INTERNATIONAL

People who live near major roads have higher rates of dementia, research published in the Lancet suggests. As many as 11% of dementia cases in people living within 50m of a major road could be down to traffic, the study suggests. The researchers, who followed nearly 2m people in Canada over 11 years, say air pollution or noisy traffic could ...

President-elect Donald Trump has backed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in casting doubt on intelligence alleging Russian meddling in the US election. Mr Assange said Russia was not the source for the site’s mass leak of emails from the Democratic Party. Mr Trump has now backed that view in a tweet. He wrote: “Assange… said Russians did not give him the ...

Republicans have ditched a plan to gut the independent body that investigates political misconduct after a backlash. The lawmakers’ surprise vote to strip the Office of Congressional Ethics of its independence prompted public uproar and a dressing down from Donald Trump. “Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!” the president-elect said. The secretive ...

The UK’s ambassador to the EU, Sir Ivan Rogers, has resigned. Sir Ivan, appointed to the job by David Cameron in 2013, had been expected to play a key role in Brexit talks expected to start within months. The government said Sir Ivan had quit early so a successor could be in place before negotiations start. Last month the BBC ...

Syrian rebel groups say they are suspending participation in the preparations for peace talks planned by Russia and Turkey for later this month. In a statement, the rebels cited “many and large violations” of the ceasefire by the Syrian government as the reason for their move. Turkey and Russia brokered the ceasefire deal that has mostly held since last Thursday. ...

Police in Indonesia have arrested the captain of a ferry that burst into flames, leaving 23 people dead. There are reports he was the first to leave the boat when the fire broke out, and was rescued from the sea. A senior official at the country’s transport ministry has vowed to revoke the captain’s licence if the reports were found ...

At least 35 people have been killed in a suicide car bomb attack in a busy square in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, security and medical sources say. Sixty-one other people were injured by the blast in the predominantly Shia Muslim eastern district of Sadr City. It is not known who was responsible, but so-called Islamic State has carried out similar attacks ...

The Queen is not attending a New Year’s Day church service at Sandringham because of a “lingering heavy cold”. She also missed the Christmas Day service at her Norfolk estate and has not been seen in public for 12 days. A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said the Queen was “still recuperating”. She and the Duke of Edinburgh left for their Christmas ...

A deal has been signed to end Joseph Kabila’s 15-year rule in the Democratic Republic of Congo – but the president himself has yet to add his signature. Senior ministers backed the deal, which would see Mr Kabila stay on until elections are held by the end of 2017. The country has faced a crisis since Mr Kabila failed to ...

At least 39 people, including at least 15 foreigners, have been killed in an attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey’s interior minister says. A gunman opened fire in Reina nightclub at about 01:30 local time (22:30 GMT), as revellers marked the new year. Suleyman Soylu said efforts were continuing to find the attacker, who was believed to have acted ...