The rankings were changed after the UN used new criteria to give a more accurate picture of the rapid urbanisation driving the growth of megacities

Jakarta has overtaken Tokyo as the world’s most populous city, according to a UN study that uses new criteria to give a more accurate picture of the rapid urbanisation driving the growth of megacities.

The Indonesian capital is home to 42 million people, according to an estimate by the population division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its World Urbanisation Prospects 2025 report published this month.

Fire in densely packed group of 31-storey tower blocks that is home to thousands quickly spread via bamboo scaffolding

Dozens of people have died in a huge fire that engulfed several residential tower blocks in Hong Kong, home to thousands of people, on Wednesday afternoon. Many more are in a critical condition and hundreds remain missing, with the fire continuing to burn into Thursday morning.

The fire was first reported at 2.52pm on Wednesday, at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex in Tai Po, in the northern New Territories. The exact cause of the fire remains unknown, but officials say it started on the external scaffolding of Wang Cheong House, before spreading to seven of the eight buildings in the densely packed complex.

The report comes after the Wall Street Journal claimed the US president told Sanae Takaichi to ‘dial down the volume’ in dispute over Taiwan

Donald Trump asked the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, to avoid further escalation in a dispute with China during a call this week, according to two Japanese government sources who spoke to the Reuters news agency.

Takaichi sparked the biggest diplomatic bust-up with Beijing in years when she told parliament earlier this month that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger Japanese military action.

Hearings will be held in private to assess ‘whether government agencies took all practicable steps to protect the safety and welfare of the Phillips children’, says attorney general

A public inquiry will be held into the authorities’ handling of the disappearance of fugitive father Tom Phillips with his three children, who hid in New Zealand’s wilderness for nearly four years, the government has announced.

Phillips disappeared into the rugged North Island wilderness with his children just before Christmas in 2021, following a dispute with their mother. He did not have legal custody of his children.

In August, he was killed in an exchange of fire with police after reports of a burglary in the remote town of Piopio, in the central North Island. A police officer was shot and required surgery.

The kids growing up might have changed this show’s appeal, but they manage to go out in a flame-throwing, bullet-dodging blaze of glory – while still being more moving than ever before

Time’s up for Stranger Things. The fifth and last season arrives almost three-and-a-half years after a fourth run that felt like a finale, not least because it seemed the kids had grown up. Having originally aped beloved 1980s films where stubbornly brave children avert apocalypse, the franchise now starred young adults and had adjusted plotlines and dialogue accordingly. Life lessons had been learned. Selves had been found. Adolescent anxieties – as personified by Vecna, the narky telekinetic tree-man who rules a parallel dimension adjacent to the humdrum town of Hawkins, Indiana – had been put aside.

But Stranger Things now belatedly returns, with the cast all visibly in their 20s. This is a problem. The whole point is that it’s fun to watch kids outrun monsters by pedalling faster on their BMX bikes, or ignoring their mum calling them to dinner because they’re in the basement with their school pals, drawing up plans to bamboozle the US military using pencils, bubblegum and Dungeons & Dragons figurines. If everyone looks old enough to have a studio apartment and a stocks portfolio, none of the above really flies.

Chancellor axes two-child benefit cap and cuts energy bills paid for by mansion tax and freezing tax thresholds

• Analysis: ‘Tax-raising budget crash-lands on struggling economy’

• Budget 2025: key points at a glance

• Budget 2025: what it means for you

Rachel Reeves targeted Britain’s wealthiest households with a £26bn tax-raising budget to fund scrapping the two-child benefit policy and cutting energy bills.

On a chaotic day that involved key details of her budget accidentally being released early by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the chancellor defended the measures, saying she was “asking everyone to make a contribution to repair the public finances”, but that she wanted the wealthiest to pay the most.

A new feature on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter allows users to see the location of other accounts. It has resulted in a firestorm of recriminations

When X rolled out a new feature revealing the locations of popular accounts, the company was acting to boost transparency and clamp down on disinformation. The result, however, has been a circular firing squad of recriminations, as users turn on each other enraged by the revelation that dozens of popular “America first” and pro-Trump accounts originated overseas.

The new feature was enabled over the weekend by X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, who called it the first step in “securing the integrity of the global town square.” Since then many high-engagement accounts that post incessantly about US politics have been “unmasked” by fellow users.

