Australian authorities say a body has been found in floodwaters and 13 military workers injured in a vehicle crash as wild weather from a tropical storm lashes the country’s eastern coast.

Cyclone Alfred, which was downgraded to a tropical low on Saturday, made landfall near the Queensland capital city of Brisbane in the evening local time.

Officials have warned residents to stay indoors and remain vigilant, saying the storm’s threat is “not over”.

Winds have brought down trees and power lines and flooded low-lying roads. More than 300,000 properties are without power in the region.

Police said on Saturday they had discovered a body in the search for a 61-year-old man who went missing on Friday after his car was caught in floodwaters in Dorrigo, northern New South Wales (NSW).

Emergency responders witnessed the man escaping his car and climbing onto a tree near the riverbank, but rescuers were not able to reach him before he was swept away.

Police found a body in the area on Saturday and said it “is believed to be that of the missing man”.

In a separate incident on Saturday, 13 military personnel were injured in a convoy crash in Lismore, about 200km south of Brisbane, according to Federal Defence Personnel Minister Matt Keogh.

One truck overturned while driving on a narrow road. A second truck then collided with it.

The state’s ambulance service had earlier said it treated 36 people in the accident. Keogh clarified to media that while around 36 people were involved, only 13 were injured.

They had been part of military crews deployed to Lismore, near the Queensland border, to help rescue and response operations.

“Our ADF [Australian Defence Force] heroes were on their way to help Australians in need,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement noting some had been “seriously” injured.

Albanese earlier on Saturday had addressed the nation from the capital Canberra, saying millions of residents were “well-prepared” but “we must remain vigilant.”

Four million people across Queensland and northern New South Wales were bracing for the storm’s landfall with dozens of weather warnings in place across both areas.

Around 287,000 customers are experiencing outages in south east Queensland, according to energy provider Energex, while Essential Energy said more than 42,600 homes and businesses in New South Wales had experienced blackouts.

People in Brisbane, Queensland’s capital, went to bed on Friday bracing for strong winds and heavy rain.

They woke up on Saturday to learn that the cyclone had been downgraded and the city would escape the worst of the weather.

But the danger’s not over in other parts of southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales.

Along the Gold Coast, pummelled by bad weather the past few days, conditions have been very strong with driving rain and strong winds.

Hundreds of trees have been blown over in gardens, parks and along the main roads. There has been lots of debris and emergency services had sectioned off areas most at risk.

“This emergency is not over,” said New South Wales state premier Chris Minns, adding that it was “crucially important” the public did not “dismiss” the storm.

“It really doesn’t matter to us whether it’s been downgraded from a tropical cyclone to a weather event,” he said.

The state’s emergency service operations commander, Stuart Fisher, warned people not to be “complacent” and said authorities in the region expect flooding to continue over the next few days.

As the storm has edged closer to landfall, nearly 1,000 schools have closed, public transport has been suspended and airports are shut. Elective surgeries have also been cancelled.

Flights are not expected to resume until Sunday at the earliest.

The BBC spoke to several people from Brisbane’s homeless community, who took refuge at Emmanuel City Mission, which had become a round-the-clock shelter.

At the Treasure Island Holiday Park in the Gold Coast, just north of Surfer’s Paradise, a gum tree had come down between two cabins, damaging a third. Nearby, a boat was half submerged in one of the canals a block away from the beach.

On the coast itself, many paths down to the beach are now unpassable. Instead, there’s a sudden drop to the ocean where the powerful waves have eaten away at the sand.

But the clean-up operation won’t happen for a few days – the wind is still powerful and there’s driving rain.

Residents are starting to venture out to look at the damage, but plenty are remaining indoors to keep themselves safe.

Not long after the US imposed their tariffs on Canada, a local neighbourhood pub in Toronto began removing all American products off their menu.

That means nachos, wings – and of course, beer – must all to be made now with local Canadian ingredients, or wherever not possible, non-US products from Europe or Mexico.

For Leah Russell, manager at Toronto’s Madison Avenue pub, the boycott was a no-brainer. She adds that it is “pretty set in stone,” even if the tariffs themselves are not.

“I’m glad that we’re getting rid of American products and supporting local businesses,” Ms Russell told the BBC on Thursday. “I think it’s an important thing to do.”

This defiant stance in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats against Canada has been unfolding across the northern country.

Just ask actor Jeff Douglas, once the face of Molson Canadian Beer’s “I Am Canadian” advertisements, who has filmed and posted a light-hearted, but deeply-patriotic video on Youtube this week addressing Trump’s “51st state” rhetoric.

“We’re not the 51st anything,” declares Mr Douglas in the video, which has since gone viral in Canada.

Some of the backlash has been more symbolic, like one Montreal café changing the Americano on their menu to a “Canadiano” – a small gesture that the owners say is meant to display unity and support for their community and country.

Even the CBC, the country’s public broadcaster, is feeling the full force of this wave of patriotism, after it dared run a programme asking Canadians what they think about Canada becoming “the 51st state”, as Trump has suggested many times.

The show sparked intense backlash and accusations of “treason,” “sedition” and even “betrayal”.

Although Trump has since lifted some of the tariffs imposed this week and put others on pause until 2 April, many Canadians say the damage has already been done.

After Thursday’s reversal, foreign minister Melanie Joly told CNN that Canada has been shown “too much disrespect by the Trump administration at this point, calling us a 51st state, calling our prime minister ‘governor.'”

Meanwhile, Doug Ford, who is the leader of Canada’s most populous province, did not back down from his plan to slap export tariffs on electricity that Canada supplies some US states. The 25% surcharge will affect up to 1.5 million American homes.

“I feel terrible for the American people because it’s not the American people, and it’s not even elected officials, it’s one person,” he told a local radio show on Thursday in reference to Trump.

“He’s coming after his closest friends, closest allies in the world and it’s going to absolutely devastate both economies,” Ford said.

Canadians support their country’s reciprocal actions, saying they should remain in place until US tariffs are completely off the table.

“You go to bed every night and don’t have any idea where you stand,” said Andrew, a shopper at a Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) store in Toronto, which has stopped stocking US-made alcoholic drinks. Trump says he will delay the tariffs, “but what does that mean?” he asks.

“Let’s keep [American-made drinks] off the shelves until we know what things are going to be from day to day.”

The tariffs have been met with deep anxiety in Canada, whose majority of exports are sold to companies and clients in the US. Officials predict up to a million job losses if a 25% across the board levy went ahead, while economists warn that a recession is imminent if they persist.

The potential impact is devastating enough that the Canadian government has announced it will bring in relief measures, similar to those implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, to help impacted individuals and businesses.

Even with the tariffs being scaled back temporarily, the uncertainty alone is hurting both American and Canadian economies, says Rob Gillezeau, an assistant professor of economic analysis and policy at the University of Toronto.

“The most sensitive thing to uncertainty is business investment,” Prof Gillezeau says, adding that firms are “not going to want to spend a dime anywhere” until they have some clarity.

Analysts suggest the mere whiff of a trade war is likely costing Canadian companies hundreds of thousands of dollars as they try to navigate through these changes, and are likely delaying deals and disrupting trade due to the confusion.

That trepidation is also seen in the stock market, which had erased virtually all its gains since Trump won the presidency in November.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that tariffs are a response to Mexico and Canada’s role in the fentanyl crisis, which has killed over 250,000 American since 2018.

While only a small portion of the drug originates from Canada, press secretary Karen Leavitt said that even those numbers are significant for “families in this country who have lost loved ones to this deadly poison”.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has condemned the tariffs, suggesting they align with Trump’s stated desire to see Canada become “the 51st state.”

“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” Trudeau told media in Ottawa Thursday.

Prof Gillezeau notes that it is an especially deep wound from a neighbour whom Canada had long considered its closest friend and ally.

The US and Canada have fought wars together, have boasted about having the longest “undefended” shared border in the world and have even engaged in joint security missions in the Arctic to defend each other’s sovereignty.

“We’ve been allies for 100 years,” he says, adding that many Canadians are likely upset not just with how the US has been treating Canada, but also other allies like Ukraine.

“We’re a decent, honourable people, and we stand by our allies,” Prof Gillezeau says. “I think that’s what is driving the real depth of the discontent we see.”

The Canadian boycotts are already having material impact. Canadian outlet Global News has reported that leisure travel bookings to the US have plunged 40% year over year, citing data from Flight Centre Canada. That decline has also been observed in land border crossings between British Columbia and Washington State.

Before the tariffs, the US was the number one international travel destination for Canadians, who have spent $20.5bn (£15.89bn) into the American tourism economy in 2024 alone.

Asked if this trend will hold, Prof Gillezeau says Canadians ideally want relations to go back to normal with their neighbour. But in absence of that, the consensus in the country is that “Canada needs to find friends elsewhere”.

Three suspects are still at large after 12 people were injured in a shooting at a pub in Toronto, police in the Canadian city say.

The shooting took place at 22:39 on Friday local time (03:39 GMT Saturday) near Scarborough city centre in eastern Toronto.

Authorities said six people suffered bullet wounds and others were hurt by flying or broken glass. The injuries were not life-threatening, they said.

Toronto police said the three men had entered the pub and “opened fire indiscriminately”. They had been armed with an assault rifle and handguns.

A motive “right now remains unclear and we’re chasing down all leads”, said Police Supt Paul MacIntyre.

“This was a brazen and reckless act of violence that’s really shaken our community and the city itself,” he added.

Police said they were deploying all available resources to find the suspects.

Earlier, they said that one suspect, wearing a black balaclava, had been seen fleeing the scene in a silver car.

The victims ranged in age from 20s to mid-50, according to police.

“I’m happy to report, by the grace of God, that there have been no fatalities,” Supt MacIntyre said, which he called “extremely lucky.”

He said he and other officers were “horrified” by video of the shooting.

“These guys just looked at the crowd and opened fire. It was horrible.”

Glass walls were shattered and there was “blood all over the floor”, including in the basement, where some people ran to hide before police arrived, he said.

Mayor Olivia Chow wrote on X that she was “deeply troubled to hear reports of a shooting at a pub in Scarborough.”

“This is an early and ongoing investigation – police will provide further details. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”

The number of those injured in this incident is high compared to other shootings in the area in 2024.

Last year, eight people were injured and two killed in shootings and firearm discharges in the police division where Friday’s incident occurred, the department’s data shows.

In Toronto, which has a three million population, 43 people were killed in shootings last year.

Canada has a lower rate of firearm homicides than its neighbour the US, with 0.6 per 100,000 people compared to 4.5 per 100,000, according to 2021 data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

It’s been another turbulent week in global politics.

The world digested the extraordinary exchange between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader visited European allies, who have sprung into action to beef up their defences. Russian bombs hit Ukraine.

But what are these major players thinking ahead of fresh US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia next week?

Five BBC correspondents have analysed the week’s events.

After Donald Trump and JD Vance’s humiliating attack on Zelensky, the US president on Monday suspended military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine.

Over time, this will have a fundamental impact on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself – and Trump’s Democratic opponents say it’s now beyond question that he is aligned with Russia.

The administration has been plain that it sees the move as pressure on Zelensky to sign the president’s minerals deal and cede to a quick ceasefire.

Trump’s envoy Gen Keith Kellogg characterised the withdrawal of US military support as “like hitting a mule in the face with a [plank of wood]… You got their attention and it’s very significant… and it’s then up to them to do [what the president wants].”

After all the arm-twisting, the week ends with a more conciliatory tone from some of Trump’s top foreign policy team who will meet with the Ukrainians next week in Saudi Arabia.

There was a rare moment of criticism for Moscow by Trump on Friday as he threatened sanctions, even though it is already heavily sanctioned, to try to deter its intensifying bombardment of Ukraine.

But other than that this is an administration that has repeatedly reprimanded its supposed ally but refrained from any such criticism of its adversary.

On Thursday I asked the US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce for her reaction to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ruling out the presence of European peacekeepers in Ukraine. He had called it a “hostile aim” by the West over which there was “no room for compromise”.

Ms Bruce declined to respond, saying it wasn’t for her to comment on the remarks of foreign leaders or ministers, even though she had just repeated Trump’s label of Zelensky as “not ready for peace”.

Until Trump’s sanctions threat, this was another week when all the pressure seemed to be on Kyiv, giving Russia little reason to tame its appetite.

The suspension of American military aid and intelligence is one of the worst setbacks for Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, and a huge boost to Russia’s chances.

The deadly attacks across Ukraine which have followed suggest that Moscow is happy to continue with business as usual in the war.

It still insists that the original objectives of the “special military operation” must be achieved and more Ukrainian land captured.

It has also rejected efforts by Ukraine supporters to relieve this pressure on Kyiv, through a truce or a peacekeeping force.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks this week that Trump’s America may no longer be “on our side” are music to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ears, too.

It’s a situation in which Putin can sit back and enjoy the spectacle of cracks appearing in the Western alliance. It’s a situation that he’s been working to achieve for years, if not decades.

And he has achieved it not because of shots fired on the battlefield, but because of a breathtaking U-turn by Ukraine’s biggest ally.

Next Tuesday, Ukrainian and US representatives are sitting down for talks in Saudi Arabia. Russia will be watching closely, but feeling confident.

It’s been a bruising, emotional, and relentless week for the embattled Ukrainian president, as he fought to keep Western military support intact while reiterating his commitment to peace.

The fallout from his spectacular Oval Office clash with Trump was compounded in Kyiv after the US suspended military aid and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine.

“There’s a scent of betrayal in the air,” one source close to the Ukrainian government said. “The whole country feels it – including the president and his team.”

Zelensky refused Trump’s demand for an “explicit public apology”, instead penning a letter to the US president and calling their White House showdown “regrettable”.

To counter the damage, Zelensky was on the road again, seeking to shore up European support in Brussels. But while he secured public displays of solidarity, he didn’t get the firm military commitments he was hoping for.

Meanwhile, Zelensky urged EU leaders to support a limited truce at sea and in the air – an idea backed by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Ukrainian and US delegations will hold talks in Saudi Arabia next week, but the path to peace remains uncertain.

Despite the setbacks, a source close to the president’s team insisted he remains defiant: “Three years ago, he could have been killed, but he decided to stay in Kyiv. The more pressure he’s under, the tougher he gets.”

There have been so many European summits it has been hard to keep up. And more are to come.

Europe’s leaders have suddenly realised the security umbrella they have relied on since World War Two may no longer be there, and proposals are flashing by at warp speed in European terms.

There is a broad consensus Europe needs to help Ukraine. France and the UK are offering “a coalition of the willing” on the ground if a peace deal can be found.

Russia hates the idea but Macron will bring together army chiefs on Tuesday to work on a plan.

But far bigger questions are now being asked about how Europe protects itself from what EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen calls a “clear and present danger”.

“We have to be ready” if the US is not there to help, says Macron. The EU is now talking about a multi-billion euro plan for beefing up defences.

And Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, has raised the possibility of France and the UK extending their nuclear deterrent across Europe.

Macron has been receptive to that, although France’s nuclear umbrella would stretch only so far and final decisions would be made in Paris.

That goes to the heart of Europe’s defence problem.

Without the US, can individual European countries pool their resources and rely on each other?

For smaller states such as Lithuania there is no choice.

But the debate has begun, and Poland’s Donald Tusk says clearly it would be safer “if we have our own nuclear arsenal”.

Leading EU nations have said they support an Arab-backed plan for the reconstruction of Gaza that would cost $53 billion (£41 billion) and avoid displacing Palestinians from the territory.

The plan, drawn up by Egypt and endorsed by Arab leaders, has been rejected by Israel and by US President Donald Trump, who presented his own vision to turn the Gaza Strip into a “Middle East Riviera”.

On Saturday the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Britain welcomed the plan, which calls for Gaza to be rebuilt over five years, as “realistic”.

In a statement, they said the proposal promised “swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions” for the people of Gaza.

The plan calls for Gaza to be governed temporarily by a committee of independent experts and for international peacekeepers to be deployed to the territory.

The committee would be responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid and temporarily managing Gaza’s affairs under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority.

The proposal is an alternative to Trump’s idea for the US to take over Gaza and resettle its population.

It was welcomed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas after it was presented by Egypt at an emergency Arab League summit on Tuesday.

But both the White House and Israeli foreign ministry said it failed to address realities in Gaza.

“Residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance,” Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for Trump’s National Security Council, said late on Tuesday.

“President Trump stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas,” the statement added.

The statement issued by the four European countries on Saturday said they were “committed to working with the Arab initiative” and they appreciated the “important signal” the Arab states had sent by developing it.

The statement said Hamas “must neither govern Gaza nor be a threat to Israel any more” and that the four countries “support the central role for the Palestinian Authority and the implementation of its reform agenda”.

The proposal was drawn up amid growing concern that Gaza’s fragile ceasefire deal could collapse after the six-week first phase expired on 1 March.

