areas the US authorities had sought to cover in an interview - it included names and identifying features of any females Prince Andrew met through Epstein and/or Maxwell as well as the history of his relationship with both.

US President Donald Trump has also featured in documents within this latest release including a reference in a 2020 email from an assistant US attorney which suggested he had travelled on Epstein's private jet "many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)".

In 2024, Trump wrote: "I was never on Epstein's Plane". He has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

The DOJ has also said some files released on Tuesday "contain untrue and sensationalist claims" against Trump.

UN experts and 400 prominent women have urged Iran not to execute Zahra Tabari, a 67-year-old electrical engineer and women's rights activist.

Ms Tabari was arrested in April and accused of collaborating with a banned opposition group, the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), according to her family.

In October, she was convicted of "armed rebellion" by a Revolutionary Court in Rasht after a trial via video link that lasted less than 10 minutes. Her family said the verdict was based on extremely limited and unreliable evidence: a piece of cloth bearing the words "Woman, Resistance, Freedom", and an unpublished audio message.

Iranian authorities have not yet commented on the case.

At least 51 other people are known to be facing the death penalty in Iran after being convicted of national security offences including armed rebellion, as well as "enmity against God", "corruption on Earth" and espionage, according to the UN experts.

The UN Human Rights Council's special rapporteurs on human rights in Iran, violence against women and arbitrary executions, as well as the five members of the working group on discrimination against women and girls, warned in a joint statement that Ms Tabari's case showed "a pattern of serious violations of international human rights law".

She was arrested during a raid on her home without a judicial warrant, and was interrogated for a month while held in solitary confinement and pressured to confess to taking up arms against the state and to membership in an opposition group, according to the experts.

Ms Tabari was denied access to a lawyer of her choosing and was represented by a court-appointed lawyer, they said, adding that her death sentence was issued immediately after a brief hearing.

"The severe procedural violations in this case - including the unlawful deprivation of her liberty, the denial of effective legal representation, the extraordinarily brief trial, the lack of adequate time to prepare a defence, and the use of evidence that appears insufficient to support a charge of [armed rebellion] - render any resulting conviction unsafe," they said.

They also noted that international law restricted the death penalty to the most serious crimes, meaning intentional killing.

"To execute Tabari under these circumstances would constitute arbitrary execution," the experts added. "Criminalising women's activism for gender equality and treating such expression as evidence of armed rebellion constitutes a grave form of gender discrimination."

More than 400 prominent women - including several Nobel laureates, the former presidents of Switzerland and Ecuador, and former prime ministers of Finland, Peru, Poland and Ukraine - also signed a public appeal for Ms Tabari's immediate release on Tuesday.

"Iran is today the world's number one executioner of women per capita. Zahra's case lays bare this terror: in Iran, daring to hold a sign declaring women's resistance to oppression is now punishable by death," it said.

The appeal was organised by Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran, a UK-based group that represents the families of the thousands of political prisoners who were executed in Iran three decades ago.

Another Iranian woman, Kurdish rights activist and social worker Pakhshan Azizi, is also facing the death penalty on the same charge as Ms Tabari.

UN experts have previously said Ms Azizi's sentencing appeared to be "solely related to her legitimate work as a social worker, including her support for refugees in Iraq and Syria".

According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), at least 1,426 people - including 41 women - were executed in Iran in the first 11 months of 2025 - a 70% increase on the same period last year.

Almost half of those put to death as of the end of November were convicted of drug-related offences, while 53 were convicted of national security offences, the Norway-based group said.

US President Donald Trump was listed as a passenger on the private jet of late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein eight times between 1993 and 1996, a new email released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) says.

"Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)," reads the 7 January 2020 email from an assistant US attorney.

Trump's name on the flight record does not indicate wrongdoing. In 2024, Trump wrote: "I was never on Epstein's Plane". He has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

The DOJ says some files released on Tuesday "contain untrue and sensationalist claims" against Trump.

Trump was a friend of Epstein's for years, but the president has said they fell out in about 2004 - years before Epstein was first arrested.

