Asian shares slid on Monday morning after US President Donald Trump followed through on his promise to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

Investors are bracing for a potential trade war that could hit the earnings of major companies and dent global growth.

Canada and Mexico have said that they will hit back with retaliatory tariffs while China promised “corresponding countermeasures” and vowed to challenge Trump’s move at the World Trade Organization.

Trump has said the tariffs are necessary to halt the flow of illegal drugs and immigration into the US.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 1.3%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 2.4% lower, South Korea’s Kospi tumbled 3% and Australia’s ASX 200 was 1.8% lower.

Markets in mainland China remained closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Meanwhile, the US dollar was showing strength, rising to a record high against China’s yuan, while the Canadian dollar plunged to its lowest level since 2003.

“The prospect of having a long and protracted trade spat between the world’s two biggest economies is causing investors to take risk off the table today,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at financial services firm KCM Trade.

“The other worry for investors is which countries may be on Trump’s tariff hit list next”.

The tariffs announced by the Trump administration over the weekend target the United States’ three largest trading partners and the US president has threatened he might not stop there.

Trump has also vowed to impose tariffs on the European Union “pretty soon”.

Chief investment strategist at investment bank Saxo, Charu Chanana, warned that while tariffs could be beneficial for the US economy in the short term, in the long run they pose significant risks.

“Repeated use of tariffs would incentivise other countries to reduce reliance on the US, weakening the dollar’s global role,” she added.

Trump has said he will speak to Canada and Mexico’s leaders on Monday about the tariffs which are due to come into effect at midnight on Tuesday.

The two countries are facing tariffs of 25% on their exports to the US, while Chinese goods will face an additional 10% tax.

A few hours after President Donald Trump announced that he would impose steep tariffs on Canada, hockey fans in the capital Ottawa booed the Star-Spangled Banner during a National Hockey League game against a visiting US team.

On Sunday, during a National Basketball Association game between the Toronto Raptors and the Los Angeles Clippers, it happened again, continuing throughout the song and almost drowning out the 15-year-old’s singer’s arena performance.

The vocal displeasure from usually respectful fans is a clear sign of Canadians’ deep dismay at Trump’s move to hit its nearest ally with punitive taxes, which threaten to spark an unprecedented trade war on the North American continent.

The 25% tariffs imposed by Trump on all Canadian imports into the US – with a lower 10% levy on energy – are set to take effect on Tuesday.

And they come as President Trump doubles down on his push – no longer dismissed as a joke – for Canada to join America and become the 51st state.

While many economists project the tariffs will also drive up costs for Americans on everyday essentials, from gas to groceries, Canada is the more exposed trade partner. If they last for months, the country could tip into a painful economic recession.

Anger is building – and with it, a desire to mount a fightback that has been echoed by political leaders in the country of 40 million.

“Many among us will be affected by this, and we will have some hard times. I ask you to be there for each other,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a Saturday evening address. “Now is the time to choose Canada.”

Some Canadians have already heeded the calls for solidarity. On social media, guides have circulated on how to avoid American-made products. One local grocery store in Toronto even began labelling its Canadian yogurt for shoppers, according to an image posted by Toronto doctor Iris Gorfinkel on X.

Others have stated they will be cancelling travel plans to the US, or forgoing visiting there altogether.

“Yesterday, in response to Trump tariffs, we cancelled our family March break to the US,” wrote Seth Klein, a Canadian author, on Bluesky on Sunday. “Took a small hit on cancelled train tickets, but it needed to be done.”

In some Canadian provinces – namely Ontario, the largest by population – American booze will be pulled off the shelves indefinitely starting on Tuesday.

This is in addition to a total of C$155bn ($105bn; £86bn) of American goods that Canada has said it will tariff in retaliation, including vegetables, clothing, sports equipment, perfume and other items. Goods originating from Republican-led states, like Florida orange juice, are specifically being targeted.

The US imports more of its oil from Canada than any other country, and Trudeau’s government has signalled “all options remain on the table” for further retaliation.

Trump’s follow-through on his threat of steep tariffs – which were long speculated to be a negotiation tactic to get concessions on border security – have bewildered Canadians, who have enjoyed close economic, social and security ties to the US for decades.

“It’s a shock,” Michael Ignatieff, the former leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, told the BBC.

“We’re into a new world, in which the question on whether you can trust America becomes the fundamental question in foreign policy for every country.”

Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s opposition Conservative Party, called the tariffs on Sunday “massive, unjust and unjustified.”

“Canada is the United States’ closest neighbour, greatest ally and best friend,” he said, noting that Canada fought alongside the US in two world wars, as well as in Korea and Afghanistan. “There is no justification whatsoever for this treatment.”

Prime Minister Trudeau questioned in his Saturday address why the US would target Canada instead of looking to “more challenging parts” of the world.

A portion of his speech was directly addressed to Americans, and he too, pointed to a history of shared bloodshed. “We have fought, and died, alongside you,” Trudeau said.

Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa with a focus on national security, told the BBC that Trump’s tariffs “undoubtedly represent an earthquake in Canada-US relations.”

“This is extremely destabilising for Canada,” Prof Juneau said. “As a country, we have massively benefited from our extremely close trade and security partnership with the US for decades.”

While the trade battle would likely force Canada to look for partners elsewhere, it ultimately can’t escape geography, he said. It will remain reliant on the economic superpower next door.

“That is why Canada must absolutely now focus on salvaging the relationship as much as possible,” Prof Juneau said.

The big unknown remains how long the US will keep the tariffs in place, and what steps Canada could take to appease the Trump administration, which has said it expects action on cross-border fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration.

TD Economics projects that the longer the tariffs remain in place, the worse the impact will be. Canada could enter a recession in five to six months, and its unemployment rate could hit more than 7%.

Theo Argitis, managing director of the Ottawa-based public affairs firm Compass Rose Group, said the unknowns had left Canada no choice “but to hit (Trump) back hard.”

“At the end of the day, we don’t even really know why he’s doing this,” Mr Argitis told the BBC.

Trump says the flow of fentanyl, a highly potent and deadly drug, into the US from Canada and Mexico, is one key reason. US officials say the levies will remain in place “until the crisis is alleviated.”

In response, the Canadian government has noted that less than 1% of fentanyl and illegal border crossings into the US come from Canada. It has offered to spend an additional C$1.3bn to secure the US-Canada border

But Trump has also spoken publicly about his frustration with the trade deficit between Canada and the US, and more broadly his view that tariffs could be a source of revenue for Washington’s coffers.

On Sunday, he wrote on Truth Social that the US does not need Canadian products, and said the US pays “hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize Canada.”

“Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable country,” Trump wrote, before repeating his view that Canada should instead become a US state.

He has warned that the White House will enact harsher penalties on Canada should it choose to retaliate. For now, Canada has chosen to try and inflict some targeted pain on its more powerful neighbour, even if the economic scales are tipped against it.

“We prefer to solve our disputes with diplomacy,” Trudeau told his country on Saturday. “But we are ready to fight when necessary.”

When I first drove into DR Congo’s eastern city of Goma, it was hard for me to tell I had entered a conflict zone.

Goma residents filled the streets a few miles from the border with Rwanda – commuters headed to work, hawkers sold goods by the roadside and taxi drivers scrambled to win customers.

But it only took a few minutes to notice there was a new “government” in town.

As I reached a checkpoint near a police post formerly run by the Congolese authorities, gun-toting fighters from the M23 rebel group stopped my car.

Last week M23 had captured Goma, an eastern city of nearly two million people, after a lighting advance in DR Congo’s eastern region.

At least 700 people in the city were killed and close to 3,000 injured as the rebels clashed with DR Congo’s army and its allies, according the UN and the Congolese government.

M23, which is made up of ethnic Tutsis, say they are fighting for minority rights, while DR Congo’s government says the Rwanda-backed rebels are seeking control of the eastern region’s vast mineral wealth.

At the checkpoint M23 rebels peered into my car, asked my driver a few brief questions, then waved us into the devastated city.

The rebels faced no opposition – it was like they had always been there.

I made my way to one the few hospitals treating wounded victims and as I entered, cries of pain echoed through the corridors.

I met Nathaniel Cirho, a medical doctor who, in a strange role reversal, sat in a hospital bed with a sling around his left arm.

A bomb had landed on the house next to his and Mr Cirho and his neighbours were struck by the resulting shrapnel.

“I sustained an injury on my arm. A 65-year-old man was injured on his abdomen. After surgery, he didn’t survive,” he said with regret.

Several wards away, an elderly woman lay in her another hospital bed, hooked up to an oxygen tank.

She had plucked a bullet from her own arm after a fierce exchange of fire broke out in her neighbourhood.

“Suddenly my hand felt cold, and I realised I had been shot,” she said, struggling to find her speech.

For days, she had nursed the gunshot wound without help. She told me she was eventually escorted to a public hospital by M23 fighters.

The woman asked to be moved to a private hospital, where she is now receiving treatment, because she was not receiving adequate attention from the overstretched doctors.

But even at this second hospital, medics were overwhelmed as an increasing number of patients came through the doors.

“We have treated most of them because we had contingency plans,” a doctor, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said.

He added: “On Sunday when the fighting began, we received 315 patients and we treated them.”

But now, the hospital counts over 700 patients with various degrees of injury, the doctor told me.

He spoke of receiving patients with “gunshot wounds to the head, others on the chest, stomach, hands and legs”.

As eastern DR Congo reels in political disquiet, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war by the rival parties.

The doctor in this private hospital corroborated the UN’s statement, saying his facility has so far received about 10 victims of rape and gender-based violence.

Outside the hospital and into the city centre, there was a mixture of serenity and circumspection.

People walked past four bullet-riddled vans, witnessing what played out when they were sheltering for safety.

Although the gunfire and explosions in Goma have all but died down, not all establishments are back to business as normal. A few shops have opened in certain streets, but not in others. Major banks also remain shuttered.

• The evidence that shows Rwanda is backing rebels in DR Congo
• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?

Perhaps some remain wary that anything could happen amid the volatile security situation in the wider North Kivu province.

“People are afraid… I am still afraid because those who caused the tension are still with us and we don’t know what is going on,” shop owner Sammy Matabishi said.

“But the bad thing is that there are no people to buy from us, many have gone to Rwanda, [the Congolese city of] Bukavu, Kenya and Uganda.”

He adds that traders who import goods from neighbouring countries have been unable to transport products into city.

Many residents I spoke to said they had come to terms with M23 running the place.

And as an outsider I could see the rebels were intent on asserting their control.

They had taken over the office of the North Kivu military governor, who they had killed as they advanced on Goma.

Fighters were also present in strategic areas around the city, while others patrolled the streets on pickup trucks, weapons in hand.

During the whole time I was in Goma, I did not see a single active Congolese soldier.

I did, however, see abandoned trucks emblazoned with “FARDC”, the French acronym for the DRC’s armed forces.

Near the base of the UN peacekeeping mission (Monusco) – who have been tasked with protecting civilians from rebel forces – military fatigues, magazines and bullets were strewn across the road.

“When M23 arrived here, they surrounded our army,” Richard Ali who lives nearby, told me.

“Many removed their military uniforms, threw away their weapons and wore civilian clothes. Others ran away.”

As M23 rejoices over a major conquest, the Congolese government continues to refute the rebels’ claim that they have totally captured Goma.

The authorities accuses M23 of illegally occupying their land -with the support of Rwanda – and promises to recover any lost territory.

Although Rwanda used to consistently deny backing the rebels, its response has shifted to more defensive one, in which government spokespeople states that fighting near its border is a security threat.

The rebels are now reported to be moving south towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, and have vowed to reach capital city Kinshasa.

For now, Goma remains their biggest coup. Conditions there foreshadow what life could be come for many more Congolese people, should the M23 gain more ground.

• South Africa and Rwanda go head-to-head over DR Congo war
• DR Congo’s failed gamble on Romanian mercenaries
• WATCH: ‘The situation is chaotic’ after rebels seize DR Congo city

Sections of a major Australian highway have been washed away, as flooding in Queensland worsens.

The torrential rainfall in the state’s north has claimed one life so far and forced thousands to flee their homes, with communities in Townsville, Ingham, and Cardwell among the hardest hit.

“Record” downpours are set to continue, authorities say, with parts of the region already experiencing almost 1.3m (4.2ft) of rain since Saturday, causing dams and rivers to overflow.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – who was briefed about the response efforts on Monday – said that the disaster had bought out “the best of Australians”.

“I’ve seen Australians helping one another in their time of need,” he wrote on X, adding that the “threat from floodwaters” would persist in affected areas for days.

Efforts to reach the hardest-hit areas have been hindered by the partial collapse of the Bruce Highway – a vital thoroughfare stretching 1,673km (1039 miles) across the state, which is longer than the road between London and Warsaw.

The Queensland Trucking Association told the ABC that the damage – which caused a bridge to cave in – could add an extra 700km to key driving routes, slowing down the delivery of critical supplies.

Queensland’s Premier David Crisafulli offered his condolences to the “tight-knit” town of Ingham – where a 63-year-old woman died in a rescue attempt after a State Emergency Service (SES) dinghy capsized on Sunday.

“We are deeply sorry for their loss,” he told reporters, adding that he would travel to north Queensland later Monday.

He also urged all residents located in the so-called “black-zone” of the floods – which includes six Townsville suburbs – to not return home, due to the ongoing threat posed by the nearby Ross River.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said the area received six months of rainfall in three days, while the Townsville Local Disaster Management Group warned that 2,000 homes could be inundated, some up to the second floor, as water levels rise.

The persistent deluge – which is gradually easing according to weather reports – has swollen waterways throughout the region. Major flood warnings remain in place for communities along the Hebert, Ross, Bohle, Horton, and Upper Burdekin rivers.

Emergency responders have continued working around the clock, with the SES receiving 480 calls for help overnight Sunday into Monday and performing 11 swift water rescues. Widespread power outages continue to be reported though, making it impossible for some communities to call for assistance.

SES Deputy Commissioner Shane Chelepy urged people to stay vigilant and check on their neighbours wherever possible. He added that some 400 people were now being housed in evacuation centres across Townsville, Ingham, and Cardwell.

Located in the tropics, north Queensland is vulnerable to destructive cyclones, storms, and flooding.

But climate scientists have warned that warmer oceans and a hotter planet are creating the conditions for more intense and frequent extreme rainfall events.

Meteorologists say the current floods could be the worst to hit the region in more than 60 years.

A stunned expression shot across Beyoncé’s face as her latest record, Cowboy Carter, was named best country album at the 67th Grammy Awards.

In a moment laced with symbolism, the award was announced by Taylor Swift – another artist who has successfully switched genres – and who is Beyoncé’s competition for the night’s main prize, album of the year.

“Wow, I really was not expecting this,” said the star, thanking “all of the incredible country artists” who had voted for the prize.

The recognition came five months after Beyoncé was snubbed at the Country Music Awards – even after she became the first black woman to have a number one hit on the Hot Country Songs chart, with Texas Hold ‘Em.

That song is also nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys, where Beyoncé faces competition from the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and Chappell Roan.

That category also features The Beatles, nominated for Now And Then – the track they reassembled from an old John Lennon demo in 2023.

The song has already won best rock performance in an early “premiere ceremony”, where the bulk of the Grammys’ 94 awards are handed out.

The main ceremony, at the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles, is doubling up as a fund-raiser for people affected by the ferocious wildfires that swept the city last month.

The show opened with a special performance by the local band Dawes, whose homes were destroyed in the inferno, playing Randy Newman’s classic song I Love LA.

Later, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars delivered a rousing version of California Dreamin’, originally by The Mamas & Papas, dedicated to the first responders who helped tackle the fires.

Comedian Trevor Noah, who is hosting the show, admitted that “just a few weeks ago, we weren’t sure that this show would even happen”.

“Thankfully, due to the heroic efforts of firefighters, the fires have now been contained, and despite all the devastation, the spirit of the city has emerged,” he added, to generous applause.

Squads of firefighters were invited to the awards to honour their efforts; and they walked the red carpet taking selfies with the biggest stars in music.

Los Angeles native Billie Eilsh was the second artist on stage, playing her award-nominated song Birds Of A Feather against a backdrop inspired by California’s natural beauty.

“I love you LA,” she said as the music ended.

Noah later joked that winners whose speeches ran longer than one-and-a-half minutes would be forced to donate $1,000 for every extra second they spoke.

As for the awards, Beyoncé arrived at the ceremony with the most nominations – 11 in total.

She already has more Grammys than any other artist in history, a haul of 32 trophies, but has never won the biggest prize, album of the year.

Winning best country album signals that she’s in the running for that prize at the fifth time of asking – but the category is stacked with equally-deserving records by Billie Eilish and four-time winner Taylor Swift.

British pop star Charli XCX is also in the running for Brat – which has already won three trophies, including best dance/pop album.

Sabrina Carpenter is another strong contender, having already won best pop vocal album for Short ‘n’ Sweet, and best pop solo performance for her flirtatious summer anthem, Espresso.

Chappell Roan won best new artist, and used her speech to call for equitable pay and conditions in the music industry.

“I told myself, if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists, would offer a liveable wage and health care, especially to developing artists,” she said.

“Labels, we got you, but do you got us?”

The first prize of the main ceremony was best rap album, which went to Florida-born rapper Doechii, for her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal.

She noted it was only the third time a woman had won the category since it was introduced in 1989, with a shout-out to her predecessors Lauryn Hill and Cardi B.

“There are so many black women out there that are watching me right now, and I want to tell you, you can do it,” she added.

“Anything is possible. Don’t allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you [or] tell you that you can’t be here, that you’re too dark, or that you’re not smart enough, or that you’re too dramatic or you’re too loud.

“You are exactly who you need to be to be right where you are and I am a testimony. Praise God.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has demanded that Panama make “immediate changes” to what he calls the “influence and control” of China over the Panama Canal.

America’s top diplomat said Panama must act or the US would take necessary measures to protect its rights under a treaty between the two countries.

The warning follows President Donald Trump’s vow to retake the canal and a meeting between Rubio and Jose Raul Mulino, Panama’s conservative president, in Panama City on Sunday.

The two men appeared to emerge from their two-hour meeting with different interpretations.

Mulino told reporters he did not see a serious threat of US military force to seize the canal, saying he had proposed technical-level talks with the US to address Mr Trump’s concerns about Chinese influence.

However, Trump’s vow to retake the canal has sparked a significant backlash in Panama. Protesters in Panama City on Friday burned effigies of Trump and Rubio.

Riot police moved in on another crowd of demonstrators, firing tear gas and wrestling people away. The clashes were small-scale, but the resistance to the US president’s stance is widely felt.

On Thursday, Mulino said the issue of the canal’s ownership would not be up for discussion with Rubio.

“I cannot negotiate or even open a negotiation process about the canal. It’s sealed, the canal belongs to Panama,” he said.

Mr Trump’s comments about the canal included an unfounded claim that Chinese soldiers are operating it. He also said American ships were unfairly charged more than others, despite the fact such a practice would be unlawful under treaty agreements.

The waterway is in fact owned and operated by the Panamanian government, under a neutrality treaty signed with the US decades ago. However, Chinese companies have invested heavily in ports and terminals near the canal. A Hong Kong based company runs two of the five ports close to its entrances.

But President Trump’s muscular approach – even refusing to rule out military action to take the canal – has aroused a strongly patriotic reaction in the small strategic nation.

“It’s ridiculous,” says Panama City resident Mari, who asked not to have her surname published.

“There’s a treaty that he has to respect, and there’s nothing in the treaty that says that we cannot have ports run by the Chinese,” she told the BBC, pointing out that there is Chinese investment in American ports and cities.

Surrounded by tourists and stalls hawking Panama hats and souvenirs, Mari explained that many residents have strong memories of US control of the canal and don’t want to go back.

The US and Panama signed a treaty in 1979, starting a handover process that saw Panama take full control of the canal in 1999.

“We could not cross into the canal zone without being arrested if we didn’t follow all the American rules. The minute you stepped across that border, you were in the United States,” Mari said.

“We had no rights within our own country, and we will not put up with that again… We are very insulted by [Trump’s] words.”

For some, Trump’s refusal to rule out the use of military force has also triggered suspicion and fear. It evokes memories of the 1989 US invasion of Panama to depose de facto ruler General Manuel Noriega, a conflict that lasted several weeks and rapidly overwhelmed Panamanian forces.

“I was the political leader of the opposition when Noriega said he was going to kill all the leaders of the opposition if the US were to invade,” recalled former Panama congressman Edwin Cabrera, speaking to the BBC by the locks of the canal’s Pacific entrance.

“I heard the bombs and started seeing people dying… The only thing President Trump and Rubio have left to say is that they will invade us,” he told the BBC. “I wouldn’t like to live that again in the 21st Century, relive the imperial experience. Panama is in the middle of war between two powers, the USA and China, while we are looking at the sky.”

Marco Rubio is the first Hispanic Secretary of State and is well known for his hawkish positions on some leaders in the region and on China. While Panama closely co-operates with the US on many issues, Mr Rubio’s visit is meant to signal the administration’s intolerance of countries soaking up Chinese investment in what the US sees as its own backyard.

In Panama, he claims China could ultimately use its interests at the ports to block US merchant or war ships in the event of a conflict or trade war.

“If China wanted to obstruct traffic in the Panama Canal, they could. That’s a fact… That’s what President Trump is raising and we’re going to address that topic… That dynamic cannot continue,” Mr Rubio said on The Megyn Kelly Show last week.

Despite the overwhelming support among ordinary Panamanians for their country’s ownership of the canal, some remain sceptical of their own leadership, arguing profits from the waterway don’t filter through to enough ordinary Panamanians.

“What you see here – that the United States and Donald Trump want to take back the canal – that’s what we call cause and effect,” says Andre Howell, a hotel worker in the historic centre of Panama City.

“They’re not administrating the Panama Canal the right way… No Panamanians have [the] benefits,” he said.

