US-Ukraine talks will be held in Saudi Arabia next week, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, expressing hopes that it will be “a meaningful meeting”.

The Ukrainian leader, who will be in the Gulf kingdom but not take part in the talks, said Kyiv was working to reach a “fast and lasting” peace.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the American team wanted to discuss a “framework” for peace to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Last Friday, Zelensky and Trump were involved in a public clash at the White House – during which Trump said Zelensky was not ready to end the fighting. The US proceeded to pause military aid to Ukraine and stop sharing intelligence.

The Ukrainian president has expressed regret about the incident and tried to repair relations with the US – the country’s biggest military supplier.

On Thursday, Witkoff said Trump had received a letter from Zelensky that included an “apology” and “sense of gratitude”.

“Hopefully, we get things back on track with the Ukrainians, and everything resumes,” Witkoff said.

Zelensky has been under strong US pressure to make concessions ahead of any peace talks, while the Ukrainian president has been pushing for firm security guarantees for Kyiv.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and now controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

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Zelensky announced the US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia in a series of posts on social media, after attending Thursday’s crisis summit in Brussels where European Union leaders endorsed plans for a boost in defence spending.

“Ukrainian and American teams have resumed work, and we hope that next week we will have a meaningful meeting,” he wrote on X.

“Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first moment of the war, and we have always stated that the war continues solely because of Russia.”

Zelensky urged the global community to put more pressure on Moscow so it “accepts the need to end” the war.

He also made an apparent reference to a truce plan outlined earlier this week by French President Emmanuel Macron, which proposed a ceasefire in the air and at sea, and an end to attacks on energy and other civilian infrastructure.

Russia has not publicly commented on the French proposals.

On Thursday, Putin said Moscow was seeking a peace “that would ensure calmness for our country in the long-term perspective.

“We don’t need anything that belongs to others, but we won’t give up anything that belongs to us either,” the Kremlin leader added.

Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula in 2014, and claims another four Ukrainian regions in the south-east as its own – although Moscow doesn’t fully control them.

Ukraine and its European allies have in recent weeks expressed alarm over what many on the continent see as Donald Trump’s overtures to Russia.

Trump vowed during the US election campaign to bring the war to an end quickly, and preliminary US-Russian talks were held in Saudi Arabia last month – without European or Ukrainian representatives present.

The US’s decision to halt its military aid Ukraine has been cast by Trump administration officials as a means of getting Kyiv to co-operate with the US-led peace talks.

Any corresponding pressure the US has been putting on Moscow to make concessions has not been made public.

So in the end Charles de Gaulle was right.

As president of France in the 1960s, it was he who launched the policy of French strategic independence.

Of course, he said, Americans were more our friends than Russians are. But the US too had interests. And one day their interests would clash with ours.

In the world of today, his warnings have never seemed more clairvoyant.

From his principle of superpower detachment, de Gaulle conjured the notion of France’s sovereign nuclear deterrent – whose existence is now at the centre of debates over European security.

France and the UK are the only two countries on the European continent which have nuclear weapons. Currently France has just short of 300 nuclear warheads, which can be fired from France-based aircraft or from submarines.

The UK has about 250. The big difference is that the French arsenal is sovereign – i.e. developed entirely by France – whereas the UK relies on US technical input.

On Wednesday President Emmanuel Macron aired the idea that France’s deterrence force () could – in this highly uncertain new era – be associated with the defence of other European countries.

His suggestion drew outrage from politicians of the hard right and left, who say that France is considering “sharing” its nuclear arsenal.

That – according to government officials as well as defence experts – is a falsification of the argument. Nothing is to be “shared”.

According to Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu, the nuclear deterrent “is French and will remain French – from its conception to its production to its operation, under a decision of the president.”

What is under discussion is not more fingers on the nuclear button. It is whether France’s nuclear protection can be explicitly extended to include other European countries.

Until now French nuclear doctrine has been built around the threat of a massive nuclear response if the president thought the “vital interests” of France were at stake.

The limits of these “vital interests” have always been left deliberately vague – ambiguity and credibility being the two watchwords of nuclear deterrence.

In fact French presidents going back to de Gaulle himself have all hinted that some European countries might de facto already be under the umbrella. In 1964 de Gaulle said that France would consider itself threatened if, for example, the USSR attacked Germany.

So in one way there is nothing new in Macron suggesting a European dimension to France’s deterrent.

What is new, according to defence analysts, is that for the first time other European countries are also asking for it.

“In the past when France has made overtures [about extending nuclear protection], other countries were reluctant to respond,” says Pierre Haroche of the Catholic University of Lille.

“They didn’t want to send out the signal that they did not have complete faith in the US and Nato.”

“But Trump has clarified the debate,” Mr Laroche says. “It’s not that the Americans are talking of removing their nuclear deterrent – let’s be clear, that does not seem to be on the table right now.”

“But the credibility of US nuclear dissuasion is not what it was. That has opened the debate, and led the Germans to look more favourably on the idea of coming under a French and/or British umbrella.”

Last month the likely next German chancellor Friedrich Merz surprised the country’s partners by saying it might be the moment for discussion with Paris and London on the subject.

How a French or Franco-British European nuclear deterrent might operate is still far from clear.

According to Mr Haroche, one option might be to position French nuclear-armed planes in other countries, such as Germany or Poland. The decision to press the trigger would still rest entirely with the French president, but their presence would send a strong signal.

Alternatively, French bombers could patrol European borders, in the same way they regularly do French borders today. Or airfields could be developed in other countries to which French bombers could quickly deploy in an emergency.

Numbers are an issue. Are 300 French warheads enough against Russia’s thousands? Maybe not – but in an alliance with the UK 300 become 550. Also (to repeat the point) the American nuclear deterrent is still in theory in place. There are US nuclear bombs in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Another question is whether to reformulate the French nuclear doctrine so as to state unambiguously that “vital interests” cover European allies too.

Some say there is no need, because the strategic vagueness that exists already is part of the very deterrent.

But Mr Haroche says there is a political dimension to stating more clearly that France will use its arsenal to defend other European countries.

“If the US is to be less present, then European countries will be depending much more on each other. Our strategic world becomes more horizontal,” he says.

“In this new world it is important to build trust and confidence among ourselves. For France to signal it is prepared to take on risk in support of others – that helps create a solid front.”

The wind has been kicking up along Australia’s Gold Coast and so too has the swell. But while authorities have been warning residents to stay indoors as Cyclone Alfred approaches, die-hard surfers have been throwing caution to the increasing wind.

“This is what we look forward to,” said Jeff Weatherall as he waited for a jet ski to pick him up from Kirra beach and carry him into the big waves. “This is the fifth day straight – I’ve done nothing but eat, sleep, surf and do it again.”

Kirra beach is famous for its breakers and this week has been busy as surfers wait for Cyclone Alfred.

The cyclone is expected to make landfall as a category two system on Saturday morning.

Its path has slowed in recent days and has been moving “erratically” according to weather experts, which is why landfall has been delayed from earlier predictions.

“A category two system means winds near the centre up to 95km/h (59mph), with gusts up to 130km/h,” says the Bureau of Meteorology’s Matthew Collopy.

Four million people are in the firing line of Cyclone Alfred. It’s expected to hit between the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast – a stretch of Australia known for its beautiful beaches and top surf – as well as Brisbane, Australia’s third-biggest city.

The past few days in Kirra have been “crazy”, said resident and keen surfer Donnie Neal.

“It’s pretty serious, there are people that are going to lose their houses, but at the moment, you’re taking the good of it all – this is just crazy surf.”

As well as strong winds, Cyclone Alfred is expected to dump as much as 800mm of rain in the coming days, affecting a large area of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. Flash and riverine flooding is the biggest concern in low-lying areas.

“These are tough times, but Australians are tough people, and we are resilient people,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday, echoing the Gold Coast’s acting Mayor Donna Gates, who has said Cyclone Alfred is a “scary proposition” for the region.

On Friday, more than 80,000 people in the two states were without power, and tens of thousands more were under evacuation orders.

Nearly 1,000 schools have closed, public transport has been suspended and airports are shut. Flights aren’t expected to resume until Sunday at the earliest. Elective surgeries have also been cancelled.

While Queensland isn’t a stranger to cyclones – it’s the most disaster-prone state in Australia – it’s rare they come so far south.

The last time it happened was in 1974, when Cyclone Wanda hit in January and then two months later, Zoe crossed the coast.

Flooding though, is more common. In February 2022, thousands of homes were damaged along much of Australia’s east after heavy rain. Authorities have been keen to prepare communities ahead of Cyclone Alfred. The council opened sandbag depots across the region to help residents protect their homes.

“It’s surreal. We know it’s coming, but it’s very quiet,” said Anthony Singh, a resident of the Brisbane suburb of West End. He waited for four hours on Wednesday to pick up sandbags to protect his home.

Fellow resident Mark Clayton, helped to co-ordinate the sandbag collection, shovelling more than 140 tonnes of sand.

“I think people are a bit apprehensive,” he says. “Are the buildings going to stay up, are the roofs going to stay on? People expect a lot of trees to come down and to lose power for an extended period of time.”

With supermarkets now shut and people mostly sheltering at home, there’s a lot of uncertainty as Australians wait for the storm to hit.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to establish a strategic reserve for Bitcoin, making the US one of the few countries in the world to create a national stockpile of blockchain assets.

The reserve will hold cryptocurrency forfeited to the federal government as part of criminal or civil proceedings, White House AI and crypto tsar David Sacks said in a post on X.

The US will not sell any Bitcoin deposited in the reserve, said Sacks, and will instead keep it as an asset.

In 2021 El Salvador became the first country in the world to establish a Bitcoin reserve. Brazil, Japan and Switzerland have also debated such a step.

Trump – who just four years ago said Bitcoin “seems like a scam” – revealed plans earlier this week to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World”.

Further details are expected when the president is due to host the first crypto summit at the White House on Friday.

It is unclear whether the planned reserve could face legal hurdles, or if it might require an act of Congress.

Sacks said the stockpile would serve as “a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency”, drawing comparison to a Kentucky military base that stores a significant portion of US gold assets.

Trump’s order also creates a digital assets stockpile for cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin that have been forfeited.

It directs a full accounting of the federal government’s crypto reserves, which Sacks said are estimated at 200,000 Bitcoin alone. That’s worth $17.5bn (£13.6bn) at today’s prices.

It was unclear how the new stockpile would benefit Americans, but Sacks said it “will not cost taxpayers a dime”.

His implication that the US government would not buy Bitcoin led prices of the world’s largest cryptocurrency to fall by more than 5%.

Some countries maintain strategic reserves of national assets to diversify government holdings and hedge against financial risk.

The US also keeps a petroleum reserve. Canada has a maple syrup reserve.

Earlier this week, Trump revealed the names of five cryptocurrencies that he said he would like included in the strategic reserve.

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

Trump aggressively courted the crypto community during his presidential campaign. Former US President Joe Biden led a crackdown on crypto, citing concerns about fraud.

In announcing the decision to postpone some tariffs on Mexico for another month, US President Donald Trump was at pains to praise his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum.

“I did this as an accommodation, and out of respect for, President Sheinbaum”, he wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “Our relationship has been a very good one and we are working hard, together, on the border.”

The comments were in stark contrast to the kind of language he has used for the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who he continues to refer to as “Governor Trudeau”, while calling Canada “the 51st State”.

The war of words – if not yet trade – continues between Canada and the Trump administration with Prime Minister Trudeau calling the entire tariffs policy “dumb” and the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, calling him a “numbskull” in return.

The difference in tone between the US neighbour to the north and the one to the south could hardly be more striking.

Some, particularly in Claudia Sheinbaum’s camp, see it as evidence of her deft handling of an unpredictable leader in the White House, one who has made several bold statements of intent, only for them to be rolled back or watered down.

Certainly, President Sheinbaum has delivered a singular message from the start: Mexicans should “remain calm” over Trump, she has said, insisting that “cooler heads will prevail.”

In that sense, it has been so far, so good for the Mexican leader.

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Twice, now, in two months she has managed to stave off the imposition of sweeping 25% tariffs on Mexican goods through a last-minute phone call to President Trump – even though he said there was “no room” for negotiation.

It is testament to her diplomacy that Trump seems to genuinely appreciate her tone, clarity and overall demeanour in their interactions.

She has refused to accept publicly that Mexico hasn’t done enough on either of the main border issues on which Trump is demanding action from his neighbours: fentanyl trafficking and undocumented immigration north.

She began Thursday’s morning press briefing by referring to new figures from the US Customs and Border Protection agency which show seizures of fentanyl have dropped to 263 kilos, their lowest levels in 3 years. It represents a 75% drop in the last six months of her presidency.

When tariffs were avoided in February, Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border.

Her administration has also extradited (although they prefer the word “expelled”) 29 drug cartel figures to the US to face trial on charges from murder to money laundering, including a top drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero, who has been wanted by the US authorities since the mid-1980s.

Those may well have been the measures Trump was referring to when he said the two countries were “working hard, together” on border security.

Furthermore, she has often thrown the ball back in the US president’s direction.

Where do the guns which arm the cartels come from, she asks rhetorically, openly calling for the US to do more to curb the flow of weapons south and tackle its demand for illegal drugs. The drugs may come from Latin America, she points out, but the market for their consumption is overwhelmingly in the US.

Even when the Trump administration recently designated six Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”, it seemed to strengthen her hand.

That’s because her administration is currently embroiled in a legal battle with US gun manufacturers over negligence. If US weapons-makers have allowed their products to reach terrorists rather than mere criminals, Mexico could expand its lawsuit, she said, to include a new charge of “complicity” with terror groups.

And yet while President Sheinbaum is enjoying a strong start to her presidency – both domestically and in the eyes of the world – for her handling of Trump, it is worth stressing that these are early days in their bilateral relationship.