The latest release of documents - running to more than 30,000 pages - is part of the so-called Epstein files the DOJ was legally required to publish in their entirety by last Friday.

• Live: What the newly-released files contain and reaction

In a statement on Tuesday, the DOJ said: "Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already."

"Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein's victims," the DOJ statement on X said.

The prosecutor's email was sent on 7 January 2020 and is part of an email chain which includes the subject heading: "RE: Epstein flight records."

The sender and recipient are redacted, but the bottom of the email says assistant US attorney, Southern District of New York - with the name redacted.

The email states that Trump "is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including at least four flights on which [Epstein's associate Ghislaine] Maxwell was also present. He is listed as having traveled with, among others and at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany, and his son Eric."

"On one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers; on another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then-20-year-old..." - the rest of the sentence has been redacted.

It continues: "On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case."

In 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts and sex trafficking of a minor.

Epstein died in a New York prison cell in 2019 as he awaited his trial on sex trafficking charges.

The prosecutor's email does not provide more details about the flights.

A handwritten flight log released by the DOJ in February appears to have many entries which are difficult to read.

However, one lists Donald Trump, as well as his son Eric, for a flight on 13 August 1995 from PBI (Palm Beach International Airport in Florida) to TEB (Teterboro Airport in New Jersey). It also lists JE and GM - widely believed to be acronyms for Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Tuesday's release of files related to Epstein is the largest so far - but many more documents held by the DOJ are yet to be made public. Several thousand files have been published across eight batches since Friday.

The DOJ missed last Friday's deadline set by Congress to publish all its files related to Epstein - including photos, videos and investigative materials.

The department has faced criticism from survivors and lawmakers from across the aisle for its failure to meet that deadline.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on the day of the deadline that not all the files would be made public immediately, and that more would be published over the coming weeks.

"There's a lot of eyes looking at these, so we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials that we're producing, we're protecting every single victim," he said on Friday.

Turkey says signal has been lost with a jet carrying the Libyan army chief and four other people.

In a post on X, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya says this happened at 20:52 local time (17:52 GMT) - about 42 minutes after the Falcon 50 business jet took off from Ankara's airport.

The minister says Libya's chief of staff Gen Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad was on board the Tripoli-bound aircraft.

The jet issued an emergency landing request before contact was lost.

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

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

Attorney General Pam Bondi took to X over the weekend with a bold statement: "President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in American history."

Her post was about efforts to release documents concerning the attempted assassination of Trump last July.

But the folks commenting in the replies had a completely different investigation in mind – the one into Jeffrey Epstein.

And they weren't buying it.

"Liar," snapped several people – along with many much harsher insults. One conservative YouTuber who mixes blistering tirades with Bitcoin promotions wrote: "I will vote for whatever President ... campaigns on arresting Pam Bondi over the cover up of the Epstein Files."

After folding into his coalition many non-traditional voters from the more fringe corners of the internet, Trump and members of his administration now find themselves coming face to face with the conspiratorial thinking they have stoked.

"This is the greatest cover-up by a president and for a president in history," said one member of a Facebook group devoted to sleuthing about the case. "Epstein is the story and don't let up."

At issue isn't so much the previously unreleased pictures of people like Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite in Epstein's company – which is not an indicator of any wrongdoing – but the sea of blacked-out redactions in the files themselves.

On the campaign trail last year, Trump suggested that he would support the release of investigation files. In February, Bondi said they were "sitting on my desk right now to review".

But after so much time and anticipation, Friday's release landed with a whimper.

Joe Uscinski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who studies conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking, says Trump's coalition is now more about scepticism and antagonism towards institutions - and less about traditional Republican Party goals.

Many in the movement, he says, believe that huge numbers of children are being used for sex trafficking, beliefs that are bolstered by Epstein's very real crimes as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon.

"People don't necessarily want documents released - they want documents released which tell them that what they believe is true."