In 2010, IP Yadev, a surgeon from the southern Indian state of Kerala, was confronted with one of the hardest decisions of his life.

He had to decide between keeping his father – a terminal cancer patient – alive, and honouring his wish, expressed verbally, to stop all treatments and put an end to his suffering.

“As a son, I felt it was my duty to do whatever I could to prolong my father’s life. This made him unhappy and he ended up dying alone in an intensive-care unit. The doctor’s last efforts to revive him using CPR crushed his ribs. It was a horrible death,” Dr Yadev says.

The experience, he says, deeply impacted him and helped him realise the importance of advance medical directives (AMDs), also known as living wills.

A living will is a legal document that allows a person over 18 years to choose the medical care they would want to receive if they develop a terminal illness or condition with no hope of recovery and are unable to make decisions by themselves.

For example, they could specify that they don’t want to be put on life-support machines or insist that they want to be given adequate pain-relieving medication.

In 2018, India’s Supreme Court allowed people to draw up living wills and thereby choose passive euthanasia, where medical treatment can be withdrawn under strict guidelines to hasten a person’s death. Active euthanasia – any act that intentionally helps a person kill themselves – is illegal in the country.

But despite the legal go-ahead, the concept of living wills hasn’t really taken off in India. Experts say that this has much to do with the way Indians talk, or rather, don’t talk about death. Death is often considered to be a taboo subject and any mention of it is thought to bring bad luck.

But there are now efforts underway to change this.

In November, Dr Yadev and his team launched India’s first programme – at the Government Medical College in Kerala’s Kollam district – to educate people about living wills, offering information in person and over the phone. Volunteers also conduct awareness campaigns and distribute will templates.

Creating a living will requires family members to have open and honest conversations about death. Despite some resistance, activists and institutions are taking steps to raise awareness, and there’s a growing, though cautious, interest.

Kerala leads the way in these conversations. Currently, it has the country’s best palliative care network, and organisations that offer end-of-life care have also started awareness campaigns around living wills.

In March, around 30 people from the Pain and Palliative Care society in Thrissur city signed living wills. Dr E Divakaran, founder of the society, says that the gesture is aimed at make the idea more popular among people.

“Most people have never heard of the term so they have many questions, like whether such a directive can be misused or if they can make changes to their wills later on,” Mr Yadev says, adding that most inquiries have come from people in their 50s and 60s.

“Right now, it’s the educated, upper-middle class that’s making use of the facility. But with grassroot awareness campaigns, we’re expecting the demographic to widen,” he says.

According to the Supreme Court order, a person must draft the will, sign it in the presence of two witnesses, and have it attested by a notary or gazetted officer. A copy of the will must then be submitted to a state government-appointed custodian.

While the guidelines exist on paper, many state governments are yet to set up mechanisms to implement them. This is what Dr Nikhil Datar, a gynaecologist from Mumbai city, realised when he made his living will two years ago as there was no custodian to whom he could submit it.

So he went to court and it resulted in the Maharashtra government appointing about 400 officials across local bodies in the state to serve as custodians of living wills.

In June, Goa state implemented the Supreme Court’s orders around living wills and a high court judge became the first person in the state to register one.

On Saturday, Karnataka state ordered district health officers to nominate people to serve on a key medical board required to certify living wills. [Two medical boards have to certify that a patient meets necessary criteria for the implementation of a living will before medical practitioners can act on it.]

Mr Datar is also advocating for a centralised digital repository for living wills, accessible nationwide. He has also made his own will available for free on his website as a template. He believes a will helps prevent problems for both families and doctors when a patient is in a vegetative state and beyond recovery.

“Very often, family members don’t want the person to endure more treatment but because they can’t care for the patient at home, they keep them in the hospital. Doctors, bound by medical ethics, can’t withhold treatment, so the patient ends up suffering with no way to express their wishes,” Mr Datar says.

Living wills aren’t just about choosing passive euthanasia. Dr Yadev recalls a case where a person wanted his will to specify that he should be placed on life support if his condition ever required it.

“He explained that his only child was living abroad and that he didn’t want to die until his son got to meet him,” Mr Yadev says. “You have the freedom to choose how you want to die. It is one of the greatest rights available to us, so why not exercise it?” he says.

Healthcare advocates say that conversations around palliative care are slowly growing in the country, giving an impetus to living wills.

Dr Sushma Bhatnagar of Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences says the hospital is launching a department to educate patients about living wills. “Ideally, doctors should discuss living wills with patients, but there’s a communication gap,” she says, adding that training doctors for these conversations can help ensure a person dies with dignity.

“Throughout our lives, our choices are coloured by our loved ones’ wishes or by what society thinks is right,” Mr Yadev says.

“At least in death, let us make choices that are in our interest and fully our own.”

The former president of Spain’s football federation, Luis Rubiales, goes on trial on Monday, accused of sexual assault for kissing the player Jenni Hermoso, in a case which has fed into wider discussions about sexism and consent.

Hermoso is scheduled to appear as a witness on the opening day having travelled from Mexico, where she plays club football. The trial runs until 19 February.

As Spain’s players received their medals after defeating England in Sydney to win the 2023 World Cup, Rubiales grabbed Hermoso by the head and kissed her on the lips. Afterwards, Hermoso said the kiss had not been consensual, while Rubiales insisted it had been.

The incident triggered protests and calls for Rubiales’s resignation, and it also entered the political arena. Prime minister Pedro Sánchez, whose left-wing government has approved reforms seeking to boost gender equality and ensure consent in sexual relations, said that Rubiales’s kiss had shown that “there is still a long way to go when it comes to equality and respect between women and men”.

After initially remaining defiant and denouncing a witch-hunt driven by “fake feminism”, the federation president eventually resigned, before legal charges were brought against him.

Prosecutors are calling for Rubiales to receive a one-year prison sentence for sexual assault for the kiss. They are also calling for him to be given a sentence of a year-and-a-half for coercion, for allegedly trying to pressure Hermoso into saying publicly that the kiss was consensual. Rubiales denies the charges.

Three colleagues of Rubiales are also on trial, accused of colluding in the alleged coercion: Jorge Vilda, coach of the World Cup-winning side, Rubén Rivera, the federation’s former head of marketing, and former sporting director, Albert Luque. They all deny the charges.

Isabel Fuentes has watched the female national team closely ever since she was among the first women to represent Spain at football, from 1971 onwards. She describes the furore caused by the Rubiales kiss as “very sad”, because of how it overshadowed the World Cup victory, which, when mentioned, brings her to the verge of tears.

“It was something we would have liked to experience, but we weren’t allowed to,” she says. “These players won it for us. They have lived out our dreams.”

Fuentes played when the dictatorship of Francisco Franco was still in place and the women’s team were not even allowed to wear the Spanish flag on their shirts.

“The regime said: ‘We don’t want you to play football, but we’ll just ignore you,'” she says. “And the federation put all manner of obstacles in our way.”

Like many fans, she was concerned by how the Rubiales controversy affected the international image of Spanish football and she was also shocked by footage showing the former federation president celebrating the World Cup win by grabbing his crotch as he stood just a few feet away from Spain’s Queen Letizia.

But younger players, like Belén Peralta, prefer to emphasise how far women’s football has come, rather than dwell on the Rubiales case. Playing for third-division side Olimpia Las Rozas, Peralta says that even in the last few years she has noticed a shift in terms of the attention and support that women’s football receives.

“When I was younger, girls playing football was kind of strange, you were told, ‘Oh, that’s for boys,’ or ‘That’s not a girl’s thing,'” she says. “And nowadays, you go to some places and you say, ‘I’m a footballer,’ and that’s so cool and attractive.”

Her teammate, Andrea Rodríguez, agrees. Although she says that occasionally she might hear sexist comments about women’s football, social attitudes are overwhelmingly positive.

“People are more open-minded now,” she says.

It’s towards the end of our interview that Bill Gates reveals new numbers on how much his charitable Foundation has now spent in its efforts to combat preventable diseases and reduce poverty.

“I’ve given over 100 billion,” he says, “but I still have more to give.”

That’s dollars, just to clarify, worth about £80bn.

It’s roughly equivalent to the size of the Bulgarian economy or the cost of building the whole HS2 line.

But to put it in context, it’s also around the same as just one year of Tesla sales. (Tesla owner Elon Musk is now the richest man on the planet, a position Gates held for many years.)

The co-founder of Microsoft and his fellow philanthropist Warren Buffett are combining their billions through the Gates Foundation he originally set up with his now ex-wife Melinda.

Gates says philanthropy was instilled in him early on. His mother regularly told him “with wealth came the responsibility to give it away”.

The plan had been to unveil the $100bn figure in May, for the Foundation’s 25th anniversary. But Gates revealed it exclusively to the BBC.

He tells me, for his part, he enjoys giving his money away (and around $60 billion of his fortune has gone into the Foundation so far).

When it comes to his day-to-day lifestyle, he doesn’t actually notice the difference: “I made no personal sacrifice. I didn’t order less hamburgers or less movies.” He can also, of course, still afford his private jet and his various huge houses.

He plans to give away “the vast majority” of his fortune, but tells me he has talked “a lot” with his three children about what might be the right amount to leave them.

Will they be poor after he’s gone? I ask him. “They will not,” he replies with a quick smile, adding “in absolute, they’ll do well, in percentage terms it’s not a gigantic number”.

Gates is a maths guy and it shows. At Lakeside School in Seattle, in eighth grade, he competed in a four-state regional maths exam and did so well that, at 13, he was one of the best high school maths students of any age in the region.

Maths terminology comes second nature to him. But to translate, if you’re worth $160bn, which Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index claims he is, even leaving your children a tiny percentage of your fortune still makes them very rich.

I’m with one of only 15 people on the planet who are centibillionaires (worth more than $100bn), according to Bloomberg. We’re in his childhood home in Seattle, a mid-century modern four-bedroom house set into a hill, and we’re meeting because he’s written a memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings, focusing on his early life.

I want to find out what shaped a challenging, obsessive child who didn’t fit the norm into one of the tech pioneers of our age.

He’s brought along his sisters, Kristi and Libby, and all three excitedly tour the home where they grew up. They haven’t been back in some years and the current owners have refurbished (fortunately, the Gates siblings seem to approve of the changes).

But it’s bringing back memories including, as they walk into the kitchen, of the now-long-gone intercom system between rooms beloved by their mother. She used it to “sing to us in the morning”, Gates tells me, to get them out of their bedrooms for breakfast.

Mary Gates also set their watches and clocks eight minutes fast so the family would work to her time. Her son often rebelled at her efforts to improve him, but now tells me “the crucible of my ambition was warmed through that relationship”.

He puts his competitive spirit down to his grandmother “Gami”, who was often with the family in this house and who taught him to outsmart the competition early on with games of cards.

I follow him down the wooden stairs as he heads off to find his old childhood bedroom in the basement. It’s a neat guest room now, but young Bill spent hours, even days, in here “thinking”, as his sisters put it.

At one point, his mum was so fed up with the mess that she confiscated any item of clothing she found on the floor and charged her stubborn son 25 cents to buy it back. “I started wearing fewer clothes,” he says.

By this time, he was hooked on coding and, with some tech-savvy school friends, had been given access to a local firm’s one computer in return for reporting any problems. Obsessed with learning to program in those nascent days of the tech revolution, he would sneak out at night through his bedroom window without his parents knowing to get more computer time.

“Do you think you could do it now?” I ask.

He starts unwinding the catch and opens the window. “It’s not that hard,” he says with a smile as he climbs up and out. “It’s not hard at all.”

There is a famous early clip of Gates in which a TV presenter asks him if it’s true he can jump over a chair from a standing position. He does it right there in the studio. I’m in the Gates childhood bedroom for something that feels like “a moment”. The guy’s nearly 70. But he’s still game.

He seems at ease – and it isn’t just because we’re in a familiar environment. In the memoir, he’s revealed publicly for the first time that he thinks if he were growing up today, he’d probably be diagnosed on the autism spectrum.

The only time I met him before was in 2012. He barely looked me in the eye as we did a quick interview about his goal to protect children from life-threatening diseases. There was certainly no pre-interview small talk. I wondered after our interaction whether he was on the spectrum.

The book lays it out: his ability to hyperfocus on subjects he was interested in; his obsessive nature; his lack of social awareness.

He says at elementary school he turned in a 177-page report on Delaware, having written off for brochures about the state, even sending stamped addressed envelopes to local companies asking for their annual reports. He was 11.

His sisters tell me they knew he was different. Kristi, who’s older, says she felt protective of him. “He was not a normal kid… he would sit in his room and chew pencils down to the lead,” she said.

They’re obviously close. Libby, a therapist, tells me she wasn’t surprised to hear he believes he is on the spectrum. “The surprise was more his willingness to say ‘this might be the case’,” she says.

Gates says he hasn’t had a formal diagnosis and doesn’t plan to. “The positive characteristics for my career have been more beneficial than the deficits have been a problem for me,” he says.

He thinks neurodiversity is “certainly” over-represented in Silicon Valley because “learning something in great depth at a young age – that helps you in certain complex subjects”.

Elon Musk has also said he is on the spectrum, referencing Asperger’s syndrome. The Tesla, X and SpaceX billionaire is famously courting Donald Trump, as are the other modern-day tech bros, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos among other Silicon Valley attendees at Trump’s inauguration.

Gates tells me although “you can be cynical” about their motives, he too reached out to the president. They had a three-hour dinner on 27 December “because he’s making decisions about global health and how we help poor countries, which is a big focus of mine now”.

I ask Gates, himself a target of some pretty wild conspiracy theories, what he thinks of the decision taken by Zuckerberg after Trump’s election to dump fact-checking in the US on his sites. Gates tells me he’s not “that impressed” by how governments or private companies are navigating the boundaries between free speech and truth.

“I don’t personally know how you draw that line, but I’m worried that we’re not handling that as well as we should,” he says.

He also thinks children should be protected from social media, telling me there’s a “good chance” that banning under-16s, as Australia is doing, is “a smart thing”.

Gates tells me “social networking, even more than video gaming, can absorb your time and make you worry about other people approving you” so we have to be “very careful how it gets used”.

As for Trump’s first pick for US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who claims he isn’t anti-vaccination but has promoted debunked claims about vaccines, Gates makes short shrift. He tells me RFK Jr is “misleading people”.

The Bill Gates origin story isn’t rags to riches. His dad was a lawyer, money wasn’t tight, although the decision to send their son to private school to try to motivate him was “a stretch, even on my father’s salary”.

If they hadn’t, we might never have heard of Bill Gates.

He first got access to an early mainframe computer via a teletype machine at the school, after the mothers held a jumble sale to raise the money. The teachers couldn’t figure it out, but four students were on it day and night. “We got to use computers when almost nobody else did,” he says.

Much later, he would set up Microsoft with one of those school friends, Paul Allen. Another, Kent Evans, Gates’ best friend, would die tragically age 17 in a climbing accident. As we walk around Lakeside School, we pass the chapel where they held his funeral and where Gates remembers crying on the steps.

Together, they’d had big plans. When they weren’t on computers, they were reading biographies to work out what factors made people successful.

Now Gates has written his own. His philosophy? “Much of who you are was there from the start.”

A former surgeon who is accused of abusing hundreds of young patients, often while they were under anaesthetic, is set to go on trial this month in the largest child abuse trial in French history.

Joel Le Scouarnec, 73, is accused of assaulting or raping 299 children – the majority former patients of his – between 1989 and 2014, mostly in Brittany.

He has admitted to some charges, but not all.

The trial in Vannes, north- west France, follows a painstaking police investigation lasting several years.

It is likely to raise uncomfortable questions over whether Le Scouarnec was protected by his colleagues and the management of the hospitals that employed him, despite an FBI warning to the French authorities that he had been consulting child abuse websites, after which he was given only a suspended sentence.

A staggering number of opportunities to stop the former surgeon from having contact with children appear to have been missed or rejected.

Members of his own family also knew of Le Scouarnec’s paedophilia but failed to stop him, it is claimed.

“It was the family’s omertà which meant his abuse was allowed to continue for decades,” one lawyer involved in the case told the BBC.

Le Scouarnec, once a respected small-town surgeon, has been in jail since 2017, when he was arrested on suspicion of raping his nieces, now in their 30s, as well as a six-year-old girl and a young patient. In 2020 he was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment.

After his arrest, police searched his home and found child-sized sex dolls, more than 300,000 child abuse images, and thousands of pages of meticulously compiled diaries in which Le Scouarnec is alleged to have logged assaults he carried out on his young patients over 25 years.

He has denied assaulting or raping children, arguing that his diaries merely detailed his “fantasies”.

In several instances, however, he had also written: “I am a paedophile”.

Le Scouarnec is facing more than 100 rape charges and more than 150 charges of sexual assault.

Some of his former patients, who are all now adults, have said they remember the surgeon touching them under the guise of medical examinations, sometimes even when their parents or other doctors were in the room.

But because a huge number of his alleged victims were under the effect of anaesthetics when it is claimed the assaults took place, they had no recollection of the events and were shocked to be contacted by police and told their names – alongside graphic descriptions of abuse – allegedly appeared in Le Scouarnec’s diaries.

Le Scouarnec felt “all-powerful” and liked the feeling of “flirting with danger” through “calculated transgressions,” French daily Le Monde quoted the court order against the former surgeon as saying.

Some of the alleged victims have said the unsettling revelations helped them make sense of unexplained symptoms of trauma that had burdened them their whole lives.

Lawyer Francesca Satta, who represents several alleged victims, told the BBC that among her clients are “the families of two men who did remember, and who ended up taking their own lives.”

Olivia Mons of the France Victimes association spoke to many of the alleged victims and said several only had blurry recollections of events which they were never able to “find the words to explain”.

When the surgeon’s case came to light, “it provided them with the beginning of an explanation,” Ms Mons said.

But she added that most of the alleged victims were people who had no memories of being raped or assaulted, and who were living ordinary lives before police contacted them. “Today, many of these people are understandably very shaken,” Ms Mons said.

One woman told French media that when police showed her an entry under her name in Le Scouarnec’s diary, memories instantly flooded in. “I had flashbacks of someone coming into my hospital room, lifting the bedsheets, saying he would check if everything had gone well,” she said. “He raped me.”

Margaux Castex, a lawyer for one of the alleged victims, told the BBC her client is “traumatised that he ever gave his trust to a medical professional, and that’s been hard to shake”.

“He wishes he had never been told what happened,” Ms Castex said.

Another woman called Marie, now a married mother in her mid-thirties, said that police came to her house and revealed that her name appeared in the diaries of a surgeon who was accused of child abuse.

“They read out what he had written about me and I wanted to read it back myself but it was impossible,” she told outlet France Bleu. “Can you imagine reading hardcore pornography and knowing that it is about you, as a child?”

Marie said she had seen mental health specialists for years because of “issues” she had with regards to men, and that doctors had wondered whether she had experienced childhood trauma.

“I have to believe that my memory protected me from that. But the [police] examination brought it all back to the surface – images, sensations, memories came back to me day by day,” she said. “Today, I feel this as if it had just happened.”

Marie added that when she was shown a photo of Le Scouarnec, “everything came back to me… I remembered his icy gaze.”

She wondered how the surgeon had been able to commit his alleged crimes unnoticed for so long.

It is a haunting question that is bound to be explored at length during the trial.

The first court proceedings heard claims that several members of Le Scouarnec’s family had been aware since the mid-1980s of his disturbing behaviour towards children, but did not intervene.

His ex-wife has denied knowing what her husband – and father of their three children – allegedly did until he was arrested.

Le Scouarnec – a medical professional and a lover of opera and literature – had long been the pride of his middle-class family. He was a respected small town medical practitioner for many years, which may have afforded him a significant degree of protection in the workplace.

“A huge degree of dysfunction allowed Le Scouarnec to commit his deeds,” lawyer Frederic Benoist told the BBC.

Mr Benoist represents child protection advocacy group La Voix de L’Enfant (The Child’s Voice), which is pressing to highlight what it calls the “crucial institutional and judicial missteps” which allowed Le Scouarnec to allegedly continue abusing children for decades.

In the early 2000s, an FBI alert to the French authorities that Le Scouarnec had been accessing child abuse websites only resulted in a four-month suspended sentence with no obligation to follow medical or psychological treatment.

Mr Benoist said prosecutors never shared this information with the medical authorities and there were no consequences for Le Scouarnec, who continued in his role as a surgeon, often operating on children and managing their aftercare.

When a colleague – who already harboured suspicions against Le Scouarnec – read about the charges against him in the local press in 2006, he urged the regional medical association to take action.

All but one doctor – who abstained – voted that Le Scouarnec had not violated the medical code of ethics, which states that doctors “must in all circumstances be trustworthy and act with integrity and devotion to duty”. No sanctions were imposed.

“We therefore have proof that all these colleagues knew, and none of them did anything,” Mr Benoist said. “There were many circumstances which meant he could have been stopped; he wasn’t, and the consequences are tragic.”

The BBC has approached both the regional medical association and prosecutors for comment.

Le Scouarnec was eventually arrested when the six-year-old victim told her parents that he had assaulted her. By then, he was living like a recluse in a large derelict home, surrounded by child-sized dolls.

Ms Driguez, the nieces’ lawyer, sat opposite Le Scouarnec during the 2020 trial in the south-western town of Saintes. “His answers were cold and calculated,” she said. “He is extremely clever, but showed no empathy whatsoever.”

The trial uncovered more allegations of child abuse within Le Scouarnec’s family, Ms Driguez said, but the former surgeon never had any particular reaction and mostly looked at the floor.

At one point, the court was shown lurid videos of Le Scouarnec and his dolls. “Everyone was watching the screen but I was watching him,” Ms Driguez said. “Up to that point he had always kept his gaze down. But at that moment, he looked up, staring intently at the video. His eyes were twinkling.”

