Two people – an 83-year-old woman and a 54-year-old man – have been killed after a vehicle drove into a pedestrian area in the city of Mannheim, western Germany.

Five people were seriously injured and another five suffered minor injuries in the incident, investigators said.

Authorities arrested a lone suspect, a 40-year-old German man, who is not believed to be linked to extremism but shows “concrete indications of mental illness”.

The suspect, who prosecutors said was a landscape gardener, remains in hospital in a stable condition after shooting himself with a gun loaded with blanks.

The incident occurred at around 12:15 local time (11:15 GMT), Mannheim police said.

CCTV footage showed a black hatchback car speeding along Planken shopping street in Mannheim, heading west.

Images from the scene showed police inspecting the car, a small black Ford, which had sustained heavy damage to its front.

The images show the car missing a hub cap on its front left wheel. In the CCTV footage, the front left hub cap also appears to be missing.

Thomas Strobl, interior minister of Baden-Württemberg, said the man used the vehicle “as a weapon”.

“This act is one of several crimes in the recent past in which a car was misused as a weapon,” Mr Strobl said, but added that there is no evidence to suggest the incident is connected to the Easter carnival taking place in the city.

Police are investigating two counts of murder and several of attempted murder, Mannheim chief public prosecutor Romeo Schluessler told reporters.

Mannheim’s mayor described the incident as “abhorrent and “inhumane”.

“Our thoughts are with the dead and injured, their families and friends,” Mayor Christian Specht said.

Olaf Scholz, Germany’s outgoing chancellor, thanked the emergency services and wished “strength” for eyewitnesses in Mannheim to “process what they have experienced”.

“We mourn with the relatives of the victims of a senseless act of violence and fear for those injured,” he said in a social media post.

The incident comes at a time of heightened security as outdoor carnivals linked to Easter celebrations are held across Germany.

There was a parade through the Mannheim city centre on Sunday, with major events scheduled for Tuesday.

A market has now been closed and a street carnival in the city centre will not take place. Carnival events in the nearby suburbs of Feudenheim, Neckarau and Sandhofen have also been cancelled.

Germany has endured a number of violent attacks over the last year, which have left several people dead and hundreds injured.

Nine months ago, also in Mannheim and only a few blocks away from where Monday’s attack is believed to have taken place, an Afghan man stabbed several people, killing a policeman.

Then, in August, another knife attack left eight people injured and three dead in Solingen. The Syrian man who was charged with the crime was suspected of links with the Islamic State terrorist group.

In December a man rammed a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, leaving six dead and 299 injured. A 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist was arrested.

In January, a 28-year-old Afghan asylum seeker attacked a group of small children in a park in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, killing a two-year-old child and a passer-by who tried to help the boy.

And in February, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker drove a car into a crowd, injuring more than two dozen people. A mother and child later died from their injuries.

Japan has deployed more than 2,000 firefighters to battle the country’s biggest forest fire in three decades.

At least one person has died in the blaze, which has torched more than 5,200 acres around the northern Japanese city of Ofunato since Thursday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA).

Although January to March is typically Ofunato’s driest season, the area saw less rainfall last month than any February in more than 20 years – recording just 2.5 millimetres, compared to the usual average of 41.

About 4,600 people remain under government-issued evacuation orders as the fire continues to burn.

Some 2,000 have already left the area to stay with friends or relatives, and more than 1,200 have evacuated to shelters, officials said.

The fires are burning in a forest area of Iwate Prefecture, which is Japan’s second largest prefecture and has the country’s second-lowest population density.

More than 80 buildings are estimated to have been damaged so far, although FDMA noted that details are still being assessed.

“Although it is inevitable that the fire will spread to some extent, we will take all possible measures to ensure there will be no impact on people’s homes,” Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in parliament.

Thousands of firefighters from 14 prefectures, including Tokyo, have been dispatched to fight the fires. At least 16 helicopters are also being used, with images showing the aircraft dumping water onto the smouldering hills.

Like many other countries, Japan in 2024 recorded its hottest year since records began.

It is difficult to know if climate change has caused or worsened specific fires, because other factors – such as changes to the way land is used – are also relevant.

However, the IPCC says climate change is making the weather conditions needed for wildfires to spread more likely.

Have you been evacuated? Send us your story.

Donald Trump has been threatening major tariffs on America’s two largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, for more than a month. It now appears that the day of reckoning is at hand.

The risk for the president is that his sweeping tariffs, which also target China, may drive up prices for businesses and consumers in the months ahead, damaging the health of the US economy – the issue that Americans say they care about most.

The economy and inflation was at the top of voter concerns last November – concerns Trump promised to address as he stormed back to the White House, partly on the back of lingering discontent about soaring prices early in the Biden presidency.

Trump can comfortably boast that he has delivered many of his most striking campaign promises – including slashing federal jobs, stepping up immigration enforcement and recognising two sexes only.

But on inflation, the new Trump administration has made little tangible progress. Sky-high egg prices have been a daily reminder. And while the mass culling of chickens in response to bird flu has played a major role, the cost of the daily staple for many Americans has kept inflation front and centre in voters’ minds.

As Trump confirmed on Monday that 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican-made goods would indeed be coming into effect, US stock markets took their biggest hit of the year, providing an early indication of the economic turbulence his policies could create. And Trump’s tariffs on Mexican food imports, in particular, could hit Americans where they feel it the most – in higher prices at the grocery store.

According to a CBS survey conducted last week, 82% of Americans say they think the economy should be a “high” priority for the president. Only 30% said that about tariffs.

Only 36% of respondents think Trump is prioritising the economy “a lot” – compared to 68% for tariffs. Just 29% believe Trump is prioritising inflation. Views on the state of the economy remain generally dour, as 60% said it is “bad”, compared to 58% who had the same view last year.

Public opinion of Trump’s handling of the economy as a whole is within the margin of error on the survey, with 51% approving. That exactly matches his overall job rating, suggesting that the fate of this president, like those his predecessors, will hinge on the strength of the economy.

According to Clifford Young, president of public affairs at polling company Ipsos, Trump is still in the honeymoon period of his presidency, when Americans will give him room to manoeuvre.

Typically, he said, this benefit of the doubt for a new president lasts about six months – but that can be cut short if the economy suffers some kind of dramatic shift. Trump argues that his tariffs will boost US manufacturing, raise tax revenue and spur investment – but most economists say that prices for Americans are likely to rise, potentially in a similar timeframe.

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On Tuesday night, in a primetime speech to a joint session of Congress, Trump will have a chance to make the case that the short-term pain of his tariff plan will lead to long-term benefits. It’s his chance to convince the American public to keep his honeymoon going.

“I’d be interested to see how he links government efficiency to the economy, global tariffs to the economy, even immigration to the economy,” said Young. “Ideally, he would make an argument that all these different things he’s doing are ultimately done with the view of improving the economy.”

The challenge for the president is there are some indications that doubts about the economy are growing, along with warning signs of other challenges to come.

A survey of public and private businesses released last week by the Conference Board, a non-partisan economic research group, found a precipitous drop in consumer confidence – the largest decline since August 2021. The souring mood among US consumers was largely attributed to concerns over inflation and economic disruptions caused by rising tariffs.

Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose 3% in January, marking a six-month high. The public appears to agree, as the CBS poll found 62% of Americans reporting that prices have been “going up” in the past few weeks.

White House officials privately insist that administration efforts to cut government costs, reduce regulation and boost energy production will ultimately lead to lower prices even in the face of higher tariffs – but that such efforts take time to produce results.

In a television interview on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump plans to appoint an “affordability tsar” to address the concerns of “working-class Americans”.

“President Trump said that he’ll own the economy in six or 12 months,” Bessent said, suggesting that former President Joe Biden was to blame for the current conditions.

“But I can tell you that we are working to get these prices down every day.”

While Tuesday’s speech is not a formal State of the Union address, Trump can talk about what he is doing – and will do – to address these voter concerns.

Any missteps could give Democrats, who have been struggling to find an effective line of attack against the new president, an opening. Their choice of rebuttal speaker, newly elected Senator Elissa Slotkin from the trade-dependent industrial Midwestern state of Michigan, suggest they are keen to focus on economic issues.

At the moment, Trump is at the height of his political power. Now, he appears willing to use that power to change the way the US conducts trade policy – an issue that has animated him for more than four decades.

But American history books are lined with the names of presidents felled by souring public perceptions of the economy.

Some financial disruptions are entirely out of a White House’s control. With his tariff decision, however, Trump is making a high-stakes bet that the American public will ultimately approve of his decisions.

If he’s right, the payoff could be a generational political realignment on this issue.

If he’s wrong, it could undercut the second term of his presidency before it even gets fully underway.

India faces a crucial choice in modernising its air force – but is a cutting-edge American fighter jet the answer?

During his Washington visit last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Donald Trump, who announced they were “paving the way” for India to acquire F-35s, a jet primarily sold to close allies and partners.

The F-35 is a “fifth-generation” multi-role fighter jet with advanced sensors, AI-driven combat systems and seamless data-sharing capabilities. Built to evade radar, it’s the most sophisticated jet in the skies – but at $80m a pop, also one of the most expensive. (Stealth is a key characteristic of a “fifth-generation” fighter.)

Many believe that with its fighter squadrons dwindling and China’s military growing, India faces a high-stakes choice: splurge on the state-of-the-art but costly F-35 from the US or strengthen defence ties with Russia through local production of its most advanced stealth fighter jet Sukhoi Su-57.

Experts believe the reality is more nuanced, with the US-Russia “dogfight” largely a media hype – fuelled more recently by the appearance of both jets at Asia’s biggest air show, Aero India, in the southern city of Bangalore last month.

Trump’s F-35 offer seems more “symbolic” than practical, driven by his push to sell US weapons, according to Ashley J Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Integrating a “fifth generation” aircraft into the India air force (IAF) plans – centred on the homegrown Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) and more Rafales – would be challenging, especially without co-production rights. Being developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the AMCA is India’s own stealth fighter.

“It is unlikely that the F-35 will be offered for co-production to India – any acquisition will likely be a straightforward sale. This is unlikely, among other things, to sit well with Modi’s emphasis on making in India and the significant end-user monitoring in the event of an F-35 sale will likely not be welcomed by India either,” Mr Tellis told me.

India’s challenges with the F-35 are its steep cost, heavy maintenance and operational issues – the jet’s availability is around 51% for the US Air Force, according to security expert Stephen Bryen, author of a Substack column, Weapons and Strategy. “The question is whether India is willing to invest billions of rupees in the F-35, knowing it could do better buying the Russian jet.”

But many dismiss the Su-57 as a real contender, noting that India exited the decade-long programme to co-produce the jet with Russia in 2018 over disputes on technology transfer, cost-sharing and specifications.

To be sure, India’s air force is ageing and short on fighter jets.

It operates 31 fighter and combat squadrons – mostly Russian and Soviet-era aircraft – far below the sanctioned 42. A key challenge is finding a long-term replacement for the Sukhoi-30, the IAF’s versatile workhorse from Russia.

Christopher Clary, a political scientist at the University of Albany, recently pointed to unsettling data from the ISS Military Balance for India: between 2014 and 2024, China added 435 fighter and ground attack aircraft, Pakistan gained 31, while India’s fleet shrank by 151.

India’s planned fighter jet expansion is largely homegrown, with plans to acquire over 500 jets, mostly light combat aircraft.

