UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a four-point plan to work with Ukraine to end the war and defend the country from Russia.

The UK, France and other countries will step up their efforts in a “coalition of the willing” and seek to involve the US in their support for Ukraine, he said.

“We are at a crossroads in history today,” Starmer said after a summit of 18 leaders – mostly from Europe and including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said Ukraine felt “strong support” and the summit showed “European unity at an extremely high level not seen for a long time”.

It comes two days after a fiery exchange between the Ukrainian leader and US President Donald Trump in the White House.

“We are all working together in Europe in order to find a basis for cooperation with America for a true peace and guaranteed security,” Zelensky said after the summit.

Speaking at a news conference shortly after the meeting of leaders, Starmer said four points had been agreed:

• to keep military aid flowing into Ukraine, and to keep increasing the economic pressure on Russia
• that any lasting peace must ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty and security and Ukraine must be present at any peace talks
• in the event of a peace deal, to boost Ukraine’s defensive capabilities to deter any future invasion
• to develop a “coalition of the willing” to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee peace afterwards

Sir Keir also announced an additional £1.6bn ($2bn) of UK export finance to buy more than 5,000 air defence missiles. This comes on top of a £2.2bn loan to provide more military aid to Ukraine backed by profits from frozen Russian assets.

“We have to learn from the mistakes of the past, we cannot accept a weak deal which Russia can breach with ease, instead any deal must be backed by strength,” he said.

The prime minister did not state which countries had agreed to join this coalition of the willing, but said that those who had committed would intensify planning with real urgency.

The UK, he said, would back its commitment with “boots on the ground, and planes in the air”.

“Europe must do the heavy lifting,” he said, before adding that the agreement would need US backing and had to include Russia, but that Moscow could not be allowed to dictate terms.

“Let me be clear, we agree with Trump on the urgent need for a durable peace. Now we need to deliver together,” Sir Keir said.

When asked if the US under Trump was an unreliable ally, he said: “Nobody wanted to see what happened last Friday, but I do not accept that the US is an unreliable ally.”

• Zelensky bruised but upbeat after diplomatic whirlwind
• Was Starmer’s summit enough to sway Trump?
• Starmer announces £1.6bn missile deal for Ukraine

• Rosenberg: Putin can sit back and watch

Countries at the summit included France, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, Norway, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Finland, Italy, Spain and Canada.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that there was now an urgent need to “re-arm Europe”.

These sentiments were echoed by Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who said the meeting had seen European countries “stepping up” to make sure Ukraine has what it needs to “stay in the fight as long as it has to continue”.

After the summit, Zelensky went to Sandringham where he met King Charles III. He later spoke to reporters at a final press briefing where he said he was ready to sign a deal on minerals with the US.

Ukraine was expected to sign the deal – which would grant the US access to Ukraine’s rare mineral reserves – during Zelensky’s visit to Washington, but the Ukrainian delegation ultimately left early after a heated confrontation with Trump in the Oval Office.

Earlier on Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned a deal on minerals between the US and Ukraine could not be signed “without a peace deal” with Russia.

But when asked by the BBC about the future of the deal following the summit, Zelensky said it was ready to be signed.

“The agreement that’s on the table will be signed if the parties are ready,” he said.

Sunday’s summit concludes a hectic week of diplomacy, which included visits to Washington by French President Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir and Zelensky.

Zelensky’s meeting, however, culminated in a heated exchanged with Trump and US Vice-President JD Vance, in which the US president accused his Ukrainian counterpart of “gambling with World War Three”.

Trump has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine and has expressed trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the consternation of many of his Western allies.

The US has also begun peace talks with Russia – excluding Ukraine.

At one point, the US leader accused Ukraine of starting the war – even though it was Putin who launched a full-scale invasion of Russia’s neighbour on 24 February 2022.

YouTuber Asmita Patel’s mission was to “make India trade”.

The wildly popular financial influencer called herself the “She-Wolf of the stock market” – her take on the Hollywood film The Wolf of Wall Street. At last count, she had clocked upwards of half a million subscribers on YouTube and hundreds of thousands on Instagram. Fees for her stock trading courses ran into thousands of rupees.

Last month, the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) put a spanner in the works. It barred her and six others from trading, alleging she was selling illegal stock tips disguised as investor education and making millions of rupees in the bargain.

The regulator’s crackdown on Patel is its latest attempt to tighten the noose around social media influencers offering quick money schemes and trading advice disguised as education.

India’s post-pandemic market boom attracted a wave of new mom-and-pop investors. Online trading accounts grew from merely 36 million in 2019 to more than 150 million last year, data from the brokerage Zerodha shows.

Many of these first-time market entrants relied on social media for trading tips which, in turn, birthed a new breed of self-styled “investment gurus” or “financial influencers” like Ms Patel, promising quick money.

With only 950 registered investment advisors and 1,400 financial advisors in the country, these influencers quickly filled the void, amassing hundreds of thousands of subscribers and followers.

Most operated without regulatory registration, blurring the line between investment advice and stock market education. This prompted Sebi to crack down, banning at least a dozen influencers, including a Bollywood actor, from offering trading advice.

The regulator has also barred brokerages and market players from partnering with influencers who peddle illegal stock tips or make misleading return claims.

The regulator found Ms Patel and her husband, Jitesh, directing students and investors to trade specific stocks through their advisory firm. She allegedly used private Telegram channels, Zoom calls and courses to sell tips without mandatory registration.

Sebi acted in Ms Patel’s case after 42 participants complained of trading losses and demanded compensation. It is now moving to seize millions of rupees that Patel and her associates earned from course fees between 2021 and 2024.

As markets correct, the economy slows and regulators crack down, other influencers face a credibility test.

Thousands of angry investors have recently accused high-profile influencers of faking their success to sell trading courses and earn millions in brokerage referrals.

Sebi’s order in Ms Patel’s case too revealed she made just over $13,700 (£10,800) as trading profits in the past five years but earned more than $11.4m (£9m) by selling courses.

Ms Patel didn’t respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

While Sebi’s drive to protect small investors is well intentioned, its recent regulatory actions have drawn criticism for being delayed and lacking clarity.

The regulator has been both a “selective” and “reluctant regulator”, Sucheta Dalal, veteran financial journalist and author, told the BBC.

“It should have acted a few years ago when trading sites started paying influencers to promote their products. Now this phenomenon has become too big.”

Sumit Agrawal, a former officer with Sebi, says the regulator singled out a few as an example instead of enforcing a clear, comprehensive policy.

“Curbing unregulated stock tips is necessary, but requiring trading schools to use three-month-old data for educational purposes and not teaching practical experience of trading strategies on live market crosses into over-regulation,” he says.

Manish Singh, a chartered accountant and YouTuber with half a million followers, makes market analysis videos. He says Sebi’s new rules have created confusion over what’s allowed.

“Even genuine content creators who are trying to guide people in the right direction will lose subscribers and the monetary incentive of brand deals as confidence to work with creators is shaken,” Singh told the BBC.

Balancing this will be tough for the regulator, says Mr Agrawal.

Technology is inherently disruptive and the law is always “playing catch-up”. Sebi’s real challenge, he adds, is to monitor online content effectively without over-regulating. Notably, the Indian regulator wields broader powers than its counterparts in advanced markets like the US.

“It has extensive authority, including search and seizure powers and the ability to ban trading and freeze bank accounts without requiring a court order,” says Mr Agrawal.

A Reuters report, citing sources, says the regulator has again sought greater powers – its second request in two years – to access call records and social media chats in investigations into influencer-led market violations.

The challenge, say experts, will be to ensure it doesn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

US President Donald Trump has revealed the names of five cryptocurrencies that he says he’d like to be included in a new strategic reserve to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World”.

The market prices of the five coins he named – Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Cardano – all swiftly jumped after the announcement.

During Trump’s presidential campaign, he aggressively courted the crypto community. The previous US president, Joe Biden, had overseen a crackdown on crypto due to concerns about fraud and money laundering.

It is unclear how the new stockpile will work. More information is expected on Friday, when Trump plans to host the first Crypto Summit at the White House.

In a social media post on Sunday, Trump said he had signed an order which “directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA”.

About an hour later he added in another post: “And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve.”

The first three coins he named jumped by up to 62% on Sunday.

Bitcoin and Ethereum also jumped by more than 10% each.

• From Bitcoin to XRP: Key cryptocurrency terms and what they mean

The posts marked a new upward turn for crypto prices, which had dropped sharply since spiking after his election.

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump signed an executive to create a presidential working group tasked with proposing new crypto laws and regulations.

The order called on the group to “evaluate the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile” that could use “cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts”.

It is unclear whether creating a new national strategic stockpile would require an act of Congress.

Trump had previously been a crypto critic, telling Fox News in 2021 that Bitcoin is a “scam”.

But in recent weeks, both he and his wife Melania Trump have launched their own cryptocurrencies, leading to accusations that they are trying to profit from his White House policies.

“I’m scared,” sobs Nabila.

The 10-year-old’s life is limited to her one-bedroom home in Islamabad and the dirt road outside it. Since December she hasn’t been to her local school, when it decided it would no longer accept Afghans without a valid Pakistani birth certificate. But even if she could go to classes, Nabila says she wouldn’t.

“I was off sick one day, and I heard police came looking for Afghan children,” she cries, as she tells us her friend’s family were sent back to Afghanistan.

Nabila’s not her real name – all the names of Afghans quoted in this article have been changed for their safety.

Pakistan’s capital and the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi are witnessing a surge in deportations, arrests and detentions of Afghans, the UN says. It estimates that more than half of the three million Afghans in the country are undocumented.

Afghans describe a life of constant fear and near daily police raids on their homes.

Some told the BBC they feared being killed if they went back to Afghanistan. These include families on a US resettlement programme, that has been suspended by the Trump administration.

Pakistan is frustrated at how long relocation programmes are taking, says Philippa Candler, the UN Refugee Agency’s representative in Islamabad. The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) says 930 people were sent back to Afghanistan in the first half of February, double the figure two weeks earlier. At least 20% of those deported from Islamabad and Rawalpindi had documentation from the UN Refugee Agency, meaning they were recognised as people in need of international protection.

But Pakistan is not a party to the Refugee Convention and has previously said it does not recognise Afghans living in the country as refugees. The government has said its policies are aimed at all illegal foreign nationals and a deadline for them to leave is looming. That date has fluctuated but is now set to 31 March for those without valid visas, and 30 June for those with resettlement letters.

Many Afghans are terrified amid the confusion. They also say the visa process can be difficult to navigate. Nabila’s family believes they have only one option: to hide. Her father Hamid served in the Afghan military, before the Taliban takeover in 2021. He broke down in tears describing his sleepless nights.

“I have served my country and now I’m useless. That job has doomed me,” he said.

His family are without visas, and are not on a resettlement list. They tell us their phone calls to the UN’s refugee agency go unanswered.

The BBC has reached out to the agency for comment.

The Taliban government has previously told the BBC all Afghans should return because they could “live in the country without any fear”. It claims these refugees are “economic migrants”.

But a UN report in 2023 cast doubt on assurances from the Taliban government. It found hundreds of former government officials and armed forces members were allegedly killed despite a general amnesty.

The Taliban government’s guarantees are of little reassurance to Nabila’s family so they choose to run when authorities are nearby. Neighbours offer each other shelter, as they all try to avoid retuning to Afghanistan.

The UN counted 1,245 Afghans being arrested or detained in January across Pakistan, more than double the same period last year.

Nabila says Afghans shouldn’t be forced out. “Don’t kick Afghans out of their homes – we’re not here by choice, we are forced to be here.”

There is a feeling of sadness and loneliness in their home. “I had a friend who was here and then was deported to Afghanistan,” Nabila’s mother Maryam says.

“She was like a sister, a mother. The day we were separated was a difficult day.”

I ask Nabila what she wants to do when she’s older. “Modelling,” she says, giving me a serious look. Everyone in the room smiles. The tension thaws.

Her mother whispers to her there are plenty of other things she could be, an engineer or a lawyer. Nabila’s dream of modelling is one she could never pursue under the Taliban government. With their restrictions on girls’ education, her mother’s suggestions would also prove impossible.

Pakistan has a long record of taking in Afghan refugees. But cross-border attacks have surged and stoked tension between the two neighbours. Pakistan blames them on militants based in Afghanistan, which the Taliban government denies. Since September 2023, the year Pakistan launched its “Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan,” 836,238 individuals have now been returned to Afghanistan.

Amidst this current phase of deportations, some Afghans are being held in the Haji camp in Islamabad. Ahmad was in the final stages of the United States’ resettlement programme. He tells us when President Donald Trump suspended it for review, he extinguished Ahmad’s “last hope”. The BBC has seen what appears to be his employment letter by a Western, Christian non-profit group in Afghanistan.

A few weeks ago, when he was out shopping, he received a call. His three-year-old daughter was on the line. “My baby called, come baba police is here, police come to our door,” he says. His wife’s visa extension was still pending, and she was busy pleading with the police.

Ahmad ran home. “I couldn’t leave them behind.” He says he sat in a van and waited hours as police continued their raids. The wives and children of his neighbours continued trickling into the vehicle. Ahmad began receiving calls from their husbands, begging him to take care of them. They had already escaped into the woods.

His family was held for three days in “unimaginable conditions”, says Ahmad, who claims they were only given one blanket per family, and one piece of bread per day, and that their phones were confiscated. The Pakistani government says it ensures “no one is mistreated or harassed during the repatriation process”.

We attempt to visit inside Haji camp to verify Ahmad’s account but are denied entry by authorities. The BBC approached the Pakistani government and the police for an interview or statement, but no one was made available.

Scared of being detained or deported, some families have chosen to leave Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Others tell us they simply can’t afford to.

One woman claims she was in the final stages of the US resettlement scheme and decided to move with her two daughters to Attock, 80km (50 miles) west of Islamabad. “I can barely afford bread,” she says.

The BBC has seen a document confirming she had an interview with the IOM in early January. She claims her family is still witnessing almost daily raids in her neighbourhood.

A spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad has said it is in “close communication” with Pakistan’s government “on the status of Afghan nationals in the US resettlement pathways”.

Outside Haji camp’s gates, a woman is waiting. She tells us she has a valid visa but her sister’s has expired. Her sister is now being held inside the camp, along with her children. The officers would not let her visit her family, and she is terrified they will be deported. She begins weeping, “If my country was safe, why would I come here to Pakistan? And even here we cannot live peacefully.”

She points to her own daughter who is sitting in their car. She was a singer in Afghanistan, where a law states women cannot be heard speaking outside their home, let alone singing. I turn to her daughter and ask if she still sings. She stares. “No.”

“Bruised but motivated,” was how one of Volodymyr Zelensky’s entourage described how they had been feeling, as a small group of journalists crammed into what felt like an even smaller room at Stansted Airport.

The British state had done its best to give the Ukrainian president “all bells and whistles” when he arrived in the UK for a summit with 18 world leaders after his dressing down by Donald Trump and JD Vance on Friday night, a government source told me.

He shared an embrace with Sir Keir Starmer outside No 10, where he was greeted with spontaneously cheering crowds, and met with King Charles for tea.

But it was telling that in the 90 minutes before his plane’s wheels went up as he heads back home, Zelensky wanted to go on the record to make his arguments to the world – this time speaking only in Ukrainian – to make sure he was not misunderstood.

Having been slammed in the White House, then feted in the UK, his mood, in public at least, was not downhearted.

“If we don’t keep our spirits up, we’re letting everyone down,” he said.

He made positive noises about Sir Keir and French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to grab hold of the plans for peace before presenting them to the US, for Europe to up its game, developing its own more convincing security guarantees.

Zelensky told me he would be prepared to give Donald Trump one of his demands – to sign the minerals deal that would give the US access to someone of Ukraine’s resources.

Beyond that, despite all the pressure of a three-year war, under all the demands from the White House which, fairly or not, has the power to protect or abandon his country, on Sunday night Zelensky stood firm.

He told us it was wrong at this stage to discuss giving up territory Russia has captured, and it was too early to be “talking about lines”, which the prime minister had mentioned earlier.

He would not apologise to Trump or express regret for anything that happened in the Oval Office, which at the moment, the US president’s camp is repeatedly calling for.

Even the boss of Nato called for Zelensky to find a way to reset his relationship with the US leader.

Yet in the stuffy room at Stansted, there was not much in Zelensky’s tone that suggested he was interested in making nice.

He said he had travelled for hours to get to the White House – his visit was a mark of respect. He also said he would never “insult anybody” and the conversation as it erupted had not been a positive for anyone.

Zelensky chose his words very carefully. He tried to an extent to avoid a post-mortem of what went on. He was not rude about Trump – he barely mentioned him by name – and suggested tensions would pass.

If you watched the full horror of what happened in the Oval Office you may well not blame Zelensky for feeling it’s simply not for him to say sorry.

If you listen to him talk about what has happened to his country, you can understand why it feels so impossible at this stage for him to acknowledge compromises might have to come to end the war.

Watching him in person talk about the violence and the suffering that has been unleashed, you sense his total disbelief that anyone might not see the world his way, where Russia’s aggression means Putin must not be spared punishment, and his people should be protected at all costs.

But the reality? Neither Zelensky nor any Western leader so far has persuaded Trump to adopt that moral clarity on this war. And even if it’s painful, without a willingness to compromise, it’s hard to see an end to this war.

Zelensky is though, a master communicator – genuine, doubtless, but also a performer by trade.

“Our freedoms and values are not for sale,” a message of no surrender Zelensky wanted to communicate, along with a willingness to sign the minerals deal.

He again expressed his thanks for the backing of the US and other countries. But don’t forget right now, for all of the encounters we have with the leaders involved in public, there are so many more between them and their teams behind closed doors.

Just when our conversation was coming to an end, a suggestion that Macron and Sir Keir were proposing a month-long truce as part of their plan for peace reached my phone.

Did President Zelensky know and would he agree such a deal, I asked.

“I am aware of everything,” he joked, getting a laugh in the room, then offering handshakes and photos on his way out to the plane.

He may wanted to have had the last word at the end of a dramatic and difficult weekend. But the conversation about this conflict has many weeks, if not many months to run.

The fashion is almost as important as the films at the Oscars, and Hollywood’s finest walked the red carpet in an array of eyecatching outfits before this year’s ceremony in Los Angeles.

They included Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, who wore a shade of her character Elphaba’s green in an elaborate velvet ballgown.

Erivo missed out on the prize for best actress, but won the award for best nails.

Co-star Ariana Grande, who was nominated for best supporting actress, wore a striking champagne Schiaparelli gown.

However, it was perhaps a little impractical – so she changed before performing to open the show with Erivo.

Best actor contender Timothee Chalamet brought a splash of bright colour in a daffodil Givenchy tux.

Demi Moore radiated Hollywood style in her jewelled silver gown. She was nominated for best actress for The Substance.

She lost out to newcomer Mikey Madison, who paid homage to another sex worker fable, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in a baby pink and black column Dior gown and a Tiffany’s necklace from the 1910s – very reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn.

Emilia Perez star Selena Gomez also went for classic figure-hugging glamour.

Zoe Saldana chose a maroon duvet-dress with a jewel-encrusted bustier. She won best supporting actress for Emilia Perez.

Best actor nominee Colman Domingo has been a style icon all awards season, and said the choice of red for his custom Valentino jacket represented love.