As the city of Vannes prepares to host the trial, three lecture halls in a former university building nearby have been made available to accommodate the hundreds of alleged victims, their legal representatives and families. The trial starts on 24 February and is due to last until June.

Whether the press and the public are allowed in will depend on all of the alleged victims giving up their right to a closed trial.

Many lawyers believe the trial could be a moment of reckoning for the authorities that failed to take provisions against Le Scouarnec, as well as an important moment for the victims to voice their trauma.

Ms Satta said that although many people involved in this case have no memory of what happened to them, they were still victims, adding that the former surgeon had enjoyed the “impunity of silence” for too long.

“The trial will be a moment for the victims to speak out,” Mr Benoist agreed. “It would be terrible, in my eyes, if it was held behind closed doors.”

Air traffic control staffing was “not normal” at the time of a mid-air collision between a military helicopter and passenger plane in Washington, DC that killed 67 people, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has acknowledged.

US media reported that Reagan National Airport tower was understaffed during Wednesday’s crash, according to a government report.

“I’ll take the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) at their word that it wasn’t normal,” Duffy said when asked about reports during the FOX News Sunday programme.

So far, 55 victims have been recovered from the Potomac River, with divers continuing to search for 12 more.

There were 64 passengers aboard the American Airlines flight when it collided mid-air with an army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers as crew. There were no survivors.

At the time of the crash, one air traffic control worker was managing helicopters and some planes from the airport, a job normally done by two people, two sources told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.

Duffy said “that was part of the review process that we have to do”.

He explained there was a “consolidation of air traffic controllers an hour before it was supposed to happen during the time of this crash. And so was, what was the appropriateness of that?”

Duffy raised questions about whether controllers did “appropriately direct traffic, consistent with procedures at the FAA”, as well as the elevation of the helicopter.

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Board Member Todd Inman said preliminary data revealed the helicopter was flying at about 200ft (60m), CBS reported. The flight ceiling for helicopters in the area near Reagan National Airport is 200ft.

Duffy also questioned the timing of its flight.

“Why would they fly a mission at nine o’clock at night through really busy air space… as opposed to flying that mission at one o’clock in the morning, when there’s very little traffic”? he asked.

“I want our military to be trained up and ready to go, but I also want air travellers to be safe as well, and there’s a time and a place to do it, not at nine o’clock at night when there’s heavy traffic.”

Investigators are considering a number of factors, including height, in determining the cause of the crash, but have not yet made any public conclusions, NTSB officials said on Thursday.

Military officials told a news conference on Sunday said the helicopter crew was based in DC, where they flew daily missions to support senior army leadership and other government leaders.

Wednesday’s flight was a training mission required annually for recertification, led by two experienced pilots who had flown in the local area many times before, officials said.

Duffy said the US has a chronic understaffing problem in air traffic control.

US media has reported that more than 90% of air traffic control facilities in the country are operating below FAA recommended staffing levels.

“We haven’t had enough air traffic controllers in America for a very long time,” Duffy said, adding “they are stressed out. They’re tapped out. They’re overworked. That’s no excuse. It’s just a reality of what we have in the system.”

The new transportation secretary said he was working with the FAA to train new air traffic controllers and “has a plan that’s going to come out to fix the problem, but the issue is you can’t flip a switch and get air traffic controllers here tomorrow.”

As officials investigate the cause of the crash, recovery operations continue.

“We believe we’re going to be able to recover all of the victims, but we don’t know where they are at this point,” DC fire chief John Donnelly said.

At first light on Monday morning, the Army will begin to lift the wreckage, pausing if they recover any remains, Col Francis Pera said.

“Uniting those lost in this tragic incident is really what keeps us going,” he added.

During the operation on Sunday, a DC police diver was taken to hospital with hypothermia, but recovered.

On Sunday morning, dozens of family members of the victims gathered at the scene of the crash.

They arrived in chartered buses with a police escort, first travelling to the crash scene and then on to a runway where the flight was supposed to land.

The fire chief said he was not at the event, but had met with families, who he said are “grieving” with a “whole range of emotions”.

“They are a strong group of families that are focused on getting their loved ones back,” he said.

Sir Keir Starmer is heading to Brussels to join a gathering of European Union leaders – the first time a British prime minister has done so since Brexit.

Starmer is heading over the English Channel for talks focused on defence and security co-operation and will also meet Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte.

The trip is part of what he calls a “reset” between the UK and the European Union.

• Five key impacts of Brexit five years on
• Brexit has some benefits, No 10 says on anniversary

The government has promised the UK will not re-join the EU’s Single Market or Customs Union, or sign up to freedom of movement.

But ministers do want what they see as a better relationship on defence and security, crime and trade.

They hope to sort this out by the spring and finalise it at a UK-EU summit, possibly in April or May.

Leaders of the European Union’s 27 member states are gathering for what is described as an “informal retreat” at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels – a 16th century palace in heart of the Belgian capital.

The backdrop is clear: the ongoing war in Ukraine and the return of Donald Trump to the White House.

The EU acknowledges it needs to take greater responsibility for its own defence – a key and recurring demand of President Trump, as he threatens the bloc with import taxes or tariffs.

The prime minister said: “President Trump has threatened more sanctions on Russia and it’s clear that’s got Putin rattled. We know that he’s worried about the state of the Russian economy.

“I’m here to work with our European partners on keeping up the pressure, targeting the energy revenues and the companies supplying his missile factories to crush Putin’s war machine.

“Because ultimately, alongside our military support, that is what will bring peace closer.”

The UK is also exploring closer ties with the EU on dealing with serious and organised crime, and, crucially, trade.

Allowing food and animal products to be traded more freely is being discussed, as is cooperation on energy with a possible tie-up between the UK and the EU’s emission trading schemes.

The mutual recognition of professional qualifications and allowing touring musicians to travel more easily are also themes of interest.

Plenty in the EU are keen on a youth mobility scheme allowing young people from the UK and the EU to travel much more easily.

But such a scheme will sound to some rather like freedom of movement, albeit for a narrow chunk of the population and so may be a hard sell for the UK politically.

It is also likely, given the respective sizes of the EU and the UK, that more young people from the EU would come to the UK than vice versa.

Ministers have rejected the idea so far.

The EU has also floated the UK joining what is known as the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention.

The Convention isn’t quite a customs union but removes customs on the components that go into a product that are sourced from the other countries signed up to it.

Notably, the UK has not ruled out signing up to this and it is not seen by the government as a breach of its red lines.

Some sectors, such as the car industry, with its ‘just in time’ supply chains, would likely welcome such a move but other manufacturers would be exposed to greater competition.

Leading the technical negotiations for the UK is Michael Ellam, who worked in Downing Street when Gordon Brown was prime minister.

Ellam has been tasked with managing what is known as the “the EU Relations Secretariat” within the Cabinet Office, which the prime m inister set up shortly after the general election to lead on his planned “reset” with the EU.

As the negotiations continue, Starmer knows he faces political pressure from both sides of the argument.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has claimed “the Labour government are trying to reopen the divisions of the past and edge us back into the EU.”

Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, has said the government should be negotiating to re-join the customs union.

Asian shares slid on Monday morning after US President Donald Trump followed through on his promise to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

Investors are bracing for a potential trade war that could hit the earnings of major companies and dent global growth.

Canada and Mexico have said that they will hit back with retaliatory tariffs while China promised “corresponding countermeasures” and vowed to challenge Trump’s move at the World Trade Organization.

Trump has said the tariffs are necessary to halt the flow of illegal drugs and immigration into the US.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 1.3%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 2.4% lower, South Korea’s Kospi tumbled 3% and Australia’s ASX 200 was 1.8% lower.

Markets in mainland China remained closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Meanwhile, the US dollar was showing strength, rising to a record high against China’s yuan, while the Canadian dollar plunged to its lowest level since 2003.

“The prospect of having a long and protracted trade spat between the world’s two biggest economies is causing investors to take risk off the table today,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at financial services firm KCM Trade.

“The other worry for investors is which countries may be on Trump’s tariff hit list next”.

The tariffs announced by the Trump administration over the weekend target the United States’ three largest trading partners and the US president has threatened he might not stop there.

Trump has also vowed to impose tariffs on the European Union “pretty soon”.

Chief investment strategist at investment bank Saxo, Charu Chanana, warned that while tariffs could be beneficial for the US economy in the short term, in the long run they pose significant risks.

“Repeated use of tariffs would incentivise other countries to reduce reliance on the US, weakening the dollar’s global role,” she added.

Trump has said he will speak to Canada and Mexico’s leaders on Monday about the tariffs which are due to come into effect at midnight on Tuesday.

The two countries are facing tariffs of 25% on their exports to the US, while Chinese goods will face an additional 10% tax.

A few hours after President Donald Trump announced that he would impose steep tariffs on Canada, hockey fans in the capital Ottawa booed the Star-Spangled Banner during a National Hockey League game against a visiting US team.

On Sunday, during a National Basketball Association game between the Toronto Raptors and the Los Angeles Clippers, it happened again, continuing throughout the song and almost drowning out the 15-year-old’s singer’s arena performance.

The vocal displeasure from usually respectful fans is a clear sign of Canadians’ deep dismay at Trump’s move to hit its nearest ally with punitive taxes, which threaten to spark an unprecedented trade war on the North American continent.

The 25% tariffs imposed by Trump on all Canadian imports into the US – with a lower 10% levy on energy – are set to take effect on Tuesday.

And they come as President Trump doubles down on his push – no longer dismissed as a joke – for Canada to join America and become the 51st state.

While many economists project the tariffs will also drive up costs for Americans on everyday essentials, from gas to groceries, Canada is the more exposed trade partner. If they last for months, the country could tip into a painful economic recession.

Anger is building – and with it, a desire to mount a fightback that has been echoed by political leaders in the country of 40 million.

“Many among us will be affected by this, and we will have some hard times. I ask you to be there for each other,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a Saturday evening address. “Now is the time to choose Canada.”

Some Canadians have already heeded the calls for solidarity. On social media, guides have circulated on how to avoid American-made products. One local grocery store in Toronto even began labelling its Canadian yogurt for shoppers, according to an image posted by Toronto doctor Iris Gorfinkel on X.

Others have stated they will be cancelling travel plans to the US, or forgoing visiting there altogether.

“Yesterday, in response to Trump tariffs, we cancelled our family March break to the US,” wrote Seth Klein, a Canadian author, on Bluesky on Sunday. “Took a small hit on cancelled train tickets, but it needed to be done.”

In some Canadian provinces – namely Ontario, the largest by population – American booze will be pulled off the shelves indefinitely starting on Tuesday.

This is in addition to a total of C$155bn ($105bn; £86bn) of American goods that Canada has said it will tariff in retaliation, including vegetables, clothing, sports equipment, perfume and other items. Goods originating from Republican-led states, like Florida orange juice, are specifically being targeted.

The US imports more of its oil from Canada than any other country, and Trudeau’s government has signalled “all options remain on the table” for further retaliation.

Trump’s follow-through on his threat of steep tariffs – which were long speculated to be a negotiation tactic to get concessions on border security – have bewildered Canadians, who have enjoyed close economic, social and security ties to the US for decades.

“It’s a shock,” Michael Ignatieff, the former leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, told the BBC.

“We’re into a new world, in which the question on whether you can trust America becomes the fundamental question in foreign policy for every country.”

Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s opposition Conservative Party, called the tariffs on Sunday “massive, unjust and unjustified.”

“Canada is the United States’ closest neighbour, greatest ally and best friend,” he said, noting that Canada fought alongside the US in two world wars, as well as in Korea and Afghanistan. “There is no justification whatsoever for this treatment.”

Prime Minister Trudeau questioned in his Saturday address why the US would target Canada instead of looking to “more challenging parts” of the world.

A portion of his speech was directly addressed to Americans, and he too, pointed to a history of shared bloodshed. “We have fought, and died, alongside you,” Trudeau said.

Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa with a focus on national security, told the BBC that Trump’s tariffs “undoubtedly represent an earthquake in Canada-US relations.”

“This is extremely destabilising for Canada,” Prof Juneau said. “As a country, we have massively benefited from our extremely close trade and security partnership with the US for decades.”

While the trade battle would likely force Canada to look for partners elsewhere, it ultimately can’t escape geography, he said. It will remain reliant on the economic superpower next door.

“That is why Canada must absolutely now focus on salvaging the relationship as much as possible,” Prof Juneau said.

The big unknown remains how long the US will keep the tariffs in place, and what steps Canada could take to appease the Trump administration, which has said it expects action on cross-border fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration.

TD Economics projects that the longer the tariffs remain in place, the worse the impact will be. Canada could enter a recession in five to six months, and its unemployment rate could hit more than 7%.

Theo Argitis, managing director of the Ottawa-based public affairs firm Compass Rose Group, said the unknowns had left Canada no choice “but to hit (Trump) back hard.”

“At the end of the day, we don’t even really know why he’s doing this,” Mr Argitis told the BBC.

Trump says the flow of fentanyl, a highly potent and deadly drug, into the US from Canada and Mexico, is one key reason. US officials say the levies will remain in place “until the crisis is alleviated.”

In response, the Canadian government has noted that less than 1% of fentanyl and illegal border crossings into the US come from Canada. It has offered to spend an additional C$1.3bn to secure the US-Canada border

But Trump has also spoken publicly about his frustration with the trade deficit between Canada and the US, and more broadly his view that tariffs could be a source of revenue for Washington’s coffers.

On Sunday, he wrote on Truth Social that the US does not need Canadian products, and said the US pays “hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize Canada.”

“Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable country,” Trump wrote, before repeating his view that Canada should instead become a US state.

He has warned that the White House will enact harsher penalties on Canada should it choose to retaliate. For now, Canada has chosen to try and inflict some targeted pain on its more powerful neighbour, even if the economic scales are tipped against it.

“We prefer to solve our disputes with diplomacy,” Trudeau told his country on Saturday. “But we are ready to fight when necessary.”

Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs against the US, in a move that marks the beginning of a trade war between the neighbouring countries.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set out “far-reaching” tariffs of 25%, affecting 155bn Canadian dollars’ worth ($106.6bn; £86bn) of American goods ranging from beer and wine, to household appliances and sporting goods.

The move matches US President Donald Trump 25% levy on Canadian and Mexican imports to the US – and an additional 10% on China – over his concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

Trudeau said he would “not back down in standing up for Canadians”, but warned of real consequences for people on both sides of the border.

“We don’t want to be here, we didn’t ask for this,” he said at a news conference late on Saturday.

The Canadian prime minister added that tariffs on 30bn-worth US goods would come into force on Tuesday and another 125bn in 21 days to give Canadian firms time to adjust.

Trudeau’s response targets items including American beer, wine, bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, vegetables, perfumes, clothing and shoes, as well as household appliances, sporting goods and furniture.

Lumber and plastics will also face levies and non-tariff measures are also being considered are related to critical minerals and procurement.

Economists have warned the introduction of the import taxes by the US, and the response from Canada, as well as Mexico and China, could lead to prices rising on a wide range of products for consumers.

A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter a country, proportional to the value of the import.

The prospect of higher tariffs being introduced on imports to the US has been concerning many world leaders because it will make it more expensive for companies to sell goods in the world’s largest economy.

Christopher Sands, director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, told the BBC that tit-for-tat tariffs between the US and Canada were “mutually assured destruction” and they would impact people’s lives very quickly.

He said there would be no adjustment time as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had recently proposed: “Just a massive hit that’s going to make a lot of people’s lives a lot tougher, very quickly.”

But the taxes are a central part of Trump’s economic vision. He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue – and in this case, pushing for policy action.

Canada, Mexico and the US have deeply integrated economies, with an estimated $2bn (£1.6bn) worth of manufactured goods crossing the borders daily.

Canada is America’s largest foreign supplier of crude oil. According to the most recent official trade figures, 61% of oil imported into the US between January and November last year came from Canada.

While 25% has been slapped on Canadian goods imported to the US, its energy faces a lower 10% tariff.

The White House said on Saturday the implementation of tariffs was “necessary to hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for their promises to halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States”.

But Trudeau pushed back on the suggestion the shared border posed a security concern, saying less than 1% of fentanyl going into the US comes from Canada.

He added less than 1% of illegal migrants entered the US through the border and that tariffs were “not the best way we can actually work together to save lives”

Trump has indicated he is ready to escalate the duties further if the countries retaliate to his tariffs, as Canada has done.

Prior to the tariffs announcement, Canada has pledged more than $1bn to boost security at its shared border with the US.

Trudeau said on Saturday had not spoken to Trump since he had taken office.

Mark Carney, the former head of Canada’s and England’s central banks, told BBC Newsnight on Friday that the tariffs would hit economic growth and drive up inflation.

“They’re going to damage the US’s reputation around the world,” said Carney, who is also in the running to replace Trudeau as leader of Canada’s Liberal Party.

It was not a bluff, the tariffs are here – and this is just the opening salvo from the Oval Office.

The world trading system has not been here before. A slide towards a wider trade conflict is very much on the cards, as President Trump prepares similar tariffs firstly against Europe, and then at a lower level universally.

But what matters as much as the actions the US takes, is how the rest of the world responds.

That, in turn, requires a judgement about what the president is actually trying to achieve.

Trump regularly changes his rationale for tariffs – either to coerce diplomatic change, to deal with trade imbalances or to raise significant revenues.

These policy objectives cannot all be achieved simultaneously.

For example, learning from the experience of Trump’s first term “China deal”, Western diplomats have been scrambling to find lists of US goods they might buy more of, in order to give the White House some wins.

Europe could say it is increasing its purchases of US shipments of liquefied natural gas, or arms, or specialised magnets for wind farms.

It doesn’t really matter if these trends were already in train, as long as the US president can be allowed to chalk up a “win”.

But is changing trade deficit numbers really the aim here?

Officially, the rationale for Trump’s move is punishment for the trade in the synthetic opioid fentanyl, but that is widely seen as a legal pretext for “emergency” action that would normally require a congressional decision.

Canada has signalled it will take a robust approach to Trump, best articulated by the contender to be the country’s next prime minister, Mark Carney.

“We will retaliate … dollar for dollar” he told the BBC, ridiculing the fentanyl rationale and saying Canada would “stand up to a bully”.

This is significant whether or not Carney succeeds Justin Trudeau and ends up chairing the G7, which is the group of the world’s seven largest so-called “advanced” economies.

As a former governor of the Bank of England, Carney witnessed Trump on the world stage at G20 and G7 meetings first hand and has clearly concluded that the US leader only respects strength.

He had a coded warning for any nation seeking to stay quiet and not catch the eye of the president: “Good luck.”

In recent conversations I have had with European trade negotiators, they have stressed cooperation and partnership, as well as deals with the US. When asked, they avoided directly criticising even the extraordinary suggestion of using tariffs against Nato ally Denmark over the fate of Greenland.

The real question here is whether the rest of the world, even tacitly, coordinates retaliatory tariffs on, for example, high profile political supporters of President Trump, such as Elon Musk, which is a typical feature of previous smaller disputes.

Tesla, the electric vehicle maker led by Musk, last week warned on the impact of tit-for-tat tariffs.

All of this would be aimed at making the rival courts around the Oval Office, and interests in Congress, assert their concerns about the impact on US factories’ global exports.

This is all before the impact on US domestic prices.

This could also come, more circuitously, through the application of a planned carbon trade tax in various jurisdictions.

Exactly how this plays out depends on perceptions of just how powerful the US remains.

Some nations may conclude that these days, there are other options in the world.

With tariffs threats being sprayed in multiple directions every day, the world is in uncharted territory.

The Grammy Awards have kicked off in Los Angeles, where more than 94 prizes will be handed out over the course of the night.

This list of the main category winners will be updated as the ceremony progresses.

Album of the year

• André 3000 – New Blue Sun
• Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter
• Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet
• Charli XCX – Brat
• Jacob Collier – Djesse Vol 4
• Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft
• Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
• Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department

Record of the year

• The Beatles – Now And Then
• Beyoncé – Texas Hold ‘Em
• Sabrina Carpenter – Espresso
• Charli XCX – 360
• Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather
• Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
• Taylor Swift ft Post Malone – Fortnight

Song of the year

• Beyoncé – Texas Hold ‘Em
• Sabrina Carpnter – Please Please Please
• Billie Eilish – Birds Of A Feather
• Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – Die With a Smile
• Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us
• Chappel Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
• Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)
• Taylor Swift ft Post Malone – Fortnight

Best new artist

• Benson Boone
• Sabrina Carpenter
• Doechii
• Khruangbin
• Raye
• Shaboozey
• Teddy Swims

Best pop vocal album

• Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft
• Ariana Grande – Eternal Sunshine
• Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
• Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department

Best pop solo performance

• Beyoncé – Bodyguard
• Charli XCX – Apple
• Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather
• Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!

