Penulis: Agus S

Council tax is expected to rise by 5% a year to pay for local services, documents in the Spending Review suggest.

Bills are also expected to rise further to pay for an increase in police funding.

Local authorities have the power to raise the tax by up to 5% every year, although some choose lower increases.

However, Wednesday’s Spending Review assumes councils will raise it to the maximum level.

The review allocated a 1.1% increase in grant funding to local government, but said total spending power for councils would rise by 2.6%. That includes funds councils can raise from council tax, as well as things like business rates.

Councils can raise council tax by more than 5% if they hold a local referendum or get approval from central government.

Council tax has generally increased by the maximum of 5% a year recently amid strained town hall budgets. Some councils in particular financial difficulty have increased bills by significantly more.

On whether councils would have to raise council tax by 5%, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said nothing had been changed in terms of the 5% council tax cap, which was brought in by the previous government.

“It is a cap, councils don’t have to increase council tax by 5%,” she told BBC Breakfast.

“That’s to invest in things like social care, but also as is normal to put money into policing.”

Local services ranging from social care and libraries to bin collection and street cleaning are funded through council tax.

The Spending Review also says police spending power will rise by 2.3% a year in real terms.

Council tax includes a so-called police precept, which helps fund services such as regular community policing.

Police and Crime Commissioners can raise this precept by £14 a year for a Band D council tax bill without having to have a referendum. This is in addition to a 5% general rise.

Police budgets are made up of funding from both central government and local government and the increase in police spending power assumes a rise in the police precept, Treasury documents suggest.

“This includes projected spending from additional income, including estimated funding from the police council tax precept,” the documents say.

Police leaders have already called for greater funding, with some arguing extra money provided in the Spending Review would quickly go on covering officers’ pay

Louise Gittins, who chairs the Local Government Association, which represents councils, said there were some welcome areas of support in the Spending Review, including children’s services, affordable homes and investment in transport.

However, she said council budgets would remain under “severe financial pressure”.

“Many will continue to have to increase council tax bills to try and protect services but still need to make further cutbacks,” she said.

Tiff Lynch, acting chair of the Police Federation for England and Wales, which represents rank-and-file officers, said: “This Spending Review should have been a turning point after 15 years of austerity that has left policing and police officers broken. Instead, the cuts will continue and it’s the public who will pay the price.

“We await the government’s decision on police pay in the coming weeks. But with this Spending Review, the signs are deeply worrying; the consequences will be even more so.”

Jim McMahon said the council’s financial position was “deteriorating rapidly” and unable to improve.

The rain and high winds experienced during stormy weather can damage homes and cause power outages.

The chancellor highlights “uncertainty” in the world as economists warn of tax rises if the economy fails to grow.

Council tax bills in England are predicted to increase by the maximum amount every year until 2029.

Details about how the region could be split up to form unitary councils has been shared.

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A New York judge declared a mistrial on a rape charge in Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes trial after one juror refused to continue deliberations over an alleged attack in 2013 on actress Jessica Mann.

The jury had found Weinstein guilty of one count of sexual assault and not guilty of another count on Wednesday, but kept deliberating about a final rape charge.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said after the mistrial was announced that his office plans to retry the rape charge again – meaning a third trial for Weinstein in New York.

Thursday’s mistrial came after Weinstein’s earlier sex crimes conviction in the state was overturned last year, leading to new charges last September.

The rape charge was brought by actress Jessica Mann, who said in a statement on Thursday that she was prepared to testify again.

“I have told the District Attorney I am ready, willing and able to endure this as many times as it takes for justice and accountability to be served,” she said. “Today is not the end of my fight.”

At a news conference, Bragg said that after the judge declared a mistrial, he “immediately informed the court that we are ready to go forward to trial again on that charge, after conferring with Jessica Mann”.

A panel of seven female and five male jurors deliberated for six days in the six-week trial before one juror on Thursday declined to continue discussions.

Deliberations in the trial were plagued with tensions. The jury foreperson brought concerns to the judge earlier this week, saying jurors were “attacking” one another and trying to change his mind.

On Wednesday, he brought more complaints to the judge, indicating that “at least one other juror made comments to the effect of ‘I’ll meet you outside one day,’ and there’s yelling and screaming”, Judge Curtis Farber told the court.

On Thursday, the foreperson said he would not go back to the jury room to deliberate because he was afraid of others yelling at him, so the judge declared a mistrial on the last rape charge.

“Sometimes jury deliberations become heated. I understand this particular deliberation was more needed than some others,” Judge Farber told the 12-person jury, according to US media.

In a statement, a Weinstein spokesperson said his team believed the conviction would be “set aside” due to “gross juror misconduct”.

“8 years, dozens of accusers, three trials, one conviction,” spokesperson Juda Engelmayer said. “Harvey is disappointed in the single verdict, but hasn’t loss faith or the heart to continue fighting to clear his name.”

An appeals court overturned Weinstein’s previous conviction for sex crimes in New York last April, finding the 73-year-old did not receive a fair trial in 2020 because a judge allowed testimony from women who made allegations against him beyond the charges at hand.

The 2025 trial was based on the testimony of three women – Ms Mann, former television production assistant Miriam Haley, and Polish model Kaja Sokola. All three accused Weinstein of using his power in the entertainment industry to sexually abuse them. Ms Haley and Ms Mann both testified in the first trial against Weinstein, when he was found guilty.

This time, the jury found Weinstein guilty of sexually assaulting Ms Haley, but acquitted him of assaulting Ms Sokola.

The latest conviction is in addition to a 16-year sentence that Weinstein has yet to serve after being convicted of sex crimes in Los Angeles.

Jury deliberations proved tense last week as well, when one juror said others were “shunning” one member of the panel, calling it “playground stuff”.

The foreperson also claimed jurors were considering Weinstein’s past and other allegations outside the realm of the case in making decisions.