• Club on worst run since 1953-54 after 4-1 rout

• ‘I have got a lot of support from above’

Arne Slot said it was understandable that questions were being asked over his future as Liverpool head coach, but he insisted he retained the support of the club’s hierarchy following another heavy defeat, this time against PSV Eindhoven.

Liverpool fell to a ninth defeat in 12 games, the club’s worst run since being relegated in 1953-54, as they were picked apart by the Eredivisie champions on a punishing night at Anfield. Liverpool last lost three successive games by a three-goal margin or more in December 1953.

• Real Madrid edge home 4-3 in Greece

• Giménez heads home in injury time for Atlético

Kylian Mbappé scored the second-fastest hat-trick in the Champions League as he helped himself to all four goals in Real Madrid’s 4-3 win at Olympiacos.

The La Liga leaders were trailing to Chiquinho’s early strike at the Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis before Mbappé intervened with a seven-minute treble after 22, 24 and 29 minutes.

There was no shame in this defeat for Tottenham, which represented progress after the north London derby disaster at Arsenal on Sunday. There were measures of encouragement for the crucial Premier League home game against Fulham on Saturday, most notably in the shape of Randal Kolo Muani, the striker who is on loan from Paris Saint-Germain.

Kolo Muani set up Richarlison for 1-0 and scored with a stinging volley for 2-1. There would be another for him before this wild Champions League tie was over. They were his first in Spurs colours, a reminder to his parent club about his quality. After his move to PSG from Eintracht Frankfurt in 2023 for an initial €75m, he endured a difficult 18 months.

Three men arrested as 26 rescue teams on site at Wang Fuk Court residential apartment complex in Tai Po district. Follow the latest updates live

• Full report: Death toll in Hong Kong tower block fire rises to 36 with 279 reported missing

• What we know so far about the blaze

• Bamboo scaffolding may be to blame for spread of Hong Kong tower block fire

The death toll has risen again to 44, fire officials say.

Officials said they are still having difficulties proceeding into the upper floors in some of the buildings in the residential complex as the fire continues.

Swimmers aged in their 20s bitten by shark at Kylies beach in Crowdy Bay early on Thursday morning, with woman dying at the scene

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A woman has died after a “large bull shark” attacked her and a man on the New South Wales mid-north coast at Kylies beach.

The pair, both aged in their 20s, were swimming together at the beach at Crowdy Bay on Thursday morning when they were bitten, police said.

Nine defeats in 12 games. A 75% loss rate since Eddie Nketiah scored a stoppage-time winner for Crystal Palace on 27 September and instigated a collapse that no one at Liverpool, no one in football in fact, could have seen coming. Unbelievable indeed. Arne Slot’s team are stuck in reverse.

PSV Eindhoven became the latest grateful recipients of woeful Liverpool defending and aimless attacking play to inflict a comprehensive and damaging Champions League defeat on the Anfield side. Liverpool have suffered three successive defeats by a three-goal margin and show no signs of conjuring the recovery that Slot desperately needs to prevent a crisis undermining his hold on the job. There were boos around Anfield as the final whistle sounded on another terrible defeat for the Premier League champions.

Filing contained errors known as ‘hallucinations’, with attorneys arguing prosecutors’ office used AI in other cases

A California prosecutors’ office used artificial intelligence to file a motion in at least one criminal case, which contained errors known as “hallucinations”.

A prosecutor at the Nevada county district attorney’s office in northern California “recently used artificial intelligence in preparing a filing, which resulted in an inaccurate citation,” district attorney Jesse Wilson said in a statement to the Sacramento Bee. “Once the error was discovered, the filing was immediately withdrawn.”

This was billed as a clash of two of the best teams in Europe and for most of a cold evening in north London it felt like it. An absorbing game that ebbed and flowed throughout had Bayern Munich’s rising teenager Lennart Karl cancel out Jurrien Timber’s opening goal from a corner before substitutes Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli sealed a deserved win for the home side. It maintains their 100% record in the Champions League and sends them top of the table.

Harry Kane let it slip in the buildup that scoring against Arsenal gives him “a bit more joy” than any other club. But the England striker with 27 goals for his club to his name this season barely had a sniff as a Bayern Munich side that had also won their first four matches in the Champions League group stage and had been unbeaten in 21 previous games this season were taught a lesson. A place in the knockout stages now seems a mere formality.