Israel has blocked aid from entering the territory to pressure Hamas to accept a new US proposal for a temporary extension of the truce, during which more hostages held in Gaza would be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has insisted the second phase should begin as agreed, leading to an end of the war and a full Israeli troop withdrawal.

Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have had to leave their homes since the start of hostilities. Israel began military operations after Hamas’s October 2023 attack which killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 more taken hostage.

Gaza has suffered vast destruction with a huge humanitarian impact. More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and much infrastructure across the strip has been levelled by air strikes.

More than 80 Afghan women who fled the Taliban to pursue higher education in Oman now face imminent deportation back to Afghanistan, following the Trump administration’s sweeping freeze on foreign aid programmes.

Funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), their scholarships were abruptly terminated after a funding freeze ordered by President Donald Trump when he returned to office in January.

“It was heart-breaking,” one student told the BBC, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals. “Everyone was shocked and crying. We’ve been told we will be sent back within two weeks.”

Since regaining power nearly four years ago, the Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on women, including banning them from universities.

The Trump administration’s aid freeze has faced legal roadblocks, but thousands of humanitarian programmes around the world have been terminated or thrown into jeopardy as the White House seeks to cut billions in government spending.

The students in Oman say preparations are already under way to return them to Afghanistan, and have appealed to the international community to “intervene urgently”.

The BBC has seen emails sent to the 82 students informing them that their scholarships have been “discontinued” due to the termination of the programme and USAID funding.

The emails – which acknowledge the news will be “profoundly disappointing and unsettling” – refer to travel arrangements back to Afghanistan, which caused alarm among the students.

“We need immediate protection, financial assistance and resettlement opportunities to a safe country where we can continue our education,” one told the BBC.

The USAID website’s media contact page remains offline. The BBC has contacted the US State Department for comment.

The Afghan women, now facing a forced return from Oman, had been pursuing graduate and post-graduate courses under the Women’s Scholarship Endowment (WSE), a USAID programme which began in 2018.

It provided scholarships for Afghan women to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), the disciplines banned for women by the Taliban.

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Just over a week ago, the students were told their scholarships had been terminated.

“It’s like everything has been taken away from me,” another student told the BBC. “It was the worst moment. I’m under extreme stress right now.”

These women, mostly aged in their 20s, qualified for scholarships in 2021 before the Taliban seized Afghanistan. Many continued their studies in Afghan universities until December 2022, when the Taliban banned higher education for women.

After 18 months in limbo, they said they fled to Pakistan last September.

USAID then facilitated their visas to Oman, where they arrived between October and November 2024.

“If we are sent back, we will face severe consequences. It would mean losing all our dreams,” a student said. “We won’t be able to study and our families might force us to get married. Many of us could also be at personal risk due to our past affiliations and activism.”

The Taliban has cracked down on women protesting for education and work, with many activists beaten, detained and threatened.

Women in Afghanistan describe themselves as “dead bodies moving around” under the regime’s brutal policies.

The Taliban government says it has been trying to resolve the issue of women’s education, but has also defended its supreme leader’s diktats, saying they are “in accordance with Islamic Sharia law”.

“Afghanistan is experiencing gender apartheid, with women systematically excluded from basic rights, including education,” a student said.

She and her friends in Oman had managed to escape that fate, as the scholarships were supposed to fund their education until 2028.

“When we came here, our sponsors told us to not go back to Afghanistan till 2028 for vacations or to visit our families because it’s not safe for us. And now they’re telling us to go,” a student said.

Last month, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly blamed the situation for Afghan women on the US military’s withdrawal from the country under the Democrats, telling the Washington Post: “Afghan women are suffering because Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal allowed the Taliban to impose mediaeval Sharia law policies.”

The decision to slash American aid funding has come under the Trump administration, and been implemented by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

And these women face a grim future, urgently seeking a lifeline before time runs out.

A new Bollywood film – Mrs – has once again laid bare a stark reality: even in well-educated households in India a woman’s role is often confined to unpaid domestic work.

The protagonist, married to a gynaecologist, finds herself trapped in an endless cycle of cooking, cleaning and caregiving. Her dreams are sidelined not by force, but by relentless criticism and quiet coercion.

While the film, which is a remake of the hit Malayalam movie The Great Indian Kitchen, has sparked conversation – and pushback, especially from men on social media – its themes resonate with hard data.

A recent government survey reveals that Indian women spend over seven hours a day on unpaid domestic and caregiving work – more than twice the time men do. Data shows that women spend 289 minutes on unpaid domestic work and 137 minutes on unpaid caregiving, whereas men spend 88 minutes on chores and 75 minutes on care work.

They also spent less time than men doing paid work and engaging in self-care activities.

What’s disappointing is that the last such survey which came out six years ago had similar results. Despite the government launching campaigns to empower women, the situation hasn’t changed much.

India’s Time Use Surveys (TUS) track how people spend their time across various activities. Surveyors gather data nationwide by asking individuals aged six to 59 how they spent the previous day. The first TUS was released in 2019, with the second published last week.

When the government released findings from the second Time Use Survey (TUS), it highlighted two key shifts: women aged 15 to 59 spent 10 minutes less on unpaid domestic work, while their participation in employment and related activities rose by just over three percentage points.

The survey concluded this marked a “shift from unpaid to paid activities” for women – a positive sign that they were spending less time on domestic chores and more time in paid employment.

However, economists argue this isn’t necessarily true. Even if it is, the slight drop in domestic work suggests women are still juggling paid jobs with a heavier load of unpaid work than men.

Ashwini Deshpande, an economics professor at Ashoka University, says TUS data should be analysed alongside India’s Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) for a deeper understanding of how women spend their time. FLFPR measures the percentage of women aged 15 and above in the labour force.

According to government data, the FLFPR grew from about 23% in 2017-2018 to 37% in 2022-2023. Prof Deshpande says that this increase is not solely due to an increase in employment opportunities for women, but has also been spurred by economic distress.

“Women are not waiting for their time spent on domestic chores to reduce to take up jobs. Research shows that women want to work to supplement household incomes and so they end up working ‘double-shifts’, doing paid work outside the home and unpaid work inside,” Prof Deshpande says.

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Indian women aren’t alone in shouldering a disproportionate share of household and caregiving work – it’s a global reality. However, the gap in time spent on domestic work is significantly wider in India.

Where globally women spend about 2.8 hours more than men on domestic and care work, for Indian women, this difference is closer to four hours.

Sociologists attribute this to India’s deeply patriarchal society, which continues to enforce strict gender norms. Even among the educated elite, women remain confined by roles upheld and perpetuated not just by men, but also by women.

This rigid enforcement of gender roles doesn’t just shape women’s lives – it also shapes the way stories about them are received.

So, while Mrs struck a chord with many, it also faced sharp criticism – especially from men on social media.

A men’s rights group accused it of “spreading toxicity” against traditional joint families, while others dismissed its premise altogether.

Kajol Srinivasan, a Mumbai-based comedian, says the film ruffled feathers because it held up an uncomfortable mirror to society.

She told the BBC how her father, who quit his job at 40 to take over household duties while her mother continued working, quickly realised that housework was no easy task.

“The first week he was excited; he cooked different dishes and deep-cleaned the house,” she says.

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But then he began to find the work tedious and couldn’t continue beyond a week.

“My father realised that housework was not just about work, it was also an imbalance in power. The power always stays with the breadwinner; no matter how well you cook, there are no accolades,” she says.

She believes that women are expected and raised to accept this lower rung of power.

“When Indian men talk about what they like about their wives and mothers, it often has a lot to do with how much they have sacrificed for them or how much they take care of them or the home,” Ms Srinivasan says.

India’s Time Use Survey shows that social change is slow, and it may take time before women spend less on domestic work.

In the meantime, films like Mrs spark conversations around everyday questions many prefer to avoid – like, who’s doing the dishes?

The family of an Indian man who was shot dead while illegally crossing into Israel say he was a victim of a job scam.

Thomas Gabriel Perera was killed by Jordanian security forces by the border with Israel on 10 February.

He was lured to Jordan by the promise of a lucrative job, and when it did not materialise he tried to enter Israel as he was told he could find work there, his family told the BBC.

Reports of Indians falling for employment scams and illegally entering other countries to look for work have become increasingly common.

Perera, 47, had been accompanied by his brother-in-law Edison Charlas, who was injured in the incident. Mr Charlas was treated in hospital and spent a fortnight in prison before he was repatriated to India.

The two men were from the southern Indian state of Kerala where they worked as auto-rickshaw drivers.

An agent had promised them they could get blue-collar jobs in Jordan earning 350,000 rupees ($4,000; £3,110) a month.

Mr Charlas told the BBC he paid 210,000 rupees to an agent before they left India, and paid an additional $600 after reaching Jordan on a tourist visa.

But when the two men arrived in Jordan’s capital city Amman in early February, they were told by the agent that there were no jobs available.

The agent then suggested they should try illegally crossing into Israel, claiming there were plenty of opportunities there.

On 10 February, Mr Charlas and Perera joined a group that drove for hours to Jordan’s border with Israel.

“We were taken in a car. It was a long distance. We got into the car at 2pm and reached the location only around midnight. Then we were made to walk several kilometres along a coastline. It was while walking in the dark that we were shot,” said Mr Charlas.

The BBC has seen a letter sent to Perera’s family by the Indian embassy in Jordan. It states that “security forces tried to stop them but they did not listen to the warning, the guards opened fire on them”.

“One bullet hit Mr Thomas [Perera] in his head and he passed away on the spot.”

Mr Charlas, however, disputed this account and said there was “no such warning (from the guards). They just shot.”

“I was walking slowly behind the others in the dark… That was when the bullet hit me and I lost consciousness. I had no clue what happened to Thomas,” he said.

The BBC has asked India’s foreign ministry and Jordanian authorities for comment on Mr Charlas’ allegation.

Mr Charlas said he was later taken to a hospital for treatment and then moved between several Jordanian government offices before being transferred to prison, where he was kept for 18 days.

While in prison, he managed to contact his wife and told her what had happened, and his wife contacted Indian embassy officials.

Mr Charlas was deported to India on 28 February.

Perera’s body is still in Jordan. In response to BBC queries, India’s foreign ministry said they were working to bring the body back to India as soon as possible.

“I am told that it will take one or two days for the process of documentation and other things to be completed,” said Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the foreign ministry.

On Monday, Shashi Tharoor, the member of parliament representing Perera’s constituency Thiruvananthapuram, said that members of the Indian embassy in Jordan had verified the victim’s identity and that the process of transportation of the body had begun.

Despite numerous government warnings, many Indians are still falling prey to job scams and taking the risk of entering countries illegally to find work, say observers.

“The modus operandi is to get a tourist visa for one country and then enter the neighbouring country,” said Ajith Kolassery, the CEO of Norka, the Kerala government’s department overseeing migration.

“No country will accept illegal entry. We have been consistently issuing advisories to people to be wary of job rackets, but they are still going.”

In recent years hundreds of Indians have been rescued from scam centres in Cambodia and other parts of South East Asia. They were trafficked to the centres after they were lured overseas by promises of good jobs.

Scores of Indian nationals were also tricked into fighting for Russia in the war with Ukraine after they were offered fake jobs and opportunities to study abroad.

The 100 Indians who were deported from the US last month after being accused of entering the country illegally had also been lured by the hope of a better life, pointed out Irudaya Rajan, who chairs the International Institute of Migration and Development in Thiruvananthapuram.

“They also paid money to agents and were cheated. It’s the struggle to get better wages [that is driving this],” he said.

Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman died of natural causes about a week after his wife Betsy Arakawa, who died after contracting a rare virus, a New Mexico medical investigator has said.

Hackman, 95, died at his Santa Fe home from coronary artery disease, with advanced Alzheimer’s disease a contributing factor.

Ms Arakawa, 65, died in the same house from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a respiratory illness caused by exposure to infected rodents. Her cause of death was listed as natural.

Authorities believe she passed away about seven days before her husband, to whom she had been married for more than 30 years. During his career, Hackman won two Academy Awards for The French Connection and Unforgiven.

It is likely that Ms Arakawa died first on 11 February, Dr Heather Jarrell of the New Mexico Medical Investigator’s Office told a news conference on Friday.

She said it was “reasonable to conclude” that Hackman had died on 18 February.

Ms Arakawa’s last known movements and correspondence were on 11 February, when she was seen going to a grocery store, a CVS pharmacy and a pet store, before returning home in the early evening.

Given that Hackman was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease it is “quite possible that he was not aware that she [his wife] was deceased”, said Dr Jarrell.

She told reporters she was “not aware of his normal daily functioning capability”.

• Gene Hackman loved acting but ‘hated everything that went with it’

Hackman had “significant heart disease, and ultimately that’s what resulted in his death”, Dr Jarrell said, adding that he had had chronic high blood pressure.

He had not eaten anything recently, but had shown no indications of dehydration, she added.

At the news conference, New Mexico Public Health Veterinarian Erin Phipps emphasised that hantavirus infections were extremely rare.

HPS is transmitted through contact with rodent droppings, urine or saliva, often when contaminated dust is inhaled.

She noted that 136 cases had been reported in the state over the past 50 years, with 42% resulting in fatalities.

Dr Phipps said evidence of rodent activity had been found in some buildings on the property, though the risk inside the main house was considered “low”.

Investigators are trying to determine how Ms Arakawa contracted the illness. Hackman tested negative for hantavirus.

The couple were found in their home after neighbourhood security conducted a welfare check and saw their bodies on the ground through the window.

The remains were discovered in advanced stages of decomposition.

Hackman’s body was in a sideroom next to the kitchen, with a walking cane and a pair of sunglasses nearby, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Ms Arakawa’s body was in the bathroom, with scattered pills close to her.

Sheriff’s deputies found medication for thyroid and blood pressure treatment, along with pain reliever Tylenol, according to a court-filed inventory.

Citing privacy laws, authorities did not disclose who had been prescribed the drugs.

One of the couple’s three dogs was also found dead inside a crate near Ms Arakawa, while the other two dogs were alive.

The cause of death for the dog is yet to be determined, officials say. Dr Phipps told reporters that dogs did not get sick from hantavirus.

Initial investigations found no signs of forced entry or foul play at the couple’s $3.8m (£3m) home. Tests for carbon monoxide poisoning were negative, and no significant gas leaks were detected.

Hackman is survived by three adult children from his previous marriage.

Hackman met Ms Arakawa when she was working part-time at a California gym in the mid-1980s, the New York Times has previously reported.

He won best actor Oscar for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1971 thriller The French Connection, and another for best supporting actor for playing Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Western film Unforgiven in 1992.

A relative latecomer to Hollywood, Hackman saw his breakthrough come in his thirties, when he was nominated for an Oscar for portraying Buck Barrow in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde – opposite Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway – and again for I Never Sang for My Father in 1970.

Both films saw him recognised in the supporting actor category. He was also nominated for best leading actor in 1988 for playing an FBI agent in Mississippi Burning.

He played more than 100 roles during his career, including supervillain Lex Luthor in the Christopher Reeve-starring Superman movies in the 1970s and 1980s.

Hackman featured opposite many other Hollywood heavyweights including Al Pacino in 1973’s Scarecrow and Gene Wilder in 1974’s Young Frankenstein.

His last big-screen appearance came as Monroe Cole in Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, after which he stepped back from Hollywood for a quieter life in New Mexico.

US President Donald Trump called a meeting of his cabinet secretaries on Thursday to discuss Elon Musk and his efforts to slash government spending and personnel numbers.

It turned heated, according to media reports.

Musk accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio of failing to cut enough staff at the state department, reports the New York Times.

The tech mogul told Rubio he was “good on TV”, according to the newspaper, pointedly skipping any praise of his work as America’s top diplomat.

The billionaire also clashed with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy over whether Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) task force had tried to lay off air traffic controllers who were already in short supply in the Federal Aviation Administration, according to the New York Times.

Duffy’s department has been under scrutiny after two US airline crashes since Trump took office in January.

After listening to the back-and-forth, the Republican president reportedly intervened to make clear he still supported Doge, but from now on cabinet secretaries would be in charge and the Musk team would only advise.

A state department spokeswoman told the newspaper Rubio felt the cabinet meeting was an “open and productive discussion”. The White House has not responded to BBC requests for further comment.

The hastily planned gathering could provide evidence that the president has decided to curtail the sweeping power the SpaceX and Tesla boss and his Doge cost-cutting initiative have commanded in the early weeks of his administration.

Trump first commented on the substance of Thursday’s meeting, which was disclosed only in after-the-fact media reports, through a post that evening on his social media site, Truth Social.

He said that he had instructed his secretaries to work with Doge on “cost-cutting measures”.

“As the secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go,” he wrote, adding that they should use a “scalpel” not a “hatchet”.

Just a few weeks ago, Musk wielded a shiny chainsaw at a conservative conference – a visible symbol of aggressive attempts to slash government spending that have angered Democrats and concerned some officials in the Trump administration.