This led the judge to give the jury an instruction about only considering the allegations in the case, and nothing else.

Weinstein – who has cancer and diabetes – stayed at Bellevue Hospital rather than Riker’s Island jail during the trial. He sat in a wheelchair for the proceedings.

In total, Weinstein has been accused of sexual misconduct, assault and rape by more than 100 women. While not all reports resulted in criminal charges, the California conviction means he is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Weinstein and his brother Bob were among the biggest figures in Hollywood, founding Miramax film studio, whose hits included Shakespeare in Love, which won the Oscar for best picture, and Pulp Fiction.

Miriam Haley says she risked her own privacy for the sake of other female victims of sexual abuse.

Production assistant Miriam Haley is the first accuser to testify at the disgraced Hollywood mogul’s retrial.

Weinstein, who has pleaded not guilty to sex crimes, returns to court after a conviction was overturned.

Shiori Ito became the face of Japan’s MeToo movement after she accused a prominent journalist of rape.

The disgraced Hollywood producer told the judge he could no longer endure conditions in jail.

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A black schoolgirl who was strip-searched by Metropolitan Police officers was told she “might be arrested” if she refused to comply, a misconduct panel has heard.

The girl, known as Child Q, was strip-searched at her school by officers in Hackney, east London, on 3 December 2020 after her teachers wrongly suspected her of carrying cannabis.

This involved the removal of the 15-year-old’s clothing including underwear, her bending over and having to expose intimate parts of her body while she was menstruating, the panel has heard.

Trainee Det Con Kristina Linge, PC Victoria Wray and PC Rafal Szmydynski, who were all constables at the time, deny gross misconduct over their treatment of the girl.

On Thursday, Det Con Linge, who conducted the strip-search alongside PC Wray, told the misconduct panel in south-east London she informed Child Q she “might be arrested” when the girl asked what could happen if she refused to be searched – but claimed there had been “no threat of arrest”.

Elliot Gold, for the Independent Office for Police Conduct, asked: “Will you accept you were giving Child Q the option of being strip-searched or arrested?”

“There were no options given like that,” the officer replied.

“Do you accept that saying that to a 15-year-old might make them feel frightened?” Mr Gold said.

“Yes,” Det Con Linge responded.

The panel heard that when asked previously what the officer had proposed to do if she found cannabis on Child Q, Det Con Linge had answered: “As per legislation, a juvenile found in possession must be arrested and brought to custody.”

Det Con Linge previously said Child Q had consented to the search, but admitted under cross-examination by Mr Gold that this was not accurate.

Det Con Linge joined the Met Police in 2018 and was still in her probationary period when the search took place.

The officer confirmed she had completed equality training, including on unconscious bias and discriminatory stereotypes, and said she was aware of stereotypes relating to black people.

She told the hearing she did not “see the relevance” of the fact Child Q was being questioned by two white police officers.

Mr Gold asked whether she would accept that “a stereotype of black people is they may more likely be stopped and searched” and if she would accept that they are more likely to be “in receipt of use of force by police”.

Det Con Linge replied “no” to both questions.

The 46-year-old agreed there was no adult present in the room where the search happened who could have offered the child advice, assisted her in communication with police or ensured her rights were respected.

Det Con Linge also denied she “did not recognise Child Q as a child” and was, in effect, “treating her as older than she was”.

The hearing continues.

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Hindu temples in Harrow and Neasden are offering special prayers for the Air India crash victims.

One British man, who was a passenger on the London-bound flight, survived the crash in Ahmedabad, western India.

Shortly after Shamiah McKenzie and Codee Godfrey carried out the attack, they mingled with police officers.

Six tourists staying at the Nana Backpackers hostel died in November from suspected methanol poisoning.

The video from police body-worn cameras showed what jurors heard was the bravery of the officers.

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A 15-year-old three-time world kickboxing champion died from a severe traumatic brain injury after an unsanctioned fight which had no safeguards, a coroner has ruled.

Alex Eastwood, from Fazakerley, Liverpool, suddenly collapsed after the charity bout in Wigan against a 17-year-old opponent and died three days later, on 29 June last year.

Coroner Michael Pemberton said the fight was unsanctioned and the safeguards that were meant to exist “simply didn’t”. He described the regulation of kickboxing as “chaotic and disjointed”.

Alex’s family said the inquest had made clear his death was “not a tragic accident”, but was “a failure of safeguarding and regulation”.

Mr Pemberton, who returned a finding of misadventure, had already taken the unusual step of writing a Prevention of Future Death Report airing his concerns about a lack of regulatory guidance in terms of any child combat sports.

He said: “During the course of this hearing the evidence has reflected a chaotic and somewhat disjointed approach in which I’m not satisfied participants or parents are made fully aware of the risks that may ensue.”

Kickboxing GB, one of the governing bodies of the sport, said while it did not sanction the Wigan fight, it would consider the coroner’s findings carefully and “review policies and procedures accordingly”.

Alex, who had just finished his GCSEs at Archbishop Beck RC High School, fought three rounds at the TKMA Gym before becoming seriously unwell.

The coroner said emergency services had done everything they could to try to save him.

Addressing the boy’s parents, Mr Pemberton said: “The circumstances of this tragic case have left many numb.

“I’m sure there will be an encore of issues to seek changes on as part of his legacy.”

He referred to the lack of pre-bout meeting between the fighters, referee and coaches to lay down the “ground rules” for the bout.

The inquest heard Dale Bannister, organiser and owner of the TKMA gym, said the “ground rules” for the match had been agreed during social media exchanges between himself and Alex’s coach as a “light contact” fight.

But the coroner said: “The planning of the event and lack of risk assessment was sub-optimal in this regard.”

Outside the hearing, Alex’s step-mother Nikita Eastwood said: “No child should go into a gym to do something they love and not come home.

“What happened to him was not just a tragic accident – the inquest has made clear to us that it was a failure of safeguarding, of responsibility, and of regulation.