The potential for political trouble is not lost on Trump's inner circle. In a Vanity Fair article published prior to the document release, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles described the people compelled to vote for Trump because of his promises on Epstein as "Joe Rogan listeners" – in other words, younger men who aren't traditionally into politics.

Wiles has called the story a "hit piece". But she has not disputed specific quotes, including her assertion that Trump has not yet solidified a lasting Republican majority.

"The people that are inordinately interested in Epstein are the new members of the Trump coalition, the people that I think about all the time – because I want to make sure that they are not [only] Trump voters, they're Republican voters," she told the magazine.

Polls and experts back up the chief of staff's concerns about the tenuous nature of Trump's coalition.

A survey released in early December by the right-wing Manhattan Institute think tank labelled nearly a third of Trump's supporters "New Entrant Republicans" – people who voted for the party for the first time in 2024. And the poll found that just over half of that category would "definitely" support a Republican in the 2026 mid-term elections.

"These voters are drawn to Trump but are not reliably attached to the Republican Party," the institute concluded.

• Trump's chief of staff disputes Vanity Fair story
• Image in Epstein files that features Trump reinstated after backlash
• Who and what are in the Epstein files?

The possible fragility of the Trump coalition is playing out on several different levels.

One crucial group is a collection of social media stars and podcasters who stand mostly outside traditional Republican circles but have clout and influence online.

They were instrumental in keeping social media attention on the Epstein story long after the convicted sex offender's death.

A group of influencers – including "Libs of TikTok" creator Chaya Raichik, conspiracy theorist and Turning Point USA activist Jack Posobiec, and elections organiser Scott Presler – were even invited to an event at the Department of Justice (DoJ) and given binders, which Bondi described as a "first phase" of Epstein document releases.

Little if anything new was in the binders, which caused a backlash. Outrage swelled further in July after the DoJ released a memo saying that there was no Epstein "client list" and rejecting conspiracy theories about his death in prison.

Yet following the most recent release, many of these same conservative influencers have been curiously silent.

Laura Loomer, a popular Maga social media influencer who has helped spread Epstein conspiracies online, claimed that they exonerated Trump from any wrongdoing.

"Maybe now the media will stop obsessing over these files," wrote Loomer, who has mentioned Epstein at least 200 times on X this year alone.

Others - including several who were at the DoJ binder event - have not mentioned the document release at all, positively or negatively.

Their silence has been noted by other right-wing and far-right commentators, sparking online Maga infighting. And the row over the Epstein case is just one controversy currently roiling the movement, with arguments over free speech, anti-Semitism and Charlie Kirk's legacy bursting out into the open at an annual conference put on by Turning Point USA this week.

Jared Holt, senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that analyses online extremism, says the debate over the Epstein files is just one controversy contributing to the challenges facing the Maga movement.

"At the beginning of the year, Maga was a triumphant intimidating cultural force, now the train is falling off the tracks and there's no clear sign that it will be stabalising or rebounding anytime soon," he says.

"It seems like the die-hard Trump base has atrophied over the course of the year," Holt says, but notes that it's too soon to tell if the recent heavily redacted document drop will have any significant impact on the sorts of "Joe Rogan listeners" Wiles is concerned about.

Prominent voices in Congress have been less shy than the influencer class about criticising the justice department. Soon-to-be-ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene lambasted the release, calling it "NOT MAGA".

Thomas Massie, the Republican member of the House of Representatives from Kentucky who spearheaded legislation leading to the document release, spent the weekend lambasting the justice department online and on US weekend talk shows.

He accused Bondi and officials of being in violation of the law requiring the release of the files, and has joined forces with Democratic Representative Ro Khanna to push for greater transparency.

Massie has suggested that they could move to charge Bondi with "inherent contempt" for ignoring a congressional order - a move which could force further document disclosures.

Regardless of whether or not that happens, there may be further revelations in the next few days. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, has promised hundreds of thousands more documents before the end of the year.

India is home to one of the world's most ambitious social programmes - a jobs guarantee that gives every rural household the legal right to paid work.