Musk’s team had sent multiple emails from an official government account to millions of federal workers, encouraging them to accept months of advance pay in exchange for their resignations.

Federal workers were instructed to provide accounts of their weekly accomplishments or risk firing – a request some agencies instructed their employees to ignore.

Doge also ordered the dismissal of many newly hired government employees who, because of their “probationary” status, did not have full civil service protections.

Some government agencies have since rescinded these orders because employees deemed essential, such as those who oversee nuclear weapon security, had been affected.

• Four big things Trump and his team took on this week
• What does the Department of Education do – and can Trump dismantle it?
• Trump team hits pause on tariffs – but still sees them as vital tool

During an Oval Office event on Friday, Trump responded to questions about the cabinet meeting – and reports of its heated exchanges. He insisted there was “no clash”. He praised both Rubio and Musk and said the two got along “great”.

Trump’s Thursday Truth Social post, however, appears to give department heads more authority to push back against Musk.

It also may be an attempt to insulate the Trump administration from lawsuits that allege Musk is wielding too much power for someone who, unlike cabinet secretaries, is not subject to Senate review and confirmation.

Several federal judges overseeing these cases have already expressed concern about Musk’s authority – concerns that may be further fuelled by Trump’s comments during his address to Congress on Tuesday that the billionaire was, in fact, the man in charge of Doge.

Musk and Trump have formed a formidable partnership so far – as the richest man in the world and the most powerful politician in America. Washington has been rife with speculation for months about whether that partnership could ultimately fracture.

Those predictions, however, have usually been followed by renewed signs of comity between the two men.

On Friday night, Musk was seen boarding Air Force One with the president for a flight to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida for the weekend.

The cabinet room dust-up may be the first crack in the foundation – but there is plenty of evidence that Trump still supports Musk’s broader efforts and goals, even if he might prefer he use a scalpel in the days ahead, not a chainsaw.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second presidential term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A South Carolina man convicted of bludgeoning his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death has become the first US death row inmate to be executed by firing squad in the last 15 years.

Brad Sigmon was shot to death just after 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Friday by three state corrections department volunteers firing rifles at his chest with specially designed bullets.

Sigmon, 67, was convicted of murdering David and Gladys Larke with a baseball bat in 2001 before kidnapping his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint. She managed to escape as he shot at her.

He had requested death by firing squad over the other two state-approved methods of execution: electric chair and lethal injection.

Chrysti Shain, of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, said Sigmon was pronounced dead by a doctor at 18:08.

Three members of the Larke family were present to witness his death, she said, as well as Sigmon’s spiritual adviser.

Sigmon was strapped to a chair, which had a basin underneath to catch blood, witnesses said.

He told witnesses he wanted his final statement “to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty”.

“An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty,” he added.

“At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was. Why? Because we no longer live under the Old Testament law but now live under the New Testament.”

After his final statement, a hood was placed over his head.

A curtain that concealed three volunteers opened at 18:01. At 18:05, the trio fired from 15ft (4.6m) away without any countdown.

Jeffrey Collins, a reporter for the Associated Press news agency, said at a news conference that Sigmon had a red bullseye target placed over his heart.

When he was shot, his chest rose and fell several times, the reporter added.

A doctor performed an exam that took about 90 seconds, before declaring him dead.

The .308 Winchester Tap Urban bullets used are designed to break apart on impact and cause maximum damage. Medical experts have debated the amount of pain they may cause.

Anna Dobbins, a reporter for WHFF-TV, added that Sigmon had worn a black jump suit but his bare arms had “flexed” when he was shot.

All the shots were fired simultaneously, she said, and witnesses were unable to see the guns.

Prison guards also offered witnesses ear plugs to protect their ears from the sound of the shots, added a reporter for the Post and Courier newspaper.

Counselling services are being offered to any prison staff who were traumatised by the execution, said Ms Shain.

Sigmon’s lawyer, Bo King, had been hoping for a last-minute stay of execution by the South Carolina governor and accused the state of withholding information about the lethal injection process.

“Brad only wanted assurances that these drugs were not expired, or diluted, or spoiled – what any of us would want to know about the medication we take, or the food we eat, much less the means of our death,” he said in a statement after his death.

“It is unfathomable that, in 2025, South Carolina would execute one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle.”

King said his client had been suffering from mental illness, and that the friendships he formed in prison were proof he had been rehabilitated.

“Brad is someone who, for his last meal, asked to get three buckets of original recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken so he could share with the guys that he’s incarcerated with on death row,” he told WYFF-TV earlier on Friday.

“With his last meal, he wanted to share something special with them,” he said, later telling reporters that the request to share had been denied.

Officials later confirmed his last meal as four pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, cheesecake and sweet tea. The meal was served on Wednesday evening.

Since 1977 only three people had died by firing squad, all three of them in the state of Utah. The last to die had been Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.

Ahead of Sigmon’s execution, anti-death penalty protesters held a rally outside the jail in the city of Columbia.

They held signs saying “all life is precious” and “thou shalt not kill”.

The state allows witnesses to observe the death from behind bulletproof glass, but the executioners are hidden from view to protect their identities.

South Carolina passed a law in 2023 requiring that the identities of the execution team members remain secret.

A journalist targeted by a Russian spy cell run from a former guest house in Norfolk has said he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered the operation against him.

Roman Dobrokhotov, editor-in-chief of The Insider, was followed through Europe by Bulgarian spies who were working for Moscow – three of whom were convicted on Friday.

Dobrokhotov told the BBC: “I’m very lucky to be alive”.

The Russian national believes he and his fellow investigative journalist, the Bulgarian Christo Grozev, were targeted because of their exposés on Russia. They revealed Russia’s role in a string of deadly incidents, including the nerve agent attacks in Salisbury in 2018 and on the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020.

• Bulgarians guilty of spying for Russia in the UK
• How spy ring did Russia’s dirty work from the UK

In December 2020, on the day that investigative group Bellingcat published its exposé on the Navalny poisoning, the man who directed the Russian spy cell sent a message saying: “We’d be interested in a Bulgarian guy working for Bellingcat Christo Grozev.”

Jan Marsalek, who instructed the spy ring on behalf of the Russian intelligence services, wrote that Grozev was the “lead investigator in the Navalny case”.

His friend and fellow target Dobrokhotov said this was the moment when they became a major focus, as Putin was so disturbed by what had been revealed.

“I think that it was Putin directly,” he said.

“In this dictatorship, you would never take responsibility on your own to do such a political stuff. You will always have a direct order from the president.”

A message sent by Marsalek to fellow spy Orlin Roussev – who ran the UK-based group from a former guest house in Norfolk – demonstrated inside knowledge of Putin’s thinking. He wrote: “Personally I find Grozev not to be a very valuable target but apparently Putin seriously hates him.”

After 2020, the spy cell followed Grozev and Dobrokhotov throughout Europe, spying on them on aeroplanes, in hotels and in private properties.

They discussed kidnapping and even killing the men. There was talk of smuggling Dobrokhotov out of the UK in a small boat from the Norfolk coast, after which he would be taken back to Russia.

Dobrokhotov said it was clear this would have resulted in his death.

It was in January 2023, the month before police arrested members of the cell in the UK, that Dobrokhotov said he was “warned that I shouldn’t leave the country because it can be dangerous”.

He had not realised that he was being followed by the Bulgarian spies, who got so near to him on one flight that they saw the Pin code for his mobile phone.

He thinks the police action sends a signal.

“Vladimir Putin doesn’t understand messages in words, only in actions,” Dobrokhotov said.

“So he understands messages like, for example, Ukraine got long-range missiles. That’s a message that he can understand.

“And when his spies are arrested and imprisoned for a big sentence, that’s also a message that he can understand.”

He thinks the use of Bulgarians working in normal jobs shows the limits of Russian espionage after so many professional spies were expelled from the West, but that spy cells like the Bulgarian one are no less dangerous.

Speaking about what motivates him, Dobrokhotov said he wants “to change Russia” because he does not want to live in a country that “kills people just because they’re doing journalism or because they are criticising the government”.

He said that “while we are existing, it is very difficult for Vladimir Putin to feel strength inside the country” and that “we will be someone who he will try to eliminate for the rest of his life”.

“We’re in a situation that only some of us will survive, either we or Vladimir Putin and his team.”

On Friday Vanya Gaberova, 30, Katrin Ivanova, 33, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, were found guilty of conspiracy to spy, while Roussev, 47, and Biser Dzhambazov, 43, had previously admitted the same charge. A sixth Bulgarian, Ivan Stoyanov, 34, pled guilty to spying. Ivanova was also convicted of possessing multiple false identity documents.

“Trump may be the best thing to happen to Starmer,” says a diplomat, suggesting the brash property tycoon busy upending the world order might be just what the strait-laced prime minister – who’s been dragging in the polls – needs.

One of Labour’s business backers calls it “the PM’s finest hour” – a Remainer leader putting Britain at the heart of international action as Trump rattles the Western world’s cage.

Sir Keir Starmer has certainly been incredibly visible – in the White House, leading a European summit at Lancaster House last weekend, hugging Zelensky, plotting a peacekeeping path with Macron.

It’s hard for the Conservatives and other opponents to compete with the prime minister’s international moves dominating the news.

Moments of crisis like the one we’re living through are often when the public tunes into politics and looks to their leaders. With a shaky global situation, does No 10 look more solid than before?

Some of his colleagues are certain. One government source tells me all the international activity is “almost Blair-esque”, or even a moment like Thatcher and the Falklands which enabled the 80s Conservative prime minister to burnish her reputation and win successive election victories.

Another minister suggests other leaders “get their knickers in a twist” publicly reacting to Trump’s unpredictable comments and actions – “but Keir has spent his whole career dealing with extreme circumstances. What he is able to do is get people to focus on the things that really matter.”

But impressive-looking diplomacy doesn’t mean the UK is getting what it wants – missiles are still falling, overnight again in Donetsk and Kharkhiv. Donald Trump’s commitment to guaranteeing Ukraine’s security, even NATO’s future, is shaky too.

So let’s take a calm look. Polling suggests there has been a nudge upwards for Sir Keir’s personal ratings and for Labour, after a dreadful start in office and a steep, fast drop in the polls.

His government would not be the first to be swept away by the intensity and glamour of global diplomacy which, however difficult or worthy, doesn’t necessarily translate into significant brownie points at home.

Perhaps in these wild times, we’re seeing the prime minister carve out a role as “reassurer in chief”. In political circles it’s long been common to find criticisms of Sir Keir Starmer for, frankly, being a bit dull, and not willing to play the minute-by-minute political game. But with Trump in the White House stoking drama the PM’s colleagues believe his steadiness has become an asset.

And he’s shown willingness to take action – increasing defence spending, albeit after months of pressure, getting European leaders together and drawing up military plans for after a peace deal. A senior government source says: “The global crisis means people looking at us again, and the government has been making an argument that people are responding to: that we have got their backs.”

But aligning yourself with an American president doesn’t always work out. Tony Blair’s chinos weren’t the only thing that became uncomfortable about his relationship with George W Bush.

So while there’s evidence the public are looking at Sir Keir a touch more favourably since his White House trip, as one union leader warns, “for it to count he has to show the same mojo at home”.

Take the row over sentencing this week. Or forthcoming arguments over cutting welfare, which ministers have been falling over themselves to soften the ground for.

But overshadowing everything, priority number one: the grisly state of the economy and getting it to grow.

In around a fortnight Rachel Reeves will be on her feet in Parliament, probably announcing cuts to public spending running to billions. Government sources point to some better statistics on wages, and cuts to interest rates, but Reeves is under enormous pressure to explain how the economy is going to escape the doldrums it has been stuck in for ages.

All the Kodak moments, and grip and grins with international leaders in the world won’t change that. The PM “can walk and talk at the same” time, one ally says. But there are, they acknowledge, “only so many hours in the day”.

Helping Ukraine against Putin’s Russia has a clear moral story the prime minister finds easy to tell, and compelling to try to shape. In contrast, “how do you bring prosperity to the regions? That’s a real puzzle.”

In the next few days, starting with the PM’s right-hand man Pat McFadden in the studio tomorrow, you will see the government try to kick up the pace of what is happening at home. First up – perhaps not a box-office hit – they’ll be looking at making the Whitehall machine work better, including making it easier to get rid of civil servants.

Ministers tell me Downing Street is being run more effectively than before Christmas and has a clearer sense of direction, after early embarrassment over being far less prepared than promised.

Sir Keir chairs regular meetings with individual cabinet ministers in charge of the government’s “missions”. I’m told he “cross-examines” them and their officials – and if their answers aren’t up to snuff, they get called in for another meeting. “He is a very nice man, but he is a hard man too,” one of them confides.

As well as slimming down parts of the civil service, there’ll be more on the government’s plans to cut billions off the welfare bill. Labour will argue it’s for good reason, to help people stuck on benefits – while critics will say it’s a way for the government to save money off the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in the country.

On Thursday, the prime minister is expected to make his own speech in an attempt to weave it all together into a grand narrative about safety abroad and at home. One government source said the last few weeks had galvanised Sir Keir’s thinking on this: when things are uncertain on the international stage, “everything feels a bit wobbly” and domestic security is amplified: you look around and feel your job isn’t secure, your street isn’t safe.

This thinking has been a long time coming. “Security” was a word and concept used by Reeves and Sir Keir in opposition – but recently he’s been making a more ideological argument than those close to him are used to hearing.

As well as making the case that what happens around the world is inextricably linked to what happens at home, he holds that the old international consensus among Western leaders has failed for millions of voters.

That argument was crystallised into a long memo he sent to his cabinet ministers and political team in the middle of February. In it he wrote: “The government’s challenge was to shape this new era. Not to defend institutions that are broken or old ideas that have failed, but to be the voice of working people who more than anything want security in their lives, and a country that is on the up again.”

He wrote that politicians were wrong to think markets had solutions for almost everything. “We were cowed by the market – we came to act as if it always knew best and the state should sit it out.”

He also said governments had failed on immigration, failed to understand the public’s concerns and also – to tell the truth. “We ended up treating all immigration as an untrammelled good. Somehow, politics ended up being too scared to say what is obvious – that some people are genuine refugees and some aren’t; that people coming here to work can be a positive, but that an island nation needs to control its borders.”

Some extracts from the letter have been revealed before. But what is notable, reading the whole document, is the prime minister closes his letter to colleagues with a call to provide “security” for the country, alongside renewing public services. He writes: “Now is our moment to be bigger and bolder – to put pedal on metal on wholescale reform and change our politics and our country. Security and renewal are our twin tasks – we must now deliver them.”

You’ll hear more of that argument from ministers in the coming days – we had a glimpse of it in the studio last Sunday morning too.

The profound uncertainty Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House has given the prime minister a moment to step into the spotlight on the world stage.

And his government is now much more overtly weaving an argument that working to establish security round the world is fundamentally connected to sorting out security at home.

There is a reason why, fresh from all the diplomatic handshakes, Sir Keir was back in the more familiar hi-vis and hard hat announcing defence jobs in Belfast.

No 10 wants you to see and believe that crisis abroad can mean opportunity at home. This spasm in global security has given a prime minister sometimes accused of being a blank page a clearer story to tell.

But in the end, for any prime minister, it is what happens on home turf, not foreign adventures that matter the most. A sceptical public will take a lot of convincing to believe government can improve their situation – make it easier to manage the bills, buy a house, or for their kids to find a decent job.

As as a senior figure in the Labour movement concludes, “he likes the statesman role but the bottom line is, change in people’s lives will be the decider.”

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LED technology has been used to address a number of skin issues, such as eczema, mild to moderate acne, psoriasis and sun damage in a medical setting.

But the at-home LED market is on the verge of becoming a massive industry – with masks and other devices retailing for anything from £40 to £1,500.

The technology harnesses the power of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which then stimulate skin cells when they are exposed to the skin repeatedly.

Mask developers make big claims that at-home LED masks can be used to treat acne scars, sun damage and fine lines – but does this stand up to scrutiny?

The LED market is set to be worth £600m globally by 2032 – which is nearly double what airflow technology like the Dyson Airwrap will be worth at the same point.

According to consultant dermatologist Dr Jonathan Kentley, LED technology works by causing the skin to absorb light energy, which then triggers cellular changes in a process known as photobiomodulation (PBM).

“This allows new blood vessels and skin cells to be formed, along with more collagen and elastin,” he tells the BBC.

“PBM has also been used to treat acne as it has anti-inflammatory effects and reduces the amount of oil in the skin,” he adds.

A recent comprehensive study of PBM stated that more clinical trials on humans need to take place to fully understand how it actually works.

US space agency Nasa first began studying the effect of LEDs in the 1990s to see if it could help in cell regeneration.

Since then, medical-grade devices have been used by dermatologists “for many years”, according to Dr Kentley.