Orders for 83 Tejas Mark 1A – an agile multirole homegrown fighter – are confirmed, with another 97 expected to be ordered shortly. Meanwhile, the heavier, more advanced Mark 2 is in development. The homegrown stealth jet remains at least a decade away.

India also has plans to buy 114 multirole fighter jets under the IAF’s $20bn Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme requiring foreign jets to be built in India under a transfer of technology deal – its biggest hurdle.

Stalled since 2019, the Indian government is looking at a transparent and non-controversial procurement process after it faced criticism over the acquisition of 36 Rafales in a government-to-government deal. Five jets are in contention, with Rafale leading as it is already in service with the IAF.

Experts say India’s air force modernisation faces three key hurdles: funding, delays and dependence on foreign jets.

Defence spending has shrunk in real terms. The foreign fighter jets programme risks a drawn-out fate. While India prioritises home-made, DRDO’s delays force stopgap foreign purchases, creating a repeating cycle. Breaking it requires delivering a capable homegrown jet on time. Deliveries are also delayed due to a holdup in supplies of General Electric’s F-404 engines for the jets.

A key challenge is the mismatch between the defence ministry’s vision and the IAF’s needs, says Rahul Bhatia, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm.

The Tejas Mark 1 faced early scepticism from the air force, leading to upgrades like the Mark 1A and Mark 2. “But the decades-long development cycles frustrate the armed forces, especially as their requirements keep evolving as newer technologies become available, which in turn contributes to further delays,” Mr Bhatia told me.

Even the Indian Air Force chief AP Singh has made no secret of his frustration over delays.

“I can take a vow that I will not buy anything from outside or I will wait for whatever is developed in India, but it may not be possible if it does not come at that pace [on time],” Air Marshall Singh told a seminar recently.

“At the moment, we all know that we are very badly off when it comes to numbers [of fighters]. And the numbers which were promised are also coming a little slow. So, there will be a requirement to go and look for something which can quickly fill up these voids,” he said, referring to the delayed Tejas Mark 1A deliveries, which were supposed to begin last February but have yet to start.

India’s clear priority is a homegrown stealth fighter, with more than $1bn already committed to its development. “A foreign stealth jet would only be considered if India’s immediate threat perception shifts,” says Mr Bhatia. China has two so-called stealth fighters – the J-20 and J-35 – but they likely fall short of US standards.

Most experts believe India will choose neither the American nor Russian fighters. “In the short term, as seen in past conflicts, emergency buys may fill gaps. The medium-term focus is co-production, but the long game is clear – building its own,” says Mr Bhatia.

For India, the future of airpower isn’t just about buying jets – it’s about building them, ideally with a strong Western partner. But for that vision to succeed, India must deliver its homegrown fighters on time.

Armed men are raping and sexually assaulting children as young as one during Sudan’s civil war, says the UN children’s agency, Unicef.

Mass sexual violence has been widely documented as a weapon of war in the country’s nearly two-year conflict.

But Unicef’s report is the first detailed account about the impact of rape on young children in Sudan.

A third of the victims were boys, who typically face “unique challenges” in reporting such crimes and seeking the help they need.

Unicef says that, although 221 rape cases against children have been officially reported since the start of 2024, the true number is likely to be much higher.

Sudan is a socially conservative country where huge societal stigma stops survivors and their families from speaking out about rape, as does the fear of retribution from armed groups.

The Unicef report provides an appalling window into the abuse of children in the country’s civil war.

Perhaps its most shocking revelation is that 16 of the victims were under the age of five years, including four infants.

Unicef does not say who is responsible, but other UN investigations have blamed the majority of rapes on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), saying RSF fighters had a pattern of using sexual violence to terrorise civilians and suppress opposition to their advances.

The RSF, which is fighting this war against its former allies, the Sudanese Armed Forces, has denied any wrongdoing.

“The sheer scale of sexual violence we have documented in Sudan is staggering,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the UN’s fact-finding mission when its previous report was published in October.

According to evidence presented by international human rights groups, victims in the RSF’s stronghold of Darfur were often targeted because they were black African rather than Arab, apparently with the aim of driving them out of Sudan.

The UN humanitarian response for Sudan is already underfunded. Recent cuts in US aid are expected to reduce programmes to help the victims even further.

Harrowing details in Unicef’s report underscore the dire situation.

“After nine at night, someone opens the door, carrying a whip, selects one of the girls, and takes her to another room. I could hear the little girl crying and screaming. They were raping her,” recalls Omnia (not her real name), an adult female survivor who was held by armed men in a room with other women and girls.

“Every time they raped her, this girl would come back covered in blood. She is still just a young child. They only release these girls at dawn, and they return almost unconscious. Each of them cries and speaks incoherently. During the 19 days I spent there, I reached a point where I wanted to end my life.”

As a fractured nation at war, Sudan is one of the most challenging places on earth to access services and frontline workers.

The vast number of people displaced by the war has made women and children more vulnerable to attack – three out of four school-age girls are out of school, the UN says.

The devastating outcome of these crimes is aggravated by the fact that victims have few places to turn to for medical help, because many medical facilities have been destroyed, looted or occupied by the warring parties.

Recent US aid cuts may be endangering even the limited services available to protect children.

Unicef has been providing safe spaces for children through a network of local activists who have set up what are known as Emergency Response Rooms to deal with the crises in their communities.

The activists relied quite heavily on US aid, and most have been forced to shut down, according to a Sudanese coordinating committee that monitors them.

More broadly, the UN organization dedicated to protecting women’s rights says local organisations led by women are vital in delivering support to survivors of sexual violence. But they receive less than 2% of the total funding of the UN’s Sudan Humanitarian Fund.

The BBC learned that at least one of these local groups, known as “She Leads”, was forced to close when US funding was stopped.

It was not a big expense, measured in the tens of thousands of dollars, but enabled case workers to reach around 35 survivors a month, said Sulaima Elkhalifa, a Sudanese human rights defender who runs a government unit on combatting violence against woman and helped organize the private initiative.

Those who have been raped by armed men “don’t have the luxury of being depressed,” she told the BBC.

The demands of war – finding food, needing to flee – leave no space to deal with trauma, she added.

• Sudan fighters accused of storming famine-hit camp
• Villagers killed execution-style in Sudan, activists say
• ‘I miss my school’: BBC launches programme for children in war zones

Pope Francis is alert after suffering two episodes of “acute respiratory failure” on Monday afternoon, the Vatican has said.

Doctors were forced to intervene to clear mucus from the Pope’s lungs, an update from the Holy See said, though it said he was alert throughout.

The 88-year-old pontiff has resumed the use of an oxygen mask and ventilator to assist his breathing, but remains “alert, focused and cooperative”, the Vatican said.

This is now the third serious downturn since the 88-year-old pontiff was admitted to hospital 18 days ago with pneumonia.

On Friday, Pope Francis suffered an “isolated” breathing crisis involving vomiting, the Vatican said.

Updates from the Holy See reported that he responded well to oxygen therapy, with Vatican officials saying on Sunday the Pope no longer required “non-invasive mechanical ventilation, only high-flow oxygen therapy”.

Following Monday’s episodes, Pope Francis has resumed that mechanical ventilation.

His illness has meant that Pope Francis has been unable to deliver his traditional Angelus prayer in person for three weeks in a row, with the Vatican publishing his written comments instead.

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.

He will also miss the procession and mass this Wednesday that mark the first day of Lent, the six-week period leading to Easter.

Hundreds of Catholics gathered outside in St Peter’s Square on Monday for an eighth evening to pray for the Pope’s health, many carrying rosary beads as they headed across the cobbles towards the Basilica.

The crowd, a mixture of priests and nuns based in Rome and Catholic pilgrims here for a Jubilee year, were led by an American cardinal.

“I come every night to pray, but this night I am pretty worried,” Javier, a Romanian priest, voiced the feelings of many on the square. “We still have hope, but it doesn’t look good.”

“It looks bad, and that’s a shame because we really like Francis,” Patricia, a Spanish catholic from Toledo, told the BBC.

She was following the prayers with her husband and young daughter.

“He’s really opened the doors of the church to many, like LGBT people. I think they will look for a more conservative pope next, to stop the change.”

Catholics have also been visiting the Gemelli hospital in Rome to pray for him – hoping he might come to the window, as has happened in the past.

But although the Vatican recently described the Pope’s condition as stable, he remains too sick even to greet the crowd below.

The Pope was admitted to hospital on 14 February after experiencing breathing difficulties for several days.

He was first treated for bronchitis before being diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs.

The pontiff is particularly susceptible to pneumonia, an infection of the lungs that can be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi, after he contracted pleurisy – an inflammation of the lungs – as a young man and had a partial lung removal.

Vatican sources stress, as they have all along, that the Pope’s condition remains complex – his doctors remain cautious – and he is not out of danger.

Dozens of construction workers have been pulled out alive from metal containers after they were buried by an avalanche in the Himalayas in India’s Uttarakhand state.

They survived – some as long as nearly two days – as the containers in which they were living had enough oxygen to sustain them until rescuers could dig them out, Indian media reported quoting officials.

On Friday, 54 workers were buried when the avalanche hit a construction camp near Mana village. Eight were killed, while the other 46 were rescued.

The operation lasted almost 60 hours in sub-zero temperatures and concluded on Sunday.

Most of the labourers, who were working on a highway expansion project, were able to “withstand the wrecking avalanche” because of the containers, rescuers told The Indian Express newspaper.

“These metal shelters saved most of them. They had just enough oxygen to hold on until we got them out,” a senior rescue official told The Times of India.

The newspaper reported that the force of the avalanche had hurled eight metal containers and a shed down the mountain.

Uttarakhand state Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has thanked rescue teams for their efforts in challenging conditions.

Members of the Indian army, national and state disaster response forces and local administration had worked to free the workers, using helicopters and drones for the operation.

Many of the rescued workers are receiving treatment at hospitals in the state’s Joshimath town and Rishikesh city.

Satyaprakash Yadav, a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh who was among those rescued, said the “avalanche hit our container like a landslide”, according to a video released by the army.

He added that the container he was in broke apart when the snow hit and it ended up near a river.

“We managed to get out on our own and reached a nearby army guest house, where we stayed overnight,” he added.

Rajnish Kumar, a worker from Uttarkhand’s Pithoragarh town, said most of them were sleeping when the avalanche struck.

“When the snow hit the container, it sank about 50 to 60 metres down [the mountain]. The Army arrived quickly and rescued us,” he said, according to the army video.

Gaurav Kunwar, a former village council member of Mana, told the BBC on Friday the area where the avalanche hit was a “migratory area” and that it had no permanent residents.

“Only labourers working on border roads stay there in the winter,” he said, adding that it had rained for two days prior to the avalanche.

The India Meteorological Department has warned of rainfall and snow in the northern states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, as well as Jammu and Kashmir until Tuesday.

Avalanches and landslides are common in the higher regions of the Himalayas, especially during winter.

Experts say that climate change has made extreme weather more severe and less predictable. There has also been a rapid rise in deforestation and construction in Uttarakhand’s hilly areas in recent years.

In 2021, nearly 100 people died in Uttarakhand after a piece of a Himalayan glacier fell into the river, triggering flash floods.

India’s first medical clinic for transgender people has shut operations in three cities after US President Donald Trump stopped foreign aid to it.

Mitr (friend) Clinic, which was started in 2021 in the southern city of Hyderabad, offered HIV treatment, support and counselling services to thousands of transgender people.

Two more Mitr Clinics in Thane and Pune cities in western India, which were established the same year, have also shut down due to the aid cut.

