A new travel ban by President Donald Trump could bar people from Afghanistan and Pakistan from entering the U.S. as soon as next week based on a government review of countries' security and vetting risks, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The three sources, who requested anonymity, said other countries could also be on the list but did not know which ones.

A car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg — which left six people dead shortly before Christmas — will not be investigated as a terrorist attack, the country's Federal Prosecutor General Jens Rommel told regional channel SWR.

Rommel said the perpetrator of the attack, a Saudi-born doctor who described himself as an ex-Muslim, likely carried out the rampage "out of personal frustration" and didn't target state institutions.

Calls for a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs have been opposed by some on the grounds that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has already been held. The argument goes that since the flagship report on child sexual abuse was accompanied with a smaller one on child sexual exploitation (CSE) by organised networks, there have been enough inquiries.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain on Monday fired back at Elon Musk after days of inflammatory social media posts by Mr. Musk, the billionaire owner of X, indirectly accusing him and others of “spreading lies and misinformation” about victims of child sex abuse gangs.

“Those who are spreading lies and misinformation, as far and as wide as possible, are not interested in victims,” Mr. Starmer told reporters at an event south of London dedicated to repairing the National Health Service. “They’re interested in themselves.”

Elon Musk has reopened the national scandal surrounding gangs of men who groomed, assaulted and raped girls across England. 

In dozens of messages posted on his X platform over the past week he has ranged from including excerpts of court transcripts to calling Sir Keir Starmer “complicit in the rape of Britain”.

They represent the latest intervention by the tech billionaire, who will work in Donald Trump’s incoming administration, into the affairs of the UK.

The grooming and serial rape of thousands of English girls by men of mostly Pakistani Muslim background over several decades is the biggest peacetime crime in the history of modern Europe. It went on for many years. It is still going on. And there has been no justice for the vast majority of the victims.

An estimated 1,301 people have died during this year’s Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, known as Hajj, due to sweltering temperatures at the Saudi Arabia holy site, CNN reported Sunday, citing Saudi officials.

Hundreds of people are thought to have died during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia - most of them due to extreme heat as temperatures soared past 51C (123F).

AFP news agency quoted an Arab diplomat as saying 658 Egyptians had died. Indonesia said that more than 200 of its nationals had died. India said 98 people were known to have died.

There were not enough medics or basic facilities to protect Hajj pilgrims from the effects of the sweltering heat in Saudi Arabia last week, two pilgrims recently returned from Hajj told CNN, as the official death toll from this year’s Hajj pilgrimage soared to almost 500.

Witnesses said worshipers losing consciousness and walking past bodies covered in white cloth became a norm during the mass religious event.