But at-home masks have only been on the retail market for about five years and cost a fraction of the medical devices.

The main differences between medical devices and High Street masks are the strength of the LEDs, the number of bulbs on the device and how close they sit to the skin’s surface when being used.

Dr Justine Kluk, who runs her own dermatology clinic and specialises in treating acne, believes that while at-home masks “sound promising”, mask wholesale manufacturers are “speculating” about their benefits.

“I don’t believe anyone has run clinical trials of the LED mask at home to see if it is the same dose as a device you would use in a clinic or hospital,” she tells the BBC.

“No-one is testing these devices in big enough sample sizes for long enough periods of time for us to feel really confident.

“So I believe the benefits from using one of these masks is probably very modest,” she adds.

Skincare makes up nearly half of all global sales in the beauty industry – and is set to continue to grow more than the likes of haircare, make-up and fragrance in the next year.

This is being boosted by Generation Z (those born between 1995 and 2009) and even Generation Alpha (born 2010 to now) whose skincare fascination is said to be fuelled by social media trends.

Dr Kluk says she has noticed “that people’s interest in at-home skin care and treatments has increased hugely since Covid” and believes the “visually interesting” element of the at-home LED mask makes it such an eye-catching product to sell online.

“People sitting watching TV wearing a red LED mask increases people’s curiosity.

“Every other consultation I’ve had for the last six months, has involved people asking me about LED masks,” she adds.

When you search LED masks on social media platforms such as TikTok, you will be met with hundreds of videos with users showing off their results after using one of these at-home devices.

Natalie O’Neill, 29, tells the BBC she started to use a mask “out of curiosity to see if I would notice any difference” and did not use it to treat an existing skin condition like acne.

The skincare content creator says: “I noticed a change in my skin after a couple of weeks and felt it prevented breakouts really well.”

She adds that the mask has helped to “keep my skin tone looking more even” and faded marks on her face more quickly.

O’Neill was not paid to promote a particular mask and caveats all her content on this technology by saying she uses it alongside a consistent skincare routine.

“Getting red light or LED therapy in a clinic is not immediately transferable to a mask, which a lot of consumers don’t realise – I’m OK with that because I have the right expectations,” she adds.

Part of the appeal of LED masks is that they are easy to use and therefore have a low barrier to entry for potential buyers.

Laurence Newman is the chief executive of CurrentBody, whose at-home LED mask is one of the world’s best sellers.

He started selling professional equipment to clinics more than 25 years ago and began developing an at-home LED mask in 2009, bringing out the company’s first device just under 10 years later.

“We see that people use it for 10 minutes and get an instant glow afterwards,” he tells the BBC.

Newman says that women in particular “are moving towards totally non-invasive skincare” and looking for ways to improve their skin without botox and fillers.

Newman says the masks his company sells have been developed using the same technology as medical devices, which have a minimum requirement light wavelengths.

He emphasises that the at-home LED mask market and indeed at-home beauty technology market are in their infancy, with “a real movement of education” growing.

Dr Kentley concludes that “PBM is mostly considered safe, even at high levels” so using any form of LED technology is unlikely to “cause damage to cells”, however more research into how exactly PBM works is needed to understand what it can do.

“There have been many experimental and clinical studies into the use of PBM for various dermatologic conditions, however they have varied in the parameters of the device and treatment protocols,” he adds.

“Many of these studies were small and unstandardised and often paid for by the manufacturers so it is difficult to draw concrete conclusions”.

He says if someone is keen to buy a device they should make sure they choose one that has EU safety certifications and a high density of LED bulbs on the mask to ensure enough energy is being delivered to the skin.

Dr Kluk also says that she does not “want to discourage anyone” who is intrigued by the technology but wants “them to understand that this is a lot of money to spend on a device, which could potentially support a good skincare routine, or if it’s severe like acne, a good prescription regimen and some lifestyle measures – but it’s unlikely to do enough on its own.”

Roman Dobrokhotov is used to looking over his shoulder.

The Russian journalist’s investigations into Vladimir Putin’s regime – one of which unmasked the agents responsible for the 2018 Salisbury poisonings – have made him a target of the Kremlin.

But as the Insider editor waited on the tarmac to board a commercial flight from Budapest to Berlin in 2021, where he was to give evidence in a murder trial, he didn’t notice the brunette woman stood behind him.

He thought nothing of it when she took a seat close to his. Nor did he see the camera strapped to her shoulder, quietly recording.

That morning, the woman had flown from Luton to Budapest to locate the mark. Dobrokhotov’s flight information had been obtained in advance.

As the aircraft approached its destination, the woman, a Bulgarian – Katrin Ivanova – sent a message on Telegram.

Then two more.

Her partner, Biser Dzhambazov, with whom she lived in Harrow, north London, was waiting for her and Dobrokhotov in Berlin.

Another woman, an airport worker identified only as Cvetka, had already flown a dummy run of the route.

Waiting in Berlin, she was another pair of eyes.

They’d lost him.

Operational for years, the cell tracked Russia’s enemies across Europe. Its leaders plotted honeytraps, kidnap and murder in service of the Kremlin. Following a trial, three members were convicted on 7 March at the Old Bailey in London for their part in the conspiracy. Three more had already pleaded guilty.

“We’re in a situation where only some of us will survive,” Dobrokhotov would later tell the BBC.

“It will be either Russian journalists and human rights watchers, or Vladimir Putin and his killers.”

Watching events in Berlin unfold from the UK was the final member of the Telegram group, another Bulgarian, Orlin Roussev, 47.

An associate recalls Orlin Roussev as a man fascinated by espionage. An email address associated with him includes the 007 sobriquet of the world’s most famous secret agent.

He moved to Britain in 2009, before he set up a company involved in signals intelligence – the interception of communications or electronic signals.

When police officers searched the faded 33-room Great Yarmouth former guest house in which he lived with his wife and stepson, they discovered, in the assessment of one expert, “a vast amount of technical surveillance equipment which could be used to enable intrusive surveillance”.

• I’m lucky to be alive, says journalist tracked by Russian spies

They might have been less dry. It was an Aladdin’s cave disguised as a cluttered seaside relic; sophisticated communications interception devices worth £175,000; radio frequency jammers; covert cameras hidden in smoke detectors, a pen, sunglasses, even men’s ties; a horde of fake identity documents and equipment to make more. An encrypted hard drive was left open. Telegram conversations were visible on Roussev’s laptop.

Among the masses of equipment, police discovered the business card of a one-time finance executive, Jan Marsalek.

Roussev first met Jan Marsalek in 2015, introduced, he recalled, by a mutual acquaintance he had met at the offices of a British investor and wealth adviser. In emails from that time seen by the BBC, Marsalek enlists Roussev’s help in acquiring a secure mobile phone from a Chinese company.

Then, Jan Marsalek was the respected chief operating officer of German payments processing company Wirecard. While reports criticising Wirecard’s business practices had started to appear in the Financial Times, the company’s reputation as a star performer in the European fintech sector, valued in excess of £20 billion at its peak, was intact.

Now, he was directing operations as Roussev’s controller on the run from fraud charges – the subject of an Interpol red notice – following the company’s 2020 collapse.

Together, the pair conceived operations targeting journalists, dissidents, politicians, even Ukrainian soldiers thought to be training at a US military installation in Stuttgart. They discussed selling US drones captured from Ukrainian battlefields to China. And they did it for Russia.

Linked to the state’s intelligence services, Marsalek is believed to be hiding in Moscow. He faces no charges in the UK.

The group Roussev employed, all Bulgarians, were not the spies of popular imagination.

Alongside Dzhambazov, a medical courier, and Ivanova, a laboratory assistant, he employed a beautician with a salon in Acton, Vanya Gaberova; a painter and decorator, Tihomir Ivanchev; plus an MMA fighter nicknamed “The Destroyer” who wore his fights on his face, Ivan Stoyanov.

A neighbour who knew two of the accused was sceptical they could be guilty. They were too stupid and didn’t know anything, the neighbour asserted, though they admired the fighter’s “enormous calves”.

But they were not ineffective – Roman Dobrokhotov recognised none of the group’s faces when pictures were shown to him by police.

The group operated a clear hierarchy. Roussev reported to Marsalek, who reported to his “friends in Russia”. Roussev managed the rest of the Bulgarians, who he referred to as his “minions”, Dzhambazov chief among them.

“There are no bosses here,” Dzambhazov wrote, as he issued instructions to Ivanchev.

Nonetheless, “minion” was attached to the decorator’s number in Dzhambazov’s phone.

The group dynamics were complicated. Dzhambazov and Ivanova were in a long term relationship and lived together. Gaberova and Ivanchev were in a relationship until 2022.

But it was Dzhambazov and Gaberova police found in bed together when they burst into the beautician’s northwest London flat in February 2023.

Between August 2020 and February 2023, Marsalek and Roussev exchanged 78,747 messages on the Telegram messaging app.

They reveal at least six operations the spy cell was tasked with over a period of years – four of which targeted individuals who were enemies of Putin’s regime.

As well as Dobrokhotov, the Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev was watched at home in Vienna. Cameras in the window of a rented apartment nearby were trained on his front door.

He was tailed on flights and photographed in a Valencia hotel eating breakfast with co-founder of the Bellingcat investigative collective Elliott Higgins.

A thorn in the side of Russian intelligence services, he was observed in Bulgaria meeting with an arms trader who had been the victim of an assassination attempt Grozev linked to the Russian state.

Gaberova was instructed to befriend him.

In Montenegro, the cell searched for Kirill Kachur, who had worked for the Investigative Committee of Russia until he fell foul of the Kremlin. They were anxious to impress. A second Russian intelligence team circled, including a chain-smoking blonde woman referred to only as “Red Sparrow”.

Marsalek and Roussev discussed the kidnap and murder of both Grozev and Kachur. It wasn’t an empty threat – a colleague of Kachur’s had separately been taken to Moscow.

A former Kazakh politician living with refugee status in London, Bergey Ryskaliyev, was targeted at a luxury apartment in Hyde Park. Further reconnaissance took place at his home.

Ivan Stoyanov, who acknowledged his part in the conspiracy, was spotted parked in a Toyota Prius outside his address. Suspicious, an assistant of Mr Ryskaliyev noted the licence plate.

When confronted, the MMA fighter claimed he was working for a Kensington hospital, delivering tests. The next day, an NHS logo had been placed in the windscreen.

Prosecutors said providing information on a political dissident like Ryskaliyev “is predicated on Russian attempts to control diplomatic relations”.

Indeed, Marsalek would further task Roussev with another project: a hare-brained scheme to initiate a staged protest at the Kazakh Embassy featuring blood dropped from drones, an astroturf human rights campaign involving Just Stop Oil, a letter addressed to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, advertising on London buses and unrealised deepfake pornographic video of the Kazakh president’s son. Russia would then help nervous Kazakh security services “uncover” the “activists” responsible.

In February 2022, Telegram exchanges between Marsalek and Roussev reveal a preoccupation with following Christo Grozev to Kyiv, where he was believed to have travelled.

Their offers to help were rebuffed.

Fewer than three weeks later, Russian tanks surged across Ukraine’s eastern, southern and northern borders.

Later that year, Marsalek asked Roussev if one of the cell’s three IMSI grabbers – sophisticated communications interception equipment – could be deployed to spy on Ukrainian soldiers in Germany. Roussev promised to retrieve it from his “Indiana Jones garage”, where it was “gathering dust”.

Marsalek returned to the idea repeatedly.

By February 2023, Roussev and Marsalek were plotting to send Dzhambazov and “one more person” to Stuttgart, where they believed Ukrainian soldiers to be training on Patriot missile systems.

Had they successfully deployed and captured Ukrainian troops’ mobile phone data as planned, they might have used it to pinpoint those same troops on the battlefield – leading Russian forces to Western-supplied Ukrainian air defences.

“This was espionage activity of the highest level of seriousness,” prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told the jury at the Old Bailey.

Before their plans could be put into action, they were arrested – Dzhambazov, Ivanova, Gaberova and Stoyanov in London, Roussev in his guest house.

Though Ivanchev identified himself to police outside Gaberova’s flat, he would not be arrested for another year.

In his first police interview, he told officers he had spoken to MI5 in the interim. The interview was paused.

None of the six denied their actions.

Roussev, Dzhambazov and Stoyanov pleaded guilty before trial. Ivanova, Gaberova and Ivanchev denied knowing they were working for Russia.

The jury disagreed.

Ivanova, Gaberova and Ivanchev were found guilty after the jury deliberated for over 32 hours. Ivanova was also found guilty of possessing multiple false identity documents.

They could face up to 14 years in prison. They will be sentenced in May.

But it is not the end.

“If there is no regime change, there will be new and new teams of people who come to kill or kidnap you,” Roman Dobrokhotov told the BBC.

“This is this actually something that motivates us to work.

“From the very beginning, I was sure it was something directly controlled by Vladimir Putin.

“In his dictatorship you would never take responsibility on your own to do such political stuff.

“You’d always have a direct order from the president.

“Putin is a psychopath who has no borders,” he said.

It may have been drowned out this week as US President Donald Trump walked back tariffs on his closest neighbours – and biggest trading partners – almost as soon as they were in place.

But despite the dizzying back-and-forth with Canada and Mexico, the White House made clear that it is serious about its economic vision. And it is willing to pay the price of some short-term economic harm to pursue it.

“There’ll be a little disturbance,” Trump warned in his address to Congress on Tuesday. “But we’re okay with that.”

Some scepticism about that comfort might be understandable, given the abrupt policy turns on tariffs Trump has made, as financial markets dropped and the outcry from US businesses intensified.

Those who see Trump’s tariff threats as economic bluster might be tempted to conclude that he wants to talk tough, but flinches at the first signs of economic damage.

But that view is to some extent undermined by the trade war against China he started in his first term which has seriously intensified.

In just a few weeks, Trump has raised taxes to at least 20% on all Chinese imports.

It means the average effective tariff rate on imports from China now stands at roughly 34%, because taxes on some sectors – like electric vehicles and steel – stand at much higher rates.

The 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian goods hasn’t completely gone away either. The levy still stands on goods that aren’t compliant with a trade deal that Trump negotiated in his first term – and so some goods coming from both neighbours will still be subject to it.

• Trump expands exemptions from Canada and Mexico tariffs
• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• China says it is ready for ‘any type of war’ with US

The White House also says its much-touted reciprocal tariffs targeting nearly all US trade partners are still in the pipeline. The details, they say, will be unveiled on 2 April, with rates tailor-made to address whatever policies other countries impose that officials consider unfair – whether in the form of taxes on US tech firms, Value-Added Taxes, or other import rules.

“It’s a certainty – reciprocal tariffs are coming,” Trump’s senior adviser on trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro told business broadcaster CNBC on Friday.

He said the White House had seen signs that its threats alone were prompting car companies to start taking action and bolster their supply chains in the US – exactly the kind of investment that Donald Trump says his tariffs will spur.

“They’re getting the picture,” Navarro said.

Navarro and others say the nitty-gritty of tariff rates is not their focus. Rather, they are using trade levies as a means to create a new version of America, where the country has a different relationship with its global partners.

That America has more local manufacturing, a smaller government and pays less for the military defence of its allies.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – a former Wall Street hedge fund boss not known as a tariff hawk – this week pointed to political discussions in Germany about boosting its military spending as an “early, big win”.

“The international trading system consists of a web of relationships – military economic, political. One cannot take a single aspect in isolation,” he said, as he tried to sell the administration’s strategy to a tariff-sceptical audience at the Economic Club of New York.

“This is how President Trump sees the world – not as a zero-sum game but as inter-linkages that can be re-ordered to advance the interests of American people.”

For Trump, tariffs are a key tool for re-ordering that web. And the treasury secretary made clear that the likely short-term harm – higher prices – is an acceptable trade-off.

“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Bessent said.

For now, polls indicate Trump’s voter base remains behind him. But how the next months unfold – and what happens in particular with consumer prices – could prove a real test of that message.

As dawn approached on the morning of 7 October 2023, many of the partygoers at the Nova music festival near Gaza’s border took illegal recreational drugs like MDMA or LSD.

Hundreds of them were high when, shortly after sunrise, Hamas gunmen attacked the site.

Now neuroscientists working with survivors from the festival say there are early signs that MDMA – also known as ecstasy or molly – may have provided some psychological protection against trauma.

The preliminary results, currently being peer-reviewed with a view to publication in the coming months, suggest that the drug is associated with more positive mental states – both during the event and in the months afterwards.

The study, carried out by scientists at Israel’s Haifa University, could contribute to a growing scientific interest in how MDMA might be used to treat psychological trauma.

It is thought to be the first time scientists have been able to study a mass trauma event where large numbers of people were under the influence of mind-altering drugs.

Hamas gunmen killed 360 people and kidnapped dozens more at the festival site where 3,500 people had been partying.