In January, Trump signed an executive order pausing all foreign aid for 90 days, pending a review.

Trump has said he wants overseas spending to be closely aligned with his “America First” approach.

His crackdown on USAID, the US agency overseeing humanitarian aid to foreign countries since the 1960s, has been seen as a step to this end.

The pausing of USAID funds has affected dozens of development programmes all around the world, especially in poor and developing countries.

In India, the shutting down of the Mitr Clinics has impacted the transgender community’s access to crucial medical support.

The project came into existence under the US President’s agency for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003 when George Bush was president. John Hopkins University worked in collaboration with USAID and the Indian government to set it up.

A staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity to BBC Hindi said the three clinics catered to some 6,000 people and about 6% to 8% of the patients were being treated for HIV.

“All these cases were below 30 years of age. And 75% to 80% of this population was accessing health services for the first time,” this staff member said.

In Hyderabad, the Mitr Clinic offered care to 150 to 200 transgender patients each month, many of whom suffered from HIV. The clinic had a small team of doctors, psychologists and technical staff.

“We were receiving 250,000 rupees ($2900; £2300) every month to provide services,” Rachana Mudraboyina, a trans woman who was in-charge of the clinic, told BBC Hindi.

The news of the clinic’s closure has come as a blow to the community.

Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli, a trans woman who has visited the clinic, told The Indian Express newspaper that she was “devastated” by the news as the clinic used to offer treatment at subsidised rates.

Another trans woman, who was hoping to use the clinic’s services, told the Express that she was sad that she would no longer be able to do this.

India is estimated to have around two million transgender people, though activists say the number is higher. Despite a 2014 Supreme Court ruling that gives them the same rights as people of other genders, many still struggle to access education and healthcare due to stigma and discrimination.

There are state-run and private hospitals that offer medical help to the community, but many say they prefer going to Mitr Clinics because they find it more affordable and inclusive.

“Transgender people are not treated properly in general hospitals,” Rachana says, explaining why the Mitr Clinics were so important for the community.

Trump’s order freezing foreign aid has been criticised by many.

“USAID has made significant contributions in health and education and shutting it down is bound to have an impact on developing countries,” Bubberjung Venkatesh, a lawyer, told BBC Hindi.

“It’s a big blow. Its support for HIV prevention was significant,” he added.

Last Thursday, the Trump administration said it was going to eliminate more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts. This means that very few projects will survive and the Mitr Clinics are unlikely to be among them.

Elon Musk, a close aide of Trump who also heads a government department in charge of slashing federal spending and jobs, has criticised funding projects for transgender people.

“That’s what American tax dollars were funding,” Musk said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday in response to a post about the closure of the Mitr Clinics.

Meanwhile, staff at the clinic say they are looking for funding from other sources and hope that the state government will step in to help.

“We did a lot more than just provide medical help. The clinic also provided us a space to interact with the community, to share advice about various government schemes and health facilities,” Rachana says.

“We want to continue [running the clinic] and are trying our best to find donors,” she adds.

The testing second stage of Gaza’s ceasefire was always in doubt; now it seems to be dead at the moment it was meant to start.

Concern is mounting that war will return to this ravaged territory, deepening the profound suffering of Palestinians and threatening the lives of the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

Israel, backed by the United States, says there is a new deal now, after the agreement’s first phase ended on Saturday. And it has halted all humanitarian aid to Gaza until Hamas accepts this new version too.

“A flagrant violation,” was Cairo’s strongly worded response. Egypt as well as Qatar, the two Arab mediators in this process along with the US, have also accused Israel of violating international humanitarian law by “using food as a weapon of war”.

Under the terms of the agreement, 600 trucks carrying vital humanitarian aid are meant to enter Gaza daily – and huge numbers crossed through the 42 days of the first phase.

There has also been a loud chorus of criticism from other Arab states, as well as humanitarian leaders.

UN Secretary General António Guterres, who has arrived in Cairo for Tuesday’s emergency Arab summit on rebuilding Gaza, called for the “immediate” resumption of assistance. He urged “all parties to make every effort to prevent a return to hostilities”.

Under the agreement, which came into effect on 19 January, this is the week when Israel should be pulling its troops from the Philadelphi corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border and negotiations should intensify to end the war, return all the remaining hostages, and release more Palestinian prisoners in exchange.

But Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says US envoy Steve Witkoff has come up with a new plan.

Witkoff has not yet announced his proposal, but Netanyahu said the first stage of the ceasefire would be extended for another 50 days, to cover the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish holiday of Passover, and to continue negotiations.

Hamas, in exchange, would immediately release half of the remaining hostages, according to Netanyahu. Israel says 59 are still being held captive and “up to 24” are believed to be alive.

On Monday Hamas denounced this sudden shift as a “a blatant attempt [by Israel] to evade the agreement and avoid entering into negotiations for the second phase”.

The group regards the hostages as its most important leverage and will make every effort to hold on to them until this current confrontation ends on terms it is willing to accept.

A day earlier, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty emphasised: “There is no alternative to the faithful and full implementation by all parties of what was signed last January.”

Israeli media have published reports of an Egyptian proposal for Hamas to release three living hostages and the remains of three others in exchange for a two-week extension of the ceasefire and an Israeli pullout from the Philadelphi corridor, as well as the main north-south Salah-al-Din road.

But an Arab diplomat with knowledge of the talks said they had not resumed yet in Cairo, although “technical teams are in constant discussion”.

There was always going to be a dangerous standoff at this point.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s primary aim has always been to “destroy” Hamas’s military strength and political grip.

Their highly choreographed ceremonies and show of force during the hostage releases has angered Israelis and underlined that, while it has been significantly weakened, Hamas is still very much in charge in Gaza.

Arab diplomatic sources say that while Hamas has accepted it will not be involved in running Gaza once this war ends, it will not dismantle what is left of its sway.

That is unacceptable to Israel, and to its most important ally, the US.

On Sunday, the US National Security Council gave its full support for Israel’s “next step”. It put the blame firmly on Hamas, saying the group had “indicated it’s no longer interested in a negotiated ceasefire”.

In a video address, Prime Minister Netanyahu described President Donald Trump as “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House”.

But Israeli media say Washington is also putting pressure on the Israeli leader not to restart the fighting.

That kind of arm twisting is widely acknowledged to have pushed the ceasefire deal over the line even before the Trump team entered the White House on 20 January.

Pressure also mounts from Israelis increasingly anxious to see all the hostages come home.

On Sunday night, hundreds of protesters broke down police barriers outside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem.

The US president, praised by his supporters as “the world’s best peacemaker”, could again shape the parameters of war or peace.

In the meantime, both sides are readying to resume the fight while they weigh their options for winning a peace on their terms.

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 more than 40% in their Hong Kong Stock Exchange debut.

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 smaller rival Guming, which saw shares 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.

One of the world’s most prolific blood donors – whose plasma saved the lives of more than two million babies – has died.

James Harrison died in his sleep at a nursing home in New South Wales, Australia on 17 February, his family said on Monday. He was 88.

Known in Australia as the man with the golden arm, Harrison’s blood contained a rare antibody, Anti-D, which is used to make medication given to pregnant mothers whose blood is at risk of attacking their unborn babies.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service who paid tribute to Harrison, said he had pledged to become a donor after receiving transfusions while undergoing a major chest surgery when he was 14.

He started donating his blood plasma when he was 18 and continued doing so every two weeks until he was 81.

In 2005, he had the world record for most blood plasma donated – a title he held until 2022 when he was overtaken by a man in the US.

Harrison’s daughter, Tracey Mellowship, said her father was “very proud to have saved so many lives, without any cost or pain”.

“He always said it does not hurt, and the life you save could be your own,” she said.

Mellowship and two of Harrison’s grandchildren are also recipients of anti-D immunisations.

“It made [James] happy to hear about the many families like ours, who existed because of his kindness,” she said.

Anti-D jabs protect unborn babies from a deadly blood disorder called haemolytic disease of the foetus and newborn, or HDFN.

The condition occurs at pregnancy when the mother’s red blood cells are incompatible with that of their growing baby.

The mother’s immune system then sees the baby’s blood cells as a threat and produces antibodies to attack them. This can seriously harm the baby, causing severe anaemia, heart failure, or even death.

Before anti-D interventions were developed in the mid-1960s, one in two babies diagnosed with HDFN died.

It is unclear how Harrison’s blood came to be so rich in anti-D, but some reports said it had to do with the massive blood transfusion he received at 14.

There are fewer than 200 anti-D donors in Australia, but they help an estimated 45,000 mothers and their babies every year, according to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, also known as Lifeblood.

Lifeblood has been working with Australia’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research to grow anti-D antibodies in the lab by replicating blood and immune cells from Harrison and other donors.

Researchers involved hope lab-made anti-D can one day be used to help pregnant women worldwide.

“Creating a new therapy has long been a ‘holy grail’,” Lifeblood’s research director David Irving said.

He noted the scarcity of donors committed to regular donation, who are able to produce antibodies in sufficient quality and quantity.

India faces a crucial choice in modernising its air force – but is a cutting-edge American fighter jet the answer?

During his Washington visit last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Donald Trump, who announced they were “paving the way” for India to acquire F-35s, a jet primarily sold to close allies and partners.

The F-35 is a “fifth-generation” multi-role fighter jet with advanced sensors, AI-driven combat systems and seamless data-sharing capabilities. Built to evade radar, it’s the most sophisticated jet in the skies – but at $80m a pop, also one of the most expensive. (Stealth is a key characteristic of a “fifth-generation” fighter.)

Many believe that with its fighter squadrons dwindling and China’s military growing, India faces a high-stakes choice: splurge on the state-of-the-art but costly F-35 from the US or strengthen defence ties with Russia through local production of its most advanced stealth fighter jet Sukhoi Su-57.

Experts believe the reality is more nuanced, with the US-Russia “dogfight” largely a media hype – fuelled more recently by the appearance of both jets at Asia’s biggest air show, Aero India, in the southern city of Bangalore last month.

Trump’s F-35 offer seems more “symbolic” than practical, driven by his push to sell US weapons, according to Ashley J Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Integrating a “fifth generation” aircraft into the India air force (IAF) plans – centred on the homegrown Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) and more Rafales – would be challenging, especially without co-production rights. Being developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the AMCA is India’s own stealth fighter.

“It is unlikely that the F-35 will be offered for co-production to India – any acquisition will likely be a straightforward sale. This is unlikely, among other things, to sit well with Modi’s emphasis on making in India and the significant end-user monitoring in the event of an F-35 sale will likely not be welcomed by India either,” Mr Tellis told me.

India’s challenges with the F-35 are its steep cost, heavy maintenance and operational issues – the jet’s availability is around 51% for the US Air Force, according to security expert Stephen Bryen, author of a Substack column, Weapons and Strategy. “The question is whether India is willing to invest billions of rupees in the F-35, knowing it could do better buying the Russian jet.”

But many dismiss the Su-57 as a real contender, noting that India exited the decade-long programme to co-produce the jet with Russia in 2018 over disputes on technology transfer, cost-sharing and specifications.

To be sure, India’s air force is ageing and short on fighter jets.

It operates 31 fighter and combat squadrons – mostly Russian and Soviet-era aircraft – far below the sanctioned 42. A key challenge is finding a long-term replacement for the Sukhoi-30, the IAF’s versatile workhorse from Russia.