“I think she has played the hand she has been dealt pretty well”, said Mexican economist, Valeria Moy. “I’m not sure it’s time for celebration just yet. But I think she has done what she can in the face of the threat of tariffs. It makes little sense for either of side to enter into a trade war.”

The key to Sheinbaum’s success seems to have been in refusing to back down on unreasonable requests or matters of real importance, while similarly not appearing subservient or acquiescent to the White House’s demands.

That is not an easy path to tread.

On some questions – the Gulf of Mexico being renamed by Trump as the Gulf of America, for example – she can afford to remain above the fray knowing that most people around the world are unlikely to adopt his preferred terminology.

On others, particularly tariffs, the stakes are considerably higher; there’s a danger that the constant back-and-forth and instability on the issue could push the Mexican economy into recession.

The Mexican peso weakened again during this latest episode and, although Sheinbaum claims the country’s economy is strong, the markets would clearly prefer a more reliable and solid relationship with the US. Mexico remains the US’s biggest trading partner, after all.

When I spoke to President Sheinbaum on the campaign trail last year, shortly before she made history by becoming Mexico’s first woman president, she said she would have no problem working with a second Trump presidency and that she would always “defend” what was right for Mexicans – including the millions who reside in the US.

“We must always defend our country and our sovereignty,” she told me.

With so much bluster between these three neighbours in recent days, it is easy to forget that the Trump presidency is still only six weeks old.

The new relationship with the White House has a long way to go, with the USMCA trade agreement to be renegotiated next year. But certainly, amid all the political theatre, Claudia Sheinbaum will be more pleased than Justin Trudeau with how it has started.

Police in Australia have charged a 17-year-old who got on a plane with a shotgun and ammunition.

He was filmed being wrestled to the ground by passengers and crew as the aircraft prepared to take off from Avalon Airport, near Melbourne, carrying 160 people bound for Sydney on Thursday afternoon.

Police believe the teenager got onto the airport tarmac by breaching a security fence, before climbing the front steps to the plane, where he was tackled to the ground near the front door.

The 17-year-old – who has not been identified – was taken into custody and will appear in youth court to face eight charges.

Among them are unlawfully taking control of an aircraft, endangering the flight’s safety and creating a bomb hoax.

Victoria Police said a bomb specialist had to be brought in to search a car and two bags which were located nearby.

Footage published by Australian outlet 7News showed the suspect being restrained by a passenger, while a member of ground crew and a pilot removed a utility belt containing tools that the suspect was carrying.

The pilot can also be seen kicking the shotgun away from the teen, who is wearing a fluorescent jacket.

“How is this possible?” someone onboard can be heard saying in the footage.

Victoria Police said the 17-year-old, who is from the nearby Ballarat area, was being held in custody.

Superintendent Michael Reid told reporters that passengers had noticed the teen was carrying a gun as he climbed the steps up to the plane.

“The male was overpowered by three of the passengers, at least,” he said.

Supt Reid said the local force was in contact with counterterrorism police but that it was too early to establish a motive.

“No doubt this would have been a very terrifying incident for the passengers,” he said, while commending the “bravery” of those who had overpowered the suspect.

Barry Clark, one of the passengers, told Australian public broadcaster ABC that the teen appeared to be dressed like an airport worker and was “agitated”.

He said: “All I could do was get the gun out of the way… and then put him in a hold and throw him to the ground until the police came.”

No one was injured during the incident, police said. Investigators located a car and two bags belonging to the suspect nearby.

Avalon Airport is exclusively served by Jetstar, a budget airline operated by Qantas.

In a statement to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, the company said it was working with authorities to investigate the incident.

“We know this would have been a very distressing situation,” a statement read. “We are sincerely grateful to the customers who assisted our crew to safely manage the situation.”

Avalon Airport CEO Ari Suss said the airport had reopened.

It is often said that marriages are made in heaven.

But in India, where a majority of marriages are arranged, the process of match-making can feel like a passage through hell for a woman and her family.

That’s the premise of Sthal: A Match, the 2023 gritty Marathi-language film that has won several prestigious awards at festivals in India and abroad. It is releasing for the first time in theatres in India on Friday.

Set in rural Maharashtra state, the film centres around Savita, a young woman striving for an education and a career in a patriarchal society, and the attempts by her father Daulatrao Wandhare – a poor cotton farmer – to find a good husband for his daughter.

“He wants a good price for his crop and a good match for his daughter,” says director Jayant Digambar Somalkar.

The film is notable for the unflinching way it portrays what its lead actress calls the “very humiliating” experience of many young women, unlike other Indian movies about arranged marriage.

Sthal has also grabbed attention as its entire cast is made up of first-time actors chosen from the village where it is shot. Nandini Chikte, who plays Savita, has already won two awards for her brilliant performance.

The film opens with a sequence where Savita is interviewing a prospective groom.

Along with her female relatives and friends, she watches as the young man serves them drinks from a tray. They laugh when he, visibly nervous, fumbles during questioning.

Rudely awakened from what turned out to be a dream, Savita is told to get ready as a group of men are coming to see her.

In reality, the gender roles are completely reversed, and in a scene that’s replayed several times in the nearly two-hour film, Savita’s humiliation comes into sharp focus.

The prospective groom and other men from his family are welcomed by Savita’s father and male relatives. Guests are fed tea and snacks and once the introductions are done, Savita is called in.

Dressed in a sari, with eyes downcast, she sits down on a wooden stool facing her interrogators.

Questions come, thick and fast. What’s your name? Full name? Mother’s clan? Date of birth? Height? Education? Subject? Hobbies? Are you willing to work on the farm?

The men step out, to hold a discussion. “She’s a bit dark. She had makeup on her face, but did you not see her elbow? That is her real colour,” says one. “She’s also short,” he goes on to add. Others nod in agreement.

They leave, telling Daulatrao that they will respond in a few days to let him know their decision.

According to her parents, “this is the fourth or fifth time someone has come to see Savita” – all the earlier meetings have ended in rejection, leading to heartbreak and despair.

The scene rings true. In India, men often have a laundry list of attributes they want in their brides – a glance at the matrimonial columns in newspapers and match-making websites shows everyone wants tall, fair, beautiful brides.

Savita’s protestations – “I don’t want to get married, I first want to finish college and then take civil services exams and build a career” – carry no weight in her rural community, where marriage is presented as the only goal worth having for a young woman.

“Marriage is given far too much importance in our society,” Chikte told the BBC. “Parents believe that once the daughter is married, they will become free of their responsibility. It’s time to change that narrative.”

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She says she found it “very humiliating” that Savita was made to sit on a stool to be judged by all those men who discussed her skin colour, while there was no discussion about the prospective groom.

“I was only acting, but as the film progressed, I lived Savita’s journey and I felt angry on her behalf. I felt insulted and disrespected.”

The film also tackles the social evil that is dowry – the practice of the bride’s family gifting cash, clothes and jewellery to the groom’s family.

Though it has been illegal for more than 60 years, dowries are still omnipresent in Indian weddings.

Parents of girls are known to take out huge loans or even sell their land and house to meet dowry demands. Even that doesn’t necessarily ensure a happy life for a bride as tens of thousands are killed every year by the groom or his family for bringing in insufficient dowries.

In the film too, Daulatrao puts up a “for sale” sign on his land, even though farming is his only source of livelihood.

Director Somalkar says the idea for his debut feature film is rooted in his own experience.

Growing up with two sisters and five female cousins, he had witnessed the ritual far too many times when prospective grooms visited his home.

“As a child you don’t question tradition,” he says, adding that the turning point came in 2016 when he accompanied a male cousin to see a prospective bride.

“This was the first time I was on the other side. I felt a bit uncomfortable when the woman came out and sat on a stool and was asked questions. When we stepped out for a discussion, I felt the conversation about her height and skin colour was objectifying her.”

When he discussed the issue with his fiancée at the time – who is now his wife – she encouraged him to explore it in his work.

In a country where 90% of all marriages are still arranged by families, Sthal is not the first to tackle the subject on screen. IMDB has a list of nearly 30 films about arranged marriage made by Bollywood and regional film industries just in the past two decades.

More recently, the wildly popular Netflix show Indian Matchmaking focused entirely on the process of finding the perfect partner.

But, as Somalkar points out, “weddings are hugely glamourised” on screen.

“When we think of weddings in India, we think of the big fat wedding full of fun and glamour. We think of Hum Aapke Hain Koun,” he says, referring to the 1990s Bollywood blockbuster that celebrates Indian wedding traditions.

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“And the Netflix show only dealt with a certain class of people, the ones who are wealthy and educated and the women are able to exercise their choice.

“But the reality for a majority of Indians is very different and parents often have to go through hell to get their daughters married,” he adds.

His reason for making Sthal, he says, is to “jolt society and audiences out of complacency.

“I want to start a debate and encourage people to think about a process that objectifies women who have very little freedom to choose between marriage and career,” he says.

“I know one book or one film doesn’t change society overnight, but it can be a start.”

Syrian forces loyal to the new government in Damascus have engaged in heavy fighting with remnants of the ousted Assad regime in a coastal area in the country’s north-west.

Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in the clashes in Latakia province, close to a Russian-controlled airbase.

A curfew has been announced until Friday morning.

They are some of the most violent attacks on forces linked to Syria’s Islamist government since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Clashes continue in coastal areas that form the heartland of the Alawite community and are a stronghold of the Assad family.

State news agency Sana reported that “huge military reinforcements” were heading to the city of Jableh.

Estimations of the number of people killed vary, and the BBC has been unable to independently verify them.

Late on Thursday, Syrian-based Step news agency, was reporting that government-aligned forces had killed “about 70” former regime fighters, while more than 25 others were captured in Jableh and surrounds.

Separately, the AFP news agency said, citing a war monitor, that a total of 48 people were killed – including 16 government security personnel, 28 pro-Assad fighters, and four civilians.

There have also been reports of clashes in the cities of Homs and Aleppo.

The crackle of heavy gunfire on residential streets in Homs can be heard on unverified videos on social media.

A spokesman for Syria’s defence ministry, Colonel Hassan Abdul Ghani, issued a warning to Assad loyalists fighting in Latakia via state media.

“Thousands have chosen to surrender their weapons and return to their families, while some insist on fleeing and dying in defence of murderers and criminals. The choice is clear: lay down your weapons or face your inevitable fate,” he said.

The region has become a major security challenge for interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Alawite activists said their community had been subjected to violence and attacks since Assad fell, particularly in rural Homs and Latakia.

He is also facing resistance in the south, where there have been clashes with Druze forces in recent days.

Earlier this week, Syria’s foreign minister told the global chemical weapons watchdog that the new government was committed to destroying any remaining stockpiles produced under-Assad.

Assad’s government denied ever using chemical weapons during the 14-year civil war, but activists accused it of carrying out of dozens of chemical attacks.

The US owner of high street chemist Boots says it will be taken private in a $10bn (£7.8bn) deal.

The move brings to an end nearly a century of trading on public markets for the Walgreens Boots Alliance.

It has seen its debt grow as cost-conscious customers chose to shop online and opted for cheaper products.

Around 300 stores of the pharmacy chain were recently closed across the UK as it shakes up the business.

There are now 1,900 Boots stores left in the UK.

The total value of the transaction could be worth up to $23.7bn, including debt and possible payouts down the line.

Under the deal, US private equity firm Sycamore Partners will pay $11.45 per share for Walgreens Boots Alliance. That is more than its shares are currently worth on the US stock market.

Walgreens shares rose by nearly 6% in extended trading in New York. But the company’s stock market value has fallen by around 80% over the last five years.

The deal is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Tim Wentworth, chief executive of Walgreens, said the firm was navigating the “challenges of a rapidly evolving pharmacy industry and an increasingly complex and competitive retail landscape”.

“While we are making progress against our ambitious turnaround strategy, meaningful value creation will take time, focus and change that is better managed as a private company,” he added.

It is unclear what the deal would mean for Boots and its UK operations.

The Illinois-based Walgreens took a 45% stake in Boots in 2012.

It bought the remainder of the firm two years later in a deal that valued Boots at around £9bn.

Walgreens is also made up of its namesake US retail business, specialty pharmacy group Shields Health Solutions and healthcare provider VillageMD.

In recent years, the company has faced mounting challenges as customers turned to cheaper rivals.

In 2022, Walgreens put Boots up for sale but later dropped these plans, saying potential buyers had been unable to raise enough funds.

In October, it announced plans to shut 1,200 Walgreens stores in the US over the next three years under a cost-cutting programme.

Butterfly populations in the US shrank by more than a fifth within the space of two decades, according to a new study.

Numbers fell by 22% between 2000 and 2020, according to research by Binghamton University in New York.

A third of species saw serious decline, with some, like Julia’s Skipper, losing more than 90% of their populations.

However, the researchers say butterflies may be able to recover if urgent conservation measures are taken.

The study published in the journal Science measured butterfly “abundance” – the number of individuals of a species within a specific area. It analysed 12.6 million butterfly sightings from 76,000 surveys across 35 monitoring programmes.

This included data from citizen science programmes like the North American Butterfly Association’s Fourth of July counts.

Using statistical models, they estimated population trends for 342 species.

The results showed that 33% were in significant decline, with many exhibiting extreme losses – 107 species declined by more than 50%.

“While the results aligned with global trends, seeing the extent of the decline at such a large spatial scale was sobering,” said Prof Eliza Grames, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University.

Some of the most affected species include the Florida white, Hermes copper, tailed orange, Mitchell’s satyr, and West Virginia white, all of which have declined in abundance by more than 98% within the US.

The West Coast lady, once a common backyard butterfly, has declined by 80%, raising alarm as even this highly adaptable species struggled.