Launched in 2005 by a Congress party government, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) entitled every rural household to demand up to 100 days of paid manual work each year at a statutory minimum wage.

This mattered in a country where 65% of 1.4 billion people live in rural areas and nearly half rely on farming, which generates insufficient income, accounting for just 16% of India's GDP.

Providing unskilled public work across all but fully urban districts, the scheme has become a backbone of rural livelihoods, cushioning demand during economic shocks. It is also among the world's most studied anti-poverty programmes, with strong equity: over half of the estimated 126 million scheme workers are women, and around 40% come from "scheduled castes" or tribes, among the most deprived Indians

The ruling Narendra Modi government, initially critical and later inclined to pare it back, turned to the scheme in crises - most notably during the Covid pandemic, when mass return migration from cities to villages sharply drove up demand for work. Economists say the scheme lifted rural consumption, reduced poverty, improved school attendance, and in some regions pushed up private-sector wages.

Last week, the government introduced a new law that repeals and rebrands the scheme. The programme - renamed MGNREGA in 2009 to honour Mahatma Gandhi - has now dropped his name altogether.

While the renaming drew the political heat, the more consequential changes lie in what the new law - known as G RAM G for short - actually does.

It raises the annual employment guarantee from 100 to 125 days per rural household. It retains the provision that workers not given jobs within 15 days are entitled to an unemployment allowance.

Under the original scheme, the federal government paid all labour wages and most material costs - roughly a 90:10 split with the states.

Funding will now follow a 60:40 split between the federal government and most states. That could push states' contribution to 40% or more of total project cost. The federal government keeps control, including the power to notify the scheme and decide state-wise allocations.

States remain legally responsible for providing employment - or paying unemployment allowances, even as the central government allocates $9.5bn for the scheme in the current financial year, ending next March.

The government frames the reforms as a modernised, more effective, and corruption-free programme aimed at empowering the poor.

"This law stands firmly in favour of the poor, in support of progress, and in complete guarantee of employment for the workers," says federal agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Critics - including opposition parties, academics, and some state governments - warn that capping funds and shifting costs to states could dilute a rare legal right in India's welfare system.

"It is the culmination of the long-standing drive for centralisation of the scheme under the Modi government. But it is more than centralisation. It is the reduction of employment guarantee to a discretionary scheme. A clause allows the federal government to decide where and when the scheme applies," Jean Dreze, a development economist, told me.

Prof Dreze says the increase to 125 guaranteed workdays per household may sound like a major revamp, but is a "red herring". A recent report by LibTech India, an advocacy group, found that only 7% of rural households received the 100 days of work guaranteed under the scheme in 2023-24.

"When the ceiling is not binding, how does it help to raise it? Raising wage rates, again, is a much better way of expanding benefits. Second, raising the ceiling is a cosmetic measure when financial restrictions pull the other way, " Prof Dreze notes.

These and other concerns appear to have prompted a group of international scholars to petition the Modi government in defence of the original scheme, warning that the new funding model could undermine its purpose.

"The [scheme] has captured the world's attention with its demonstrated achievements and innovative design. To dismantle it now would be a historic error," an open letter, led by Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, warned.

To be sure, the scheme has faced persistent challenges, including underfunding and delays in wage payments. West Bengal's programme, for example, has faced deep cuts and funding freezes since 2022, with the federal government halting funds over alleged non-compliance.

Yet despite these challenges, the scheme appears to have delivered measurable impact.

An influential study by economists Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, and Sandip Sukhtankar found that the broader, economy-wide impacts of the scheme boosted beneficiary households' earnings by 14% and cut poverty by 26%. Workers demanded higher wages, land returns fell, and job gains were larger in villages, the study found.

But many say the scheme's durability also underscores a deeper structural problem: India's chronic inability to generate enough non-farm jobs to absorb surplus rural labour.

Agriculture has consistently lagged behind the broader economy, growing just 3% annually since 2001–02, compared with 7% for the rest of the economy.

