mexico's government tests a "panic button" app, allowing migrants to send an alert if the us government tries to deport them. new analysis shows fossil fuels are supercharging heat waves. the climate crisis added six more weeks of extreme heat in 202a. the prime minister of nepal says there are too many tigers in his country and wants to give some away. hello, i'm luxmy gopal. the white house says it's seen "early indications" that suggest a plane which crashed in kazakhstan this week was possibly brought down by russian air defence systems. the kremlin has so far refused to comment on reports the plane was hit by russian weaponry. azerbaijan airlines says that the preliminary results

of the investigation into the incident found there was "external physical and technical interference". but the report stopped short of accusing any group or country of being responsible. the plane had originally tried to land at grozzni airport in southern russia. the head of russia's aviation authority says the plane was unable to do so because of a ukrainian drone attack. pro—government media in azerbaijan has quoted unnamed officials, saying they believed a russian air defence missile caused the plane to crash. jon donnison reports. this is the moment the plane went down. it's remarkable anyone survived. but emerging from the wreckage, some did. the flight had been diverted to kazakhstan after passengers heard bangs when it tried to land at its original destination, grozny, in chechnya. translation: they say there were two bangs, l but i only heard one.

it was quite substantial. i honestly didn't hear the second one. at first only some of the oxygen masks fell out, not all of them. investigators are now examining the damage to the outside of the plane. the owner, azerbaijan airlines, said only that it had suffered external physical and technical interference. the kremlin has again refused to comment on speculation that it was mistakenly brought down by a russian air defence system. translation: i'd like to point out that the situation on that day - during those hours in the area around grozny airport was very difficult. ukrainian military drones were carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the city of grozny and others nearby. in azerbaijan today, the first funerals for some of the 38 people who were killed.

why they died will take time to find out, and will likely be disputed. jon donnison, bbc news. tim atkinson is a former air accident investigator. he told me what he makes of things so far. these days, there is so much imagery in social media and in the news that occasionally it is possible to draw some quite clear conclusions very early on. and the photographs that we've seen and the video footage, which are many at the public domain now, clearly show damage to the aircraft which is consistent with an explosion of some kind, almost certainly external to but very close to the aircraft. and those images, along with the other evidence, indicate very strongly that what has happened her is that some kind of air defence missile has exploded close to the aircraft. that has not only caused the disruption to the aircraft's skin, which is very easily apparent in the photographs and video, but importantly, other evidence suggests that that disrupted the aircraft's flying control systems, which are hydraulic, and if they lose their hydraulic fluid, then

the pilots in the flight deck effectively lose their normal means of controlling the aircraft. and that is an extraordinarily difficult situation from which disaster is almost certainly the only outcome. but occasionally we see cases, and this appears to be another of them, very similar to the sioux city crash many years ago, in which the pilots nonetheless managed to maintain some degree of control of the aircraft. and the video footage shows the aircraft in a series of what we would call phugoid manoeuvres, so the video shows it pitching up and then down over a period of many seconds in each case. and fortunately, the final manoeuvre which results in the aircraft's contact with the ground — i don't that we can call it a landing — but i have no doubt whatsoever that the manner in which that was achieved by the flight crew is the reason that there were 29 survivors and not

the loss of all on board. tim atkinson. a man has been charged with two counts of murder following the deaths of two people in bletchley on christmas day. 49—year—old jazwell brown has also been charged with two counts of attempted murder. police have confirmed the two women who died following the incident arejoanne pearson, and teonna grant who are both from milton keynes. a man in his late 20s and teenage boy were also taken to hospital with serious injuries, and are both said to be in a stable condition.

mexico's government has announced an emergency strategy to protect migrants in the united states, ahead of the inauguration of the president—elect, donald trump, next month. mr trump has threatened to deport millions of illegal migrants. among the measures announced by the foreign minister, juan ramon de la fuente, is a mobile phone panic button which can be activated by anyone facing imminent arrest. translation: in case you find yourself in a situation - where detention is imminent, you pushed the alert button. that sends a signal to the nearest consulate and to the relatives whose contact details you saved on the app. mr de la fuente said the mobile phone app would connect to a 2k hours a day call centre for mexicans abroad backed by a team of more than three hundred us—based lawyers. more than 4 million mexicans live and work in the united states without a visa. staying with immigration, it appears a rift has emerged among among donald trump supporters over the issue. us media reports that recent tensions over the issue were sparked by the appointment of sriram krishnan

as donald trump's ai advisor. he'd recently made comments supporting the removal of some caps for high—skilled workers. that prompted criticism from some in the trump support base, who back a stricter approach to immigration. congressional correspondent cbs news. this all felt inevitable, that there was going to be some fracture at some point among the sphere of influencers who are aligned with donald trump. cos you had these outside, nongovernmental, unelected, forceful voices in donald trump's ear — elon musk, the billionaire, vivek ramaswamy, the long—time trump ally and one—time republican primary candidate — who are saying things that may run counter to the beliefs of donald trump's elected allies, those in the us congress, those in state offices. and what really caused this first profound fracture was a set of social media posts

