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British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua has been injured in a car crash in Nigeria, which killed two members of his team.

The former world champion was a passenger in a Lexus SUV that collided with a stationary truck on a major expressway in Ogun State, near Lagos.

The two men who died were Joshua’s close friends and team members Sina Ghami and Latif “Latz” Ayodele, the boxer’s promoter Matchroom Boxing said in a statement.

It added that Joshua was in a stable condition in hospital, where he was taken for “checks and treatment” and will remain for observation.

Police Commander Babatunde Akinbiyi of Nigeria’s Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps (TRACE) said early investigations showed the Lexus had been travelling along the highway from Lagos to Sagamu when it “experienced a tyre burst due to excessive speed” and then “lost control”.

Mr Akinbiyi said Joshua and the driver were rescued from the wreckage and taken to a hospital in Sagamu for medical treatment.

The two other passengers – Mr Ghami and Mr Ayodele – were pronounced dead at the scene, Mr Akinbiyi added.

In a statement Matchroom said: “Our deepest condolences and prayers are with the families and friends of all those affected – and we ask that their privacy is respected at this incredibly difficult time.”

The group’s chair, boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, paid tribute to the “two great men” who were killed in the crash. “Rest in eternal peace Sina and Latz. My thoughts and deepest prayers are with everyone,” he said.

Boxing expert Steve Bunce described Mr Ghami and Mr Ayodele as “two of Joshua’s closest friends” and as “massive parts of the Anthony Joshua machine”.

“They’ve been with him, if not from the start, at least very early on. Latz is AJ’s personal trainer and Sina is his strength and conditioning man. They are with him all the time,” Bunce told BBC Radio 5 Live.

Hours before the crash, Joshua posted a video to Instagram of himself and Mr Ayodele playing table tennis. Mr Ghami had recently posted on social media from Lagos.

A joint statement from the Ogun and Lagos state governments said Joshua was stable and conscious, and had been in contact with his family.

They said earlier that Joshua had “narrowly escaped death” in the crash, and there will be a “comprehensive investigation” into what happened.

Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said he had spoken to the 36-year-old boxer personally to convey his condolences and wish him a “full and speedy recovery”.

“AJ assured me he is receiving the best possible care,” he said in a post on X.

The crash took place on the busy Lagos-Ibadan expressway at around 12:00 local time (11:00 GMT) on Monday.

Pictures shared by Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) showed a wrecked car at the site of the crash, with a crowd of onlookers gathered around.

Local officials said Joshua and another man – the vehicle’s driver – were rescued by the boxer’s security team.

Video from the scene showed the boxer being helped out from the back seat of a wrecked SUV.

Ogun and Lagos state governments said Joshua and another passenger were “immediately evacuated to a specialised medical facility in Lagos”.

The Lagos-Ibadan expressway is known as one of Nigeria’s deadliest roads, with particularly heavy traffic at this time of year as many Nigerians living abroad visit for the festive period.

Joshua, who was born in Watford, has family roots in Sagamu – a town in Ogun State, south-west Nigeria, near the crash site.

He had been spending time in the country following his recent victory over American YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul on 19 December.

Paul posted on X after the crash: “Life is much more important than boxing. I am praying for the lost lives, AJ and anyone impacted by today’s unfortunate accident.”

A relative of Joshua’s in Nigeria, who asked not to be named, told the BBC that news of the crash came as a “shock” to the family.

They said they were hoping for his “speedy recovery” and offered prayers for those who died in the crash.

The family member confirmed that Joshua was travelling from Lagos to Ogun State when the accident happened. His family had been expecting him to join them in Sagamu for New Year celebrations.

The boxer’s family is well known in the town and traces its ancestry there across several generations.

There are plans to build a new indoor boxing venue named after Joshua in Ogun, where the boxer is a sports ambassador.

Tributes have poured in for the two members of Joshua’s team who were killed in the crash.

Ghami had been Joshua’s full-time strength and conditioning coach for more than 10 years, helping him prepare for major clashes of his career including this month’s defeat of Jake Paul.

He also co-founded the London-based gym Evolve. The gym said it will close on 30 December “as we mourn the loss of our beloved owner”.

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Khaleda Zia, who has died at the age of 80, was Bangladesh’s first female prime minister.

She was once described as a “shy housewife” to her husband Ziaur Rahman, a leading figure in the country’s struggle for independence who became the president in 1977.

But following her husband’s assassination in 1981, Zia rose to lead his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and served two terms as prime minister – first in the 1990s and then in the early 2000s.

Her tumultuous public life did not end after her premiership. She was later convicted for corruption and spent years in prison, but was acquitted after a 2024 uprising that saw her long-time rival, Sheikh Hasina, swept from power.

Begum Khaleda Zia was born in West Bengal in 1945.

The daughter of a tea trader, she moved to what is now Bangladesh with her family after the partition of India.

At the age of 15, she married Ziaur Rahman, then a young army officer.

In 1971, he joined a mutiny against West Pakistani forces and declared independence for Bangladesh.

After the military seized power in 1977, Rahman – who then became the army chief of staff – declared himself president. He reintroduced political parties and a free media, and was later endorsed by popular vote.

He faced as many as 20 military coups, and dealt with them brutally. There were reports of mass executions of soldiers.

In 1981, he was assassinated by a group of army officers in Chittagong.

At the age of 36, Khaleda Zia became a widow.

Until then, she had kept a low profile and seemed to take little interest in public life.