Best pop duo/group performance

• Gracie Abrams ft Taylor Swift – Us
• Beyoncé ft Post Malone – Levii’s Jeans
• Charli XCX & Billie Eilish – Guess
• Ariana Grande, Brandy & Monica – The Boy Is Mine

Best dance/electronic recording

• Disclosure – She’s Gone, Dance On
• Four Tet – Loved
• Fred Again & Baby Keem – Leavemealone
• Kaytranada ft Childish Gambino – Witchy

Best dance/electronic album

• Four Tet – Three
• Justice – Hyperdrama
• Kaytranada – Timeless
• Zedd – Telos

Best dance/pop recording

• Madison Beer – Make You Mine
• Billie Eilish – L’Amour De Ma Vie [Over Now Extended Edit]
• Ariana Grande – Yes, and?
• Troye Sivan – Got Me Started

Best traditional pop vocal album

• Cyrille Aimée – À Fleur De Peau
• Lake Street Dive – Good Together
• Aaron Lazar – Impossible Dream
• Gregory Porter – Christmas Wish

Best Latin pop album

• Anitta – Funk Generation
• Luis Fonsi – El Viaje
• Kenny García – García
• Kali Uchis – Orquídeas

Best rock performance

• The Black Keys – Beautiful People (Stay High)
• Green Day – The American Dream Is Killing Me
• Idles – Gift Horse
• Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
• St. Vincent – Broken Man

Best rock song

• The Black Keys – Beautiful People (Stay High)
• Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
• Green Day – Dilemma
• Idles – Gift Horse

Best rock album

• The Black Crowes – Happiness B******s
• Fontaines DC – Romance
• Green Day – Saviors
• Idles – TANGK
• Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
• Jack White – No Name

Best alternative music album

• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild God
• Clairo – Charm
• Kim Gordon – The Collective
• Brittany Howard – What Now

Best alternative music performance

• Cage The Elephant – Neon Pill
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Song of the Lake
• Fontaines D.C. – Starburster
• Kim Gordon – Bye Bye

Best metal performance

• Judas Priest – Crown of Horns
• Knocked Loose Featuring Poppy – Suffocate
• Metallica – Screaming Suicide
• Spiritbox – Cellar Door

Best rap performance

• Cardi B – Enough (Miami)
• Common & Pete Rock ft Posdnuos – When The Sun Shines Again
• Doechii – Nissan Altima
• Eminem – Houdini
• Future, Metro Boomin & Kendrick Lamar – Like That
• GloRilla – Yeah Glo!

Best melodic rap performance

• Jordan Adetunji ft Kehlani – Kehlani
• Beyoncé ft Linda Martell & Shaboozey – Spaghettii
• Future & Metro Boomin ft The Weeknd – We Still Don’t Trust You
• Latto – Big Mama

Best rap song

• Rapsody ft Hit-Boy – Asteroids
• Kanye West & Ty Dolla $Ign – Carnival
• Future & Metro Boomin ft Kendrick Lamar – Like That
• GloRilla – Yeah Glo!

Best rap album

• J Cole – Might Delete Later
• Common & Pete Rock – The Auditorium, Vol 1
• Eminem – The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)
• Future & Metro Boomin – We Don’t Trust You

Best country solo performance

• Beyoncé – 16 Carriages
• Jelly Roll – I Am Not Okay
• Kacey Musgraves – The Architect
• Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)

Best country duo/group performance

• Kelsea Ballerini With Noah Kahan – Cowboys Cry Too
• Brothers Osborne – Break Mine
• Dan + Shay – Bigger Houses
• Post Malone ft Morgan Wallen – I Had Some Help

Best country song

• Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)
• Jelly Roll – I Am Not Okay
• Post Malone ft Morgan Wallen – I Had Some Help
• Beyoncé – Texas Hold ‘Em

Best country album

• Post Malone – F-1 Trillion
• Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well
• Chris Stapleton – Higher
• Lainey Wilson – Whirlwind

Best R&B performance

• Jhené Aiko – Guidance
• Chris Brown – Residuals
• Coco Jones – Here We Go (Uh Oh)
• SZA – Saturn

Best R&B song

• Kehlani – After Hours
• Tems – Burning
• Coco Jones – Here We Go (Uh Oh)
• Muni Long – Ruined Me

Best progressive R&B album

• Durand Bernarr – En Route
• Childish Gambino – Bando Stone And The New World
• Kehlani – Crash

Best R&B album

• Lalah Hathaway – Vantablack
• Muni Long – Revenge
• Lucky Daye – Algorithm
• Usher – Coming Home

Best African music performance

• Yemi Alade – Tomorrow
• Asake & Wizkid – MMS
• Chris Brown ft Davido & Lojay – Sensational
• Burna Boy – Higher

Producer of the Year, Non-Classical

• Alissia
• Dernst “D’Mile” Emile II
• Ian Fitchuk
• Mustard

Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical

• Edgar Barrera
• Jessi Alexander
• Jessie Jo Dillon
• Raye

Best comedy album

• Ricky Gervais – Armageddon
• Jim Gaffigan – The Prisoner
• Nikki Glaser – Someday You’ll Die
• Trevor Noah – Where Was I

Best compilation soundtrack for visual media

• The Color Purple – Various Artists
• Deadpool & Wolverine – Various Artists
• Saltburn – Various Artists
• Twisters: The Album – Various Artists

Best score soundtrack for visual media (includes film and televison)

• Laura Karpman – American Fiction
• Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Challengers
• Kris Bowers – The Color Purple
• Nick Chuba, Atticus Ross & Leopold Ross – Shōgun

Best score soundtrack for video games and other interactive media

• Pinar Toprak – Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
• Bear McCreary – God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla
• John Paesano – Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
• Wilbert Roget, II – Star Wars Outlaws

Best song written for visual media

• Luke Combs – Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma (From Twisters: The Album)
• *NSYNC & Justin Timberlake – Better Place (From Trolls Band Together)
• Olivia Rodrigo – Can’t Catch Me Now (From The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes)
• Barbra Streisand – Love Will Survive (From The Tattooist of Auschwitz)

Best audio book narration

• George Clinton – …And Your Ass Will Follow
• Guy Oldfield – All You Need Is Love: The Beatles In Their Own Words
• Dolly Parton – Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones
• Barbra Streisand – My Name Is Barbra

Best music video

• A$AP Rocky – Tailor Swif
• Charli XCX – 360
• Eminem – Houdini
• Taylor Swift ft Post Malone – Fortnight

Best music film

• June
• Kings From Queens
• Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple
• The Greatest Night In Pop

Best jazz vocal album

• Christie Dashiell – Journey In Black
• Kurt Elling & Sullivan Fortner – Wildflowers Vol 1
• Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding – Milton + Esperanza
• Catherine Russell & Sean Mason – My Ideal

Best jazz instrumental album

• Ambrose Akinmusire ft Bill Frisell & Herlin Riley – Owl Song
• Kenny Barron ft Kiyoshi Kitagawa, Johnathan Blake, Immanuel Wilkins & Steve Nelson – Beyond This Place
• Lakecia Benjamin – Phoenix Reimagined (Live)
• Sullivan Fortner – Solo Game

Best alternative jazz album

• Arooj Aftab – Night Reign
• André 3000 – New Blue Sun
• Robert Glasper – Code Derivation
• Keyon Harrold – Foreverland

Best jazz performance

• The Baylor Project – Walk With Me, Lord
• Lakecia Benjamin feat. Randy Brecker, Jeff “Tain” Watts, & John Scofield – Phoenix Reimagined (Live)
• Chick Corea & Béla Fleck –Juno
• Dan Pugach Big Band feat. Nicole Zuraitis & Troy Roberts – Little Fears

Best musical theatre album

• Merrily We Roll Along
• The Notebook
• The Outsiders
• Suffs
• The Wiz

Best opera recording

• Adams: Girls Of The Golden West – John Adams, conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic; Los Angeles Master Chorale)
• Catán: Florencia En El Amazonas – Yannick Nézet-Séguin (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)
• Moravec: The Shining – Gerard Schwarz, conductor (Kansas City Symphony; Lyric Opera Of Kansas City Chorus)
• Puts: The Hours – Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor (Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; Metropolitan Opera Chorus)

Best orchestral performance

• John Adams: City Noir – Fearful Symmetries & Lola Montez Does The Spider Dance – Marin Alsop, conductor (ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra)
• Kodály: Háry János Suite; Summer Evening & Symphony In C Major – JoAnn Falletta, conductor (Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra)
• Sibelius: Karelia Suite, Rakastava, & Lemminkäinen – Susanna Mälkki, conductor (Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra)
• Stravinsky: The Firebird – Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor (San Francisco Symphony)

Music stars have stepped out in their gladrags for the Grammys on Sunday night in Los Angeles.

Here are some of the best looks from on the red carpet and inside the pre-show ceremony.

Sabrina Carpenter wore a sky blue dress. Not a garment you would want to spill your espresso on.

She won best pop solo performance for her coffee-themed summer hit.

Breakthrough star Chappell Roan is up for a raft of awards including album, record and song of the year.

She wore a fittingly striking outfit – a yellow and baby blue Jean-Paul Gaultier number, inspired by artist Edgar Degas’s depiction of ballet dancers.

And makeup. So much makeup.

Olivia Rodrigo wore a vintage Versace halter-neck dress as she took to the red carpet.

Billie Eilish is in the house with her brother and trusted producer Finneas.

She’s in the running for most of the night’s major awards again, so their parents might have to clear even more space on the mantlepiece.

Taylor Swift’s Versace dress matched the red carpet.

She is up for six awards, including best album for The Tortured Poets Department

Kacey Musgraves waved to photographers as she arrived.

She later got her hands on an award – her eighth – for best country song, for The Architect.

Charli XCX’s boots are made for walking… potentially to the podium for several major awards later including album and record of the year.

Poppy is up for best metal performance for Suffocate, a track she features on alongside Knocked Loose.

And she went for a smart-casual look.

Best new artist nominee Benson Boone later slipped into something a little more comfortable than this to backflip around the Grammys stage during his performance.

A be-horned Kim Gordon is up for best alternative music album for The Collective.

Kehlani walked the red carpet with her daughter, Adeya Nomi.

The singer is nominated for three awards including best R&B song for After Hours.

Knxwledge and Anderson .Paak accepted the best progressive R&B album gong for Why Lawd?

Unusually, the prize was a tie. They shared the award with Avery*Sunshine for her album, So Glad to Know You.

Sierra Ferrell swept the board in the American Roots categories, winning four awards – and beating Beyoncé for best Americana performance.

Singer-songwriter Norah Jones was all smiles on arrival.

She won best traditional pop vocal album for Visions.

Kelsea Ballerini may have lost best country duo/group performance to Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus.

But she was a winner with this outfit.

Sean Ono Lennon picked up the award for best rock performance on behalf of his late dad’s band, The Beatles

St. Vincent scored several awards on the night, including best alternative music album for All Born Screaming.

The rock star also had some fun on the red carpet with fellow musician Charlotte Kemp Muhlattend.

Kanye West wore black while his Bianca Censori wore, well, next to nothing.

He was up for best rap song for his and Ty Dolla $Ign’s track Carnival.

The award went to Kendrick Lamar, though, for Not Like Us.

Green Day – fronted by another Billie, Joe Armstrong – are up for several rock awards.

They lost one to the Beatles which might explain the sulky look here.

It’s all white on the night for US singer Gracie Abrams, who is nominated for best pop duo/group performance for her track Us, featuring Taylor Swift.

Having supported Swift on some of her Eras tour dates, she knows how to dress for a big occasion – tonight choosing a butter chiffon Chanel dress, with a bridal veil.

Raye represents the UK in the songwriter of the year and best new artist categories.

Nine-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow knows her way around a red carpet, as well as a rousing chorus

Wicked star Cynthia Erivo had her nails painted with diamonds, moons and stars ahead of her Grammys performance of the swing classic Fly Me To The Moon.

Celebrity couple Chrissy Teigen and John Legend let their eyes do the smiling.

Comedian and Daily Show presenter Trevor Noah is suited and booted and ready to host the Grammys for a fifth time.

Madison Beer is up for best dance pop recording for Make You Mine.

Alicia Keys has 16 Grammy wins in total to her name, and the biggest earrings of the night.

Teddy Swims, and he also scrubs up well for a big occasion.

He’s up for best new artist.

Lady Gaga is dressed to kill in her best leather. Die With a Smile, her song with Bruno Mars, is up for best song.

The duo will also stage a special performance in honour of those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires.

LA firefighters have also been invited this year in honour of their work helping to tackle the fatal blazes.

Doechi was all smiles before and after becoming only the third female artist to win best rap album for Alligator Bites Never Heal.

She follows in the footsteps of Lauryn Hill and Cardi B.

US country musician Shaboozey performed a rendition of his hit, A Bar Song (Tipsy), at this year’s main ceremony.

Earlier this year, the song tied Old Town Road as the longest-running number-one song of all time on the US Billboard Hot 100 with 19 weeks at the top of the chart.

Let’s raise a glass to that… It’s up for song of the year at this year’s Grammys.

Sunglasses indoors is par for the course for socialite Paris Hilton, who arrived alongside her kids and husband.

Finally, feliz cumpleaños to Colombian star Shakira who turned up at the Grammys on her birthday.

Her main present this year was the prize for best Latin pop album.

While held hostage by Hamas for 15 months in Gaza, 80-year-old Gadi Moses ate mainly a piece of bread and an olive twice a day, his niece Efrat Machikawa says.

“I have no idea how he survived,” she tells the BBC. “He lost so much weight.”

He was given a small bowl of water to wash himself every five days and had to ask to use the toilet, she said. He moved frequently and was mostly alone, with Ms Machikawa saying “loneliness is another form of torture”.

He calculated maths problems in his head to distract himself, and walked up to 11 km (six miles) a day in a room, measuring the distance, she added.

“Even in the darkest times, he knew how to somehow lift himself,” she said. “The hope of reuniting with the family and worrying about us was the greatest power, was the only nutrition that he had for his soul.”

Gadi was one of 18 hostages released so far this year as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, in exchange for 583 Palestinian prisoners.

The ceasefire aims to end 15 months of war in Gaza, after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 as hostages.

• Palestinian born after her father was jailed hugs him for first time
• British-Israeli hostage says Hamas held her at UN facilities

Israel’s military campaign in response killed more than 47,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen as reliable by the UN.

Now, as hostages return from more than a year in captivity, details of their conditions are emerging. Accounts of limited food, with no fresh vegetables, are similar to conditions reported by Gazans during the war.

Two former hostages’ family members told the BBC they came back thinner.

“We’re all very, very excited to have Keith back home, but very worried to see the state that he came back to us in,” Tal Wax, the niece of 65-year-old American-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel, who was released on Saturday, said.

“Although we can see that he is able to walk and talk we see that he has lost a lot of weight,” she said.

She heard from her cousins and Mr Siegel’s wife Aviva that “he had to endure a lot of horrible situations in captivity while still remaining the good person he is.”

He is still a vegan, she added.

“Keith is very humane and he wanted to tell us he’s still the same person… even after all that he’s been through… He’s still living up to his convictions,” she said.

“This is just the start of his rehabilitation. We have a long way ahead of us.”

Ms Machikawa said even her uncle’s release was a “terrifying” experience.

As crowds surrounded him in Gaza on Thursday, he thought it was the “end of his life”, she said.

After he was back in Israel, she was able to sleep for five hours for the first time since his capture.

“I feel like my tension is slowly melting,” she said.

On Friday, she ran to embrace her uncle in the hospital, where he gave her “the strongest, most powerful hug”, and she let out a “burst of tears of relief and love”.

“We understand that the uncle we know is the same one we know but even greater,” she said, as he was talking about rehabilitation and being strong, and dreaming of returning to his fields, where he is an agricultural expert.

“Unity and family and devoting yourself for justice and a right cause are greater than anything, because I stopped my life on 7 October,” she said.

She thanked Qatar and the US for mediating the deal, and “brave” Red Cross workers who facilitated the releases.

“The joy is amazing”, she said, but she has mixed feelings until every hostage is back. She said “we must eradicate terror” and “Israel has to secure its borders and work for a better neighbourhood and region”.

“We shall always strive to be better, to be like Gadi, to be the one that connects even in the worst times and gives the hand for the chance of better lives with everyone around us.”

Few hostages freed so far this year have spoken publicly about their experiences.

On Saturday, Doron Steinbrecher, who was freed two weeks ago, released a video statement.

“It will take time and it’s a process – it won’t end in a week or two, but I’m here thanks to you, and I’m okay,” she said.

“I understand that everyone knows me from that terrible recording “They caught me, they caught me, they caught me” or as the blonde girl wearing pink”, she said. “But I’m no longer blonde, and I won’t wear pink anymore. I’m Doron, 31 years old. I’m no longer Hamas’s captive, and I’m home.”

To families with loved ones still in captivity, “you are not alone” and “we continue to fight for you”, she added.

That includes the Bibas family, who welcomed back Yarden on Saturday, but not his wife, Shiri, and two small sons, Ariel and Kfir, who were also taken hostage.

Hamas had previously said they were killed in an Israeli air strike early on in the war – but they were named in a list of hostages it said in January it was willing to free.

“A quarter of our heart has returned to us after 15 long months,” the Bibas family said in statement. “Yarden has returned home, but the home remains incomplete.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said his country remained “deeply concerned” about their fate.

Another 15 hostages and around 1,300 Palestinian prisoners are still due to be released in the first six weeks of the ceasefire, which started on 19 January.

Billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman has a big vision for the future of humanity.

He set off on his first mission to space in 2021 – a private journey he paid an estimated $200m (£160m) for – and announced that he wanted space travel to be for the masses, not only for the 600 who have experienced it to date – most of them professional astronauts employed by Nasa and the wealthy.

“We want it to be 600,000,” he told reporters.

Later, he added: “I drank the Kool-Aid in terms of the grand ambitions for humankind being a multi-planet species… I think that we all want to live in a Star Wars, Star Trek world where people are jumping in their spacecraft.”

Mr Isaacman, who made much of his $1.9bn (£1.46bn) fortune from a payment processing company that he founded in 1999 aged 16, is said to have bankrolled the rest of the crew of four aboard the SpaceX craft in the 2021 mission, fuelled by a longstanding love of flying and fascination with space.

Since then, there have been more adventures: last year he demonstrated Captain Kirk-like daring by travelling in an upgraded SpaceX capsule and performing the first commercial spacewalk.

During the mission, he tested an experimental spacesuit and a new cost-saving protocol to exit and re-enter the spacecraft without using an airlock.

The photograph of Mr Isaacman, silhouetted with the world at his feet, is now iconic – it demonstrated that this was not a playboy billionaire paying to act out Star Trek, but someone pushing the envelope of what was possible with current technology.

And yet it is a more recent achievement that has drawn greater attention still – being nominated by Donald Trump in December to be the new head of Nasa.

The question is why Trump chose him and what has he asked him to do – especially in the context that the President has appointed SpaceX owner Elon Musk to a government role to cut $2 trillion (£1.6 trillion) off the Federal budget.

The Nasa post is a presidential appointment, though it requires the confirmation of the US Senate. And if confirmed, Mr Isaacman’s appointment will also raise broader questions about the future of humanity in space, given his vision for space travel for the masses. It also has significant implications for the future of the space agency, if Mr Isaacman’s role leads to Nasa using the private sector even more than it does now.

In the past, the heads of Nasa have come from a variety of backgrounds: some, such as the previous incumbent Bill Nelson, have been former astronauts; others, such as Michael Griffin (in charge from 2005 to 2009) came from a government background, and before him Dan Goldin was an entrepreneur, striving to lower costs.

Despite their disparate backgrounds, those who have led Nasa have all been company people, charged with defending the space agency and its values.

And yet Mr Isaacman, along with Mr Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is among a new wave of billionaires who have been challenging the old order in space.

They have accelerated the pace of innovation and are aiming to dramatically reduce the cost of human space travel.

On the day of his nomination in December, Mr Isaacman posted a statement on X that gave an early glimpse into his vision. “This second space age has only just begun,” he wrote.

“There will inevitably be a thriving space economy – one that will create opportunities for countless people to live and work in space… At Nasa, we will… usher in an era where humanity becomes a true spacefaring civilisation.”

Many presidents have talked about sending astronauts to the Moon since the end of the Apollo lunar landings of the 1960s and 70s, but Trump was the first to turn talk into action, authorising Nasa’s Artemis programme to send humans back to the Moon during his first term. His record suggests that he is a big Nasa fan.

But since then, two factors are likely to have changed his thinking: Nasa’s rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), has been delayed and costs have spiralled; at the same time Mr Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin are developing reusable low-cost Moon rockets.

That is a worrying backdrop for Nasa, according to Courtney Stadd of New York-based Beyond Earth Institute think tank.

“You have a government looking to slash,” he said at a webinar hosted by Space News. “If you are the new administrator, you are going in in that context, so you are going to have to look at everything that is a drain on your budget…

“This next two years is going to be the equivalent of a tsunami and everything is on the table.”

One of the biggest questions is what to do with the space agency’s SLS Moon rocket. In 2021, Nasa’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), which provides oversight of the space agency for Congress, reported that the cost was $4.1bn (£3.3bn) for each and every launch.

By contrast, SpaceX’s equivalent rocket system, Starship, is estimated to cost around $100m (£80m) per launch – and Musk has said he aims to bring the costs down further to $10m (£8m) as he develops his system.

Bezos’s new Moon rocket, New Glenn, had its maiden test launch at the beginning of January. Blue Origin has not announced its cost per launch, but it is estimated currently to be around $68m (£54.5m).

Competition between the two billionaires is likely to speed up innovation and reduce costs further.

Starship and New Glenn are projected to be cheaper because, unlike SLS, they are designed to be reusable. But “that’s only a part of the reason for the disparity in costs”, according to Dr Adam Baker, an expert on the space industry at Cranfield University.

“SpaceX is given a sum of money and contracted to deliver on time and on budget,” he continues. “They are driven by profit, and they want to minimise costs.

“A Nasa programme is not driven by profit; it is driven by the programme objectives and so those in charge don’t think they need to track costs in the same way.

“There is a general acceptance that SLS has no future.”

The OIG could only come up with a best guess for the full cost of the Artemis programme in its review for Congress because, as it put it: “Nasa lacks a comprehensive and accurate cost estimate that accounts for all programme costs.

“Instead, the Agency’s plan presents a rough estimate that excludes $25bn (£20bn) for key activities”.

Nasa’s project management of SLS is not an aberration – some would say it is typical. For example, the James Webb Space Telescope was given a $1bn (£800m) budget and a launch date of 2010 – but it cost ten times that amount and launched in 2021, earning it the nickname of “the telescope that ate astronomy”.

(Other important scientific programmes had to be scaled back, delayed or scrapped entirely to make way for the overruns.)

It was a similar story of delays and budget overruns during the development of the Space Shuttle in the 1970s and the construction of the International Space Station in the 2000s.