“That’s alarming because it suggests even common butterflies aren’t safe,” Prof Grames said.

Habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change are key causes of this decline, according to the researchers.

Butterflies are crucial pollinators, supporting plants and crops. Experts say their decline could disrupt food production and entire ecosystems.

They also serve as indicators of environmental health – when butterfly numbers fall, it signals trouble for other species.

Species are declining most severely in the US Southwest, one of the hottest and driest regions, researchers say. They believe drought may be a major contributor to these losses.

“Drought is a double threat – it harms butterflies directly and also affects their food and host plants,” Prof Grames explained.

The results could help drive important conservation efforts, such as prioritising species for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species and Endangered Species Act protection.

Despite the decline, there is hope for recovery.

“Butterflies can recover quickly because they have short generation times. Small actions like planting wildflowers, reducing pesticide use, or even leaving part of a backyard unmowed can significantly improve their chances,” Prof Grames said.

She also stressed the need for government action.

“Insects are fundamental to life on earth, and we need conservation actions and policies that support insects.”

A SpaceX rocket exploded shortly after it was launched from Texas on Thursday, grounding flights and triggering warning about falling spaceship debris.

SpaceX confirmed the un-crewed ship had suffered “a rapid unscheduled disassembly” during its ascent into space, and lost contact with the ground.

The massive SpaceX Starship, the largest rocket ever created, spun out of control shortly after its launch. No injuries or damage has been reported but images from those in Carribean Sea island nations show fiery debris raining from the sky.

This was the eighth mission to test the rocket, and its second consecutive failure.

The 123m (403ft) spaceship was meant to re-enter Earth’s orbit over the Indian Ocean after a one-hour flight.

Its Super Heavy booster, which helps it leave the ground, did manage successfully to return to the launchpad.

SpaceX, which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk, said teams immediately started co-ordinating with safety officials for “pre-planned contingency responses”.

The statement added that SpaceX would review data “to better understand [the] root cause” of the accident and noted the explosion happened after the loss of “several” engines.

“As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship’s reliability.”

The statement says debris should have fallen within a pre-planned area and the rocket did not contain any toxic materials. The company also included an email and phone number for those who believe they’ve found any remnants of the rocket.

Musk has yet to comment on Thursday’s explosion.

The accident briefly halted flights at several Florida airports, including in Miami and Orlando, over concerns about flaming debris.

A statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the flights in and out of airports were delayed due to a “space launch incident”.

The incident follows a test in January, which saw a Starship rocket fail minutes after launching from SpaceX’s Texas facility.

The FAA also briefly closed airports two month ago, due to the same concerns about falling debris.

After January’s incident, the FAA grounded Starship launches and noted the failed effort led to property damage in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean.

“Unfortunately this happened last time too, so we have some practice at this now,” SpaceX flight commentator Dan Huot told reporters at the launch site on Thursday.

Tuesday’s Starship launch was conducted before the FAA finished investigating January’s explosion, US media reports indicate.

A statement issued from the government of the Turks and Caicos said they were in contact with US authorities and SpaceX and would “continue to keep the public apprised as we work to ensure the safety and security of our Islands”.

Footage posted on X purported to show flaming rocket debris falling over the Caribbean Sea. In the Bahamas, people posted that they were seeking shelter in order to take cover from debris.

Starship is the biggest, most powerful rocket ever built, and is key to Musk’s ambitions for colonising Mars.

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – collectively referred to as Starship – is intended to be fully reusable, the company says.

Nasa hopes to use a modified version of the spaceship as a human lunar lander for its Artemis missions to return to the Moon.

In the more distant future, Musk wants Starship to make long-haul trips to Mars and back – about a nine-month trip each way.

This week saw Hollywood celebrate the year in film at the Oscars, Donald Trump tell the US that he had “just got started”, and scientists in Scotland unveil a dinosaur the size of a pony.

But how much attention did you pay to what else has been going on in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz compiled by Ben Fell.

Fancy some more? Try last week’s quiz or have a go at something from the archives.

Two years ago, on his bank adviser’s suggestion, Rajesh Kumar pulled out his savings – fixed deposits included – and shifted to mutual funds, stocks and bonds.

With India’s stock market booming, Mr Kumar, a Bihar-based engineer, joined millions investing in publicly traded companies. Six years ago, only one in 14 Indian households channelled their savings into the stock market – now, it’s one in five.

But the tide has turned.

For six months, India’s markets have slid as foreign investors pulled out, valuations remained high, earnings weakened and global capital shifted to China – wiping out $900bn in investor value since their September peak. While the decline began before US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements, they have now become a bigger drag as more details emerge.

India’s benchmark Nifty 50 share index, which tracks the country’s top 50 publicly traded companies, is on its longest losing streak in 29 years, declining for five straight months. This is a significant slump in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. Stock brokers are reporting that their activity has dropped by a third.

“For more than six months now, my investments have been in the red. This is the worst experience in the last decade that I have been invested in stock market,” Mr Kumar says.

Mr Kumar, 55, now keeps little money in the bank, having shifted most of his savings to the stock market. With his son’s 1.8 million-rupee ($20,650; £16,150) private medical college fee due in July, he worries about selling investments at a loss to cover it. “Once the market recovers, I’m thinking of moving some money back to the bank,” he says.

His anxieties reflect those of millions of middle-class Indians who have poured into the stock market from cities big and small – part of a financial revolution.

The go-to investment route is Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs), where funds collect fixed monthly contributions. The number of Indians investing through SIPs has soared past 100 million, nearly trebling from 34 million five years ago. Many first-time investors, lured by the promise of high returns, enter with limited risk awareness – often influenced by a wave of social media “finfluencers” on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, a mixed bag of experts and amateurs alike.

Meet Tarun Sircar, a retired marketing manager, and you get a glimpse of India’s new investor.

When his public provident fund – a government-backed tax-free investment – matured last year, he sought a way to secure his retirement. Burnt by past stock market losses, he turned to mutual funds – this time with an adviser’s help and a buoyant market.

“I’ve put 80% of my savings into mutual funds, keeping just 20% in the bank. Now my adviser warns me – Don’t check your investments for six months, unless you want a heart attack!”

For now, Mr Sircar isn’t entirely sure if moving his retirement fund into the stock market was the right decision. “I’m both ignorant and confident,” he says with wry candour. “Ignorant about what’s happening and why the market is reacting this way, yet confident because Instagram ‘experts’ make investing sound like a fast track to millions. At the same time, I know I might be caught in a web of deception and hype.”

Mr Sircar says he was drawn to the markets by TV shows hyping stocks and excited chatter in WhatsApp groups. “The TV anchors talk up the market and people in my WhatsApp group boast about their stock market gains,” he says.

In his sprawling apartment complex, even teenagers discuss investments – in fact, during a badminton game, a teenager gave him a hot tip on a telecom stock. “When you hear all this around you, you start thinking – why not give it a shot? So I did, and then the markets crashed.”

Mr Sircar lives in hope. “My fingers are crossed. I am sure the markets will recover, and my fund will be back in green.”

There are others who have taken more risks and already lost money. Lured by get-rich-quick videos, Ramesh (name changed), an accounting clerk from a small industrial town in western India, borrowed money to invest in stocks during the pandemic.

Hooked to YouTube influencers, he dived into risky penny stocks and trading in derivatives. This month, after losing over $1,800 – more than his annual salary – he shut his brokerage account and swore off the market.

“I borrowed this money, and now creditors are after me,” he says.

Ramesh is one of 11 million Indians who lost a combined $20bn in futures and options trades before regulators stepped in.

“This crash is unlike the one during the Covid pandemic,” says financial adviser Samir Doshi. “Back then, we had a clear path to recovery with vaccines on the horizon. But with the Trump factor in play, uncertainty looms – we simply don’t know what’s next.”

Fuelled by digital platforms, low-cost brokerages and government-driven financial inclusion, investing has become more accessible – smartphones and user-friendly apps have simplified market participation, drawing a broader, younger audience seeking alternatives to traditional assets.

On the flip side, many new Indian investors need a reality check. “The stock market isn’t a gambling den – you must manage expectations,” says Monika Halan, author and financial educator. “Invest in equity only what you won’t need for at least seven years. If you’re taking on risk, understand the downside: How much could I lose? Can I afford that loss?”

This market crash couldn’t have hit India’s middle class at a worse time. Economic growth is slowing, wages remain stagnant, private investment has been sluggish for years and job creation isn’t keeping pace. Amid these challenges, many new investors, lured by rising markets, are now grappling with unexpected losses.

“In normal times, savers can take short-term setbacks, because they have steady incomes, which keep adding to their savings,” noted Aunindyo Chakravarty, a financial analyst.

“Now, we are in the midst of a massive economic crisis for the middle-class. On the one side, white-collar job opportunities are reducing, and raises are low. On the other, the real inflation faced by middle-class households – as opposed to the average retail inflation that the government compiles – is at its highest in recent memory. A stock market correction at such a time is disastrous for middle-class household finances.”

Financial advisers like Jaideep Marathe believe that some people will start taking money out of the market and move them to safer bank deposits if the volatility continues for another six to eight months. “We are spending a lot of time telling clients not to liquidate their portfolios and to treat this as a cyclical event.”

But clearly, all hope is not lost – most believe that the market is correcting itself from previous highs.

Foreign investor selling has eased since February, suggesting the market downturn may be nearing its end, says veteran market expert Ajay Bagga. Following the correction, valuations for many stock market indices have dipped below their 10-year average, providing some respite.

Mr Bagga expects GDP and corporate earnings to improve, aided by a $12bn income-tax giveaway in the federal budget and falling interest rates. However, geopolitical risks – Middle East and Ukraine conflicts, and Trump’s tariff plans – will keep investors cautious.

In the end, the market meltdown might serve as a hard lesson for new investors.

“This correction is a much-needed wake-up call for those who entered the market just three years ago, enjoying 25% returns – that’s not normal,” says Ms Halan. “If you don’t understand markets, stick to bank deposits and gold. At least you have control.”

King Charles III is launching a personal playlist of music that lifts his sprits and brings back important memories, including Bob Marley, Kylie Minogue and Grace Jones.

He was photographed at Buckingham Palace for the music project, the King’s Music Room, with an “on air” sign on the desk of the royal DJ.

A video trailer shows the band for the changing of the guard outside the palace playing Bob Marley’s Could You Be Loved, in a project to celebrate music from Commonwealth countries.

“So this is what I particularly wanted to share – songs which have brought me joy,” the King said.

“Throughout my life, music has meant a great deal to me,” the King says in the video launching the project, which is a partnership with Apple Music.

“I know that is also the case for so many others.

“It has that remarkable ability to bring happy memories flooding back from the deepest recesses of our memory, to comfort us in times of sadness, and to take us to distant places.

“But perhaps, above all, it can lift our spirits to such a degree, and all the more so when it brings us together in celebration.

“In other words, it brings us joy.”

The full choice of tracks, with more royal commentary, will be published on Monday, for Commonwealth Day.

As well as as reggae from Marley and dance music from Minogue, there are expected to be contributions from Nigerian-American singer-songwriter Davido and British singer-songwriter Raye.

The King saw Raye at a concert at a Christmas market at the former Battersea Power Station, where Apple has its London headquarters.

The project is intended to be a different approach to Commonwealth Day, which sees the Royal Family gathering for a service in Westminster Abbey.

It will reflect the King’s musical interests through his life, ranging from 1930s crooners to Afrobeat stars.

He is also expected to share anecdotes about some of the artists and reveals why the songs help form the soundtrack to his life.

“This seemed such an interesting and innovative way to celebrate this year’s Commonwealth Day,” the King said.

He has a longstanding interest in Marley and has visited the singer’s former home in Jamaica, which has been turned into a museum.

And outside the palace windows, the band played Marley’s message: “Don’t let them change ya, oh! Or even rearrange ya! Oh, no!”

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis straight to your inbox every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

No-one wants to be alone, and no job is more isolating than being a pop star.

Just ask Lady Gaga.

Her rise to fame in 2009-10 was unlike anything we’d seen before. One of the first pop stars to harness the power of the internet, she seemed to exist in a permanent onslaught of TMZ photos and gossip blogs.

Their appetite was voracious. She wore through so many looks and sounds in the space of three years that one critic wrote she was “speed-running Madonna’s entire career”.

And as her fame grew, the headlines became more unhinged. She staged a satanic ritual in a London hotel… She was secretly a hermaphrodite… She planned to saw her own leg off “for fashion”.

When she attended the 2010 MTV Awards in a dress made entirely of meat, nobody seemed to get the joke: Gaga was presenting herself as fodder for the tabloids, there to be consumed.

On stage, she was an object of worship for her fans, the Little Monsters. But anyone who isn’t a megalomaniac knows that that sort of adulation is a distant illusion.

“I’m alone, Brandon. Every night,” Gaga told her stylist in the 2017 documentary, Five Foot Two.

“I go from everyone touching me all day and talking at me all day to total silence.”

Now 38, and happily engaged to tech entrepreneur Michael Polansky, Gaga admits that those years of solitude scared her.

“I think my biggest fear was doing this by myself – doing life on my own,” she tells the BBC.

“And I think that the greatest gift has been meeting my partner, Michael, and being in the mayhem with him.”

The couple have been together since 2020, and revealed their engagement at the Venice Film Festival last September – where Gaga wore her million-dollar engagement ring in public for the first time.

In person, it’s dazzling, with a huge, oval-cut diamond set on a 18-karat white and rose gold diamond pavé band.

But on her other hand, Gaga sports a smaller, more understated ring, featuring a few blades of grass set in resin. It turns out that is the really special one.

“Michael actually proposed to me with these blades of grass,” she reveals.