by ramaswamy arguing that companies may be better positioned and better acclimated to attract foreign workers through the immigration process instead of using us workers. and he made a series of cultural arguments why he thinks people from other nations would be better situated for us companies than those who live in the us because of the cultural dynamics at play, among other things. that runs so very counter to what donald trump's political allies in elected office are arguing, that it should be america first, that american workers should be be championed, lionised and prioritised. you already have a butting of heads on that issue, with likely more to come, because there is this frustration, if not resentment, among some of the elected officials that these non—elected outside billionaire influencers have the ear of the president—elect. and, scott, what this also illustrates, doesn't it, is how potentially contradictory the positions are among some trump supporters? do we know how mr trump plans to manage that broadened supporter base that he has in this second term? the same way he has for eight years. he has a whole set of seemingly contradictory positions that his political base accepts. he's talked about trying to lower prices in the us for things like food and houses and consumer goods, yet he's also championing tariffs on foreign goods,

which there seems to be a consensus would lead to higher prices. so he has a contradiction there, but his supporters seem not to be swayed by that. he talks about law and order, prioritising a tougher criminal justice system, yet is poised to pardon a whole set of us capitol riot insurrectionists, seemingly in contradiction, but he seems to navigate that just fine. he has a version of political teflon that allows his base to be seemingly impenetrable no matter what contradictions he brings to the table. he has a version of political teflon that allows his base to be seemingly impenetrable no matter what contradictions he brings to the table.

and, scott, we've got less than a month to the inauguration. just briefly, what will you be keeping an eye on in washington? there is this particularly narrow us house majority in the lower chamber of us congress, that president—elect trump's party has, where they can lose just one vote on anything of consequence, which means the minority party, the democrats, are going to have some outsized influence in this first two—year set of the trump term. trump's going to have to do deals with democrats to do things like keep the government open, raise the debt ceiling, pass major legislation that requires spending. that's going to come to a head almost immediately upon him taking the oath. how he navigates it, how democrats navigate it, is going to tell how this first year's going to go. he will not get everything he wants because of that narrow majority in the lower chamber.

one of the last functioning hospitals in northern gaza has been forcibly evacuated by the israeli military. the kamal adwan hospital has been under siege by the idf for weeks. staff say air strikes overnight which targeted the area killed 50 people. the head of the hospital's nursing department told the bbc the army gave them only a is—minute warning to evacuate patients and staff before the israeli army entered the hospital and removed any patients that remained. israel has not commented on the evacuation. our colleagues at bbc arabic have been talking to those who witnessed the operation. translation: guys, we are talking to you from inside the hospital _ as we are coming down to the courtyard. the army is inside the hospital. we hope everyone will be safe. if we are lucky, we will get back to you and talk to you again, god willing for the best. please forgive us if we have wronged anyone and pray for us. i'm the paramedic at kamal adwan

hospital, walid al—badri. translation: the occupation army is now besieging — kamal adwan hospital and is asking dr hussam abu safiya to bring patients down to the hospital's courtyard. in 15 minutes from now, the army will enter the hospital. this is the message verbatim which dr hussam hasjust received from the occupation army. we've heard from medical staff, who say that, as you mentioned, they were given very, very short time to evacuate the hospital — both the patients and the medical staff — and that israeli soldiers went into the hospital and evacuated the rest. we're unsure where the patients and the medical staff had gone. we also heard reports from the medical staff inside the hospital that some of the some people were taken in the courtyard and told to strip, to take off their clothes,

in very, very cold conditions. we haven't heard a comment from the israeli military about that. one concerning point is that we're unaware, or we're not sure, where the patients and the medical staff are being taken after the evacuation of the hospital. there has been a statement by an israeli military official earlier, a couple of days earlier, that there is an intention to take some of the patients and evacuate them to another hospital, the indonesian hospital. the problem with that is that the indonesian hospital itself has been evacuated and itself has been the site of shelling and bombardment, and so it is essentially hollowed out as a medicalfacility. medical staff tell us that you've got people in icu, patients in a coma, who need acute medical attention — they need oxygen, for example, they need medication. and the hospital, the indonesian hospital, is not equipped. this comes after hours,

from what we've heard from dr hussam, who's the head of the kamal adwan hospital, he said that overnight, there'd been shelling in the vicinity of the hospital and in the building opposite it, and that resulted in the death of dozens of people — around 50 or so — but also major destruction around the hospital. the israeli military said they're unaware of that and that they're looking into it. a man has been charged with the murder of a woman who was set on fire on a new york subway train on sunday. sebastian zapeta allegedly set the person's clothes alight, and then fanned the flames by waving a shirt around her. with the details, here's our north america correspondent rowan bridge. this was about 7:30 in the morning when police say this woman was apparently asleep on a subway train when, as you say, a person went over to her with a lighter and set her alight.