Christopher Clary, a political scientist at the University of Albany, recently pointed to unsettling data from the ISS Military Balance for India: between 2014 and 2024, China added 435 fighter and ground attack aircraft, Pakistan gained 31, while India’s fleet shrank by 151.

India’s planned fighter jet expansion is largely homegrown, with plans to acquire over 500 jets, mostly light combat aircraft.

Orders for 83 Tejas Mark 1A – an agile multirole homegrown fighter – are confirmed, with another 97 expected to be ordered shortly. Meanwhile, the heavier, more advanced Mark 2 is in development. The homegrown stealth jet remains at least a decade away.

India also has plans to buy 114 multirole fighter jets under the IAF’s $20bn Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme requiring foreign jets to be built in India under a transfer of technology deal – its biggest hurdle.

Stalled since 2019, the Indian government is looking at a transparent and non-controversial procurement process after it faced criticism over the acquisition of 36 Rafales in a government-to-government deal. Five jets are in contention, with Rafale leading as it is already in service with the IAF.

Experts say India’s air force modernisation faces three key hurdles: funding, delays and dependence on foreign jets.

Defence spending has shrunk in real terms. The foreign fighter jets programme risks a drawn-out fate. While India prioritises home-made, DRDO’s delays force stopgap foreign purchases, creating a repeating cycle. Breaking it requires delivering a capable homegrown jet on time. Deliveries are also delayed due to a holdup in supplies of General Electric’s F-404 engines for the jets.

A key challenge is the mismatch between the defence ministry’s vision and the IAF’s needs, says Rahul Bhatia, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm.

The Tejas Mark 1 faced early scepticism from the air force, leading to upgrades like the Mark 1A and Mark 2. “But the decades-long development cycles frustrate the armed forces, especially as their requirements keep evolving as newer technologies become available, which in turn contributes to further delays,” Mr Bhatia told me.

Even the Indian Air Force chief AP Singh has made no secret of his frustration over delays.

“I can take a vow that I will not buy anything from outside or I will wait for whatever is developed in India, but it may not be possible if it does not come at that pace [on time],” Air Marshall Singh told a seminar recently.

“At the moment, we all know that we are very badly off when it comes to numbers [of fighters]. And the numbers which were promised are also coming a little slow. So, there will be a requirement to go and look for something which can quickly fill up these voids,” he said, referring to the delayed Tejas Mark 1A deliveries, which were supposed to begin last February but have yet to start.

India’s clear priority is a homegrown stealth fighter, with more than $1bn already committed to its development. “A foreign stealth jet would only be considered if India’s immediate threat perception shifts,” says Mr Bhatia. China has two so-called stealth fighters – the J-20 and J-35 – but they likely fall short of US standards.

Most experts believe India will choose neither the American nor Russian fighters. “In the short term, as seen in past conflicts, emergency buys may fill gaps. The medium-term focus is co-production, but the long game is clear – building its own,” says Mr Bhatia.

For India, the future of airpower isn’t just about buying jets – it’s about building them, ideally with a strong Western partner. But for that vision to succeed, India must deliver its homegrown fighters on time.

“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.”

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.

• If you are outside of the UK, watch Liked, Lured, Livestreamed: The Dark World of Digital Brothels on YouTube
• Or 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.”

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Pope Francis is alert after suffering two episodes of “acute respiratory failure” on Monday afternoon, the Vatican has said.

Doctors were forced to intervene to clear mucus from the Pope’s lungs, an update from the Holy See said, though it said he was alert throughout.

The 88-year-old pontiff has resumed the use of an oxygen mask and ventilator to assist his breathing, but remains “alert, focused and cooperative”, the Vatican said.

This is now the third serious downturn since the 88-year-old pontiff was admitted to hospital 18 days ago with pneumonia.

On Friday, Pope Francis suffered an “isolated” breathing crisis involving vomiting, the Vatican said.

Updates from the Holy See reported that he responded well to oxygen therapy, with Vatican officials saying on Sunday the Pope no longer required “non-invasive mechanical ventilation, only high-flow oxygen therapy”.

Following Monday’s episodes, Pope Francis has resumed that mechanical ventilation.

His illness has meant that Pope Francis has been unable to deliver his traditional Angelus prayer in person for three weeks in a row, with the Vatican publishing his written comments instead.

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.

He will also miss the procession and mass this Wednesday that mark the first day of Lent, the six-week period leading to Easter.

Hundreds of Catholics gathered outside in St Peter’s Square on Monday for an eighth evening to pray for the Pope’s health, many carrying rosary beads as they headed across the cobbles towards the Basilica.

The crowd, a mixture of priests and nuns based in Rome and Catholic pilgrims here for a Jubilee year, were led by an American cardinal.

“I come every night to pray, but this night I am pretty worried,” Javier, a Romanian priest, voiced the feelings of many on the square. “We still have hope, but it doesn’t look good.”

“It looks bad, and that’s a shame because we really like Francis,” Patricia, a Spanish catholic from Toledo, told the BBC.

She was following the prayers with her husband and young daughter.

“He’s really opened the doors of the church to many, like LGBT people. I think they will look for a more conservative pope next, to stop the change.”

Catholics have also been visiting the Gemelli hospital in Rome to pray for him – hoping he might come to the window, as has happened in the past.

But although the Vatican recently described the Pope’s condition as stable, he remains too sick even to greet the crowd below.

The Pope was admitted to hospital on 14 February after experiencing breathing difficulties for several days.

He was first treated for bronchitis before being diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs.

The pontiff is particularly susceptible to pneumonia, an infection of the lungs that can be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi, after he contracted pleurisy – an inflammation of the lungs – as a young man and had a partial lung removal.

Vatican sources stress, as they have all along, that the Pope’s condition remains complex – his doctors remain cautious – and he is not out of danger.

Behind the imposing doors of the world’s oldest scientific academy, the Royal Society, confidential talks have been taking place.

The gathering of 150 members on Monday evening was effectively a crisis meeting, held amid a growing campaign urging the society to expel its most controversial member – Elon Musk.

Mr Musk’s achievements earned him a fellowship of the Royal Society back in 2018.

But, over the last nine months, many scientists have raised concerns about the billionaire’s behaviour, which has been called a threat to science.

Most recently, in his senior role in President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (or Doge) Mr Musk has overseen unprecedented funding cuts to scientific research in the US.

He has also been accused of sharing misinformation on his social media platform, X.

The Royal Society has made no comment about Mr Musk. It described Monday’s meeting as a discussion of “the principles” around public pronouncements and behaviours of Fellows.

After the meeting, it issued a statement: “[Those who] attended tonight’s meeting were united in the need for the Society to step up its efforts to advocate for science and scientists.”

While the Royal Society has previously steered away from political comments, it added that particular concern was expressed among members who attended about “the fate of colleagues in the US who are reportedly facing the prospect of losing their jobs amid threats of radical cutbacks in research funding”.

This follows a statement published on the society’s website last week, saying science was “under threat” and that “ideological agendas” were being used to “suppress research, threaten academic freedom and to cut funding”.

It is 150 years since a member of the Royal Society was ejected: That was German scientist and writer, Rudolf Eric Raspe, who was accused of theft and fraud.

So the rift among the membership, caused by Mr Musk and his public pronouncements, could be an historic turning point for this most elite of scientific academies.

Two eminent scientists have resigned their fellowships in protest – Dr Dorothy Bishop of Oxford University and Prof Andrew Millar from University of Edinburgh.

Both suggested that Elon Musk’s actions were “incompatible” with the society’s own code of conduct.

More than than 3,300 scientists also put their names to a letter, written by Prof Stephen Curry, emeritus professor of structural biology at Imperial College London, who is not a fellow, that expressed “deep concern” about the billionaire’s fellowship and the society’s “continued silence and apparent inaction” with regard to the controversy.

“As a private individual, he is free to say what he likes, but as a member of this club, he has a responsibility to promote excellence and promote the pursuit of truth,” Prof Curry told the BBC.

Prof Curry has not called for Mr Musk’s removal explicitly but has said that a more open debate needs to be held.

Dr Dorothy Bishop, emeritus professor of development neuropsychology at Oxford University and the first fellow to resign over the issue, told BBC News that she complained to the Royal Society twice last year.

“On both occasions they consulted lawyers, and it may well be the case that the lawyers are concerned about the prospect of legal action,” she said.

There are more than 1,700 fellows of the Royal Society and more than 60 of them have signed Prof Curry’s letter. Many more have expressed their concern about Mr Musk’s behaviour.

But there are many academics, researchers and Royal Society fellows who do not wish to see the divisive billionaire have his membership revoked.

Nobel prize-winner, Prof Sir Andre Geim from Manchester University said: “Musk is certainly an eccentric, but his achievements beat those of any of his critics in the Royal Society. Very few can say that they achieved similar in their lives.”

Other scientists who spoke to the BBC pointed out that an attempt to remove Mr Musk’s fellowship could be seen as political interference and a curtailment of freedom of expression.

But Prof George Efstathiou, from the University of Cambridge, dismissed that argument.

Members, he said, “should at least have respect for the truth”.

“If somebody has a disregard for the truth and says things that are blatantly false, then that speaks to their ethical standards,” he added. “That’s not political.”

Fiona Fox is chief executive of the Science Media Centre, which works with journalists and scientists to promote “accurate, evidence-based information” in science coverage. She was elected as a Royal Society fellow in 2023.

Ms Fox told BBC News that she is concerned what is happening to the science community in the US, but questioned whether ejecting Musk would achieve the Royal Society’s overall aims of educating and advancing scientific research.

“There are terrifying things being done in the US – removing data sets, taking web pages down of data. This is knowledge. This is universally owned.

“There’s a climate of fear in which people are self censoring. I mean, it’s absolutely terrifying,” she said.

From dazzling costumes to exuberant parties, Trinidad’s carnival is often dubbed “the greatest show on Earth”.

But some of its elements are not exactly eco-friendly and the festivities are estimated to produce 3.4 tonnes of waste every year according to Carnicycle, a local initiative aiming to make festivities more sustainable.

Danii McLetchie, who co-founded Carnicycle in 2018, says that while carnival “is a big part of our culture” it also has a very negative environmental impact “from the events, to the textiles, to costumes” used by the masqueraders, spectators and vendors taking part in the annual parade on the two days preceding Ash Wednesday.

Producing and transporting just a single carnival costume bra can generate approximately 37.68kg (83lb) of CO2 emissions, Carnicycle estimates based on calculations made using an online tool provided by Swedish tech company Doconomy.

Danii and her team are working to have that estimate verified by a third party, but with tens of thousands of masqueraders parading every year, she says the amount of emissions is cause for concern.

To reduce those emissions, Carnicycle has started a recycling programme, collecting unused costumes that would have been dumped or burned by masquerade bands, which use new costume designs every year.

Carnicycle also puts up collection bins at hotels and other venues so discarded costumes can be reused.

“Up until last year we collected around 10,000 pieces of costume materials,” Danii told the BBC, describing the arduous task of completely stripping down truckloads of costumes to preserve feathers, beads and other materials for future use.

The salvaged materials are sold to costume designers, ravers, and people in the burlesque industry, who save by buying second hand.

Carnicycle also rents out the large backpack pieces which are a popular part of the costumes worn at Trinidad’s carnival. Their price can run up to $700 (£550), depending on size.

Danii explains that they came up with the idea after hearing revellers complain not just about the expense but also about the weight of the backpack pieces. “‘I’m paying this much money but then it’s heavy and by the time it’s lunch I just want to throw it away’,” Danni recalls people saying.