Andrew Garfield, dapper in a brown suit, was among the Oscar presenters.

The Substance actress Margaret Qualley sported a backless Chanel gown and a backwards diamond necklace.

British star Felicity Jones, nominated for best supporting actress for The Brutalist, wore a slinky metallic custom Armani Privé creation.

More on the Oscars 2025:

• LIVE: Follow BBC coverage of the ceremony
• WINNERS: Full list of tonight’s awardees
• NOMINATIONS: Who is in the running?
• FEATURE: ‘I didn’t want to be in a bad stripper film’
• MORE: How to watch the awards season films

Jeff Goldblum, who was in Wicked, sported a floral shirt and real flowers on his white dinner jacket, and was accompanied by wife Emilie Livingston.

Monica Barbaro, nominated for best supporting actress for playing Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown, wore a Dior gown with voluminous skirt.

A Complete Unknown co-star Elle Fanning had a lace-layered Givenchy dress with long black ribbon belt.

Michelle Yeoh won best actress in 2023, and wore a blue Balenciaga gown as she joined her Wicked cast-mates this year.

Rachel Zegler, who will soon be seen in a remake of Snow White, wore a Dior gown.

British actress Raffey Cassidy, who appears in The Brutalist, had a flowing gown tied with a giant bow.

Best supporting actor nominee Jeremy Strong was on the red carpet, three decades after he watched the stars from the bleachers as a young fan.

Ana de Armas, who presented an award, wore a sleek black dress with intricate lace halter neck.

Double Oscar winner Emma Stone went for the flapper look in a shimmering Louis Vuitton dress.

Nosferatu star Lily-Rose Depp wore a sheer floral lace Chanel creation.

Miley Cyrus also brought goth glam to the red carpet in a beaded black Alexander McQueen gown with halter neck and lace gloves.

British actress Yasmin Finney, known for Heartstopper and Doctor Who, was framed by tall feathers attached to her dress.

Blackpink singer Lisa sported a dramatic flowing floor-length black-and-white jacket by Markgong with a red floral brooch. She later performed Live and Let Die in a segment paying tribute to the James Bond films.

UK singer Raye, resplendent in red, also performed in the James Bond segment.

Halle Berry sparkled in a mirrored mosaic effect design.

Edward Norton was nominated for best supporting actor for A Complete Unknown.

Wallace and Gromit joined the Hollywood stars on the red carpet after Vengeance Most Fowl was nominated for best animated film – they were accompanied by creator Nick Park (left), producer Richard Beek (centre) and co-director Merlin Crossingham.

Isabella Rossellini received her first Oscar nomination, for playing a nun in Conclave. She wore blue velvet – a nod to the name of her 1986 breakthrough film.

Four-time Oscars host Whoopi Goldberg was back as an award presenter this year.

Best actor winner Adrien Brody‘s traditional suit had bird-shaped style beading on his shoulder.

Grammy-nominated singer Omar Apollo wore a netted veil along with black-and-white spotted shirt and scarf.

Wicked actor Bowen Yang, who announced the Oscar nominations in January, opeted for floral embellishments on his jacket along with a frilled pink shirt.

Mixue Ice Cream and Tea may be unfamiliar to many of us but the Chinese firm has more outlets than McDonald’s and Starbucks.

On Monday, the bubble tea chain’s shares jumped by nearly 30% as they started trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The company raised $444m (£352m) in the financial hub’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) of the year.

Mixue’s popularity comes as many people in China are grappling with the country’s economic challenges – including a property crisis, and weak consumer and business confidence. It sells ice creams and drinks for an average of six Chinese yuan ($0.82; £0.65).

The company was founded in 1997 by Zhang Hongchao, a student at Henan University of Finance and Economics, as a part time job to help his family’s finances.

Its full name Mìxuě Bīngchéng means “honey snow ice city”, with its stores adorned with its Snow King mascot and playing the firm’s official theme tune on a loop.

According to Mixue, it has more than 45,000 stores across China and 11 other countries, including Singapore and Thailand. The firm has also said it plans to continue expanding.

That compares to “over 43,000 locations” for McDonald’s and Starbucks’ 40,576 outlets.

While it is often seen as China’s biggest bubble tea, iced drinks, and ice cream chain, it operates more like a raw-materials supplier than a traditional brand.

Unlike Starbucks, which operates more than half of its stores directly, almost all of Mixue’s outlets are run by franchisees.

Mixue’s strong market debut contrasts with its smaller rival Guming, which saw its share slide on its first day of trading in February.

Last year, shares in the owner of bubble tea chain Chabaidao also fell on their market debut.

Several Arab states and the UN have condemned Israel for blocking the entry of all humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

Egypt and Qatar said the Israeli move on Sunday violated a ceasefire deal, while UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described it as “alarming”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country acted because Hamas was stealing the supplies and using them “to finance its terror machine”.

He also accused the Palestinian group of rejecting a US proposal to extend the ceasefire in Gaza, after it expired on Saturday. Israel said it had approved the proposal.

A Hamas spokesman said Israel’s blockade was “cheap blackmail” and a “coup” against the ceasefire agreement.

The ceasefire deal halted 15 months of fighting between Hamas and the Israeli military, allowing the release of 33 Israeli hostages for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

• Who are Israeli hostages released and rescued from Gaza?
• ‘A long, long road ahead’: Gaza rebuilds from zero

In a statement on Sunday, Qatar’s foreign ministry said it “strongly condemns” the Israeli decision, describing it as “a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement” and “international humanitarian law”.

In Egypt, the foreign ministry accused Israel of using starvation as “a weapon against the Palestinian people”, the AFP news agency reported.

Both Qatar and Egypt helped to mediate the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia expressed its “condemnation and denunciation” of the Israeli aid blockade, the foreign ministry said.

Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, wrote in a post on X: “International humanitarian law is clear: We must be allowed access to deliver vital lifesaving aid.”

Netanyahu said Israel had decided to act “because Hamas steals the supplies and prevents the people of Gaza from getting them.

“It uses these supplies to finance its terror machine, which is aimed directly at Israel and our civilians, and this we cannot accept.”

Hamas has previously denied stealing humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Netanyahu also said Hamas was refusing to accept a temporary extension of the ceasefire proposed by US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff.

The first phase of the ceasefire came into force on 19 January and expired at midnight on Saturday.

Negotiations on phase two, meant to lead to a permanent ceasefire, the release of all remaining living hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, were due to have started weeks ago – but have barely begun.

There are believed to be 24 hostages alive, with another 39 presumed to be dead.

Phase three is meant to result in the return of all remaining bodies of dead hostages and the reconstruction of Gaza, which is expected to take years.

Hamas has previously said it will not agree to any extension of phase one without guarantees from the mediators that phase two will eventually take place.

As the first phase of the deal expired on Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said Israel had agreed to Witkoff’s proposal for the ceasefire to continue for about six weeks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Jewish Passover periods.

If, at the end of this period, negotiations reached a dead end, Israel would reserve the right to go back to war.

Witkoff has not made his proposal public. According to Israel, it would begin with the release of half of all the remaining living and dead hostages.

Witkoff is said by Israel to have proposed the temporary extension after becoming convinced that more time was needed to try to bridge the differences between Israel and Hamas on conditions for ending the war.

Aid agencies confirmed that no aid trucks had been allowed into Gaza on Sunday morning.

“Humanitarian assistance has to continue to flow into Gaza. It’s very essential. And we are calling all parties to make sure that they reach a solution,” Antoine Renard from the World Food Programme (WFP) told the BBC.

Thousands of trucks have entered the Gaza Strip each week since the ceasefire was agreed in mid-January.

Aid agencies have managed to store supplies, which means there is no immediate danger to the civilian population.

Also on Sunday, medics said four people had been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza. The Israeli military said it had attacked people who were planting an explosive device in the north of the territory.

Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 251 hostage.

Israel responded with an air and ground campaign in the Gaza Strip, during which at least 48,365 people have been killed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

TikTok is profiting from sexual livestreams performed by teens as young as 15, the BBC has been told.

We spoke to three women in Kenya who said they began this activity as teenagers. They told us they used TikTok to openly advertise and negotiate payment for more explicit content that would be sent via other messaging platforms.

TikTok bans solicitation but the company knows it takes place, moderators have told the BBC. TikTok takes a cut of about 70% from all livestream transactions, we have previously found.

TikTok told the BBC it has “zero tolerance for exploitation”.

Livestreams from Kenya are popular on TikTok – each night over the course of a week, we found up to a dozen in which women performers danced suggestively, watched by hundreds of people around the world.

It’s two o’clock in the morning in Nairobi, and the TikTok Lives are in full flow.

Music blasts, and users chat over each other, as a woman turns her camera on to twerk or pose provocatively. Emoji “gifts” then fill the screen.

“Inbox me for kinembe guys. Tap, tap,” the performers say on repeat. “Tap, tap,” is a phrase commonly used on TikTok, calling for viewers to “like” a livestream.

“Kinembe” is Swahili for “clitoris”. “Inbox me” instructs the viewer to send a private message over TikTok with a more explicit bespoke request – such as to watch the performer masturbating, stripping or performing sexual activities with other women.

In some of the livestreams we watched, coded sexual slang was used to advertise sexual services.

The emoji gifts act as payment for the TikTok livestreams and – because TikTok removes any obvious sexual acts and nudity – also the more explicit content sent later on other platforms. The gifts can be converted into cash.

“It’s not in TikTok’s interest to clamp down on soliciting of sex – the more people give gifts on a livestream… [the] more revenue for TikTok,” says a Kenyan former moderator we are calling Jo – one of more than 40,000 moderators TikTok says it employs globally.

• Listen to TikTok and the digital pimps: Eye Investigates – from BBC World Service

We discovered that TikTok is still taking about a 70% cut from livestream gifts. The company denied it took such a large commission after we established the same cut in a 2022 investigation.

TikTok has long been aware of child exploitation in its livestreams – having run its own internal investigation in 2022 – but ignored the issue because it “profited significantly” from them, according to the claims of a lawsuit brought by the US state of Utah last year.

TikTok responded that the lawsuit – which is ongoing – ignored the “proactive measures” it had made to improve safety.

Kenya is a hotspot for this abuse, says the charity ChildFund Kenya, compounded by a young demographic and widespread internet usage. The African continent as a whole also has poor online moderation compared to Western countries, the charity added.

Jo, who worked for Teleperformance – contracted by TikTok to provide content moderation – says moderators are given a reference guide of banned sexual words or actions. But this guide is restrictive, says Jo, and does not take into account slang or other provocative gestures.

“You can see by the way they are posing, with the camera on their cleavage and thighs [for example], that they are soliciting sex. They may not say anything, but you can see they are signposting to their [other platform] account, but there’s nothing I can do.”

Another content moderator for Teleperformance, who we are calling Kelvin, says moderation is also limited by TikTok’s increasing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI), which he says is not sensitive enough to pick up on local sexual slang.

Jo and Kelvin are among seven current and former content moderators working on TikTok content who told us their concerns. Jo says about 80% of livestreams flagged in content moderators’ feeds were sexual, or advertising sexual services, and TikTok is aware of the scale of the issue.

ChildFund Kenya and other charities have told the BBC that children as young as nine are taking part in these activities.

We have spoken to teenage girls and young women who say they are spending up to six or seven hours a night on the activity and making on average £30 a day – enough to pay for a week’s food and transport.

“I sell myself on TikTok. I dance naked. I do that because that’s where I can earn money to support myself,” says a 17-year-old we are calling Esther. She lives in a poor Nairobi neighbourhood, where 3,000 residents share toilet facilities. She says the money helps her buy food for her child, and support her mother who has been struggling to pay the rent since Esther’s father died.

She says she was 15 years old when she was introduced to TikTok Lives by a friend, who helped her bypass the age restrictions – only over-18s can use a Live. Users also need at least 1,000 followers to go live.

So TikTok users with a big following can act as digital pimps – hosting the livestreams selling sexual content. Some of them have back-up accounts, indicating they have been banned or suspended by TikTok in the past.

They appear to know how to evade detection by TikTok’s content moderators, while generating the right amount of sexual teasing to pique customers’ interest.

“When you’re dancing, move away from the camera, otherwise you’ll get blocked,” shouts a pimp to a woman twerking on screen.

In return for being hosted, the women give pimps a cut of their earnings.

The relationship can quickly turn exploitative, says Esther. She says her digital pimp knew she was under 18, and “he likes using young girls”.

He put pressure on her to earn more – meaning she needed to livestream more frequently – and took a larger cut of her earnings than she expected, she says.

“So if an emoji is sent which is 35,000ksh (£213), he takes 20,000ksh (£121) and you only get 15,000ksh (£91).”

Working for him was like being in “handcuffs” she says. ”You are the one hurting because he gets the biggest share and yet it is you who has been used.”

“Sophie”, not her real name, who says she was also 15 when she started livestreaming on TikTok, says she got requests from men in Europe for services on third-party platforms, including from one a German user who would demand that she caress her breasts and genitals for money.

Now 18, she regrets her online sex work. Some of the videos she sent to users via other platforms were then uploaded to social media without her consent, she says.

Her neighbours found out, and warned other young people not to associate with her, she told the BBC.

“They brand me as a lost sheep, and young people are told that I’ll mislead them. I am lonely most of the time.”

Some of the girls and women we spoke to said they had also been paid to meet TikTok users for sex in person, or had been pressured into having sex with their pimps.

TikTok is keen to establish itself in African markets, but is not employing enough staff to effectively monitor content, the content moderators in Kenya told us.

Kenya’s government has shown signs of acknowledging the issue – in 2023, President William Ruto held a meeting with TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew to call for better content moderation on the platform. The government said the company had agreed to tighter regulation, with a TikTok office in Kenya to help co-ordinate operations.

But the moderators we spoke to said, more than 18 months later, neither had happened.

Teleperformance replied that its moderators “work diligently to tag and flag user-generated content based on community standards and client guidelines” and that its clients’ systems are not set up to allow Teleperformance to remove offending material or report it to law enforcement authorities.

A spokesperson for TikTok told the BBC:

“TikTok has zero tolerance for exploitation. We enforce strict safety policies, including robust Live content rules, moderation in 70 languages, including Swahili, and we partner with local experts and creators, including our Sub-Saharan Africa Safety Advisory Council to continually strengthen our approach.”

The UK death rate reached a record low last year, according to exclusive analysis carried out for BBC News.

Mortality experts looked at death certificates registered in 2024 and found that deaths per head of the population had returned to pre-pandemic levels and were slightly below the previous record in 2019.

However, the new figure puts the UK back on its long-term trend of only gradual improvement.

The research was carried out by analysts from the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

“This is five years of basically flat mortality improvement, it’s pretty poor by historical standards,” said Stuart McDonald from the CMI.

There was also a “concerning” rise in the death rate at young working ages, he said.

A Department of Health spokesperson said the government was “shifting focus from sickness to prevention”.

The registered death rate in the UK steadily halved from 1974 to 2011 largely driven by improvements in tackling heart disease, including smoking prevention and medical advances.

From 2011 to 2019 the improvements drastically slowed, then changed direction during Covid as thousands more people died than normal. The first post-pandemic year of 2022 also saw high numbers of extra deaths.

To calculate the record low 2024 UK figure of 989 deaths per 100,000 people, analysts at the CMI used provisional weekly death registration figures for the four nations of the UK.

“Clearly, it’s very good news that our mortality rate is lower in 2024 than it was,” says Dr Veena Raleigh, epidemiologist at health think tank The King’s Fund. “But if you look at the broader canvas then it’s not so good.”

Although similar countries also experienced a slowdown since 2011, the UK’s has been more severe and our life expectancy is at the “bottom of the pack of comparable countries,” she says, adding that nations such as Spain returned to pre-pandemic levels by 2023.

Researchers point to a variety of reasons behind the slowdown since 2011. Some of the “low hanging fruit” of improvements in heart disease and cancer, such as the cut in smoking rates, had already happened, making further gains harder.

At the same time, the UK saw rising risk factors, including obesity, poor diet and low levels of exercise, against a backdrop of widening social inequality and pressure on the NHS.

Some academics argue that austerity cuts to public services after the 2008 financial crash had a strong impact on life expectancy, while others say it’s not possible to prove this directly.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of death in England and Wales, according to the latest official figures. Heart disease, lung disease, strokes, lung cancer also feature highly, along with flu in some years.

“Cardiovascular disease remains a leading killer in the UK,” said Prof Bryan Williams OBE, chief scientific and medical officer at the British Heart Foundation.

“The plateau we have seen in reducing the number of deaths… is a serious cause for concern, made worse by the impact of the pandemic on an already overstretched health service.”

He added that early deaths from cardiovascular disease had grown in the most deprived areas of England and called for “urgent government action” in its prevention, detection and treatment.

Overall death rates are largely a reflection of older people’s health as more than three-quarters of UK deaths happen over the age of 70.

So the main trend is driven by what is happening to people in this age group.

But the CMI found “really significant differences” at younger ages says Stuart McDonald, with a “concerning” upward trend in mortality among 20-44-year-olds.

“For this age group, death rates have actually been going up slightly, even before the pandemic. If we go back to 2011 we can see a slight increase in death rates year-on-year.”

Death numbers among this age group are much lower than at older ages and the causes tend to be different. Fewer than 20,000 people aged 20-44 die in the UK each year, about 3% of all deaths.

“External and substance-related causes are most important because often that’s what people die of in this age group,” says Antonino Polizzi, researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford.

“Things like drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths, accidents, homicides and suicides.”

The UK, particularly Scotland, has seen a rise in drug-related death rates, he says.

“These causes are usually improving for other Western European countries so we are seeing a divergent effect.”

Commenting on the overall trends at all age groups, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We inherited an NHS that was broken and we are determined to fix it.

“Through our Plan for Change we are shifting focus from sickness to prevention and targeting the drivers of ill health and catching the biggest killers earlier.

“We are creating the first smoke free generation, stopping junk food ads being targeted at children and improving detection of diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.”

The CMI took weekly provisional death registration data from the Office for National Statistics, for England and Wales, National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and calculated the 2024 rate.

The rate is age-standardised, which means that you can make comparisons with other years even though the UK population as a whole is getting older.

Changes to the death registration process may mean that more 2024 deaths are registered in 2025 than was the case for the previous year, but the CMI says this is not the main explanation for the return to the pre-pandemic trend.

A British-Israeli hostage released by Hamas after 15 months in captivity has said her scars represented “freedom, hope and strength” as she underwent a series of surgeries for her injuries.

Emily Damari, 28, was shot in the hand as she was dragged from her home in southern Israel during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, causing her to lose two fingers.

She said an operation in Gaza had left her in “intense pain” for a year and a half, and that a scar from an “open, festering wound” did not heal for months due to the conditions in which she was held.

Ahead of her treatment, Ms Damari said she had “fully embraced” the pain and injuries because of what they symbolise to her.

Ms Damari was held by Hamas in Gaza for 471 days prior to her release. She was one of the first hostages to be freed as part of a ceasefire deal struck between the Palestinian armed group and Israel after 15 months of fighting.

She was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, near the Gaza border, on the morning of Hamas’s unprecedented attack.

Ms Damari was also shot in the leg, and previously said she had only received an out-of-date bottle of iodine to treat her wounds while in captivity.

The 28-year-old said the complex operations on her hand and leg in Israel’s Sheba Medical Center had gone “much better than expected”.