“We had people hiding under the bodies of their friends for hours while on LSD or MDMA,” said Prof Roy Salomon, one of those leading the research.

“There’s talk that a lot of these substances create plasticity in the brain, so the brain is more open to change. But what happens if you endure this plasticity in such a terrible situation – is it going to be worse, or better?”

The research tracked the psychological responses of more than 650 survivors from the festival. Two-thirds of these were under the influence of recreational drugs including MDMA, LSD, marijuana or psilocybin – the compound found in hallucinogenic mushrooms – before the attacks took place.

“MDMA, and especially MDMA that was not mixed with anything else, was the most protective,” the study has found, according to Prof Salomon.

He said those on MDMA during the attack appeared to cope much better mentally in the first five months afterwards, when a lot of processing takes place.

“They were sleeping better, had less mental distress – they were doing better than people who didn’t take any substance,” he said.

The team believes pro-social hormones triggered by the drug – such as oxytocin, which helps promote bonding – helped reduce fear and boost feelings of camaraderie between those fleeing the attack.

And even more importantly, they say, it appears to have left survivors more open to receiving love and support from their families and friends once they were home.

Clearly, the research is limited only to those who survived the attacks, making it hard to determine with any certainty whether specific drugs helped or hindered victims’ chances of escape.

But researchers found that many survivors, like Michal Ohana, firmly believe it did play a role – and say that belief, in itself, may help them to recover from the event.

“I feel like it saved my life, because I was so high, like I’m not in the real world,” she told me. “Because regular humans can’t see all these things – it’s not normal.”

Without the drug, she believes she would have just frozen or collapsed to the floor, and been killed or captured by the gunmen.

Clinicians in various countries have already experimented with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in a trial setting – though only Australia has approved it as a treatment.

Countries that have rejected it include the US, where the Food and Drug Administration cited concerns about the design of the studies, that the treatment may not offer long-lasting benefits, and about the potential risk for heart problems, injury and abuse.

MDMA is classified as a Class A drug in the UK, and has been linked to liver, kidney and heart problems.

In Israel, where MDMA is also illegal, psychologists can only use it to treat clients on an experimental research basis.

The preliminary findings from the Nova study are being closely followed by some of those Israeli clinicians experimenting with MDMA as treatment for PTSD after 7 October.

Dr Anna Harwood-Gross, a clinical psychologist and director of research at Israel’s Metiv Psychotrauma Centre, described the initial findings as “really important” for therapists like her.

She is currently experimenting with using MDMA to treat PTSD within the Israeli military, and had worried about the ethics of inducing a vulnerable psychological state in clients when there is a war going on.

“At the beginning of the war, we questioned whether we were able to do this,” she said. “Can we give people MDMA when there’s a risk of an air raid siren? That’s going to re-traumatise them potentially. This study has shown us that even if there’s a traumatic event during therapy, the MDMA might also help process that trauma.”

Dr Harwood-Gross says early indications of therapeutic MDMA use are encouraging, even among military veterans with chronic PTSD.

It has also upended old assumptions about the “rules” of therapy – especially the length of sessions, which have to be adjusted when working with clients under the influence of MDMA, she says.

“For example, it’s changed our thoughts about 50-minute therapy sessions, with one patient and one therapist,” Dr Harwood-Gross told me. “Having two therapists, and long sessions – up to eight hours long – is a new way of doing therapy. They’re looking at people very holistically and giving them time.”

She says this new longer format is showing promising results, even without patients taking MDMA, with a success rate of 40% in the placebo group.

Israeli society itself has also changed its approach to trauma and therapy following the 7 October attacks, according to Danny Brom, a founding director of the METIV Psychotrauma Centre at Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, and a senior figure in the industry.

“It’s as if this is the first trauma we’re going through,” he said. “I’ve seen wars here, I’ve seen lots of terrorist attacks and people said, ‘We don’t see trauma here’.

“Suddenly, there seems to be a general opinion that now everyone is traumatised, and everyone needs treatment. It’s a wrong approach.”

What broke, he said, is the sense of security many Jews believed Israel would provide them. These attacks uncovered a collective trauma, he says, linked to the Holocaust and generations of persecution.

“Our history is full of massacres,” psychologist Vered Atzmon Meshulam told me. “As a psychologist now in Israel, we are faced with an opportunity to work with lots of traumas that weren’t previously being treated, like all our narratives for 2,000 years.”

Collective trauma, combat trauma, mind-altering drugs, sexual assault, hostages, survivors, body-collectors, the injured and the bereaved – Israel’s trauma specialists are facing a complex cocktail of issues from the clients now flooding into therapy.

The scale of that mental health challenge is mirrored in Gaza, where vast numbers of people have been killed, injured or left homeless after a devastating 15-month war – and where there are scant resources to help a deeply traumatised population.

The war in Gaza, triggered by the Hamas attacks on Israeli communities in October 2023, was suspended in January in a six-week truce, during which Israeli hostages held by Hamas were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

But there is little sense on either side that the peace and security needed to begin healing has arrived.

The truce expired last weekend, with 59 Israeli hostages still in Hamas captivity. Many Gazans are waiting, with their bags packed, for war to resume.

Meanwhile Nova survivor Michal Ohana says she feels that with the passage of time, some are expecting her to have moved on from the attacks, but she is still affected.

“I wake up with this, and I go to sleep with this, and people don’t understand,” she told me.

“We live this every day. I feel the country supported us in the first months, but now after one year, they feel: ‘OK, you need to go back to work, back to life.’ But we can’t.”

It is the most natural thing in the world to look for common ground with someone you have just met.

But every week, BBC presenter and comedian Elis James goes one step further by testing the stereotype that people from Wales, a country of more than three million people, somehow all know each other.

The Cymru Connection, where James has 60 seconds to find a mutual connection, began in earnest when a Welshman living in Japan called James’ Radio 5 Live show and podcast last year.

“I discovered [the caller] was from Aberystwyth,” said James. “Within 20 seconds I derailed the call and I named about 20 people from Aberystwyth and he knew about 18 of them.

“We thought ‘there might be a feature in this’.”

The hurried and tense one-minute exchanges have had hundreds of thousands of views across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, with listeners from outside Wales often amused – if slightly baffled.

“This is genuinely a superpower,” said one person in the social media comments.

“Nah, just genuinely Welsh,” replied another.

So far 30 callers have put James to the test, with his success rate hovering just north of 50%.

James, from Carmarthenshire, believes it is instinctive for people from Wales to try to find a mutual connection.

“I’ve never been on holiday without bumping into a Welsh person and then after about half a minute you’re like, ‘well do you know so-and-so if you’re from Merthyr?’ and they always do.”

Together with his co-host, comedian John Robins, James said the feature “clearly has resonated with our Welsh listeners”.

The desire to connect is not a phenomenon exclusive to the Welsh.

“I find that people from the north of England do it and certainly the Irish and the Scots do it,” said James.

“In the south-east of England I think there’s too many people, too many places.”

James believes the urge to connect is particularly relevant to people from smaller countries.

“I was doing stand-up in Brussels and there was a guy in the front row who’d been taught by my auntie and uncle,” he said.

“All the Americans thought it was a set up and all the people from smaller countries were like ‘no, no, that makes sense’.

“I [also] did stand-up in Auckland in New Zealand. On the first night, I’d only been in the country a couple of days, there was a girl from Lampeter and she knew my auntie’s farm.”

It is one thing to find these links organically, but under time pressure it becomes harder.

As The Cymru Connection theme music kicks in each week, James is often seen putting his head in his hands.

“I find it immensely stressful,” he said.

“It pays off because as long as I Cymru Connect I’m floating on air for hours. If I fail I’m incredibly depressed for about a day.

“Often if I’m wearing a jumper or a jacket I’ve got to take it off because I start to sweat. So the head in hands, that’s genuine, it’s very, very authentic, I’m not putting it on for effect.

“I always start with where people grew up and where they went to school, and how old they are.

“The stats have proven it doesn’t always work. But that’s where I begin.”

James and Robins have worked together for more than a decade – firstly on XFM and now for the BBC – but have been friends for much longer.

“It’s quite an interesting thing to observe because it’s obviously a very natural interaction for Welsh people,” said Robins, from Bristol.

“I watch Elis connecting thinking ‘is this really happening every week?’ and it is. It’s on national radio.”

But why is it happening?

Dr Martin Graff, a psychologist at the University of South Wales, believes “we all want to meet people who have a degree of familiarity to ourselves”.

“In Wales there’s three million of us – we’re a fairly exclusive club. Therefore when we meet someone Welsh it’s kind of thrilling.

“From an evolutionary angle, meeting someone who is familiar makes them more predictable.

“If people’s behaviour is more predictable we feel safer in their company.”

Born and bred in Bridgend, I couldn’t finish my interview without putting James to the test – could he find a Cymru Connection with me?

Robins, who acts as adjudicator, declared in advance that mutual BBC colleagues did not count.

Despite that, after roughly 45 seconds, James managed to name somebody he knew who was in the year above me at school.

Job done – our very own Cymru Connection.

Subscribers to Joshuanette Francis’s YouTube channel – set up to document her journey after being diagnosed with osteoarthritis at just 24 – did not see the tears.

Neither were they privy to the days when she tackled the most acute personal struggles, alone behind closed doors.

After being told she could lose the ability to walk by age 40, Joshuanette was determined to embrace life, hiking every nature trail in her native Antigua and visiting each one of the Caribbean island’s touted 365 beaches while she still could.

Consistently upbeat and smiling in her videos and in public, her private tears were amplified when she lost her job as a restaurant supervisor – because of her condition, she says – followed by her mortgage and her dream of building her own home.

Six years on, the young mother’s sunny persona is the one she uses to fight her public battle: championing the rights of others living with a disability in a country where inequity is rife and crucial resources are in short supply.

She channels her energy into a pioneering non-profit she founded in 2023, Good Humans 268, which strives for a brighter future for people with physical challenges.

“Arthritis has changed my life so much, I can only imagine what it must be like for someone with a major disability,” Joshuanette tells the BBC.

Osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that causes pain and stiffness, typically affects older people, but can strike at any age.

“I couldn’t believe it when I was diagnosed. My biggest fear was, what happens to life now?” Joshuanette says.

Good Humans’ far-reaching work ranges from pushing for the establishment of an equal rights tribunal to preside over purported discriminatory practices, to a recycling programme that in turn employs local residents with disabilities.

The latter has already been implemented in more than 80 local schools, diverting about a million bottles and cans from the national dump site. Eight people have been hired to sort and process, and sometimes repurpose, the waste.

Good Humans has also launched a nationwide educational programme to encourage more residents to recycle, something Kelisha Pigott was employed to assist with.

She says working with the organisation has been life-changing.

“There are a lot of people with disabilities out there who have no one to turn to. Joshuanette has moulded me to believe in myself more. It’s because of her that I took the chance to apply for university and got in,” Kelisha enthuses.

She hopes her online degree in tourism management will help her eventually merge her small travel company with Good Humans to create additional job opportunities.

“Change starts with us. I was amazed to see how much plastic we diverted from landfill in a short space of time; imagine if everyone did it,” she says.

There have been some smaller triumphs too. Like the case of the 10-year-old girl who for several years couldn’t use the toilet at school unassisted because of the lack of wheelchair-friendly facilities. That indignity went largely overlooked until Joshuanette took it on as a personal endeavour, leading to the creation of an accessible bathroom.

“We must shift the way we do things. People with disabilities must be able to do the same things everyone else can,” Joshuanette says passionately. “I’m so excited by what I know Good Humans can achieve.”

Plans include rolling out the recycling scheme to private households and ultimately creating a purpose-built centre to consolidate the group’s diverse work.

Still, she’s aware of the challenges ahead. Even a stroll around the capital, St John’s, is fraught with hazards for many with an impairment, thanks to omnipresent open gutters, crudely covered drains and cracked paving.

“Accessibility is a serious concern,” says Bernard Warner, head of the country’s disability association. “For a start, there’s a lack of access to assistive devices to help people live more meaningfully.”

Both Bernard’s group and Good Humans have been calling for legislation passed in 2017, which seeks to protect the rights of those with disabilities, to be enforced. An equal rights tribunal was a key part of the act, but has never been created.

“There’s a lot of discrimination; people are treated with indifference or turned away from employment opportunities,” Bernard says. “And due to poverty, most don’t have money to hire lawyers.”

Bernard lost his right leg when his motorbike was struck by a drunk driver in 1996. Despite a lengthy court case, which ruled in his favour, he has never received compensation.

“After years of torment, I now rally for a better society,” he explains. “We have to alter our mindset with how we view people with disabilities. We’ve been leaving them out for too long. Even now, I see high-rise buildings going up with no disability access,” he adds.

Kelly Hedges, principal of the Victory Centre for children with special needs, agrees. Her school currently has 27 students aged five to 18.

“The challenge is, when students leave us as young adults, where do they go? People are still wary about hiring people with special needs or disabilities. Unless they have personal connections or can go to work with a parent, they generally just stay home,” she says.

The Victory Centre is among the schools to have joined Good Humans’ recycling scheme.

“As Good Humans becomes bigger and needs more staff, hopefully our children can segue into positions there, become contributing members of society and live more independently,” Kelly adds.

Joshuanette believes that mental health should be a key focus of disability awareness. Despite her largely positive outlook, she admits depression struck again recently when she turned 30 and still could not afford her own home.

She continues to battle for compensation against the company she says fired her unfairly.

“Fighting is exhausting,” she says. “But change will only happen when more people talk about disability and demand change.”

A pro-Palestine group has vandalised parts of Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.

Palestine Action posted photographs on social media showing red paint daubed across one of the buildings at the Ayrshire course.

The words “Gaza is not for sale” are sprayed across one green and another green appears to have been dug up.

A further photograph shows a damaged lamp post at the resort owned by the Trump Organisation. A spokesperson said it was a “childish, criminal act”.

Police Scotland confirmed it was investigating the incident.

President Trump caused widespread international criticism after repeatedly proposing to empty the Gaza strip of all Palestinians and turn the area into a resort.

He proposed taking ownership of the Gaza Strip and redeveloping it, after saying earlier that Palestinians should move out of the region.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said during a joint conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month.

Trump made the comments after meeting with the Israeli leader at the White House. Netanyahu responded, saying the idea is “worth paying attention to”.

The US president has previously said neighbouring nations could take in displaced Palestinians from Gaza – a proposal that was rejected by Arab nations.

The president later posted an AI video of what Gaza might look like under his proposals.

Turnberry is widely rated as one of the top five golf courses in the world.

It has hosted The Open Championship four times, including in 1977 when Tom Watson beat Jack Nicklaus in what famously became known as the “Duel In The Sun”.

But it has not been included on the Open schedule since Trump bought the resort in 2014.

The Turnberry resort underwent a massive refurbishment after it was bought from a Dubai-based company in 2014.

It became the organisation’s second golf resort in Scotland. Trump International Golf Links opened north of Aberdeen in 2012, after years of controversy.

Trump was moved to build a course in Scotland as a tribute to his later mother, who was born and brought up in Lewis.

The president has been a regular visitor to Scotland over the years and last month was invited to meet King Charles at Balmoral.

Palestine Action describes itself as a “direct action network dismantling British complicity with Israeli apartheid”.

A statement from the group said: “Palestine Action rejects Donald Trump’s treatment of Gaza as though it were his property to dispose of as he likes.

“To make that clear, we have shown him that his own property is not safe from acts of resistance. We will continue to take action against US-Israeli colonialism in the Palestinian homeland.”

A spokesperson for Trump Turnberry said: “This was a childish, criminal act but the incredible team at Trump Turnberry will ensure it does not impact business.

“Turnberry is a national treasure and will continue to be the number one beacon of luxury and excellence in the world of golf.”

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Around 04:40 on Saturday 8 March 2025 we received a report of damage to the golf course and a premises on Maidens Road, Turnberry.”

The force said inquiries were ongoing.

South Korea’s impeached president has been released from detention after a court in Seoul overturned his arrest on technical grounds.

Yoon Suk Yeol walked free on Saturday to cheers from his supporters – but still faces trial on insurrection charges after his failed attempt to impose martial law in December.

He was arrested in January in a dawn raid at the presidential palace after a tense fortnight where he had resisted being taken in and there were clashes between his security detail and police.

But he walked free on Saturday after 52 days in custody. “I bow my head in gratitude to the people of this nation,” he said in a statement distributed by his lawyers following his release.

After waving to supporters outside the centre, he was driven in an official convoy back to the presidential compound in Seoul, where he was greeted by more supporters.

More than 50,000 protesters staged rallies in his support in the capital on Saturday, while there was also a slightly smaller counter-protest, Yonhap reported.

Mr Yoon’s lawyers secured his release after arguing it was illegal to hold him in custody. The courts agreed, based on a number of legal technicalities, although the prosecutors described the ruling as “unjust”.