“A long time ago, we were in the back yard, and he asked me, ‘If I ever proposed to you, like, how do I do that?’

“And I just said, ‘Just get a blade of grass from the back yard and wrap it around my finger and that will make me so happy’.”

It was a deeply romantic gesture that came tinged with sadness. Gaga’s back yard in Malibu had previously played host to the wedding of her close friend, Sonja Durham, shortly before she died of cancer in 2017.

“There was so much loss, but this happy thing was happening for me,” she recalls of Polansky’s proposal.

“To get engaged at 38… I was thinking about what it took to get to this moment.”

Those feelings ultimately informed a song on her new album, Mayhem.

Called (naturally) Blade of Grass, it finds the star singing about a ““, and the promise of love in a time of darkness.

She calls it a “thank you” to her partner. And fans might have a reason to thank him, too.

Mayhem marks Gaga’s full throttle return to pop, after a period where she’d been preoccupied with her film career, and spin-off albums that dabbled in jazz and the classic American songbook.

Speaking to Vogue last year, the singer revealed it was her fiancé who’d nudged her in that direction.

“He was like, ‘Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music’,” she said.

“On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her,” Polansky added. “I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy.”

With that approach, the album goes right back to the sucker-punch sound of Gaga’s early hits like Poker Face, Just Dance and Born This Way.

On the latest single, Abracadabra, she even revisits the “” gibberish of Bad Romance – although this time there’s a reference to death, as she sings, ““.

In the album’s artwork, her face is reflected in a broken mirror. In the videos, she squares off against earlier versions of herself.

There’s an overwhelming sense that the artist Stefani Germanotta is reckoning with the stage persona she created.

It all comes to a head on a track called Perfect Celebrity where she sings, “” – a lyric that, like the meat dress before it, strips away her humanity.

“That’s probably the most angry song about fame I’ve ever written,” she says.

“I’d created this public persona that I was truly becoming in every way – and holding the duality of that, knowing where I begin and Lady Gaga ends, was really a challenge.

“It kind of took me down.”

How did she reconcile the public and private sides of her life?

“I think what I actually realised is that it’s healthier to have a dividing line and to integrate those two things into one whole human being,” she says.

“The healthiest thing for me was owning that I’m a female artist and that living an artistic life was my choice.

“I am a lover of songwriting. I’m a lover of making music, of rehearsing, choreography, stage production, costumes, lighting, putting on a show.

“That is what it means to be Lady Gaga. It’s the artist behind it all.”

In previous interviews, the musician has spoken of how she dissociated from Lady Gaga. For a time, she believed the character was responsible for all her success, and she had contributed nothing.

Mayhem marks the moment where she reclaims ownership of her music, not just from “Lady Gaga” but from other producers and writers in her orbit.

“When I was younger, people tried take credit for my sound, or my image [but] all of my references, all of my imagination of what pop music could be, came from me.

“So I really wanted to revisit my earlier inspirations and my career and own it as my invention, for once and for all.”

From the outset, it was obvious that Gaga was excited about this new phase.

Last summer, after performing at the Olympics opening ceremony, she took to the streets of Paris and played early demos of her new music to fans who’d gathered outside her hotel.

It was a spur of the moment decision, yet it marked another effort to restore the spontaneity of her early career.

“This has been something I’ve done for almost 20 years, where I played my fans my music way before it came out,” she says.

“I used to, after my shows, invite fans backstage, and we’d hang out and I’d play them demos and see what they thought of the music.

“I’m sure you can imagine that after 20 years, you don’t expect that people are still going to show up to hear your music and be excited to see you. So, I just wanted to share it with them, because I was excited that they were there.”

As an interviewer, this is a full-circle moment for me, too. I last interviewed Lady Gaga in 2009, as Just Dance hit number one in the UK.

Back then, she was giddy with excitement, chatting enthusiastically about her love of John Lennon, calling herself a “heroin addict” for English tea, and promising to email me an MP3 of Blueberry Kisses – an unreleased song that is, quite brilliantly, about performing a sex act while your breath smells of blueberry flavoured coffee.

Over the years, I’ve seen her interviews become more guarded. She’d wear outrageous costumes or jet-black sunglasses, deliberately putting a barrier between her and the journalist.

But the Gaga I meet in New York is the same one I spoke to 16 years ago: comfortable with herself, and brimming with enthusiasm.

She puts that ease down to “growing up and living a full life”.

“Being there for my friends, being there for my family, meeting my amazing fiancé – all of these things made me a whole person, instead of the most important thing being my stage persona.”

With an air of finality, she adds: “I wanted Mayhem to have an ending. I wanted the chaos to stop.

“I stepped away from the icon. It ends with love.”

US President Donald Trump has hit China with a second tariff in as many months, which means imports from there now face a levy of at least 20%.

This is his latest salvo against Beijing, which already faces steep US tariffs, from 100% on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 15% on clothes and shoes.

Trump’s tariffs strike at the heart of China’s manufacturing juggernaut – a web of factories, assembly lines and supply chains that manufacture and ship just about everything, from fast fashion and toys to solar panels and electric cars.

China’s trade surplus with the world rose to a record $1tn (£788bn) in 2024, on the back of strong exports ($3.5tn), which surpassed its import bill ($2.5tn).

It has long been the world’s factory – it has thrived because of cheap labour and state investment in infrastructure ever since it opened its economy to global business in the late 1970s.

So how badly could Trump’s trade war hurt China’s manufacturing success?

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.

Most tariffs are set as a percentage of the value of the goods, and it’s generally the importer who pays them.

So, a 10% tariff means a product imported to the US from China worth $4 would face an additional $0.40 charge applied to it.

Increasing the price of imported goods is meant to encourage consumers to buy cheaper domestic products instead, thus helping to boost their own economy’s growth.

Trump sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue. But economic studies of the impact of tariffs which Trump imposed during his first term in office, suggest the measures ultimately raised prices for US consumers.

Trump has said his most recent tariffs are aimed at pressuring China to do more to stop the flow of the opioid fentanyl to the US.

He also imposed 25% tariffs on America’s neighbours Mexico and Canada, saying its leaders were not doing enough to crack down on the cross-border illegal drug trade.

Yes, analysts say.

Exports have been the “saving grace” of China’s economy and if the taxes linger, exports to the US could drop by a quarter to a third, Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist at Moody’s analytics, told the BBC.

The sheer value of China’s exports – which account for a fifth of the country’s earnings – means that a 20% tariff could weaken demand from overseas and shrink the trade surplus.

“The tariffs will hurt China,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis in Hong Kong, told the BBC. “They really need to do much more. They need to do what Xi Jinping has already said – boost domestic demand.”

That is a tall task in an economy where the property market is slumping and disillusioned youth are struggling to find high-paying jobs.

Chinese people have not been spending enough to recharge the economy – and Beijing has just announced a slew of stimulus measures to boost consumption.

While tariffs can slow Chinese manufacturing, they cannot stop or replace it that easily, analysts say.

“Not only is China the big exporter, it is sometimes the only exporter like for solar panels. If you want solar panels you can only go to China,” Ms Garcia-Herrero said.

China had begun pivoting from making garments and shoes to advanced tech such as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) long before Trump became president. And that has given China an “early mover” advantage, not to mention the scale of production in the world’s second-largest economy.

Chinese factories can produce high-end tech in large quantities at a low cost, said Shuang Ding, chief China economist at Standard Chartered.

“It’s really difficult to find a replacement… China’s status as a market leader is very difficult to topple.”

China has responded with counter tariffs of 10-15% on US agricultural goods, coal, liquefied natural gas, pick-up trucks, and some sports cars.

And it has targeted US firms in aviation, defence and tech with export restrictions and announced an anti-monopoly investigation against Google.

China has also spent years adapting to tariffs from Trump’s first term. Some Chinese manufacturers have moved factories out of the country, for instance. And supply chains have come to rely more on Vietnam and Mexico by exporting from there to bypass the tariffs.

And yet, Trump’s recent tariffs on Mexico would not hurt China too much because Vietnam is a bigger backdoor for Chinese goods, Ms Garcia-Herrero said.

“Vietnam is the key here. If tariffs are imposed on Vietnam, I think it will be very tough,” she said.

What concerns China more than tariffs, analysts says, is US restrictions on advanced chips.

These restrictions have been a major sticking point between the two countries but they have also fuelled China’s determination to invest in homegrown tech that is independent of the West.

It’s why Chinese AI firm DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley and unnerved Washington when it released a chatbot that rivals OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The firm had reportedly stockpiled Nvidia chips before the US began cutting off China’s access to the most advanced ones.

Although this could “impact China’s competitiveness, I don’t think that would affect China’s status as a manufacturing power,” Mr Ding of Standard Chartered said.

On the other hand, any ground China gains in advanced tech manufacturing will boost its high-value exports.

It happened because of state support, an unrivalled supply chain and cheap labour, analysts say.

“The combination of globalisation, as well as China’s pro-business policies and market potential, helped to attract the initial wave of foreign investors,” Chim Lee, an analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told the BBC.

The government then doubled down, investing heavily in building a sprawling network of roads and ports to bring in raw materials and take Chinese-made goods to the world. What also helped was a stable exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the US dollar.

A shift in recent years towards advanced tech has made sure that it will continue to be relevant and ahead of its competitors, analysts say.

China already has plenty of economic clout from being a manufacturing powerhouse. But there is also a political opportunity as Trump’s tariffs upend America’s relationship with the world.

“The door is ajar for China to position itself as an advocate of free trade and a stable global force,” said Mr Cruise of Moody’s.

But that is not easy, given Beijing has been accused of flouting international trade norms, such as imposing a tariff of more than 200% on imports of Australian wine in 2020.

Analysts say China must also look beyond the US, which is still the top destination for its exports. China is the third-biggest market for US exports, after Canada and Mexico.

Chinese trade with Europe, South East Asia and Latin America has been growing, but it’s hard to imagine that the world’s two biggest economies can stop relying on each other.

Dogs that are constantly hungry and prone to being overweight share a common bit of biology with some obesity-prone humans.

This is what UK scientists have discovered – identifying a genetic source of many labradors’ – and some people’s – tendency to overeat.

Researchers found that changes in a particular gene, one of the building blocks of biological code that produces the blueprint for how our bodies work, alters the chemical signals that tell our brains we’ve had enough to eat.

The scientists say their findings, published in the journal Science, reveal something “powerful” about the biology of obesity risk.

“By studying dogs, we’ve honed in on some interesting new biology here,” explained lead researcher Dr Eleanor Raffan from the University of Cambridge’s department of physiology, development and neuroscience.

She added that the discovery showed that “owners of slim dogs are not morally superior – and the same is true of slim people”.

“If you have a high genetic risk of obesity, you’re prone to gaining weight unless you put a huge effort into not doing so. And those with low genetic risk just don’t have to work so hard.”

This canine-human biological link came from the researchers’ examination of the genetics of 250 labradors. The team looked for pieces of genetic code that were common in overweight dogs.

They picked out one gene in particular – called DENND1B – that was associated with a higher body mass in the labradors. And when they searched through a library of genetic information from thousands of humans, they discovered that the same gene was associated with a higher body mass in people, too.

Before this study of labrador genetics, Dr Raffan said, “no one suspected that gene had anything to do with obesity”.

The gene interferes with a brain signalling pathway that helps regulate our appetite.

Dr Raffan explained: “It alters the predisposition to weight gain because it’s tweaking a system that is involved in regulating how hungry we feel and how much energy we burn off.”

The findings could help in the future development of new drugs to tackle obesity. But the scientists say they reveal how much harder people – and owners of dogs – with this genetic predisposition have to work to offset its effects.

Another member of the research team, Alyce McClellan, from Cambridge University added that the results emphasised “the importance of fundamental brain pathways in controlling appetite and body weight”.

• Weight loss drugs may boost health in many ways
• Why fat labradors can blame their genes

The discovery adds to a developing picture of those pathways and the biological driving forces behind overeating.

A group of weight loss drugs, that includes Ozempic, target some of this biology, and have exploded in popularity in recent years.

What we’ve identified here is a different pathway [from the one targeted by those drugs],” explained Dr Raffan.

“But it all speaks to the same important bit of biology, which is that obesity is not about having low willpower.

“It’s about the fact that some people are prone to weight gain because they have a genetic risk which increases their responsiveness to food and their appetite.

“This goes for dogs and humans alike – they have a genetic drive to overeat.”

A private US company says it has landed a spacecraft close to the Moon’s South Pole but fears the machine is not upright.

The Athena spacecraft is communicating with Earth, but is not in the “correct attitude”, Intuitive Machines chief executive said in a press conference.

The company hopes the scientific instruments on board can still be deployed, including a hopping robot designed to explore a nearby crater and the first lunar mobile communications antenna.

It is the second time an Intuitive Machines spacecraft has landed in an irregular position on the Moon.

The company is partnering with US space agency Nasa to look for evidence of water and ice on the lunar surface, as Nasa aims to send humans back to the Moon.

Athena landed shortly after 1730GMT (1230EST) around 100 miles (160km) from the South Pole in an area of the lunar highlands called Mons Mouton.

Intuitive Machines says the lunar reconnaissance orbiter camera will take a picture of Athena in the coming days to calculate the craft’s exact position.

Athena was designed to have 10 days to complete observations and measurements with scientific instruments.

They include a jumping robot called Micro Nova Hopper or Grace, which is designed to leap and fly across the Moon’s surface to reach a large crater that is in permanent shade.

The hopper is designed to fly 100m in height, and travel up to 1.2 miles (2km).

After five leaps, it could land inside the crater with a camera to take the first images of the interior.

The crater is in permanent shadow from the Sun’s rays, so it has very low temperatures and is considered an ideal place to look for ice.