She said the scar on her hand was “looking better” and that the pain, caused by “the nerves being sewn together” in Gaza, had gone.

Now, with the help of physiotherapy, she hoped to have improved use of her hand.

But Ms Damari noted that her recovery would take time and her hand would “never fully recover”.

She said the conditions in which hostages were being held were “unimaginable”.

“It was shocking but not surprising to see how emaciated some of the other hostages were when they came out,” she reflected.

“Hamas has created hell on Earth,” she said, adding that there were others whose mental and physical health was “in much worse shape” than hers. She called for the release of all remaining hostages without delay.

Ms Damari’s mother, who grew up in Beckenham in south-east London, added that her daughter had been “sewn up like a pin-cushion” in Gaza.

“It is nothing short of a miracle that she did not contract a life-threatening infection,” said Mandy Damari.

Ms Damari said she was “so excited” to visit the UK with her mother once she had healed and the remaining hostages are released.

“I have so many people that I want to thank personally for helping me get my life back.”

The pair have been invited to Downing Street by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who previously spoke to Ms Damari over the phone.

During that conversation, she said she had been held at United Nations facilities during her captivity. The UN’s Gaza agency has called for an independent investigation into the allegation.

In total, 251 hostages were taken by Hamas when it attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, and a further 1,200 people were killed.

The attack triggered a war which has devastated Gaza. Israel’s military offensive killed at least 48,365 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The first phase of a ceasefire came into force on 19 January, allowing the release of 33 Israeli and five Thai hostages in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.

JD Vance’s remarkable dressing down of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday showed the US vice-president unafraid to take centre stage as an attack dog, rather than serve like some of his predecessors as a self-effacing political understudy.

It was Vance who led the attack on Zelensky before Donald Trump joined the fray at the White House in a meeting that had been cordial until the vice-president spoke up to laud the president for seeking what he described as a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine-Russia war.

“What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about?” said Zelensky, who has been critical of direct talks between Washington and Moscow. “What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country,” Vance responded, tearing into the stunned Ukrainian leader.

“Mr President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.”

He also accused Zelensky of having campaigned on behalf of Democrats during the 2024 presidential election. The Ukrainian leader visited a munitions factory in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania last September and met Trump’s rival, Kamala Harris, at the White House.

Vance’s upbraiding of Zelensky drew broad support among Republicans.

“I was very proud of JD Vance standing up for our country,” said South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime advocate for Ukraine and a foreign policy hawk. He suggested Zelensky should resign.

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville referred to Zelensky as “that Ukrainian weasel”.

Congressman Mike Lawler of New York was more measured, saying the meeting was “a missed opportunity for both the United States and Ukraine”.

• LIVE: Zelensky embraced by Starmer in London
• How Trump-Zelensky talks collapsed in 10 minutes
• Bowen: Trump-Zelensky row signals looming crisis
• Ukranians support Zelensky
• Rosenberg: Putin can stand back and enjoy

Vance’s remarkable attack on a visiting head of state is not typical for a US vice-president.

Their job is often – but not always – to help get the president elected and then sit quietly at their boss’s side. To be a loyal lieutenant representing the president on foreign trips – standing by, one heartbeat, so they say, from the presidency.

The contrast with Trump’s first VP, the much more mild-mannered Mike Pence, could not be greater.

But Vance – who is widely seen as serving to articulate the rationale behind Trump’s foreign policy gut instincts – has long been outspokenly sceptical of US aid to Ukraine.

When he was running for the Ohio Senate in 2022, Vance told a podcast: “I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”

The vice-president derided Trump as an idiot eight years ago, before a political evolution that culminated in him becoming heir apparent to the president’s Make America Great Again movement.

Despite Vance’s popularity among conservative voters, Trump recently said in a Fox News interview that it was “too early” to tell whether the vice-president would be next-in-line to run for president in 2028.

Undeterred, Vance seems to be developing a role as a political brawler for Trump, going even further than the president in his outspoken criticism of the administration’s foes.

One common thread is that many victims of Vance’s tongue-lashing are America’s allies.

It began at the Munich Security Conference last month, a regular port of call for a US vice-president. Kamala Harris would frequently make unmemorable speeches there.

But Vance used the occasion to launch a blistering assault on the state of European democracy, accusing continental leaders of censoring free speech and failing to control immigration.

“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” he said.

The audience of politicians, generals and diplomats was horrified.

This was not the usual – and now widely accepted – argument that Europe should do more to pay for its own defence and security.

This was a full-blown ideological assault – a sign that the US under Mr Trump is not just pivoting away from Europe, shifting its security focus to China, but is also seeking to promote its own Trump-style populism on the European continent.

Not for nothing did Vance have dinner after his speech with the leadership of Germany’s far-right AfD party.

His speech provoked a backlash from European leaders, writers and academics.

Yet Vance chose to take them on online, engaging in detailed exchanges on X with several, including the historian, Niall Ferguson.

Vance accused him of “moralistic garbage”, “historical illiteracy” and – worst of all – of being a “globalist”.

And if that was not enough, Vance even chose to have a go at the UK prime minister in the Oval Office himself earlier this week.

Out of nowhere, he told Sir Keir Starmer that “there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British – of course what the British do in their own country is up to them – but also affect American technology companies and, by extension, American citizens”.

The prime minister pushed back firmly, saying “in relation to free speech in the UK, I’m very proud of our history there… We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom and it will last for a very, very long time”.

This was an echo of the criticism Vance made in Munich, railing against European regulations on artificial intelligence and social media platforms.

The aim is to tackle disinformation and hate speech that can foment unrest and radicalise people. Vance sees it as a threat to political fellow travellers and US commercial interests, especially in big tech.

Several questions present themselves. Was Vance’s attack on Zelensky premeditated, as some diplomats believe?

White House sources have told US papers it was not.

Is Vance’s new role emerging at Trump’s behest, sharing the load with Elon Musk to dish out punishment to the president’s opponents?

Or is Vance freelancing, already sketching out a role that will form the basis of an election campaign in three years’ time when Trump will not be able to stand again?

Whatever the answers to those questions, Vance is emerging as more than just Trump’s number two.

It was the first thing President Donald Trump said when Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky stepped out of his car at the White House on Friday.

“You’re all dressed up today,” Trump said as he greeted him, referring to Zelensky’s military-style black sweatshirt, adorned with the Ukrainian trident.

Zelensky has eschewed suits, button-down shirts and ties – even during important meetings with world leaders and an address to the US Congress – since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of his country began in 2022.

The Ukrainian leader has said his choice of clothing is a show of solidarity with soldiers fighting the Russian army on the war’s frontlines.

But it has long been an irritant for some critics of US aid to Ukraine, and after years as a talking point in right-wing media circles, the issue came to global attention in a spectacular way during Friday’s now infamous Oval Office meeting with Trump and US Vice-President JD Vance.

A question to Zelensky from a reporter accused him of disrespecting the occasion by not wearing a suit and this immediately changed the atmosphere in the room, according to BBC reporters present.

And a short time later, larger issues of respect and gratitude fuelled the extraordinary argument that saw the US president and vice-president upbraid their European ally in front of the world’s TV cameras.

• European leaders back Zelensky after Trump clash
• How the Trump-Zelensky talks collapsed in 10 fiery minutes
• Zelensky wants US to ‘stand more firmly’ on Ukraine’s side

When the meeting was opened up to questions from reporters, one came from Brian Glenn, chief White House correspondent for conservative cable network Real America’s Voice.

“Why don’t you wear a suit?” Glenn asked. “You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit.

“Do you own a suit?” he continued. “A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the dignity of this office.”

The aggressive questioning marked the moment when the Ukrainian president – who until then seemed to be having a diplomatic, even friendly, conversation with Trump – first appeared tired and irritated.

“I will wear costume after this war will finish,” Zelensky replied. (The word “suit” can be translated into Ukrainian as “kostyum”.)

The Ukrainian president then made a verbal jab at the reporter.

“Maybe something like yours, yes. Maybe something better, I don’t know,” he said, to laughter in the room. “Maybe something cheaper.”

• ‘Trump and Vance were so rude’: Ukrainians react to disastrous White House meeting
• Most Republicans laud Trump after Zelensky showdown, but some express dismay

Glenn’s question gave voice to a longstanding gripe in the world of Make America Great Again (Maga) politics, where some – like JD Vance – argue that the Ukrainian leader does not seem to be showing enough gratitude or respect to the US for three years of military aid.

A former local TV reporter in Dallas who became better known in conservative circles for his work at another pro-Trump channel, Right Side Broadcasting Network, Glenn is an unabashed Trump fan. Last year he told Politico that he was “100 percent behind President Trump and the America First agenda.”

He is also reportedly dating Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who is one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters.

Glenn was in the room as part of the White House press pool, a group of reporters which covers the president at official events on behalf of the wider media.

The Trump administration took control of the pool this week from an association of journalists, saying it would give more access to “new voices”. It has continued to bar the Associated Press from the pool.

Real America’s Voice, which was founded in 2020, is a relatively obscure right-wing cable news outlet, one of several pro-Trump channels that have cropped up in recent years. Its guests and hosts have spread conspiracy theories about a variety of subjects, including the 2020 presidential election, the 2021 Capitol riot and QAnon.

Its show line-up includes some big names from the Maga world, including Trump’s former chief advisor Steve Bannon, classic rocker turned political activist Ted Nugent and Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative Turning Point group. The BBC contacted the network for comment.

After the Oval Office spat, Glenn posted online that he had “extreme empathy for the people of Ukraine” but said that Zelensky’s lack of a suit demonstrated “his inner disrespect” for the US.

Zelensky’s defenders online posted pictures of Winston Churchill wearing casual clothes during World War Two.

Pictures from the period show the British leader wearing jumpsuit-like clothes to a meeting with then-US President Franklin Roosevelt, and he also wore military uniforms and suits during conflabs with world leaders.

After Glenn’s question, the news conference swiftly moved on, to a query about whether the US would send more arms to Ukraine. At the end of an answer Trump referred back to the suit question.

“I do like your clothing,” he quipped, and pointing to Zelensky he said, “I think he’s dressed beautifully.”

Behind the scenes, Trump’s attitude may have been slightly different, according to reports. US news outlet Axios reported that before the meeting, White House staffers had requested that Zelensky wear a suit and were offended when he did not.

However, the two world leaders continued taking questions, more or less cordially, for nearly another 20 minutes before the extraordinary argument broke out, after an interruption by the US vice-president, JD Vance.

Vance repeatedly brought up “respect” – referring to Zelensky as “Mr President” as the Ukrainian leader called him “JD” – and said: “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media right now”.

The discussion went downhill from there. A suit-less Zelensky was soon ejected from the White House, as relations between the two countries reached a new wartime low.

Most Republicans have backed US President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance following their public row in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Senator Lindsey Graham suggested Zelensky should resign, adding that Friday’s altercation had imperilled future US military support for Kyiv, but another Republican senator accused Trump of “embracing Putin”.

Zelensky was asked to leave the White House without signing a deal with the US that would have jointly developed Ukraine’s valuable minerals.

On Saturday, Zelensky enjoyed a much warmer reception from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Downing Street, a day ahead of a meeting with King Charles.

The Ukrainian leader also made a plea on Saturday to the US to “stand more firmly” with Kyiv, adding that he was ready to sign the minerals deal with Trump, but wished for defined security guarantees.

Trump has suggested that Ukraine should concede territory to Russia to end its invasion and has opened peace talks between Washington and Moscow.

The American president has also warned Russia that he will impose high tariffs and further sanctions if President Vladimir Putin fails to end the “ridiculous” war.

Before leaving for Florida after the Oval Office clash with Zelensky, Trump told reporters that the Ukrainian leader had “overplayed his hand”.

“Either we’re going to end it or let him fight it out, and if he fights it out, it’s not going to be pretty,” Trump said. “Because without us, he doesn’t win.”

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who was in the Oval Office during the meeting, told Breitbart News on Saturday that Zelensky was too focused on fact checking and compared the Ukrainian leader to an “ex-girlfriend”.

“It’s like an ex-girlfriend that wants to argue everything that you said nine years ago, rather than moving the relationship forward,” Waltz said.

While Democrats said they were horrified by the showdown with a US ally, the majority of Republicans in Washington backed Trump.

• Live coverage and analysis
• Putin can afford to sit back and watch events unfold

“What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful, and I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again,” said Senator Graham, a longtime advocate for Ukraine aid and a foreign policy hawk, as he left the White House on Friday.

“The question for me is, ‘is he redeemable in the eyes of Americans?’ Most Americans witnessing what they saw today would not want Zelensky to be their business partner, including me, and I’ve been to Ukraine nine times since the war started.”

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville posted on X on Saturday: “The best thing President Trump has done so far is kick that Ukrainian weasel out of the WH.”

• Trump-Zelensky row signals looming crisis between Europe and US
• How the Trump-Zelensky talks collapsed in 10 fiery minutes

Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty posted on X: “The United States of America will no longer be taken for granted.”

But other Republican members of Congress were not so enthused.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican who is something of a political thorn in Trump’s side, posted on X on Saturday: “I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin.”

Republican Rep Mike Lawler of New York called the meeting “a missed opportunity for both the United States and Ukraine”.

Fellow Rep Don Bacon of Nebraska said it was “a bad day for America’s foreign policy”.

“Ukraine wants independence, free markets and rule of law. It wants to be part of the West. Russia hates us and our Western values. We should be clear that we stand for freedom,” he said in a statement.

Neither Republican directly criticised Trump or Vance, who first quarrelled with Zelensky during the meeting.

Democrats, meanwhile, lambasted the White House.

“Trump and Vance are doing Putin’s dirty work,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Senator Chris Coons said Zelensky deserved better.

“We owe him our thanks for leading a nation fighting on the front lines of democracy – not the public berating he received at the White House,” he posted on X.

Whether or not President Volodymyr Zelensky was ambushed or should have been more diplomatic in the Oval Office, it was a disastrous visit for Ukraine.

For those watching in Kyiv, the future of their country hung in the balance.

“It was an emotional conversation, but I understand our president,” Yulia tells me next to Kyiv’s golden-domed St Sofia’s cathedral.

“Maybe it wasn’t diplomatic, but it was sincere. It’s about life, we want to live.”

Yulia reflects a political pattern in Ukraine: the more the country is attacked, the more unity there is.

Before the full-scale invasion in 2022, President Zelensky’s trust rating was 37%. Afterwards, it rocketed to 90%.

Before Donald Trump returned to office at the start of 2025, it was 52%. After he blamed Ukraine for starting the war, it hit 65%.

“They [Donald Trump and JD Vance] were so rude,” says 30-year-old Andriy. “They don’t respect the people of Ukraine.”

“It looks like Washington supports Russia!” observes Dmytro, 26.

You wonder what the last 24 hours has done to President Zelensky’s popularity.

“When the situation becomes worse, we have another rallying around the flag,” explains Volodymyr Paniotto, director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology which conducted some of the polling.

World leaders’ popularity often wanes over time, and Mr Paniotto says President Zelensky has not been immune.

His ratings especially took a hit with Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive of 2023, and his sacking a year later of the popular commander in chief of his armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.

But Donald Trump’s new, transactional, often-hostile approach to Ukraine has forced the country to unite and brace for further uncertainty.

Not least with his warming to Russia.

The initial reaction was that of shock,” says opposition MP Inna Sovsun.

“It was difficult to watch a president who’s been a victim of Russian aggression being attacked by the leader of the free world,” she adds. “It’s painful.”

Ukrainian TV channels reported yesterday’s scenes in a more measured way: that a minerals deal between Ukraine and the US was simply not signed.

Perhaps, given it didn’t include the American security guarantees that Kyiv and Europe desperately want, it wasn’t as tantalising for Zelensky as had been suggested.

“We need to find stronger allies in Europe and Canada, Australia and Japan, who’ve all been supporting us,” argues Sovsun.

There are clearly deep feelings of resentment between Washington and Kyiv. However, Sovsun doesn’t think Ukraine should give up on negotiations, but should instead reframe the debate.

“It’s important to find the right mediator,” she says. “Someone Trump can recognise, but someone we trust too. Someone like Georgia Meloni of Italy.

“Under no circumstances should we agree to calls for the president to resign, and I’m saying that as an opposition MP. That defies the very idea of democracy.”

• Follow live coverage and analysis
• Steve Rosenberg: Vladimir Putin can afford to sit back and watch events unfold
• Jeremy Bowen: Trump-Zelensky row signals looming crisis between Europe and US
• After White House clash, Starmer faces decision about who he can trust
• How the Trump-Zelensky talks collapsed in 10 fiery minutes

President Zelensky hoped his Washington visit would lead to a deeper co-operation with the US which could, in turn, bring a lasting peace. Something Sovsun thinks nobody wants more than Ukrainians.

“We are the ones who are suffering, it’s extremely difficult to live under this stress,” she adds. “Just this morning, I read that my friend’s son was killed, his second son in this war.”

What the MP and countless Ukrainians don’t want is a rushed settlement. Attempted ceasefires with Russia in 2014 and 2015 only allowed Moscow to prepare for its full scale-invasion years later.

Ukrainian MP Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze anticipated a second Trump presidency being less sympathetic to her country’s cause, but not to this extent.

“This mineral agreement does not oblige America to help us militarily, or to upscale or continue the support it’s currently giving,” she says.

While there is still parliamentary unity behind President Zelensky and suspended elections, MPs like Klympush-Tsyntsadze have been calling for more involvement in negotiations.

Her European Solidarity Party’s chairman is former President Petro Poroshenko, a fierce rival to Zelensky.

He was even recently sanctioned by Ukraine’s leader over what Ukraine’s security service labelled as “threats to national security” and “creating obstacles to economic development”. Mr Poroshenko said it was “politically motivated”.

Despite this, the former president said he recognised Zelensky’s legitimacy as leader, to combat both American and Russian claims to the contrary.

As sirens wail and missiles slam into cities, this is a war still raging, despite all of the talk of ending it.

Russia is not backing down on its demands for Ukraine’s political capitulation and the complete control of four regions.

“This war is not for some area, town or treeline in the east,” says Taras Chmut, head of the Come Back Alive foundation.

After Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the organisation was set up to crowdsource military equipment for fighting Ukrainian troops.

“This is the war that will define the world order for future decades. Whether this world will still exist depends on how this war goes,” he says.

As he ruthlessly pursues his “America First” policy, Trump wants Europe to provide security on a continent where he is less willing to do so. But Europe is divided on this, and where there is agreement it is that peace is not possible without the US as a safety net.

“Europe and the world once again want to close their eyes and believe in a miracle, but miracles do not happen,” says Mr Chmut.

“Countries must accept the reality of the situation and do something about it. Otherwise, you will be the one to disappear next – after Ukraine.”

“Dangerous, demeaning, and immoral.” That’s how Donald Trump has described diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes which aim to boost workers from diverse backgrounds.

Upon returning to the White House, he ordered the shutdown of all federal DEI initiatives, urging the private sector to follow suit.

And many have, with the likes of Walmart, McDonald’s, Meta and Amazon ditching or scaling back their diversity policies.

Corporations, according to Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, have been “neutered” and need more “masculine energy”.

Some UK employees fear Trump’s rhetoric could normalise intolerant attitudes in the workplace, even if DEI policies remain intact.

“Someone that is at the top saying things like that sets a precedent that it’s okay to do so,” says Chloe, who works at a London-based finance company.