“Alex died after a fight that we now see should never have happened.”

She said there had been no national governing body involvement, and no clear or enforced safety standards, adding: “Alex’s death must be a line in the sand so that these failures change.”

The family called for “national protections for children in combat sports”.

Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has written to the coroner and said officials in her department were now looking at the best way to address the concerns raised about the safety of children taking part in combat sports.

Ian Hollett, Alex’s coach from Hurricane Combat and Fitness said the club was “utterly devastated” by the loss of a “wonderful, kind and exceptionally talented boy”.

He added: “We thank the coroner for his thorough investigation and fully welcome any recommendations made that will help prevent another tragedy like this happening again.”

The club’s solicitor, David Pearson, said: “This unimaginable tragedy has brought into sharp focus the need for further regulation in all combat sports involving children across the country.”

Kickboxing GB said: “Whilst the event which Alex attended was not a Kickboxing GB sanctioned event, we have provided assistance to the coroner throughout this inquest.”

The body said it would consider the coroner’s findings carefully and “review policies and procedures accordingly”.

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The BBC has said it was “unacceptable” for David Walliams to make two Nazi salutes during a recording of comedy panel show Would I Lie To You? this week.

The comedian and children’s author made the gestures during a segment in which a fellow panellist discussed a story about injuring their wrist while waving.

Walliams reportedly joined in with increasingly vigorous waves, which culminated in him holding out his arm in a Nazi salute.

The show’s production company and the BBC both described the gestures as “completely unacceptable” and said the segment would not be broadcast.

BBC News has asked representatives for Walliams for comment.

The former Britain’s Got Talent judge was on the panel for the BBC One show’s Christmas special, which was recorded at Pinewood Studios on Tuesday.

Journalist Sebastian Topan, who was in the audience, contacted the BBC to describe what happened.

One part of the show saw Call The Midwife actress Helen George, who took part in Strictly Come Dancing in 2015, being given a prompt to suggest she had sprained her wrist “from waving too much during the Strictly tour”.

She then had to try to convince the opposing team that her anecdote was true.

After demonstrating the wave, which purportedly left her with an injury, she was told that it was “too little” and was encouraged to make a bigger gesture.

“Some other panellist was talking when David Walliams started doing the Nazi salute,” Topan told the BBC. “I was shocked at what I had seen.”

There were “patches of quietened gasps and awkward half-laughs and broken clapping” in the audience, they said.

The show’s host, Gavin & Stacey star Rob Brydon, then told Walliams the show would be broadcast before the 9pm watershed, effectively suggesting his behaviour was not suitable for a family TV audience.

However, as the discussion about George’s experience continued, Walliams made the gesture again, adding a sexual gesture with his other hand.

It’s understood the exchange landed awkwardly in the studio. “The atmosphere was uncomfortable and weird,” Topan said.

“I think Rob Brydon wanted to get past it as quickly as he could. David Walliams’ team-mates looked unsure what to do and were not laughing… It was like an elephant in the room after that as the incident was early on in the recording and so the remainder of the show felt weird.”

After the recording, a different member of the audience posted on X: “I didn’t have David Walliams doing a Nazi salute at the Would I Lie To You? Christmas taping on my 2025 bingo card.”

A spokesperson for Banijay UK, which owns the show’s production company Zeppotron, said: “Any attempt at humour regarding this deeply offensive gesture, whether broadcast or not, is completely unacceptable in any context.

“It was immediately acknowledged during the recording that this segment would not be broadcast under any circumstances and we apologise to those who were at the recording for any offence caused.”

A BBC spokesperson said: “The use of such an offensive gesture is completely unacceptable and we apologise to all at the recording for the offence caused.”

Walliams, who also hosts a podcast with his former Little Britain co-star Matt Lucas, has not appeared on terrestrial television since 2022.

He left his role as a judge on ITV show Britain’s Got Talent that year after an audio recording of him making insulting comments about contestants were made public.

The comic was suing the production company after private comments he made were leaked to the media.

TV watchdog Ofcom publishes research into viewers’ opinions about potentially offensive content.

The former judge on the ITV talent show is suing the Fremantle, the production company behind it.

Walliams files a High Court case against the show’s production company following his exit as a judge.

In November, Walliams admitted making “disrespectful comments” about two past contestants.

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We are reminded rather starkly today of the backdrop – the all too hard to shift backdrop – that shapes our national life and conversation and the trade-offs the government confronts.

The latest GDP figures underline the baked in sluggishness, the flatlining, even the shrivelling of the economy.

All this after the prime minister and the chancellor sought to badge their Spending Review on Wednesday as the beginning of a new chapter.

Rachel Reeves hopes her prescription can be part of the cure for our collective economic woes, writing in The Daily Telegraph that “investment” is “with a singular purpose in mind – to make you and your family better off.”

But that feels, just as it did under the previous government, like an aspiration for another day, some distance away, rather than an imminent prospect.

The economic sluggishness has another impact too. There is a widespread recognition, including in the Treasury, that the limits are being reached on what the government can sustainably borrow.

If there is an acceptance there can’t be any more borrowing and the economy remains in the slow lane, that points to more tax rises in the Budget in the autumn.

Meanwhile, the chancellor has asked her MPs to go out and sell the government’s plan – just as some of them grumble that both she and the prime minister are no good at doing that themselves.

There is a frustration from some at the apparent inability of Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to talk in pictures, to punchily, directly and repeatedly articulate in a way that is absorbed what the government is about and who it is for.

Is the defining mission clear enough? Is this a government with a demeanour and posture that matches its majority?

No, is the private judgement of some on its own side, let alone their critics, and some in business.

We are witnessing, says Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, “a decade of a growing state”.

“Over the parliament as a whole total departmental spending is set to grow at 2.3% a year above economy-wide inflation. It is worth recalling that it grew at 3.6% a year over the 2019-24 parliament,” Johnson adds – when the Conservatives were in charge.

