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

I'm Valerie Sanderson, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 24th of December,

these are our main stories.

In Washington, an ethics report has found that Donald Trump's top pick for Attorney General,

Matt Gates, paid women, including a 17-year-old, for sex and drugs.

In Magdeburg, marches take place as the German city mourns those killed in Friday's

attack. A new government in France after days of political turmoil.

Also in this podcast, they're still celebrating, they're still happy,

but they don't know what's coming.

They don't know which kind of system it will be.

Some of them, they think that they are heading to a kind of religious state.

Our correspondent, born and raised in Syria,

returns to his home in Damascus for the first time in 15 years.

We begin in the United States, where a report into Donald Trump's original pick to become

U.S. Attorney General, Matt Gates, has said that the Fomber Congressman broke multiple

state laws while he was in office.

In the much-awaited House Ethics Report, Mr. Gates is accused of paying a 17-year-old girl for sex

and of buying and using illegal drugs. He denies any wrongdoing and withdrew from consideration

as America's top law officer last month.

Our North America correspondent, Tom Bateman, told me more about the report.

Well, the whole series of allegations, as you say, and that searing conclusion,

that it says there was substantial evidence that Matt Gates violated both House rules and other standards.

...