Stefan Hoops, the head of Deutsche Bank’s investment arm, also said he feared Trump’s language would “lead us straight back to the macho ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ era” and called on companies to ensure equal opportunities.

He posted his thoughts on LinkedIn alongside a picture of him lifting weights, saying, “I figured a masculine-looking picture would balance my anti-anti-woke observations.”

But so far there is little evidence of UK firms changing their diversity policies.

In fact, the UK arm of accountancy giant Deloitte has signalled a split with its US counterpart by saying it remains “committed to our diversity goals”, not long after staff in the US were told there were plans to “sunset” their DEI goals.

In the UK, the Equality Act protects against discrimination and since 2017, organisations with over 250 employees must report their gender pay gap.

In addition, any company listed on the stock exchange is required to publish board diversity data against set targets, including that at least 40% of board members should be women.

Pavita Cooper is the UK chair of the 30% Club, which campaigns to increase gender diversity in senior management.

She says the UK’s legal system will help protect DEI policies.

“In the US, they are talking a lot about affirmative action and ‘woke ideology’. In the UK, we focus a lot more on positive action,” Ms Cooper says.

She explains that affirmative action involves quotas, while positive action encourages participation without preferential treatment, such as through scholarships or mentoring.

Martha Lane Fox, who has worked to promote diversity in the tech sector, believes the UK has an opportunity to “lean into diversity – stand apart from the US”.

She points out the “irony” of Elon Musk, tasked by Donald Trump with slashing federal government spending, standing in the Oval Office with his young son as he dismantled DEI programmes.

“Imagine if everyone had such casual and extraordinary opportunities for childcare, what could we unlock?”

However, Baroness Lane Fox, who is chair of the British Chambers of Commerce business group, says the UK still has “a long way to go” in terms of representation, pointing out that there is only one disabled person on the board of a FTSE 100 company and very few female executives on boards.

The CIPD, the professional body for HR, notes some change to DEI (also known as EDI) policies, with companies such as BT dropping diversity measures from its managers’ bonus scheme.

“We’re seeing some UK organisations reposition or re-evaluate their EDI initiatives and metrics,” says Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD.

“Some of this will be in response to what is happening in America but it’s a shift that has been building for a while.

“The current climate – social and political – is making organisations look at what they’re doing and why, how they’re measuring the impact of these initiatives, and the difference their EDI policies are making to business outcomes.”

A spokesperson for BT said the changes do not represent a rollback on the company’s EDI commitments.

In the City, the financial regulator had proposed collecting diversity data for all financial services staff, but in May its chief executive told MPs that it was not “prioritising moving forward on that at this stage”.

The data gathering plans had been criticised by some Conservative MPs as well as City bosses privately as being costly and little more than a box-ticking exercise.

In the US even tech giant Apple, which points to its “north star of dignity and respect for everyone”, has been forced to admit that it may need to make some changes to its policies “as the legal landscape around this issue evolves”.

Last month, consulting giant Accenture also cited the “evolving landscape” as it said it was ending employee representation goals and career development programmes for “people of specific demographic groups”.

The company, which employs around 11,000 people in the UK, said the change in its policies and practices would apply “globally, and not just in the US”.

It also noted that it had “largely achieved” its diversity goals.

Similarly, investment bank Goldman Sachs told the BBC earlier this month that it had axed an internal diversity rule that barred it from advising all male, all white boards on company flotations because it was no longer needed.

Ann Cairns, who is the chair of Crown Agents Bank and Trust Management Finance Group, and also sits on the board of London Business School, says she isn’t surprised that DEI policies are under attack.

“We swing back and forth on this topic depending on who is in power and their influence. Some bigger companies are being driven by America but we will have to wait and see what happens.”

As a Ryanair flight from London approached Vilnius, Lithuania, on 17 January, its descent was suddenly aborted. Just minutes from touching down, the aircraft’s essential Global Positioning System (GPS) suffered an unexplained interference, triggering an emergency diversion.

The Boeing 737 MAX 8-200 had already descended to around 850ft (259m) when the disruption occurred. Instead of landing, the plane was forced to climb back into the sky and divert nearly 400km (250 miles) south to Warsaw, Poland. Lithuanian air authorities later confirmed the aircraft had been affected by “GPS signal interference”.

This was not an isolated incident. Over the last three months of 2024, more than 800 cases of GPS interference were recorded in Lithuanian airspace. Estonia and Finland have also raised concerns, accusing Russia of deploying technology to jam satellite navigation signals near Nato’s eastern flank – though the country has denied that. Last March the then Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, was on a plane that had its GPS signal jammed while flying close to Russian territory.

The threat of GPS jamming extends beyond aviation. Without GPS, our lives would grind to a halt: in 2017, a government report stated that systematic GPS jamming could bring the UK’s financial, electricity and communications systems to a standstill.

To pinpoint our exact location, we need to know the exact time. GPS works by users receiving signals from multiple satellites. The length of time it takes each signal to reach a device is used to determine exactly where on Earth we are.

Very large atomic clocks communicate directly with the satellites, allowing them to know the time to within 100 billionths of a second, and this precision timing is key to a variety of economic activities around the world, including communication systems, electrical power grids, and financial networks.

The potential cost of losing GPS has been put at £1.4bn each day – no wonder GPS jamming is on the government’s national risk register as one of the UK’s greatest threats.

With this in mind, a group of British scientists – dubbed the “Time Lords” – has been asked to come up with a solution.

The plan is simple: to develop a more secure alternative to GPS by enabling the portable use of new atomic clocks, rather than relying on signals from satellites in space that can be jammed. But its execution is fiendishly difficult: to harness the power of the atom, develop a new type of clock, and even change the way we measure time itself – all within a few years.

In recent months, the UK government has set up research initiatives to tackle the threat of GPS jamming. But turning prototypes into robust devices that could one day be incorporated into our phones is an enormous undertaking – and the need for the new technology is getting ever more urgent.

The challenge can be compared to the invention of a portable clock for marine navigation by John Harrison in the 18th Century, which solved the so-called longitude problem, allowing a new era of trade and a golden age of exploration.

Three hundred years on, researchers are once again racing to perfect a new clock to solve the GPS problem – and the impact could be at least as transformative.

“History shows that each time we have an improvement in the ability to measure time, new applications follow to make things possible that people didn’t dream of before,” says Dr Helen Margolis, head scientist (time and frequency) of the UK’s timing laboratories at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in south-west London.

In 1967, the world’s timekeepers, an intergovernmental body called the General Conference on Weights and Measures, agreed to define time using atomic clocks, rather than by the Earth’s rotation.

The switch transformed our world just as radically as Harrison’s clock, laying the foundation for GPS and similar space-based systems. These provided precise timekeeping from atomic clocks on satellites, which allowed rapid and huge volumes of communications, computation, and transactions to be carried out everywhere in the world near instantaneously, as well as more precise navigation.

The search for a new portable alternative to GPS involves a field called quantum technologies, finding ways to manipulate atoms. Much of the buzz around the subject in recent years has been about the development of powerful quantum computers which, the narrative goes, will make our fastest supercomputers seem like abacuses by comparison.

But a quieter revolution to improve navigation and measurement of time has flown under the radar, and it is in this field that quantum technology is set to make its earliest impact, according to Prof Douglas Paul of the UK Hub for Quantum Enabled Position Navigation and Timing (QEPNT), which was set up last December by the government to develop these new devices.

“We are expecting to see some sort of navigation system within two to five years in the marketplace,” he says. “So, some of these technologies are already quite advanced.”

Prof Paul and his quantum scientists are working with Dr Margolis and her fellow researchers at NPL, who have been given the “Time Lords” nickname by other horologists. In 1955, the NPL invented the first atomic clock of the sort that is used today, based on the frequency of radiation from an atom of the element caesium.

GPS and other satellite navigation systems reset their own clocks by touching base with these more accurate clocks on the ground. For the alternative to GPS, the scientists will need a new type of atomic clock that can eventually be miniaturised and robust enough to work in everyday situations, rather than the carefully controlled conditions inside a lab.

The NPL researchers are perfecting a so-called optical clock to achieve this, which is 100 times more accurate than the most accurate caesium clocks used today. It looks as if it might be part of Dr Who’s Tardis and is stimulated with laser light rather than microwaves.

When optical clocks take over from caesium ones as the timepieces that determine Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), the way the passage of time is defined will also have to change, according to Dr Margolis.

“The international community has drawn up a road map for the redefinition of the second,” she tells BBC News.

The NPL’s immediate hope is to have a national network by 2030, connecting four atomic clocks across the UK that businesses can plug into for secure accurate timekeeping and for developing new innovative applications that harness ultra-fast time.

Eventually, critical systems in the UK in finance, telecommunications, energy, utilities and national security could switch over – though that would take longer. “To convert everything is at least a decade away, and probably significantly longer,” says Prof Paul.

Yet the stakes are high, and the alternative this new technology offers is significant. “The US Department of Defence might decide to stop supporting GPS, it could be taken out in a conflict or by an accident,” he says. “There is no guarantee GPS … will always be available. With all the jamming and spoofing [where a criminal gives a false signal with an incorrect time and location], you cannot always guarantee you have an assured signal, so if you cannot get or trust the information then people will stop using it.”

While this type of research is taking place around the world, it’s being led by the UK. When an aircraft with the technology on board carried out a test flight in May 2024, the then science minister Andrew Griffith described it as “further proof of the UK as one of the world leaders on quantum”. According to the government, it was the first test of this type of technology in the UK on an aircraft in flight, and “the first such flight worldwide that has been publicly acknowledged”.

By carrying a group of atoms cooled to -273C on the plane itself, rather than relying on an external signal, the technology can’t be interfered with by jamming.

But the problem is that the equipment is still too large to be used routinely on planes.

Henry White, part of the team from BAE Systems that worked on the test flight, told BBC News that he thought the first application could be aboard ships, “where there’s a bit more space”.

Quantum clocks, gyroscopes and accelerometers are large, bulky and incredibly expensive, with an accurate quantum clock costing around £100,000. Yet military research is allowing the creation of smaller, better and cheaper systems.

GPS jamming is causing problems for the British military in conflict zones such as Ukraine. One of the main challenges faced by scientists at the government’s Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) is making the sensitive technology work not just in the real world, which in the Navy’s case is often in very choppy seas, but also in the harshest of environments; the battlefield, according to a lead researcher at the DSTL, who has to remain anonymous for security reasons.

“We are harnessing atoms,” she points out.

“You have vibrations, you have pressure changes, you have temperature changes, and you have environments which have all of these different variables going on while you are trying to manipulate the properties of light. So, it’s precision that is needed”.

The ultimate aim for some of those working on this new technology is for each of us to have the equivalent of our own personal GPS system incorporated into our phones.

This would comprise a miniaturised optical clock as well as a tiny gyroscope, so we know which direction we are going in, and a device called an accelerometer, which will tell us how fast we are going.

QEPNT has been set up by the government to shrink the devices on to a chip, making them robust enough for everyday life and affordable for everyone.

That process isn’t going to happen soon, though. “This is many decades away from happening for all critical national infrastructure across the UK,” says Prof Paul.

Quantum clock researchers are facing exactly the same problems experienced by John Harrison when he was developing his portable marine clock in the 18th Century. Mr Harrison had to build a clock whose timekeeping was not affected by changes in temperature, pressure or humidity, and was able to function in a constantly moving ship – his greatest difficulty was to make it small.

But it turned out that his difficulty was also the path to his solution. The smaller he made his clocks, the more robust he found they were at sea.

“Harrison found that it was it easier to isolate them from all those external influences,” says another DSTL scientist.

“As was the case 300 years ago, as we make these systems smaller, it will become easier to control the environment around them and isolate them from the effects of vibration, temperature, pressure, and humidity.”

Prominent 18th-Century scientists, including Sir Isaac Newton, thought that navigation with marine clocks was impossible. But eventually Mr Harrison, a simple clockmaker and carpenter, proved his more illustrious colleagues wrong.

Bringing prototype optical clocks first into the battlefield and then eventually into everyday life is just as challenging. Will the scientists working on the problem be able to find solutions fast enough?

One day we might have them in our pockets, but the more urgent aim is to get them in a state where we can safely fly, as incidents of GPS jamming on planes and critical computer systems increase. The Time Lords and quantum scientists hope to continue the humble clockmaker’s legacy – transforming the measurement of time, and protecting the UK’s critical systems from GPS attack.

“He loved being an actor, and hated all the stuff that surrounds being an actor.”

That, for film director Barry Sonnenfeld, is how he’ll remember Gene Hackman, who has died at the age of 95.

The endless hours in hair and makeup, repeated takes, and studio notes all frustrated Hackman, Sonnenfeld told BBC News.

So too did actors who showed up not knowing their lines – notably John Travolta, who Hackman clashed with on the set of 1995 film Get Shorty, which Sonnenfeld directed.

In the days since the news of Hackman’s death, I’ve been speaking to people here in Los Angeles and beyond, who, like Sonnenfeld, knew and worked with him.

What’s immediately clear is how seriously Hackman took acting, and how meticulously he dealt with scripts.

But what’s also clear is that he was wary of the trappings of Hollywood.

• What we know about the death of Gene Hackman

Hackman, a two-time Oscar winner, died alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa, 65, and their dog at his home in New Mexico. No cause of death was given, but police said the situation was “suspicious enough” to merit investigation.

Officials said on Friday that evidence points to Hackman having been dead since 17 February, 10 days before the couples’ bodies were found.

In LA, Hackman’s face is everywhere on television bulletins and on newspapers.

His death was all anyone was talking about as stars gathered for pre-Oscars parties.

I was at one of those events on Thursday night, where the American actor John C Reilly told me that he expected the Academy to commemorate Hackman on Sunday. “I don’t see how you could have the Oscars without mentioning a great like him who’s passed.”

For Sonnenfeld and for the Irish director John Moore – who directed Hackman in 2001’s Behind Enemy Lines – it was Hackman’s way of dealing with scripts that demonstrated his brilliance. He would remove all of the scriptwriter’s notes about how his character should deliver his lines.

“Because he didn’t want any screenwriter to tell him how he was supposed to feel at that moment,” Sonnenfeld said.

“So he had unique cut and pasted scripts that had no information from the writer about anything, because he wanted to make those choices, not the writer.”

Moore recalls a similar incident from the very first time he filmed with Hackman.

“He was just quietly sitting there, taking script pages out, cutting them up, removing extraneous stuff like scene descriptions, and then sticking them back onto blank pages,” he said.

He said Hackman told him: “Acting is my job, you do the rest.”

“It put the fear of God into me,” Moore said, laughing.

“It was essentially him saying: ‘I don’t need anything, as I’m that good. You better bring your A-game, as I’m bringing mine.'”

It wasn’t just superfluous studio notes that bothered Hackman.

“He had this conflict in that he was this brilliant actor but he hated the tropes of what it took to act in movies,” said Sonnenfeld.

“[He] hated putting on makeup. The putting on of wardrobe. The wardrobe person after takes, taking their lip brush and rubbing down their wardrobe. The makeup person recombing his hair while he’s talking to me,” he said.

“All that sort of fussy hair and makeup and all that stuff, I think that drove him crazy.”

Nor did he often want to socialise after filming, said Moore.

“I’d try and have a drink with him after we’d shoot, and go up to the minibar,” he said.

“He’d have one, that was it. [Betsy] would give him that look, and off it would be to bed. And he was in great shape in the morning as a result.”

“For Gene, it was all about the acting,” added Sonnenfeld. “End of story. Get me out of here as fast as possible.”

Hackman could be “a hard actor” to work with, said Sonnenfeld. “He suffered no fools.”

In Get Shorty, Hackman starred alongside Travolta, who plays a Miami mobster sent to collect a debt.

“Gene was a consummate actor, both technically and artistically. So he came to set every day knowing his lines,” Sonnenfeld said.

“John came to set not knowing his lines, probably not having read the script the night before.”

• Obituary: One of Hollywood’s greatest ‘tough guys’
• Pilates, painting and bike rides: Gene Hackman’s life in Santa Fe

That resulted in a showdown on the first day of filming.

Sonnenfeld recalls Travolta – who he describes as “charming but not self aware” – asking Hackman what he had done on the weekend.

Hackman responded: “Nothing except learn the lines,” to which Travolta replied, “Well that’s a waste of a weekend,” according to Sonnenfeld.

As filming went on, Hackman grew “angrier and angrier” at his co-star not knowing his lines.

Sonnenfeld said he let Hackman take out his rage on him.

“For the next 12 weeks, he would yell at me whenever John didn’t know his lines,” he said.

“But he’s great in a movie. And I knew he was never really mad at me.”

Travolta reportedly wasn’t the only one to rub Hackman the wrong way.

He reportedly clashed with others, including The Royal Tenenbaums’ director Wes Anderson.

Later, and possibly coincidentally, Hackman named one of his novels Escape from Andersonville.

“Gene was really rough on Wes,” recalled Bill Murray, who co-starred with Hackman in the hit 2001 film, in an interview with the Associated Press.

“He was a tough nut, Gene Hackman. But he was really good.”

Moore, for his part, said he didn’t ever feel Hackman was difficult to work with.

“He was patient and relentlessly, flawlessly professional,” he said.

“My memories are of him laughing and smiling, and telling very funny jokes.”

Moore admitted Hackman might have become irritated with anyone on set who made their role bigger than it was.

“So I could see how he might be funny about actors who were peacocking themselves,” he said.

“But again it goes back to the point – he just really wanted to make the films exceptional.”

Hackman retired from acting in 2004 and from then on lived a quiet life in New Mexico with his wife.

“I suspect that one of the reasons he moved to Santa Fe, again, great outdoors and as far away from Hollywood as you can get,” said Sonnenfeld.

In 2008, Hackman gave a rare interview with Reuters, in which he was asked if he missed acting.

He responded by saying the business was, for him, “very stressful”.

“The compromises that you have to make in films are just part of the beast, and it had gotten to a point where I just didn’t feel like I wanted to do it anymore.”

But, he added: “I miss the actual acting part of it, as it’s what I did for almost 60 years.

“And I really loved that.”

In Union County, South Carolina, the sprawling cotton mills that once put bread on the table for many are long gone. Union is also what is termed a “food desert”, where many residents live far from the nearest supermarket. So in 2016, local non-profit director Elise Ashby began working with farmers to deliver discounted boxes of farm-fresh produce across the county, where 30% of the population is black and roughly 25% live in poverty.

To fund this, Ms Ashby first relied on her own savings and then some small-scale grants. But in 2023, the Walmart Foundation – the philanthropic arm of one of America’s largest corporations – awarded her over $100,000 (£80,000), as part of a $1.5m programme to fund “community-based non-profits led by people of colour”.

“I cried a little bit,” she says. “It was just one of those times where, like, somebody actually sees what you’re doing.”

Two years ago, this was the kind of programme that attracted sponsorship from major companies across America, as the country grappled with racism past and present following the murder of George Floyd, a black man suffocated under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer during an arrest in 2020.

But now, those same companies are pulling back. Walmart announced in November that it was ending some of its diversity initiatives, including plans to close its Center for Racial Equity, which supported Ms Ashby’s grant.

Corporations from Meta and Google to Goldman Sachs and McDonald’s have all announced similar changes as part of a larger retreat from diversity, equity and inclusion programmes (DEI) across the corporate landscape.