Carnicycle rents the backpacks to masqueraders long enough so that they can pose for photos, but are freed from carrying their load during the parade.

Danii and Carnicycle’s co-founder Luke Harris – who both hold down full-time jobs in addition to their environmental initiative – are not the only ones dedicating their spare time to making Trinidad’s carnival both fun and eco-friendly

Lawyer Aliyah Clarke and fashion designer Kaleen Sanois started a side business called 2nd Closet – a pop-up thrift shop where people can buy and sell pre-owned clothing.

The two have also been making video tutorials with tips on how to transform costumes into beachwear and outfits for other occasions.

Aliya told the BBC it was something she first did for herself: “After I was finished with my costume I would rip it apart, literally down to the wire, and figure out how to make this into something else to wear outside of carnival.”

Now she is sharing her ideas in a video segment the two millennials have dubbed “Tipsy Tuesday”.

They also offer a closet-sorting service, which involves coming to a person’s home and sorting through unwanted clothing, to rescue items fit for sale at their pop-up thrift shop.

In what Kaleen believes is a testament to the work they have been doing, they were asked to sort the sprawling closet of Machel Montano, a musician known as the “King of Soca” and a superstar in the carnival world.

“Clothes are personal things, especially for somebody like Machel who has so many big moments tied to his pieces,” Kaleen explains.

After sorting through Machel’s shoes and clothes, 2nd Closet organised a two-day pop-up shop, giving people a chance to buy items worn by Machel on stage and in his music videos.

“People came with pictures, and were like ‘I’m looking for this piece’,” Aliyah recalls of fans’ enthusiasm for the second-hand items.

But costumes and outfits are not the only items being recycled to make Trinidad’s festivities more environmentally friendly.

At Fete with the Saints, a party many regard as one of the best of Trinidad’s carnival, food is eaten with biodegradable wooden cutlery and the drinks are poured into reusable cups.

The organisers of the fete – a fundraiser for one of Trinidad and Tobago’s top secondary schools – also hire “bin detectives” to ensure patrons properly sort and dispose their rubbish for recycling.

It is estimated that this year the bin detectives helped to more than double the amount of recyclables captured, compared with the two previous years combined.

“Over the past three years we’ve actually prevented over one million single-use plastics from entering the landfill, I think maybe over five tonnes of glass,” says Vandana Mangroo, co-founder of Close the Loop Caribbean, a company which started working with the organisers of Fete with the Saints in 2023 to make the event more sustainable.

Joseph Hadad, co-chairman of the party’s organising committee, says that those behind the event knew that their efforts to make it greener would “add some layer of costs and more labour”. But he is adamant “it worked” and insists that the party spirit has not been dampened.

These green efforts are being welcomed by patrons such as Roland Riley, who hailed it as “a good initiative by Fete with the Saints to go that route”.

In and around Washington DC, volunteers and activists have been walking through streets and homes to see how healthy the air is.

They’re armed with industry-grade monitors that detect the presence of several gases. The devices look a bit like walkie-talkies.

But they are equipped with sensors that reveal the extent of methane, turning this invisible gas into concrete numbers on a screen.

Those numbers can be worrying. In a 25-hour period, neighbourhood researchers found 13 outdoor methane leaks at concentrations exceeding the lower explosive limit. They have also found methane leaks within homes.

A key concern has been health. Methane and other gases, notably nitrogen oxide from gas stoves, are linked to higher risks of asthma.

Djamila Bah, a healthcare worker as well as a tenant leader for the community organisation Action in Montgomery, reports that one out of three children have asthma in the homes tested by the organisation.

“It’s very heartbreaking and alarming when you’re doing the testing and then you find out that some people are living in that condition that they can’t change for now,” Ms Bah says.

Methane might be a hazard to human health, but it is also powerful greenhouse gas.

While it has a much shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2), methane is much better at trapping heat and it accounts for about one-quarter of the rise in global temperature since industrialisation.

Methane emissions come from a diverse array of sectors. Chief among these are fossil fuels, waste and agriculture.

But methane is not always easy to notice.

It can be detected using handheld gas sensors like the ones used by the community researchers. It can also be visualised using infrared cameras, as methane absorbs infrared light.

Monitoring can be ground-based, including vehicle-mounted devices, or aerial, including drone-based measurement. Combining technologies is especially helpful.

“There is no perfect solution,” says Andreea Calcan, a programme management officer at the International Methane Emissions Observatory, a UN initiative.

There are trade-offs between the cost of technologies and the scale of analysis, which could extend to thousands of facilities.

Thankfully, she has seen an expansion of affordable methane sensors in the past decade. So there is no reason to wait on monitoring methane, at any scale. And the world needs to tackle both the small leakages and the high-emitting events, she says.

At a larger scale, satellites are often good at pinpointing super-emitters: less frequent but massively emitting events, such as huge oil and gas leaks. Or they can detect the smaller and more spread-out emitters that are much more common, such as cattle farms.

Current satellites are typically designed to monitor one scale of emitter, says Riley Duren, the CEO of the Carbon Mapper, a not-for-profit organisation that tracks emissions.

He likens this to film cameras. A telephoto lens offers higher resolution, while a wide-angle lens allows a larger field of view.

With a new satellite, Carbon Mapper is focusing on high resolution, high sensitivity and rapid detection, to more precisely detect emissions from super-emitters. In August 2024 Carbon Mapper launched the Tanager-1 satellite, together with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Earth imaging company Planet Labs.

Satellites have struggled to spot methane emissions in certain environments, such as poorly maintained oil wells in snowy areas with lots of vegetation. Low light, high latitudes, mountains and offshore areas also present challenges.

Mr Duren says that the high-resolution Tanager-1 can respond to some of these challenges, for instance by essentially sneaking peeks through gaps in cloud cover or forest cover.

“In an oil and gas field, high resolution could be the difference between isolating the methane emissions from an oil well head from an adjacent pipeline,” he says. This could help determine exactly who is responsible.

Carbon Mapper began releasing emissions data, drawing on Tanager-1 observations, in November.

It will take several years to build out the full constellation of satellites, which will depend on funding.

Tanager-1 isn’t the only new satellite with a focus on delivering methane data. MethaneSAT, a project of the Environmental Defense Fund and private and public partners, also launched in 2024.

With the increasing sophistication of all these satellite technologies, “What was previously unseeable is now visible,” Mr Duren says. “As a society we’re still learning about our true methane footprint.”

It’s clear that better information is needed about methane emissions. Some energy companies have sought to evade methane detection by using “enclosed combustors” to obscure gas flaring.

Translating knowledge into action isn’t always straightforward. Methane levels continue to rise, even as the information available does as well.

For instance, the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) uses satellite data to detect methane emissions notify companies and governments. The MARS team gathered a large quantity of methane plume images, verified by humans, to train a machine learning model to recognise such plumes.

In all the locations that MARS constantly monitors, based on their history of emissions, the model checks for a methane plume every day. Analysts then scrutinise any alerts.

Because there are so many locations to be monitored, “this saves us a lot of time,” says Itziar Irakulis Loitxate, the remote sensing lead for the International Methane Emissions Observatory, which is responsible for MARS.

In the two years since its launch, MARS has sent out over 1,200 alerts for major methane leaks. Only 1% of those have led to responses.

However, Ms Irakulis remains optimistic. Some of those alerts led to direct action such as repairs, including cases where emissions ceased even though the oil and gas operator didn’t officially provide feedback.

And communications are improving all the time, Ms Irakulis says. “I have hope that this 1%, we will see it grow a lot in the next year.”

At the community level, it’s been powerful for residents, such as those in the Washington DC area, to take the air pollution readings themselves and use these to counter misinformation. “Now that we know better, we can do better,” says Joelle Novey of Interfaith Power and Light.

India faces a crucial choice in modernising its air force – but is a cutting-edge American fighter jet the answer?

During his Washington visit last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Donald Trump, who announced they were “paving the way” for India to acquire F-35s, a jet primarily sold to close allies and partners.

The F-35 is a “fifth-generation” multi-role fighter jet with advanced sensors, AI-driven combat systems and seamless data-sharing capabilities. Built to evade radar, it’s the most sophisticated jet in the skies – but at $80m a pop, also one of the most expensive. (Stealth is a key characteristic of a “fifth-generation” fighter.)

Many believe that with its fighter squadrons dwindling and China’s military growing, India faces a high-stakes choice: splurge on the state-of-the-art but costly F-35 from the US or strengthen defence ties with Russia through local production of its most advanced stealth fighter jet Sukhoi Su-57.

Experts believe the reality is more nuanced, with the US-Russia “dogfight” largely a media hype – fuelled more recently by the appearance of both jets at Asia’s biggest air show, Aero India, in the southern city of Bangalore last month.

Trump’s F-35 offer seems more “symbolic” than practical, driven by his push to sell US weapons, according to Ashley J Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Integrating a “fifth generation” aircraft into the India air force (IAF) plans – centred on the homegrown Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) and more Rafales – would be challenging, especially without co-production rights. Being developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the AMCA is India’s own stealth fighter.

“It is unlikely that the F-35 will be offered for co-production to India – any acquisition will likely be a straightforward sale. This is unlikely, among other things, to sit well with Modi’s emphasis on making in India and the significant end-user monitoring in the event of an F-35 sale will likely not be welcomed by India either,” Mr Tellis told me.

India’s challenges with the F-35 are its steep cost, heavy maintenance and operational issues – the jet’s availability is around 51% for the US Air Force, according to security expert Stephen Bryen, author of a Substack column, Weapons and Strategy. “The question is whether India is willing to invest billions of rupees in the F-35, knowing it could do better buying the Russian jet.”

But many dismiss the Su-57 as a real contender, noting that India exited the decade-long programme to co-produce the jet with Russia in 2018 over disputes on technology transfer, cost-sharing and specifications.

To be sure, India’s air force is ageing and short on fighter jets.

It operates 31 fighter and combat squadrons – mostly Russian and Soviet-era aircraft – far below the sanctioned 42. A key challenge is finding a long-term replacement for the Sukhoi-30, the IAF’s versatile workhorse from Russia.

Christopher Clary, a political scientist at the University of Albany, recently pointed to unsettling data from the ISS Military Balance for India: between 2014 and 2024, China added 435 fighter and ground attack aircraft, Pakistan gained 31, while India’s fleet shrank by 151.

India’s planned fighter jet expansion is largely homegrown, with plans to acquire over 500 jets, mostly light combat aircraft.

Orders for 83 Tejas Mark 1A – an agile multirole homegrown fighter – are confirmed, with another 97 expected to be ordered shortly. Meanwhile, the heavier, more advanced Mark 2 is in development. The homegrown stealth jet remains at least a decade away.

India also has plans to buy 114 multirole fighter jets under the IAF’s $20bn Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme requiring foreign jets to be built in India under a transfer of technology deal – its biggest hurdle.

Stalled since 2019, the Indian government is looking at a transparent and non-controversial procurement process after it faced criticism over the acquisition of 36 Rafales in a government-to-government deal. Five jets are in contention, with Rafale leading as it is already in service with the IAF.

Experts say India’s air force modernisation faces three key hurdles: funding, delays and dependence on foreign jets.

Defence spending has shrunk in real terms. The foreign fighter jets programme risks a drawn-out fate. While India prioritises home-made, DRDO’s delays force stopgap foreign purchases, creating a repeating cycle. Breaking it requires delivering a capable homegrown jet on time. Deliveries are also delayed due to a holdup in supplies of General Electric’s F-404 engines for the jets.