And one final observation – just because of its scale. A growing part of that growing state is the health service.

By 2028-29 the day to day spending on the NHS for the year will be nearly a quarter of a trillion pounds.

£226bn is around the same as the total economic output of the Portuguese economy.

And still the question is asked by some about whether that is enough, as others ponder for how long numbers this big and rising can possibly be sustainable.

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Salisbury MP John Glen asked the chancellor for an update, only to be told it was the Health Secretary’s decision.

The big bet for the government remains on economic growth – finding it and sustaining it.

Some departments, including the Home Office and Foreign Office, have lost out in the government’s Spending Review.

SNP say Scotland has been “short changed” but the chancellor claims it is the largest settlement since devolution.

Projects in the South West were not included in the chancellor’s spending review on Wednesday.

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When US immigration agents pulled up outside a Los Angeles car wash on a quiet Sunday afternoon, it sparked instant chaos.

Some customers at the Westchester Hand Wash, which sits in the centre of a busy shopping area just blocks from the city’s airport, froze as the officers in olive-green uniforms approached, CCTV footage obtained by the BBC shows.

Two employees who spotted them ducked behind a luxury SUV they were wiping down with a rag. Another worker halfway through cleaning the back window of a car looked up.

Then all at once they scattered and ran, some jumping over a nearby fence as agents raced after them on foot and in US Customs and Border Protection pick-up trucks.

Agents came the following day to make more arrests.

Jesús Cruz, who has worked at the car wash for more than a decade and lived in the US for more than 30 years, was among the six men who were arrested over the course of two raids.

His wife, Noemi Ciau, told the BBC she was shopping with her daughter when she spotted a social media post about a possible raid. It included a photo of the car wash, so she dropped her daughter at home and raced there.

By the time she arrived, however, she was too late. She has not been able to reach her husband since.

“You are so used to having a partner there, just to help you out, to be the backbone… now it’s like – how am I going to do it?” she said.

“My husband has no criminal background. He’s never gotten a ticket before. We pay our taxes. We’re up to date on everything.”

She did not confirm they were in the US legally. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to an inquiry about Mr Cruz’s legal status, or the goal of the operation at the car wash.

That raid and similar ones across Los Angeles by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) represent a significant escalation in the White House’s strategy to round up and deport undocumented migrants.

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump repeatedly said he would prioritise deporting noncitizens accused of violent crimes. That promise received widespread support, even among Hispanic immigrant groups.

But in recent weeks, the administration has stepped up its targets, pushing to increase their arrests from about 660 to 3,000 a day.

To do that, they have widened their net, targeting not just criminals but workplaces such as farms and factories in an effort to detain more undocumented migrants.

“Just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” Stephen Miller, a top White House adviser, reportedly told Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials before they launched the recent LA raids.

According to the Wall Street Journal, he told them they did not need to produce target lists of suspected illegal immigrants, a longstanding practice, and should instead raid major businesses to arrest as many as possible.

Car-wash owner Mehmet Aydogan said the agents did not ask for IDs before placing the men in handcuffs and swiftly driving them away.

“They were not doing anything criminal,” he said, noting the raids were quick and lasted less than a minute. “Everyone is hardworking.”

Days earlier, there was another operation at Ambiance Apparel, a clothing wholesale business in the Fashion District near downtown LA.

More than a dozen people were arrested, witnesses said, although DHS did not respond to a BBC inquiry about this operation and the total number of arrests.

Border tsar Tom Homan denied that agents were conducting an immigration raid at Ambiance. He said it was a criminal investigation that also uncovered undocumented immigrants.

“I said it from day one: if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table,” he told the New York Times recently.

Enrique Lopez was one of several witnesses who started posting on Instagram about the operation, before a large group of protesters formed outside, trying to prevent the workers from being taken away.

Officials eventually deployed flash bangs and tear gas to push past the crowd – one of the first protests in the LA area as the spate of immigration raids kicked off.

“It’s sad that it’s hardworking people,” he said about those arrested. “And they’re trying to make it seem like it’s bad people.”

Protests first broke out on 6 June, with confrontations between demonstrators and federal agents in the streets, before spreading more widely and at times turning violent. Hundreds have been arrested and an overnight curfew in one area is being enforced.

Immigration enforcement agencies have said the protests will not deter their operations. President Trump has deployed the National Guard and US Marines to help ensure the immigration crackdown continues.

These raids have hit Los Angeles County especially hard, where estimates suggest more than 900,000 people do not have legal status – about 10% of the population.

Hispanics here outnumber any other ethnic background by a large margin – and many in the community who are citizens or legal residents have family who are undocumented.

“I can’t emphasise enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelenos right now,” the city’s Mayor Karen Bass said at news conference.

“Not knowing if it’s tomorrow or tonight. It might be where they live. It might be their workplace. Should you send your kids to school? Should you go to work?”

Social media has been used to inform communities about sightings of immigration authorities, but also to spread misinformation.

The unease caused one local minority non-profit to urge undocumented people to just stay out of sight. It offered volunteers to run errands or go grocery shopping for families so they can remain indoors.

Residents say it’s a mystery when and where immigration officers will show up next.

Immigration agencies do not typically announce where raids have happened, nor do they announce all arrests or where detainees are being held or jailed – adding to the anxiety.

But what exactly comes next as raids continue is still unknown.

Raids nationwide in recent days have netted hundreds of arrests, including recent operations in agricultural sectors and a meat-packing plant in Nebraska. In response, protests have spurred in all corners of the country – including in major cities like New York, Dallas, Washington and Boston.

“California may be first – but it clearly won’t end here,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in an evening address on Tuesday. “Other states are next.”

Immigration attorney Karla Navarrete, who is representing multiple people who have been arrested in the immigration sweeps, said the mass arrests have overwhelmed the system.