The moment represents a stark cultural shift, fuelled in part by fears of lawsuits, investigations, and social media backlash, as well as relentless pressure from the new president of the United States.

Since assuming office in January, Donald Trump has aggressively sought to “terminate DEI” and “restore merit-based opportunity” in the US. He has directed the federal government to end its DEI programmes and investigate private companies and academic institutions thought to be engaged in “illegal DEI”.

In the early days of his second term, the Veterans Affairs department has closed its DEI offices, the Environmental Protection Agency has placed nearly 200 employees who worked in its civil rights office on paid leave and Trump has fired the top military general, a black man whom his defence secretary had previously said should be fired because of his involvement in “woke” DEI.

At first sight, it may appear that the US’s experiment with policies designed to improve outcomes for specific racial and identity-based groups is finished. But some experts suggest there’s another possibility, that some such efforts will continue – but in a different guise, one more suited to the political mood of a country that has just elected a president who has pledged a war on “woke”.

Programmes resembling DEI first emerged in earnest in the US in the 1960s, in the wake of the civil rights movement that fought to protect and expand the rights of black Americans.

Under names like “affirmative action” and “equal opportunity”, initially their aim was to reverse the damaging effects of centuries of enslavement of African Americans and decades of discrimination under “Jim Crow” laws that enforced racial segregation.

As the movement evolved, promoting the rights of women, the LGBT community, and other racial and ethnic groups, use of the terms “diversity”, “equity” and “inclusion” became more widespread.

DEI programmes in the corporate world and government agencies have often focused on hiring practices and policies emphasising diversity as a commercial benefit. Their supporters say they aim to address disparities affecting people from a range of backgrounds, though a significant emphasis tends to be on race.

The programmes saw a huge upswing in 2020 during the social unrest of the Black Lives Matter movement. For example, Walmart committed $100m over five years to its racial equity centre. Wells Fargo appointed its first chief diversity officer; Google and Nike already had theirs in place. After adjusting their hiring practices, companies listed on the S&P 100 added more than 300,000 jobs – 94% of which went to people of colour, according to Bloomberg.

But almost as quickly as the pendulum swung left, a conservative backlash began. For Stefan Padfield, executive director of conservative think-tank the National Center for Public Policy Research, DEI programmes are based on a premise that “divides people on the basis of race and sex”.

More recently, these arguments that programmes intended to combat discrimination were themselves discriminatory, particularly against white Americans, have been made with increasing force. Training sessions emphasising concepts like “white privilege” and racial bias have drawn particular scrutiny.

The roots of this opposition took hold in conservative opposition to critical race theory (CRT), an academic concept which argues racism is endemic to American society. Over time, the campaign to remove books from classrooms that allegedly indoctrinated students into CRT thinking evolved into one focused on “punishing woke corporations”.

Social media accounts like End Wokeness and conservative activists such as Robby Starbuck seized the moment to target companies accused of being “woke”. Mr Starbuck has taken credit for changes in policy at the likes of Ford, John Deere and Harley-Davidson after he publicised details of their DEI initiatives to his social media followers.

One of the clearest signs of this movement’s strength came in spring 2023, after a Bud Light partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney sparked right-wing outrage and calls for a boycott of the beer and its parent company Anheuser-Busch. In the aftermath of the campaign, Bud Light sales were 28% lower than usual, a Harvard Business Review analysis found.

Another major victory for conservatives arrived in June 2023, when the Supreme Court ruled that race could no longer be considered as a factor in university admissions, reversing decades of affirmative action-based policy.

The ruling also cast the legal standing of corporate DEI policies into uncertainty. When Meta made the internal announcement it was cancelling DEI programmes, the company told staff “the legal and policy landscape” surrounding DEI had changed.

The speed at which some large corporations have shed their DEI policies raises the question of how genuine their commitment to diversifying their workforces was in the first place.

Martin Whittaker, chief executive at JUST Capital, a non-profit that surveys Americans on workplace issues, says much of the backtracking comes from companies who were “rushing to kind of look good” at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.

But not all are yielding to political and legal pressure. Conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation noted in a November report that although DEI programmes appear to be trending downwards, “nearly all” Fortune 500 companies still list DEI commitments somewhere on their websites. Apple shareholders recently voted to continue diversity programmes at the company.

Surveys that measure Americans’ support for DEI offer mixed results. JUST Capital’s survey suggests support for DEI has declined, but support for issues closely linked to it – such as fair pay – have not. A 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center suggested most employed adults (56%) believed “focusing on increasing DEI at work is a good thing”.

Much rests on the question of whether DEI is actually effective in the first place.

Some research has suggested that DEI programmes like diversity training can in fact be harmful. According to one study by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Tel Aviv, trainers commonly report hostility and resistance from employees who feel forced to do the training and threatened by what they see as reverse discrimination; it also says the programmes can often leave trainees feeling more hostility towards other groups.

This research has been seized on by DEI’s opponents as part of the evidence that “the best way to improve the lives of all our citizens, and all our neighbours, is to allow the free market to lift all the boats”, as Mr Padfield puts it.

• Google joins firms dropping diversity recruitment goals
• Meta and Amazon scale back diversity initiatives
• Apple boss says its DEI programmes may change

The problem with this kind of thinking, according to Siri Chilazi, a researcher focused on gender equity at Harvard University, is that there is no historical precedent to suggest that racial and gender imbalances will correct themselves. Mrs Chilazi says racial and gender barriers still exist and believes DEI solutions focused on “levelling the playing field for all” are needed.

She cites multiple experiments that show white men disproportionately receive more responses after applying for jobs than women or people of colour. A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research sent identical CVs to roughly 100 of the largest US companies and found that applicants presumed to be white were contacted by employers 9.5% more often than applicants presumed to be black – with one company contacting presumed white applicants 43% more often.

But Mrs Chilazi also says there are genuine issues with many DEI programmes, adding that the most common programmes – including diversity and unconscious bias training and employee resource or affinity groups – are often the least effective. A recent study highlighting the ineffectiveness of some DEI practices said a common issue was treating them as an end goal in themselves, without measurable outcomes.

And when it comes to large corporations donating money towards DEI initiatives – like Walmart’s equity centre – Mrs Chilazi says the problem is that there is not much data to show how effective this is. “This is an area where we actually don’t have good research,” she says.

Where studies have shown DEI to be effective is when it comes to making “small systemic changes”, she says. There is evidence to suggest replacing open-ended questions in performance evaluations with more specific ones, such as “what’s the one biggest accomplishment of this person last year?”, has shown significant reductions in gender and racial evaluation gaps that can affect pay, according to Mrs Chilazi.

Supporters of DEI say the real-world impact of the shift from it can be seen at Harvard University, which was targeted in the landmark Supreme Court case.

Last autumn, Harvard Law School reported having only 19 first-year black students among more than 500 students that enrolled, according to the American Bar Association. That was less than half the number from the previous year – 43 – and the lowest since the 1960s. The law school also saw a significant decline in Hispanic student enrolment, which dropped from 63 to 39 between 2023 and 2024.

Colleges and schools have already begun making adjustments in response to the new climate. At one university, a lunar new year celebration was cancelled; another ended a decades-long forum on race. Elsewhere, social clubs for black and Asian students have been disbanded.

But the ruling’s impact does not appear straightforward. Enrolment numbers for black and Hispanic students at some other top US colleges have actually increased since the Supreme Court’s decision.

For the freshman class that arrived in the autumn, Northwestern University saw an 11% rise in enrolment for black students and a 13% increase for Hispanic students.

Because of results like these, some DEI opponents have accused universities of flouting the court’s ruling.

But another explanation offered for the increase in diversity at some universities is a shift towards “socio-economic inclusion” instead of race and ethnicity – which nonetheless appears to have achieved the same objective.

Dartmouth University’s Hispanic student enrolment jumped from 9.7% to 12.7% last year, after adjusting to make the school “more accessible for low- and middle-income families”, it said in a press release.

It’s clear that the anti-DEI campaigns are having a significant real-world impact. “I think we are in the midst of a big shift,” says Mrs Chilazi.

Michelle Jolivet, author of Is DEI Dead?: The Rebranding of Inclusive Organizations, says she is worried that the anti-DEI movement will lead to progress stalling for historically disadvantaged groups.

“Things that matter are measured, and when you stop measuring them, they stop happening,” she says. “Then you do stop making progress.”

But as to the question at the centre of her book – is DEI dead? – Jolivet says the answer is no.

The companies that appear to have cancelled their DEI programmes are not really eliminating them, she says. Instead, they are just rebranding and reorganising to escape potential lawsuits.

She gave the example of Walmart renaming its chief diversity officer to chief belonging officer. Similarly, McDonald’s gave one of its programmes a facelift, changing the name of its Global DEI Center of Excellence to the Global Inclusion Team.

“DEI has become more of a controversial word,” she says. “If I just take that word out, I can still do the same thing.”

But not everyone is reassured.

Back in the fields of Union County, Elise Ashby looks towards the future with uncertainty. The grant from Walmart gave her access to capital that she argues black-owned businesses often struggle to obtain.

She fears a return to when she “stayed up nights” wondering where the next cheque would come from and facing the kind of obstacles “white men don’t have”.

She says: “Am I concerned about the future? Absolutely.”

The world is a very insecure place right now – conflict, climate change, and fears of recession dominate the headlines. But for some people, things are going rather well – the wealthy.

Despite the global turmoil, the number of billionaires in the world is growing and the personal wealth of each of them is increasing too.

So what to do with all that money? The growing trend for the ultimate luxury experience is a clue as to what the very rich are doing with their cash. For the tourist industry in particular, it’s an opportunity.

In Switzerland, which has long cultivated a reputation for understated luxury, the number of five-star hotels is increasing faster than any other category. Many of them were built in the early 20th century – grand belle epoque palaces serving a then emerging class of privileged, primarily English tourists.

Today, renovated to the highest standards, those hotels leave no guest’s wish unmet. There are luxury spas, gourmet restaurants, and designer suites with panoramic views of the alps. Some offer “ski butlers” to ferry guests to and from the slopes, carry the skis, and even help put on their boots.

Key markets are the US, the Gulf states, China and South East Asia. American guests in particular, Swiss hoteliers say, expect the full five-star treatment, including 24-hour room service, so that they can order food in the middle of the night.

Meanwhile, China and India are emerging markets, where the first groups to travel from those two countries are among the wealthiest. Switzerland is very keen to get in at the start of that trend.

But the five-star offer comes with a hefty price tag, so where does that leave those who are not billionaires? Markus Berger of Switzerland Tourism says the strategy is not to focus solely on high-end guests, but to take a hard-headed look at the figures.

Stays at Swiss five-star hotels make up around 8% of all overnights, but the guests in them contribute at least 25% of Switzerland’s total revenue from tourism.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” says Mr Berger. “The high economic significance justifies a commitment to luxury guests.”

What’s more, he adds, Switzerland, with its high-wage, high-price economy, cannot compete with less expensive neighbours, particularly now that the Swiss franc is so strong.

“Switzerland has never tried to compete over prices,” Mr Berger explains. “There is always somewhere cheaper.”

Instead, the focus is on quality, service, and added value, like those ski butlers. In exchange, guests who come to five-star hotels also contribute a good deal to the rest of the economy, spending lavishly in the Michelin-starred restaurants and boutique shops that are also becoming a feature in a number of Swiss alpine resorts.

But it’s not an entirely win-win situation. In some of Switzerland’s most famous up-market resorts, like St Moritz or Zermatt, there are long-standing concerns that the focus on luxury is pricing locals out of the market.

A common challenge is finding accommodation for the hundreds of hotel and restaurant staff needed to provide the five-star service.

They sometimes find themselves commuting, late at night when the cocktail bars and restaurants have finally closed, long journeys to other villages where the accommodation is affordable on a waiter’s salary.

Monika Bandi, who leads the Tourism Research Unit at Bern University’s Centre for Regional Development, sees Switzerland’s pitch to high-end guests as a fine balancing act. It’s about “quantity versus quality”, she says.

More tourists aren’t necessarily better, she believes. Instead, higher spending by existing numbers can be positive.

And, she adds, Switzerland needs to watch out for the “tipping point, where the destinations really lose their character”.

Questions about a tipping point are currently being asked in the resort of Wengen, world famous for its Lauberhorn ski race, and its decades long connection with British skiers – the much-loved “Down Hill Only” ski club celebrated its 100th anniversary this year.

And also this year, Wengen is opening its first ever five-star hotel, and there are plans too for a five-star complex of serviced “hotel apartments”. They will be sold to wealthy tourists who want a luxury holiday home in the Alps, and they can also be rented out when the owners are absent.

By calling the project a hotel, it exploits a loophole in Switzerland’s strict laws against the “cold beds” of holiday homes. In theory, the law limits them to no more than 20% of a resort’s accommodation.

The Swiss Heritage Society has formally objected to the Wengen plans, because, claims spokesman Simon Weiss, the project is not really a hotel. “It looks like a typical holiday home complex… there is no integration into the community.”

The required public spaces that a hotel would have – a restaurant and a spa – are planned, but they will all be underground. The design priority, Mr Weiss fears, is for private luxury apartments that may be occupied for only a few weeks a year. “The design is unacceptable,” he adds.

Some Wengen locals also have their doubts. “It’s not St Moritz here,” one told Swiss media, adding “Wengen is not posh”.

Wengen’s tourism director Rolf Wegmüller agrees with that assessment, but says the trend towards luxury accommodation won’t change the resort’s character. “We’re not going to have guests walking around in fur coats all of a sudden,” he says.

Wengen, he points out, is only accessible by train, so, unlike St Moritz, there will be no Bentleys or Rolls-Royces taking up parking spaces. Even if they could ostentatiously display their wealth, Mr Wegmüller believes “our guests won’t want to show off what they have”.

The resort also has visitors who come back year after year, contributing to the integration Mr Weiss worries about losing. “Some families have been coming for generations,’ says Mr Wegmüller. ‘The locals know them, and that’s good.”

Among them are Brian Bollen, keen member of the Down Hill Only Club, who has been coming to Wengen for more than 50 years. He loves it, but does worry that some of “the charm has gone from the place… it’s over built”.

But most in Wengen, like Switzerland Tourism, see the investment in the alpine resorts as positive. These villages were, not much more than a century ago, very poor. A 19th English guide to the Swiss alps wrote that “most of the children are beggars”.

In more recent years, the global trade rules limiting agricultural subsidies have forced many small alpine dairy farms to close. Tourism, winter and summer, is enormously important for the Swiss economy, especially for the mountain communities.

And, as Mr Berger of Switzerland Tourism points out, while the five-star sector is growing, three-star hotels are still the biggest category. “We have one to five-star [in Wengen],” adds Mr Wegmüller. “That’s a good thing in a resort.”

And while the people with unlimited money to spend on luxury travel may still be in a tiny minority, their numbers, and their wealth, are growing. Switzerland’s approach – not cheaper, but better, not more people, just richer – seems to be paying off.

The uncertain future of two killer whales is no closer to being resolved despite the closure of their marine zoo home two months ago.

Wikie, 23, and her 11-year-old son Keijo are still being kept at Marineland Antibes, located in southern France, after it closed in January due to a forthcoming law banning the use of orcas in shows.

For months managers at Marineland have tried to send the killer whales to other marine zoos but this has angered animal rights campaigners who want them housed in a sanctuary, where the orcas won’t have to perform or be used for breeding.

The orcas were expected to go to another marine zoo in Spain when the French government rejected a move to a proposed sanctuary in Canada a few weeks ago.

But now Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the French ecology minister, said she would speak to colleagues in Spain, Italy and Greece about creating a different sanctuary together. However, her proposal has few other details and has been criticised.

The ecology ministry, when asked by the BBC, had no further information on where a sanctuary might be located or who would fund its construction and running costs.

Loro Parque, a marine zoo in Spain that wants to receive the killer whales from Marineland, told the BBC this week the current proposal was “wholly unsuitable” and that they were best positioned to care for them.

Christoph Kiessling, vice-president of the facility in Tenerife, said whale sanctuaries were “currently unable to meet the complex physiological, social and environmental needs” of killer whales.

Most designs involve cordoning off a bay and employing staff to ensure Wikie and Keijo – who were born in captivity and cannot be released into the wild – are properly fed and looked after.

Kiessling did say such a solution might be possible if there was more extensive research and planning but “such a process could take years, leaving the two Marineland [orcas] in a facility that is being wound down”.

Campaigners point out that several orcas have died at Loro Parque in the last few years, including three between March 2021 and September 2022.

Managers at the marine zoo said scientific examination of those orcas by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria showed the deaths were unavoidable.

They also fear Wikie might be used for breeding. Loro Parque announced in January that Morgan, the only female of the three orcas currently kept there, is pregnant.

Katheryn Wise, from the charity World Animal Protection, said Loro Parque was ultimately an entertainment business that used orcas to make money.

She added: “Morgan’s pregnancy underlines the fact that Loro Parque could never be a suitable option for Wikie and Keijo and should be removed as an option.”

Marineland, who are still paying to look after the orcas, said a move to Loro Parque as soon as possible was in the best interests of the animals’ welfare. They have asked the ecology ministry to approve the transfer.

The whale sanctuary in Canada applied to the French government to take in the orcas last year but their bid was rejected in January.

They were told the site they had selected in Nova Scotia was too far away and that the water there was too cold for Wikie and Keijo, who have spent their whole lives in southern France.

Following Pannier-Runacher’s proposal for a sanctuary in Europe, which she announced a fortnight ago in a video on Instagram, the directors of the rejected Canadian project criticised the idea of one being built in the Mediterranean.

They wrote a letter to her in which they cited Dr David Perpiñán, a diplomate at the European College of Zoological Medicine, who said: “Wikie and Keijo’s origin is Iceland. These two orcas do not belong to the ecotypes seen in the Mediterranean.”

He added: “The possibility of building a sanctuary for them in the Mediterranean is probably the worst of the possible options.”

The directors also said, unlike the European proposal, their sanctuary was ready to begin construction as the design had already been finalised.

Other animal rights groups have been more welcoming of Pannier-Runacher’s announcement, saying a European sanctuary would still be better for the orcas’ welfare than life in another marine zoo.

Sea Shepherd, a marine conservation society, replied to the minister on Instagram saying this was a chance to achieve what the zoo industry calls “impossible” – the building of an ocean sanctuary where captive orcas can enjoy the rest of their lives.

Pannier-Runacher said in her video she was keenly aware of the strong feelings people had about where Wikie and Keijo should be rehomed.

She did not rule out sending them to Loro Parque or other marine zoos, only that she would “oppose any transfer to a site that is not suitable for accommodating” orcas.

Last November she blocked an application by Marineland to send the killer whales to a marine zoo in Japan, citing lower animal welfare regulations in the country.

The ‘Year of the Sea’ is currently underway in France, a government initiative to raise awareness about the importance of the ocean, and Pannier-Runacher believes the creation of a European whale sanctuary would be a fitting testament to it.

“I’m not telling you that it will work,” she told Instagram users. “But nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

When Mauricette Vinet speaks of her grandson, her voice grows warm with affection.

“He was a lovely little boy. He had a strong personality, for sure! But he always thought of others, always asked if he could help,” says the French retiree, in her 80s.

“He loved to be out in the garden with his grandfather, picking green beans. He was a charming boy, Mathis,” she adds.

“But, as you know, there was a ‘before’ – and there was an ‘after’.”