Intuitive Machines, which made the hopper, say it can travel to places that other machines, like robots with wheels, can’t reach or would take a very long time to get to.

“These hoppers are really suited to the lunar environment because there’s no atmosphere there, practically speaking, so doing a series of controlled leaps is a great way to move around,” says Prof Simeon Barber, a lunar scientist with the Open University.

The IM-2 mission is also carrying three scientific instruments made by Nasa.

A drill called Trident is designed churn up rocks to reach the surface under the Moon to see if there is evidence of ice.

Then an instrument called a mass spectrometer could analyse any gases that are released.

And the company planned to plant a type of antenna mast developed with Nokia on the Moon that using the same 4G cellular technology as on Earth.

The mission is part of Nasa’s long-term goal to take humans back to the lunar surface, as the agency hopes to send astronauts in 2027 with the Artemis programme.

“This is another step towards assessing the viability of the lunar South Pole as a place to go and set up future bases for humans,” says Prof Barber.

Experts want to explore options for building settlements and find out if there are reserves of water that could provide drinking water and potentially be turned into oxygen.

“A lot of planning of future exploration is being predicated on the presence of water ice, but if you want to use it, you need to know where it is and how much there is,” says Prof Barber.

Nasa is partnering with a range of private companies that transport spacecraft and instruments to the Moon. It says this is cheaper than developing and blasting off their own missions.

Intuitive Machines successfully landed a craft called Odysseus on the Moon in February last year, but it tipped over during the descent, meaning not all the scientific work could be carried out.

Space agencies globally are competing to build human settlements on the Moon in a race to exploit resources and advance scientific understanding of other worlds.

In the US, the Moon mission is seen as a stepping stone for the longer-term and much more ambitious goal of human settlement on Mars.

The IM-2 mission could also help to answer broader questions about why there is ice in the inner solar system, closer to the Sun’s warming rays.

“The permanently shadowed regions on the Moon are kind of a store and archive of ancient water that might have been delivered to the Earth-Moon system after their formation,” explains Prof Mark Fox-Powell at the Open University.

US President Donald Trump has signed orders significantly expanding the goods exempted from his new tariffs on Canada and Mexico that were imposed this week.

It is the second time in two days that Trump has rolled back his taxes on imports from America’s two biggest trade partners, measures that have raised uncertainty for businesses and worried financial markets.

On Wednesday, he said he would temporarily spare carmakers from 25% import levies just a day after they came into effect.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum thanked Trump for the move, while Canada’s finance minister said the country would in turn hold off on its threatened second round of retaliatory tariffs on US products.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday morning he had had a “colourful” conversation about tariffs in a phone call with Trump.

The US president used profane language more than once during Wednesday’s heated exchange, according to US and Canadian media reports.

• It’s so far so good for Mexico’s Sheinbaum

Trudeau told reporters that a trade war between the two allies was likely for the foreseeable future, despite some targeted relief.

“Our goal remains to get these tariffs, all tariffs removed,” he said.

A first round of Canadian retaliation targeting C$30bn ($21bn, £16bn) of US goods is already in effect.

The trade war tensions have rattled markets and raised fears of economic turbulence.

On Thursday afternoon, the leading US stock indexes were all lower, with the S&P 500, which tracks 500 of the biggest American companies, ending down nearly 1.8%.

In signing the orders, Trump dismissed the suggestion that he was walking back the measures because of concerns about the stock market.

“Nothing to do with the market,” Trump said. “I’m not even looking at the market, because long term, the United States will be very strong with what’s happening.”

The carveout from the duties applies to goods shipped under North America’s free trade pact, the US-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA) , which Trump signed during his first term. Items that currently come into the US under the pact’s rules include televisions, air conditioners, avocados and beef, according to analysis by the firm Trade Partnership Worldwide.

A White House official said about 50% of US imports from Mexico and 62% from Canada may still face tariffs. Those proportions could change as firms change their practices in response to the order.

The White House has also continued to promote its plans for other tariffs, promising action on 2 April, when officials have said they will unveil recommendations for tailored, “reciprocal” trade duties on countries around the world.

Trump said he agreed to grant the exemptions until 2 April after a phone call with Sheinbaum and they were aimed at helping carmakers and parts suppliers. The measures also reduced tariffs on potash – a key ingredient for fertiliser needed by US farmers – from 25% to 10%.

Sheinbaum said on Thursday that she had had an “excellent and respectful” call with Trump, adding that the two countries would work together to stem the flow of the opioid fentanyl from Mexico into the US and curb the trafficking of guns going the other way.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who leads Canada’s most populous province, said afterwards that “a pause on some tariffs means nothing”.

Earlier, as relief looked likely but before it was announced, he told CNN that the province still planned to go ahead with a 25% tariff on the electricity it provides to 1.5 million homes and businesses in New York, Michigan and Minnesota from Monday.

“Honestly, it really bothers me. We have to do this, but I don’t want to do this,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday dismissed retaliation as counter-productive for trade negotiations.

“If you want to be a numbskull like Justin Trudeau and say, ‘Oh we’re going to do this’, then tariffs are probably going to go up,” he said during a question-and-answer session after a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday.

Goods worth billions cross the borders of the US, Canada and Mexico each day and the economies of the three countries are deeply integrated after decades of free trade.

Trump has argued introducing tariffs will protect American industry and boost manufacturing. However, many economists say tariffs could lead to prices rising for consumers in the US, while warning they could trigger severe economic downturns in Mexico and Canada.

About $1bn in trade enters the US from Mexico and Canada each day that does not claim duty-free exemptions under USMCA, since it has historically enjoyed low or no tariffs, said Daniel Anthony, president of Trade Partnership Worldwide.

“Whether importers can or will start claiming USMCA remains to be seen, but it’s a huge amount of money at stake,” he said.

In the US, the economy is already starting to show the effects of the disruption from Trump’s policies.

Imports spiked in January on the back of tariff fears, with America’s trade deficit increasing 34% to more than $130bn (£100bn), the Commerce Department reported.

Gregory Brown, who leads BenLee, a company that makes big trailers, said he had had to adjust prices multiple times over the last five weeks as a result of Trump’s policies, which have included an order, set to go into effect later this month, expanding tariffs on steel and aluminium.

But Mr Brown, who attended Mr Bessent’s speech, said that for now, his customers are agreeing to pay the higher prices – a sign that the economy is holding up.

“It’s a great growth economy,” he said, noting that the economy had been strong under Biden too. He said he saw Trump’s decision to quickly offer relief from his new tariffs as a sign of a business-friendly president adjusting to the “business reality”.

Others were more worried that the back-and-forth would cause economic damage.

“I think we’re going to have a recession before whatever succeeds in the future,” one investment manager said. “You’re going to get the bad before you get the good.”

A PhD student who has been convicted of drugging and raping 10 women “may turn out to be one of the most prolific sexual predators that we’ve ever seen in this country”, according to the lead detective on the case.

Chinese national Zhenhao Zou, 28, attacked two women who have been identified and another eight who have yet to be traced, his trial at Inner London Crown Court heard.

The University College London (UCL) student filmed nine assaults as “souvenirs”, and kept a trophy box of victims’ belongings including jewellery and clothing.

Judge Rosina Cottage said Zou was a “dangerous and predatory” offender and warned him he faces a “very long” jail term when he is sentenced on 19 June.

The Met Police’s Cdr Kevin Southworth said the video evidence showed there may be as many as 50 further victims, whom they are “desperate to trace”.

“Such is the insidious nature of these offences, I think there is a possibility that many more victim survivors may not even know that he has, in fact, raped them,” he said.

Following the trial and as a result of the media coverage, the Met confirmed that one woman had already been in touch about Zou.

As well as 11 counts of rape, Zou was found guilty of voyeurism, possession of extreme pornographic images and false imprisonment.

The crimes he has been convicted of took place between 2019 and 2024.

Hidden cameras were discovered by the Met Police in his bedroom, as well as ecstasy and an industrial chemical the human body turns into the “date-rape” drug GHB.

Seven of the rapes happened during the pandemic in China. The evidence of those attacks was videos shown to the jury that Zou kept of him having sex with unconscious and semi-conscious women. Police have never identified them.

Four of the rapes took place in London. Two women were identified and gave evidence; the other two rapes were of the same woman, but she has never been tracked down.

Jurors had to watch footage of nine of the rapes during court proceedings, appearing visibly upset and being given regular breaks as the material was shown.

Some of the attacks were filmed at his flats in Bloomsbury and Elephant and Castle, others at an unknown location in China.

The prosecutions relating to attacks in China were possible because foreign nationals who are living in the UK can be charged with an offence committed abroad that is also illegal in the country where it took place.

In his defence, Zou told the jury he had discussed sexual preferences with one of the women he filmed, and she had said she liked “uniform role play”.

“We specifically discussed the kinds of role play I like, which was rape role play,” he said. He told the court this was how the videos came to be made.

The student comes from a wealthy family, and had enough money to afford a Rolex watch, a wardrobe full of designer clothes and cosmetic procedures including a hair transplant and facial surgery.

He paid £4,000 a month in rent.

Zou moved to Belfast in 2017 to study at Queen’s University before heading to London in 2019 to do a master’s degree and then a PhD at UCL.

The Met Police has launched an appeal to find any other victims.

“If you’re a woman who’s in any way had a one-on-one encounter with this man Zou, then we would like to hear from you,” Cdr Southworth said.

The force said it was particularly keen to hear from women from the Chinese student community who may have met Zou and were living in and around London between 2019 and 2024.

The Met said it would also like to speak to potential victims who may have met Zou while he was living in China. Reports to the force can be made online via the Major Incident Public Portal.

UCL president Dr Michael Spence said:  “We have been appalled by these horrific offences.

“Our thoughts are with the survivors and we wish to pay tribute to the bravery of the women who reported these crimes and gave evidence at the trial.”

Saira Pike from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “I’d like to express my heartfelt thanks to the courageous women who came forward to report Zhenhao Zou’s heinous crimes.

“They have been incredibly strong and brave – there is no doubt that their evidence helped us to secure today’s verdict.

“Zou is a serial rapist and a danger to women.”

The jury found Zou guilty of:

• 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim
• Three counts of voyeurism
• 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image
• One count of false imprisonment
• Three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence

He was cleared of two further counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, and five counts of possession of controlled drugs to commit a sexual offence.

About 20 countries are interested in joining a “coalition of the willing” to help Ukraine, according to UK officials.

It is not thought every one of the countries, which are largely from Europe and the Commonwealth, would necessarily send troops but some could provide other support.

The plan, spearheaded by the UK and France, was set out by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at this weekend’s summit of 18 European and Canadian leaders, and would work to uphold any ceasefire in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said such a move “can’t be allowed” because it would amount to the “direct, official and unveiled involvement of Nato members in the war against Russia”.

It comes as Kyiv attempts to mend relations with Washington after the US paused its military aid to Ukraine and intelligence sharing in a bid to bring President Zelensky to the negotiating table.

Speaking on a visit to a defence firm in Merseyside, Sir Keir said it would be a “big mistake” to think that “all we’ve got to do is wait for a deal now” between Ukraine and Russia, which US President Donald Trump claims to be attempting to broker.

The PM said it would be crucial that “if there is a deal – and we don’t know there will be – that we defend the deal”, which meant ensuring Ukraine was “in the strongest position”.

But the PM stressed that defence plan should be made “in conjunction with the United States… it’s that ability to work with the United States and our European partners that has kept the peace for 80 years now”.

It is understood a meeting of officials was held on Tuesday to discuss providing security guarantees following any peace deal.

British officials said it was “early days” but welcomed what they described as the expressions of interest in joining a “coalition of the willing” as a “highly positive step”.

The Prime Minister’s Deputy Official Spokesman said the government had been “very clear that it is for Europe and for the UK to step up and I think you are seeing evidence of that consistently.”

The UK and France have proposed a one-month truce “in the air, at sea and on energy infrastructure”, backed up by a coalition of supportive western countries, but this has been rejected by Russia.

The UK announced a £1.6bn missile deal for Ukraine on Sunday and has now signed another deal with an Anglo-American security firm Anduril, to provide Ukraine with more advanced attack drones.

Also on Thursday, Defence Secretary John Healey held talks with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth in Washington DC.

At the meeting, Healey said the US had challenged Europe to step up on defence spending and the UK had responded.

“We have, we are and we will further,” he said.

Hegseth said the UK was a “critical” partner, adding European leadership of the Nato alliance was “the future of defence on the continent”.

Earlier, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed another security deal, worth nearly £30m and backed by the International Fund for Ukraine.

The deal will see Kyiv supplied with cutting-edge Altius 600m and Altius 700m systems – designed to monitor an area before striking targets that enter it – to help tackle Russian aggression in the Black Sea.

The announcement comes amid concerns that the US move to halt intelligence-sharing with Ukraine will affect the country’s ability to use western weaponry and deprive it of advanced information about incoming threats.

In Brussels, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, held an emergency defence summit as the EU grapples with the prospect of Trump reducing security assistance for Europe.

Proposing an 800 billion euro (£670 billion) defence package, von der Leyen said this was a “watershed moment”, adding: “Europe faces a clear and present danger and therefore Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself, as we have to put Ukraine in a position to protect itself and to push for a lasting and just peace.”

European Union leaders met Zelensky, who thanked them for their support, and said: “We are very thankful that we are not alone. These are not just words, we feel it.”

Turkey indicated Thursday it could play a part in peacekeeping efforts, while Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheal Martin said Irish troops could be involved in peacekeeping but would not be deployed in any “deterrent force”.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also said he is “open” to sending troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers.

On Thursday Russia rejected calls for a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova telling reporters: “Firm agreements on a final settlement are needed. Without all that, some kind of respite is absolutely unacceptable.”