Databases aren’t being updated with arrests, families and lawyers cannot find those who have been detained and when they do the person sometimes is in a different state or has already been deported to another country.

Ms Ciau, whose husband was arrested at the car wash, said she learned late on Tuesday that he was no longer in Los Angeles, or even the state of California.

She was told by her lawyer that Mr Cruz is being held at a detention centre in El Paso, Texas, more than 800 miles (1,300km) from their home.

Her youngest child – a five-year-old boy – is having the hardest time with the change, she said.

“He just keeps asking for his dad. I don’t know what to tell him,” she added, through tears.

“He doesn’t understand what is going on. He still thinks his dad is at work.”

The US defense secretary appeared to acknowledge incidental plans also exist for Panama, but avoided giving direct confirmation.

US Senator Alex Padilla was put in handcuffs after interrupting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a news update on the Los Angeles ICE raids.

The appointees have “committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data”, the vaccine sceptic said.

US President Donald Trump will oversee a huge military parade in Washington DC on the same day as nationwide protests are planned.

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, one of the world’s most active, erupted for the 25th time since 23 December 2024.

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With the confirmed killing of Hamas’s top military commander Mohammad Sinwar in an Israeli strike, a chapter has closed on the elite leadership group in Gaza that orchestrated the events of 7 October, 2023.

Sinwar’s demise follows the confirmed killings of other central figures who sat on what came to be known inside Hamas as the War Council.

Sinwar, his brother Yahya, Marwan Issa and a fifth unidentified figure formed the clandestine core that decided on and directed the unprecedented assault on Israel – one which shook the region and set off the conflict still unfolding in Gaza.

The War Council, sometimes also known as the Quintet Council, operated under conditions of extreme security and secrecy.

Direct meetings between its members were exceedingly rare. Instead, communication occurred through older technology deemed more secure, like cable phones, or via trusted intermediaries, all in an effort to minimise the risk of interception or detection.

This level of secrecy was not just tactical: it reflected the council’s critical role in Hamas’s strategic decision-making, especially in preparation for what became the most complex and deadly attack in the organisation’s history.

The known members of the council included:

The 7 October attack marked a seismic shift in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The scale and brutality of the attack stunned observers worldwide – not just for its immediate impact, but for its unprecedented scale.

Hamas’s military preparations took years – including extensive tunnel construction and the steady accumulation of rockets and weapons – but few analysts, regional actors, or even rival Palestinian factions foresaw the magnitude of the offensive.

The group had long maintained strict control over Gazans and had often imposed harsh economic measures, including heavy taxes, on an already impoverished population to fund its military build-up.

Yet even within the movement, there appears to have been a limited understanding of the scale and consequences of the plan hatched by the War Council.

Its demise raises a profound question: what exactly drove its members to pursue a course that many Palestinians have described as politically suicidal?

With Israel’s overwhelming military response and the international isolation that followed, the 7 October attack has increasingly been viewed as a desperate gamble – one that lacked a clear political exit strategy and led to massive suffering for Gaza’s civilian population.

Now, with most of the core decision-makers dead, uncovering the deeper motivations and strategic calculus behind the attack may no longer be possible.

What internal debates occurred within the council? Were there dissenting voices? Was this a bid for regional relevance, a provocation timed with regional shifts, or a last-ditch effort to break a long-standing siege?

Answers to these questions may have died with the men who conceived the plan.

The dismantling of the war council leaves Hamas facing a potential leadership vacuum at a critical time.

Its military capabilities have been severely degraded, its political leadership – who operated out of Qatar until November 2024, after which their whereabouts became unclear – is under intense pressure, and its traditional mechanisms of control within Gaza have been deeply disrupted.

The absence of a centralised strategic command may lead to fragmentation within Hamas, or the rise of new, perhaps more radical factions.

Alternatively, it may open a pathway for recalibration – if not by Hamas, then by other Palestinian actors seeking to fill the void left behind.

The fall of Hamas’s War Council marks the end of a shadowy but powerful inner circle that shaped one of the most consequential decisions in the movement’s history.

Whether their legacy will be seen by Palestinians as one of bold resistance or catastrophic miscalculation, one thing is certain: with their departure, a defining era in the leadership of Hamas has come to a close.

One of the two hostages was Yair Yaakov, who was killed in the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu says.

Five countries place travel bans on Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel also told the BBC a two-state solution was “an aspirational goal”.

The activists’ yacht, which was trying to carry aid to Gaza, was intercepted by Israeli forces in the early hours of Monday.

Witnesses say the gunmen shot at them while organising queues for food near a site run by an Israeli- and US-backed group.

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John Watkeys used to love an evening cup of tea watching bats fly around his oak tree, but that part of his garden is now gone under one of the UK’s most expensive and longest-running road projects.

As the Heads of the Valleys road officially opens on Thursday, there are no roadworks on it for the first time in 23 years after its £2bn upgrade to almost motorway standard.

But for people like John, who has neighboured the A465 for 65 years, he says the stress of fighting to keep his home intact has taken its toll.

First Minister Eluned Morgan has called the upgrade Wales’ biggest project since devolution in 1999, giving valleys communities “the same opportunities” as other areas.

The 28-mile (45km) improvement is designed to bring prosperity to one of the UK’s most deprived areas and cut journey times between west Wales and the Midlands.

Some called it the “road from hell” during the roadworks, which started back in 2002, and subsequent congestion, but now all cones have gone and traffic flows freely.

But while those living closest to the Heads of the Valleys road have welcomed its impact on traffic, they claim they are still fighting with the Welsh government about the new road’s impact on their homes.

“Nobody is going to be happy with losing part of your garden,” said keen gardener John, whose home borders the A465 in Merthyr Tydfil.

“I had a beautiful old oak tree, that’s gone. I’ve a soft spot for bats and used to love watch them flying around the oak tree in the evening, they’ve gone.”

