British prince and former senior MP Tom Watson are suing News Group Newspapers over alleged unlawful activities.

The start of Prince Harry’s court battle against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group has been delayed at London’s High Court amid chaos over last-minute settlement discussions between the two sides.

Harry and former senior MP Tom Watson are suing News Group Newspapers over alleged unlawful activities carried out by journalists and private investigators working for its papers, the Sun and the defunct News of the World, from 1996 until 2011.

At what was supposed to be the start of an eight-week trial, Harry and Watson’s lawyer David Sherborne on Tuesday asked the judge, Timothy Fancourt, for more time to continue discussions.

Fancourt granted the request but said it must be the “last adjournment” and proceedings would get under way if no agreement were reached.

Sherborne subsequently asked for further time to negotiate, supported by NGN’s lawyer Anthony Hudson, who cited “time difference difficulties” in a possible reference to Harry, who lives in California.

Fancourt said he did not think the court filings contained anything that would have an impact on attempts to settle, to which Hudson said that “there are other matters which will occur when the trial starts which will have a very significant impact on the settlement dynamic”.

The judge declined to give the parties more time, and said that some of the two sides’ lawyers could continue to discuss a possible deal while the trial began.

Asked by Hudson to hold a short discussion in private, Fancourt replied, “I’m not going to start having secret hearings about what’s going on.”

The judge also refused permission to appeal. He then left the court, to leave the parties to appeal directly to the Court of Appeal, a move he acknowledged meant they would probably achieve their ends anyway.

Hundreds of settlements

The prince has said his mission is not money but to get to the truth, after other claimants settled cases to avoid the risk of a multimillion-pound legal bill that could be imposed even if they won in court but had rejected NGN’s offer.

“One of the main reasons for seeing this through is accountability, because I’m the last person that can actually achieve that,” Harry, who is set to appear as a witness himself in February, said last month.

NGN has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to victims of phone-hacking and other unlawful information gathering by the News of the World, and settled more than 1,300 lawsuits involving celebrities, politicians, well-known sports figures and people who were connected to them or major events.

Harry’s legal team has said in earlier court documents that his older brother Prince William, the heir to the throne, had settled his own case against NGN in 2020 for “a very large sum of money”.

While Murdoch closed the News of the World in 2011, the publisher has always rejected claims there was any unlawful activity at the Sun and says it will fully defend the claims.

At least 66 people have been killed in a fire that engulfed a popular Turkish ski resort hotel, leaving some to jump out of windows.

The fire broke out at the wooden-clad 12-storey Grand Kartal Hotel at 03:27 local time (00:27 GMT) during a busy holiday period when 234 people were staying there.

An initial toll of 10 dead was raised significantly in the hours after the fire by Turkey’s interior ministry. At least two people died after trying to jump to safety.

It took 12 hours for the fire to be put out. Four people have been arrested, including the owner, the justice minister says.

“Our pain is great,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.

Footage circulating in Turkey showed linen hanging from windows which was used by those trying to escape the burning building.

Ski instructor Necmi Kepcetutan told the BBC he was on the second floor of the hotel when the fire broke out and managed to get out via the ski room. He then helped with relief efforts.

Eyewitnesses said the family that owned the hotel had been there at the time of the fire and Mr Kepcetutan said he saw some of the family outside.

The cause of the fire has not yet been found, but Bolu governor Abdulaziz Aydin said initial reports suggested it had broken out in the restaurant section of the hotel’s fourth floor and spread to the floors above.

Aydin said the distance between the hotel, in Kartalkaya, and the centre of Bolu, paired with the freezing weather conditions, meant it took more than an hour for fire engines to arrive. Emergency services sent 267 workers to the site.

The hotel was investigating whether guests, including children, were trapped in their rooms as the fire spread.

The hotel had two fire escapes, according to the interior minister, and one hotel worker said they had managed to rescue 30-35 people.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said prosecutors had been allocated to investigate the blaze.

The hotel was last inspected in 2024, and the tourism minister said there had been no concerns regarding the hotel’s fire safety prior to Tuesday’s disaster.

However, the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) said that according to regulations, an automatic fire extinguisher system is needed.

“In the photos on the hotel’s website, it is seen that the automatic sprinkler system, which was supposed to be installed in 2008, was not installed,” the union said in a statement.