He is due to stand trial later this year for the attempt to put the democratic country under martial law. It only lasted six hours – but polarised the nation.

If convicted he could face life in prison or even the death penalty.

Although currently suspended from office, Mr Yoon is still South Korea’s president in name.

He also faces a separate Constitutional Court ruling which will decide on whether to uphold his impeachment and formally strip him from office. The judges’ decision is expected in the coming days.

Despite the court cases, Mr Yoon’s supporters have rallied around him – and authorities are bracing themselves for unrest.

Emergency services have been called to the Palace of Westminster, where a man has scaled one of the buildings carrying a Palestinian flag.

A barefoot man was seen standing on a ledge several metres up Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben.

The Met Police said officers were called to the tower at 07:24 GMT on Saturday.

“Officers are at the scene working to bring the incident to a safe conclusion,” the force said.

At least nine emergency service vehicles lined Bridge Street in central London and crowds looked on from beyond a police cordon.

At around 10:00 GMT, three emergency personnel were lifted several metres up on a fire brigade aerial ladder platform, with one person using a megaphone to speak to the man on the ledge.

The intruder said as he filmed his climb that he was protesting against “police repression and state violence”.

After he got into the grounds of Parliament, he walked up some steps, quickly climbed onto a railing, and up the side of Elizabeth Tower.

At one point he took his shoes off to enable him to climb higher to a ledge. He injured his feet, and patches of blood could be seen on the stonework of the tower.

The man was spotted within minutes by police on the ground, who asked if he was able to get down safely. He responded: “I’m safe.”

Photographs showed him sitting on the ledge with the flag and a keffiyeh scarf wrapped around the decorative stonework on the tower.

The man was still on the ledge when the platform was lowered at around 11:45 GMT.

Bridge Street, which is at the north end of Westminster Bridge, was closed to allow the emergency services to deal with the incident, police confirmed.

Westminster Bridge was also closed, the Met said.

It is understood one exit of Westminster Tube station is closed, but there is no disruption to Tube services and passengers can use other exits.

Tours of the Parliamentary Estate have been cancelled as emergency services respond to the incident.

The parliamentary spokesperson said: “Parliament takes security extremely seriously, however, we do not comment on the specifics of our security measures or mitigations.

“As a result of this incident, tours of the Parliamentary Estate today have unfortunately had to be cancelled.”

A spokesman for London Fire Brigade (LFB) said they were responding to the incident alongside the police.

Crews from Lambeth, Chelsea, Soho and Islington fire stations have been deployed, LFB said.

The London Ambulance added that it had sent an ambulance crew, an incident response officer, and members of its hazardous area response team (HART) to the scene.

About 200 million viewers, 37 countries taking part and cries of “Nul Points” on the horizon.

Eurovision fever has been ramping up with Remember Monday announced as the UK’s entry to the world’s largest live music event.

And with all three members of the group having a background in musical theatre, they know more than most about how to put on a show.

“Our performance is theatrical,” Holly-Anne Hull tells BBC Newsbeat, as Lauren Byrne adds: “We haven’t shied away from it”.

Despite the pressure of years of disappointing results for the UK, the trio, completed by Charlotte Steele, have been busy in rehearsals and say they’re “feeling good” about their chances in Basel, Switzerland.

With the exception of Sam Ryder’s second place in 2022, the UK’s been stuck in the bottom half of the leader board for a decade – even the star power of Olly Alexander couldn’t pull the country higher than 18th.

To break out of the rut needs a roll of the dice and Holly-Anne says “we were a real risk”.

Not least because they hadn’t even written their entry when they found out they’d be representing the country.

“That was really scary – finding out we got it and we were like: ‘But what do we sing?'”

The song they’ve gone for, What The Hell Just Happened?, crosses a few different genres, including country, pop and, of course, musical theatre.

It may be risky, but Remember Monday aren’t the only ones feeling confident it could break them into the top half of the leaderboard.

“I think all the evidence points towards a better result at Eurovision this year,” Euro Trip podcast host, Rob Lilley-Jones, tells Newsbeat.

With a country background, Remember Monday can bring something “a little bit different for the UK”, he says.

“No other country is doing anything like this at Eurovision this year.”

Lauren says the group’s love of country can be traced through to their passion for storytelling through music and they’ve already been making waves in the genre.

Last year they were recognised as best trio by the British Country Music Association and have toured the US as well as the UK, racking up hundreds of thousands of streams on Spotify along the way.

Rather than a public vote, the entry was chosen by a team made up of UK record labels, publishers, songwriters, BBC Music and BBC Introducing.

They worked closely with Sam Ryder’s manager, David May, in the hope he could find another contender for the top spot.

Since Remember Monday were unveiled as the UK entry, reaction has been largely positive on social media, but after a difficult few years in the competition there is some scepticism too.

Lauren, Holly-Anne and Charlotte found out in December they’d be heading to the 69th Eurovision competition in Switzerland.

“Andrew [Cartmell, the BBC’s head of delegation for the UK] was like: ‘So first things first girls, what are you doing in May next year?’,” Lauren says of the day they found out.

Charlotte received the news while visiting her grandad in hospital while Lauren was parked up at a service station.

“We just go dead silent and just release so many tears,” Holly-Anne says.

“We were just sobbing. It’s so surreal.”

Like former entrants Sam Ryder and Mae Muller, they credit TikTok with getting their break.

They’ve got more than half a million followers on the app with a combined 11.3 million likes across their videos.

“It really has changed our lives – without sounding too dramatic,” Charlotte says.

“We started posting in lockdown and when we came out we put on a gig, our first one in a long time, and it sold out in like 24 hours.”

They thought it was their families who “spent a lot of money on tickets”.

“We walked out on stage and we didn’t recognise anyone – it was all new faces.

“It was that gig that spurred us on to do this full-time.”

It’s only been about 18 months since they decided to take the plunge and focus fully on the band but they go back much further.

First meeting at school in Hampshire, the trio used to skip classes to practise instead.

“We have been singing for years and years for fun because we adore singing with each other,” says Holly-Anne.

“It’s our version of shopping or getting our nails done.”

They hope that legacy of friendship will be the secret to going the distance in this year’s competition.

“We have each other, we are best mates, we’re each other’s therapists.”

Remember Monday also marks the first time since a girl group has represented the UK in more than 25 years and podcast host Rob thinks this might give them an edge too.

“It’s going to be really exciting to follow their journey all the way through to Switzerland.

“I don’t know if Remember Monday are going to win Eurovision, there are so many different things there at play – but I think we’ve got a good chance,” he says.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

St Patrick’s Day is associated with its fair share of traditions, from wearing a sprig of shamrock, to attending a church service, to sipping one (or several) pints of stout.

For politicians from the island of Ireland, there’s one other annual tradition – a visit to Washington DC.

Every March, dozens of people including politicians, businesspeople, and lobbyists from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland descend on the capital of the United States.

This year, a number of Northern Ireland politicians are refusing to make the trip over Donald Trump’s policies.

But what is the point of the events in the week running up to St Patrick’s Day? And if they didn’t happen, would anyone back home notice any difference?

Two of the main things that governments in Dublin and Belfast – as well as businesses – want to see come out of the trips, are US investment and strong trading relationships.

Two men who have been to Washington several times as part of St Patrick’s Day events say there is no doubt the trips deliver results.

Steve Aiken took part in St Patrick’s Day trips as the chief executive of the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce, and later as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.

The Stormont assembly member said it was impossible to build relationships and to improve business and political ties without meeting face to face.

“It is all about the ability to talk to people you do not normally get the chance to talk to,” he said.

“As we learned during Covid, doing business over Zoom is not really doing business.

“You need to be in a room to do it, and if you want to influence you have to be there to talk the talk; you cannot do it from 3,500 miles away.”

Aiken said that contrary to what the perception might be, it was not “a holiday”.

“You need to be over your brief and able to talk authoritatively and you need to have the answers to those questions – and you will be asked lots of questions and you will have a lot thrown at you,” he said.

Former Sinn Féin politician Máirtín Ó Muilleoir knows about both the benefits of being in the room and the disappointment of missing out.

The publisher of the Irish Echo attended the White House twice in that role, but did not travel to Washington during his time as Northern Ireland’s finance minister, after the Stormont Executive collapsed two months before the 2017 festivities.

He said the mood in the United States in the run-up to St Patrick’s Day made it the ideal time for Irish politicians and businesses to make their pitch.

“You think of the biggest companies in the US, they will all have promotions linked to St Patrick’s Day,” he said.

“You will go to a city in the US where there will be adverts everywhere.

“That means they are already doing some of the work for you.”

He said he believed there would be a major financial services announcement for Belfast in the coming days.

One of the eye-catching parts of the St Patrick’s Day schedule in Washington is when the taoiseach (Irish prime minister) hands over a bowl of shamrock to the US president in the Oval Office.

It is a tradition that dates back to 1952 and was part of a move by the Irish ambassador at the time to improve relations between the two countries after they had soured over Ireland’s neutrality in World War Two.

The tradition has continued and is an opportunity for the leader of a country as small as the Republic of Ireland to meet the US president face to face.

Apart from helping to develop a positive relationship between the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the United States, it is slightly harder to pin down direct outcomes from the yearly visits – after all, there is a lot more to the relationship than just St Patrick’s Day.

In the 1990s, in particular, the visits were seen as important in the process that eventually led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which largely ended the worst of three decades of violence known as the Troubles.

In 1995, the then Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams attended the White House – a year after President Bill Clinton intervened to grant him a US visa – a move opposed by the UK government.

Five years later, and two years after the 1998 Belfast Agreement, Adams posed for photos at the White House with President Clinton and then UUP leader David Trimble – a reflection of how times had changed.

Both Aiken and Ó Muilleoir say the visits are key for investment and US jobs in Northern Ireland.

In 2024 there were 285 US firms in Northern Ireland employing 31,915 people – up from 140 firms and 21,270 employees in 2010.

But Esmond Birnie, senior economist at Ulster University, said a direct link could not be drawn.

“It is impossible to quantify whether these political visits actually lead to investment or sales, so you cannot really prove it one way or another,” he said.

“On balance, the benefits are likely to be smaller than the fundamentals of training, skills, innovation and productivity and so forth.”

Dr Birnie said factors such as Northern Ireland’s location in both the UK and the European single market, relatively low labour costs and relatively low-level and unobtrusive regulations by continental European standards all made US companies keen to invest.

There was once a time when Irish-Americans were prominent at the top of US politics, with figures such as Senator Teddy Kennedy and House of Representatives Speaker Tip O’Neill promoting Irish interests in the corridors of power.

This was partly the result of years of high levels of emigration from Ireland to the US – the 1930 US census recorded 923,600 residents who were born on the island of Ireland.

By the turn of the century that had fallen to 169,600.

The end of the Troubles also meant fewer headlines about Northern Ireland.

“One of the problems every politician or influencer from the island of Ireland has – north or south – is to keep people interested in what is going on,” Aiken said.

“With everything else going on in the world, we are quite far down the list.”

Ó Muilleoir, however, said Ireland still had a privileged position in the US.

“I once met the consul of Switzerland in Manhattan and I was bemoaning the sense we did not have as much influence in New York anymore,” he said

“He said he had walked from Wall Street to Central Park and every block he saw an Irish flag – but he did not see any Swiss flags.”

Sinn Féin is boycotting events this year over President Donald Trump’s stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict, meaning Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill, the party’s deputy leader, will not be present.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party also said it would not attend if invited, and the Alliance Party is taking a similar stance.

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, of the Democratic Unionist Party, has said she will go to Washington DC, saying it was important to “maintain long and rewarding” relationships with the US.

Ó Muilleoir said politicians had to weigh up the pros and cons.

“This is probably the most difficult time to be in the White House on St Patrick’s,” he said.

“We are not the only people with moral dilemmas; it is for everybody to make their own choice.”

The remains of an indigenous woman murdered by a serial killer have been found after a search of a landfill in the Canadian province of Manitoba, police say.

Morgan Harris’ remains were recovered at the Prairie Green Landfill, north of the city of Winnipeg, said officials. Authorities had been searching for Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, both of Long Plain First Nation. Police say two sets of remains have been found.

Harris and Myran were among four indigenous women killed in 2022 by convicted murderer Jeremy Skibicki, who dumped their bodies in two different landfills over a three-month span.

The search of the Prairie Green Landfill began late last year following a lengthy pressure campaign by indigenous leaders.

Cambria Harris, Morgan’s daughter, said in a Facebook post on Friday that the discovery of her mother’s remains was a “very bittersweet moment”.

“Please keep our families in your hearts tonight and every day going forward as we trust this process,” the post said.

Police initially declined to search the landfill, and a federal government study concluded that a search could take three years and cost up to C$184m (£100m; $128m), with workers exposed to hazardous chemicals.

Manitoba eventually pledged C$20m to search for the remains – funds that were matched by the federal government.

Skibicki was convicted in July last year of the murders of Harris and Myran, as well as of killing a third woman, Rebecca Contois, 24, of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, and a still-unidentified woman who has been given the name Buffalo Woman.

Their murders went undetected for months until a man looking for scrap metal in a bin outside Skibicki’s apartment found partial human remains, identified as belonging to Ms Contois.

Canada has long faced a crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. According to the RCMP, indigenous women make up 10% of the population of missing women in Canada and 16% of female homicides. Indigenous women make up about 4% of the female population in Canada.

The Trump administration is immediately pulling $400m (£310m) of federal funding from Columbia University, saying it failed to fight antisemitism on campus.

A statement by four federal agencies said the funding cut was due to “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students”.

The New York college was the epicentre of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses last year against war in Gaza and US support for Israel.

Earlier this week, President Trump had threatened to pull funding from schools and universities that allow “illegal protests”.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in Friday’s statement that Jewish students on campus who had been the victims of “relentless violence, intimidation, and antisemitic harassment on their campuses” were “ignored” by university authorities.

“Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer,” she said.

A spokesman for Columbia told the BBC that the university is reviewing the announcement, and pledged to work with the government to restore its federal funding.

“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combating antisemitism and ensuring the safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff,” she said.

Columbia is one of the most prestigious universities in the US and has about 30,000 students. Its famous Morningside Heights campus is on the west side of Manhattan.

Last year, the Ivy League university saw some of the largest and most tense campus demonstrations in the US as students protested against Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

The Israeli military launched its campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack into Israel on 7 October 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage.

Some 48,440 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A ceasefire deal was reached in January, but looks increasingly fragile after the first phase expired recently.

A campus-wide email sent out by Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong on Friday described a “time of great risk to our university”, according to the New York Times.

“There is no question that the cancellation of these funds will immediately impact research and other critical functions of the University, impacting students, faculty, staff, research, and patient care,” she wrote.

In the 2024 fiscal year, federal funding accounted for $1.3bn of the university’s annual operating revenue, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator student newspaper.

The decision to pull aid from Columbia was criticised by New York Civil Liberties Union director Donna Lieberman, who called it an illegal move “to coerce colleges and universities into censoring student speech and advocacy that isn’t Maga-approved, like criticising Israel or supporting Palestinian rights”.

Last April, the pro-Palestinian protesters took over a building on campus known as Hamilton Hall, renaming it ‘Hind’s Hall’ – in honour of a five-year-old girl, Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in January 2024.

The protests led to the resignation of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik in August, making her the third president of an Ivy League university to step down over their handling of Gaza war protests.

One student member of a Jewish campus group told the Associated Press news agency that he welcomed the move to punish Columbia.

Brian Cohen said he hoped it would be “a wake-up call to Columbia’s administration and trustees to take antisemitism and the harassment of Jewish students and faculty seriously”.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators continued protesting at Columbia recently.

On Friday, the university confirmed that four students were arrested for a “disruption” on Wednesday at Barnard College – a separate institution affiliated to Columbia – adding they had been “suspended and restricted from campus”.

US President Donald Trump called a meeting of his cabinet secretaries on Thursday to discuss Elon Musk and his efforts to slash government spending and personnel numbers.

It turned heated, according to media reports.

Musk accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio of failing to cut enough staff at the state department, reports the New York Times.

The tech mogul told Rubio he was “good on TV”, according to the newspaper, pointedly skipping any praise of his work as America’s top diplomat.

The billionaire also clashed with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy over whether Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) task force had tried to lay off air traffic controllers who were already in short supply in the Federal Aviation Administration, according to the New York Times.

Duffy’s department has been under scrutiny after two US airline crashes since Trump took office in January.

After listening to the back-and-forth, the Republican president reportedly intervened to make clear he still supported Doge, but from now on cabinet secretaries would be in charge and the Musk team would only advise.

A state department spokeswoman told the newspaper Rubio felt the cabinet meeting was an “open and productive discussion”. The White House has not responded to BBC requests for further comment.

The hastily planned gathering could provide evidence that the president has decided to curtail the sweeping power the SpaceX and Tesla boss and his Doge cost-cutting initiative have commanded in the early weeks of his administration.