they say she was engulfed in flames within a matter of seconds, in part because those flames were fanned by the person holding a shirt. police became aware of what was happening and rushed to the scene. they used a fire extinguisher to try and put out the flames, but sadly the woman died at the scene. at the moment she hasn't been identified. it's thought she may have been a homeless have been a homeless person, but they are now trying to use dna and fingerprint advanced fingerprint techniques to identify who she might be. sebastian zapata was arrested soon afterwards because he was caught on surveillance cameras and police body worn camera footage, and was recognised by some schoolchildren who alerted the authorities. he was arrested soon afterwards and there was a court hearing today where he was charged with a number of offences, including murder one, which is the most serious murder offence you can face that carries in the state of new york a sentence of life without parole if convicted. he also faces an arson charge in a number of other murder charges. he is due to appear in court again at the start of the new year.

germany's president has, as expected, dissolved parliament, after the collapse of the governing coalition in november. frank—walter steinmeier�*s announcement clears the way for elections in february to decide who will lead europe's largest economy. michaela kuefner is chief political editor at deutsche welle news. she explained that polling shows germany may witness the sharpest political move to the right in decades. there's a sense that the conservatives can be reforming angola merkel�*s party, but it too will need a coalition. yes, it would mean a shift to a right, but it would mean a shift to the extreme right. that's a key point. it would be of party that would most likely, according to these same polls, i would need this coalition partner to

work with so we could see the social democratic party of chance or schultz again. at this time, it would likely be as a junior partner. but there is a concern here that the far right alternative for germany could have a strong showing as well after it did in regional elections last year. new analysis shows fossil fuels are supercharging heat waves, leaving millions prone to deadly temperatures. it shows the climate crisis caused an additional six weeks of dangerously hot days in 202a. and nearly half the world's countries endured at least two months of high—risk temperatures. earlier, i spoke to dr kristina dahl, a scientist from climate central and asked her what areas had been worst affected. so, we found that the places that are most affected by climate—driven extreme heat tend to be in tropical areas — countries like barbados,

for example, or trinidad, whereas the effects were were somewhat less in places like europe. and how easy is it to accurately obtain this data and get a real sense of how many deaths that these heat waves are causing? yeah, that's a great question because this is a branch of science called attribution science that has really just developed within the past 20 years or so. so it's only in the last few years that we've really been able to say with confidence whether a particular heat wave or a particular stretch of hot days or extreme rainfall can be attributed to climate change. and to do this work, we basically have to use a climate model to compare the temperatures that we actually experienced with what we would have experienced in a world without any human caused climate change. and so it's definitely intense scientific work, but it's becoming more and more possible year by year. and is there anything that can be done to help save lives, given that we have this

knowledge? there's a lot that can be done. so heat is often called the silent killer because it doesn't attract the same amount of attention as, say, a big wildfire or a major hurricane that's incredibly destructive and obviously dangerous to human life in the moment. but extreme heat actually kills many, many people every year, more than any other type of extreme weather in places like the united states, at least. and there's a lot that we can do to prevent those deaths. things like making sure that people have access to a cooling shelter that they can get to safely, making sure that people understand that extreme heat can be fatal. making sure that our medical professionals are on the lookout for an increase in emergency room visits when there's a heat wave. so all of those things can help our communities to adapt to extreme heat.

a nasa space probe has made history by flying closer to the sun than any other spacecraft. the parker solar probe was out of communication with nasa for three days after coming within six million kilometres of the sun's surface, and facing temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees celsius. the aim of the probe is to gather data on the properties of the sun to help forecast space—weather events which can affect life on earth. pallab ghosh has this report. it seems like science fiction, sending an un—crewed spacecraft to the sun. nasa's parker solar probe was designed to withstand its scorching heat. but could it? nasa has now confirmed that it has. the spacecraft sent back a beacon signal indicating that it survived the closest ever approach to the sun. we have never had a human—made object so close to the sun. also, we had to not melt,

that's why the parker has this heat shield that holds the instruments at room temperature and keeps the heat of the sun away. and these are just amazing feats, and so it's so amazing that we were so close and really getting to measure in detail this material up close. lift off of the mighty delta iv heavy rocket. there have been many missions to study the sun but there's so much more we can learn, especially about the sun's shimmering atmosphere. which we can see from earth during a total solar eclipse. this new data from this very, incredibly close approach to the sun, just touching the surface of that corona, is going to hopefully give us a lot more information about exactly what's going on in our beautiful, beautiful sun that heats up and gives us light. close up, the sun's magnetic field twists and lifts its explosive surface. it's hoped that the solar probe will shed light on the processes