A key challenge is the mismatch between the defence ministry’s vision and the IAF’s needs, says Rahul Bhatia, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm.

The Tejas Mark 1 faced early scepticism from the air force, leading to upgrades like the Mark 1A and Mark 2. “But the decades-long development cycles frustrate the armed forces, especially as their requirements keep evolving as newer technologies become available, which in turn contributes to further delays,” Mr Bhatia told me.

Even the Indian Air Force chief AP Singh has made no secret of his frustration over delays.

“I can take a vow that I will not buy anything from outside or I will wait for whatever is developed in India, but it may not be possible if it does not come at that pace [on time],” Air Marshall Singh told a seminar recently.

“At the moment, we all know that we are very badly off when it comes to numbers [of fighters]. And the numbers which were promised are also coming a little slow. So, there will be a requirement to go and look for something which can quickly fill up these voids,” he said, referring to the delayed Tejas Mark 1A deliveries, which were supposed to begin last February but have yet to start.

India’s clear priority is a homegrown stealth fighter, with more than $1bn already committed to its development. “A foreign stealth jet would only be considered if India’s immediate threat perception shifts,” says Mr Bhatia. China has two so-called stealth fighters – the J-20 and J-35 – but they likely fall short of US standards.

Most experts believe India will choose neither the American nor Russian fighters. “In the short term, as seen in past conflicts, emergency buys may fill gaps. The medium-term focus is co-production, but the long game is clear – building its own,” says Mr Bhatia.

For India, the future of airpower isn’t just about buying jets – it’s about building them, ideally with a strong Western partner. But for that vision to succeed, India must deliver its homegrown fighters on time.

Carl Dean, the longtime husband of country music icon Dolly Parton, died Monday at the age of 82.

Dean, who was famously private throughout his nearly 60-year marriage to Parton, died in Nashville, Tennessee, according to a statement she posted on social media.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy,” the statement read.

The “9-5” singer met Dean outside a laundromat on the first day she arrived in Nashville as an 18-year-old aspiring singer.

Parton recalled their first meeting, saying, “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me). He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

Two years later, on May 30, 1966, the couple exchanged vows at a private ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.

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Throughout their marriage, Dean remained out of the public eye, choosing instead to focus on his asphalt-paving business in Nashville.

Though he largely stayed out of the limelight, Dean continued to influence Parton’s work, most notably inspiring her classic hit “Jolene.”

She told US media in 2008 that the song was about a bank teller who developed a crush on Dean.

“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton said. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us—when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”

Parton and Dean’s relationship remained such a mystery that rumours started that he did not exist – but Parton joked about that.

“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” she said to the Associated Press in 1984.

Parton and Dean had no children together.

He is survived by his siblings, Sandra and Donnie, Parton’s statement said.

Donald Trump has been threatening major tariffs on America’s two largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, for more than a month. It now appears that the day of reckoning is at hand.

The risk for the president is that his sweeping tariffs, which also target China, may drive up prices for businesses and consumers in the months ahead, damaging the health of the US economy – the issue that Americans say they care about most.

The economy and inflation was at the top of voter concerns last November – concerns Trump promised to address as he stormed back to the White House, partly on the back of lingering discontent about soaring prices early in the Biden presidency.

Trump can comfortably boast that he has delivered many of his most striking campaign promises – including slashing federal jobs, stepping up immigration enforcement and recognising two sexes only.

But on inflation, the new Trump administration has made little tangible progress. Sky-high egg prices have been a daily reminder. And while the mass culling of chickens in response to bird flu has played a major role, the cost of the daily staple for many Americans has kept inflation front and centre in voters’ minds.

As Trump confirmed on Monday that 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican-made goods would indeed be coming into effect, US stock markets took their biggest hit of the year, providing an early indication of the economic turbulence his policies could create. And Trump’s tariffs on Mexican food imports, in particular, could hit Americans where they feel it the most – in higher prices at the grocery store.

According to a CBS survey conducted last week, 82% of Americans say they think the economy should be a “high” priority for the president. Only 30% said that about tariffs.

Only 36% of respondents think Trump is prioritising the economy “a lot” – compared to 68% for tariffs. Just 29% believe Trump is prioritising inflation. Views on the state of the economy remain generally dour, as 60% said it is “bad”, compared to 58% who had the same view last year.

Public opinion of Trump’s handling of the economy as a whole is within the margin of error on the survey, with 51% approving. That exactly matches his overall job rating, suggesting that the fate of this president, like those his predecessors, will hinge on the strength of the economy.

According to Clifford Young, president of public affairs at polling company Ipsos, Trump is still in the honeymoon period of his presidency, when Americans will give him room to manoeuvre.

Typically, he said, this benefit of the doubt for a new president lasts about six months – but that can be cut short if the economy suffers some kind of dramatic shift. Trump argues that his tariffs will boost US manufacturing, raise tax revenue and spur investment – but most economists say that prices for Americans are likely to rise, potentially in a similar timeframe.

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On Tuesday night, in a primetime speech to a joint session of Congress, Trump will have a chance to make the case that the short-term pain of his tariff plan will lead to long-term benefits. It’s his chance to convince the American public to keep his honeymoon going.

“I’d be interested to see how he links government efficiency to the economy, global tariffs to the economy, even immigration to the economy,” said Young. “Ideally, he would make an argument that all these different things he’s doing are ultimately done with the view of improving the economy.”

The challenge for the president is there are some indications that doubts about the economy are growing, along with warning signs of other challenges to come.

A survey of public and private businesses released last week by the Conference Board, a non-partisan economic research group, found a precipitous drop in consumer confidence – the largest decline since August 2021. The souring mood among US consumers was largely attributed to concerns over inflation and economic disruptions caused by rising tariffs.

Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose 3% in January, marking a six-month high. The public appears to agree, as the CBS poll found 62% of Americans reporting that prices have been “going up” in the past few weeks.

White House officials privately insist that administration efforts to cut government costs, reduce regulation and boost energy production will ultimately lead to lower prices even in the face of higher tariffs – but that such efforts take time to produce results.

In a television interview on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump plans to appoint an “affordability tsar” to address the concerns of “working-class Americans”.

“President Trump said that he’ll own the economy in six or 12 months,” Bessent said, suggesting that former President Joe Biden was to blame for the current conditions.

“But I can tell you that we are working to get these prices down every day.”

While Tuesday’s speech is not a formal State of the Union address, Trump can talk about what he is doing – and will do – to address these voter concerns.

Any missteps could give Democrats, who have been struggling to find an effective line of attack against the new president, an opening. Their choice of rebuttal speaker, newly elected Senator Elissa Slotkin from the trade-dependent industrial Midwestern state of Michigan, suggest they are keen to focus on economic issues.

At the moment, Trump is at the height of his political power. Now, he appears willing to use that power to change the way the US conducts trade policy – an issue that has animated him for more than four decades.

But American history books are lined with the names of presidents felled by souring public perceptions of the economy.

Some financial disruptions are entirely out of a White House’s control. With his tariff decision, however, Trump is making a high-stakes bet that the American public will ultimately approve of his decisions.

If he’s right, the payoff could be a generational political realignment on this issue.

If he’s wrong, it could undercut the second term of his presidency before it even gets fully underway.

The shocking blow-up between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday continues to ripple across the globe, including through American voters who expressed frustration at one or both leaders.

The extraordinary scene saw Vice-President JD Vance accuse the Ukrainian president of being “disrespectful” to the US, while Trump urged him to make a deal with Russia “or we are out”.

Trump also accused the Ukrainian president of “gambling with World War Three” as Zelensky pushed back at suggestions that he should work harder to agree a ceasefire with Vladimir Putin. Zelensky was eventually told to leave the White House early.

World leaders and elected officials in the US have had much to say about about the tense exchange, but so do American voters. We’ve asked five people what they think.

It never should have happened. I blame both [Zelensky and Trump].

Zelensky did come across as arrogant, frankly. I get he was trying to make his point but he doesn’t know how to deal with Trump. [UK Prime Minister Keir] Starmer knows how to deal with Trump, [French Prime Minister Emmanuel] Macron knows how to deal with Trump, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin definitely knows how to deal with Trump, but [Zelensky] doesn’t know how to handle Trump.

Some of what Trump says is true. When he said Ukraine doesn’t have the cards, [Zelensky] doesn’t have the cards.

But Zelensky does have the cards in so far as saying that we will feel it in America shortly after Europe feels it, if Putin is appeased, because [Putin will] just reconstitute his forces and invade somebody else.

I had to pause it a couple of times to give myself a few moments to cool off. I saw Trump and Vance steamrolling President Zelensky and refusing to let him get a word in edgewise.

They were selfish, rude, callous, and displayed a complete lack of basic human empathy.

It’s hard to stay optimistic about the outcome of this war, and I knew something like this was likely to happen after Trump was re-elected.

I’ve been dreading this possibility since election day; however, I didn’t anticipate Trump being this horrible about it. I’m terrified for Zelensky and Ukraine.

The majority of the American public is getting a sliver of what happened, I’m glad that was public but I wish people would watch the whole thing because I think they’d have a very different point of view.

This war needs to end, but it’s not going to end the way Zelensky wants it to end. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Zelensky was expecting it to go a lot differently and I give Vance and Trump a lot of credit for handling it the way it did.

Putin sitting there going, “Damn, I better behave because Trump is holding no prisoners.”

I was absolutely disgusted with it. Even if Zelensky and the Ukrainians were considered adversarial to us, you wouldn’t talk to their head of state or head of government that way.

I would go beyond sending more aid to Ukraine – I would go as far as saying we should send military assets: putting planes in the air or putting boots on the ground.

[Putin] operates like a bully. The only way you’re really going to get a bully to reconsider their actions is to stand up to them – you have to be willing to punch them in the mouth at some point in time.

I want to help them as much as we can but we can’t keep giving, giving, giving.

Zelensky had good reason to want more, but I feel like he was in the wrong to ask for it in that manner. If he did it in private, it would have been the place for it.

I didn’t feel like Trump or Vance’s reaction to it was wrong. It wasn’t perfect, but I don’t think it was a bad reaction per se. I hope there can be reconciliation after this, I want to help them end this war.

But if there isn’t some middle ground they can find, I don’t want to see the US to continue to spend and spend on a country that isn’t ours when we have domestic problems.

All it seemed like Trump and Vance wanted to do was “make a deal”, in other words turn a profit from this conflict. Ukraine doesn’t need trade partners. It needs allies, nations who aren’t afraid to put some skin in this fight and fend off an invading enemy.

The world’s leaders need to take in the full scope of this conflict and stop letting Vladimir Putin dictate the rules of engagement.

The war in Ukraine is not some limited regional border dispute. This is a case of full-blown invasion by one sovereign nation of another.

The war has gone on long enough for Ukraine to fight it without any other allies fighting alongside them in battle. Ukraine can’t and shouldn’t fight this war alone.

In all my years alive, I’ve never seen anything like that before. I understand behind closed doors things like this happen, but the Oval Office is not where you’re displaying your dirty laundry.

I’m not a big fan of Zelensky but I found what happened in the Oval Office the other day is embarrassing.

It’s getting muddled up between the personalities on display there but the fact of the matter is Russia invaded Ukraine not once but twice.

Russia is the aggressor.

I understand the administration wants to show the world what we’re dealing with, but we’re supposed to be the leader of the world and good leaders don’t lose their cool at this level.

I don’t want to appear that I’m hostile of Trump, but I just think this style of leadership is not productive.