Critics such as Nitin Pai of the Takshashila Institution, a think-tank, argue that the scheme cushions distress but does little to raise long-term rural productivity, and may even blunt incentives for agricultural reform.

"With [the scheme] we're merely treating a serious underlying malaise with steroids," said Mr Pai in a post on X.

The government's Economic Survey 2023–24 questions whether demand under the scheme truly mirrors rural hardship.

If that was the case, data should show higher fund use and employment in poorer states with higher unemployment, the survey says.

Yet, it notes, Tamil Nadu, with under 1% of the country's poor, received nearly 15% of the scheme's funds, while Kerala, with just 0.1% of the poor, accounted for almost 4% of federal allocations.

The survey adds that the actual work generated depends largely on a state's administrative capacity: states with trained staff can process requests on time, directly influencing how much employment is provided.

Despite these anomalies, the case for the scheme remains strong in a country where many depend on low-income rural work and where the deeper challenge is the lack of quality employment.

Even headline figures on rising labour participation in India can be misleading: more people "working" does not always mean better or more productive jobs.

A recent paper by economists Maitreesh Ghatak, Mrinalini Jha and Jitendra Singh finds that the country's recent rise in labour force participation, especially among women, reflects economic distress rather than growth-driven job creation.

The authors say the increase is concentrated in the most vulnerable forms of work: unpaid family helpers and self-employed workers, who have very low productivity and falling real earnings.

"The recent expansion in employment reflects economic distress leading to subsistence work, rather than growth-driven better quality job creation," they say.

The evidence suggests people are driven into subsistence work by necessity, not drawn into better-quality jobs by a stronger economy.

This ensures that the world's largest jobs guarantee scheme will remain central to the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of Indians - whether the revamped version will strengthen it or undermine its impact remains to be seen.

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Russia launched a "massive" attack on several Ukrainian cities overnight on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, a day after he warned of strikes over the Christmas period.

At least three people were killed, according to Ukrainian officials, including a four-year-old child, while energy infrastructure was also targeted, leaving several regions without power.

Russia launched more than 600 drones and 30 missiles, according to Ukraine.

Zelensky said "people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe" in the run-up to Christmas, and said the strikes sent "an extremely clear signal about Russia's priorities" despite ongoing peace talks.

He added: "Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing. And that means that the world is not putting enough pressure on Russia."

Zelensky had previously warned it was in the Kremlin's "nature" to "carry out massive attacks" during the festive period.

Confirming a child's death in the central Zhytomyr region, local official Vitaly Bunechko said: "She was taken to hospital, doctors fought for her life but could not save her in the end." Five others were injured in the strike, he added.

Meanwhile, a 76-year-old woman was killed and three people injured when a house in the Kyiv region was struck, according to Ukraine's state emergencies service.

An attack in Khmelnytskyy, western Ukraine, killed a 72-year-old, regional administration head Serhiy Tyurin said.

Polish fighter jets were scrambled in response to missiles and drones targeting west Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry said it had targeted energy facilities and other transport infrastructure, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Meanwhile, Ukraine reportedly struck a petrochemical plant in Stravropol, southern Russia.

Videos shared by Russian media channels online showed large flames rising from the direction of the plant.

The region's governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said a Ukrainian drone hit the plant and sparked a fire. No casualties were reported and residential buildings were left undamaged.

With temperatures expected to fall to as low as -7C on Wednesday, Ukraine's energy operator warned of emergency power shutdowns "in all regions" and urged people to use energy "sparingly".

Acting energy minister Artem Nekrasov said it was the ninth large attack on Ukraine's energy system this year, and that supply in the Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky regions has been "almost completely" lost.

Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko told the BBC World Service that some areas could be without power "for days".

The main focus of Russian attacks in recent days has been the southern port city of Odesa, which comes after Vladimir Putin threatened to sever Ukraine's access to the Black Sea.

The Russian president made the threat in retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on tankers belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet", vessels used to move good including oil which are under Western sanctions.

The Tuesday morning attack punctured a period of relative calm in the capital Kyiv, where it has been weeks since Shahed drones have been spotted flying low overhead.