The road crosses the south Wales coalfields, a national park and twists mightily close to people’s homes, especially in Merthyr where the final section of roadworks were done.

John grows his own fruit and vegetables but after three years of construction work next to his house he said he has had to “restart the garden from scratch” due to the dirt and dust.

“I’m left picking up the pieces,” said the former microbiologist. “It has been extremely stressful for a lot of years.”

He said the stress started when after years of reassurances that the new road would not take any of his land, those behind the project changed their mind and wanted to knock down part of his house.

“Workers said we want to knock down your garage and we need your drive for a working area,” claimed John.

“You can imagine my response, I said you can’t knock my garage down as it’s an integral part of my house and it includes my utility room which houses my heating and hot water. So they found another way.”

The Welsh government offered to compulsory purchase the house, in the Cefn Coed area of Merthyr, but John said he declined because of sentimental reasons.

“I grew up here, both my parents passed away here and my wife passed away here,” John said.

“This house has a lot of memories and, at my age, the thought of packing everything up and moving was too much.”

It is not the first time the Heads of the Valley road has impacted John as his family were forced to leave his first home, which was a few metres away, in the early 1960s when the original Swansea to Herefordshire road was built.

John, who has received interim compensation from the Welsh government for the loss of his garden but is awaiting a full settlement, is adamant “it’s not over”.

“The peace and quiet is nice now and just being able to get on with my life is lovely but I’ve a few more fights with Welsh government to come,” he added.

He is not the only one. Just over the road, Daryl Wilkins is also writing to the Welsh government and politicians claiming the vibrations from piling behind his house has led to cracks throughout his home.

“I’ve lived here for almost 45 years and never had any problems until construction started on the Heads of the Valleys,” said the 79-year-old former fish and chip van owner.

“I had a survey on the house before work started and there were no cracks. Now my house has cracks on outside and inside walls and that’s because of vibrations from piling going on outside my house.”

Daryl said contractors replaced nine window panes as a “goodwill gesture” after they were damaged, but claims he had pay more than £1000 on window frames.

“The piling lasted for at least six months,” said Daryl. “The house used to shake, it was terrible.

“My great-granddaughter loved going on our trampoline but she wouldn’t come here because of the noise from the piling.

“Now I’ve got damage throughout the house, it will take thousands of pounds to repair. I don’t want compensation, I just want my house repaired.”

Compensation payments are currently subject to ongoing discussions between the Welsh government, Future Valleys consortium behind the final £1bn stretch of the road, and individuals affected by the scheme.

Almost 70 structures – including more than 40 new bridges and a dozen new junctions – have been built across the upgraded route between Abergavenny in Monmouthshire and Hirwaun in Rhondda Cynon Taf.

Workers planted 285,000 trees to mitigate its significant environmental impact and creatures including bats, dormice and great crested newts have also been moved.

“They’ve rightly considered the effects on the environment and local wildlife and spent money putting that right but not done the same with affected people,” said Daryl’s daughter Julie.

“They’ve spent billions on a road which was much-needed, but not put right the damage they’ve caused this house – and you’re talking thousands of pounds.

“Mum and dad aren’t in great health and this stress doesn’t help. I just wonder what those dignitaries opening this road would feel if this happened to their parents.”

Merthyr councillor Lisa Mytton’s ward was split in two when a road bridge over the Heads of the Valleys was knocked down for the road below to be widened.

She said her phone had been “red hot morning, noon and night” for best part of five years.

“It has been headache the last few years supporting residents with their concerns,” said Mytton.

“Residents found the disruption really heavy at some points when they were drilling into the rock face and some felt movement in their house so they felt weary and scared.

“It’s a huge relief and boost that it’s all done but authorities now need to work together to capitalise on this new road.”

John and Daryl said they accepted the Heads of the Valleys was to be upgraded and both admit the road will have a positive impact on the south Wales valleys, but want those in power to hear their stories.

“What I’d say to them is what we have to do is to make sure that valleys communities have the same opportunities as other areas to get quality and skilled jobs locally,” said First Minister Eluned Morgan.

“That’s what this road does for us. This is the biggest project in the history of devolution and it’s going to open up the valleys communities to new jobs.

“Now Welsh government will help to develop a vision for valleys communities built around economic development and this road is central to that.”

Transport secretary Ken Skates said he thanked residents “for their patience during the construction period” and that the Welsh government continued to “work with them to resolve any issues”.

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When a judge dismissed an appeal by prolific ticket tout Peter Hunter and his husband and accomplice David Smith against their landmark conviction for fraud, he sounded an alarm.

The evidence, he said in a 2021 judgement, suggested the possibility of “connivance and collusion” between ticketing companies and touts, who buy up tickets for live events in bulk and sell them to the public at inflated prices.

A different judge sentencing another group of ticket touts for fraud, including the self-styled “Ticket Queen” Maria Chenery-Woods, last year raised similar concerns and suggested the possibility some ticketing sites had been “complicit” in the touts making “substantial profits” by reselling tickets.

Hunter fraudulently traded tickets between 2010 and 2017, Chenery-Woods between 2012 and 2017. They both used all of the four big UK ticket resale sites: StubHub, Viagogo and the Ticketmaster-owned GetMeIn! and Seatwave.

For years, fans had battled touts to get the tickets they wanted and to avoid heavy mark-ups on resale sites. Meanwhile, Ticketmaster had publicly insisted that it was trying to combat ticket touting, which can be illegal in some circumstances.

The company – one of the UK’s biggest ticket sellers – was in a unique position until 2018, as a ticketing website which also owned two major resale platforms.

Although Ticketmaster was not involved or represented in either of these court cases, the judges’ comments about the industry suggested that the full story may not yet have been told. We wanted to investigate what was going on before the company shut its resale sites in 2018.

