The UK’s new visa-waiver entry system took effect on Wednesday for passengers from dozens more countries, including millions of annual visitors from the United States, Canada and Australia.

The Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme — similar to the ESTA system in the United States — requires visitors who do not need a visa to enter Britain to acquire pre-travel authorisation.

Costing £10 ($12.50) and allowing stays of up to six months at a time over two years, it first launched in 2023, with Qatar, before being extended last year to five regional Gulf neighbours.

Now, it has been expanded to include citizens of around 50 more countries and territories, from Argentina, Brazil and New Zealand to Japan, South Korea and Caribbean nations.

With the system kicking in for them on Wednesday, they have been able to apply since last November.

The scheme, aimed at tightening border security, will next be extended to dozens of EU and European countries and territories on April 2.

Citizens covered by the scheme will be able to apply for the new ETA — which is digitally linked to the traveller’s passport — via an app, from March 5.

Around six million people from the US, Canada and Australia visit Britain each year, according to the UK government.

Eligible travellers will need one even if they are just using the UK to connect to an onward flight abroad. ETA also applies to children and babies.

London’s Heathrow Airport has opposed the scheme, saying its rollout has reduced the number of passengers transiting through the UK, and that it makes the country “less competitive” and harms economic growth.

The new requirement does not apply to British and Irish citizens, those with passports from British overseas territories and legal UK residents.

It does not change the requirements for citizens of countries who need a visa to visit Britain, such as Chinese, Ecuadorian and South African travellers.

Previously, most visitors not requiring a visa could arrive at a British airport and proceed through immigration control with their passport.

The new UK entry scheme mirrors the imminent ETIAS scheme for visa-exempt nationals travelling to 30 European countries, including France and Germany, which will cost seven euros ($7.40) and last three years.

The European Commission expects the system — which will apply to around 60 countries, including the US, Canada, Brazil and the UK — to become operational in the middle of this year.

South Korean anti-graft investigators were holding on Tuesday for a new court-ordered arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose failed martial law bid threw the country into turmoil.

The former star prosecutor has refused questioning three times over a bungled martial law decree last month which plunged South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades.

As anti-graft officials seek a new warrant from the same court that issued the first order, Yoon remains holed up in his residence surrounded by hundreds of guards preventing his detention.

“The Joint Investigation Headquarters today refiled a warrant with the Seoul Western District Court to extend the arrest warrant for defendant Yoon,” the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) said in a statement late Monday.

“Details regarding the validity period cannot be disclosed”, the CIO added after the initial seven-day warrant expired.

If investigators can detain Yoon, he would become the first sitting president in South Korean history to be arrested.

There was no comment by investigators or the Seoul court on the new warrant being approved by Tuesday afternoon.

However, CIO deputy director Lee Jae-Seung told reporters earlier on Tuesday that the likelihood the court would not grant an extension was “very low.”

Yoon is being investigated on charges of insurrection and, if formally arrested and convicted, faces prison or, at worst, the death penalty.

His lawyers repeatedly said the initial warrant was “unlawful”, pledging to take further legal action against it.

Yoon’s lawyers have argued the CIO lacks the authority to investigate, because insurrection is not included in the list of offences it can probe.

But the likelihood for the reissued warrant to be accepted was “quite high,” said Yun Bok-Nam, president of Lawyers for a Democratic Society, who is not involved in the investigation.

But it may take longer than expected for the warrant to be issued again.

“In the previous instance, it took quite a long time — almost a day and a half,” Yun told AFP.

The CIO is a relatively new force — nearly four years old — with fewer than 100 staff who have yet to prosecute a single case.

“Naturally, they have no prior experience with arrests, let alone something as significant as arresting the president,” Yun said.

“The cooperation of the police is essential”, he added, through the Joint Investigation Headquarters umbrella under which both forces are currently working together.

The country’s opposition Democratic Party said Monday it would submit a legal complaint against acting president Choi Sang-mok for “dereliction of duty” after it asked him to intervene in the case and he did not.

South Korea’s Constitutional Court has slated January 14 for the start of Yoon’s impeachment trial, which would proceed in his absence if he does not attend.

Local media reported the suspended leader is likely to appear on the trial’s opening day, but Yoon’s lawyer told AFP his appearance on that date was still “undecided”.

The court has up to 180 days to determine whether to dismiss Yoon as president or restore his powers.

Former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Park Geun-hye never appeared for their impeachment trials in 2004 and 2016-2017 respectively.

Investigators struggled to arrest Yoon because of a sizable force of guards massed at his home to protect him.

His presidential security service refused to budge during a tense six-hour standoff at his residence on Friday, forcing investigators into a U-turn.

Many of his supporters have also camped outside his residence despite freezing weather.

However, with no warrant active on Tuesday, the scene was calmer on the streets outside, with protests appearing to lull before any further attempt to arrest Yoon.

A huge winter storm sweeping across many states in the US is causing thousands of flights to be delayed or cancelled as residents are gripped by fear of a possible heaviest snowfall in a decade.

Thirty states have been put under a weather alert after a state of emergency was declared in Kentucky, Virginia, Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri.

A blast of snow, ice, wind, and plunging temperatures stirred up dangerous travel conditions in the central US on Sunday, blanketing major roadways.

CNN reports that as many as 62 million residents are to be affected when the storm unleashes a barrage of heavy snow, treacherous ice, rain, and severe thunderstorms across a 1,300-mile (2092.1472 kilometres) swath of the US.

“For locations in this region that receive the highest snow totals, it may be the heaviest snowfall in at least a decade,” the National Weather Service said.

Forecasters say the extreme weather is caused by the polar vortex—an area of cold air circling the Arctic.

Usually, the polar vortex stays up around the North Pole, but it can shift and expand, bringing lower temperatures further south than usual.

The polar vortex had been expanding over the US in recent days before the winter storm began to hit on Saturday evening.

The weather service warned that severe thunderstorms with the possibility of tornadoes and hail may occur in some regions over the next few days.

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom (UK), some airports in Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham closed off runways after a heavy snowstorm swept through the city.

The UK’s national grid and operators reported power outages across homes in the country.