It added that it was unclear if other regulations had been complied with but, based on the statements of survivors, “it is understood that the detection and warning systems did not work and the escape routes could not be determined”.

The Bolu mountains are popular with skiers from Istanbul and the capital Ankara, which is roughly 170km (105 miles) away, and the hotel was operating at high occupancy at the start of two-week school holidays.

Former UK ambassador to Turkey, Sir Peter Westmacott, told the BBC that he had stayed in the area in the past and that the fire “feels very personal”.

“The fact that so many people have lost their lives is just devastating news for those of us who care about Turkey,” he said.

Although the fire was confined to one hotel, the governor told Turkish media that a neighbouring hotel was evacuated as a precaution.

Guests evacuated from the hotel were taken to hotels closer to the centre of Bolu.

Trump says Zelenskyy ‘wants peace deal’ and Putin must accept; Moscow says ‘no specific proposals’ from Washington.

Russia and Ukraine have continued to exchange barrages of air attacks, despite Donald Trump having said he would end the war within 24 hours of becoming US president.

While Trump was inaugurated on Monday afternoon, neither Kyiv nor Moscow have shown signs of de-escalating the drone and missile strikes they have been launching against one another in recent months. Both launched barrages overnight on Tuesday.

Russia said it downed 55 Ukrainian drones, more than half of which were intercepted over regions on the border.

Kyiv said it struck an oil depot near the town of Liski in the Voronezh region, sparking a blaze at the facility for the second time in less than a week.

The region’s governor, Alexander Gusev, said the fire was caused by debris from a downed drone and that no one was injured.

Kyiv also said its forces struck an aviation plant producing “combat aircraft” in the western Russian city of Smolensk, creating “explosions”.

Ukraine’s air force claimed it shot down 93 of 141 drones Russia launched overnight, noting others were “lost” while two returned to Russia.

Russian troops took control of the village of Vovkove in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, TASS, Russia’s state-run news agency, reported on Tuesday, citing the Ministry of Defence.

Vovkove is about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) southwest of the city of Pokrovsk, a key front in Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv has yet to comment on the Defence Ministry’s claim.

‘No specific proposals’

Trump told reporters on Monday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had told him he wanted to make a peace deal and voiced hope that Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would follow suit.

The newly inaugurated US president said that Putin would be destroying Russia by failing to make a deal, pointing out Russia’s economic troubles, including high inflation.

The same day, Putin said Moscow was open to dialogue with the Trump administration on the conflict, emphasising the need to respect Russia’s interests.

Trump has repeatedly said that he would end the war “in 24 hours,” yet he has never provided any details of his plan.

However, his team has hinted Trump may let Russia hold on to occupied chunks of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, and four Ukrainian regions.

The Kremlin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said on Tuesday that Moscow has received “no specific proposals” from Washington concerning a Ukraine settlement.

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s inauguration, Putin held a long phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The conversation on Tuesday saw the pair confirm their mutual support and dedication to securing a multipolar geopolitical environment.

“Russia and China’s joint work plays an important stabilising role in international affairs,” Putin said in the call.

“Both sides should continue to deepen strategic coordination, resolutely support each other, and safeguard the legitimate interests of both countries,” Xi said according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

In brief statements on Sunday night, two doctors at Sheba hospital suggested that the women were not in immediate need of emergency treatment.

“I’m happy to report that they are in stable condition,” said Prof. Itai Pessach, adding, “That allows us, and them, to focus on what is the most important thing for now — reuniting with their families.”

Sheba Medical Center has been the first stop for dozens of captives who were seized in the October assault and later freed, including many of those released in an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners in November 2023, as well as the four hostages rescued in an audacious and deadly Israeli military raid in June 2024.

Professor Pessach, who has led the Sheba medical team for returning hostages, cautioned in an interview in June that first impressions can be deceptive.

“The thing I definitely know is to expect the unexpected,” he said then, after receiving the four hostages who were rescued. “After eight months,” he said, “we had a notion that they’d be much more broken, maybe look differently than they were.”

They had lost less weight than had been expected, he said. But then, he said, the results from medical tests start coming in, along with initial psychological evaluations, and “you start to grasp what they’ve been through.”

