You are bound to devote yourself to the long conflict between the light and the dark.

The dark is rising, an immersive audio adventure, adapting Susan Cooper's classic fantasy novel

into a gripping 12-part family drama.

Everything has changed.

The dark is rising, find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Janet Jalil, and in the early hours of Friday 23rd December, these are our main stories.

The disgraced former cryptocurrency boss Sam Bankman-Freed has been released from custody in New York

on bail set at $250 million.

Abeldon Court has ordered that a senior member of the European Parliament embroiled in a corruption scandal

should remain in detention for another month.

Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, have joined Western governments in condemning

a Taliban decision to stop women from attending university in Afghanistan.

Also in this podcast, the Spanish art form Flamenco is said to be recovering after it was

greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We begin in the United States.

It's an incredible come down for a man whose crypto empire was once valued at $32 billion.

Some Bankman-Freed had a spectacular rise after founding the cryptocurrency exchange FTX

just three years ago.

But after FTX has collapsed last month, he was detained, first in the Bahamas, then

in the US to where he was extradited on Wednesday.

Now, as he prepares to stand trial in New York on fraud charges, he's been released on

...