Donald Trump has attempted to negotiate a potential TikTok sale on live television, in what was supposed to be an announcement about investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

The US president was holding a news conference about a $500bn (£405bn) investment in AI infrastructure in the country, but was questioned about a range of topics.

At one point he attempted to negotiate the sale of TikTok with Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who is said to be worth more than $204bn (£165bn).

Mr Trump also had to defend some of his actions just one day into his second term.

When the topic of TikTok was raised, Mr Trump said he was “open” to his close friend Elon Musk buying the app, adding: “I would be, if he wanted to buy it. I’d like Larry [Ellison] to buy it too.”

He continued: “I have the right to make a deal, the deal I’m thinking about, Larry let’s negotiate in front of the media.

“The deal I think is this. I’ve met with the owners of TikTok, the big owners, it’s worthless if it doesn’t get a permit… with a permit it’s worth like a trillion dollars.

“What I’m thinking of saying to someone is buy it and give half to the US, half, and we’ll give you a permit… the US will be the ultimate partner and the US will make it very worthwhile for them.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me Mr President,” Oracle co-founder Mr Ellison said, when asked by the president about the offer.

During the press conference, Mr Trump also said he received a “very nice letter” from the outgoing Joe Biden.

“It was a little bit of an inspirational type letter, joy, do a good job, important, very important the job is, I think it was a nice letter, I think I should let people see it… I appreciated the letter,” he said.

Capitol riot pardons

As part of a blitz of executive orders Mr Trump signed on Monday, he issued pardons for more than 1,500 people involved in the Capitol riot – including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders.

When asked how he justified pardoning convicted violent rioters, some of whom attacked police, he said: “I am the friend of police more than any president that has been in this office.

“They’ve been given a pardon, I thought their sentences were ridiculous and excessive.”

When further questioned over the words of his vice president JD Vance, who said no violent rioters would be pardoned, Mr Trump claimed they had “served years in jail and murderers don’t even go to jail in this country”.

Tariff countdown

Across the campaign trail, Mr Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of using tariffs against other countries.

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But for the first time, he gave a date for potentially bringing them in.

He vowed to hit the European Union (EU) with tariffs and said his administration was discussing imposing an additional 10% tariff on goods imported from China from 1 February because, he claimed, fentanyl was being sent from China to Mexico and Canada, then on to the US.

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“The European Union is very, very bad to us, so they’re going to be in for tariffs. It’s the only way… you’re going to get fairness,” he said.

A fire at a hotel in a popular ski resort in Turkey has killed at least 66 people, the country’s interior minister has said.

Ali Yerlikaya added that at least 51 other people were injured in the fire at the Grand Kartal hotel in Kartalkaya in Bolu province’s Koroglu mountains in northwest Turkey, about 185 miles (300km) east of Istanbul.

The health minister said at least one of the injured was in serious condition and 17 others had been discharged from hospital after being treated.

At least two of the victims died after jumping from the building in panic, Bolu Governor Abdulaziz Aydin told the state-run Anadolu media agency, adding that 234 guests were staying at the 12-storey, 161-room hotel.

Other reports said some people tried to climb down from their rooms using sheets and blankets.

The fire broke out at about 3.30am in the restaurant, with pictures showing several fire engines surrounding the charred building, and white bed sheets tied together could be seen hanging from one upper-floor window.

Third-floor guest Atakan Yelkovan told the IHA news agency his wife smelled burning but “the alarm did not go off”.

“We tried to go upstairs but couldn’t, there were flames. We went downstairs and came here [outside],” he said.

Mr Yelkovan said it took about an hour for the firefighting teams to arrive.

“People on the upper floors were screaming. They hung down sheets… some tried to jump,” he said.

Ski instructor Necmi Kepcetutan said he was asleep when the fire began and, after rushing outside, he helped some 20 guests escape.

He said the hotel was engulfed in smoke and admitted he couldn’t get to some of his students.

“I hope they are OK,” he said.

Mr Aydin’s office said 30 fire trucks and 28 ambulances were sent to the site. Other hotels at the resort were evacuated as a precaution and guests were placed in hotels around Bolu.

A team of six government-appointed prosecutors is investigating how the fire started.

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German TV station NTV suggested the wooden cladding on the outside of the hotel may have accelerated the spread of the fire and that efforts to put it out were hampered by the fact it is built on the side of a cliff.

The Grand Kartal hotel passed a fire inspection last year, tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy told reporters.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to take “all necessary steps” to find out what happened and “hold those responsible accountable”.

Donald Trump will pull the US, the world’s second-largest climate polluter, out of the most important global treaty for tackling climate change for the second time.

The White House announced the move to withdraw from the Paris Agreement shortly after Mr Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

The decision would place the United States alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries in the world outside the landmark global 2015 pact to limit global warming.

Mr Trump also withdrew the US from the Paris deal during his first term, but it was reversed by Joe Biden on his first day in office.

Last month, the UK’s climate envoy warned Paris was “more fragile than ever” due to countries disagreeing over whether the agreement goes too far – or not far enough.

The withdrawal, which will take one year to come into effect, is one in a blitz of measures designed to exploit every last drop of oil and gas from US soil – something Mr Biden somewhat tempered, though he still oversaw record oil production.

President Trump says the moves will lower prices and inflation.

In another executive order he pledged to “unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources”, which would “restore American prosperity”.

The new president is also expected to scrap other environmental regulations and cut off green technology subsidies that formed part of Mr Biden’s landmark green legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

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Dr Rachel Cleetus from the Union of Concerned Scientists called the withdrawal from Paris a “travesty” and “abdication of responsibility”.

“Such a move is in clear defiance of scientific realities and shows an administration cruelly indifferent to the harsh climate change impacts that people in the United States and around the world are experiencing,” she said.

But America has long been a climate laggard, whether under Mr Trump or other presidents.

Members of the climate movement put a brave face on, saying the global climate fight continues regardless.

Laurence Tubiana, who spearheaded the Paris Agreement and now runs the European Climate Foundation, called the withdrawal “unfortunate”.

“But multilateral climate action has proven resilient, and is stronger than any single country’s politics and policies.”

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The COP29 climate conference in November was the first test of global climate action after it had been rocked by Mr Trump’s election, and managed to scrape through.

The context today is also “very different” to the last time President Trump withdrew America from the agreement in 2017, added Ms Tubiana.

Momentum behind the global switch to clean energy is gathering pace, and the market for clean technologies is expected to triple by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency.

Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief who oversees the Paris Agreement, said ignoring the clean energy boom “only sends all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse, destroying property and businesses, hitting nation-wide food production, and driving economy-wide price inflation”.

The US Climate Alliance, a bi-partisan alliance of more than 20 state governors, vowed to carry on pursuing climate goals set by the outgoing Mr Biden.

“We will continue America’s work to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and slash climate pollution,” said the governors of New York and New Mexico, Kathy Hochul and Michelle Lujan Grisham.