In the Ukrainian capital, many suspect the most recent attack is linked to Monday's killing of a top Russian general after a car bomb exploded in Moscow.

Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov - the head of the armed forces' operational training department - died in the blast, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine. Kyiv has not commented.

It also comes after the latest round of US-led diplomatic talks in Miami, where envoys from Washington and Kyiv have been drafting detailed proposals to end the war.

According to Zelensky, the US had proposed a Christmas truce but Russia rejected the idea.

Zelensky said he received a progress report on the talks on Tuesday morning, and that "several draft documents have now been prepared", including a basic framework to end the war, future security guarantees for Ukraine, and on the country's post-war recovery.

Putin was also due to be briefed by his envoy Kirill Dmitriev on Tuesday on the latest discussions with Washington.

The nearly 90,000 refugees who fled to Burundi after the recent escalation of violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo face dire conditions in cramped camps with limited access to food and water, aid agencies say

Congolese M23 rebels recently captured the city of Uvira, near the Burundi border, and the fighting forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. The rebels say they have since withdrawn.

Medical charity MSF, which has been providing emergency help, has raised concerns about the worsening humanitarian situation.

The UN's refugee agency, UNCHR, said those especially affected are children and women - including pregnant women - some who reported going without food for days.

MSF said it had been treating an average of 200 people daily since the refugees started arriving in Burundi in the last two weeks.

"We see people in a state of distress, despair and exhaustion. We see women who gave birth while fleeing, some that give birth in our clinic," said Zakari Moluh, the MSF project co-ordinator describing the situation in Ndava, north-west Burundi.

The charity has warned of the risk of the "spread of epidemic diseases such as cholera and measles, and a catastrophic increase of malaria cases" among vulnerable people.

Meanwhile, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says it is increasing its life-saving aid to over 210,000 of the most vulnerable people displaced by the DR Congo violence.

It notes that about half a million people have been forced from their homes in South Kivu province since the beginning of December.

The WFP says it is supporting 71,000 new Congolese arrivals to Burundi with hot meals in transit centres.

It adds that services across the province are on the brink of collapse, as "health centres have been looted, medicines are unavailable, and schools remain closed". The agency has called for urgent funding to be able to continue providing food aid in the next three months.

The capture of Uvira at the beginning of the month extended the M23's territorial gains in eastern DR Congo after they had earlier captured the major cities of Goma and Bukavu.

The rebels said they would pull out of Uvira last week under pressure from the US, but their reported withdrawal has been disputed by Congolese authorities.

The US brokered a peace deal between the Congolese and Rwandan governments aimed at ending the long-running conflict in DR Congo. The US accuses Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels, which it denies.

The rebels were not signatories to that peace deal but they have been part of a parallel peace process led by Qatar, a US ally that has strong ties with Rwanda.

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The US economy picked up speed over the three months to September, as consumer spending jumped and exports increased.

The world's largest economy expanded at an annual rate of 4.3%, up from 3.8% in the previous quarter. That was better than expected, and marked the strongest growth in two years.

The figures offer a clearer picture of the state of the US economy heading into the end of the year, after data collection had been delayed by the US government shutdown.

The report showed consumer spending rising by 3.5%, compared with 2.5% in the previous quarter.

Armed men have kidnapped 28 people travelling to an annual Islamic event in Nigeria's central Plateau state, local police told the BBC.

The victims, including women and children, were ambushed in their bus on Sunday night as it was driving between villages.

Police spokesperson Alabo Alfred said the authorities have "deployed assets" to the affected area to ensure that those abducted are rescued.

News of the abductions comes just a day after the Nigerian authorities announced the release of the remaining 130 schoolchildren and teachers from a separate mass kidnapping at a Catholic boarding school in Niger state last month.

A journalist based in Plateau state said the families of the latest victims had begun receiving ransom demands.

The police have not said anything about the identity of the possible perpetrators.

Kidnapping for ransom by criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, has become common across parts of northern and central Nigeria.