Trump first commented on the substance of Thursday’s meeting, which was disclosed only in after-the-fact media reports, through a post that evening on his social media site, Truth Social.

He said that he had instructed his secretaries to work with Doge on “cost-cutting measures”.

“As the secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go,” he wrote, adding that they should use a “scalpel” not a “hatchet”.

Just a few weeks ago, Musk wielded a shiny chainsaw at a conservative conference – a visible symbol of aggressive attempts to slash government spending that have angered Democrats and concerned some officials in the Trump administration.

Musk’s team had sent multiple emails from an official government account to millions of federal workers, encouraging them to accept months of advance pay in exchange for their resignations.

Federal workers were instructed to provide accounts of their weekly accomplishments or risk firing – a request some agencies instructed their employees to ignore.

Doge also ordered the dismissal of many newly hired government employees who, because of their “probationary” status, did not have full civil service protections.

Some government agencies have since rescinded these orders because employees deemed essential, such as those who oversee nuclear weapon security, had been affected.

• Four big things Trump and his team took on this week
• What does the Department of Education do – and can Trump dismantle it?
• Trump team hits pause on tariffs – but still sees them as vital tool

During an Oval Office event on Friday, Trump responded to questions about the cabinet meeting – and reports of its heated exchanges. He insisted there was “no clash”. He praised both Rubio and Musk and said the two got along “great”.

Trump’s Thursday Truth Social post, however, appears to give department heads more authority to push back against Musk.

It also may be an attempt to insulate the Trump administration from lawsuits that allege Musk is wielding too much power for someone who, unlike cabinet secretaries, is not subject to Senate review and confirmation.

Several federal judges overseeing these cases have already expressed concern about Musk’s authority – concerns that may be further fuelled by Trump’s comments during his address to Congress on Tuesday that the billionaire was, in fact, the man in charge of Doge.

Musk and Trump have formed a formidable partnership so far – as the richest man in the world and the most powerful politician in America. Washington has been rife with speculation for months about whether that partnership could ultimately fracture.

Those predictions, however, have usually been followed by renewed signs of comity between the two men.

On Friday night, Musk was seen boarding Air Force One with the president for a flight to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida for the weekend.

The cabinet room dust-up may be the first crack in the foundation – but there is plenty of evidence that Trump still supports Musk’s broader efforts and goals, even if he might prefer he use a scalpel in the days ahead, not a chainsaw.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second presidential term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Not long after the US imposed their tariffs on Canada, a local neighbourhood pub in Toronto began removing all American products off their menu.

That means nachos, wings – and of course, beer – must all to be made now with local Canadian ingredients, or wherever not possible, non-US products from Europe or Mexico.

For Leah Russell, manager at Toronto’s Madison Avenue pub, the boycott was a no-brainer. She adds that it is “pretty set in stone,” even if the tariffs themselves are not.

“I’m glad that we’re getting rid of American products and supporting local businesses,” Ms Russell told the BBC on Thursday. “I think it’s an important thing to do.”

This defiant stance in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats against Canada has been unfolding across the northern country.

Just ask actor Jeff Douglas, once the face of Molson Canadian Beer’s “I Am Canadian” advertisements, who has filmed and posted a light-hearted, but deeply-patriotic video on Youtube this week addressing Trump’s “51st state” rhetoric.

“We’re not the 51st anything,” declares Mr Douglas in the video, which has since gone viral in Canada.

Some of the backlash has been more symbolic, like one Montreal café changing the Americano on their menu to a “Canadiano” – a small gesture that the owners say is meant to display unity and support for their community and country.

Even the CBC, the country’s public broadcaster, is feeling the full force of this wave of patriotism, after it dared run a programme asking Canadians what they think about Canada becoming “the 51st state”, as Trump has suggested many times.

The show sparked intense backlash and accusations of “treason,” “sedition” and even “betrayal”.

Although Trump has since lifted some of the tariffs imposed this week and put others on pause until 2 April, many Canadians say the damage has already been done.

After Thursday’s reversal, foreign minister Melanie Joly told CNN that Canada has been shown “too much disrespect by the Trump administration at this point, calling us a 51st state, calling our prime minister ‘governor.'”

Meanwhile, Doug Ford, who is the leader of Canada’s most populous province, did not back down from his plan to slap export tariffs on electricity that Canada supplies some US states. The 25% surcharge will affect up to 1.5 million American homes.

“I feel terrible for the American people because it’s not the American people, and it’s not even elected officials, it’s one person,” he told a local radio show on Thursday in reference to Trump.

“He’s coming after his closest friends, closest allies in the world and it’s going to absolutely devastate both economies,” Ford said.

Canadians support their country’s reciprocal actions, saying they should remain in place until US tariffs are completely off the table.

“You go to bed every night and don’t have any idea where you stand,” said Andrew, a shopper at a Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) store in Toronto, which has stopped stocking US-made alcoholic drinks. Trump says he will delay the tariffs, “but what does that mean?” he asks.

“Let’s keep [American-made drinks] off the shelves until we know what things are going to be from day to day.”

The tariffs have been met with deep anxiety in Canada, whose majority of exports are sold to companies and clients in the US. Officials predict up to a million job losses if a 25% across the board levy went ahead, while economists warn that a recession is imminent if they persist.

The potential impact is devastating enough that the Canadian government has announced it will bring in relief measures, similar to those implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, to help impacted individuals and businesses.

Even with the tariffs being scaled back temporarily, the uncertainty alone is hurting both American and Canadian economies, says Rob Gillezeau, an assistant professor of economic analysis and policy at the University of Toronto.

“The most sensitive thing to uncertainty is business investment,” Prof Gillezeau says, adding that firms are “not going to want to spend a dime anywhere” until they have some clarity.

Analysts suggest the mere whiff of a trade war is likely costing Canadian companies hundreds of thousands of dollars as they try to navigate through these changes, and are likely delaying deals and disrupting trade due to the confusion.

That trepidation is also seen in the stock market, which had erased virtually all its gains since Trump won the presidency in November.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that tariffs are a response to Mexico and Canada’s role in the fentanyl crisis, which has killed over 250,000 American since 2018.

While only a small portion of the drug originates from Canada, press secretary Karen Leavitt said that even those numbers are significant for “families in this country who have lost loved ones to this deadly poison”.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has condemned the tariffs, suggesting they align with Trump’s stated desire to see Canada become “the 51st state.”

“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” Trudeau told media in Ottawa Thursday.

Prof Gillezeau notes that it is an especially deep wound from a neighbour whom Canada had long considered its closest friend and ally.

The US and Canada have fought wars together, have boasted about having the longest “undefended” shared border in the world and have even engaged in joint security missions in the Arctic to defend each other’s sovereignty.

“We’ve been allies for 100 years,” he says, adding that many Canadians are likely upset not just with how the US has been treating Canada, but also other allies like Ukraine.

“We’re a decent, honourable people, and we stand by our allies,” Prof Gillezeau says. “I think that’s what is driving the real depth of the discontent we see.”

The Canadian boycotts are already having material impact. Canadian outlet Global News has reported that leisure travel bookings to the US have plunged 40% year over year, citing data from Flight Centre Canada. That decline has also been observed in land border crossings between British Columbia and Washington State.

Before the tariffs, the US was the number one international travel destination for Canadians, who have spent $20.5bn (£15.89bn) into the American tourism economy in 2024 alone.

Asked if this trend will hold, Prof Gillezeau says Canadians ideally want relations to go back to normal with their neighbour. But in absence of that, the consensus in the country is that “Canada needs to find friends elsewhere”.

Leading EU nations have said they support an Arab-backed plan for the reconstruction of Gaza that would cost $53 billion (£41 billion) and avoid displacing Palestinians from the territory.

The plan, drawn up by Egypt and endorsed by Arab leaders, has been rejected by Israel and by US President Donald Trump, who presented his own vision to turn the Gaza Strip into a “Middle East Riviera”.

On Saturday the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Britain welcomed the plan, which calls for Gaza to be rebuilt over five years, as “realistic”.

In a statement, they said the proposal promised “swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions” for the people of Gaza.

The plan calls for Gaza to be governed temporarily by a committee of independent experts and for international peacekeepers to be deployed to the territory.

The committee would be responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid and temporarily managing Gaza’s affairs under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority.

The proposal is an alternative to Trump’s idea for the US to take over Gaza and resettle its population.

It was welcomed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas after it was presented by Egypt at an emergency Arab League summit on Tuesday.

But both the White House and Israeli foreign ministry said it failed to address realities in Gaza.

“Residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance,” Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for Trump’s National Security Council, said late on Tuesday.

“President Trump stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas,” the statement added.

The statement issued by the four European countries on Saturday said they were “committed to working with the Arab initiative” and they appreciated the “important signal” the Arab states had sent by developing it.

The statement said Hamas “must neither govern Gaza nor be a threat to Israel any more” and that the four countries “support the central role for the Palestinian Authority and the implementation of its reform agenda”.

The proposal was drawn up amid growing concern that Gaza’s fragile ceasefire deal could collapse after the six-week first phase expired on 1 March.

Israel has blocked aid from entering the territory to pressure Hamas to accept a new US proposal for a temporary extension of the truce, during which more hostages held in Gaza would be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has insisted the second phase should begin as agreed, leading to an end of the war and a full Israeli troop withdrawal.

Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have had to leave their homes since the start of hostilities. Israel began military operations after Hamas’s October 2023 attack which killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 more taken hostage.

Gaza has suffered vast destruction with a huge humanitarian impact. More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and much infrastructure across the strip has been levelled by air strikes.

Three suspects are still at large after 12 people were injured in a shooting at a pub in Toronto, police in the Canadian city say.

The shooting took place at 22:39 on Friday local time (03:39 GMT Saturday) near Scarborough city centre in eastern Toronto.

Authorities said six people suffered bullet wounds and others were hurt by flying or broken glass. The injuries were not life-threatening, they said.

Toronto police said the three men had entered the pub and “opened fire indiscriminately”. They had been armed with an assault rifle and handguns.

A motive “right now remains unclear and we’re chasing down all leads”, said Police Supt Paul MacIntyre.

“This was a brazen and reckless act of violence that’s really shaken our community and the city itself,” he added.

Police said they were deploying all available resources to find the suspects.

Earlier, they said that one suspect, wearing a black balaclava, had been seen fleeing the scene in a silver car.

The victims ranged in age from 20s to mid-50, according to police.

“I’m happy to report, by the grace of God, that there have been no fatalities,” Supt MacIntyre said, which he called “extremely lucky.”

He said he and other officers were “horrified” by video of the shooting.

“These guys just looked at the crowd and opened fire. It was horrible.”

Glass walls were shattered and there was “blood all over the floor”, including in the basement, where some people ran to hide before police arrived, he said.

Mayor Olivia Chow wrote on X that she was “deeply troubled to hear reports of a shooting at a pub in Scarborough.”

“This is an early and ongoing investigation – police will provide further details. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”

The number of those injured in this incident is high compared to other shootings in the area in 2024.

Last year, eight people were injured and two killed in shootings and firearm discharges in the police division where Friday’s incident occurred, the department’s data shows.

In Toronto, which has a three million population, 43 people were killed in shootings last year.

Canada has a lower rate of firearm homicides than its neighbour the US, with 0.6 per 100,000 people compared to 4.5 per 100,000, according to 2021 data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Australian authorities say a body has been found in floodwaters and 13 military workers injured in a vehicle crash as wild weather from a tropical storm lashes the country’s eastern coast.

Cyclone Alfred, which was downgraded to a tropical low on Saturday, made landfall near the Queensland capital city of Brisbane in the evening local time.

Officials have warned residents to stay indoors and remain vigilant, saying the storm’s threat is “not over”.

Winds have brought down trees and power lines and flooded low-lying roads. More than 300,000 properties are without power in the region.

Police said on Saturday they had discovered a body in the search for a 61-year-old man who went missing on Friday after his car was caught in floodwaters in Dorrigo, northern New South Wales (NSW).

Emergency responders witnessed the man escaping his car and climbing onto a tree near the riverbank, but rescuers were not able to reach him before he was swept away.

Police found a body in the area on Saturday and said it “is believed to be that of the missing man”.

In a separate incident on Saturday, 13 military personnel were injured in a convoy crash in Lismore, about 200km south of Brisbane, according to Federal Defence Personnel Minister Matt Keogh.

One truck overturned while driving on a narrow road. A second truck then collided with it.

The state’s ambulance service had earlier said it treated 36 people in the accident. Keogh clarified to media that while around 36 people were involved, only 13 were injured.

They had been part of military crews deployed to Lismore, near the Queensland border, to help rescue and response operations.

“Our ADF [Australian Defence Force] heroes were on their way to help Australians in need,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement noting some had been “seriously” injured.

Albanese earlier on Saturday had addressed the nation from the capital Canberra, saying millions of residents were “well-prepared” but “we must remain vigilant.”

Four million people across Queensland and northern New South Wales were bracing for the storm’s landfall with dozens of weather warnings in place across both areas.

Around 287,000 customers are experiencing outages in south east Queensland, according to energy provider Energex, while Essential Energy said more than 42,600 homes and businesses in New South Wales had experienced blackouts.

People in Brisbane, Queensland’s capital, went to bed on Friday bracing for strong winds and heavy rain.

They woke up on Saturday to learn that the cyclone had been downgraded and the city would escape the worst of the weather.

But the danger’s not over in other parts of southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales.

Along the Gold Coast, pummelled by bad weather the past few days, conditions have been very strong with driving rain and strong winds.

Hundreds of trees have been blown over in gardens, parks and along the main roads. There has been lots of debris and emergency services had sectioned off areas most at risk.

“This emergency is not over,” said New South Wales state premier Chris Minns, adding that it was “crucially important” the public did not “dismiss” the storm.

“It really doesn’t matter to us whether it’s been downgraded from a tropical cyclone to a weather event,” he said.

The state’s emergency service operations commander, Stuart Fisher, warned people not to be “complacent” and said authorities in the region expect flooding to continue over the next few days.

As the storm has edged closer to landfall, nearly 1,000 schools have closed, public transport has been suspended and airports are shut. Elective surgeries have also been cancelled.

Flights are not expected to resume until Sunday at the earliest.

The BBC spoke to several people from Brisbane’s homeless community, who took refuge at Emmanuel City Mission, which had become a round-the-clock shelter.

At the Treasure Island Holiday Park in the Gold Coast, just north of Surfer’s Paradise, a gum tree had come down between two cabins, damaging a third. Nearby, a boat was half submerged in one of the canals a block away from the beach.

On the coast itself, many paths down to the beach are now unpassable. Instead, there’s a sudden drop to the ocean where the powerful waves have eaten away at the sand.

But the clean-up operation won’t happen for a few days – the wind is still powerful and there’s driving rain.

Residents are starting to venture out to look at the damage, but plenty are remaining indoors to keep themselves safe.

More than 80 Afghan women who fled the Taliban to pursue higher education in Oman now face imminent deportation back to Afghanistan, following the Trump administration’s sweeping freeze on foreign aid programmes.

Funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), their scholarships were abruptly terminated after a funding freeze ordered by President Donald Trump when he returned to office in January.

“It was heart-breaking,” one student told the BBC, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals. “Everyone was shocked and crying. We’ve been told we will be sent back within two weeks.”

Since regaining power nearly four years ago, the Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on women, including banning them from universities.

The Trump administration’s aid freeze has faced legal roadblocks, but thousands of humanitarian programmes around the world have been terminated or thrown into jeopardy as the White House seeks to cut billions in government spending.

The students in Oman say preparations are already under way to return them to Afghanistan, and have appealed to the international community to “intervene urgently”.

The BBC has seen emails sent to the 82 students informing them that their scholarships have been “discontinued” due to the termination of the programme and USAID funding.

The emails – which acknowledge the news will be “profoundly disappointing and unsettling” – refer to travel arrangements back to Afghanistan, which caused alarm among the students.

“We need immediate protection, financial assistance and resettlement opportunities to a safe country where we can continue our education,” one told the BBC.

The USAID website’s media contact page remains offline. The BBC has contacted the US State Department for comment.

The Afghan women, now facing a forced return from Oman, had been pursuing graduate and post-graduate courses under the Women’s Scholarship Endowment (WSE), a USAID programme which began in 2018.

It provided scholarships for Afghan women to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), the disciplines banned for women by the Taliban.

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Just over a week ago, the students were told their scholarships had been terminated.

“It’s like everything has been taken away from me,” another student told the BBC. “It was the worst moment. I’m under extreme stress right now.”

These women, mostly aged in their 20s, qualified for scholarships in 2021 before the Taliban seized Afghanistan. Many continued their studies in Afghan universities until December 2022, when the Taliban banned higher education for women.

After 18 months in limbo, they said they fled to Pakistan last September.

USAID then facilitated their visas to Oman, where they arrived between October and November 2024.