Nasa got away with it because it was responsible for arguably America’s greatest moment when it sent the first astronauts to the Moon. The Apollo programme laid the foundations for America’s technology businesses and ushered in a vibrant new era for the US.

But the world has changed significantly since then, and Nasa has simply not kept up, according to Emeritus Prof John Logsdon, former director of the Space policy Institute at George Washington University. “Changing the way the United States goes about its civilian space programme is long overdue.”

The current model is to give so-called “cost-plus” contracts to big heritage aerospace companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which guarantee to pay the development costs and an agreed profit.

The model gave the firms the financial reassurance they needed for ambitious projects such as the space shuttle, the SLS, and developing parts of the Saturn V rocket that took Apollo astronauts to the Moon, but these contracts provided no incentives to cut costs or increase efficiency. For example, there were no penalties for delays or cost overruns.

Dr Simeon Barber at the Open University, who has worked with Nasa on robotic space missions, was originally sceptical that the new commercial companies would deliver. But he is now a convert to the new way of doing things.

“We were used to big projects falling behind schedule and going over budget. But the new companies have shone a light on the old way of doing things.”

Moves to change what some saw as an overly cosy relationship with the heritage space companies gained pace in 2009 when President Obama introduced fixed-price contracts to some private sector firms. The companies were given latitude to innovate to cut costs and increase their profits provided they delivered on schedule and on budget.

Among those firms was the dynamic new start-up, SpaceX, which was awarded a contract to develop its reusable Falcon rockets and Dragon Space capsule to resupply the International Space Station with crew and cargo.

The heritage space company Boeing was also given a similar contract in 2014 to develop its Starliner capsule to do the same job.

SpaceX, with its riskier but faster development processes, began delivering to the ISS within four years of receiving its contract. By contrast, Boeing’s Starliner, which had a series of delays due to technical problems and cost overruns, took 10 years – only to have more issues with some of its engines, which left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stranded on the space station.

The ultimate humiliation is that they will be brought back to Earth by rival SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

“Starliner is an embarrassment for the traditional way of doing business,” says Prof Logsdon. “So, shaking up the system is very positive.”

Prof Logsdon expects big changes under Trump, Mr Musk and Mr Isaacman: scrapping programmes, closing Nasa centres and more contracting out to SpaceX, Blue Origin and other private sector firms. Mr Isaacman has called the SLS “outrageously expensive” and said that the major aerospace contractors are “incentivised to be economically inefficient”.

But changes like that are not going to be easy. Nasa’s budget is controlled by Congress. Although President Trump’s party controls both legislative houses, individual senators and congressmen on the committees that oversee Nasa are from states with jobs and industries dependent on Nasa’s $25bn (£20bn) annual budget.

“Party discipline takes second place where there is constituency money involved,” says Prof Logsdon, a seasoned watcher of the horse trading that goes on with space politics in Congress.

Although Nasa’s projects have been expensive, they have shown us the wonders of the universe and shifted humanity’s perception of ourselves and our place in the cosmos.

The creation of the first reusable space shuttle, the construction of an orbiting space station, the images of distant worlds captured by its robotic spacecraft and the awe-inspiring photos from Hubble have all inspired generations and supercharged interest in science. As a result, senators and congressmen know that America and the world owe Nasa an unpayable debt.

“The old way of doing things gave us a lot of success, so you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There will be significant change, but not the radical change that Mr Musk and Mr Isaacman want to see,” argues Prof Logsdon.

“There is a delicate balance between the interests of Nasa, Congress and the White House.”

Where that balance will fall will emerge in the coming months: some are speculating that the return-to-the-Moon programme might be scrapped altogether in favour of going straight to Mars, as President Trump alluded to during his inauguration, with the greatest proponent of that policy – Musk – seated nearby.

Others fear cuts in Nasa’s Earth Observation programmes, which monitor and model environmental changes from space, and include the impact of climate change; and some worry that the robotic scientific missions to other planets might be cut back to boost efforts for the human spaceflight programme.

There is concern in some quarters about the close relationship between Mr Isaacman and Mr Musk. Mr Isaacman paid SpaceX for his two ventures into space. The company has already received $20bn (£16bn) in contracts from government since 2008.

But if SLS is scrapped, and SpaceX were to receive the lion’s share of Nasa’s Moon programme work, Mr Musk’s firm stands to receive contracts that might be ten or even a hundred times greater, possibly at the expense of other private-sector players.

And there are many innovative US start-up companies hoping to build parts for spacecraft and infrastructure in Nasa’s return-to-the-Moon programme, including Texas-based Firefly, which has a spacecraft on its way to land on the Moon in March.

But industry analysts say that the US government has a long tradition of breaking up monopolies so that they don’t stifle innovation. And in any case, just because Mr Isaacman has worked with Mr Musk, it does not mean that any outcome is inevitable, argues Prof Logsdon.

“Isaacman is his own man,” he adds. “He is not a disciple of Elon Musk.”

Ultimately, however, it has become painfully clear, even to Nasa’s most ardent supporters, that it needs saving from itself. And the need for Nasa reform is not a partisan issue – Democrat and Republican presidents alike have set the wheels in motion.

But the coincidental timing of the success of SpaceX, Blue Origin and other private-sector space firms with a new administration impatient to cut costs and energise the private sector means that Mr Isaacman has a unique opportunity to make some of the biggest changes to Nasa since its inception.

“Nasa truly is a crown jewel, and we aren’t doing what we should be doing on behalf of the American people,” argued former deputy head of Nasa Lori Garver during the Space News webinar. “That is frustrating for all of us.”

Asked if a private sector billionaire was the right person to be entrusted with one of America’s greatest national treasures, Ms Garver responded: “Jared is a patriot, and he is doing this for public service.

“The truth of Jared agreeing has something to do with him willing to take on these hard things – and there are so many hard things”.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s coalition government has unveiled its first full-year budget after his party lost an outright majority in parliament last year.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced measures to counter slowing growth, rising prices and flagging consumption among the middle class in Asia’s third-largest economy.

After a period of world-beating growth of more than 8%, India is set for its slowest economic expansion in four years as stagnant wages and high food prices hit consumer spending and corporate profits.

Here are five key takeaways from India’s union budget:

In a major relief to millions of taxpayers, the government has raised income tax exemption limits, making earnings of up to 1.2m rupees ($13,841; £11,165) – excluding special rate income like capital gains – entirely tax free.

The finance minister has also announced tweaks to other income tax slabs which is likely to leave more money in the hands of the middle class.

The income tax concessions to the middle class “seems aimed at addressing the slump in urban consumption”, said Nomura’s India Economist Aurodeep Nandi.

The impact, however, could be limited since a tiny fraction of Indians pay direct taxes. In 2023, 1.6% of Indians (22.4 million people) actually paid income taxes, according to data presented in parliament.

The market cheered the announcements with stocks of automobiles, consumer goods and online grocery companies rallying.

State-funded capital expenditure on major road, port and railway projects has been a key driver of India’s growth engine since 2020.

Despite an unexpected contraction in actual spending in the first nine months of this year, the government has modestly increased its infrastructure expenditure target for this year from 11.1 trillion to 11.2 trillion rupees ($129.18bn; £104.21bn).

The government has also proposed offering interest-free loans to states to enable them to spend more on infrastructure development.

The budget has set a goal to generate 100GW of nuclear energy by 2047. As part of this plan, a Nuclear Energy Mission has been launched with a budget of 200bn rupees ($2.3bn, £1.86bn). The plan is to deploy five indigenous reactors by 2033 and amend laws, like the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, to realise goals and get more private sector participation in the sector.

Meanwhile, foreign direct investment limits for the insurance sector have been increased from 74% to 100%.

“This will aid foreign insurers’ interest in investing in the growing Indian insurance market, where we expect strong premium growth to boost profitability,” said Mohammed Ali Londe, Senior analyst at Moody’s Ratings.

In order to ease the climate for doing business, which has been a major concern among investors, a high-level committee has been announced to undertake regulatory reforms in the non-financial sectors and reduce the compliance burden on corporations. The panel will make recommendations within a year.

Small and micro industries, that account for 35% of India’s manufacturing and create millions of jobs, also got a boost through fiscal support of 1.5 trillion rupees ($17.31bn; £13.96bn) over the next five years.

The government has also raised production-linked subsidies and slashed import duties for local manufacturing units across sectors like textiles, mobile telephones and electronics. This could promote private investments, which have not picked up post the Covid-19 pandemic.

Even with slightly higher budget outlays for infrastructure creation, India has had to continue a delicate balancing act between pushing economic growth and keeping its spending in check.

The budget has reiterated a commitment to reducing the government’s deficit, which is the gap between what it earns and spends, to 4.4% by 2026 from 4.8% this year.

Global rating agencies closely watch these numbers, with lower debt figures leading to potentially better investment ratings in the future and a reduction in borrowing costs for the country.

India’s recent slowdown has made the growth versus fiscal prudence trade-off increasingly challenging.

A recent economic survey by the finance ministry expects GDP growth to slow to between 6.3-6.8% in the financial year ending March 2026, in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s forecasts.

With the budget out of the picture, the focus will now shift to the central bank’s monetary policy meeting later this month.

The RBI has maintained policy rates at 6.5% since February 2023, but is likely to begin easing the cost of borrowing as both growth and inflation have begun to come down.

Last week, the central bank announced plans to inject $18bn into the domestic banking system to ease a cash shortage, a move seen by many as a precursor to rate cuts.

On a hill above Nuuk’s cathedral stands a 7ft statue of the protestant missionary Hans Egede. He had reopened Greenland’s link with Northern Europe in the early 1700s and laid the groundwork for the establishment of Denmark’s proudest colonial possession.

One day in the late 1970s, the bronze figure was suddenly covered in red paint.

I remember that day well – I passed the statue every day on my mile long walk to school. I spent two years living on Greenland while my father taught geography at Nuuk’s teacher training college.

It was apparent not everyone among the Inuit majority was happy about the changes that Egede had brought to Greenland a quarter of a millennium earlier.

The clinking of beer bottles in filled plastic bags carried home by the Inuit to their tiny apartments – much smaller, usually, than the ones we Danes lived in – was testimony to pervasive alcoholism, one of the ills that Denmark had brought to Greenland, amid a lot that was undeniably good: modern health, good education.

But apart from the paint-covered statue, the dream of Greenland being independent from Denmark was only slowly beginning to manifest itself.

At the Teacher Training College right next to my school, the closest Greenland got to having a radical student movement was developing – some young people at the college demanded to be taught in their native Greenland language.

By the late 1970s, the capital was called Nuuk and no longer Godthaab, its official name for well over two centuries.

Now, decades on, change is afoot once again, as Donald Trump has his eyes on gaining control of the country.

Asked in January if he would rule out using military or economic force in order to take over the autonomous Danish territory or the Panama canal, he responded: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security.”

Later on Air Force One he told reporters: “I think we’re going to have it,” adding that the island’s 57,000 residents “want to be with us”.

The question is, do they?

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has, meanwhile, insisted Greenland is not for sale. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders,” she said. “It’s the Greenlanders themselves who have to define their future.”

So, what do the island’s inhabitants want that future to look like – and if it does not involve them being part of the kingdom of Denmark, then what is the alternative?

One poll of Greenlanders suggested only 6% of Greenlanders want their country to become part of the US, with 9% undecided and 85% against. But despite this, Frederiksen knows that the question of what Greenlanders want is a delicate one.

Traditionally, Danes have viewed themselves as the world’s nicest imperialists ever since they started to colonise Greenland in the 1720s.

This self-image has been eroded in recent years, however, by a string of revelations about past high-handedness in dealing with the island’s population.

In particular, there have been reports of serious wrongs committed against Greenlanders – not in the distant past, but within living memory.

This included a controversial large-scale contraceptive campaign. A joint investigation by authorities in Denmark and Greenland is examining the fitting of intrauterine devices (coils) into women of child-bearing age on the island, often without their consent or even their knowledge.

It has been reported this happened to almost half of all the island’s women of child-bearing age between 1966 and 1970.

Last December, Greenland’s prime minister Múte Egede described this as “straightforward genocide, carried out by the Danish state against the Greenland population”.

He made the remark while talking to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in an interview that dealt generally with relations between Greenland and Denmark.

Also, in the 1960s and 1970s hundreds of children from the island were taken from their mothers, often on dubious grounds, to be reared by foster parents in Denmark. In some cases, this happened without the consent of the biological mothers, and in other instances, they were not informed that their ties with their children would be cut completely.

This left a raw emotional wound that often was not healed decades later. Some of the adopted Greenlandic children were later able to trace their biological parents, but many others were not.

A small group demanded compensation from the Danish state in the summer of 2024. If they are successful, it could pave the way for a large number of similar claims by other adoptees.

Iben Mondrup, a novelist who was born in Denmark and spent her childhood in Greenland, sees the recent events as a rude wake-up call for the Danes who have been accustomed to viewing themselves as a benign influence in Greenland.

“The entire relationship has been based on a narrative that Denmark was helping Greenland, without getting anything in return,” she says.

“We have talked about Denmark as the motherland that took Greenland under its wing and taught it gradually to stand on its own feet. There has been a widespread use of educational metaphors.

“We Danes constantly return to the idea that Greenland owes us something, at least gratitude.”

Opinion polls carried out in recent years indicate a fairly consistent pattern in which around two-thirds of Greenland’s population say they want to be independent. A survey carried out in 2019 showed support of 67.7% for the move among adult Greenlanders.

Jenseeraq Poulsen, director of Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat, an environmental charity in Nuuk, says: “As I see it, Greenland has now grown up, and our sense of self-worth and our self-confidence requires that we can start making our own decisions as adults on an equal footing with other nations.

“It’s important for a country to not be in a straitjacket,” Nunaat continues.

“We shouldn’t have to ask for permission to do anything. You know the feeling [as a child] when you have to ask your parents something and they say you can’t? That’s what it’s like.”

And yet the word “independence” may not fully capture the complexity of the challenges and choices that Greenland faces, according to Poulsen.

He says he doesn’t like the word “since everyone is interdependent in the modern world”.

He adds: “Even Denmark, which is a sovereign state, is interdependent… I prefer the word statehood.”

Not a huge amount is known about the mechanics of how Trump proposes to acquire Greenland. When he first floated the idea in 2019 he said it would be “essentially a large real-estate deal”.

The extent to which Greenland would remain autonomous under US rule is unclear. So too is how its benefits system would work.

After the proposal to buy the island, Trump has now doubled down on his rhetoric, apparently open to satisfying his territorial ambitions in the North Atlantic by military means.

The visit by Donald Trump Jr and members of Trump’s team added visual emphasis to the then president-elect’s words but not everyone on Greenland was wowed.

“That makes us dig in our heels and say, ‘Please control yourself,'” says Janus Chemnitz Kleist, an IT manager for the Greenland government. “Some people who might previously have had a positive attitude towards closer ties with the United States have started reconsidering.”

Aaja Chemnitz, a member of Danish parliament for the left-leaning party Inuit Ataqatigiit, has her own take on what needs to be done to pave the way for independence, in whatever form that may take.

First, she argues that it is important to reverse what she describes as a mild brain drain out of Greenland. She says only 56% of young Greenlanders who are educated at universities and colleges in Denmark and other countries return upon graduation.

“That’s not a very high number. It would be good if we could make it more attractive for them to return home and take up some of the positions that are important in Greenland society,” she says.

But in her view there is a broader economic issue too.

“Political and economic independence are interconnected,” she says, “and it’s crucial that we cooperate with Denmark on the development of business in Greenland but also work with the Americans on the extraction of raw materials and the development of tourism.”

At present, the Greenland economy is heavily reliant on the so-called block grant, a subsidy paid by the Danish government that in 2024 amounted to the equivalent of around £480m a year.

As this subsidy would likely disappear after independence, one of the most important challenges facing the Greenlanders is to find ways to replace it, explains Javier Arnaut, an economist at the University of Greenland in Nuuk.

“The economy is one of the main factors holding back the movement towards independence,” he says. “The economy is reliant on the Danish block grant, and if it disappeared, Greenland would have a large hole in the public budget that would need to be filled.

“The question is how. If the gap could be filled, for example, by increasing fiscal revenue through projects in mining with new partners, a clearer path towards economic independence could emerge.”

There is another question – not unimportant in a Nordic-style welfare state where a large part of the economy is under government control – of what would happen to all those health and social benefits that Greenland currently receives as a result of its relationship with Denmark.

Currently, these benefits include access to treatment in Danish hospitals.

Ask Greenlanders whether they want separation from Denmark, and most who say they do have a caveat – only if it does not cost them their welfare system.

The question of what happens to the welfare system would be particularly acute in the event of a US takeover of Greenland given the American welfare state is not only smaller than those in the Nordic countries but of those in most other Western countries.

But not everyone is convinced by suggestions that Greenland’s cancer patients, for example, would suddenly have nowhere to go in case of independence. Pele Broberg, Greenland’s former foreign minister and now chairman of the political party Naleraq, cites Iceland, which left the Danish kingdom in 1944 as an example.

“Iceland still sends medical patients to Denmark,” he says. “They still have students studying in Denmark, and vice versa. I have a hard time seeing what kind of obstacles Denmark would like to put up if we decide to leave the kingdom.

“It’s rhetoric meant to scare us from having a discussion about independence,” he argues.

However, some Greenlanders believe that true independence may never be accomplished because of these very concerns. Mr Chemnitz Kleist argues: “The kind of independence that you see in countries like Denmark or Belgium or Angola will never happen here.

“With such a small population, some of it not well educated, and with a complex welfare system which we would like to keep, we can never become independent in the way the word is usually understood.”

All of these issues have been discussed for years, but they have suddenly attained a new sense of urgency with Trump’s apparent bid for control of Greenland.

But regardless of who sits in the White House, the question is whether Greenlanders would see any benefit in raising cooperation levels with the United States – and if so, to what extent?

“Greenland’s national project is all about spreading out the island’s dependence in order to have as many ties as possible with the outside world,” says Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and an expert on the Arctic region.

It is in this context that some Greenlanders are warming to the model of a “free association” with either Denmark or the United States – replicating a similar loose arrangement between the United States and certain islands in the Pacific.

“The problem is that Greenland feels swallowed up by Denmark,” says Mr Pram Gad. “It aims to feel less constrained and less dependent on just one country. Free association is not so much about ‘association’ and more about ‘free’. It’s about having one’s own sovereignty.”

Donald Trump’s threat to take over Greenland may have been unexpected but with the trip to Nuuk his team were well aware there was a thread to be pulled at, that his security concerns come at a time when many Greenlanders are considering their future.

“In recent years all these stories have emerged and placed the modernisation narrative in a different light. The whole idea that Denmark was pursuing an altruistic project in Greenland has been challenged,” says Iben Mondrup.

“The project that the Greenlanders were told was for their own good was actually not good for them after all. This gives rise to all kinds of thoughts about the status of the Greenlanders inside the Danish kingdom. It adds fuel to the criticism that has developed in Greenland in recent years about the idea of a community with Denmark.”

But if it’s not only Denmark and it’s not only America, who else can Greenland turn to? Surveys suggest that a majority of the island’s inhabitants would like to step up cooperation with Canada and Iceland. Mr Broberg, the party chairman, likes the idea, and he throws Norway into the equation as well.

“We have more in common with Norway and Iceland than we have with Denmark,” he says. “All three of us have a presence in the Arctic, unlike Denmark. The only reason I leave open the possibility of a free association with Denmark after independence is it may put some Greenlanders at ease because they are used to the relationship with Denmark.”

Still, the question is: Would Canada and Iceland want to take on the task of providing the social benefits that Greenlanders covet? The answer would almost certainly be no.

In this way, the future presenting itself to the Greenlanders is both exhilaratingly open and at the same time depressingly narrow.

In 2010, IP Yadev, a surgeon from the southern Indian state of Kerala, was confronted with one of the hardest decisions of his life.

He had to decide between keeping his father – a terminal cancer patient – alive, and honouring his wish, expressed verbally, to stop all treatments and put an end to his suffering.

“As a son, I felt it was my duty to do whatever I could to prolong my father’s life. This made him unhappy and he ended up dying alone in an intensive-care unit. The doctor’s last efforts to revive him using CPR crushed his ribs. It was a horrible death,” Dr Yadev says.

The experience, he says, deeply impacted him and helped him realise the importance of advance medical directives (AMDs), also known as living wills.

A living will is a legal document that allows a person over 18 years to choose the medical care they would want to receive if they develop a terminal illness or condition with no hope of recovery and are unable to make decisions by themselves.

For example, they could specify that they don’t want to be put on life-support machines or insist that they want to be given adequate pain-relieving medication.

In 2018, India’s Supreme Court allowed people to draw up living wills and thereby choose passive euthanasia, where medical treatment can be withdrawn under strict guidelines to hasten a person’s death. Active euthanasia – any act that intentionally helps a person kill themselves – is illegal in the country.

But despite the legal go-ahead, the concept of living wills hasn’t really taken off in India. Experts say that this has much to do with the way Indians talk, or rather, don’t talk about death. Death is often considered to be a taboo subject and any mention of it is thought to bring bad luck.

But there are now efforts underway to change this.

In November, Dr Yadev and his team launched India’s first programme – at the Government Medical College in Kerala’s Kollam district – to educate people about living wills, offering information in person and over the phone. Volunteers also conduct awareness campaigns and distribute will templates.

Creating a living will requires family members to have open and honest conversations about death. Despite some resistance, activists and institutions are taking steps to raise awareness, and there’s a growing, though cautious, interest.

Kerala leads the way in these conversations. Currently, it has the country’s best palliative care network, and organisations that offer end-of-life care have also started awareness campaigns around living wills.

In March, around 30 people from the Pain and Palliative Care society in Thrissur city signed living wills. Dr E Divakaran, founder of the society, says that the gesture is aimed at make the idea more popular among people.

“Most people have never heard of the term so they have many questions, like whether such a directive can be misused or if they can make changes to their wills later on,” Mr Yadev says, adding that most inquiries have come from people in their 50s and 60s.