Pope Francis is alert after suffering two episodes of “acute respiratory failure” on Monday afternoon, the Vatican has said.

Doctors were forced to intervene to clear mucus from the Pope’s lungs, an update from the Holy See said, though it said he was alert throughout.

The 88-year-old pontiff has resumed the use of an oxygen mask and ventilator to assist his breathing, but remains “alert, focused and cooperative”, the Vatican said.

This is now the third serious downturn since the 88-year-old pontiff was admitted to hospital 18 days ago with pneumonia.

On Friday, Pope Francis suffered an “isolated” breathing crisis involving vomiting, the Vatican said.

Updates from the Holy See reported that he responded well to oxygen therapy, with Vatican officials saying on Sunday the Pope no longer required “non-invasive mechanical ventilation, only high-flow oxygen therapy”.

Following Monday’s episodes, Pope Francis has resumed that mechanical ventilation.

His illness has meant that Pope Francis has been unable to deliver his traditional Angelus prayer in person for three weeks in a row, with the Vatican publishing his written comments instead.

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.

He will also miss the procession and mass this Wednesday that mark the first day of Lent, the six-week period leading to Easter.

Hundreds of Catholics gathered outside in St Peter’s Square on Monday for an eighth evening to pray for the Pope’s health, many carrying rosary beads as they headed across the cobbles towards the Basilica.

The crowd, a mixture of priests and nuns based in Rome and Catholic pilgrims here for a Jubilee year, were led by an American cardinal.

“I come every night to pray, but this night I am pretty worried,” Javier, a Romanian priest, voiced the feelings of many on the square. “We still have hope, but it doesn’t look good.”

“It looks bad, and that’s a shame because we really like Francis,” Patricia, a Spanish catholic from Toledo, told the BBC.

She was following the prayers with her husband and young daughter.

“He’s really opened the doors of the church to many, like LGBT people. I think they will look for a more conservative pope next, to stop the change.”

Catholics have also been visiting the Gemelli hospital in Rome to pray for him – hoping he might come to the window, as has happened in the past.

But although the Vatican recently described the Pope’s condition as stable, he remains too sick even to greet the crowd below.

The Pope was admitted to hospital on 14 February after experiencing breathing difficulties for several days.

He was first treated for bronchitis before being diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs.

The pontiff is particularly susceptible to pneumonia, an infection of the lungs that can be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi, after he contracted pleurisy – an inflammation of the lungs – as a young man and had a partial lung removal.

Vatican sources stress, as they have all along, that the Pope’s condition remains complex – his doctors remain cautious – and he is not out of danger.

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

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

• WINNER: 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

• WINNER: The Substance
• A Different Man
• Emilia Pérez
• Nosferatu
• 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

More on the Oscars 2025:

• LIVE: Follow BBC coverage of the ceremony
• RECAP: How the Oscars unfolded this year
• BEST MOMENTS: A payback kiss, a surprise win, and defying gravity
• WATCH: Highlights of the show in 180 seconds
• FASHION: See the best looks from the red carpet
• MORE: How to watch the winning films

Behind the imposing doors of the world’s oldest scientific academy, the Royal Society, confidential talks have been taking place.

The gathering of 150 members on Monday evening was effectively a crisis meeting, held amid a growing campaign urging the society to expel its most controversial member – Elon Musk.

Mr Musk’s achievements earned him a fellowship of the Royal Society back in 2018.

But, over the last nine months, many scientists have raised concerns about the billionaire’s behaviour, which has been called a threat to science.

Most recently, in his senior role in President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (or Doge) Mr Musk has overseen unprecedented funding cuts to scientific research in the US.

He has also been accused of sharing misinformation on his social media platform, X.

The Royal Society has made no comment about Mr Musk. It described Monday’s meeting as a discussion of “the principles” around public pronouncements and behaviours of Fellows.

After the meeting, it issued a statement: “[Those who] attended tonight’s meeting were united in the need for the Society to step up its efforts to advocate for science and scientists.”

While the Royal Society has previously steered away from political comments, it added that particular concern was expressed among members who attended about “the fate of colleagues in the US who are reportedly facing the prospect of losing their jobs amid threats of radical cutbacks in research funding”.

This follows a statement published on the society’s website last week, saying science was “under threat” and that “ideological agendas” were being used to “suppress research, threaten academic freedom and to cut funding”.

It is 150 years since a member of the Royal Society was ejected: That was German scientist and writer, Rudolf Eric Raspe, who was accused of theft and fraud.

So the rift among the membership, caused by Mr Musk and his public pronouncements, could be an historic turning point for this most elite of scientific academies.

Two eminent scientists have resigned their fellowships in protest – Dr Dorothy Bishop of Oxford University and Prof Andrew Millar from University of Edinburgh.

Both suggested that Elon Musk’s actions were “incompatible” with the society’s own code of conduct.

More than than 3,300 scientists also put their names to a letter, written by Prof Stephen Curry, emeritus professor of structural biology at Imperial College London, who is not a fellow, that expressed “deep concern” about the billionaire’s fellowship and the society’s “continued silence and apparent inaction” with regard to the controversy.

“As a private individual, he is free to say what he likes, but as a member of this club, he has a responsibility to promote excellence and promote the pursuit of truth,” Prof Curry told the BBC.

Prof Curry has not called for Mr Musk’s removal explicitly but has said that a more open debate needs to be held.

Dr Dorothy Bishop, emeritus professor of development neuropsychology at Oxford University and the first fellow to resign over the issue, told BBC News that she complained to the Royal Society twice last year.

“On both occasions they consulted lawyers, and it may well be the case that the lawyers are concerned about the prospect of legal action,” she said.

There are more than 1,700 fellows of the Royal Society and more than 60 of them have signed Prof Curry’s letter. Many more have expressed their concern about Mr Musk’s behaviour.

But there are many academics, researchers and Royal Society fellows who do not wish to see the divisive billionaire have his membership revoked.

Nobel prize-winner, Prof Sir Andre Geim from Manchester University said: “Musk is certainly an eccentric, but his achievements beat those of any of his critics in the Royal Society. Very few can say that they achieved similar in their lives.”

Other scientists who spoke to the BBC pointed out that an attempt to remove Mr Musk’s fellowship could be seen as political interference and a curtailment of freedom of expression.

But Prof George Efstathiou, from the University of Cambridge, dismissed that argument.

Members, he said, “should at least have respect for the truth”.

“If somebody has a disregard for the truth and says things that are blatantly false, then that speaks to their ethical standards,” he added. “That’s not political.”

Fiona Fox is chief executive of the Science Media Centre, which works with journalists and scientists to promote “accurate, evidence-based information” in science coverage. She was elected as a Royal Society fellow in 2023.

Ms Fox told BBC News that she is concerned what is happening to the science community in the US, but questioned whether ejecting Musk would achieve the Royal Society’s overall aims of educating and advancing scientific research.

“There are terrifying things being done in the US – removing data sets, taking web pages down of data. This is knowledge. This is universally owned.

“There’s a climate of fear in which people are self censoring. I mean, it’s absolutely terrifying,” she said.

President Donald Trump has said he is moving forward with 25% tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico into the US, adding that time had run out to reach a deal.

US stock markets sank in response to the measures, which he has threatened since earlier this year and said would now go into effect on Tuesday.

An additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports also is expected to come into force, leaving all three of America’s top three trade partners facing significantly higher barriers than just a few weeks ago.

“No room left for Mexico or for Canada,” Trump said at the White House on Monday. “The tariffs, you know, they’re all set. They go into effect tomorrow.”

The three major indices in the US sank after Trump’s comments. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 1.4%, the S&P 500 sank 1.75% and the Nasdaq fell 2.6%.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded: “Canada will not let this unjustified decision go unanswered.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters that Ottawa planned to impose retaliatory tariffs against US imports of C$155bn ($107bn; £ 84bn), with the first tranche of $30bn ready immediately to be levied on everyday goods like pasta, clothing and perfume.

The foreign minister added that the tariffs were “an existential threat to us”, with “thousands of jobs in Canada at stake”.

China’s commerce ministry on Tuesday also vowed to retaliate against the fresh US tariffs, accusing the Trump administration of trying to “shift the blame” and “bully” Beijing over fentanyl flows.

In a statement, the ministry urged the US to “immediately withdraw” its tariffs that it described as “unreasonable and groundless, harmful to others”.

State media outlet The Global Times reported on Monday that China may target US agricultural and food products with both tariff and non-tariff measures.

Mexico also said it will retaliate against the US tariffs, raising the prospect of a widening trade war.

Trump threatened to impose the tariffs, which are a tax added to a product when it enters a country – on Canada, Mexico and China in response to what he said was the unacceptable flow of illegal drugs and illegal immigrants into the US.

All the tariffs were supposed to take effect last month, until the US agreed to a one-month delay for Canada and Mexico, pulling its North American neighbours back from the brink of a potentially damaging trade war.

But Trump went ahead with imposing a 10% tariff on Chinese exports to the US in February, meaning goods from the country now face a levy of at least 20%.

Trump has long maintained that tariffs are a useful tool to correct trade imbalances and protect US manufacturing.

He has largely dismissed concerns that the measures risk economic damage in the US, despite the close ties, especially in North America, where businesses have enjoyed decades of free trade.

“What they’ll have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things, in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs,” he added.

Officials from Canada and Mexico had been in Washington in recent days, trying to stave off the tariffs.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum appeared to send a message to Trump earlier on Monday when she said at a public event in the city of Colima that “Mexico has to be respected”.

“Co-operation [and] co-ordination, yes, subordination, never.”

Trudeau met King Charles on Monday in the UK, saying beforehand that he would discuss issues of importance to Canadians, including “standing up for our sovereignty and our independence as a nation”.

A day earlier Canada’s PM said from a summit in London that Canada was “not an issue” as a source of illegal fentanyl in the US.

Only 1% of fentanyl seized in the US is thought to come from Canada, according to US data.

• How does fentanyl get into the US?
• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• How Japan sparked Trump’s 40-year love affair with tariffs

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) says it has been “surging” its efforts to tackle fentanyl crossing into the US.

President Trump has also announced a 25% charge on all steel and aluminium imports, which is meant to come into effect on 12 March.

In addition, he has threatened to impose custom “reciprocal” tariffs on individual countries, as well as 25% tariffs on the European Union.

Armed men are raping and sexually assaulting children as young as one during Sudan’s civil war, says the UN children’s agency, Unicef.

Mass sexual violence has been widely documented as a weapon of war in the country’s nearly two-year conflict.

But Unicef’s report is the first detailed account about the impact of rape on young children in Sudan.

A third of the victims were boys, who typically face “unique challenges” in reporting such crimes and seeking the help they need.

Unicef says that, although 221 rape cases against children have been officially reported since the start of 2024, the true number is likely to be much higher.

Sudan is a socially conservative country where huge societal stigma stops survivors and their families from speaking out about rape, as does the fear of retribution from armed groups.

The Unicef report provides an appalling window into the abuse of children in the country’s civil war.

Perhaps its most shocking revelation is that 16 of the victims were under the age of five years, including four infants.

Unicef does not say who is responsible, but other UN investigations have blamed the majority of rapes on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), saying RSF fighters had a pattern of using sexual violence to terrorise civilians and suppress opposition to their advances.

The RSF, which is fighting this war against its former allies, the Sudanese Armed Forces, has denied any wrongdoing.

