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Former President Donald Trump has lost a legal fight to overturn a $110,000 (£90,300) contempt of court fine, which he was ordered to pay to New York Attorney General Letitia James' office. An appeals court upheld the penalty, which was imposed after he failed to hand over files during an investigation into his business practices. Mr Trump was fined $10,000 per day for non-compliance with a court order. Ms James's office is probing whether Mr Trump inflated the value of his assets. As part of the civil inquiry, which Ms James opened in 2019, Mr Trump was ordered to turn over business documents or explain in detail how he had tried and failed to find the records. When he failed to do so last year, a judge ruled that he was in contempt of court. The former president eventually both complied with the court order and paid the $110,000 fine - but then appealed in the hope of overturning the penalty. A New York state appeals court ruled Tuesday that the fine "was not excessive or otherwise improper, under the particular circumstances".

Romance scams happen all around the world, but West Africa has been mastering the art for decades. Nowadays, Nigeria and Ghana have become synonymous with catfishing: pretending to be someone you're not online as part of a romantic or financial scam. Hannah Ajala, presenter of the podcast Love, Janessa, explores how West Africa became the birthplace of the romance scam.

The White House has said there is no indication three flying objects blasted out of the sky over the weekend by the US military are linked to alleged Chinese spying. The objects may be "tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign", spokesman John Kirby said. US and Canadian officials have not yet located or recovered any wreckage from the three downed aircraft. Beijing earlier accused the US of "a trigger-happy overreaction". China has denied one of its balloons, which was destroyed by a US fighter jet earlier this month off South Carolina, was being used for espionage, saying it was merely a weather-monitoring airship that had blown off course. How has China reacted to the balloon saga? At Tuesday's daily news conference, Mr Kirby said it will be difficult to determine the purpose or origin of the three other objects until the debris is found and analysed.

The first UN aid convoy has entered through a reopened border crossing into rebel-held north-western Syria, devastated by last week's earthquake. The UN said 11 lorries crossed from Turkey at Bab al-Salameh on Tuesday. Many Syrians are angry over the lack of aid for the war-torn nation especially to rebel areas, after last week's quakes in which more than 41,000 are known to have died in Turkey and Syria. The UN and Syria's government on Monday agreed to use two more crossings. The other one is at al-Rai, also on the Turkish border. The UN said the crossings would initially be open for three months. Two powerful earthquakes struck the south-eastern regions of neighbouring Turkey on 6 February early in the morning, when many people were asleep. Hopes of finding any more survivors are fading. Crisis upon crisis: Why it's hard to get help to Syria Satellite images show devastation in Syria town

US air safety investigators say they will investigate why a Boeing 777 jet unexpectedly lost altitude and nearly plunged into the Pacific Ocean. United Airlines flight 1722 had left Maui on 18 December and was climbing when it suddenly plummeted 1,400ft (425m), reports say. It stabilised at just 775ft in altitude and went on to land safely in San Francisco 27 minutes early. Its adds to a number of near misses involving planes this year. The flight was going normally until 71 seconds after take-off from Kahului Airport when it suddenly dropped in elevation, according to Flightradar24, an aviation website. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigates US plane crashes, will produce a report about the incident within three weeks. Passenger Rod Williams told CNN: "There were a number of screams on the plane. Everybody knew that something was out of the ordinary, or at least that this was not normal."

Nah its "white Knight syndrome" saving the lady from the streets etc, taking her out of it and giving her a "life".The white knight charging in ! 'Pretty Woman " syndrome derived from the movie of that name Rich guys "saves" prostitute, same thing. . ????

The UK must "wake up" to the threat posed by China's challenges to global security, the ex-head of MI6 has said. Sir Alex Younger, who led the UK's Intelligence Service between 2014 and 2020, said Western nations are "under full press of Chinese espionage". US military have shot down four objects - including a suspected Chinese spy balloon - in the past week. Sir Alex told the BBC the UK must place limits on tolerating countries "who behave in an unacceptable way", How has China reacted to the balloon saga? UK ready to defend against spy balloons - Sunak US Navy releases photos of China balloon debris On 4 February, the US military shot down a Chinese spy balloon after it travelled over sensitive military sites across North America. China has claimed the object was a weather balloon gone astray.