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Denmark’s state-run postal service, PostNord, is to end all letter deliveries at the end of 2025, citing a 90% decline in letter volumes since the start of the century.

The decision brings to an end 400 years of the company’s letter service. Denmark’s 1,500 post boxes will start to disappear from the start of June.

Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen sought to reassure Danes, saying letters would still be sent and received as “there is a free market for both letters and parcels”.

Postal services across Europe are grappling with the decline in letter volumes. Germany’s Deutsche Post said on Thursday it was axing 8,000 jobs, in what it called a “socially responsible manner”.

Deutsche Post has 187,000 employees and staff representatives said they feared more cuts were to come.

Denmark had a universal postal service for 400 years until the end of 2023, but as digital mail services have taken hold, the use of letters has fallen dramatically.

PostNord says it will switch its focus to parcel deliveries and that any postage stamps bought this year or in 2024 can be refunded for a limited period in 2026.

Fifteen hundred workers face losing their jobs, out of a workforce of 4,600.

“It’s a super sad day. Not just for our department, but for the 1,500 who face an uncertain future,” employee Anders Raun Mikkelsen told Danish broadcaster DR.

Denmark ranks as one of the world’s most digitalised countries.

There’s an app for almost everything: few people use cash, and Danes even carry drivers’ licences and health cards on their smartphones.

Bank statements, bills, and correspondence from local authorities are all sent electronically.

Public services send communications via a Digital Post app or other platforms and PostNord Denmark says the letter market is no longer profitable.

Letter numbers have fallen since the start of the century from 1.4 billion to 110 million last year.

The decision will affect elderly people most. Although 95% of Danes use the Digital Post service, a reported 271,000 people still rely on physical mail.

“There are many who are very dependent on letters being delivered regularly. These include hospital appointments, vaccinations or decisions regarding home care,” Marlene Rishoj Cordes, from (DaneAge) told Denmark’s TV2.

PostNord has weathered years of financial struggles and last year was running a deficit.

Danish MP Pelle Dragsted blamed privatisation for the move and complained the move would disadvantage people living in remote areas.

The introduction of a new Postal Act in 2024 opened up the letter market to competition from private firms and mail is no longer exempted from VAT, resulting in higher postage costs.

“When a letter costs 29 Danish krone (£3.35; $4.20) there will be fewer letters,” PostNord Denmark’s Managing Director, Kim Pedersen, told local media.

He said Danes had become increasingly digital and the decline in letter volumes had become so pronounced that it had fallen by as much as 30% in the past year alone.

PostNord also operates in Sweden. It is 40% Danish-owned and 60% Swedish-owned.

Adnan Syed, whose criminal conviction was made famous in the hit true-crime podcast Serial, will not have to serve any additional jail time after being resentenced in the murder of his ex-girlfriend.

A Baltimore judge ruled that Syed “is not a danger to the public”, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, and that “the interests of justice will be served better by a reduced sentence”.

Syed was convicted in the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee and sentenced to life in prison.

His case spawned the Serial podcast, which questioned key evidence in the case and helped lead to his resentencing.

Syed’s conviction in the murder case still stands. His resentencing was possible under a law that allows for sentence reductions for people convicted as minors and have spent more than 20 years in prison.

Baltimore City Circuit Judge Jennifer Schiffer made the ruling in court on Tuesday.

Syed and Min Lee were classmates in high school in Maryland when Lee disappeared in January 1999. Her body was found in a forest three weeks later.

Syed, then 17, was found guilty of first degree murder in February 2000, and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors at the time alleged Syed carried out the crime after becoming jealous of Lee’s new relationship after the two broke up.

In 2014, Syed’s case gained national attention through the true-crime podcast ‘Serial’, which was listened to by millions of people.

The podcast raised questions about the evidence provided by prosecutors and witnesses that appeared at his trial, and it explored the effectiveness of Syed’s attorney.

Fans of the podcast have donated more than $80,000 to Syed’s legal fund, according to CBS News.

Syed was cleared of all charges in 2022 after prosecutors said he had been wrongfully convicted.

But his conviction was reinstated a year later in 2023 after an appeals court found that the lower court had failed to give the victim’s brother sufficient notice of the hearing that freed Syed.

Judge Schiffer’s ruling on Tuesday allows for Syed to remain free. Now 43, he has been out of prison since 2022.

The wind has been kicking up along Australia’s Gold Coast and so too has the swell. But while authorities have been warning residents to stay indoors as Cyclone Alfred approaches, die-hard surfers have been throwing caution to the increasing wind.

“This is what we look forward to,” said Jeff Weatherall as he waited for a jet ski to pick him up from Kirra beach and carry him into the big waves. “This is the fifth day straight – I’ve done nothing but eat, sleep, surf and do it again.”

Kirra beach is famous for its breakers and this week has been busy as surfers wait for Cyclone Alfred.

The cyclone is expected to make landfall as a category two system on Saturday morning.

Its path has slowed in recent days and has been moving “erratically” according to weather experts, which is why landfall has been delayed from earlier predictions.

“A category two system means winds near the centre up to 95km/h (59mph), with gusts up to 130km/h,” says the Bureau of Meteorology’s Matthew Collopy.

Four million people are in the firing line of Cyclone Alfred. It’s expected to hit between the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast – a stretch of Australia known for its beautiful beaches and top surf – as well as Brisbane, Australia’s third-biggest city.

The past few days in Kirra have been “crazy”, said resident and keen surfer Donnie Neal.

“It’s pretty serious, there are people that are going to lose their houses, but at the moment, you’re taking the good of it all – this is just crazy surf.”

As well as strong winds, Cyclone Alfred is expected to dump as much as 800mm of rain in the coming days, affecting a large area of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. Flash and riverine flooding is the biggest concern in low-lying areas.

“These are tough times, but Australians are tough people, and we are resilient people,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday, echoing the Gold Coast’s acting Mayor Donna Gates, who has said Cyclone Alfred is a “scary proposition” for the region.

On Friday, more than 80,000 people in the two states were without power, and tens of thousands more were under evacuation orders.

Nearly 1,000 schools have closed, public transport has been suspended and airports are shut. Flights aren’t expected to resume until Sunday at the earliest. Elective surgeries have also been cancelled.

While Queensland isn’t a stranger to cyclones – it’s the most disaster-prone state in Australia – it’s rare they come so far south.

The last time it happened was in 1974, when Cyclone Wanda hit in January and then two months later, Zoe crossed the coast.

Flooding though, is more common. In February 2022, thousands of homes were damaged along much of Australia’s east after heavy rain. Authorities have been keen to prepare communities ahead of Cyclone Alfred. The council opened sandbag depots across the region to help residents protect their homes.

“It’s surreal. We know it’s coming, but it’s very quiet,” said Anthony Singh, a resident of the Brisbane suburb of West End. He waited for four hours on Wednesday to pick up sandbags to protect his home.

Fellow resident Mark Clayton, helped to co-ordinate the sandbag collection, shovelling more than 140 tonnes of sand.

“I think people are a bit apprehensive,” he says. “Are the buildings going to stay up, are the roofs going to stay on? People expect a lot of trees to come down and to lose power for an extended period of time.”

With supermarkets now shut and people mostly sheltering at home, there’s a lot of uncertainty as Australians wait for the storm to hit.

US President Donald Trump has signed orders significantly expanding the goods exempted from his new tariffs on Canada and Mexico that were imposed this week.

It is the second time in two days that Trump has rolled back his taxes on imports from America’s two biggest trade partners, measures that have raised uncertainty for businesses and worried financial markets.

On Wednesday, he said he would temporarily spare carmakers from 25% import levies just a day after they came into effect.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum thanked Trump for the move, while Canada’s finance minister said the country would in turn hold off on its threatened second round of retaliatory tariffs on US products.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday morning he had had a “colourful” conversation about tariffs in a phone call with Trump.

The US president used profane language more than once during Wednesday’s heated exchange, according to US and Canadian media reports.

• It’s so far so good for Mexico’s Sheinbaum

Trudeau told reporters that a trade war between the two allies was likely for the foreseeable future, despite some targeted relief.

“Our goal remains to get these tariffs, all tariffs removed,” he said.

A first round of Canadian retaliation targeting C$30bn ($21bn, £16bn) of US goods is already in effect.

The trade war tensions have rattled markets and raised fears of economic turbulence.

On Thursday afternoon, the leading US stock indexes were all lower, with the S&P 500, which tracks 500 of the biggest American companies, ending down nearly 1.8%.

In signing the orders, Trump dismissed the suggestion that he was walking back the measures because of concerns about the stock market.

“Nothing to do with the market,” Trump said. “I’m not even looking at the market, because long term, the United States will be very strong with what’s happening.”

The carveout from the duties applies to goods shipped under North America’s free trade pact, the US-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA) , which Trump signed during his first term. Items that currently come into the US under the pact’s rules include televisions, air conditioners, avocados and beef, according to analysis by the firm Trade Partnership Worldwide.

A White House official said about 50% of US imports from Mexico and 62% from Canada may still face tariffs. Those proportions could change as firms change their practices in response to the order.

The White House has also continued to promote its plans for other tariffs, promising action on 2 April, when officials have said they will unveil recommendations for tailored, “reciprocal” trade duties on countries around the world.

Trump said he agreed to grant the exemptions until 2 April after a phone call with Sheinbaum and they were aimed at helping carmakers and parts suppliers. The measures also reduced tariffs on potash – a key ingredient for fertiliser needed by US farmers – from 25% to 10%.

Sheinbaum said on Thursday that she had had an “excellent and respectful” call with Trump, adding that the two countries would work together to stem the flow of the opioid fentanyl from Mexico into the US and curb the trafficking of guns going the other way.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who leads Canada’s most populous province, said afterwards that “a pause on some tariffs means nothing”.

Earlier, as relief looked likely but before it was announced, he told CNN that the province still planned to go ahead with a 25% tariff on the electricity it provides to 1.5 million homes and businesses in New York, Michigan and Minnesota from Monday.

“Honestly, it really bothers me. We have to do this, but I don’t want to do this,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday dismissed retaliation as counter-productive for trade negotiations.

“If you want to be a numbskull like Justin Trudeau and say, ‘Oh we’re going to do this’, then tariffs are probably going to go up,” he said during a question-and-answer session after a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday.

Goods worth billions cross the borders of the US, Canada and Mexico each day and the economies of the three countries are deeply integrated after decades of free trade.

Trump has argued introducing tariffs will protect American industry and boost manufacturing. However, many economists say tariffs could lead to prices rising for consumers in the US, while warning they could trigger severe economic downturns in Mexico and Canada.

About $1bn in trade enters the US from Mexico and Canada each day that does not claim duty-free exemptions under USMCA, since it has historically enjoyed low or no tariffs, said Daniel Anthony, president of Trade Partnership Worldwide.

“Whether importers can or will start claiming USMCA remains to be seen, but it’s a huge amount of money at stake,” he said.

In the US, the economy is already starting to show the effects of the disruption from Trump’s policies.

Imports spiked in January on the back of tariff fears, with America’s trade deficit increasing 34% to more than $130bn (£100bn), the Commerce Department reported.

Gregory Brown, who leads BenLee, a company that makes big trailers, said he had had to adjust prices multiple times over the last five weeks as a result of Trump’s policies, which have included an order, set to go into effect later this month, expanding tariffs on steel and aluminium.

But Mr Brown, who attended Mr Bessent’s speech, said that for now, his customers are agreeing to pay the higher prices – a sign that the economy is holding up.

“It’s a great growth economy,” he said, noting that the economy had been strong under Biden too. He said he saw Trump’s decision to quickly offer relief from his new tariffs as a sign of a business-friendly president adjusting to the “business reality”.

Others were more worried that the back-and-forth would cause economic damage.

“I think we’re going to have a recession before whatever succeeds in the future,” one investment manager said. “You’re going to get the bad before you get the good.”

Police in Australia have charged a 17-year-old who got on a plane with a shotgun and ammunition.

He was filmed being wrestled to the ground by passengers and crew as the aircraft prepared to take off from Avalon Airport, near Melbourne, carrying 160 people bound for Sydney on Thursday afternoon.

Police believe the teenager got onto the airport tarmac by breaching a security fence, before climbing the front steps to the plane, where he was tackled to the ground near the front door.

The 17-year-old – who has not been identified – was taken into custody and will appear in youth court to face eight charges.

Among them are unlawfully taking control of an aircraft, endangering the flight’s safety and creating a bomb hoax.

Victoria Police said a bomb specialist had to be brought in to search a car and two bags which were located nearby.

Footage published by Australian outlet 7News showed the suspect being restrained by a passenger, while a member of ground crew and a pilot removed a utility belt containing tools that the suspect was carrying.

The pilot can also be seen kicking the shotgun away from the teen, who is wearing a fluorescent jacket.

“How is this possible?” someone onboard can be heard saying in the footage.

Victoria Police said the 17-year-old, who is from the nearby Ballarat area, was being held in custody.

Superintendent Michael Reid told reporters that passengers had noticed the teen was carrying a gun as he climbed the steps up to the plane.

“The male was overpowered by three of the passengers, at least,” he said.

Supt Reid said the local force was in contact with counterterrorism police but that it was too early to establish a motive.

“No doubt this would have been a very terrifying incident for the passengers,” he said, while commending the “bravery” of those who had overpowered the suspect.

Barry Clark, one of the passengers, told Australian public broadcaster ABC that the teen appeared to be dressed like an airport worker and was “agitated”.

He said: “All I could do was get the gun out of the way… and then put him in a hold and throw him to the ground until the police came.”

No one was injured during the incident, police said. Investigators located a car and two bags belonging to the suspect nearby.

Avalon Airport is exclusively served by Jetstar, a budget airline operated by Qantas.

In a statement to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, the company said it was working with authorities to investigate the incident.