“Right now, it’s the educated, upper-middle class that’s making use of the facility. But with grassroot awareness campaigns, we’re expecting the demographic to widen,” he says.

According to the Supreme Court order, a person must draft the will, sign it in the presence of two witnesses, and have it attested by a notary or gazetted officer. A copy of the will must then be submitted to a state government-appointed custodian.

While the guidelines exist on paper, many state governments are yet to set up mechanisms to implement them. This is what Dr Nikhil Datar, a gynaecologist from Mumbai city, realised when he made his living will two years ago as there was no custodian to whom he could submit it.

So he went to court and it resulted in the Maharashtra government appointing about 400 officials across local bodies in the state to serve as custodians of living wills.

In June, Goa state implemented the Supreme Court’s orders around living wills and a high court judge became the first person in the state to register one.

On Saturday, Karnataka state ordered district health officers to nominate people to serve on a key medical board required to certify living wills. [Two medical boards have to certify that a patient meets necessary criteria for the implementation of a living will before medical practitioners can act on it.]

Mr Datar is also advocating for a centralised digital repository for living wills, accessible nationwide. He has also made his own will available for free on his website as a template. He believes a will helps prevent problems for both families and doctors when a patient is in a vegetative state and beyond recovery.

“Very often, family members don’t want the person to endure more treatment but because they can’t care for the patient at home, they keep them in the hospital. Doctors, bound by medical ethics, can’t withhold treatment, so the patient ends up suffering with no way to express their wishes,” Mr Datar says.

Living wills aren’t just about choosing passive euthanasia. Dr Yadev recalls a case where a person wanted his will to specify that he should be placed on life support if his condition ever required it.

“He explained that his only child was living abroad and that he didn’t want to die until his son got to meet him,” Mr Yadev says. “You have the freedom to choose how you want to die. It is one of the greatest rights available to us, so why not exercise it?” he says.

Healthcare advocates say that conversations around palliative care are slowly growing in the country, giving an impetus to living wills.

Dr Sushma Bhatnagar of Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences says the hospital is launching a department to educate patients about living wills. “Ideally, doctors should discuss living wills with patients, but there’s a communication gap,” she says, adding that training doctors for these conversations can help ensure a person dies with dignity.

“Throughout our lives, our choices are coloured by our loved ones’ wishes or by what society thinks is right,” Mr Yadev says.

“At least in death, let us make choices that are in our interest and fully our own.”

The Grammy Awards have kicked off in Los Angeles, where more than 94 prizes will be handed out over the course of the night.

This list of the main category winners will be updated as the ceremony progresses.

Album of the year

• André 3000 – New Blue Sun
• Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter
• Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet
• Charli XCX – Brat
• Jacob Collier – Djesse Vol 4
• Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft
• Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
• Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department

Record of the year

• The Beatles – Now And Then
• Beyoncé – Texas Hold ‘Em
• Sabrina Carpenter – Espresso
• Charli XCX – 360
• Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather
• Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
• Taylor Swift ft Post Malone – Fortnight

Song of the year

• Beyoncé – Texas Hold ‘Em
• Sabrina Carpnter – Please Please Please
• Billie Eilish – Birds Of A Feather
• Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – Die With a Smile
• Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us
• Chappel Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
• Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)
• Taylor Swift ft Post Malone – Fortnight

Best new artist

• Benson Boone
• Sabrina Carpenter
• Doechii
• Khruangbin
• Raye
• Shaboozey
• Teddy Swims

Best pop vocal album

• Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft
• Ariana Grande – Eternal Sunshine
• Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
• Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department

Best pop solo performance

• Beyoncé – Bodyguard
• Charli XCX – Apple
• Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather
• Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!

Best pop duo/group performance

• Gracie Abrams ft Taylor Swift – Us
• Beyoncé ft Post Malone – Levii’s Jeans
• Charli XCX & Billie Eilish – Guess
• Ariana Grande, Brandy & Monica – The Boy Is Mine

Best dance/electronic recording

• Disclosure – She’s Gone, Dance On
• Four Tet – Loved
• Fred Again & Baby Keem – Leavemealone
• Kaytranada ft Childish Gambino – Witchy

Best dance/electronic album

• Four Tet – Three
• Justice – Hyperdrama
• Kaytranada – Timeless
• Zedd – Telos

Best dance/pop recording

• Madison Beer – Make You Mine
• Billie Eilish – L’Amour De Ma Vie [Over Now Extended Edit]
• Ariana Grande – Yes, and?
• Troye Sivan – Got Me Started

Best traditional pop vocal album

• Cyrille Aimée – À Fleur De Peau
• Lake Street Dive – Good Together
• Aaron Lazar – Impossible Dream
• Gregory Porter – Christmas Wish

Best Latin pop album

• Anitta – Funk Generation
• Luis Fonsi – El Viaje
• Kenny García – García
• Kali Uchis – Orquídeas

Best rock performance

• The Black Keys – Beautiful People (Stay High)
• Green Day – The American Dream Is Killing Me
• Idles – Gift Horse
• Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
• St. Vincent – Broken Man

Best rock song

• The Black Keys – Beautiful People (Stay High)
• Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
• Green Day – Dilemma
• Idles – Gift Horse

Best rock album

• The Black Crowes – Happiness B******s
• Fontaines DC – Romance
• Green Day – Saviors
• Idles – TANGK
• Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
• Jack White – No Name

Best alternative music album

• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild God
• Clairo – Charm
• Kim Gordon – The Collective
• Brittany Howard – What Now

Best alternative music performance

• Cage The Elephant – Neon Pill
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Song of the Lake
• Fontaines D.C. – Starburster
• Kim Gordon – Bye Bye

Best metal performance

• Judas Priest – Crown of Horns
• Knocked Loose Featuring Poppy – Suffocate
• Metallica – Screaming Suicide
• Spiritbox – Cellar Door

Best rap performance

• Cardi B – Enough (Miami)
• Common & Pete Rock ft Posdnuos – When The Sun Shines Again
• Doechii – Nissan Altima
• Eminem – Houdini
• Future, Metro Boomin & Kendrick Lamar – Like That
• GloRilla – Yeah Glo!

Best melodic rap performance

• Jordan Adetunji ft Kehlani – Kehlani
• Beyoncé ft Linda Martell & Shaboozey – Spaghettii
• Future & Metro Boomin ft The Weeknd – We Still Don’t Trust You
• Latto – Big Mama

Best rap song

• Rapsody ft Hit-Boy – Asteroids
• Kanye West & Ty Dolla $Ign – Carnival
• Future & Metro Boomin ft Kendrick Lamar – Like That
• GloRilla – Yeah Glo!

Best rap album

• J Cole – Might Delete Later
• Common & Pete Rock – The Auditorium, Vol 1
• Eminem – The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)
• Future & Metro Boomin – We Don’t Trust You

Best country solo performance

• Beyoncé – 16 Carriages
• Jelly Roll – I Am Not Okay
• Kacey Musgraves – The Architect
• Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)

Best country duo/group performance

• Kelsea Ballerini With Noah Kahan – Cowboys Cry Too
• Brothers Osborne – Break Mine
• Dan + Shay – Bigger Houses
• Post Malone ft Morgan Wallen – I Had Some Help

Best country song

• Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)
• Jelly Roll – I Am Not Okay
• Post Malone ft Morgan Wallen – I Had Some Help
• Beyoncé – Texas Hold ‘Em

Best country album

• Post Malone – F-1 Trillion
• Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well
• Chris Stapleton – Higher
• Lainey Wilson – Whirlwind

Best R&B performance

• Jhené Aiko – Guidance
• Chris Brown – Residuals
• Coco Jones – Here We Go (Uh Oh)
• SZA – Saturn

Best R&B song

• Kehlani – After Hours
• Tems – Burning
• Coco Jones – Here We Go (Uh Oh)
• Muni Long – Ruined Me

Best progressive R&B album

• Durand Bernarr – En Route
• Childish Gambino – Bando Stone And The New World
• Kehlani – Crash

Best R&B album

• Lalah Hathaway – Vantablack
• Muni Long – Revenge
• Lucky Daye – Algorithm
• Usher – Coming Home

Best African music performance

• Yemi Alade – Tomorrow
• Asake & Wizkid – MMS
• Chris Brown ft Davido & Lojay – Sensational
• Burna Boy – Higher

Producer of the Year, Non-Classical

• Alissia
• Dernst “D’Mile” Emile II
• Ian Fitchuk
• Mustard

Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical

• Edgar Barrera
• Jessi Alexander
• Jessie Jo Dillon
• Raye

Best comedy album

• Ricky Gervais – Armageddon
• Jim Gaffigan – The Prisoner
• Nikki Glaser – Someday You’ll Die
• Trevor Noah – Where Was I

Best compilation soundtrack for visual media

• The Color Purple – Various Artists
• Deadpool & Wolverine – Various Artists
• Saltburn – Various Artists
• Twisters: The Album – Various Artists

Best score soundtrack for visual media (includes film and televison)

• Laura Karpman – American Fiction
• Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Challengers
• Kris Bowers – The Color Purple
• Nick Chuba, Atticus Ross & Leopold Ross – Shōgun

Best score soundtrack for video games and other interactive media

• Pinar Toprak – Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
• Bear McCreary – God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla
• John Paesano – Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
• Wilbert Roget, II – Star Wars Outlaws

Best song written for visual media

• Luke Combs – Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma (From Twisters: The Album)
• *NSYNC & Justin Timberlake – Better Place (From Trolls Band Together)
• Olivia Rodrigo – Can’t Catch Me Now (From The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes)
• Barbra Streisand – Love Will Survive (From The Tattooist of Auschwitz)

Best audio book narration

• George Clinton – …And Your Ass Will Follow
• Guy Oldfield – All You Need Is Love: The Beatles In Their Own Words
• Dolly Parton – Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones
• Barbra Streisand – My Name Is Barbra

Best music video

• A$AP Rocky – Tailor Swif
• Charli XCX – 360
• Eminem – Houdini
• Taylor Swift ft Post Malone – Fortnight

Best music film

• June
• Kings From Queens
• Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple
• The Greatest Night In Pop

Best jazz vocal album

• Christie Dashiell – Journey In Black
• Kurt Elling & Sullivan Fortner – Wildflowers Vol 1
• Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding – Milton + Esperanza
• Catherine Russell & Sean Mason – My Ideal

Best jazz instrumental album

• Ambrose Akinmusire ft Bill Frisell & Herlin Riley – Owl Song
• Kenny Barron ft Kiyoshi Kitagawa, Johnathan Blake, Immanuel Wilkins & Steve Nelson – Beyond This Place
• Lakecia Benjamin – Phoenix Reimagined (Live)
• Sullivan Fortner – Solo Game

Best alternative jazz album

• Arooj Aftab – Night Reign
• André 3000 – New Blue Sun
• Robert Glasper – Code Derivation
• Keyon Harrold – Foreverland

Best jazz performance

• The Baylor Project – Walk With Me, Lord
• Lakecia Benjamin feat. Randy Brecker, Jeff “Tain” Watts, & John Scofield – Phoenix Reimagined (Live)
• Chick Corea & Béla Fleck –Juno
• Dan Pugach Big Band feat. Nicole Zuraitis & Troy Roberts – Little Fears

Best musical theatre album

• Merrily We Roll Along
• The Notebook
• The Outsiders
• Suffs
• The Wiz

Best opera recording

• Adams: Girls Of The Golden West – John Adams, conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic; Los Angeles Master Chorale)
• Catán: Florencia En El Amazonas – Yannick Nézet-Séguin (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)
• Moravec: The Shining – Gerard Schwarz, conductor (Kansas City Symphony; Lyric Opera Of Kansas City Chorus)
• Puts: The Hours – Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor (Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; Metropolitan Opera Chorus)

Best orchestral performance

• John Adams: City Noir – Fearful Symmetries & Lola Montez Does The Spider Dance – Marin Alsop, conductor (ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra)
• Kodály: Háry János Suite; Summer Evening & Symphony In C Major – JoAnn Falletta, conductor (Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra)
• Sibelius: Karelia Suite, Rakastava, & Lemminkäinen – Susanna Mälkki, conductor (Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra)
• Stravinsky: The Firebird – Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor (San Francisco Symphony)

A few hours after President Donald Trump announced that he would impose steep tariffs on Canada, hockey fans in the capital Ottawa booed the Star-Spangled Banner during a National Hockey League game against a visiting US team.

On Sunday, during a National Basketball Association game between the Toronto Raptors and the Los Angeles Clippers, it happened again, continuing throughout the song and almost drowning out the 15-year-old’s singer’s arena performance.

The vocal displeasure from usually respectful fans is a clear sign of Canadians’ deep dismay at Trump’s move to hit its nearest ally with punitive taxes, which threaten to spark an unprecedented trade war on the North American continent.

The 25% tariffs imposed by Trump on all Canadian imports into the US – with a lower 10% levy on energy – are set to take effect on Tuesday.

And they come as President Trump doubles down on his push – no longer dismissed as a joke – for Canada to join America and become the 51st state.

While many economists project the tariffs will also drive up costs for Americans on everyday essentials, from gas to groceries, Canada is the more exposed trade partner. If they last for months, the country could tip into a painful economic recession.

Anger is building – and with it, a desire to mount a fightback that has been echoed by political leaders in the country of 40 million.

“Many among us will be affected by this, and we will have some hard times. I ask you to be there for each other,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a Saturday evening address. “Now is the time to choose Canada.”

Some Canadians have already heeded the calls for solidarity. On social media, guides have circulated on how to avoid American-made products. One local grocery store in Toronto even began labelling its Canadian yogurt for shoppers, according to an image posted by Toronto doctor Iris Gorfinkel on X.

Others have stated they will be cancelling travel plans to the US, or forgoing visiting there altogether.

“Yesterday, in response to Trump tariffs, we cancelled our family March break to the US,” wrote Seth Klein, a Canadian author, on Bluesky on Sunday. “Took a small hit on cancelled train tickets, but it needed to be done.”

In some Canadian provinces – namely Ontario, the largest by population – American booze will be pulled off the shelves indefinitely starting on Tuesday.

This is in addition to a total of C$155bn ($105bn; £86bn) of American goods that Canada has said it will tariff in retaliation, including vegetables, clothing, sports equipment, perfume and other items. Goods originating from Republican-led states, like Florida orange juice, are specifically being targeted.

The US imports more of its oil from Canada than any other country, and Trudeau’s government has signalled “all options remain on the table” for further retaliation.

Trump’s follow-through on his threat of steep tariffs – which were long speculated to be a negotiation tactic to get concessions on border security – have bewildered Canadians, who have enjoyed close economic, social and security ties to the US for decades.

“It’s a shock,” Michael Ignatieff, the former leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, told the BBC.

“We’re into a new world, in which the question on whether you can trust America becomes the fundamental question in foreign policy for every country.”

Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s opposition Conservative Party, called the tariffs on Sunday “massive, unjust and unjustified.”

“Canada is the United States’ closest neighbour, greatest ally and best friend,” he said, noting that Canada fought alongside the US in two world wars, as well as in Korea and Afghanistan. “There is no justification whatsoever for this treatment.”

Prime Minister Trudeau questioned in his Saturday address why the US would target Canada instead of looking to “more challenging parts” of the world.

A portion of his speech was directly addressed to Americans, and he too, pointed to a history of shared bloodshed. “We have fought, and died, alongside you,” Trudeau said.

Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa with a focus on national security, told the BBC that Trump’s tariffs “undoubtedly represent an earthquake in Canada-US relations.”

“This is extremely destabilising for Canada,” Prof Juneau said. “As a country, we have massively benefited from our extremely close trade and security partnership with the US for decades.”

While the trade battle would likely force Canada to look for partners elsewhere, it ultimately can’t escape geography, he said. It will remain reliant on the economic superpower next door.

“That is why Canada must absolutely now focus on salvaging the relationship as much as possible,” Prof Juneau said.

The big unknown remains how long the US will keep the tariffs in place, and what steps Canada could take to appease the Trump administration, which has said it expects action on cross-border fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration.

TD Economics projects that the longer the tariffs remain in place, the worse the impact will be. Canada could enter a recession in five to six months, and its unemployment rate could hit more than 7%.

Theo Argitis, managing director of the Ottawa-based public affairs firm Compass Rose Group, said the unknowns had left Canada no choice “but to hit (Trump) back hard.”

“At the end of the day, we don’t even really know why he’s doing this,” Mr Argitis told the BBC.

Trump says the flow of fentanyl, a highly potent and deadly drug, into the US from Canada and Mexico, is one key reason. US officials say the levies will remain in place “until the crisis is alleviated.”

In response, the Canadian government has noted that less than 1% of fentanyl and illegal border crossings into the US come from Canada. It has offered to spend an additional C$1.3bn to secure the US-Canada border

But Trump has also spoken publicly about his frustration with the trade deficit between Canada and the US, and more broadly his view that tariffs could be a source of revenue for Washington’s coffers.

On Sunday, he wrote on Truth Social that the US does not need Canadian products, and said the US pays “hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize Canada.”

“Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable country,” Trump wrote, before repeating his view that Canada should instead become a US state.

He has warned that the White House will enact harsher penalties on Canada should it choose to retaliate. For now, Canada has chosen to try and inflict some targeted pain on its more powerful neighbour, even if the economic scales are tipped against it.

“We prefer to solve our disputes with diplomacy,” Trudeau told his country on Saturday. “But we are ready to fight when necessary.”

Sections of a major Australian highway have been washed away, as flooding in Queensland worsens.

The torrential rainfall in the state’s north has claimed one life so far and forced thousands to flee their homes, with communities in Townsville, Ingham, and Cardwell among the hardest hit.

“Record” downpours are set to continue, authorities say, with parts of the region already experiencing almost 1.3m (4.2ft) of rain since Saturday, causing dams and rivers to overflow.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – who was briefed about the response efforts on Monday – said that the disaster had bought out “the best of Australians”.

“I’ve seen Australians helping one another in their time of need,” he wrote on X, adding that the “threat from floodwaters” would persist in affected areas for days.

Efforts to reach the hardest-hit areas have been hindered by the partial collapse of the Bruce Highway – a vital thoroughfare stretching 1,673km (1039 miles) across the state, which is longer than the road between London and Warsaw.

The Queensland Trucking Association told the ABC that the damage – which caused a bridge to cave in – could add an extra 700km to key driving routes, slowing down the delivery of critical supplies.

Queensland’s Premier David Crisafulli offered his condolences to the “tight-knit” town of Ingham – where a 63-year-old woman died in a rescue attempt after a State Emergency Service (SES) dinghy capsized on Sunday.

“We are deeply sorry for their loss,” he told reporters, adding that he would travel to north Queensland later Monday.

He also urged all residents located in the so-called “black-zone” of the floods – which includes six Townsville suburbs – to not return home, due to the ongoing threat posed by the nearby Ross River.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said the area received six months of rainfall in three days, while the Townsville Local Disaster Management Group warned that 2,000 homes could be inundated, some up to the second floor, as water levels rise.

The persistent deluge – which is gradually easing according to weather reports – has swollen waterways throughout the region. Major flood warnings remain in place for communities along the Hebert, Ross, Bohle, Horton, and Upper Burdekin rivers.

Emergency responders have continued working around the clock, with the SES receiving 480 calls for help overnight Sunday into Monday and performing 11 swift water rescues. Widespread power outages continue to be reported though, making it impossible for some communities to call for assistance.

SES Deputy Commissioner Shane Chelepy urged people to stay vigilant and check on their neighbours wherever possible. He added that some 400 people were now being housed in evacuation centres across Townsville, Ingham, and Cardwell.

Located in the tropics, north Queensland is vulnerable to destructive cyclones, storms, and flooding.

But climate scientists have warned that warmer oceans and a hotter planet are creating the conditions for more intense and frequent extreme rainfall events.

Meteorologists say the current floods could be the worst to hit the region in more than 60 years.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has demanded that Panama make “immediate changes” to what he calls the “influence and control” of China over the Panama Canal.

America’s top diplomat said Panama must act or the US would take necessary measures to protect its rights under a treaty between the two countries.

The warning follows President Donald Trump’s vow to retake the canal and a meeting between Rubio and Jose Raul Mulino, Panama’s conservative president, in Panama City on Sunday.

The two men appeared to emerge from their two-hour meeting with different interpretations.

Mulino told reporters he did not see a serious threat of US military force to seize the canal, saying he had proposed technical-level talks with the US to address Mr Trump’s concerns about Chinese influence.

However, Trump’s vow to retake the canal has sparked a significant backlash in Panama. Protesters in Panama City on Friday burned effigies of Trump and Rubio.

Riot police moved in on another crowd of demonstrators, firing tear gas and wrestling people away. The clashes were small-scale, but the resistance to the US president’s stance is widely felt.

On Thursday, Mulino said the issue of the canal’s ownership would not be up for discussion with Rubio.

“I cannot negotiate or even open a negotiation process about the canal. It’s sealed, the canal belongs to Panama,” he said.

Mr Trump’s comments about the canal included an unfounded claim that Chinese soldiers are operating it. He also said American ships were unfairly charged more than others, despite the fact such a practice would be unlawful under treaty agreements.

The waterway is in fact owned and operated by the Panamanian government, under a neutrality treaty signed with the US decades ago. However, Chinese companies have invested heavily in ports and terminals near the canal. A Hong Kong based company runs two of the five ports close to its entrances.

But President Trump’s muscular approach – even refusing to rule out military action to take the canal – has aroused a strongly patriotic reaction in the small strategic nation.

“It’s ridiculous,” says Panama City resident Mari, who asked not to have her surname published.

“There’s a treaty that he has to respect, and there’s nothing in the treaty that says that we cannot have ports run by the Chinese,” she told the BBC, pointing out that there is Chinese investment in American ports and cities.

Surrounded by tourists and stalls hawking Panama hats and souvenirs, Mari explained that many residents have strong memories of US control of the canal and don’t want to go back.