Mauricette and her husband Roland are among the 267 plaintiffs who have pressed charges against Joël Le Scouarnec, the French former surgeon who is accused of abusing almost 300 people – mostly children, and almost all his patients – over the course of several decades. The trial started in Vannes, Brittany, on Monday.

Le Scouarnec and Mathis only crossed paths once, when Mathis, aged 10, was hospitalised overnight at the clinic in the small French north-western town of Quimperlé. Le Scouarnec – a mild-mannered, respected gastroenterologist – told Mathis’ parents the boy had to be kept overnight for checks.

It turned out Mathis only had a stomach ache, and he was sent home the next day. But Mauricette is convinced the brief hospital stay changed Mathis forever.

“The unease set in, little by little. It happened gradually in the first year; then he stopped being happy and became aggressive with everyone,” she tells the BBC.

There is no way to establish conclusively whether Mathis’ troubles were linked to the surgeon. What is certain is that in his teenage years Mathis distanced himself from his family and started using increasingly hard drugs; later, he spent time in detox and rehab centres.

Then, in 2018, police knocked on his door.

They told him a man named Joël Le Scouarnec had been arrested the year before for raping his six-year-old neighbour. During a search of the surgeon’s home, police uncovered stacks of diaries and hard disks in which Le Scouarnec appeared to list hundreds more victims. Mathis’ name was among them.

Mauricette said Mathis told her police then read out an excerpt of the diary to him, which seemed to detail abuse Le Scouarnec’s inflicted on him during his hospital stay.

“Then they left. Mathis shut the door and was left on his own, with no help. And that was the beginning of a descent into hell,” Mauricette says.

The police visit helped Mathis make sense of flashbacks that had long plagued him, Mauricette says: “His malaise finally made sense; he traced it to the source.”

Mathis pressed charges against Le Scouarnec, but the revelations sent him down a spiral which came to an abrupt end on 14 April 2021, when Mathis overdosed and died. He was 24.

Mauricette and her husband pressed charges the very next day, and they are now listed as “indirect victims” of Le Scouarnec. They have attended court in Vannes, north-western France, every day since the trial opened on Monday.

It has not been an easy listen.

The testimony of witnesses – mostly close relatives of Le Scouarnec, now 74 – painted a picture of an apparently ordinary middle-class family which, behind the scenes, has been ravaged by child abuse, incest and sexual violence.

Annie, Le Scouarnec’s sister, said she had been “taught to keep quiet”.

This week, it was all brought out in the open.

All three sons of Le Scouarnec struck an almost apologetic tone as they told the court about their happy childhoods with a cultured, intellectual father who may not have been particularly present but who was kind, patient and supportive.

“We had holidays, nice houses – everything that constitutes a normal family,” said one.

The youngest son – who said he stopped contact with Le Scouarnec in 2017 “to preserve the image of him I have from my childhood” – said he now “looked upon everyone with distrust” and never left his own toddler alone with anybody.

“I am always worried that if my father could do this then my neighbour could, my partner, anyone,” the 37-year-old said.

Later the middle son – a tall man in his early 40s who admitted he was a “not totally abstinent alcoholic” – shared his memories of being abused at the hands of his paternal grandfather, Le Scouarnec’s father.

He was shocked as he was told for the first time in court that among his father’s alleged victims were some of his childhood friends.

And, on Friday, a stunned silence descended upon the courtroom as Le Scouarnec admitted he had abused his granddaughter – his eldest son’s daughter when she was under five years old. Moments after the revelation, the 44-year-old and his partner left the room to be assisted by a psychologist.

Other witnesses sparked consternation in the plaintiffs. Due to their sheer number, they sit in a separate room – a former university lecture hall – and follow proceedings via video link.

Christian D., a friend of Le Scouarnec now aged 80, often answered questions from the court sarcastically and repeatedly minimised the events at the centre of the trial, declaring that he could not “afford to cry over everything that happened in the world”.

Later, he insisted that he “never saw anything, therefore had nothing to say” about the devastating allegations against his friend. When he stated that he would take in Le Scouarnec if he was ever to leave jail, many alleged victims in the lecture hall got up and left their seats.

But most difficult for Mauricette and Roland was the much-awaited testimony of Marie-France L., Le Scouarnec’s ex-wife.

It has been alleged that she was at the centre of the omerta that reigned in the Le Scouarnec family, as she was repeatedly made aware of her husband’s obsession with children but did nothing to stop it.

Many lawyers and plaintiffs now believe she could have spared hundreds of children from being abused. Le Scouarnec’s brother – who was also heard this week – openly wondered whether she had been too enamoured by the lifestyle provided by her husband’s salary to speak out.

Marie-France has always denied this and, at the stand, was frequently defiant in the face of the accusations levelled at her.

“Catastrophe has struck: she knows I am a paedophile,” Le Scouarnec wrote as early as the mid-1990s in his diary. “Perhaps he was talking about his conscience,” Marie-France told the court.

She also suggested her five-year-old niece – who Le Scouarnec has been convicted of raping – had most likely “manipulated” her husband.

“She’s devious, that one. She loves the attention,” she said. Later, she complained that she was being “blamed” for everything. Only when she was shown an indecent photo montage Le Scouarnec made of their son as a child did she look visibly shocked.

“That was absolute theatre,” Mauricette told the BBC, adding that Christian D.’s testimony had been “vile” and that she thought Marie-France was living in “pure denial”.

As the gut-wrenching events played out, Le Scouarnec sat in his box – mostly reactionless, but at times noticeably agitated, his voice cracking as he asked his sons for forgiveness. He flinched when excerpts of his diary were read out, and averted his eyes as indecent photographs he took of his nieces were shown.

His lawyers have said he admits to the “majority” of the charges against him, and that he will explain himself over the course of the trial, which is due to last until June.

The alleged victims will take the stand from next week; Mauricette and Roland will do so in April. “I will look at Le Scouarnec and tell him what is deep in my heart – he killed my grandson,” Mauricette says.

“Not with a gun, but he killed him,” she adds. “He’s going to get 20 years, but his victims… will have to live with this their whole lives.

“Their sentences will be longer than his.”

Throughout the week, over in the victims’ hall, people came and went, but the majority stayed for hours on end each day.

As descriptions of trauma and abuse poured in, one middle-aged woman covered her face with her hand and kept it there a long time.

Next to her, a young man rubbed his eyes repeatedly, then stood up and left.

The Academy Awards have taken place in Los Angeles, with Anora scooping the most honours, while Conclave, The Brutalist, Wicked and Emilia Pérez also took prizes.

Here is the full list of winners.

Best picture

• WINNER: Anora
• The Brutalist
• A Complete Unknown
• Conclave
• Dune: Part Two
• Emilia Pérez
• I’m Still Here
• Nickel Boys
• The Substance
• Wicked

Best actress

• WINNER: Mikey Madison – Anora
• Cynthia Erivo – Wicked
• Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez
• Demi Moore – The Substance
• Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here

Best actor

• WINNER: Adrien Brody – The Brutalist
• Timothée Chalamet – A Complete Unknown
• Colman Domingo – Sing Sing
• Ralph Fiennes – Conclave
• Sebastian Stan – The Apprentice

Best supporting actress

• WINNER: Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez
• Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown
• Ariana Grande – Wicked
• Felicity Jones – The Brutalist
• Isabella Rossellini – Conclave

Best supporting actor

• WINNER: Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain
• Yura Borisov – Anora
• Edward Norton – A Complete Unknown
• Guy Pearce – The Brutalist
• Jeremy Strong – The Apprentice

Best director

• WINNER: Sean Baker – Anora
• Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez
• Brady Corbet – The Brutalist
• Coralie Fargeat – The Substance
• James Mangold – A Complete Unknown

More on the Oscars 2025:

• LIVE: Follow BBC coverage of the ceremony
• FASHION: See the best looks from the red carpet
• FEATURE: ‘I didn’t want to be in a bad stripper film’
• MORE: How to watch the awards season films

Best international feature

• WINNER: I’m Still Here – Brazil
• The Girl with the Needle – Denmark
• Emilia Pérez – France
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Germany
• Flow – Latvia

Best animated feature

• WINER: Flow
• Inside Out 2
• Memoir of a Snail
• Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
• The Wild Robot

Best original screenplay

• WINNER: Anora – Sean Baker
• The Brutalist – Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold
• A Real Pain – Jesse Eisenberg
• September 5 – Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, Alex David
• The Substance – Coralie Fargeat

Best adapted screenplay

• WINNER: Conclave – Peter Straughan
• A Complete Unknown – Jay Cocks and James Mangold
• Emilia Pérez – Jacques Audiard
• Nickel Boys – RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes
• Sing Sing – Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar

Best original song

• WINNER: El Mal – Emilia Pérez
• Never Too Late – Elton John: Never Too Late
• Mi Camino – Emilia Pérez
• Like A Bird – Sing Sing
• The Journey – The Six Triple Eight

Best original score

• WINNER: The Brutalist
• Conclave
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked
• The Wild Robot

Best documentary feature

• WINNER: No Other Land
• Black Box Diaries
• Porcelain War
• Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
• Sugarcane

Best costume design

• WINNER: Wicked
• Nosferatu
• A Complete Unknown
• Conclave
• Gladiator II

Best make-up and hairstyling

• A Different Man
• Emilia Pérez
• Nosferatu
• The Substance
• Wicked

Best production design

• WINNER: Wicked
• The Brutalist
• Dune: Part Two
• Nosferatu
• Conclave

Best sound

• WINNER: Dune: Part Two
• A Complete Unknown
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked
• The Wild Robot

Best film editing

• WINNER: Anora
• The Brutalist
• Conclave
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked

Best cinematography

• WINNER: The Brutalist
• Dune: Part Two
• Emilia Pérez
• Maria
• Nosferatu

Best visual effects

• WINNER: Dune: Part Two
• Alien: Romulus
• Better Man
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• Wicked

Best live action short

• WINNER: I’m Not a Robot
• Anuja
• The Last Ranger
• A Lien
• The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

Best animated short

• WINNER: In the Shadow of the Cypress
• Beautiful Men
• Magic Candies
• Wander to Wonder
• Yuck!

Best documentary short

• WINNER: The Only Girl in the Orchestra
• Death by Numbers
• I Am Ready, Warden
• Incident
• Instruments of a Beating Heart

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a four-point plan to work with Ukraine to end the war and defend the country from Russia.

The UK, France and other countries will step up their efforts in a “coalition of the willing” and seek to involve the US in their support for Ukraine, he said.

“We are at a crossroads in history today,” Starmer said after a summit of 18 leaders – mostly from Europe and including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said Ukraine felt “strong support” and the summit showed “European unity at an extremely high level not seen for a long time”.

It comes two days after a fiery exchange between the Ukrainian leader and US President Donald Trump in the White House.

“We are all working together in Europe in order to find a basis for cooperation with America for a true peace and guaranteed security,” Zelensky said after the summit.

Speaking at a news conference shortly after the meeting of leaders, Starmer said four points had been agreed:

• to keep military aid flowing into Ukraine, and to keep increasing the economic pressure on Russia
• that any lasting peace must ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty and security and Ukraine must be present at any peace talks
• in the event of a peace deal, to boost Ukraine’s defensive capabilities to deter any future invasion
• to develop a “coalition of the willing” to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee peace afterwards

Sir Keir also announced an additional £1.6bn ($2bn) of UK export finance to buy more than 5,000 air defence missiles. This comes on top of a £2.2bn loan to provide more military aid to Ukraine backed by profits from frozen Russian assets.

“We have to learn from the mistakes of the past, we cannot accept a weak deal which Russia can breach with ease, instead any deal must be backed by strength,” he said.

The prime minister did not state which countries had agreed to join this coalition of the willing, but said that those who had committed would intensify planning with real urgency.

The UK, he said, would back its commitment with “boots on the ground, and planes in the air”.

“Europe must do the heavy lifting,” he said, before adding that the agreement would need US backing and had to include Russia, but that Moscow could not be allowed to dictate terms.

“Let me be clear, we agree with Trump on the urgent need for a durable peace. Now we need to deliver together,” Sir Keir said.

When asked if the US under Trump was an unreliable ally, he said: “Nobody wanted to see what happened last Friday, but I do not accept that the US is an unreliable ally.”

• Zelensky bruised but upbeat after diplomatic whirlwind
• Was Starmer’s summit enough to sway Trump?
• Starmer announces £1.6bn missile deal for Ukraine

• Rosenberg: Putin can sit back and watch

Countries at the summit included France, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, Norway, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Finland, Italy, Spain and Canada.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that there was now an urgent need to “re-arm Europe”.

These sentiments were echoed by Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who said the meeting had seen European countries “stepping up” to make sure Ukraine has what it needs to “stay in the fight as long as it has to continue”.

After the summit, Zelensky went to Sandringham where he met King Charles III. He later spoke to reporters at a final press briefing where he said he was ready to sign a deal on minerals with the US.

Ukraine was expected to sign the deal – which would grant the US access to Ukraine’s rare mineral reserves – during Zelensky’s visit to Washington, but the Ukrainian delegation ultimately left early after a heated confrontation with Trump in the Oval Office.

Earlier on Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned a deal on minerals between the US and Ukraine could not be signed “without a peace deal” with Russia.

But when asked by the BBC about the future of the deal following the summit, Zelensky said it was ready to be signed.

“The agreement that’s on the table will be signed if the parties are ready,” he said.

Sunday’s summit concludes a hectic week of diplomacy, which included visits to Washington by French President Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir and Zelensky.

Zelensky’s meeting, however, culminated in a heated exchanged with Trump and US Vice-President JD Vance, in which the US president accused his Ukrainian counterpart of “gambling with World War Three”.

Trump has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine and has expressed trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the consternation of many of his Western allies.

The US has also begun peace talks with Russia – excluding Ukraine.

At one point, the US leader accused Ukraine of starting the war – even though it was Putin who launched a full-scale invasion of Russia’s neighbour on 24 February 2022.

“Bruised but motivated,” was how one of Volodymyr Zelensky’s entourage described how they had been feeling, as a small group of journalists crammed into what felt like an even smaller room at Stansted Airport.

The British state had done its best to give the Ukrainian president “all bells and whistles” when he arrived in the UK for a summit with 18 world leaders after his dressing down by Donald Trump and JD Vance on Friday night, a government source told me.

He shared an embrace with Sir Keir Starmer outside No 10, where he was greeted with spontaneously cheering crowds, and met with King Charles for tea.

But it was telling that in the 90 minutes before his plane’s wheels went up as he heads back home, Zelensky wanted to go on the record to make his arguments to the world – this time speaking only in Ukrainian – to make sure he was not misunderstood.

Having been slammed in the White House, then feted in the UK, his mood, in public at least, was not downhearted.

“If we don’t keep our spirits up, we’re letting everyone down,” he said.

He made positive noises about Sir Keir and French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to grab hold of the plans for peace before presenting them to the US, for Europe to up its game, developing its own more convincing security guarantees.

Zelensky told me he would be prepared to give Donald Trump one of his demands – to sign the minerals deal that would give the US access to someone of Ukraine’s resources.

Beyond that, despite all the pressure of a three-year war, under all the demands from the White House which, fairly or not, has the power to protect or abandon his country, on Sunday night Zelensky stood firm.

He told us it was wrong at this stage to discuss giving up territory Russia has captured, and it was too early to be “talking about lines”, which the prime minister had mentioned earlier.

He would not apologise to Trump or express regret for anything that happened in the Oval Office, which at the moment, the US president’s camp is repeatedly calling for.

Even the boss of Nato called for Zelensky to find a way to reset his relationship with the US leader.

Yet in the stuffy room at Stansted, there was not much in Zelensky’s tone that suggested he was interested in making nice.

He said he had travelled for hours to get to the White House – his visit was a mark of respect. He also said he would never “insult anybody” and the conversation as it erupted had not been a positive for anyone.

Zelensky chose his words very carefully. He tried to an extent to avoid a post-mortem of what went on. He was not rude about Trump – he barely mentioned him by name – and suggested tensions would pass.

If you watched the full horror of what happened in the Oval Office you may well not blame Zelensky for feeling it’s simply not for him to say sorry.

If you listen to him talk about what has happened to his country, you can understand why it feels so impossible at this stage for him to acknowledge compromises might have to come to end the war.

Watching him in person talk about the violence and the suffering that has been unleashed, you sense his total disbelief that anyone might not see the world his way, where Russia’s aggression means Putin must not be spared punishment, and his people should be protected at all costs.

But the reality? Neither Zelensky nor any Western leader so far has persuaded Trump to adopt that moral clarity on this war. And even if it’s painful, without a willingness to compromise, it’s hard to see an end to this war.

Zelensky is though, a master communicator – genuine, doubtless, but also a performer by trade.

“Our freedoms and values are not for sale,” a message of no surrender Zelensky wanted to communicate, along with a willingness to sign the minerals deal.

He again expressed his thanks for the backing of the US and other countries. But don’t forget right now, for all of the encounters we have with the leaders involved in public, there are so many more between them and their teams behind closed doors.

Just when our conversation was coming to an end, a suggestion that Macron and Sir Keir were proposing a month-long truce as part of their plan for peace reached my phone.

Did President Zelensky know and would he agree such a deal, I asked.

“I am aware of everything,” he joked, getting a laugh in the room, then offering handshakes and photos on his way out to the plane.

He may wanted to have had the last word at the end of a dramatic and difficult weekend. But the conversation about this conflict has many weeks, if not many months to run.

US President Donald Trump has revealed the names of five cryptocurrencies that he says he’d like to be included in a new strategic reserve to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World”.

The market prices of the five coins he named – Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Cardano – all swiftly jumped after the announcement.

During Trump’s presidential campaign, he aggressively courted the crypto community. The previous US president, Joe Biden, had overseen a crackdown on crypto due to concerns about fraud and money laundering.

It is unclear how the new stockpile will work. More information is expected on Friday, when Trump plans to host the first Crypto Summit at the White House.

In a social media post on Sunday, Trump said he had signed an order which “directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA”.

About an hour later he added in another post: “And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve.”

The first three coins he named jumped by up to 62% on Sunday.

Bitcoin and Ethereum also jumped by more than 10% each.

• From Bitcoin to XRP: Key cryptocurrency terms and what they mean

The posts marked a new upward turn for crypto prices, which had dropped sharply since spiking after his election.

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump signed an executive to create a presidential working group tasked with proposing new crypto laws and regulations.

The order called on the group to “evaluate the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile” that could use “cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts”.

It is unclear whether creating a new national strategic stockpile would require an act of Congress.

Trump had previously been a crypto critic, telling Fox News in 2021 that Bitcoin is a “scam”.

But in recent weeks, both he and his wife Melania Trump have launched their own cryptocurrencies, leading to accusations that they are trying to profit from his White House policies.

Volodymyr Zelensky has met King Charles III at Sandringham, after attending a summit of European leaders on ending the war in Ukraine.

As the Ukrainian president arrived at the King’s Norfolk residence, local residents, some holding Ukraine flags, gathered outside the estate to witness his entrance by helicopter.

Zelensky was in London over the weekend for the talks on European defence, after a fiery exchange with US President Donald Trump in the White House on Friday.

Ukraine’s president was “warmly received”, and the meeting lasted just under an hour, royal sources said. The pair were served tea in Sandringham’s Saloon room.

