Insiders had billed it as a “day of reckoning”, said The i Paper. Key figures in the BBC crisis were grilled by a Commons select committee yesterday, making their first public comments since director general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness quit the corporation.

MPs told BBC chair Samir Shah, who has also faced direct criticism, that they were not “wildly enthused that the board is in safe hands”. But if you were expecting a “gladiatorial showdown” at the hearing, said Katie Razzall on BBC News, “you’d have been left wondering where the swords were”.

What did the commentators say?
Claims that the BBC was institutionally biased were dismissed by both Shah and former journalist Michael Prescott (pictured above), who as a BBC editorial adviser wrote the damning internal memo on liberal bias that was leaked to The Telegraph. BBC board member Robbie Gibb – a former communications chief for then PM Theresa May who himself has faced accusations of political interference – also played down rumours of a “politically motivated coup” as “ridiculous” and “complete nonsense”.

This “gentle nudging” by MPs “would not have been out of place at a rural Quaker meeting house”, said former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger in The Independent, and brought us no closer to understanding the alleged problems at the BBC.  “A force 10 typhoon had just ripped through a great national institution”, but yesterday “nobody could quite put their finger on why”.

What next?
As well as appointing a new director general and CEO of news, the BBC must contend with a possible legal battle with Donald Trump over the October 2024 “Panorama” episode that included a misleading edit of a speech he made prior to the riots on 6 January 2021. The US president has threatened to sue the BBC for between $1 billion and $5 billion.

This is “a moment of peril” for the broadcaster, said former BBC chief creative officer Pat Younge in The Guardian. We must not ape the US, where “sycophantic media executives have caved in to politically motivated legal threats”. A strong BBC needs several guarantees: a permanent charter, a “proper funding settlement”, a governance board “appointed by an independent body”, and a renewed commitment to ensuring content reflects “the lives of nations and regions throughout the country”.

A new transparency feature on X has revealed that many politically influential US accounts, including pro-Trump ones with hundreds of thousands of followers, are based overseas.

“About This Account”, which rolled out globally on Friday, allows anyone to tap on another user’s sign-up date to see where that account is located. The social media platform’s director of product, Nikita Bier, called it “an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square”. But with that has come a “wave of scrutiny” into “the provenance of political accounts”, said The New York Times.

‘Armageddon for the online right’
The new feature has “revealed the scope and geographical breadth” of X’s “foreign troll problem”, said The Verge. Although “some right-wing personalities were quick to jump on evidence that many left-wing X users were also not who they claimed to be”, the sheer number of “rage-bait” pro-Maga accounts based outside America has shocked the US. An account called MAGANationX, for example, which has nearly 400,000 followers, is based in Eastern Europe. And digital investigator Benjamin Strick unearthed a network of “Trump-supporting independent women” who say they are “real Americans“ but are actually located in Thailand.

The new location feature is a “total Armageddon for the online right”, said left-wing influencer Micah Erfan. It looks like “half of their large accounts were foreigners posing as Americans all along”.

‘A few rough edges’
With so many Maga influencer accounts revealed to originate outside the US, “users are questioning the ongoing interference in American politics by foreign adversaries”, said The Daily Beast.

A measure of caution over the newly revealed X account locations is needed, however. “Some users have complained that their listed location is wildly inaccurate,” said TechCrunch. And X’s Bier has acknowledged that “data was not 100% for old accounts”, adding that the new feature has “a few rough edges” to iron out.

Yet while factors such as travel, VPNs and proxies could lead to inaccurate location data, said The Verge, it is “extremely unlikely to be true for even a majority of those being called out”.

A giant panda rolls in snow at Chongqing Zoo in China. The country’s panda population is increasing by two today, as Huan Huan and Yuan Zi return after living at France’s Beauval Zoo for 13 years as part of Beijing’s “panda diplomacy” programme.

CFOTO / Future Publishing via Getty Images

Not everyone dreams of escaping the cold during the winter months. Whether snowshoeing through the Austrian Alps or exploring Antarctica’s remote wilderness, these winter breaks are perfect for fans of chilly weather:

Snowshoeing in Lech, Austria
“Few places can beat Austria for snowy landscapes,” said The Guardian. And Ramble Worldwide’s week-long guided snowshoeing walk is the perfect way to explore the Austrian Alps (pictured above). The tour includes lunches in “traditional mountain hütten” and a “torchlit evening walk, with plenty of warming Glühwein”.

An eco-luxe Christmas in Colorado, US
Few experiences could be more fun than a “frosty white Christmas in the Rockies”, said Condé Nast Traveler. Spanning 6,500 “pristine” acres of “untamed wilderness”, Devil’s Thumb Ranch is the perfect eco-luxe destination to ring in the New Year, with highlights ranging from sleigh rides and ice skating to “breakfast with Santa, Christmas karaoke and holiday feasts”.

A snowy lake in Bled, Slovenia
Slovenia’s Lake Bled is beautiful in every season, but this “fairy-tale destination” is especially stunning during the winter months, said Red magazine. The area has plenty of opportunities for ice skating and skiing, and a walk up to Bled Castle is rewarded with “fantastic views of the snowy scenery”.

Cruising in Antarctica
While Antarctica “isn’t for the faint of heart”, the continent is an unforgettable destination for those who have had their “fill of society and its attendant niceties”, said Elle Decor. A host of winter cruises set sail for the South Pole each winter, and if you’re not ready to forego home comforts once you’re there, include a stay at Whichaway Camp – comprising a “nest of ‘polar pods’”, plus a “sauna overlooking a glacier”.

Is Keir Starmer trying too hard to be a human being?
Eliot Wilson on City A.M.
Watching Keir Starmer read “a letter to his son” to mark International Men’s Day was “distinctly odd and unsettling”, writes Eliot Wilson. Starmer has always lacked “charisma, articulacy and sparkle”, but as prime minister, he’s “blank and bewilderingly hollow”. In his letter, he speaks of “how, as a young man, he heard a voice in his head telling him he wasn’t good enough”. Now, “the voice is back; and increasingly it sounds like it is right”.

Say hello to your AI granny
Mary Wakefield in The Spectator 
A new app creates “AI versions of family members so that relatives can talk to them after they’re dead”, writes Mary Wakefield. The tech “ghouls come marching in” with their “monthly storage fees” and “upgrades”, running “essentially a hostage ransom business”. It is “astonishing” how quickly “things that seem laughably dystopian can suddenly become part of ordinary life”. They say an “AI granny helps process grief”, but “no good comes from trying to raise the dead”.

Trump’s bizarre behaviour is sparking serious concerns about his age
Sarah Baxter in The i Paper
Donald Trump is getting increasingly “erratic, even by his wildly inappropriate standards”, writes Sarah Baxter from the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting. He’s recently been “unusually excitable, aggressive and disinhibited”. Doubts about his “mental acuity surfaced” during last year’s election, “but he was in so much better shape” than Joe Biden that “it seemed foolish to suggest he wasn’t up to the job”. Now, though, some “have started to raise questions” about a mental decline.