For those not from that area, lets take a look at whats going on there !

Russia's Wagner mercenary group has reportedly recruited tens of thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine. But the growing number of casualties and extrajudicial executions make it much harder to find volunteers, even in prisons. Many convicts are now worried that they can be simply forced to go to war - and migrant workers from Central Asian countries find themselves particularly vulnerable. Anuar came to Russia in search of work in 2018. He was later imprisoned for drug trafficking and sent to serve his term at Penal Colony Number Six in Vladimir region. The BBC is not disclosing his real name and citizenship for safety reasons. At the end of January, he told his father that a group of Central Asians had been sent to fight in Ukraine without their consent. "There are lots of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz there in that prison. Now they are planning to send another group and my son is worried that they will force him to go too," Anuar's father told the BBC.

At least three people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at Michigan State University, police say. As well as the three victims, police said the suspect had died apparently from a "self-inflicted gunshot wound". Another five people were injured in the attack at the main campus in the city of East Lansing late on Monday. Police described the suspect as "a black male, shorter in stature". They later said he was 43 years old with no known affiliation to the university. Students and local residents were told to shelter-in-place during the manhunt, however police later lifted the order, saying there was "no longer a threat to campus". They added that the suspect was "located off campus". In photos released earlier, the suspect was wearing a denim jacket, a navy baseball cap and red trainers. The shooting started shortly after 20:00 local time on Monday (01:00 GMT Tuesday).

Moldova's president has accused Russia of plotting to use foreign "saboteurs" to overthrow her pro-EU government. Maia Sandu nominated a new prime minister on Friday, Dorin Recean, who is pro-EU like his predecessor. President Sandu said the "plot" would involve "protests by the so-called opposition", aiming to "overthrow the constitutional order". Russia's war in neighbouring Ukraine has put Moldova - one of Europe's poorest countries - under great strain. Last week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv's intelligence service had uncovered a Russian plan to destroy Moldova. Moldova, wedged between Romania and Ukraine, became a candidate for EU membership last summer. The country of 2.6 million people has struggled with an influx of refugees from Ukraine and tensions with Transnistria, a breakaway pro-Moscow region where some 1,500 Russian soldiers are stationed.

India has replaced France as the world's biggest buyer of Scotch whisky by volume, latest figures show. Whisky makers exported 219 million bottles to India, up 60% on 2021, the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) said. The US is still the largest buyer by value - it imported Scotch whisky worth £1.05bn ($1.27bn) in 2022. India was fifth on the list. Scotch has long been a status symbol in India, but still has only a 2% share in the world's largest whisky market. Blended whisky, which is cheaper, has long been the preferred choice for millions of Indian consumers. But demand for more expensive single malts has been growing too, driven by cultural shifts and a rise in Indians' spending power. While India's share in global Scotch sales has surged - export volumes to the country rose more than 200% over the past decade - exporters see a lot of room to grow.

Whether it's getting cookery advice or help with a speech, ChatGPT has been the first opportunity for many people to play with an artificial intelligence (AI) system. ChatGPT is based an an advanced language processing technology, developed by OpenAI. The artificial intelligence (AI) was trained using text databases from the internet, including books, magazines and Wikipedia entries. In all 300 billion words were fed into the system. The end result is a Chatbot that can seem eerily human, but with an encyclopedic knowledge. Tell ChatGPT what you have in your kitchen cabinet and it will give you a recipe. Need a snappy intro to a big presentation? No problem. But is it too good? Its convincing approximation of human responses could be a powerful tool for those up to no good.