Zelensky described it as “a very good meeting”.

• Follow updates as Starmer unveils steps to help Ukraine
• Protesters target JD Vance in Vermont after clash with Zelensky

“I’m very grateful for this meeting and for how His Majesty helps Ukraine and supports us,” he told reporters. “He’s met our warriors here, being trained in the UK, and we’re very thankful to the Royal Family for their support.”

The King has previously expressed support for Zelensky and Ukraine, saying the country had experienced “indescribable aggression” following Russia’s “unprovoked attack on their land”.

The Ukrainian people have shown “truly remarkable courage and resilience in the face of such human tragedy”, the King said last year.

They first met at Buckingham Palace during Zelensky’s surprise visit to the UK in 2023, and the same day the King visited Ukrainian troops being trained in Wiltshire.

Today’s meeting was requested by the Ukrainian president, with the agreement of the UK government.

After the summit had concluded, Sir Keir unveiled a four-step plan world leaders hope will guarantee peace in Ukraine.

These steps include keeping military aid flowing and the creation of a “coalition of the willing” to defend Ukraine as part of a peace agreement.

Sunday’s meeting in Norfolk has allowed Zelensky to meet the King well before Trump’s second state visit to the UK, which was offered when Sir Keir presented the US president with an invitation letter from the monarch during a visit to Washington last week.

While the Ukrainian leader’s visit is an official one, it is less formal than a state visit.

Traditionally, second-term US presidents are not offered a state visit and have instead been invited for tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle.

Sir Keir said Trump’s last state visit in 2019 had been a “tremendous success” and that the invite for a second visit was “truly historic” and “unprecedented”.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office after reading the letter, Trump said he accepted the invite and that it would be an “honour” to visit the “fantastic” country. When the trip will take place has yet to be announced.

Sir Keir dismissed calls by SNP first minister John Swinney to cancel the invite to Trump after his disastrous Oval Office meeting with Zelensky – in which he accused the Ukrainian leader of “gambling with World War Three”.

Mixue Ice Cream and Tea may be unfamiliar to many of us but the Chinese firm has more outlets than McDonald’s and Starbucks.

On Monday, the bubble tea chain’s shares jumped by nearly 30% as they started trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The company raised $444m (£352m) in the financial hub’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) of the year.

Mixue’s popularity comes as many people in China are grappling with the country’s economic challenges – including a property crisis, and weak consumer and business confidence. It sells ice creams and drinks for an average of six Chinese yuan ($0.82; £0.65).

The company was founded in 1997 by Zhang Hongchao, a student at Henan University of Finance and Economics, as a part time job to help his family’s finances.

Its full name Mìxuě Bīngchéng means “honey snow ice city”, with its stores adorned with its Snow King mascot and playing the firm’s official theme tune on a loop.

According to Mixue, it has more than 45,000 stores across China and 11 other countries, including Singapore and Thailand. The firm has also said it plans to continue expanding.

That compares to “over 43,000 locations” for McDonald’s and Starbucks’ 40,576 outlets.

While it is often seen as China’s biggest bubble tea, iced drinks, and ice cream chain, it operates more like a raw-materials supplier than a traditional brand.

Unlike Starbucks, which operates more than half of its stores directly, almost all of Mixue’s outlets are run by franchisees.

Mixue’s strong market debut contrasts with its smaller rival Guming, which saw its share slide on its first day of trading in February.

Last year, shares in the owner of bubble tea chain Chabaidao also fell on their market debut.

Protesters in the US have lined a road in Vermont that Vice-President JD Vance was due to drive down following his and President Trump’s angry exchange with Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.

They held up pro-Ukraine signs on the route in Waitsfield that Vance and his family were expected to take on their way to go skiing.

US media reported the family moved to an undisclosed location from their planned ski resort because of the demonstrations.

Hundreds of people also gathered in New York, Los Angeles and Boston on Saturday to express their support for Ukraine – a day after the furious row in the Oval Office.

The extraordinary scenes in the Oval Office saw Vance accuse the Ukrainian president of being disrespectful to the US.

Trump also clashed with Zelensky, telling him to make a deal with Russia “or we are out” and accusing him of “gambling with World War Three”.

A protest in Waitsfield against the Trump-Vance administration had been organised earlier in the week – before the US president and vice-president’s clash with Zelensky – but many signs referenced the row and Russia’s war with Ukraine.

“I think [Friday’s] performance at the White House has probably galvanised even more people to come out today,” Judy Daly, from Indivisible Mad River Valley, the group which organised the protest, told Vermont Public Radio.

“[Vance] crossed the line,” protester Cori Giroux added.

Ahead of the Vance family’s trip, Vermont’s governor Phil Scott had urged people to “be respectful” to them.

Scott, the Republican governor who refused to vote for Trump, said: “I welcome the vice-president and his family to Vermont and hope they enjoy their weekend here.

“It’s no surprise they chose Vermont, we’ve had a lot of snow this winter, which has been good for our economy.”

He added: “I hope Vermonters remember the vice-president is here on a family trip with his young children and, while we may not always agree, we should be respectful.

“Please join me in welcoming them to Vermont, and hoping they have an opportunity to experience what makes our state, and Vermonters, so special.”

Vance, who has three young children with his wife Usha, has not publicly commented on the protests. Counter-protesters supporting Trump and Vance were also reportedly in Waitsfield.

• Live coverage and analysis
• Vance took the lead attacking Zelensky. Why?
• Republicans laud Trump after Zelensky showdown but some express dismay
• Ukrainians back Zelensky after disastrous Oval Office encounter
• How the Trump-Zelensky talks collapsed in 10 fiery minutes
• Steve Rosenberg: Putin can afford to sit back and watch events unfold

Separately, demonstrators also gathered outside Tesla stores in the US on Saturday to protest against Elon Musk’s push to slash government spending.

Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla, has been tasked by Trump to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency, more popularly known as Doge.

After the meeting at the White House, Zelensky flew to the UK where he was welcomed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and on Sunday he joined European leaders and Canada’s Justin Trudeau in London for a summit to discuss ways of ending the war in Ukraine and ensuring Europe’s security.

Ahead of the summit, Starmer said the UK and France would work with Ukraine “on a plan to stop the fighting” with Russia and would then “discuss that plan with the United States”.

He told the BBC that his “driving purpose” right now was to act as a “bridge” between the two men.

Asked about how he felt watching the spat in the White House, Starmer sought to play down the incident, saying “nobody wants to see that” and admitted he felt “uncomfortable”.

The UK death rate reached a record low last year, according to exclusive analysis carried out for BBC News.

Mortality experts looked at death certificates registered in 2024 and found that deaths per head of the population had returned to pre-pandemic levels and were slightly below the previous record in 2019.

However, the new figure puts the UK back on its long-term trend of only gradual improvement.

The research was carried out by analysts from the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

“This is five years of basically flat mortality improvement, it’s pretty poor by historical standards,” said Stuart McDonald from the CMI.

There was also a “concerning” rise in the death rate at young working ages, he said.

A Department of Health spokesperson said the government was “shifting focus from sickness to prevention”.

The registered death rate in the UK steadily halved from 1974 to 2011 largely driven by improvements in tackling heart disease, including smoking prevention and medical advances.

From 2011 to 2019 the improvements drastically slowed, then changed direction during Covid as thousands more people died than normal. The first post-pandemic year of 2022 also saw high numbers of extra deaths.

To calculate the record low 2024 UK figure of 989 deaths per 100,000 people, analysts at the CMI used provisional weekly death registration figures for the four nations of the UK.

“Clearly, it’s very good news that our mortality rate is lower in 2024 than it was,” says Dr Veena Raleigh, epidemiologist at health think tank The King’s Fund. “But if you look at the broader canvas then it’s not so good.”

Although similar countries also experienced a slowdown since 2011, the UK’s has been more severe and our life expectancy is at the “bottom of the pack of comparable countries,” she says, adding that nations such as Spain returned to pre-pandemic levels by 2023.

Researchers point to a variety of reasons behind the slowdown since 2011. Some of the “low hanging fruit” of improvements in heart disease and cancer, such as the cut in smoking rates, had already happened, making further gains harder.

At the same time, the UK saw rising risk factors, including obesity, poor diet and low levels of exercise, against a backdrop of widening social inequality and pressure on the NHS.

Some academics argue that austerity cuts to public services after the 2008 financial crash had a strong impact on life expectancy, while others say it’s not possible to prove this directly.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of death in England and Wales, according to the latest official figures. Heart disease, lung disease, strokes, lung cancer also feature highly, along with flu in some years.

“Cardiovascular disease remains a leading killer in the UK,” said Prof Bryan Williams OBE, chief scientific and medical officer at the British Heart Foundation.

“The plateau we have seen in reducing the number of deaths… is a serious cause for concern, made worse by the impact of the pandemic on an already overstretched health service.”

He added that early deaths from cardiovascular disease had grown in the most deprived areas of England and called for “urgent government action” in its prevention, detection and treatment.

Overall death rates are largely a reflection of older people’s health as more than three-quarters of UK deaths happen over the age of 70.

So the main trend is driven by what is happening to people in this age group.

But the CMI found “really significant differences” at younger ages says Stuart McDonald, with a “concerning” upward trend in mortality among 20-44-year-olds.

“For this age group, death rates have actually been going up slightly, even before the pandemic. If we go back to 2011 we can see a slight increase in death rates year-on-year.”

Death numbers among this age group are much lower than at older ages and the causes tend to be different. Fewer than 20,000 people aged 20-44 die in the UK each year, about 3% of all deaths.

“External and substance-related causes are most important because often that’s what people die of in this age group,” says Antonino Polizzi, researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford.

“Things like drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths, accidents, homicides and suicides.”

The UK, particularly Scotland, has seen a rise in drug-related death rates, he says.

“These causes are usually improving for other Western European countries so we are seeing a divergent effect.”

Commenting on the overall trends at all age groups, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We inherited an NHS that was broken and we are determined to fix it.

“Through our Plan for Change we are shifting focus from sickness to prevention and targeting the drivers of ill health and catching the biggest killers earlier.

“We are creating the first smoke free generation, stopping junk food ads being targeted at children and improving detection of diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.”

The CMI took weekly provisional death registration data from the Office for National Statistics, for England and Wales, National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and calculated the 2024 rate.

The rate is age-standardised, which means that you can make comparisons with other years even though the UK population as a whole is getting older.

Changes to the death registration process may mean that more 2024 deaths are registered in 2025 than was the case for the previous year, but the CMI says this is not the main explanation for the return to the pre-pandemic trend.

The fashion is almost as important as the films at the Oscars, and Hollywood’s finest walked the red carpet in an array of eyecatching outfits before this year’s ceremony in Los Angeles.

They included Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, who wore a shade of her character Elphaba’s green in an elaborate velvet ballgown.

Erivo missed out on the prize for best actress, but won the award for best nails.

Co-star Ariana Grande, who was nominated for best supporting actress, wore a striking champagne Schiaparelli gown.

However, it was perhaps a little impractical – so she changed before performing to open the show with Erivo.

Best actor contender Timothee Chalamet brought a splash of bright colour in a daffodil Givenchy tux.

Demi Moore radiated Hollywood style in her jewelled silver gown. She was nominated for best actress for The Substance.

She lost out to newcomer Mikey Madison, who paid homage to another sex worker fable, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in a baby pink and black column Dior gown and a Tiffany’s necklace from the 1910s – very reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn.

Emilia Perez star Selena Gomez also went for classic figure-hugging glamour.

Zoe Saldana chose a maroon duvet-dress with a jewel-encrusted bustier. She won best supporting actress for Emilia Perez.

Best actor nominee Colman Domingo has been a style icon all awards season, and said the choice of red for his custom Valentino jacket represented love.

Andrew Garfield, dapper in a brown suit, was among the Oscar presenters.

The Substance actress Margaret Qualley sported a backless Chanel gown and a backwards diamond necklace.

British star Felicity Jones, nominated for best supporting actress for The Brutalist, wore a slinky metallic custom Armani Privé creation.

More on the Oscars 2025:

• LIVE: Follow BBC coverage of the ceremony
• WINNERS: Full list of tonight’s awardees
• NOMINATIONS: Who is in the running?
• FEATURE: ‘I didn’t want to be in a bad stripper film’
• MORE: How to watch the awards season films

Jeff Goldblum, who was in Wicked, sported a floral shirt and real flowers on his white dinner jacket, and was accompanied by wife Emilie Livingston.

Monica Barbaro, nominated for best supporting actress for playing Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown, wore a Dior gown with voluminous skirt.

A Complete Unknown co-star Elle Fanning had a lace-layered Givenchy dress with long black ribbon belt.

Michelle Yeoh won best actress in 2023, and wore a blue Balenciaga gown as she joined her Wicked cast-mates this year.

Rachel Zegler, who will soon be seen in a remake of Snow White, wore a Dior gown.

British actress Raffey Cassidy, who appears in The Brutalist, had a flowing gown tied with a giant bow.

Best supporting actor nominee Jeremy Strong was on the red carpet, three decades after he watched the stars from the bleachers as a young fan.

Ana de Armas, who presented an award, wore a sleek black dress with intricate lace halter neck.

Double Oscar winner Emma Stone went for the flapper look in a shimmering Louis Vuitton dress.

Nosferatu star Lily-Rose Depp wore a sheer floral lace Chanel creation.

Miley Cyrus also brought goth glam to the red carpet in a beaded black Alexander McQueen gown with halter neck and lace gloves.

British actress Yasmin Finney, known for Heartstopper and Doctor Who, was framed by tall feathers attached to her dress.

Blackpink singer Lisa sported a dramatic flowing floor-length black-and-white jacket by Markgong with a red floral brooch. She later performed Live and Let Die in a segment paying tribute to the James Bond films.

UK singer Raye, resplendent in red, also performed in the James Bond segment.

Halle Berry sparkled in a mirrored mosaic effect design.

Edward Norton was nominated for best supporting actor for A Complete Unknown.

Wallace and Gromit joined the Hollywood stars on the red carpet after Vengeance Most Fowl was nominated for best animated film – they were accompanied by creator Nick Park (left), producer Richard Beek (centre) and co-director Merlin Crossingham.

Isabella Rossellini received her first Oscar nomination, for playing a nun in Conclave. She wore blue velvet – a nod to the name of her 1986 breakthrough film.

Four-time Oscars host Whoopi Goldberg was back as an award presenter this year.

Best actor winner Adrien Brody‘s traditional suit had bird-shaped style beading on his shoulder.

Grammy-nominated singer Omar Apollo wore a netted veil along with black-and-white spotted shirt and scarf.

Wicked actor Bowen Yang, who announced the Oscar nominations in January, opeted for floral embellishments on his jacket along with a frilled pink shirt.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is still “ready to sign” a US-Ukraine minerals deal after leaving the White House without it being agreed.

Ukraine’s president said in response to a question from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that, despite a fractious meeting with US President Donald Trump last week, he is still willing to have a “constructive dialogue” with the US, adding: “I just want the Ukrainian position to be heard.”

“We want our partners to remember who the aggressor is in this war,” he told reporters.

When relations between the US and Ukraine first became strained over the Trump administration’s handing of peace talks with Russia, the minerals deal was intended as a stepping stone towards further security ties between the two countries.

• Starmer announces £1.6bn missile deal for Ukraine
• Can Europe deter Russia in Ukraine without US military?
• What we know about US-Ukraine minerals deal

But after Zelensky, Trump and US Vice-President JD Vance had a heated argument in front of the media in the Oval Office, the Ukrainian leader was told to leave without the deal being signed.

Zelensky’s remarks come as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the BBC’s US partner CBS News it was “impossible to have an economic deal without a peace deal”.

Bessent said Zelensky had “thrown off the sequencing” of how the minerals deal and peace deal were supposed to play out – instead choosing to “relitigate” discussions in public when they should have taken place in private.

Speaking after a summit of European leaders in London on Sunday, Zelensky said the combative nature of his recent meeting in Washington did not benefit the US or Ukraine as partners, and only really benefited Russian President Vladimir Putin.

However, he said that he would return to the White House if invited.

But he refused to be drawn into talking about about conceding territory to Putin – an option Trump officials have touted as part of a peace deal – or expressing regret in how he had handled the meeting with Trump.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently controls around 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Zelensky was speaking to the media in London following a summit in which world leaders agreed on a four-point plan to work with Ukraine to stop the war and defend it from future Russian aggression.

Among these pledges is for the UK, France and other nations to form a “coalition of the willing” to defend a potential peace agreement in Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer reiterated Europe “must do the heavy lifting”, but any agreement would need US backing.

Asked for his thoughts on the outcome of the summit, Zelensky said the “best security guarantees are a strong Ukrainian army”.

But he added Europe needed some form of US input, perhaps in the form of air defence and intelligence, in an apparent sign of agreement with Sir Keir.

In an interview with France’s Le Figaro newspaper on the way to the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron was quoted as saying that a month-long truce on striking in the air, on the sea and energy infrastructure was on the table.

During this time, a peace deal could be thrashed out, while the deployment of European troops would occur in a second stage.

Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg about these reports, Zelensky replied he was “aware of everything”.

Zelensky insisted Ukraine’s relationship with the US will continue and he was “sure this situation will pass by”, in reference to the fall-out with Trump.

He said there had been communication between the US and Ukraine since Friday, but “not on my level”.

The Ukrainian leader also said: “The failure of Ukraine would not just mean Putin’s success, it would be a failure for Europe, it would be a failure for the US.”

Following the row in the Oval Office, several leading Republicans backed how the meeting had been handled by Trump and criticised Zelensky.

Senator Lindsey Graham – once a staunch supporter of Ukraine – told reporters that Zelensky “either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change”.

Asked about these calls to step down in the interest of US-Ukraine relations, Zelensky said that to resign was one thing, but preventing him from running again would require Nato membership.

Ukraine joining the transatlantic military alliance has been a demand of Kyiv since the war began, and forms a key part of the country’s victory plan – though the Trump administration has said this was unlikely.

“I am exchangeable for Nato,” Zelensky told journalists before he was due to leave the UK.

“I have said that I am exchanging for Nato membership, then it means I have fulfilled my mission. Nato means I have fulfilled my mission.”

He added it was “not very democratic” for people from other nations to be deciding who led Ukraine, but said Graham could become Ukrainian and then “his voice will have weight” in deciding who its leader was.

The love life of South Africa’s Zulu king has the country agog – and has scandalised his socially conservative subjects as he messes with tradition by seeking a divorce.

Polygamy is part of Zulu culture, but King Misuzulu kaZwelithini has taken the unusual step of going to court to divorce his first wife, Queen Ntokozo kaMayisela.

“Everyone was puzzled. People were not expecting the king to go so far as to file for divorce,” Prof Gugu Mazibuko, a cultural expert at South Africa’s University of Johannesburg, told the BBC.

“In Zulu culture, there is no divorce. You are not supposed to chase away your wife,” she said.

Regarded as the “lion of the nation”, the Zulu king is the custodian of age-old traditions that place marriage and polygamy at the heart of royal success.

His role within South Africa may only be ceremonial, but he remains hugely influential, with a yearly government-funded budget of several million dollars.

The monarch – who grew up in neighbouring Eswatini, studied in the US and came to the throne in 2021 – seems to court controversy.

His coronation was challenged in court by his elder half-brother, who has been trying to snatch the crown from him.