But in 1982 she became a member of the BNP, the party founded by her husband, and later rose to become its vice-chairman.

That year – 1982 – was also when Bangladesh began nine years of military dictatorship, after its army chief seized power in a coup.

During this period, Zia embarked on a fervent campaign against military rule, staging a boycott of the army’s heavily-managed elections.

She was put under house arrest multiple times for her activism, but gained a reputation among the people as an “uncompromising leader”.

After the fall of the military government in 1990, Khaleda Zia and the BNP became the largest party in post-military elections, and she was sworn in as prime minister in 1991.

Having absorbed most of the powers of the old presidency, she was now the first female leader of Bangladesh, and only the second elected woman to lead a Muslim country.

With her ascension to the premiership, Bangladesh’s government returned to a parliamentary system.

Among the most notable reforms she implemented during her first term was making primary school education free and mandatory for all.

But in 1996 she would lose her bid for re-election to Hasina’s Awami League.

In 2001, Zia had her revenge, having formed an alliance with a group of Islamist parties. Together, they won nearly two-thirds of the seats in parliament, but the BNP’s closeness to the Islamist parties would draw criticism over the years.

In her second term, Zia championed women’s issues, such as introducing a quota for female MPs and providing education for young women – in a country where 70% of them were illiterate.

Soon after Zia ended her term in office in 2006, Bangladesh was gripped by riots in the political vacuum. Amid the unrest, the country’s interim government, backed by the military, banned most political activity and began a crackdown on high-level corruption, which cut across political lines.

Zia was arrested on charges of extortion and corruption. So was her great rival Hasina.

Both women, who had alternated from government to opposition for the best part of two decades, were suddenly mired in court cases.

Restrictions were lifted on Zia in the years after, and after losing a military-sponsored election in 2008 she became the opposition leader.

The BNP lost its representation in parliament altogether after boycotting the 2014 election.

In 2018, Zia was convicted and jailed for five years after being found guilty of embezzling about $252,000 (£188,000) intended for an orphanage trust set up when she was prime minister.

She became the only prisoner locked up in Dhaka’s old – and now disused – central jail. The length of her sentence disqualified her from seeking public office.

She denied wrongdoing, and said the charges were politically motivated.

A year later, the then 73-year-old Zia was transferred to hospital for treatment for conditions including severe arthritis and uncontrolled diabetes.

She was eventually released from prison on health grounds and told to remain at home.

Tides turned yet again in 2024, when Hasina’s government was swept from power on a wave of popular discontent.

Hasina fled to India, and the interim government that replaced her ordered Khaleda Zia’s release and the unfreezing of her bank accounts.

By this time, she was suffering from a series of life-threatening conditions including cirrhosis of the liver and kidney damage.

In January 2025, the courts acquitted her, lifting travel restrictions and allowing her to travel to London for treatment.

But in the early morning of 30 December, she died in Dhaka after suffering from months of poor health.

She is survived by her elder son Tarique Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh in late December after spending years in exile in London, and who is widely seen as the frontrunner to become Bangladesh’s next leader. “Koko”, her younger son, died in 2015.

Donald Trump has said the US has carried out a strike on a “dock area” linked to alleged Venezuelan drug boats.

The US president said there had been a “major explosion” where “they load the boats up with drugs” – but did not give more details or the dock’s location. Venezuela’s government is yet to respond.

The explosion was caused by a drone strike carried out by the CIA, said CNN and the New York Times, citing sources close to the matter. If confirmed, it would be the first known US operation inside Venezuela.

Since September, the US has launched strikes on what it says are drug-smuggling boats, targeting more than 20 vessels in the Pacific and the Caribbean, and killing at least 100 people.

The most recent strike was on Monday, with US Southern Command saying in a social media post that two “narco-terrorists” were killed in a “lethal kinetic strike” in the eastern Pacific.

Trump has previously threatened land strikes in Venezuela, as well as authorising covert CIA action in the nation, as part of a pressure campaign on President Nicolás Maduro.

Reporters asked Trump on Monday if the CIA had carried out the attack, and he said, “I don’t want to say that. I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was”.

“We hit all the boats, and now we hit the area… it’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement, and that is no longer around,” he said of the strike.

Trump’s comments are the second time he has mentioned the explosion. In a radio interview last week, Trump described a US operation against a “big facility”, but he provided limited details.

The Pentagon referred questions from BBC News to the White House. The White House has yet to comment.

When the US has previously carried out strikes on alleged drug boats – including Monday’s – the Pentagon has published images and videos on social media to confirm the strikes. So far, no images of the dock incident have been shared.

The Trump administration has described strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, mostly from Venezuela, as attacks against terrorists attempting to bring deadly and illegal drugs to the US by boat.

The US has deployed 15,000 troops and a range of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers, and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.

The stated aim of the deployment – the largest to the region since the US invaded Panama in 1989 – is to stop the flow of fentanyl and cocaine to the US.

Among the ships is the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier. US helicopters reportedly took off from it before US forces seized an oil tanker off Venezuela on 10 December.

The Trump administration has accused Venezuela of using oil revenues to fund drug-related crime. Venezuela condemned the seizures as “piracy”.

Maduro has denied US claims that he is a cartel leader and has accused the US of using its “war on drugs” as an excuse to try to depose him and get its hands on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Last week, Trump was asked whether the goal of the seizures was to force Maduro from power. Trump responded: “Well, I think it probably would… That’s up to him what he wants to do. I think it’d be smart for him to do that. But again, we’re gonna find out.”