The sensors from a suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down after crossing the US have been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, the US military says. Search crews found "significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified", said US Northern Command. The FBI is examining the items, which the US says were used to spy on sensitive military sites. The US has shot down three more objects since the first one on 4 February. "Large sections of the structure" were also recovered on Monday off the coast of South Carolina, military officials say. About 30-40ft (9-12m) of the balloon's antenna array are among the items found, according to CBS, the BBC's US partner. US officials said the high-altitude balloon originated in China and was used for surveillance, but China said it was merely a weather-monitoring airship that had blown astray.

The Queen Consort has tested positive for COVID-19 after suffering from cold symptoms, Buckingham Palace has said. "After suffering the symptoms of a cold, Her Majesty The Queen Consort has tested positive for the COVID virus," the statement said. "With regret, she has therefore cancelled all her public engagements for this week and sends her sincere apologies to those who had been due to attend them."

A basic mistake by the Iranian military has helped prove it is breaching UN Security Council resolutions on drones and missiles, says the UK. A boatload of missiles intercepted by the Royal Navy in the Persian Gulf last year included a drone quadcopter whose hard drive revealed the shipment's origin. Iranians go to great lengths to disguise weapons and missiles they smuggle to allies in the region. They do so to avoid leaving evidence they are breaching UN resolutions, hoping to reduce the risk of further sanctions.

Flying taxis could be with us sooner than you think as Dubai hopes to launch its "aerial ridesharing" service by 2026. United Arab Emirates Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum has announced the approval of the designs for new air taxi stations across the city. Renewing Dubai's commitment to the flying taxi programme, he said the services will start operating within three years' time - after first being touted in 2017. A promotional video, which was also tweeted out by the ruler, shows a six-rotor electric flying taxi made by Joby Aviation, which is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California.

Lloyd Devereux Richards, a full time attorney and father of three, spent 14 years pursuing his dream of writing a book, and the next 11 years hoping for the thriller to take off. It did not, until last week when his daughter posted a 16-second TikTok video with a simple message: "I'd love for him to get some sales." The book jumped to No. 1 on Amazon's Serial Killer Thrillers list. Her dad's response was: "I'm ready for a nap." The viral video, which details Mr Richards' long journey to finishing the novel, Stone Maidens, has garnered more than 40 million views. TikTok, a short-form video hosting platform, has helped fuel sales of hundreds of books in recent years, including through the hashtag #BookTok, which readers use to discuss their favourite authors and book picks. In 2021 alone, BookTok helped authors sell 20 million printed books, according to a New York Times report.

An independent commission looking into the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church said on Tuesday it had documented cases pointing to at least 4,815 victims. Set up by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference to examine abuse in recent decades, the commission added this was the tip of the iceberg. Presenting the report, the commission's president, child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, described its objective as "giving voice to the silence" of victims. He paid tribute to the hundreds who contacted its staff to provide testimony. "They have a voice; they have a name," he said. In all, the commission documented 564 experiences of people who said they had been victims of abuse by priests or other Church officials. The exercise looked at cases dating back to 1950.

BBC News New Zealand has declared a state of emergency due to Cyclone Gabrielle, the third such alert in its history. The Minister for Emergency Management, Kieran McAnulty, signed the declaration into place Tuesday morning. It will apply to the Northland, Auckland, Tairawhiti, Bay of Plenty, Waikato and Hawkes Bay regions and streamline the government's response to the disaster. At least 38,000 homes were without power on Tuesday morning. In New Zealand's largest city, Auckland, authorities earlier evacuated people from 50 homes around a 30m-high tower that was in danger of collapse, local media reported. Dozens of evacuation centres have also been set up in the city. Mr McAnulty described the storm as "an unprecedented weather event". He said the state of emergency will allow for federal co-ordination of a clean- up response and would provide additional resources to those who are affected. It also gives the government more power to respond to dangerous situations, including restricting travel. New Zealand's Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced a NZ$11.5m (£6m; US$7.3m) aid package on Monday.