His second marriage appears to be shaky, his attempt to take a third wife hit the buffers and there are also reports of another dalliance with a young princess.

However, the 50-year-old’s troubled personal life used to be discussed in hushed tones – that is until he filed divorce papers in December.

Prof Mazibuko acknowledged that historical records appeared to suggest that a Zulu monarch in the 20th Century had divorced one of his queens, but it had been a “top royal secret”, given royal divorce is not the norm.

“If a marriage does not work out, the wife will still live in the king’s homestead. She will be given her own space. She will not have a relationship with the king, but she and her children will be well-cared for.”

It was just before his accession to the throne – following the sudden death of his father and mother four years ago – that the then-Prince Misuzulu married Ntokozo Mayisela.

The two were already a couple and had two children together, but according to another cultural expert, Prof Musa Xulu of the University of Zululand, the decision to marry appeared be be hurried.

“It seems as though he felt he could not be a king without a wife,” he told the BBC.

Queen kaMayisela came from an “ordinary family” – as many of the wives of Zulu kings do – in a small mining town in KwaZulu-Natal province.

It was as a cabaret singer performing at a restaurant in the coastal city of Durban that she caught the royal eye, the academic said.

Her senior status in the family was made clear at the king’s state coronation in December 2022 when she sat by his side.

But her position is now under threat, with the monarch saying in court papers that they have not lived as husband and wife for at least year and their marriage has irretrievably broken down.

The palace followed this by sending out invitations for the king’s wedding to a new bride, Nomzamo Myeni, set to take place in late January. The bride-price, known as lobola, had already been paid in cattle – a prized asset in Zulu culture.

Queen kaMayisela did not take any of this lying down, instituting separate court action to halt the wedding, which was postponed as a result.

Her argument was that the king – known to his subjects as “Ingonyama”, meaning Lion – would be committing the offence of “bigamy” without first “converting” his civil marriage to her into a traditional Zulu marriage.

But the judge threw out her case, saying she had had a “turnaround” in attitude as she had already agreed her husband could take other wives.

He noted the monarch had already done so – marrying Nozizwe kaMulela, the MD of Eswatini Bank, in 2022.

Prof Mazibuko explained that polygamy was not initially part of Zulu culture, in fact the first two kings were bachelors.

But it was embraced by their successors – King Misuzulu is the ninth monarch of the Zulu nation – and has become part of Zulu culture.

“That’s how we build families, especially the royal family,” Prof Mazibuko said.

Queen kaMulela comes from an influential family in Eswatini and the marriage was apparently arranged to strengthen the ties between the royal families.

Yet it is unclear whether the pair are still in a relationship, as the high-powered banker has not been spotted at Zulu cultural events for a while – with speculation their final marriage rituals have not been completed.

The current king’s various marriage problems seem to stem from the fact that tradition has not been properly followed.

In the case of the first wife, he opted for a modern-day marriage, without a traditional wedding.

“For a marriage to be perfected under Zulu custom, there has to be a public gathering, with song and dance,” Prof Xulu said.

“You, as the bride, must lead with a solo song and the bride-maids dance with you, and you carry a spear which you give to the king – and then there is no going back.”

This has left Queen kaMayisela without the protection of tradition – and only the offer of monthly maintenance of $1,100 (£850) for a year, though she was likely to demand more before returning to the life of a commoner, Prof Xulu said.

In the case of the second wife, the academic said lobola had been paid in January 2022, but royal insiders suggest the king felt “those who went to pay didn’t have the authority to do so” – plus this union has not been marked with a public ceremony.

The fortunes of the would-be third wife, Nomzamo Myeni, remain unclear as the king failed to marry her in January despite the court giving the go-ahead.

Prof Xulu said that in Zulu culture a “postponed” marriage usually never takes place.

Though Ms Myeni is still being seen with the king, accompanying him to a state event last week where she was referred to as a queen, suggesting their wedding may take place once the king’s divorce goes through.

Yet as a commoner she would bring no powerful connections with her, which may be why one of the monarch’s aides recently confirmed to local media there was “a new queen-to-be” – Sihle Mdluli, who hails from the royal family of a small ethnic group in South Africa.

The aide suggested she might be named “the mother of the nation” – a title that would make her the most senior queen with her children likely heirs.

But Prof Xulu said he would not be surprised if that wedding also failed to take place, as the king’s relationships all seemed to run into trouble.

“I am not sure whether he was ready to be king, and whether he has good advisers,” the academic said.

He pointed out that the monarch had also been behaving erratically in his public life, sacking several senior officials in his retinue.

On top of this, he has installed himself as the chairman of the board of a financially lucrative land trust, of which he is the sole trustee.

The trust was controversially established shortly before South Africa became a democracy in 1994, giving it control of about 2.8 million hectares (seven million acres) of land in KwaZulu-Natal.

King Misuzulu has also suspended all members of the board, bar one, accusing them of being uncooperative.

He did this against the advice of the government, which pointed out that as chairman he would be required to account to parliament about the trust’s operations – something that would not be in keeping with his status as a constitutional monarch.

The dispute remains unresolved, giving the government a major political headache as it tries to avoid going head-to-head with the king.

Prof Xulu said he would not be surprised if at some point a powerful rival faction within the royal family launched a fresh bid to dethrone him by asking the courts to rule that he is not “fit and proper” to be king.

The monarch’s half-brother, Prince Simakade Zulu, who is the late king’s eldest son, has long coveted the crown, but his backers were outmanoeuvred by Misuzulu’s allies in succession discussions.

President Ramaphosa later gave Misuzulu a “certificate of recognition”, paving the way for him to be funded by the government.

But Prince Simakade’s supporters did not give up – going to the High Court to declare his state coronation “unlawful” – and won.

The court ruled that President Ramaphosa had failed to comply with the law, which required him to order an investigation into objections to Misuzulu’s accession.

The status quo remains, pending the outcome of an appeal.

The scandals have the potential to weaken the king’s position should it come to another tussle for the crown.

Though Prof Mazibuko noted there had always been fierce competition for the Zulu crown – except these days it takes place in court instead of a bloody battlefield.

“He is not the first king to go through a lot,” she said. “I hope he survives, and everything settles down.”

• In pictures: King Misuzulu crowned in historic ceremony
• Celebrating the king banished by the British
• The kings who never die, but simply ‘disappear’
• Death of a Zulu king: ‘He is planted, not buried’

The army of the Democratic Republic of Congo has accused Rwanda of dressing up prisoners in military uniforms in an effort to pass them off as newly-captured rebels linked to the Rwandan genocide.

It comes after Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in eastern DR Congo said they had captured fighters from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) – a militia founded by ethnic Hutus who took part in the 1994 genocide against Rwanda’s Tutsis.

But the DR Congo military said a video allegedly showing the handover of 20 FDLR rebels at a border crossing was “faked”.

M23 fighters have been advancing through eastern DR Congo since January, seizing Bukavu and Goma, the biggest city in the region.

The fighting has forced about 500,000 people from their homes, worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.

In its statement, the Congolese military said the Rwandan video was a “faked incident in poor taste orchestrated with the sole aim of discrediting our army”.

It said Rwanda had taken old FDLR prisoners and dressed them in new military uniforms to claim they had been newly captured in Goma.

“This is part of the Rwandan strategy to justify the invasion of parts of the DRC’s territory,” it added.

Rwanda has used the presence of FDLR forces in eastern Congo to justify its support for the M23.

The country previously denied backing the M23, but it has also stressed that due to the FDLR presence in eastern Congo it has a right to take military action in eastern Congo.

UN experts have previously estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwandan troops are in eastern Congo.

UN experts also reported last year that the Congolese military had been using several armed groups, including the FDLR, as proxies in the fight against the M23.

The genocide in Rwanda took place over 100 days in 1994.

The ethnic Hutu militia involved in killing up to 800,000 people – the vast majority from the Tutsi community – fled to what is now DR Congo, some forming the FDLR.

Kagame, who headed the rebel Tutsi force that ended the killing more than three decades ago, sees this “genocidal militia” as an existential threat.

• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?
• The evidence that shows Rwanda is backing rebels in DR Congo
• Your phone, a rare metal and the war in DR Congo

On Thursday, gunfire and explosions ripped through a rally held by rebel leaders in Bukavu, the second-biggest city in the east. Videos showed chaotic scenes with bodies on the streets after the crowd fled.

M23 rebels seized Bukavu from government forces last month following their rapid advance through the region.

The rally had earlier been addressed by Corneille Nangaa, the head of an alliance of rebel groups that includes the M23.

The rebels accused DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi’s government of orchestrating the attack. However, Tshisekedi blamed it on “a foreign army” that he said was operating in the east.

The African Union and the UN have called for a ceasefire and for the rebels to withdraw from areas they now control.

The family of a father-of-four who died while on holiday in Benidorm are flying to Spain to try and get answers about what happened in the hours before his death.

The body of Nathan Osman, 30, was found at the foot of a remote cliff on the outskirts of Benidorm less than 24 hours after he arrived on holiday with friends in September.

His family said attempts to use his bank cards were made the day after he died and fear others were involved before his death.

The Spanish authorities have agreed to meet with Nathan’s family, who do not believe there has been an adequate investigation into what happened to him.

Nathan’s brother Lee Evans and his sister Alannah are flying to Benidorm on Sunday, to try and speak directly with police about the investigation.

“We’ve been totally abandoned,” Lee said. “There’s been zero investigation and we are fighting for answers.”

Police in Benidorm have not responded to a request to comment.

Nathan, from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, had made a last minute decision to join his friends on a trip to Benidorm in September 2024.

The devoted dad had arrived on 27 September and after spending time with his friends, said he would walk back to his hotel on his own to sleep, because he was tired.

The following morning, his bed had not been slept in. Later that day, his body was found at the foot of a cliff by an off-duty policeman on a waterbike.

Lee does not believe Nathan made the journey to the remote location in the opposite direction to his hotel on his own, and said it would take an hour to walk up there.

He added Nathan had “no reason to be up there”.

“We strongly believe he was taken up there, whether it was by taxi or against his own will,” Lee said. “And something has happened for him to be found where he was found.”

The family said the day after his death attempts were made to use Nathan’s bank cards, but this was not followed up by the authorities.

Alannah and Lee have also been tracing Nathan’s known movements on the night. They said he had been on a video call with one of his friends until his phone battery ran out.

Carrying out their own investigations, the family discovered Nathan on public CCTV on the promenade, where they said he did not appear significantly intoxicated. They have found other premises with CCTV, but said the owners would not pass on any recordings without a request from the Spanish authorities.

The family said they had repeatedly tried to find out how the investigation into Nathan’s death was progressing, but have been met with silence.

They recently received a police file which Alannah said was “empty”, with the case described as closed.

Nathan’s mother Elizabeth said there was “no empathy” from the Spanish police immediately after his death and claimed they were “treated like dogs”.

Elizabeth said she had to identify her son by being shown a photo of a tattoo on his torso.

She said not knowing how he ended up at the remote location is torturous.

“Our boy deserves answers and we as a family deserve answers. Nathan wasn’t a drunkard who’d go out and forget about everything. Nathan was really with it,” she said.

“Not knowing about that last hour or two before his death, it’s eating us away, day in day out, from the time we get up to the time we go to bed. We live this nightmare.”

Nathan’s father Jonathan said: “They’ve done nothing, nothing at all. It’s just a total disregard for his life in every kind of way.”

The family said they needed to travel to Benidorm because of their frustration and to hand police the information they have gathered about the time between Nathan leaving his friends and the discovery of his body.

The Spanish authorities have agreed to meet them and discuss their concerns.

Lee said the family will not give up in its quest to find out what happened.

“We’ll keep going and going until we find out why – and how he got up there,” he said.

A spokesperson for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities.”

YouTuber Asmita Patel’s mission was to “make India trade”.

The wildly popular financial influencer called herself the “She-Wolf of the stock market” – her take on the Hollywood film The Wolf of Wall Street. At last count, she had clocked upwards of half a million subscribers on YouTube and hundreds of thousands on Instagram. Fees for her stock trading courses ran into thousands of rupees.

Last month, the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) put a spanner in the works. It barred her and six others from trading, alleging she was selling illegal stock tips disguised as investor education and making millions of rupees in the bargain.

The regulator’s crackdown on Patel is its latest attempt to tighten the noose around social media influencers offering quick money schemes and trading advice disguised as education.

India’s post-pandemic market boom attracted a wave of new mom-and-pop investors. Online trading accounts grew from merely 36 million in 2019 to more than 150 million last year, data from the brokerage Zerodha shows.

Many of these first-time market entrants relied on social media for trading tips which, in turn, birthed a new breed of self-styled “investment gurus” or “financial influencers” like Ms Patel, promising quick money.

With only 950 registered investment advisors and 1,400 financial advisors in the country, these influencers quickly filled the void, amassing hundreds of thousands of subscribers and followers.

Most operated without regulatory registration, blurring the line between investment advice and stock market education. This prompted Sebi to crack down, banning at least a dozen influencers, including a Bollywood actor, from offering trading advice.

The regulator has also barred brokerages and market players from partnering with influencers who peddle illegal stock tips or make misleading return claims.

The regulator found Ms Patel and her husband, Jitesh, directing students and investors to trade specific stocks through their advisory firm. She allegedly used private Telegram channels, Zoom calls and courses to sell tips without mandatory registration.

Sebi acted in Ms Patel’s case after 42 participants complained of trading losses and demanded compensation. It is now moving to seize millions of rupees that Patel and her associates earned from course fees between 2021 and 2024.

As markets correct, the economy slows and regulators crack down, other influencers face a credibility test.

Thousands of angry investors have recently accused high-profile influencers of faking their success to sell trading courses and earn millions in brokerage referrals.

Sebi’s order in Ms Patel’s case too revealed she made just over $13,700 (£10,800) as trading profits in the past five years but earned more than $11.4m (£9m) by selling courses.

Ms Patel didn’t respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

While Sebi’s drive to protect small investors is well intentioned, its recent regulatory actions have drawn criticism for being delayed and lacking clarity.

The regulator has been both a “selective” and “reluctant regulator”, Sucheta Dalal, veteran financial journalist and author, told the BBC.

“It should have acted a few years ago when trading sites started paying influencers to promote their products. Now this phenomenon has become too big.”

Sumit Agrawal, a former officer with Sebi, says the regulator singled out a few as an example instead of enforcing a clear, comprehensive policy.

“Curbing unregulated stock tips is necessary, but requiring trading schools to use three-month-old data for educational purposes and not teaching practical experience of trading strategies on live market crosses into over-regulation,” he says.

Manish Singh, a chartered accountant and YouTuber with half a million followers, makes market analysis videos. He says Sebi’s new rules have created confusion over what’s allowed.

“Even genuine content creators who are trying to guide people in the right direction will lose subscribers and the monetary incentive of brand deals as confidence to work with creators is shaken,” Singh told the BBC.

Balancing this will be tough for the regulator, says Mr Agrawal.

Technology is inherently disruptive and the law is always “playing catch-up”. Sebi’s real challenge, he adds, is to monitor online content effectively without over-regulating. Notably, the Indian regulator wields broader powers than its counterparts in advanced markets like the US.

“It has extensive authority, including search and seizure powers and the ability to ban trading and freeze bank accounts without requiring a court order,” says Mr Agrawal.

A Reuters report, citing sources, says the regulator has again sought greater powers – its second request in two years – to access call records and social media chats in investigations into influencer-led market violations.

The challenge, say experts, will be to ensure it doesn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order making English the official language of the United States.

It means government agencies and organisations that receive federal funding can choose whether they want to offer documents and services in languages other than English.

It rescinds a policy that required such bodies to provide language assistance to non-English speakers signed by former president Bill Clinton in 2000.

“Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society,” the order says.

This marks the first time the US has designated an official language at the federal level since the country was founded almost 250 years ago.

It is noted in the order that agencies do not need to change, remove or stop offering any such assistance they already provide.

“In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream,” the order reads.

“Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society.”

It also says it celebrates the “long tradition of multilingual American citizens who have learned English and passed it to their children for generations to come”.

Nearly 68 million of the country’s 340 million residents speak a language other than English, according to the US Census Bureau.

This includes more than 160 Native American languages.

Spanish, various Chinese languages and Arabic are among the languages spoken the most after English, according to the Census Bureau.

Republicans have previously tried to get English designated as the US’s official language, with members of the House introducing legislation that failed in 2021.

Those who opposed their efforts said an official language was not necessary given the high numbers of people who speak English without it being designated as such.

They also said establishing one could promote discrimination against non-English speakers.

During his presidential campaign in 2024, Trump referenced non-English languages while calling for stricter immigration policies.

“It’s the craziest thing – they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing,” he told a crowd of supporters in February 2024.

Approximately 180 countries around the world have official national languages, and most countries recognise multiple official languages.

Several countries do not have an official language, including the United Kingdom.

More than 30 US states have designated English as the official language, while Alaska and Hawaii have also given official status to several native languages.

For the third week in a row, Pope Francis has been unable to deliver his traditional Angelus prayer in person, with the Vatican publishing his written comments instead.

Vatican officials said the text, sent from his hospital room in Rome, had been written “in the past few days”. In it, the Pope thanked people for their prayers and thanked his medical team for their care.

“I feel in my heart the ‘blessing’ that is hidden within frailty, because it is precisely in these moments that we learn even more to trust in the Lord,” he wrote.

“At the same time, I thank God for giving me the opportunity to share in body and spirit the condition of so many sick and suffering people.”

The Pope usually makes his address from a window of the official Vatican appartments, drawing a crowd below on St Peter’s Square.

Many Catholics come specially for the chance to see him but this is now the longest Pope Francis has been out of the public eye since he was elected.

Each evening on the square, a group of cardinals lead people in prayers for his health.

In his latest written address, the Pope told Catholics that he felt their “affection and closeness” and felt “carried and supported by all God’s people”.

The Vatican said he remained stable on Sunday, although doctors still describe his overall condition – with pneumonia – as “complex” and the risk of another infection is high. After 16 days in hospital, they are still giving no prognosis.

The medical team has not spoken directly to journalists for over a week, and all updates are coming via Vatican officials.

On Sunday, they said the Pope no longer required “non-invasive mechanical ventilation, only high-flow oxygen therapy”.

He does not have a fever and was able to participate in mass in a chapel on the 10th floor of Rome’s Gemelli hospital where he is being treated.

• The Roman hospital caring for Pope Francis
• In pictures: Prayers for the Pope around the world

The Pope also received two visitors – Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin and his deputy Monsignor Pena Parra. They are the first to be mentioned by the Vatican in almost a week.

There are no details about the length of time the men spent with him or what was discussed.

The latest details do suggest that the Pope has rallied somewhat since Friday, when he suffered a second breathing “crisis” which doctors had worried might have a lasting impact. It was the second time the word “crisis” had been used since he was admitted to hospital on 14 February.

By Sunday, though, Vatican sources were more reassuring.

“The Pope woke, had breakfast with coffee, continued his therapy and read the newspapers as he usually does,” they told journalists.

In his Sunday Angelus, the Pope prayed for peace, including in “tormented Ukraine, Palestine, Israel”, adding: “From here, war appears even more absurd.”

Always outspoken against war, some of the Pope’s previous comments on Ukraine have nevertheless created controversy.

He suggested that Russia’s full-scale invasion was “somehow provoked” and on one occasion agreed that Kyiv should show “the courage of the white flag” and negotiate for peace.