“We know this would have been a very distressing situation,” a statement read. “We are sincerely grateful to the customers who assisted our crew to safely manage the situation.”

Avalon Airport CEO Ari Suss said the airport had reopened.

It is often said that marriages are made in heaven.

But in India, where a majority of marriages are arranged, the process of match-making can feel like a passage through hell for a woman and her family.

That’s the premise of Sthal: A Match, the 2023 gritty Marathi-language film that has won several prestigious awards at festivals in India and abroad. It is releasing for the first time in theatres in India on Friday.

Set in rural Maharashtra state, the film centres around Savita, a young woman striving for an education and a career in a patriarchal society, and the attempts by her father Daulatrao Wandhare – a poor cotton farmer – to find a good husband for his daughter.

“He wants a good price for his crop and a good match for his daughter,” says director Jayant Digambar Somalkar.

The film is notable for the unflinching way it portrays what its lead actress calls the “very humiliating” experience of many young women, unlike other Indian movies about arranged marriage.

Sthal has also grabbed attention as its entire cast is made up of first-time actors chosen from the village where it is shot. Nandini Chikte, who plays Savita, has already won two awards for her brilliant performance.

The film opens with a sequence where Savita is interviewing a prospective groom.

Along with her female relatives and friends, she watches as the young man serves them drinks from a tray. They laugh when he, visibly nervous, fumbles during questioning.

Rudely awakened from what turned out to be a dream, Savita is told to get ready as a group of men are coming to see her.

In reality, the gender roles are completely reversed, and in a scene that’s replayed several times in the nearly two-hour film, Savita’s humiliation comes into sharp focus.

The prospective groom and other men from his family are welcomed by Savita’s father and male relatives. Guests are fed tea and snacks and once the introductions are done, Savita is called in.

Dressed in a sari, with eyes downcast, she sits down on a wooden stool facing her interrogators.

Questions come, thick and fast. What’s your name? Full name? Mother’s clan? Date of birth? Height? Education? Subject? Hobbies? Are you willing to work on the farm?

The men step out, to hold a discussion. “She’s a bit dark. She had makeup on her face, but did you not see her elbow? That is her real colour,” says one. “She’s also short,” he goes on to add. Others nod in agreement.

They leave, telling Daulatrao that they will respond in a few days to let him know their decision.

According to her parents, “this is the fourth or fifth time someone has come to see Savita” – all the earlier meetings have ended in rejection, leading to heartbreak and despair.

The scene rings true. In India, men often have a laundry list of attributes they want in their brides – a glance at the matrimonial columns in newspapers and match-making websites shows everyone wants tall, fair, beautiful brides.

Savita’s protestations – “I don’t want to get married, I first want to finish college and then take civil services exams and build a career” – carry no weight in her rural community, where marriage is presented as the only goal worth having for a young woman.

“Marriage is given far too much importance in our society,” Chikte told the BBC. “Parents believe that once the daughter is married, they will become free of their responsibility. It’s time to change that narrative.”

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She says she found it “very humiliating” that Savita was made to sit on a stool to be judged by all those men who discussed her skin colour, while there was no discussion about the prospective groom.

“I was only acting, but as the film progressed, I lived Savita’s journey and I felt angry on her behalf. I felt insulted and disrespected.”

The film also tackles the social evil that is dowry – the practice of the bride’s family gifting cash, clothes and jewellery to the groom’s family.

Though it has been illegal for more than 60 years, dowries are still omnipresent in Indian weddings.

Parents of girls are known to take out huge loans or even sell their land and house to meet dowry demands. Even that doesn’t necessarily ensure a happy life for a bride as tens of thousands are killed every year by the groom or his family for bringing in insufficient dowries.

In the film too, Daulatrao puts up a “for sale” sign on his land, even though farming is his only source of livelihood.

Director Somalkar says the idea for his debut feature film is rooted in his own experience.

Growing up with two sisters and five female cousins, he had witnessed the ritual far too many times when prospective grooms visited his home.

“As a child you don’t question tradition,” he says, adding that the turning point came in 2016 when he accompanied a male cousin to see a prospective bride.

“This was the first time I was on the other side. I felt a bit uncomfortable when the woman came out and sat on a stool and was asked questions. When we stepped out for a discussion, I felt the conversation about her height and skin colour was objectifying her.”

When he discussed the issue with his fiancée at the time – who is now his wife – she encouraged him to explore it in his work.

In a country where 90% of all marriages are still arranged by families, Sthal is not the first to tackle the subject on screen. IMDB has a list of nearly 30 films about arranged marriage made by Bollywood and regional film industries just in the past two decades.

More recently, the wildly popular Netflix show Indian Matchmaking focused entirely on the process of finding the perfect partner.

But, as Somalkar points out, “weddings are hugely glamourised” on screen.

“When we think of weddings in India, we think of the big fat wedding full of fun and glamour. We think of Hum Aapke Hain Koun,” he says, referring to the 1990s Bollywood blockbuster that celebrates Indian wedding traditions.

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“And the Netflix show only dealt with a certain class of people, the ones who are wealthy and educated and the women are able to exercise their choice.

“But the reality for a majority of Indians is very different and parents often have to go through hell to get their daughters married,” he adds.

His reason for making Sthal, he says, is to “jolt society and audiences out of complacency.

“I want to start a debate and encourage people to think about a process that objectifies women who have very little freedom to choose between marriage and career,” he says.

“I know one book or one film doesn’t change society overnight, but it can be a start.”

In announcing the decision to postpone some tariffs on Mexico for another month, US President Donald Trump was at pains to praise his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum.

“I did this as an accommodation, and out of respect for, President Sheinbaum”, he wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “Our relationship has been a very good one and we are working hard, together, on the border.”

The comments were in stark contrast to the kind of language he has used for the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who he continues to refer to as “Governor Trudeau”, while calling Canada “the 51st State”.

The war of words – if not yet trade – continues between Canada and the Trump administration with Prime Minister Trudeau calling the entire tariffs policy “dumb” and the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, calling him a “numbskull” in return.

The difference in tone between the US neighbour to the north and the one to the south could hardly be more striking.

Some, particularly in Claudia Sheinbaum’s camp, see it as evidence of her deft handling of an unpredictable leader in the White House, one who has made several bold statements of intent, only for them to be rolled back or watered down.

Certainly, President Sheinbaum has delivered a singular message from the start: Mexicans should “remain calm” over Trump, she has said, insisting that “cooler heads will prevail.”

In that sense, it has been so far, so good for the Mexican leader.

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Twice, now, in two months she has managed to stave off the imposition of sweeping 25% tariffs on Mexican goods through a last-minute phone call to President Trump – even though he said there was “no room” for negotiation.

It is testament to her diplomacy that Trump seems to genuinely appreciate her tone, clarity and overall demeanour in their interactions.

She has refused to accept publicly that Mexico hasn’t done enough on either of the main border issues on which Trump is demanding action from his neighbours: fentanyl trafficking and undocumented immigration north.

She began Thursday’s morning press briefing by referring to new figures from the US Customs and Border Protection agency which show seizures of fentanyl have dropped to 263 kilos, their lowest levels in 3 years. It represents a 75% drop in the last six months of her presidency.

When tariffs were avoided in February, Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border.

Her administration has also extradited (although they prefer the word “expelled”) 29 drug cartel figures to the US to face trial on charges from murder to money laundering, including a top drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero, who has been wanted by the US authorities since the mid-1980s.

Those may well have been the measures Trump was referring to when he said the two countries were “working hard, together” on border security.

Furthermore, she has often thrown the ball back in the US president’s direction.

Where do the guns which arm the cartels come from, she asks rhetorically, openly calling for the US to do more to curb the flow of weapons south and tackle its demand for illegal drugs. The drugs may come from Latin America, she points out, but the market for their consumption is overwhelmingly in the US.

Even when the Trump administration recently designated six Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”, it seemed to strengthen her hand.

That’s because her administration is currently embroiled in a legal battle with US gun manufacturers over negligence. If US weapons-makers have allowed their products to reach terrorists rather than mere criminals, Mexico could expand its lawsuit, she said, to include a new charge of “complicity” with terror groups.

And yet while President Sheinbaum is enjoying a strong start to her presidency – both domestically and in the eyes of the world – for her handling of Trump, it is worth stressing that these are early days in their bilateral relationship.

“I think she has played the hand she has been dealt pretty well”, said Mexican economist, Valeria Moy. “I’m not sure it’s time for celebration just yet. But I think she has done what she can in the face of the threat of tariffs. It makes little sense for either of side to enter into a trade war.”

The key to Sheinbaum’s success seems to have been in refusing to back down on unreasonable requests or matters of real importance, while similarly not appearing subservient or acquiescent to the White House’s demands.

That is not an easy path to tread.

On some questions – the Gulf of Mexico being renamed by Trump as the Gulf of America, for example – she can afford to remain above the fray knowing that most people around the world are unlikely to adopt his preferred terminology.

On others, particularly tariffs, the stakes are considerably higher; there’s a danger that the constant back-and-forth and instability on the issue could push the Mexican economy into recession.

The Mexican peso weakened again during this latest episode and, although Sheinbaum claims the country’s economy is strong, the markets would clearly prefer a more reliable and solid relationship with the US. Mexico remains the US’s biggest trading partner, after all.

When I spoke to President Sheinbaum on the campaign trail last year, shortly before she made history by becoming Mexico’s first woman president, she said she would have no problem working with a second Trump presidency and that she would always “defend” what was right for Mexicans – including the millions who reside in the US.

“We must always defend our country and our sovereignty,” she told me.

With so much bluster between these three neighbours in recent days, it is easy to forget that the Trump presidency is still only six weeks old.

The new relationship with the White House has a long way to go, with the USMCA trade agreement to be renegotiated next year. But certainly, amid all the political theatre, Claudia Sheinbaum will be more pleased than Justin Trudeau with how it has started.

US-Ukraine talks will be held in Saudi Arabia next week, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, expressing hopes that it will be “a meaningful meeting”.

The Ukrainian leader, who will be in the Gulf kingdom but not take part in the talks, said Kyiv was working to reach a “fast and lasting” peace.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the American team wanted to discuss a “framework” for peace to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Last Friday, Zelensky and Trump were involved in a public clash at the White House – during which Trump said Zelensky was not ready to end the fighting. The US proceeded to pause military aid to Ukraine and stop sharing intelligence.

The Ukrainian president has expressed regret about the incident and tried to repair relations with the US – the country’s biggest military supplier.

On Thursday, Witkoff said Trump had received a letter from Zelensky that included an “apology” and “sense of gratitude”.

“Hopefully, we get things back on track with the Ukrainians, and everything resumes,” Witkoff said.

Zelensky has been under strong US pressure to make concessions ahead of any peace talks, while the Ukrainian president has been pushing for firm security guarantees for Kyiv.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and now controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

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Zelensky announced the US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia in a series of posts on social media, after attending Thursday’s crisis summit in Brussels where European Union leaders endorsed plans for a boost in defence spending.

“Ukrainian and American teams have resumed work, and we hope that next week we will have a meaningful meeting,” he wrote on X.

“Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first moment of the war, and we have always stated that the war continues solely because of Russia.”

Zelensky urged the global community to put more pressure on Moscow so it “accepts the need to end” the war.

He also made an apparent reference to a truce plan outlined earlier this week by French President Emmanuel Macron, which proposed a ceasefire in the air and at sea, and an end to attacks on energy and other civilian infrastructure.

Russia has not publicly commented on the French proposals.

On Thursday, Putin said Moscow was seeking a peace “that would ensure calmness for our country in the long-term perspective.

“We don’t need anything that belongs to others, but we won’t give up anything that belongs to us either,” the Kremlin leader added.

Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula in 2014, and claims another four Ukrainian regions in the south-east as its own – although Moscow doesn’t fully control them.

Ukraine and its European allies have in recent weeks expressed alarm over what many on the continent see as Donald Trump’s overtures to Russia.

Trump vowed during the US election campaign to bring the war to an end quickly, and preliminary US-Russian talks were held in Saudi Arabia last month – without European or Ukrainian representatives present.

The US’s decision to halt its military aid Ukraine has been cast by Trump administration officials as a means of getting Kyiv to co-operate with the US-led peace talks.

Any corresponding pressure the US has been putting on Moscow to make concessions has not been made public.

A SpaceX rocket exploded shortly after it was launched from Texas on Thursday, grounding flights and triggering warning about falling spaceship debris.

SpaceX confirmed the un-crewed ship had suffered “a rapid unscheduled disassembly” during its ascent into space, and lost contact with the ground.

The massive SpaceX Starship, the largest rocket ever created, spun out of control shortly after its launch. No injuries or damage has been reported but images from those in Carribean Sea island nations show fiery debris raining from the sky.

This was the eighth mission to test the rocket, and its second consecutive failure.

The 123m (403ft) spaceship was meant to re-enter Earth’s orbit over the Indian Ocean after a one-hour flight.

Its Super Heavy booster, which helps it leave the ground, did manage successfully to return to the launchpad.

SpaceX, which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk, said teams immediately started co-ordinating with safety officials for “pre-planned contingency responses”.

The statement added that SpaceX would review data “to better understand [the] root cause” of the accident and noted the explosion happened after the loss of “several” engines.

“As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship’s reliability.”

The statement says debris should have fallen within a pre-planned area and the rocket did not contain any toxic materials. The company also included an email and phone number for those who believe they’ve found any remnants of the rocket.

Musk has yet to comment on Thursday’s explosion.

The accident briefly halted flights at several Florida airports, including in Miami and Orlando, over concerns about flaming debris.

A statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the flights in and out of airports were delayed due to a “space launch incident”.

The incident follows a test in January, which saw a Starship rocket fail minutes after launching from SpaceX’s Texas facility.