Although the handing over of cash in order to release those being held is illegal, it is thought that this is how many cases are resolved and seen as a way for these gangs to raise money.

The incident in Plateau state is unrelated to the long-running Islamist insurgency in the country's north-east, where jihadist groups have been battling the state for more than a decade.

The insecurity in Nigeria received renewed international attention in November after US President Donald Trump threatened to send troops to "that now disgraced country, 'guns-a-blazing'". He alleged that Christians were being targeted.

Nigeria's federal government has acknowledged the security problems but has denied that Christians are being singled out.

On Monday, Information Minister Mohammed Idris said that recent tensions with the US over insecurity and alleged persecution of Christians had been "largely resolved", resulting in stronger relations with Washington.

He added that trained and equipped forest guards will be deployed to secure forests and other remote areas used as hideouts by criminal groups to supplement army operations.

Additional reporting by Abayomi Adisa and BBC Monitoring

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Russia launched a "massive" attack on several Ukrainian cities overnight on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, a day after he warned of strikes over the Christmas period.

At least three people were killed, according to Ukrainian officials, including a four-year-old child, while energy infrastructure was also targeted, leaving several regions without power.

Russia launched more than 600 drones and 30 missiles, according to Ukraine.

Zelensky said "people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe" in the run-up to Christmas, and said the strikes sent "an extremely clear signal about Russia's priorities" despite ongoing peace talks.

He added: "Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing. And that means that the world is not putting enough pressure on Russia."

Zelensky had previously warned it was in the Kremlin's "nature" to "carry out massive attacks" during the festive period.

Confirming a child's death in the central Zhytomyr region, local official Vitaly Bunechko said: "She was taken to hospital, doctors fought for her life but could not save her in the end." Five others were injured in the strike, he added.

Meanwhile, a 76-year-old woman was killed and three people injured when a house in the Kyiv region was struck, according to Ukraine's state emergencies service.

An attack in Khmelnytskyy, western Ukraine, killed a 72-year-old, regional administration head Serhiy Tyurin said.

Polish fighter jets were scrambled in response to missiles and drones targeting west Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry said it had targeted energy facilities and other transport infrastructure, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Meanwhile, Ukraine reportedly struck a petrochemical plant in Stravropol, southern Russia.

Videos shared by Russian media channels online showed large flames rising from the direction of the plant.

The region's governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said a Ukrainian drone hit the plant and sparked a fire. No casualties were reported and residential buildings were left undamaged.

With temperatures expected to fall to as low as -7C on Wednesday, Ukraine's energy operator warned of emergency power shutdowns "in all regions" and urged people to use energy "sparingly".

Acting energy minister Artem Nekrasov said it was the ninth large attack on Ukraine's energy system this year, and that supply in the Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky regions has been "almost completely" lost.

Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko told the BBC World Service that some areas could be without power "for days".

The main focus of Russian attacks in recent days has been the southern port city of Odesa, which comes after Vladimir Putin threatened to sever Ukraine's access to the Black Sea.

The Russian president made the threat in retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on tankers belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet", vessels used to move good including oil which are under Western sanctions.

The Tuesday morning attack punctured a period of relative calm in the capital Kyiv, where it has been weeks since Shahed drones have been spotted flying low overhead.

In the Ukrainian capital, many suspect the most recent attack is linked to Monday's killing of a top Russian general after a car bomb exploded in Moscow.

Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov - the head of the armed forces' operational training department - died in the blast, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine. Kyiv has not commented.

It also comes after the latest round of US-led diplomatic talks in Miami, where envoys from Washington and Kyiv have been drafting detailed proposals to end the war.

According to Zelensky, the US had proposed a Christmas truce but Russia rejected the idea.

Zelensky said he received a progress report on the talks on Tuesday morning, and that "several draft documents have now been prepared", including a basic framework to end the war, future security guarantees for Ukraine, and on the country's post-war recovery.

Putin was also due to be briefed by his envoy Kirill Dmitriev on Tuesday on the latest discussions with Washington.