The US and Panama signed a treaty in 1979, starting a handover process that saw Panama take full control of the canal in 1999.

“We could not cross into the canal zone without being arrested if we didn’t follow all the American rules. The minute you stepped across that border, you were in the United States,” Mari said.

“We had no rights within our own country, and we will not put up with that again… We are very insulted by [Trump’s] words.”

For some, Trump’s refusal to rule out the use of military force has also triggered suspicion and fear. It evokes memories of the 1989 US invasion of Panama to depose de facto ruler General Manuel Noriega, a conflict that lasted several weeks and rapidly overwhelmed Panamanian forces.

“I was the political leader of the opposition when Noriega said he was going to kill all the leaders of the opposition if the US were to invade,” recalled former Panama congressman Edwin Cabrera, speaking to the BBC by the locks of the canal’s Pacific entrance.

“I heard the bombs and started seeing people dying… The only thing President Trump and Rubio have left to say is that they will invade us,” he told the BBC. “I wouldn’t like to live that again in the 21st Century, relive the imperial experience. Panama is in the middle of war between two powers, the USA and China, while we are looking at the sky.”

Marco Rubio is the first Hispanic Secretary of State and is well known for his hawkish positions on some leaders in the region and on China. While Panama closely co-operates with the US on many issues, Mr Rubio’s visit is meant to signal the administration’s intolerance of countries soaking up Chinese investment in what the US sees as its own backyard.

In Panama, he claims China could ultimately use its interests at the ports to block US merchant or war ships in the event of a conflict or trade war.

“If China wanted to obstruct traffic in the Panama Canal, they could. That’s a fact… That’s what President Trump is raising and we’re going to address that topic… That dynamic cannot continue,” Mr Rubio said on The Megyn Kelly Show last week.

Despite the overwhelming support among ordinary Panamanians for their country’s ownership of the canal, some remain sceptical of their own leadership, arguing profits from the waterway don’t filter through to enough ordinary Panamanians.

“What you see here – that the United States and Donald Trump want to take back the canal – that’s what we call cause and effect,” says Andre Howell, a hotel worker in the historic centre of Panama City.

“They’re not administrating the Panama Canal the right way… No Panamanians have [the] benefits,” he said.

Asian shares slid on Monday morning after US President Donald Trump followed through on his promise to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

Investors are bracing for a potential trade war that could hit the earnings of major companies and dent global growth.

Canada and Mexico have said that they will hit back with retaliatory tariffs while China promised “corresponding countermeasures” and vowed to challenge Trump’s move at the World Trade Organization.

Trump has said the tariffs are necessary to halt the flow of illegal drugs and immigration into the US.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 1.3%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 2.4% lower, South Korea’s Kospi tumbled 3% and Australia’s ASX 200 was 1.8% lower.

Markets in mainland China remained closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Meanwhile, the US dollar was showing strength, rising to a record high against China’s yuan, while the Canadian dollar plunged to its lowest level since 2003.

“The prospect of having a long and protracted trade spat between the world’s two biggest economies is causing investors to take risk off the table today,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at financial services firm KCM Trade.

“The other worry for investors is which countries may be on Trump’s tariff hit list next”.

The tariffs announced by the Trump administration over the weekend target the United States’ three largest trading partners and the US president has threatened he might not stop there.

Trump has also vowed to impose tariffs on the European Union “pretty soon”.

Chief investment strategist at investment bank Saxo, Charu Chanana, warned that while tariffs could be beneficial for the US economy in the short term, in the long run they pose significant risks.

“Repeated use of tariffs would incentivise other countries to reduce reliance on the US, weakening the dollar’s global role,” she added.

Trump has said he will speak to Canada and Mexico’s leaders on Monday about the tariffs which are due to come into effect at midnight on Tuesday.

The two countries are facing tariffs of 25% on their exports to the US, while Chinese goods will face an additional 10% tax.

A stunned expression shot across Beyoncé’s face as her latest record, Cowboy Carter, was named best country album at the 67th Grammy Awards.

In a moment laced with symbolism, the award was announced by Taylor Swift – another artist who has successfully switched genres – and who is Beyoncé’s competition for the night’s main prize, album of the year.

“Wow, I really was not expecting this,” said the star, thanking “all of the incredible country artists” who had voted for the prize.

The recognition came five months after Beyoncé was snubbed at the Country Music Awards – even after she became the first black woman to have a number one hit on the Hot Country Songs chart, with Texas Hold ‘Em.

That song is also nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys, where Beyoncé faces competition from the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and Chappell Roan.

That category also features The Beatles, nominated for Now And Then – the track they reassembled from an old John Lennon demo in 2023.

The song has already won best rock performance in an early “premiere ceremony”, where the bulk of the Grammys’ 94 awards are handed out.

The main ceremony, at the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles, is doubling up as a fund-raiser for people affected by the ferocious wildfires that swept the city last month.

The show opened with a special performance by the local band Dawes, whose homes were destroyed in the inferno, playing Randy Newman’s classic song I Love LA.

Later, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars delivered a rousing version of California Dreamin’, originally by The Mamas & Papas, dedicated to the first responders who helped tackle the fires.

Comedian Trevor Noah, who is hosting the show, admitted that “just a few weeks ago, we weren’t sure that this show would even happen”.

“Thankfully, due to the heroic efforts of firefighters, the fires have now been contained, and despite all the devastation, the spirit of the city has emerged,” he added, to generous applause.

Squads of firefighters were invited to the awards to honour their efforts; and they walked the red carpet taking selfies with the biggest stars in music.

Los Angeles native Billie Eilsh was the second artist on stage, playing her award-nominated song Birds Of A Feather against a backdrop inspired by California’s natural beauty.

“I love you LA,” she said as the music ended.

Noah later joked that winners whose speeches ran longer than one-and-a-half minutes would be forced to donate $1,000 for every extra second they spoke.

As for the awards, Beyoncé arrived at the ceremony with the most nominations – 11 in total.

She already has more Grammys than any other artist in history, a haul of 32 trophies, but has never won the biggest prize, album of the year.

Winning best country album signals that she’s in the running for that prize at the fifth time of asking – but the category is stacked with equally-deserving records by Billie Eilish and four-time winner Taylor Swift.

British pop star Charli XCX is also in the running for Brat – which has already won three trophies, including best dance/pop album.

Sabrina Carpenter is another strong contender, having already won best pop vocal album for Short ‘n’ Sweet, and best pop solo performance for her flirtatious summer anthem, Espresso.

Chappell Roan won best new artist, and used her speech to call for equitable pay and conditions in the music industry.

“I told myself, if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists, would offer a liveable wage and health care, especially to developing artists,” she said.

“Labels, we got you, but do you got us?”

The first prize of the main ceremony was best rap album, which went to Florida-born rapper Doechii, for her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal.

She noted it was only the third time a woman had won the category since it was introduced in 1989, with a shout-out to her predecessors Lauryn Hill and Cardi B.

“There are so many black women out there that are watching me right now, and I want to tell you, you can do it,” she added.

“Anything is possible. Don’t allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you [or] tell you that you can’t be here, that you’re too dark, or that you’re not smart enough, or that you’re too dramatic or you’re too loud.

“You are exactly who you need to be to be right where you are and I am a testimony. Praise God.”

The former president of Spain’s football federation, Luis Rubiales, goes on trial on Monday, accused of sexual assault for kissing the player Jenni Hermoso, in a case which has fed into wider discussions about sexism and consent.

Hermoso is scheduled to appear as a witness on the opening day having travelled from Mexico, where she plays club football. The trial runs until 19 February.

As Spain’s players received their medals after defeating England in Sydney to win the 2023 World Cup, Rubiales grabbed Hermoso by the head and kissed her on the lips. Afterwards, Hermoso said the kiss had not been consensual, while Rubiales insisted it had been.

The incident triggered protests and calls for Rubiales’s resignation, and it also entered the political arena. Prime minister Pedro Sánchez, whose left-wing government has approved reforms seeking to boost gender equality and ensure consent in sexual relations, said that Rubiales’s kiss had shown that “there is still a long way to go when it comes to equality and respect between women and men”.

After initially remaining defiant and denouncing a witch-hunt driven by “fake feminism”, the federation president eventually resigned, before legal charges were brought against him.

Prosecutors are calling for Rubiales to receive a one-year prison sentence for sexual assault for the kiss. They are also calling for him to be given a sentence of a year-and-a-half for coercion, for allegedly trying to pressure Hermoso into saying publicly that the kiss was consensual. Rubiales denies the charges.

Three colleagues of Rubiales are also on trial, accused of colluding in the alleged coercion: Jorge Vilda, coach of the World Cup-winning side, Rubén Rivera, the federation’s former head of marketing, and former sporting director, Albert Luque. They all deny the charges.

Isabel Fuentes has watched the female national team closely ever since she was among the first women to represent Spain at football, from 1971 onwards. She describes the furore caused by the Rubiales kiss as “very sad”, because of how it overshadowed the World Cup victory, which, when mentioned, brings her to the verge of tears.

“It was something we would have liked to experience, but we weren’t allowed to,” she says. “These players won it for us. They have lived out our dreams.”

Fuentes played when the dictatorship of Francisco Franco was still in place and the women’s team were not even allowed to wear the Spanish flag on their shirts.

“The regime said: ‘We don’t want you to play football, but we’ll just ignore you,'” she says. “And the federation put all manner of obstacles in our way.”

Like many fans, she was concerned by how the Rubiales controversy affected the international image of Spanish football and she was also shocked by footage showing the former federation president celebrating the World Cup win by grabbing his crotch as he stood just a few feet away from Spain’s Queen Letizia.

But younger players, like Belén Peralta, prefer to emphasise how far women’s football has come, rather than dwell on the Rubiales case. Playing for third-division side Olimpia Las Rozas, Peralta says that even in the last few years she has noticed a shift in terms of the attention and support that women’s football receives.

“When I was younger, girls playing football was kind of strange, you were told, ‘Oh, that’s for boys,’ or ‘That’s not a girl’s thing,'” she says. “And nowadays, you go to some places and you say, ‘I’m a footballer,’ and that’s so cool and attractive.”

Her teammate, Andrea Rodríguez, agrees. Although she says that occasionally she might hear sexist comments about women’s football, social attitudes are overwhelmingly positive.

“People are more open-minded now,” she says.

In 2010, IP Yadev, a surgeon from the southern Indian state of Kerala, was confronted with one of the hardest decisions of his life.

He had to decide between keeping his father – a terminal cancer patient – alive, and honouring his wish, expressed verbally, to stop all treatments and put an end to his suffering.

“As a son, I felt it was my duty to do whatever I could to prolong my father’s life. This made him unhappy and he ended up dying alone in an intensive-care unit. The doctor’s last efforts to revive him using CPR crushed his ribs. It was a horrible death,” Dr Yadev says.

The experience, he says, deeply impacted him and helped him realise the importance of advance medical directives (AMDs), also known as living wills.

A living will is a legal document that allows a person over 18 years to choose the medical care they would want to receive if they develop a terminal illness or condition with no hope of recovery and are unable to make decisions by themselves.

For example, they could specify that they don’t want to be put on life-support machines or insist that they want to be given adequate pain-relieving medication.

In 2018, India’s Supreme Court allowed people to draw up living wills and thereby choose passive euthanasia, where medical treatment can be withdrawn under strict guidelines to hasten a person’s death. Active euthanasia – any act that intentionally helps a person kill themselves – is illegal in the country.

But despite the legal go-ahead, the concept of living wills hasn’t really taken off in India. Experts say that this has much to do with the way Indians talk, or rather, don’t talk about death. Death is often considered to be a taboo subject and any mention of it is thought to bring bad luck.

But there are now efforts underway to change this.

In November, Dr Yadev and his team launched India’s first programme – at the Government Medical College in Kerala’s Kollam district – to educate people about living wills, offering information in person and over the phone. Volunteers also conduct awareness campaigns and distribute will templates.

Creating a living will requires family members to have open and honest conversations about death. Despite some resistance, activists and institutions are taking steps to raise awareness, and there’s a growing, though cautious, interest.

Kerala leads the way in these conversations. Currently, it has the country’s best palliative care network, and organisations that offer end-of-life care have also started awareness campaigns around living wills.

In March, around 30 people from the Pain and Palliative Care society in Thrissur city signed living wills. Dr E Divakaran, founder of the society, says that the gesture is aimed at make the idea more popular among people.

“Most people have never heard of the term so they have many questions, like whether such a directive can be misused or if they can make changes to their wills later on,” Mr Yadev says, adding that most inquiries have come from people in their 50s and 60s.

“Right now, it’s the educated, upper-middle class that’s making use of the facility. But with grassroot awareness campaigns, we’re expecting the demographic to widen,” he says.

According to the Supreme Court order, a person must draft the will, sign it in the presence of two witnesses, and have it attested by a notary or gazetted officer. A copy of the will must then be submitted to a state government-appointed custodian.

While the guidelines exist on paper, many state governments are yet to set up mechanisms to implement them. This is what Dr Nikhil Datar, a gynaecologist from Mumbai city, realised when he made his living will two years ago as there was no custodian to whom he could submit it.

So he went to court and it resulted in the Maharashtra government appointing about 400 officials across local bodies in the state to serve as custodians of living wills.

In June, Goa state implemented the Supreme Court’s orders around living wills and a high court judge became the first person in the state to register one.

On Saturday, Karnataka state ordered district health officers to nominate people to serve on a key medical board required to certify living wills. [Two medical boards have to certify that a patient meets necessary criteria for the implementation of a living will before medical practitioners can act on it.]

Mr Datar is also advocating for a centralised digital repository for living wills, accessible nationwide. He has also made his own will available for free on his website as a template. He believes a will helps prevent problems for both families and doctors when a patient is in a vegetative state and beyond recovery.

“Very often, family members don’t want the person to endure more treatment but because they can’t care for the patient at home, they keep them in the hospital. Doctors, bound by medical ethics, can’t withhold treatment, so the patient ends up suffering with no way to express their wishes,” Mr Datar says.

Living wills aren’t just about choosing passive euthanasia. Dr Yadev recalls a case where a person wanted his will to specify that he should be placed on life support if his condition ever required it.

“He explained that his only child was living abroad and that he didn’t want to die until his son got to meet him,” Mr Yadev says. “You have the freedom to choose how you want to die. It is one of the greatest rights available to us, so why not exercise it?” he says.

Healthcare advocates say that conversations around palliative care are slowly growing in the country, giving an impetus to living wills.

Dr Sushma Bhatnagar of Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences says the hospital is launching a department to educate patients about living wills. “Ideally, doctors should discuss living wills with patients, but there’s a communication gap,” she says, adding that training doctors for these conversations can help ensure a person dies with dignity.

“Throughout our lives, our choices are coloured by our loved ones’ wishes or by what society thinks is right,” Mr Yadev says.

“At least in death, let us make choices that are in our interest and fully our own.”

Air traffic control staffing was “not normal” at the time of a mid-air collision between a military helicopter and passenger plane in Washington, DC that killed 67 people, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has acknowledged.

US media reported that Reagan National Airport tower was understaffed during Wednesday’s crash, according to a government report.

“I’ll take the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) at their word that it wasn’t normal,” Duffy said when asked about reports during the FOX News Sunday programme.

So far, 55 victims have been recovered from the Potomac River, with divers continuing to search for 12 more.

There were 64 passengers aboard the American Airlines flight when it collided mid-air with an army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers as crew. There were no survivors.

At the time of the crash, one air traffic control worker was managing helicopters and some planes from the airport, a job normally done by two people, two sources told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.

Duffy said “that was part of the review process that we have to do”.

He explained there was a “consolidation of air traffic controllers an hour before it was supposed to happen during the time of this crash. And so was, what was the appropriateness of that?”

Duffy raised questions about whether controllers did “appropriately direct traffic, consistent with procedures at the FAA”, as well as the elevation of the helicopter.

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Board Member Todd Inman said preliminary data revealed the helicopter was flying at about 200ft (60m), CBS reported. The flight ceiling for helicopters in the area near Reagan National Airport is 200ft.

Duffy also questioned the timing of its flight.

“Why would they fly a mission at nine o’clock at night through really busy air space… as opposed to flying that mission at one o’clock in the morning, when there’s very little traffic”? he asked.

“I want our military to be trained up and ready to go, but I also want air travellers to be safe as well, and there’s a time and a place to do it, not at nine o’clock at night when there’s heavy traffic.”

Investigators are considering a number of factors, including height, in determining the cause of the crash, but have not yet made any public conclusions, NTSB officials said on Thursday.

Military officials told a news conference on Sunday said the helicopter crew was based in DC, where they flew daily missions to support senior army leadership and other government leaders.

Wednesday’s flight was a training mission required annually for recertification, led by two experienced pilots who had flown in the local area many times before, officials said.

Duffy said the US has a chronic understaffing problem in air traffic control.

US media has reported that more than 90% of air traffic control facilities in the country are operating below FAA recommended staffing levels.

“We haven’t had enough air traffic controllers in America for a very long time,” Duffy said, adding “they are stressed out. They’re tapped out. They’re overworked. That’s no excuse. It’s just a reality of what we have in the system.”

The new transportation secretary said he was working with the FAA to train new air traffic controllers and “has a plan that’s going to come out to fix the problem, but the issue is you can’t flip a switch and get air traffic controllers here tomorrow.”

As officials investigate the cause of the crash, recovery operations continue.

“We believe we’re going to be able to recover all of the victims, but we don’t know where they are at this point,” DC fire chief John Donnelly said.

At first light on Monday morning, the Army will begin to lift the wreckage, pausing if they recover any remains, Col Francis Pera said.

“Uniting those lost in this tragic incident is really what keeps us going,” he added.

During the operation on Sunday, a DC police diver was taken to hospital with hypothermia, but recovered.

On Sunday morning, dozens of family members of the victims gathered at the scene of the crash.

They arrived in chartered buses with a police escort, first travelling to the crash scene and then on to a runway where the flight was supposed to land.

The fire chief said he was not at the event, but had met with families, who he said are “grieving” with a “whole range of emotions”.

“They are a strong group of families that are focused on getting their loved ones back,” he said.

A former surgeon who is accused of abusing hundreds of young patients, often while they were under anaesthetic, is set to go on trial this month in the largest child abuse trial in French history.

Joel Le Scouarnec, 73, is accused of assaulting or raping 299 children – the majority former patients of his – between 1989 and 2014, mostly in Brittany.

He has admitted to some charges, but not all.

The trial in Vannes, north- west France, follows a painstaking police investigation lasting several years.

It is likely to raise uncomfortable questions over whether Le Scouarnec was protected by his colleagues and the management of the hospitals that employed him, despite an FBI warning to the French authorities that he had been consulting child abuse websites, after which he was given only a suspended sentence.

A staggering number of opportunities to stop the former surgeon from having contact with children appear to have been missed or rejected.

Members of his own family also knew of Le Scouarnec’s paedophilia but failed to stop him, it is claimed.

“It was the family’s omertà which meant his abuse was allowed to continue for decades,” one lawyer involved in the case told the BBC.

Le Scouarnec, once a respected small-town surgeon, has been in jail since 2017, when he was arrested on suspicion of raping his nieces, now in their 30s, as well as a six-year-old girl and a young patient. In 2020 he was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment.

After his arrest, police searched his home and found child-sized sex dolls, more than 300,000 child abuse images, and thousands of pages of meticulously compiled diaries in which Le Scouarnec is alleged to have logged assaults he carried out on his young patients over 25 years.

He has denied assaulting or raping children, arguing that his diaries merely detailed his “fantasies”.

In several instances, however, he had also written: “I am a paedophile”.

Le Scouarnec is facing more than 100 rape charges and more than 150 charges of sexual assault.

Some of his former patients, who are all now adults, have said they remember the surgeon touching them under the guise of medical examinations, sometimes even when their parents or other doctors were in the room.

But because a huge number of his alleged victims were under the effect of anaesthetics when it is claimed the assaults took place, they had no recollection of the events and were shocked to be contacted by police and told their names – alongside graphic descriptions of abuse – allegedly appeared in Le Scouarnec’s diaries.

Le Scouarnec felt “all-powerful” and liked the feeling of “flirting with danger” through “calculated transgressions,” French daily Le Monde quoted the court order against the former surgeon as saying.

Some of the alleged victims have said the unsettling revelations helped them make sense of unexplained symptoms of trauma that had burdened them their whole lives.

Lawyer Francesca Satta, who represents several alleged victims, told the BBC that among her clients are “the families of two men who did remember, and who ended up taking their own lives.”

Olivia Mons of the France Victimes association spoke to many of the alleged victims and said several only had blurry recollections of events which they were never able to “find the words to explain”.

When the surgeon’s case came to light, “it provided them with the beginning of an explanation,” Ms Mons said.

But she added that most of the alleged victims were people who had no memories of being raped or assaulted, and who were living ordinary lives before police contacted them. “Today, many of these people are understandably very shaken,” Ms Mons said.

One woman told French media that when police showed her an entry under her name in Le Scouarnec’s diary, memories instantly flooded in. “I had flashbacks of someone coming into my hospital room, lifting the bedsheets, saying he would check if everything had gone well,” she said. “He raped me.”

Margaux Castex, a lawyer for one of the alleged victims, told the BBC her client is “traumatised that he ever gave his trust to a medical professional, and that’s been hard to shake”.

“He wishes he had never been told what happened,” Ms Castex said.

Another woman called Marie, now a married mother in her mid-thirties, said that police came to her house and revealed that her name appeared in the diaries of a surgeon who was accused of child abuse.

“They read out what he had written about me and I wanted to read it back myself but it was impossible,” she told outlet France Bleu. “Can you imagine reading hardcore pornography and knowing that it is about you, as a child?”

Marie said she had seen mental health specialists for years because of “issues” she had with regards to men, and that doctors had wondered whether she had experienced childhood trauma.