The FAA also briefly closed airports two month ago, due to the same concerns about falling debris.

After January’s incident, the FAA grounded Starship launches and noted the failed effort led to property damage in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean.

“Unfortunately this happened last time too, so we have some practice at this now,” SpaceX flight commentator Dan Huot told reporters at the launch site on Thursday.

Tuesday’s Starship launch was conducted before the FAA finished investigating January’s explosion, US media reports indicate.

A statement issued from the government of the Turks and Caicos said they were in contact with US authorities and SpaceX and would “continue to keep the public apprised as we work to ensure the safety and security of our Islands”.

Footage posted on X purported to show flaming rocket debris falling over the Caribbean Sea. In the Bahamas, people posted that they were seeking shelter in order to take cover from debris.

Starship is the biggest, most powerful rocket ever built, and is key to Musk’s ambitions for colonising Mars.

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – collectively referred to as Starship – is intended to be fully reusable, the company says.

Nasa hopes to use a modified version of the spaceship as a human lunar lander for its Artemis missions to return to the Moon.

In the more distant future, Musk wants Starship to make long-haul trips to Mars and back – about a nine-month trip each way.

So in the end Charles de Gaulle was right.

As president of France in the 1960s, it was he who launched the policy of French strategic independence.

Of course, he said, Americans were more our friends than Russians are. But the US too had interests. And one day their interests would clash with ours.

In the world of today, his warnings have never seemed more clairvoyant.

From his principle of superpower detachment, de Gaulle conjured the notion of France’s sovereign nuclear deterrent – whose existence is now at the centre of debates over European security.

France and the UK are the only two countries on the European continent which have nuclear weapons. Currently France has just short of 300 nuclear warheads, which can be fired from France-based aircraft or from submarines.

The UK has about 250. The big difference is that the French arsenal is sovereign – i.e. developed entirely by France – whereas the UK relies on US technical input.

On Wednesday President Emmanuel Macron aired the idea that France’s deterrence force () could – in this highly uncertain new era – be associated with the defence of other European countries.

His suggestion drew outrage from politicians of the hard right and left, who say that France is considering “sharing” its nuclear arsenal.

That – according to government officials as well as defence experts – is a falsification of the argument. Nothing is to be “shared”.

According to Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu, the nuclear deterrent “is French and will remain French – from its conception to its production to its operation, under a decision of the president.”

What is under discussion is not more fingers on the nuclear button. It is whether France’s nuclear protection can be explicitly extended to include other European countries.

Until now French nuclear doctrine has been built around the threat of a massive nuclear response if the president thought the “vital interests” of France were at stake.

The limits of these “vital interests” have always been left deliberately vague – ambiguity and credibility being the two watchwords of nuclear deterrence.

In fact French presidents going back to de Gaulle himself have all hinted that some European countries might de facto already be under the umbrella. In 1964 de Gaulle said that France would consider itself threatened if, for example, the USSR attacked Germany.

So in one way there is nothing new in Macron suggesting a European dimension to France’s deterrent.

What is new, according to defence analysts, is that for the first time other European countries are also asking for it.

“In the past when France has made overtures [about extending nuclear protection], other countries were reluctant to respond,” says Pierre Haroche of the Catholic University of Lille.

“They didn’t want to send out the signal that they did not have complete faith in the US and Nato.”

“But Trump has clarified the debate,” Mr Laroche says. “It’s not that the Americans are talking of removing their nuclear deterrent – let’s be clear, that does not seem to be on the table right now.”

“But the credibility of US nuclear dissuasion is not what it was. That has opened the debate, and led the Germans to look more favourably on the idea of coming under a French and/or British umbrella.”

Last month the likely next German chancellor Friedrich Merz surprised the country’s partners by saying it might be the moment for discussion with Paris and London on the subject.

How a French or Franco-British European nuclear deterrent might operate is still far from clear.

According to Mr Haroche, one option might be to position French nuclear-armed planes in other countries, such as Germany or Poland. The decision to press the trigger would still rest entirely with the French president, but their presence would send a strong signal.

Alternatively, French bombers could patrol European borders, in the same way they regularly do French borders today. Or airfields could be developed in other countries to which French bombers could quickly deploy in an emergency.

Numbers are an issue. Are 300 French warheads enough against Russia’s thousands? Maybe not – but in an alliance with the UK 300 become 550. Also (to repeat the point) the American nuclear deterrent is still in theory in place. There are US nuclear bombs in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Another question is whether to reformulate the French nuclear doctrine so as to state unambiguously that “vital interests” cover European allies too.

Some say there is no need, because the strategic vagueness that exists already is part of the very deterrent.

But Mr Haroche says there is a political dimension to stating more clearly that France will use its arsenal to defend other European countries.

“If the US is to be less present, then European countries will be depending much more on each other. Our strategic world becomes more horizontal,” he says.

“In this new world it is important to build trust and confidence among ourselves. For France to signal it is prepared to take on risk in support of others – that helps create a solid front.”

No-one wants to be alone, and no job is more isolating than being a pop star.

Just ask Lady Gaga.

Her rise to fame in 2009-10 was unlike anything we’d seen before. One of the first pop stars to harness the power of the internet, she seemed to exist in a permanent onslaught of TMZ photos and gossip blogs.

Their appetite was voracious. She wore through so many looks and sounds in the space of three years that one critic wrote she was “speed-running Madonna’s entire career”.

And as her fame grew, the headlines became more unhinged. She staged a satanic ritual in a London hotel… She was secretly a hermaphrodite… She planned to saw her own leg off “for fashion”.

When she attended the 2010 MTV Awards in a dress made entirely of meat, nobody seemed to get the joke: Gaga was presenting herself as fodder for the tabloids, there to be consumed.

On stage, she was an object of worship for her fans, the Little Monsters. But anyone who isn’t a megalomaniac knows that that sort of adulation is a distant illusion.

“I’m alone, Brandon. Every night,” Gaga told her stylist in the 2017 documentary, Five Foot Two.

“I go from everyone touching me all day and talking at me all day to total silence.”

Now 38, and happily engaged to tech entrepreneur Michael Polansky, Gaga admits that those years of solitude scared her.

“I think my biggest fear was doing this by myself – doing life on my own,” she tells the BBC.

“And I think that the greatest gift has been meeting my partner, Michael, and being in the mayhem with him.”

The couple have been together since 2020, and revealed their engagement at the Venice Film Festival last September – where Gaga wore her million-dollar engagement ring in public for the first time.

In person, it’s dazzling, with a huge, oval-cut diamond set on a 18-karat white and rose gold diamond pavé band.

But on her other hand, Gaga sports a smaller, more understated ring, featuring a few blades of grass set in resin. It turns out that is the really special one.

“Michael actually proposed to me with these blades of grass,” she reveals.

“A long time ago, we were in the back yard, and he asked me, ‘If I ever proposed to you, like, how do I do that?’

“And I just said, ‘Just get a blade of grass from the back yard and wrap it around my finger and that will make me so happy’.”

It was a deeply romantic gesture that came tinged with sadness. Gaga’s back yard in Malibu had previously played host to the wedding of her close friend, Sonja Durham, shortly before she died of cancer in 2017.

“There was so much loss, but this happy thing was happening for me,” she recalls of Polansky’s proposal.

“To get engaged at 38… I was thinking about what it took to get to this moment.”

Those feelings ultimately informed a song on her new album, Mayhem.

Called (naturally) Blade of Grass, it finds the star singing about a ““, and the promise of love in a time of darkness.

She calls it a “thank you” to her partner. And fans might have a reason to thank him, too.

Mayhem marks Gaga’s full throttle return to pop, after a period where she’d been preoccupied with her film career, and spin-off albums that dabbled in jazz and the classic American songbook.

Speaking to Vogue last year, the singer revealed it was her fiancé who’d nudged her in that direction.

“He was like, ‘Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music’,” she said.

“On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her,” Polansky added. “I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy.”

With that approach, the album goes right back to the sucker-punch sound of Gaga’s early hits like Poker Face, Just Dance and Born This Way.

On the latest single, Abracadabra, she even revisits the “” gibberish of Bad Romance – although this time there’s a reference to death, as she sings, ““.

In the album’s artwork, her face is reflected in a broken mirror. In the videos, she squares off against earlier versions of herself.

There’s an overwhelming sense that the artist Stefani Germanotta is reckoning with the stage persona she created.

It all comes to a head on a track called Perfect Celebrity where she sings, “” – a lyric that, like the meat dress before it, strips away her humanity.

“That’s probably the most angry song about fame I’ve ever written,” she says.

“I’d created this public persona that I was truly becoming in every way – and holding the duality of that, knowing where I begin and Lady Gaga ends, was really a challenge.

“It kind of took me down.”

How did she reconcile the public and private sides of her life?

“I think what I actually realised is that it’s healthier to have a dividing line and to integrate those two things into one whole human being,” she says.

“The healthiest thing for me was owning that I’m a female artist and that living an artistic life was my choice.

“I am a lover of songwriting. I’m a lover of making music, of rehearsing, choreography, stage production, costumes, lighting, putting on a show.

“That is what it means to be Lady Gaga. It’s the artist behind it all.”

In previous interviews, the musician has spoken of how she dissociated from Lady Gaga. For a time, she believed the character was responsible for all her success, and she had contributed nothing.

Mayhem marks the moment where she reclaims ownership of her music, not just from “Lady Gaga” but from other producers and writers in her orbit.

“When I was younger, people tried take credit for my sound, or my image [but] all of my references, all of my imagination of what pop music could be, came from me.

“So I really wanted to revisit my earlier inspirations and my career and own it as my invention, for once and for all.”

From the outset, it was obvious that Gaga was excited about this new phase.

Last summer, after performing at the Olympics opening ceremony, she took to the streets of Paris and played early demos of her new music to fans who’d gathered outside her hotel.

It was a spur of the moment decision, yet it marked another effort to restore the spontaneity of her early career.

“This has been something I’ve done for almost 20 years, where I played my fans my music way before it came out,” she says.

“I used to, after my shows, invite fans backstage, and we’d hang out and I’d play them demos and see what they thought of the music.

“I’m sure you can imagine that after 20 years, you don’t expect that people are still going to show up to hear your music and be excited to see you. So, I just wanted to share it with them, because I was excited that they were there.”

As an interviewer, this is a full-circle moment for me, too. I last interviewed Lady Gaga in 2009, as Just Dance hit number one in the UK.

Back then, she was giddy with excitement, chatting enthusiastically about her love of John Lennon, calling herself a “heroin addict” for English tea, and promising to email me an MP3 of Blueberry Kisses – an unreleased song that is, quite brilliantly, about performing a sex act while your breath smells of blueberry flavoured coffee.

Over the years, I’ve seen her interviews become more guarded. She’d wear outrageous costumes or jet-black sunglasses, deliberately putting a barrier between her and the journalist.

But the Gaga I meet in New York is the same one I spoke to 16 years ago: comfortable with herself, and brimming with enthusiasm.

She puts that ease down to “growing up and living a full life”.

“Being there for my friends, being there for my family, meeting my amazing fiancé – all of these things made me a whole person, instead of the most important thing being my stage persona.”

With an air of finality, she adds: “I wanted Mayhem to have an ending. I wanted the chaos to stop.

“I stepped away from the icon. It ends with love.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom has broken with many elected Democrats by saying he thinks it is “deeply unfair” to allow transgender women and girls to compete in female sports.

Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender who leads one of the most liberal states in the US and has long been a trailblazer on LGBT rights, made the comments on his new podcast.

“I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that,” Newsom told conservative figure Charlie Kirk. “It is an issue of fairness, it’s deeply unfair. We’ve got to own that. We’ve got to acknowledge it.”

Newsom’s change of tone comes amid a debate within his party over the extent to which cultural factors played a role in their resounding defeat in November, when Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress.

A number of Democrats quickly denounced the governor’s comments.

“We woke up profoundly sickened and frustrated by these remarks,” a statement from California’s LGBT legislative caucus read.

On the debut episode of the governor’s podcast, This is Gavin Newsom, his first guest was a pro-Trump activist whose Turning Point USA organisation advocates for conservative ideas on liberal-leaning college campuses.

The two discussed why Democratic nominee Kamala Harris lost to President Donald Trump, and Newsom said his party was being politically “crushed” on transgender issues.

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The governor referred to a viral Trump campaign ad that had the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

“It was devastating,” Newsom said. “And she didn’t even react to it, which was even more devastating.”

Kirk argued that Democrats were out of touch with everyday Americans because of broad support within the party for transgender athletes competing in sports, which he said was unfair.

“I revere sports,” said Newsom. “So, the issue of fairness is completely legit.”

The governor added: “The way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with, as well.”

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called Newsom’s remarks about trans athletes “disgusting”.

Pramila Jayapal, a left-wing Democrat representing a district in the north-western state of Washington, told Politico that her party should not “take the bait and give into their anti-trans people rhetoric”.

But one moderate Democratic lawmaker agreed.

Seth Moulton, of Massachusetts, told Politico that Newsom was correct and polling shows it.

“More and more are willing to say what they’ve probably always thought – and that’s a good thing,” he said.

According to an opinion survey in January by the New York Times/Ipsos, almost all Republicans and nearly seven in 10 Democrats oppose allowing transgender female athletes to participate in women’s sports.

Throughout his career, Newsom has positioned himself to the left of his party on LGBT rights.

He made headlines in 2004 as San Francisco mayor when he ordered the city clerk to issue same-sex marriage licences, which at the time wasn’t allowed under state or federal law.

Newsom made the state the first sanctuary for transgender youth and protected school curriculums that included LGBT history.

Last year he signed legislation that made California the first state to bar school districts from requiring staff to notify parents if their child changed gender identity.