All four had come back suffering from severe malnutrition, Dr. Pessach said, adding that the lack of sunlight, abuse and psychological stress they had endured would have long-term implications for their health.

“As wonderful as it is to see Emily’s resilience, these are still early days,” Mandy Damari, Emily’s mother, acknowledged in a statement on Monday, in which she noted that Emily was “doing much better than any of us could ever have anticipated.”

In a recent television interview, Yamit Ashkenazi, Ms. Steinbrecher’s sister, said she was expecting to receive “a different Doron.” Ms. Ashkenazi also worried about telling her sister that so many of her friends were killed in the Hamas attack.

Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney, immunologist Anthony Fauci and former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley among those offered protection.

Former United States President Joe Biden used his final hours to issue preemptive pardons amid fears that President Donald Trump could seek to prosecute perceived enemies.

Biden on Monday handed pardons to several members of his own family, as well as former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney, former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, and former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley.

The move comes after Trump warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the storming of the US Capitol four years ago.

“These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions,” Biden said in a statement.

The US Constitution gives a president broad pardon powers for federal offences. While pardons are typically given to people who have been prosecuted, they can cover conduct that has not yet resulted in legal proceedings.

The pardon covers all lawmakers, including Cheney, who served on the congressional select committee that investigated the 2021 US Capitol riots, as well as police officers who testified before it.

Trump in December backed a call for the FBI to investigate Cheney over her role in leading the Congress probe of the assault.

‘Deeply grateful’

Cheney and Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s vice chairs, expressed gratitude to Biden for recognising the threats and harassment they and their families have endured.

“We have been pardoned today not for breaking the law but for upholding it,” they said in a statement.

Milley, who was Trump’s top military adviser between 2019 and early 2021, said in a statement he was “deeply grateful” for Biden’s pardon.

In the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Milley called Beijing to reassure China of US stability.

In a social media post, Trump described the phone call as “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH”.

Fauci told Reuters news agency that the White House had reached out about the issue a month ago. He declared that he had not sought the pardon.

“I appreciate the president reaching out and trying to protect me from baseless accusations,” Fauci said. “I’ve done nothing wrong and this is no admission of any guilt.”

Fauci often clashed with Trump during the pandemic, and his supporters have continued to attack the former health official.

Family pardoned

Among other members of his family, Biden also issued preemptive pardons to his brothers James and Francis; sister Valerie and her husband John; and Sara, the wife of James.

In December, Biden controversially issued a pardon for his son Hunter, who had been convicted on firearms and tax charges, claiming that he had been persecuted for political purposes.

“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me – the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden said in a statement. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”

Trump denounced the move in remarks to supporters. “Did you know that Biden, while I was making my speech, pardoned his whole family?” Trump said.

During a separate exchange with reporters, Trump accused Biden of creating an “unbelievable precedent” for future presidents.

“I guess now I have precedent to do it,” Trump said.

The mysterious balls that forced the closure of several beaches in Sydney last week were found to contain saturated acids, E. coli and faecal bacteria, authorities say.

Sydney’s Northern Beaches council said it has sent the debris to the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) for further analysis.

Nine beaches, including popular spots Manly and Dee Why, were closed on 14 January after the marble-sized balls started washing up.

It came months after thousands of black blobs started appearing on the city’s coasts in October, prompting authorities to close some of its most famous beaches for several days and order a massive clean-up.

The latest batch of balls was cleaned up from harbour beaches this week, the Northern Beaches council said in its statement on Tuesday.

It urged anyone who spotted the balls not to handle them and to contact authorities.

Besides the acids and bacteria, the balls also contained volcanic rock pumice.

Northern Beaches mayor Sue Heins said she hopes the EPA analysis will “identify the source so that they can stop this from happening at other beaches”.

“We are continuing to conduct regular inspections of our beaches and encourage the community to report any sightings,” she said.

The first batch of debris in October were at first mistakenly called “tar balls” but were later found to contain everything from cooking oil and soap scum molecules, to blood pressure medication, pesticides, hair, methamphetamine and veterinary drugs.

Scientists said they resembled fat, oil and grease blobs – often called “fatbergs” – which are commonly formed in sewage systems.

But Sydney Water has reported that its water treatment plans are operating normally and that there were no known issues with waste systems in the city.