“I have to believe that my memory protected me from that. But the [police] examination brought it all back to the surface – images, sensations, memories came back to me day by day,” she said. “Today, I feel this as if it had just happened.”

Marie added that when she was shown a photo of Le Scouarnec, “everything came back to me… I remembered his icy gaze.”

She wondered how the surgeon had been able to commit his alleged crimes unnoticed for so long.

It is a haunting question that is bound to be explored at length during the trial.

The first court proceedings heard claims that several members of Le Scouarnec’s family had been aware since the mid-1980s of his disturbing behaviour towards children, but did not intervene.

His ex-wife has denied knowing what her husband – and father of their three children – allegedly did until he was arrested.

Le Scouarnec – a medical professional and a lover of opera and literature – had long been the pride of his middle-class family. He was a respected small town medical practitioner for many years, which may have afforded him a significant degree of protection in the workplace.

“A huge degree of dysfunction allowed Le Scouarnec to commit his deeds,” lawyer Frederic Benoist told the BBC.

Mr Benoist represents child protection advocacy group La Voix de L’Enfant (The Child’s Voice), which is pressing to highlight what it calls the “crucial institutional and judicial missteps” which allowed Le Scouarnec to allegedly continue abusing children for decades.

In the early 2000s, an FBI alert to the French authorities that Le Scouarnec had been accessing child abuse websites only resulted in a four-month suspended sentence with no obligation to follow medical or psychological treatment.

Mr Benoist said prosecutors never shared this information with the medical authorities and there were no consequences for Le Scouarnec, who continued in his role as a surgeon, often operating on children and managing their aftercare.

When a colleague – who already harboured suspicions against Le Scouarnec – read about the charges against him in the local press in 2006, he urged the regional medical association to take action.

All but one doctor – who abstained – voted that Le Scouarnec had not violated the medical code of ethics, which states that doctors “must in all circumstances be trustworthy and act with integrity and devotion to duty”. No sanctions were imposed.

“We therefore have proof that all these colleagues knew, and none of them did anything,” Mr Benoist said. “There were many circumstances which meant he could have been stopped; he wasn’t, and the consequences are tragic.”

The BBC has approached both the regional medical association and prosecutors for comment.

Le Scouarnec was eventually arrested when the six-year-old victim told her parents that he had assaulted her. By then, he was living like a recluse in a large derelict home, surrounded by child-sized dolls.

Ms Driguez, the nieces’ lawyer, sat opposite Le Scouarnec during the 2020 trial in the south-western town of Saintes. “His answers were cold and calculated,” she said. “He is extremely clever, but showed no empathy whatsoever.”

The trial uncovered more allegations of child abuse within Le Scouarnec’s family, Ms Driguez said, but the former surgeon never had any particular reaction and mostly looked at the floor.

At one point, the court was shown lurid videos of Le Scouarnec and his dolls. “Everyone was watching the screen but I was watching him,” Ms Driguez said. “Up to that point he had always kept his gaze down. But at that moment, he looked up, staring intently at the video. His eyes were twinkling.”

As the city of Vannes prepares to host the trial, three lecture halls in a former university building nearby have been made available to accommodate the hundreds of alleged victims, their legal representatives and families. The trial starts on 24 February and is due to last until June.

Whether the press and the public are allowed in will depend on all of the alleged victims giving up their right to a closed trial.

Many lawyers believe the trial could be a moment of reckoning for the authorities that failed to take provisions against Le Scouarnec, as well as an important moment for the victims to voice their trauma.

Ms Satta said that although many people involved in this case have no memory of what happened to them, they were still victims, adding that the former surgeon had enjoyed the “impunity of silence” for too long.

“The trial will be a moment for the victims to speak out,” Mr Benoist agreed. “It would be terrible, in my eyes, if it was held behind closed doors.”

Schools on the Greek island of Santorini have been told to close on Monday in response to an increase in seismic activity in recent days.

Authorities have also advised against “large gatherings in enclosed spaces” across the island – a popular tourist destination known for its whitewashed buildings and blue domed churches.

Tremors of up to 4.6 in magnitude have been recorded over the last couple of days – with quakes of 4.3 and 3.9 magnitude reported nearby on Sunday.

Santorini is on what is known as the Hellenic Volcanic Arc – a chain of volcanic islands created by plate tectonics – but the last major eruption was in the 1950s.

Greek authorities said that the recent minor earthquares were related to tectonic plate movements instead of volcanic activity, and that activity in the Santorini caldera – the volcanic basin the island sits around – remains in decline.

The tremors recorded by geologists are considered minor or light, but authorities have recommended a number of preventative measures in addition to the school closures, including asking ships to avoid the ports of Ammoudi and Fira.

Big cruise ships often anchor near the Old Port of Fira, with passengers being brought to shore on smaller boats.

Schools were also told to close on the nearby islands of Anafi, Ios and Amorgos.

People were advised to avoid abandoned buildings and travelling on routes where landslides are likely to occur.

While the recent tremors are thought to be unlikely to be a precursor to an eruption, the possibility of a stronger eruption cannot be ruled out.

Kostas Papazachos, a professor of geophysics at Thessaloniki Aristotle University, told public broadcaster ERT that the precautionary measures were “precisely to limit the impact of a stronger earthquake”.

He added: “When you have a sequence next to you that is so vivid, so intense, you have to be a bit careful, precisely because there is always the risk of something like that happening.”

Prof Papazachos said that were a minor earthquake occur while people were gathered in large crowds, it could create panic that may lead to people being injured.

The South Aegean Regional Fire Department has been placed on general alert and rescue teams as well as the regional commander have been dispatched to Santorini.

Though the island has a population of around 15,500, it welcomes millions of tourists each year. The UK Foreign Office updated its advice to British tourists on Sunday reiterating the recent measures.

One of the largest volcanic eruptions in history, around 1600BC, created the island in its current crescent-shaped form – though there is evidence of human settlement dating back to the Bronze Age.

The island has been struck by several eruptions since, the most devastating occurring in 1956, killing at least 53 people.

When war broke out in Ukraine 15-year-old Illia Mitiushnikov was forced to flee his home and family, and claim asylum in Wales.

Almost three years on, he is about to follow in the footsteps of no fewer than five British prime ministers after securing a place on one of the most prestigious degree courses at the University of Oxford.

Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Oxford has been described by the Guardian as “the Oxford degree that runs Britain”.

Its list of alumni includes former prime ministers David Cameron, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Edward Heath and Harold Wilson, as well as other British and global political heavyweights such as Tony Benn, Bill Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi.

It is a remarkable achievement for the 18-year-old, who said his English was “not so good” before arriving in the UK.

Until May 2022, Illia lived in Vinnytsia, central Ukraine, with his parents and their now 11-year-old cocker spaniel Simba.

After being accepted onto the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme, Illia and his mother packed a suitcase each and made the journey to Wales, taking a train to Poland, a flight to London and a bus to Cardiff where they were met by their hosts.

“It was both emotionally hard and physically hard,” said Illia, recalling the long journey.

They moved in with their hosts, a couple with three young children, in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan.

“I was very delighted when I came here,” said Illia.

“I was really grateful to my host family that they agreed to accept me and my mum because it’s quite stressful to just meet completely new strangers and just let them stay in your house.”

It was his host family who suggested he apply to Westbourne School, an independent school in nearby Penarth, and he was offered a free place under its refugee scholarship scheme.

In the summer of 2023, he sat his GCSEs, achieving 10 A*s.

He then began the school’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in place of A-Levels.

Thoughts of studying at the University of Oxford were prompted by a visit to the city.

“That’s when the dream started to appear in my mind,” he said.

Then when on work experience at a bank in London last summer he spoke to graduates and decided to go for it.

But initially he had doubts he could achieve his ambition.

“Part of me was like, ‘it’s too much for me’… and then another part of me was thinking ‘if others can do it, why can’t I do it also’.”

Knowing what people in Ukraine were experiencing drove him to work hard.

“I can’t let myself have a lot of rest because I know how people are feeling in Ukraine,” he said.

“I imagine the lives of all the soldiers who fight 24/7 for Ukraine and I can’t let myself chill out.

“It was like a new goal for me, I just had to do this, I had no other chance.”

The day he was accepted was emotional.

“I called my family straight away and they were just crying from happiness,” he said.

He is full of gratitude for his host family and his teachers and is looking forward to receiving an “insanely good” education and making new friends at St Hilda’s College, Oxford.

And what are his plans for the future?

He said he hoped Oxford would give him knowledge he could use to “improve the worldwide situation”.

But initially he intends to work in banking, “just to stabilise in life, to help my family”.

Like many of his PPE predecessors he also has his eye on a career in politics.

“I would like to help the world, help nations to develop, solve international crises, like the current war with Ukraine and Russia,” he said.

“I hope it will end before then obviously but there are other conflicts to solve.”

Marie de Tito Mount is global chief executive for Westbourne, which also has schools in Singapore and Sydney.

“We see a few students each year that go on to Oxford… but I think there is a particular warmth given Illia’s story, given his background, I think we’re all immensely proud of him, everyone’s rooting for him,” she said.

“He’s seen the opportunities available and has grabbed them with both hands, so that’s something any school would be proud of.

“It’s phenomenal achievement.”

Sri Lanka is set to relax a ban on some vehicle imports in a sign the country is returning to normal after a severe economic crisis that toppled a president.

From 1 February, imports of buses, trucks and utility vehicles will be allowed to resume, while restrictions on other vehicles are expected to be gradually lifted.

Many Sri Lankans are waiting for authorities to also drop an import ban on private cars, sport utility vehicles and three-wheeled trishaws – which are commonly used as taxis.

But with prices of vehicles forced up by a scarcity of new ones to buy, a weak currency and high taxes, some are asking who will be able to afford a new car.

In 2022, Sri Lanka faced a severe foreign currency shortage, which meant it was unable to meet its obligations to creditors for the first time in its history.

The island nation of 22 million people was thrown into turmoil as it faced crippling shortages of fuel, food and medicines.

Massive anti-government protests toppled then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa just months later.

Colombo negotiated a $2.9bn (£2.3bn) bailout from the International Monetary Fund, while Rajapaksa’s successor introduced austerity measures including hiking taxes and ending energy subsidies.

The country’s finances have since improved and the economy is gradually returning from the brink.

The announcement to lift the import ban on vehicles has triggered a buzz among Sri Lankans who have been waiting for years to buy a new car or a van.

Murtaza Jafeerjee, chair of Advocata, an economic think tank based in Colombo, told the BBC he thought the move was long overdue.

“The vehicle imports will not only increase the government’s revenue but will also trigger other economic activities like car financing, dealer revenue, car servicing and other related activities, creating jobs,” he said.

But Nalinda Jayatissa, the country’s information minister told a media briefing on Tuesday that the country was “moving very cautiously because we don’t want a surge of imports that will deplete our foreign reserves”.

The country, which doesn’t have any major factories producing cars and trucks, imports almost all its vehicles, many of them from countries like Japan and India. Now there’s a also lot of interest in Chinese cars, particularly electric vehicles.

Prices of used cars in Sri Lanka have soared, with some models now costing two or three times as much as they did before the ban.

The restrictions have been particularly difficult for people like Gayan Indika, who provides vehicles for weddings and is a part-time cab driver.

“I want to buy a new car so that I can do my work and resume my private cab rental. Without a car, without mobility, I am losing a lot of my revenue,” he said.

In a country with poor public transport, a car can be vital, Sasikumar, a software professional from the central city of Kandy explained.

“As we don’t have a good public transport system, a car is essential to travel to other parts of the country. Either the government should lift the ban on cars or improve the public transport.”

Sri Lanka imported about $1.4bn worth of vehicles in the year before the ban was imposed. This year the central bank says it’s planning to allocate up to a billion dollars for vehicle imports, but said the money will be released gradually.

Arosha Rodrigo, from the Vehicle Importers Association of Sri Lanka, and his family have been running a car dealership for more than four decades.

The firm was importing about 100 vehicles a month before the ban. Since the restrictions came into force they have not been unable to import a single vehicle.

He points out that even if the ban is relaxed further, to allow passenger cars and other vehicles to be imported, many people won’t be able to afford them because of increased taxes and Sri Lanka’s weak currency.

The government has sharply raised excise duties on imported vehicles, both new and second hand, to 200% and 300% depending on engine size.

On top of excise duty, there is also 18% Value Added Tax (VAT) for any vehicle brought from abroad.

The price of imported vehicles will also be impacted by the weakness of the Sri Lankan rupee against major world currencies like the US dollar.

Those soaring costs are putting off people like school teacher R Yasodha.

“We have been waiting to purchase a vehicle for a long time. But if we calculate the tax and the price, the cost of an average sized car has doubled from 2.5 million rupees ($8,450; £6,800) to five million rupees,” she told the BBC.

“It would cost a fortune for us.”

Endangered male frogs with an unconventional approach to child-rearing have ‘given birth’ to 33 tiny young in the UK as part of an urgent mission to rescue the species from a devastating fungal disease.

Southern Darwin’s frog tadpoles grow up inside the vocal sacs of their fathers and are ‘born’ through their mouths as froglets.

The brooding dads made an incredible 7,000-mile journey by boat, plane, and car to London Zoo from their remote island off the southern coast of Chile.

The frogs were first discovered by Charles Darwin in 1834. Conservationists say that keeping a population in captivity will buy the species time while efforts are made to make their forest home safe again.

Amphibian chytridiomycosis is a fungal disease that has affected at least 500 amphibian species, making it one of the most devastating infectious diseases described by science.

In 2023, surveys confirmed the arrival of the deadly chytrid fungus to Southern Darwin’s frogs in the Parque Tantauco forests in southern Chile. The frogs are particularly susceptible and monitored populations declined by 90% within a year.

Last October conservationists from London Zoo located a chytrid-free population. The task was challenging – not only are the frogs tiny, they are extremely well camouflaged to blend into their mossy homes.

They travelled in specially designed, climate-controlled boxes on a long, complex route: a six-hour boat ride, a 15-hour drive to Chile’s capital Santiago, and a final flight to Heathrow.

Each fully grown male, which weighed less than 2g and measured under 3cm, continued to carry the little tadpoles until they metamorphosed into froglets.

You can watch the moment a Southern Darwin’s froglet is ‘born’ in this clip from Sir David Attenborough’s landmark nature series Life on Earth.

Ben Tapley, curator of amphibians at London Zoo, said: “This is a landmark moment in our work to protect the Darwin’s frog from the devastating impact of chytrid fungus.

“The successful parent-rearing of these froglets is a powerful symbol of hope for the species [and] highlights what can be achieved when conservationists work together.”

Andrés Valenzuela Sanchez, ZSL’s Institute of Zoology research fellow, said: “These frogs are not only vital for the future of their species but also help us better understand how we can combat chytrid fungus and safeguard other amphibians globally.”

At the head of beautiful Loch Long in Argyll sits one of Scotland’s biggest plastic problems.

A combination of prevailing winds and the rotation of the earth drive litter up the loch to create what is known as the Arrochar litter sink.

About 62,000 items wash up on the beach each year, much of it from the waterways in and around Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city.

It is estimated that 11% of the rubbish which enters the River Clyde – which flows through the city – and its tributaries is eventually washed up at Arrochar.

The local residents can’t clean it up fast enough.

Lots of the waste is tangled in the seaweed which was once an asset to the community.

It used to be collected by the bucketload to fertilise farm land, but that’s no longer possible because of the pollution.

Campaigners say the only solution is to stop the waste entering the water in the first place – and that the introduction of a deposit return scheme for bottles and cans would play a major role in doing just that.

A Scottish scheme was originally meant to be operational by 2023 but was delayed after objections from businesses to the inclusion of glass.

It then emerged that the UK government was considering blocking Scotland’s plans because it wanted a single scheme for all four nations.

UK ministers eventually decided they would grant an exemption – but only if glass was taken out of the Scottish plans to align it with the scheme it was planning to introduce in England.

That position led to angry recriminations and eventually an announcement from Circular Economy Minister Lorna Slater of a further delay until at least October 2025.

That was later extended to 2027, in line with the UK scheme.

But in December, the Welsh government confirmed it was opting out of the UK-wide proposition and creating its own scheme – which would include glass recycling.

In the meantime, a deposit return scheme has been successfully launched in the Republic of Ireland which has captured almost a billion items in its first year.

All of these political rows have been frustrating to people who just want to see the marine environment free of litter.

Kirsty Crawford from the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) says it’s vital for places like Arrochar that the current target date of 2027 is not pushed back again.

She said: “With each fresh high tide you’re going to get more litter washing in.

“It is a big task at hand but this is where we hope the deposit return scheme would help see a reduction in that problem.”

The scheme in Ireland went live a year ago and more than 900 million items have so far been returned to shops.

Consumers have to pay a deposit of 15 cents for every standard-sized plastic bottle or can which is purchased. The deposit is refunded when the item is returned.

Glass is not included in the scheme.

Some retailers were initially resistant, but others say it has led to an increase in footfall in shops.

Reverse vending machines can cost shop owners about €15,000 (£12,500), but stores do have the option of collecting returned items over the counter.

Environmental group Coastwatch Europe, which monitors more than 500 stretches of shore in Ireland, says the scheme is already having a significant impact.

Seven years ago volunteers were recording around 60 bottles per kilometre of beach – but a survey in September and October found an average of eight per kilometre.

Co-founder Karin Dubsky believes that’s not just down to the deposit return scheme but also a broader appreciation of the impact of plastic pollution.

”There is so much positivity and I think it has opened the gates to a different kind of thinking,” she said.

Politicians hope a deposit return scheme scheme will boost Scotland’s stubborn household recycling figures, which have barely budged for a decade.

In 2023, 43.5% of household waste was recycled, compared with 42.9% in 2014.

The Scottish government says it expects the scheme to reduce littering by a third and increase recycling of single-use drinks containers to 90%.

Lorna Slater, the Scottish Greens minister who introduced the scheme during her time in government, says she hopes glass can still ultimately be included in the scheme.

But she says it’s most important that there are no further delays to its rollout.

That view is echoed by environmental charities like the MCS and Keep Scotland Beautiful.

On Monday, the deadline passed for applications to run the scheme for Scotland, England and Northern Ireland.

Scottish ministers say they are committed to delivering the scheme by 2027.

Four new laws will tackle the threat of child sexual abuse images generated by artificial intelligence (AI), the government has announced.

The Home Office says the UK will be the first country in the world to make it illegal to possess, create or distribute AI tools designed to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM), with a punishment of up to five years in prison.

Possessing AI paedophile manuals – which teach people how to use AI for sexual abuse – will also be made illegal, and offenders will get up to three years in prison.

“What we’re seeing is that AI is now putting the online child abuse on steroids,” Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

Cooper said AI was “industrialising the scale” of sexual abuse against children and said government measures “may have to go further.”

Other laws set to be introduced include making it an offence to run websites where paedophiles can share child sexual abuse content or provide advice on how to groom children. That would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

And the Border Force will be given powers to instruct individuals who they suspect of posing a sexual risk to children to unlock their digital devices for inspection when they attempt to enter the UK, as CSAM is often filmed abroad. Depending on the severity of the images, this will be punishable by up to three years in prison.

Artificially generated CSAM involves images that are either partly or completely computer generated. Software can “nudify” real images and replace the face of one child with another, creating a realistic image.

In some cases, the real-life voices of children are also used, meaning innocent survivors of abuse are being re-victimised.

Fake images are also being used to blackmail children and force victims into further abuse.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said that there are 800 arrests each month relating to threats posed to children online. It said 840,000 adults are a threat to children nationwide – both online and offline – which makes up 1.6% of the adult population.

Cooper said: “You have perpetrators who are using AI to help them better groom or blackmail teenagers and children, distorting images and using those to draw young people into further abuse, just the most horrific things taking place and also becoming more sadistic.”

She continued: “This is an area where the technology doesn’t stand still and our response cannot stand still to keep children safe.”

Some experts, however, believe the government could have gone further.

Prof Clare McGlynn, an expert in the legal regulation of pornography, sexual violence and online abuse, said the changes were “welcome” but that there were “significant gaps”.

The government should ban “nudify” apps and tackle the “normalisation of sexual activity with young-looking girls on the mainstream porn sites”, she said, describing these videos as “simulated child sexual abuse videos”.

These videos “involve adult actors but they look very young and are shown in children’s bedrooms, with toys, pigtails, braces and other markers of childhood,” she said. “This material can be found with the most obvious search terms and legitimises and normalises child sexual abuse. Unlike in many other countries, this material remains lawful in the UK.”

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) warns that more sexual abuse AI images of children are being produced, with them becoming more prevalent on the open web.

The charity’s latest data shows reports of AI-generated CSAM have risen 380% with 245 confirmed reports in 2024 compared with 51 in 2023. Each report can contain thousands of images.

In research last year it found that over a one-month period, 3,512 AI child sexual abuse and exploitation images were discovered on one dark website. Compared with a month in the previous year, the number of the most severe category images (Category A) had risen by 10%.

Experts say AI CSAM can often look incredibly realistic, making it difficult to tell the real from the fake.

The interim chief executive of the IWF, Derek Ray-Hill, said: “The availability of this AI content further fuels sexual violence against children.

“It emboldens and encourages abusers, and it makes real children less safe. There is certainly more to be done to prevent AI technology from being exploited, but we welcome [the] announcement, and believe these measures are a vital starting point.”

Lynn Perry, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardo’s, welcomed government action to tackle AI-produced CSAM “which normalises the abuse of children, putting more of them at risk, both on and offline”.

“It is vital that legislation keeps up with technological advances to prevent these horrific crimes,” she added.

“Tech companies must make sure their platforms are safe for children. They need to take action to introduce stronger safeguards, and Ofcom must ensure that the Online Safety Act is implemented effectively and robustly.”

The new measures announced will be introduced as part of the Crime and Policing Bill when it comes to parliament in the next few weeks.