We spoke to former and current ticketing staff, who enjoyed working for Ticketmaster but in some cases were concerned that fans might have been short-changed. We also spoke to promoters, venue managers and consultants, and combed through court transcripts.

What we heard was that ticket touts had inside help with their business buying and selling tickets from the ticketing platforms they used:

Ticketmaster said in a statement that the allegations refer to “companies that were dissolved in 2018 and alleged events from over a decade ago, which have no relevance to today’s ticketing landscape”.

“Revisiting outdated claims about long-defunct businesses only serves to confuse and mislead the public,” the company said.

It added that Ticketmaster has “no involvement in the uncapped resale market” now and said: “We have always been committed to fair and secure ticketing.”

Hunter and Chenery-Woods were not the kind of touts who stand outside a venue discreetly asking passers-by to buy or sell tickets. These two turned their spare rooms into registered, tax-paying companies and made millions from trading tickets online, the courts found.

Mike Andrews, who leads National Trading Standards’ e-crimes unit and was involved in the investigation into Hunter and the Ticket Queen, told the BBC how he joined the early morning raid on the anonymous townhouse in a tree-lined north London street where Hunter ran his operation.

Upstairs was a room filled with PCs, whirring away, buying and selling tickets. “It was obviously an operation that ran pretty much 24/7,” Mr Andrews said. They also found rolls of tickets in seat-number order for events such as Lady Gaga concerts and the Harry Potter play, and multiple credit cards.

Reselling tickets for profit for live performances in the UK is not illegal. But Hunter and Chenery-Woods were convicted of using fraudulent practices to get around restrictions – such as limits on the number of tickets an individual can buy.

They pretended to be lots of different people, using lots of different credit cards, when they bought the tickets from companies such as Ticketmaster, See Tickets or AXS – which are known as primary ticketing websites.

The Ticket Queen used the details of family members, including a dead relative, to buy tickets, as well as using the names and addresses of dozens of people in and around the town of Diss, Norfolk where her business operated.

To sell the tickets, the touts used resale sites, which are known as the secondary ticketing websites.

Touts were “working hand-in-hand with resale platforms”, Mr Andrews told us.

A former staffer at Ticketmaster-owned Seatwave, who asked to remain anonymous, told us touts were “VIPs” on the resale site. “They were doing a lot of business for us. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions.”

Some staff at Seatwave had a cosy relationship with touts, according to the former employee, who said he would take Paul Douglas – the Ticket Queen’s former brother-in-law, also convicted of fraud – out for a pint when he visited London.

Resale sites make their money from fees paid by buyers and commission from the sellers – court papers show these could be as much as 25% of the resale price. Prosecutors calculated that Hunter’s company received sales revenue of £26.4m over about seven-and-a-half years. Based on their typical commission, the UK’s four main resale sites could have received £8.8m between them from Hunter’s sales alone.

Touts who consistently delivered large volumes of tickets to customers were offered discounts by resale platforms, industry sources told us. During the case where he was convicted of fraud, Peter Hunter alleged that GetMeIn! – another Ticketmaster-owned company – offered him “incentives” for selling in bulk, such as £4,000 cashback if he hit sales of £550,000 over a three-month period.

Multiple sources told us that some touts also sourced tickets directly through relationships with promoters and venues, but sales at Hunter’s level were far beyond what any regular customer could acquire legitimately from primary ticketing websites.

Even though the primary ticketing companies were victims of the fraud – as their purchase limits were breached by the use of false identities – Mr Andrews said none of the primary ticketing companies “directly supported” the prosecutions.

Another former employee who worked in Ticketmaster’s resale technical team, who also wanted to remain anonymous, told the BBC his team would work closely with touts, developing software that helped them sell tickets in the secondary market.

“You have to build a relationship with them, they’re like a customer basically,” he said. The team would show touts products and ask for feedback, including if they made selling tickets easier for them and often showing them multiple versions, he said.

We have been told that resale sites would liaise with big sellers, like Hunter.

In court, Hunter alleged a senior boss at GetMeIn! would help him by passing on information from Ticketmaster’s legal department such as “government reports maybe from select committees” and ringing him weekly to tip him off about forthcoming sales before the public learned about them.

This senior employee had described in emails how he added a “new privilege” to the accounts of “top brokers” – the resale sites’ term for touts – which would allow them to automatically “drip feed” large inventories of tickets on to the site.

Other emails were read in court as evidence from Peter Hunter’s defence team, suggesting that the senior GetMeIn! boss offered to help stop Hunter’s tickets being cancelled by Ticketmaster when he had fallen foul of a purchase limit.

The court heard that the senior employee had written: “I think Ticketmaster are looking at cancelling primary bookings that have exceeded the ticket limit. However, if I flag them as GMI [GetMeIn!], I should be able to save them.”

Hunter’s defence alleged the correspondence showed the GetMeIn! boss knew the tout had multiple Ticketmaster accounts which he used to buy more tickets than the site’s restrictions allowed.

Using multiple names and identities to buy more tickets than the limit allowed was one of the reasons Hunter was jailed for fraud.

In the trial of the Ticket Queen, the prosecution said this same GetMeIn! boss and a colleague had both been “complicit or at least indifferent” in her use of a false name on the resale site to conceal the fact that the account belonged to a tout.

The court heard that Maria Chenery-Woods had emailed the two men asking to change her account name from “Ticket Queen” to “Elsie Marshall” in February 2017.

In both court cases, the prosecution questioned why it was necessary for the accused to pretend to be other people to buy tickets if, as the defendants alleged, Ticketmaster knew what they were doing.

The links with touts such as Hunter went right to the highest levels of Ticketmaster’s group of companies, according to emails read out in court as evidence. They record the same senior GetMeIn! boss proposing a meeting between Hunter and Selina Emeny, the company’s top legal representative and a director of Live Nation Ltd, an arm of Ticketmaster’s parent company.