that make this happen and how this solar turbulence affects us on earth. but they'll have to wait until the 1st of january before they see the initial data. pallab ghosh, bbc news. nepal's prime minister, kp sharma 0li, says his country has too many tigers and that they're a threat to humans. more than thirty people were killed by tigers between 2019 and 2023. he says nepal should be giving them to other countries as gifts. 0ur correspondent navin singh khadka told me more about the plans for so—called "tiger diplomacy" it was always an issue, but the thing is, when i talk to people on the ground — say, the community forestry people — they say that it is increasingly becoming more and more serious, because more and more tigers are there now, so the confrontation and all those kind of things. so, yes, the casualties also going up, and then also the cattle being attacked or losses of agriculture, people having to migrate elsewhere — the host of issues.

political leaders are bringing it up now because they are also under pressure. i can imagine there's political pressure on that. now, this would seem on the surface a conservation success story, because these are endangered animals. but it shows that there are downsides, doesn't it? yes, so if you spoke to conservationists, for example, they would definitely say, and also by and large, it is a success story. but the thing is, again, it has all these things come along, and the question is, how do you manage them? and when i talk to experts, they say there are measures, but it is not easy to implement, for example, even the idea of gifting tigers. so, who is going to take them? we've been hearing this. other senior officials also have talked about giving tigers to zoos, for example — it's not happened yet. how exactly would they do it? the tiger diplomacy actually is still to kick off, so it remains to be seen how they will do it, and then in the meantime,

we are seeing problematic tigers, for example. around 20 tigers are now taken away from the habitat and kept in captivity. so the worry is, will there be more such tigers? and how can they sustain those enclosures in captivity? it is costly, you see. so all these things come together when you talk about conservation. the prime minister of nepal says there are too many tigers stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. the weather for christmas week has been pretty benign. high pressure has brought light

winds, a lot of cloud, some mist and fog and also some drizzle. subtle changes as we head into the weekend. we start to lose the influence of this area of high pressure and begin to pick up more of an atlantic influence, which should mean there should be more breeze and see a bit more sunshine. but we've still got this weather front straddling the north and west of scotland. that'll bring further rain through this evening and overnight. elsewhere, again, there's a lot of cloud around, some mist and fog, some drizzle too. but where skies are clear, then it will turn quite chilly — temperatures getting down to i or 2 degrees. for most though, holding up to between 5—9 celsius. so, into the first part of the weekend, for saturday, we're losing the influence of that area of high pressure, picking up more of a westerly breeze for scotland and northern ireland. so initially, it'll be grey with outbreaks of rain. that weather front sinks southwards and tends to fizzle out as it pushes into the higher pressure. but we should see more sunshine for scotland and northern ireland into the afternoon. a few blustery showers in the north—west. for most, though, again, it's another rather grey day, i think, with limited sunshine, maybe some spots of drizzle

and again feeling cool, particularly where you have the mist and the cloud. through saturday night, we should start to see some more about mist and fog. northern ireland seeing some sunny spells as well. for scotland, this weather front becomes smooth moving. it is set to bring some heavy persistent rain. —— slow moving. that rain is set to continue not only in those sunday, but into monday and tuesday as well. as we go through sunday night into monday, that weather fronts sinks southwards, bringing rain into scotland and some snow, particularly over high ground in the north of scotland. further south,

drier conditions, a mix of cloud and sunny spells, mild in the south, but colder further north. sunny spells, mild in the south, but colderfurther north. it sunny spells, mild in the south, but colder further north. it will turn colder further north. it will turn colder and there will be some rain and maybe some snow.

this is bbc news, the headlines.

azerbaijian airlines says "external interference" brought down one of its planes that crashed in kazakhstan. mexico's government tests a "panic button" app — allowing migrants to send an alert — if the us government tries to deport them. one of the last functioning hospitals in northern gaza — has been forcibly evacuated by the israeli military. germany's parliament is dissolved ahead of elections set for february. a nasa spacecraft has made history by surviving the closest—ever approach to the sun. now on bbc news — thief at the british museum. so, what are you holding there? i'm holding two gems that came from the british museum and which i'm now bringing back to them.

is that stolen property that you're holding? yes. this is dr ittai gradel — and to clarify, he is not the thief. but the gems ittai's holding are at the heart of the story i'm about to tell you. it's emerged that the british museum was warned more than two years ago that objects from its collection were being put up for sale. more than 1,500 items were stolen, damaged or are missing from this place. this is a story about one of britain's most revered institutions and the theft of ancient treasures that were sold around the world. it was very shocking. it was worrying. i had no idea the scale that this would turn out to be. the records they have - of such items is so poor — even where there is any — - they don't know what they've lost. it's been a huge trauma for many people.

it's a story of warnings that were ignored...