“The sheer scale of sexual violence we have documented in Sudan is staggering,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the UN’s fact-finding mission when its previous report was published in October.

According to evidence presented by international human rights groups, victims in the RSF’s stronghold of Darfur were often targeted because they were black African rather than Arab, apparently with the aim of driving them out of Sudan.

The UN humanitarian response for Sudan is already underfunded. Recent cuts in US aid are expected to reduce programmes to help the victims even further.

Harrowing details in Unicef’s report underscore the dire situation.

“After nine at night, someone opens the door, carrying a whip, selects one of the girls, and takes her to another room. I could hear the little girl crying and screaming. They were raping her,” recalls Omnia (not her real name), an adult female survivor who was held by armed men in a room with other women and girls.

“Every time they raped her, this girl would come back covered in blood. She is still just a young child. They only release these girls at dawn, and they return almost unconscious. Each of them cries and speaks incoherently. During the 19 days I spent there, I reached a point where I wanted to end my life.”

As a fractured nation at war, Sudan is one of the most challenging places on earth to access services and frontline workers.

The vast number of people displaced by the war has made women and children more vulnerable to attack – three out of four school-age girls are out of school, the UN says.

The devastating outcome of these crimes is aggravated by the fact that victims have few places to turn to for medical help, because many medical facilities have been destroyed, looted or occupied by the warring parties.

Recent US aid cuts may be endangering even the limited services available to protect children.

Unicef has been providing safe spaces for children through a network of local activists who have set up what are known as Emergency Response Rooms to deal with the crises in their communities.

The activists relied quite heavily on US aid, and most have been forced to shut down, according to a Sudanese coordinating committee that monitors them.

More broadly, the UN organization dedicated to protecting women’s rights says local organisations led by women are vital in delivering support to survivors of sexual violence. But they receive less than 2% of the total funding of the UN’s Sudan Humanitarian Fund.

The BBC learned that at least one of these local groups, known as “She Leads”, was forced to close when US funding was stopped.

It was not a big expense, measured in the tens of thousands of dollars, but enabled case workers to reach around 35 survivors a month, said Sulaima Elkhalifa, a Sudanese human rights defender who runs a government unit on combatting violence against woman and helped organize the private initiative.

Those who have been raped by armed men “don’t have the luxury of being depressed,” she told the BBC.

The demands of war – finding food, needing to flee – leave no space to deal with trauma, she added.

• Sudan fighters accused of storming famine-hit camp
• Villagers killed execution-style in Sudan, activists say
• ‘I miss my school’: BBC launches programme for children in war zones

Japan has deployed more than 2,000 firefighters to battle the country’s biggest forest fire in three decades.

At least one person has died in the blaze, which has torched more than 5,200 acres around the northern Japanese city of Ofunato since Thursday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA).

Although January to March is typically Ofunato’s driest season, the area saw less rainfall last month than any February in more than 20 years – recording just 2.5 millimetres, compared to the usual average of 41.

About 4,600 people remain under government-issued evacuation orders as the fire continues to burn.

Some 2,000 have already left the area to stay with friends or relatives, and more than 1,200 have evacuated to shelters, officials said.

The fires are burning in a forest area of Iwate Prefecture, which is Japan’s second largest prefecture and has the country’s second-lowest population density.

More than 80 buildings are estimated to have been damaged so far, although FDMA noted that details are still being assessed.

“Although it is inevitable that the fire will spread to some extent, we will take all possible measures to ensure there will be no impact on people’s homes,” Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in parliament.

Thousands of firefighters from 14 prefectures, including Tokyo, have been dispatched to fight the fires. At least 16 helicopters are also being used, with images showing the aircraft dumping water onto the smouldering hills.

Like many other countries, Japan in 2024 recorded its hottest year since records began.

It is difficult to know if climate change has caused or worsened specific fires, because other factors – such as changes to the way land is used – are also relevant.

However, the IPCC says climate change is making the weather conditions needed for wildfires to spread more likely.

Have you been evacuated? Send us your story.

One of the world’s most prolific blood donors – whose plasma saved the lives of more than two million babies – has died.

James Harrison died in his sleep at a nursing home in New South Wales, Australia on 17 February, his family said on Monday. He was 88.

Known in Australia as the man with the golden arm, Harrison’s blood contained a rare antibody, Anti-D, which is used to make medication given to pregnant mothers whose blood is at risk of attacking their unborn babies.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service who paid tribute to Harrison, said he had pledged to become a donor after receiving transfusions while undergoing a major chest surgery when he was 14.

He started donating his blood plasma when he was 18 and continued doing so every two weeks until he was 81.

In 2005, he had the world record for most blood plasma donated – a title he held until 2022 when he was overtaken by a man in the US.

Harrison’s daughter, Tracey Mellowship, said her father was “very proud to have saved so many lives, without any cost or pain”.

“He always said it does not hurt, and the life you save could be your own,” she said.

Mellowship and two of Harrison’s grandchildren are also recipients of anti-D immunisations.

“It made [James] happy to hear about the many families like ours, who existed because of his kindness,” she said.

Anti-D jabs protect unborn babies from a deadly blood disorder called haemolytic disease of the foetus and newborn, or HDFN.

The condition occurs at pregnancy when the mother’s red blood cells are incompatible with that of their growing baby.

The mother’s immune system then sees the baby’s blood cells as a threat and produces antibodies to attack them. This can seriously harm the baby, causing severe anaemia, heart failure, or even death.

Before anti-D interventions were developed in the mid-1960s, one in two babies diagnosed with HDFN died.

It is unclear how Harrison’s blood came to be so rich in anti-D, but some reports said it had to do with the massive blood transfusion he received at 14.

There are fewer than 200 anti-D donors in Australia, but they help an estimated 45,000 mothers and their babies every year, according to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, also known as Lifeblood.

Lifeblood has been working with Australia’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research to grow anti-D antibodies in the lab by replicating blood and immune cells from Harrison and other donors.

Researchers involved hope lab-made anti-D can one day be used to help pregnant women worldwide.

“Creating a new therapy has long been a ‘holy grail’,” Lifeblood’s research director David Irving said.

He noted the scarcity of donors committed to regular donation, who are able to produce antibodies in sufficient quality and quantity.

The mother of a six-year-old girl who disappeared more than a year ago in South Africa has gone on trial accused of organising her kidnapping.

Kelly Smith, her boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and their friend Steveno van Rhyn were arrested after Smith’s daughter, Joshlin, went missing from outside her home in Saldanha Bay, near Cape Town, in February last year.

Joshlin’s disappearance sent shockwaves across South Africa and despite a highly publicised search for her, she is yet to be found.

All three have pleaded not guilty to charges of human trafficking and kidnapping.

Ms Smith initially said that Joshlin had gone missing after she left the young girl in Mr Appollis’s care.

Prosecutors later accused her of having “sold, delivered or exchanged” the six-year-old and lied about her disappearance.

An intense and widespread search then ensued for the young girl but attention soon turned to Ms Smith after her friend and former co-accused, Lorentia Lombaard, turned state witness, according to South Africa’s Daily Maverick news site.

Her search even attracted the interest of Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie, who offered a reward of one million rand (£42,500; $54,000) for her safe return.

The trial will run from 3-28 March at the Saldanha multi-purpose centre, which has been repurposed into a high court specifically for the case.

A judge presiding over the case earlier this year explained that the location was selected to “ensure the community has access” to proceedings throughout the marathon trial.

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 35 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.

Scottish painter Jack Vettriano, best known for his painting The Singing Butler, has died at the age of 73.

His publicist said the artist was found dead at his apartment in Nice, in the south of France, on Saturday.

It is understood there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death.

Vettriano was a self-taught artist whose most famous work became the UK’s best-selling art print and set a Scottish record when it was auctioned in 2004.

He was born Jack Hoggan on 17 November 1951 in Methil, Fife, and left school at 15 to become a mining engineer. He later moved into personnel management.

For his 21st birthday, he was given a set of watercolour paints and then spent much of his spare time teaching himself to paint.

He drew inspiration from works at Kirkcaldy Galleries, studying paintings from artists such as Samuel Peploe and William McTaggart so intently that he feared arousing the suspicions of gallery staff.

His breakthrough came in 1989 when he submitted two paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy’s annual show and both sold on the first day, inspiring him to become a full-time artist.

His works garnered international acclaim, leading to exhibitions in cities including London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and New York.

Vettriano was often dismissed by critics, who variously described his work as “brainless erotica”, “mere wallpaper” and “crass male fantasy”.

But in an interview with the Radio Times, he responded: “They don’t like an artist who is as popular as me because it takes away part of their authority. If they want to ignore me, let them.

“I have what I want and that is the support of the public.

“That means far more to me than the approval of a bunch of well-educated art buffs.”

He was appointed an OBE for services to visual arts in 2003.

His best-known work, The Singing Butler, depicts an elegant couple dancing on a storm-swept beach accompanied by their butler and maid.

It sold at auction in 2004 for £744,800 – a Scottish record at the time – and reproductions of the painting were the best-selling art print in the UK.

It was reimagined by Banksy for Crude Oil (Vettriano) – a painting now owned by Blink-182 star Mark Hoppus and expected to fetch between £3m and £5m at auction in London on Tuesday.

Despite being shunned by galleries earlier in his career, Vettriano’s self-portrait The Weight went on long-term display in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery when it reopened after a renovation in 2011.

The first major retrospective of his work was held in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow in 2013.

It attracted more than 136,000 visitors during its five-month run and was said at the time to be the most successful commercial exhibition ever staged in Glasgow.

A further retrospective was held at Kirkcaldy Galleries in 2022, focusing on his formative years and early career.

Vettriano created a portrait for one of three giant murals of Billy Connolly installed in Glasgow in 2017 as part of a BBC programme marking the comedian’s 75th birthday.

Among those who acquired Vettriano paintings were Jack Nicholson, Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Tim Rice and Robbie Coltrane.

He has spoken publicly about his struggles with his mental health and his dependence on alcohol and drugs.

Vettriano’s publicist said that his passing “marks the end of an era for contemporary Scottish art.

“His evocative and timeless works will continue to captivate and inspire future generations.”

First Minister John Swinney paid tribute to the artist and offered his condolences to his family.

“I am very sorry to hear the news that Jack Vettriano has died,” he wrote in a post on X.

“He made a unique and evocative contribution to artistic life in Scotland in such compelling style.”

There are few artists who have such instant recognition outside the world of art or who are loved and loathed in equal measures.

From the moment Jack Hoggan invented Jack Vettriano, submitted two paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy and sold both in a day, he set in motion the commercial pull and establishment disdain which would follow him throughout his career.

The commercial success and record prices only further antagonised the critics who dismissed his work as “colouring in”.

The first major retrospective of his work in Kelvingrove Art Gallery in 2013 had not just a separate room with a warning for his more explicit paintings but a gift shop which did a roaring trade in spin-off merchandise.

Would he have traded some of that success for a fairer review of his work?

I think he would.

When I first met him 25 years ago, he was keen to dismiss any criticism as art establishment snobbery. What ordinary people thought of his work was all that mattered.

Each time I met him, more and more people had made that clear by attending his exhibitions in their thousands or buying prints and postcards.

The last time – on home turf at Kirkcaldy Art Galleries where he’d once studied the colourists – was especially emotional.

“I’m not just happy, I’m proud,” he told me, “to have done that without any tuition and be back here where it all started.”

Self-made, self-starting, Jack Vettriano gave a large section of the public what they wanted and the world is a little less colourful for his passing.

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.