The proposed meeting in 2015 was intended to “address any worries” Hunter might have about a change in the law around ticket resale and “brainstorm what more can be done by our legal team to help UK brokers”.

Ms Emeny is currently listed as an active director of 50 companies on Companies House, all related to Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster maintained that its resale platforms, GetMeIn! and Seatwave, operated as “separate entities”, in the words of then chairman Chris Edmonds at a 2016 House of Commons select committee hearing.

But both Mr Edmonds and Ms Emeny were directors of Ticketmaster UK Ltd and the holding company which owned Seatwave. Ms Emeny was also a director and secretary of GetMeIn! and at one time, all three companies operated out of the same open-plan office in central London.

David Brown, who worked in Ticketmaster’s technology teams between 2011 and 2017, also told the BBC the companies had close enough links that they could have found out who was buying tickets in bulk and putting them up for resale on Ticketmaster’s other platforms.

He said Ticketmaster and its resale sites used “a lot of the same infrastructure” and it would have been easy to “link everything together”. “You’re not building completely separate databases,” he said.

He said it meant Ticketmaster could have connected the accounts and credit cards originally purchasing tickets with those selling in bulk on resale sales, and stop them reselling.

“We should be able to pull enough data to say there’s something not right about this, this isn’t just members of the public selling tickets. If they wanted to really tackle the problem, they had all the tools in one place to do that,” he said.

Christoph Homann, who was the then resale managing director of Ticketmaster/GetMeIn!, said in 2014 to a group of MPs that “they are able to cross-reference” some tickets on GetMeIn! “against Ticketmaster’s records” to report suspected frauds.

The employee in Ticketmaster’s resale technology team who developed software to help touts also told the BBC that there was a senior executive who had “oversight” over elements of the primary selling and resale side of the operation. That person could easily have accessed an internal list of top-selling brokers, the employee said.

He said the executive “would definitely ask that question, ask for that information. I can’t believe that wouldn’t be seen by him”.

Mr Edmonds, Ticketmaster’s chairman in 2016, had told Parliament that the company did not have “visibility” over how the sellers on its resale platforms acquired those tickets – but these accounts suggest Ticketmaster could have found out if they were buying them on their own website.

We also asked the other two large resale ticketing platforms, Viagogo and Stubhub about their relationships with large sellers, including account managers and inventory management software.

Viagogo told us such facilities are “standard industry practice”, but it “takes its responsibilities under the law very seriously”. It said it had a business relationship with Hunter, Smith and two of the Ticket Queen’s accomplices “before they were found to be guilty of any fraudulent activity”.

“Bad actors go against what we stand for and Viagogo is in full support of the legal action taken against them,” the company said.

StubHub International told the BBC, it is “fully compliant with UK regulations and provides industry-leading consumer protections.” It added: “As a marketplace we provide a safe, trusted and transparent platform for the buying and selling of tickets, and enforce strict measures to protect consumers against fraud.”

Some employees of companies then owned by Ticketmaster were occasionally paid by touts to buy tickets on their behalf, the prosecution told the court in the Ticket Queen trial.

The prosecution added the Ticket Queen’s accomplices paid two GetMeIn! employees out of a separate bank account from the usual company one. According to a Skype message read in court, one accomplice said: “It will be best as it won’t show a GMI employee being paid by TQ Tickets.”

One of her buyers was an employee at GetMeIn! who received £8,500 in less than a year from this sideline, the prosecution said.

Our research found this employee’s day job was to source replacement tickets when sellers failed to deliver, as they sometimes did.

The resale platforms would sometimes buy tickets from touts to fulfil orders in these circumstances, a SeatWave employee told the BBC. The touts would behave “like the mafia”, and raise their prices when they knew the resale platform itself was in the market for tickets, the employee said.

Evidence presented in court suggested help for the touts to buy tickets in bulk also came from another well-known company: American Express, which offers its cardholders privileged access to tickets for events through pre-sales. Promoters say sponsors like American Express are important in making events such as Formula One and British Summer Time Hyde Park possible.

Peter Hunter told the court he had received a LinkedIn message out of the blue from a representative at the credit card company. The rep was offering “as many additional cards as you wanted” in the form of Platinum business credit cards with an “unlimited spend”, according to Hunter.

The Amex representative wrote that he was aware of Ticketmaster’s purchasing limit of six tickets per day on each credit card and told Hunter “there are ways around this with American Express”.

The rep also suggested in an email to Peter Hunter that his vice-president at the company was “happy to waive card fees” and that the VP’s “initial offer was to waive 15 card fees for £250k spend in the first two months”.

American Express told the BBC: “When we identify instances of misconduct, we investigate the issues raised and take appropriate steps to address them, including disciplinary action with employees as necessary.”

Ticketmaster announced the closure of its resale sites, GetMeIn! and Seatwave in 2018, months after Peter Hunter was charged. Now it allows resales through its main site instead and says prices are capped at the ticket’s face value.

Instead, Ticketmaster is now trying to “capture the value” of the resale market through different tiers of pricing for tickets labelled as “in demand” or “Platinum” tickets, as UK managing director Andrew Parsons told the House of Commons earlier this year.

“We think it is absolutely right that artists should be able to price a small amount of the tickets at a higher price to be able to keep overall prices down and capture some of that value away from the secondary market,” he said.

But ticket touts are still very much active. Minutes after Beyonce’s first pre-sale started in February for the UK leg of her Cowboy Carter tour, hundreds of the tickets appeared on resale sites such as Stubhub.

Stubhub told us that “speculative listings” are not allowed on its platform and that it “[does] not support the use of bots which operate during sales on the primary market”.

“Although the primary platforms do say that they have measures in place to try and prevent touts buying large numbers of tickets, it’s quite evident that that practice took place then and still takes place now,” said Mr Andrews from National Trading Standards.

But he said “the current situation is that we’re not funded or we haven’t got sufficient resources to continue to pursue further touts”.

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