Reform UK leader has again denied allegations about his behaviour as a schoolboy but what are the facts?

Nigel Farage has again denied allegations of racism as a schoolboy and repeated his claim that some had been concocted because people disliked his politics.

During a press conference, he snapped at one reporter who asked about the issue, saying: “I think we’ve gone quite a long way towards answering all this, don’t you?”

State prosecutor dismisses charges against US president and others in election interference case

The case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia ended on Wednesday with a filing for dismissal by the state prosecutor who took over after the removal of Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney.

Pete Skandalakis, the prosecutor and the executive director of the prosecuting attorneys’ council of Georgia, confirmed to the Guardian that “it’s over”after superior court judge Scott McAfee issued a one-page order on Wednesday dismissing the 2020 racketeering case. Skandalakis said he would be making no further comments about the matter.

In a Truth Social post, the president lashed out at journalist Katie Rogers after an article questioned whether he was slowing down

Donald Trump lashed out on Wednesday against a New York Times reporter, calling her “ugly inside and out” in his latest personal insult against female members of the media after last week calling another “piggy”.

In a Truth Social post, Trump criticized the newspaper for an article suggesting he was running low on energy in his 80th year, insisting he had “never worked so hard in my life”.

In dozen of cases officers have used Marsy’s Law, which gives victims of crime anonymity, to shield their names

For months, Ohio police officer Connor Grubb and his department attempted to hide his identity following an incident in which he shot and killed Ta’Kiya Young and her unborn daughter in a Kroger parking lot outside Columbus in August 2023.

Grubb, who on 21 November was acquitted of murder and other charges, claimed that Young, who was stopped for allegedly stealing, attempted to drive over him – which would make him a victim of a crime and eligible to protect his identity from public view through a legal provision called Marsy’s Law. Police footage of the killing shows Young slowly driving the car forward and to the right before Grubb fires through the windshield and into Young’s chest.

⚽ Goals, updates and news from the 8pm GMT kick-offs
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All across the continent, teams line up to hear Zadok the Priest get his usual Uefa-sanctioned kicking. Poor Zadok’s a-cold! All of which is a roundabout way to say that we’ll be off in a minute. Big night coming up.

TNT have a quick word with Thomas Frank before kick-off. “There is one game in front of us, that’s PSG … if you look too much in the past you forget to look forward and do everything you can to perform now … that is all about performing tonight … make sure we compete … are brave … we are playing against a very mobile team … we have to match that … be aggressive … we need mobile, front-footed midfielders … a big night for us … we need to put a fight in.”

Suspect in custody after two West Virginia guard members shot in ‘targeted’ incident, Washington mayor says

• US politics live – latest updates

Two West Virginia national guardsmen shot near the White House remained in critical condition on Wednesday in an attack that rattled the country’s capital.

The incident comes amid a controversial deployment of troops to Washington DC ordered by the Trump administration. FBI director Kash Patel, Washington mayor Muriel Bowser and other officials confirmed in a press conference that both the guardsmen were in the hospital and described the shooting as “targeted”.

⚽ Champions League updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off
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Mike Arteta, Arsenal manager, speaks to TNT about his selection choices:

The headaches are going to be a little bit harder. Cristhian Mosquera and Myles Lewis-Skelly deserve to play. We have to manage the squad and the load that we have. We have a game every three games.

Mark Damazer says over-assertive board and executives feeling ‘embattled’ played into departures of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness

A “toxic mix” of over-assertive BBC board members and executives feeling under siege contributed to the resignations of its two most senior editorial leaders, an influential former BBC figure has warned.

A bitter row is still raging over the events that led up to the resignations of the director general, Tim Davie, and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News.

Chancellor unveils action on energy bills, rail fares and two-child benefit cap as she reveals £26bn tax rises

• How does freezing tax thresholds affect your tax bill?

• Budget 2025: key points at a glance

Rachel Reeves has declared her budget will slash living costs for millions including ending the two-child benefit limit and cutting energy bills, but taxes are set to soar by £26bn to plug a gaping shortfall in the public finances.

Major measures in the budget leaked early in a shock accidental release by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), triggering an instant bond market reaction an hour before the chancellor was on her feet in the House of Commons. After months of speculation, Reeves said her measures would put the public finances on a sustainable path while building “a fairer, a stronger, a more secure Britain” by tackling inflation and investing in large infrastructure projects.