“If we are sent back, we will face severe consequences. It would mean losing all our dreams,” a student said. “We won’t be able to study and our families might force us to get married. Many of us could also be at personal risk due to our past affiliations and activism.”

The Taliban has cracked down on women protesting for education and work, with many activists beaten, detained and threatened.

Women in Afghanistan describe themselves as “dead bodies moving around” under the regime’s brutal policies.

The Taliban government says it has been trying to resolve the issue of women’s education, but has also defended its supreme leader’s diktats, saying they are “in accordance with Islamic Sharia law”.

“Afghanistan is experiencing gender apartheid, with women systematically excluded from basic rights, including education,” a student said.

She and her friends in Oman had managed to escape that fate, as the scholarships were supposed to fund their education until 2028.

“When we came here, our sponsors told us to not go back to Afghanistan till 2028 for vacations or to visit our families because it’s not safe for us. And now they’re telling us to go,” a student said.

Last month, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly blamed the situation for Afghan women on the US military’s withdrawal from the country under the Democrats, telling the Washington Post: “Afghan women are suffering because Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal allowed the Taliban to impose mediaeval Sharia law policies.”

The decision to slash American aid funding has come under the Trump administration, and been implemented by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

And these women face a grim future, urgently seeking a lifeline before time runs out.

Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman died of natural causes about a week after his wife Betsy Arakawa, who died after contracting a rare virus, a New Mexico medical investigator has said.

Hackman, 95, died at his Santa Fe home from coronary artery disease, with advanced Alzheimer’s disease a contributing factor.

Ms Arakawa, 65, died in the same house from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a respiratory illness caused by exposure to infected rodents. Her cause of death was listed as natural.

Authorities believe she passed away about seven days before her husband, to whom she had been married for more than 30 years. During his career, Hackman won two Academy Awards for The French Connection and Unforgiven.

It is likely that Ms Arakawa died first on 11 February, Dr Heather Jarrell of the New Mexico Medical Investigator’s Office told a news conference on Friday.

She said it was “reasonable to conclude” that Hackman had died on 18 February.

Ms Arakawa’s last known movements and correspondence were on 11 February, when she was seen going to a grocery store, a CVS pharmacy and a pet store, before returning home in the early evening.

Given that Hackman was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease it is “quite possible that he was not aware that she [his wife] was deceased”, said Dr Jarrell.

She told reporters she was “not aware of his normal daily functioning capability”.

• Gene Hackman loved acting but ‘hated everything that went with it’

Hackman had “significant heart disease, and ultimately that’s what resulted in his death”, Dr Jarrell said, adding that he had had chronic high blood pressure.

He had not eaten anything recently, but had shown no indications of dehydration, she added.

At the news conference, New Mexico Public Health Veterinarian Erin Phipps emphasised that hantavirus infections were extremely rare.

HPS is transmitted through contact with rodent droppings, urine or saliva, often when contaminated dust is inhaled.

She noted that 136 cases had been reported in the state over the past 50 years, with 42% resulting in fatalities.

Dr Phipps said evidence of rodent activity had been found in some buildings on the property, though the risk inside the main house was considered “low”.

Investigators are trying to determine how Ms Arakawa contracted the illness. Hackman tested negative for hantavirus.

The couple were found in their home after neighbourhood security conducted a welfare check and saw their bodies on the ground through the window.

The remains were discovered in advanced stages of decomposition.

Hackman’s body was in a sideroom next to the kitchen, with a walking cane and a pair of sunglasses nearby, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Ms Arakawa’s body was in the bathroom, with scattered pills close to her.

Sheriff’s deputies found medication for thyroid and blood pressure treatment, along with pain reliever Tylenol, according to a court-filed inventory.

Citing privacy laws, authorities did not disclose who had been prescribed the drugs.

One of the couple’s three dogs was also found dead inside a crate near Ms Arakawa, while the other two dogs were alive.

The cause of death for the dog is yet to be determined, officials say. Dr Phipps told reporters that dogs did not get sick from hantavirus.

Initial investigations found no signs of forced entry or foul play at the couple’s $3.8m (£3m) home. Tests for carbon monoxide poisoning were negative, and no significant gas leaks were detected.

Hackman is survived by three adult children from his previous marriage.

Hackman met Ms Arakawa when she was working part-time at a California gym in the mid-1980s, the New York Times has previously reported.

He won best actor Oscar for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1971 thriller The French Connection, and another for best supporting actor for playing Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Western film Unforgiven in 1992.

A relative latecomer to Hollywood, Hackman saw his breakthrough come in his thirties, when he was nominated for an Oscar for portraying Buck Barrow in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde – opposite Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway – and again for I Never Sang for My Father in 1970.

Both films saw him recognised in the supporting actor category. He was also nominated for best leading actor in 1988 for playing an FBI agent in Mississippi Burning.

He played more than 100 roles during his career, including supervillain Lex Luthor in the Christopher Reeve-starring Superman movies in the 1970s and 1980s.

Hackman featured opposite many other Hollywood heavyweights including Al Pacino in 1973’s Scarecrow and Gene Wilder in 1974’s Young Frankenstein.

His last big-screen appearance came as Monroe Cole in Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, after which he stepped back from Hollywood for a quieter life in New Mexico.

“Trump may be the best thing to happen to Starmer,” says a diplomat, suggesting the brash property tycoon busy upending the world order might be just what the strait-laced prime minister – who’s been dragging in the polls – needs.

One of Labour’s business backers calls it “the PM’s finest hour” – a Remainer leader putting Britain at the heart of international action as Trump rattles the Western world’s cage.

Sir Keir Starmer has certainly been incredibly visible – in the White House, leading a European summit at Lancaster House last weekend, hugging Zelensky, plotting a peacekeeping path with Macron.

It’s hard for the Conservatives and other opponents to compete with the prime minister’s international moves dominating the news.

Moments of crisis like the one we’re living through are often when the public tunes into politics and looks to their leaders. With a shaky global situation, does No 10 look more solid than before?

Some of his colleagues are certain. One government source tells me all the international activity is “almost Blair-esque”, or even a moment like Thatcher and the Falklands which enabled the 80s Conservative prime minister to burnish her reputation and win successive election victories.

Another minister suggests other leaders “get their knickers in a twist” publicly reacting to Trump’s unpredictable comments and actions – “but Keir has spent his whole career dealing with extreme circumstances. What he is able to do is get people to focus on the things that really matter.”

But impressive-looking diplomacy doesn’t mean the UK is getting what it wants – missiles are still falling, overnight again in Donetsk and Kharkhiv. Donald Trump’s commitment to guaranteeing Ukraine’s security, even NATO’s future, is shaky too.

So let’s take a calm look. Polling suggests there has been a nudge upwards for Sir Keir’s personal ratings and for Labour, after a dreadful start in office and a steep, fast drop in the polls.

His government would not be the first to be swept away by the intensity and glamour of global diplomacy which, however difficult or worthy, doesn’t necessarily translate into significant brownie points at home.

Perhaps in these wild times, we’re seeing the prime minister carve out a role as “reassurer in chief”. In political circles it’s long been common to find criticisms of Sir Keir Starmer for, frankly, being a bit dull, and not willing to play the minute-by-minute political game. But with Trump in the White House stoking drama the PM’s colleagues believe his steadiness has become an asset.

And he’s shown willingness to take action – increasing defence spending, albeit after months of pressure, getting European leaders together and drawing up military plans for after a peace deal. A senior government source says: “The global crisis means people looking at us again, and the government has been making an argument that people are responding to: that we have got their backs.”

But aligning yourself with an American president doesn’t always work out. Tony Blair’s chinos weren’t the only thing that became uncomfortable about his relationship with George W Bush.

So while there’s evidence the public are looking at Sir Keir a touch more favourably since his White House trip, as one union leader warns, “for it to count he has to show the same mojo at home”.

Take the row over sentencing this week. Or forthcoming arguments over cutting welfare, which ministers have been falling over themselves to soften the ground for.

But overshadowing everything, priority number one: the grisly state of the economy and getting it to grow.

In around a fortnight Rachel Reeves will be on her feet in Parliament, probably announcing cuts to public spending running to billions. Government sources point to some better statistics on wages, and cuts to interest rates, but Reeves is under enormous pressure to explain how the economy is going to escape the doldrums it has been stuck in for ages.

All the Kodak moments, and grip and grins with international leaders in the world won’t change that. The PM “can walk and talk at the same” time, one ally says. But there are, they acknowledge, “only so many hours in the day”.

Helping Ukraine against Putin’s Russia has a clear moral story the prime minister finds easy to tell, and compelling to try to shape. In contrast, “how do you bring prosperity to the regions? That’s a real puzzle.”

In the next few days, starting with the PM’s right-hand man Pat McFadden in the studio tomorrow, you will see the government try to kick up the pace of what is happening at home. First up – perhaps not a box-office hit – they’ll be looking at making the Whitehall machine work better, including making it easier to get rid of civil servants.

Ministers tell me Downing Street is being run more effectively than before Christmas and has a clearer sense of direction, after early embarrassment over being far less prepared than promised.

Sir Keir chairs regular meetings with individual cabinet ministers in charge of the government’s “missions”. I’m told he “cross-examines” them and their officials – and if their answers aren’t up to snuff, they get called in for another meeting. “He is a very nice man, but he is a hard man too,” one of them confides.

As well as slimming down parts of the civil service, there’ll be more on the government’s plans to cut billions off the welfare bill. Labour will argue it’s for good reason, to help people stuck on benefits – while critics will say it’s a way for the government to save money off the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in the country.

On Thursday, the prime minister is expected to make his own speech in an attempt to weave it all together into a grand narrative about safety abroad and at home. One government source said the last few weeks had galvanised Sir Keir’s thinking on this: when things are uncertain on the international stage, “everything feels a bit wobbly” and domestic security is amplified: you look around and feel your job isn’t secure, your street isn’t safe.

This thinking has been a long time coming. “Security” was a word and concept used by Reeves and Sir Keir in opposition – but recently he’s been making a more ideological argument than those close to him are used to hearing.

As well as making the case that what happens around the world is inextricably linked to what happens at home, he holds that the old international consensus among Western leaders has failed for millions of voters.

That argument was crystallised into a long memo he sent to his cabinet ministers and political team in the middle of February. In it he wrote: “The government’s challenge was to shape this new era. Not to defend institutions that are broken or old ideas that have failed, but to be the voice of working people who more than anything want security in their lives, and a country that is on the up again.”

He wrote that politicians were wrong to think markets had solutions for almost everything. “We were cowed by the market – we came to act as if it always knew best and the state should sit it out.”

He also said governments had failed on immigration, failed to understand the public’s concerns and also – to tell the truth. “We ended up treating all immigration as an untrammelled good. Somehow, politics ended up being too scared to say what is obvious – that some people are genuine refugees and some aren’t; that people coming here to work can be a positive, but that an island nation needs to control its borders.”

Some extracts from the letter have been revealed before. But what is notable, reading the whole document, is the prime minister closes his letter to colleagues with a call to provide “security” for the country, alongside renewing public services. He writes: “Now is our moment to be bigger and bolder – to put pedal on metal on wholescale reform and change our politics and our country. Security and renewal are our twin tasks – we must now deliver them.”

You’ll hear more of that argument from ministers in the coming days – we had a glimpse of it in the studio last Sunday morning too.

The profound uncertainty Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House has given the prime minister a moment to step into the spotlight on the world stage.

And his government is now much more overtly weaving an argument that working to establish security round the world is fundamentally connected to sorting out security at home.

There is a reason why, fresh from all the diplomatic handshakes, Sir Keir was back in the more familiar hi-vis and hard hat announcing defence jobs in Belfast.

No 10 wants you to see and believe that crisis abroad can mean opportunity at home. This spasm in global security has given a prime minister sometimes accused of being a blank page a clearer story to tell.

But in the end, for any prime minister, it is what happens on home turf, not foreign adventures that matter the most. A sceptical public will take a lot of convincing to believe government can improve their situation – make it easier to manage the bills, buy a house, or for their kids to find a decent job.

As as a senior figure in the Labour movement concludes, “he likes the statesman role but the bottom line is, change in people’s lives will be the decider.”

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All his adult life, Colonel Soren Knudsen stepped forward when his country called. And when its allies did.

He fought alongside US troops, notably in Afghanistan, and for a time was Denmark’s most senior officer there. He counted 58 rocket attacks during his duty.

“I was awarded a Bronze Star Medal by the United States and they gave me the Stars and Stripes. They have been hanging on my wall in our house ever since and I have proudly shown them to everybody.”

Then something changed.

“After JD Vance’s statement on Greenland, the president’s disrespect for internationally acknowledged borders, I took the Stars and Stripes down and the medal has been put away,” Soren says, his voice breaking a little.

This week before Congress, the US president doubled down on his desire to seize the world’s biggest island: Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

“My first feeling was that it hurts, and the second is that I’m offended,” Col Knudsen laments.

I meet him in the first weeks of his retirement outside Denmark’s 18th Century royal residence, Amalienborg Palace in the heart of Copenhagen.

Abruptly, pipers strike up and soldiers stream by.

Today’s Changing of the Guard comes at a time when the Trump administration has not just tweaked but defenestrated most assumptions around US-European security that have held fast for 80 years.

“It’s about values and when those values are axed by what we thought was an ally, it gets very tough to watch.” Soren says with his American wife Gina at his side.

“Denmark freely and without question joined those efforts where my husband served,” she says.

“So it comes as a shock to hear threats from a country that I also love and to feel that alliance is being trampled on. This feels personal, not like some abstract foreign policy tactic.”

Soren has not given up all hope though.

“It’s my hope and my prayer that I will one day be able to put [the flag] back on the wall,” he confides.

There’s no sign his prayers will be answered soon.

Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, goes to the polls next week with all the main parties backing independence at some point in the future.

A takeover by Donald Trump – potentially by force – is not on the ballot paper.

Not far from the royal palace stands Denmark’s memorial to its soldiers lost in recent battle.

Carved on the stone-covered walls are the names of those killed alongside their Western allies.

The section honouring the fallen in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan is particularly sizeable.

Denmark lost 44 soldiers in Afghanistan, which as a proportion of its less than six million population, was more than any other ally apart from the US. In Iraq, eight Danish soldiers died.

This is why the president’s words sting so much.

One man very well placed to consider what Trump’s ambitions for Greenland actually amount to is Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

“President Trump’s declaration of intention to maybe take Greenland by force is very similar to President Putin’s rhetoric when it comes to Ukraine,” he tells the BBC.

The former prime minister of Denmark and ex-secretary general of the Nato alliance argues this is the moment Denmark and the rest of Europe must step up to better protect itself if the US is not willing to.

“Since my childhood, I have admired the United States and their role as the world’s policeman. And I think we need a policeman to ensure international law and order but if the United States does not want to execute that role, then Europe must be able to defend itself, to stand on its own feet.”

Fogh Rasmussen doesn’t though believe the policeman is about to turn felon.

“I would like to stress I don’t think at the end of the day that the Americans will take Greenland by force.”

President Trump first talked about a Greenland takeover in his first term of office before returning to the theme at the start of this year.

But now, after blindsiding supposed allies with his latest moves on Ukraine, tariffs, as well as the Middle East, Denmark is urgently trying the assess the true threat.

For many younger Danes, control of Greenland is plain wrong – an unfathomable colonial hangover.

It doesn’t mean they want it handed straight over the US instead.

“We do have connections to Greenland,” says music student Molly. “Denmark and Greenland are quite separated I would say but I still have friends from there so this does affect me quite personally.”

“I find it really scary,” says 18-year-old music student Luukas.

“Everything he sees, he goes after. And the thing with the oil and money, he doesn’t care about the climate, he doesn’t care about anyone or anything.”

His friend Clara chips in that Trump is now so powerful he can “affect their day-to-day life” from thousands of miles away, in what is an era of unprecedented jeopardy.

In light of President Trump’s suspension of military aid for Ukraine and his deep reluctance to fund Europe’s security, Denmark has been at the heart of the drive to boost defence spending across the continent.

The country has just announced it will allocate more than 3% of its GDP to defence spending in 2025 and 2026 to protect against future aggression from Russia or elsewhere.

Meanwhile, security analyst Hans Tino Hansen stands in front of a huge screen in what he calls his “ops room”, at his Copenhagen headquarters.

“This map is where we update on a daily basis our threat picture based on alerts and incidents all over the world,” says Hans, who has been running Risk Intelligence for the past 25 years.

As part of Denmark’s increased defence spending, it’s bolstering its strength in the “High North” with an extra two billion euros announced in January and three new Arctic naval vessels and investment in long-range drones.

Hans believes Arctic security can be tightened further, not by an American takeover – but with new deals that restore US influence.

“If you make more agreements, both on defence and security, but also economic ones and on raw materials, then we are more or less going back to where we were in the 50s and 60s.”

But the story stretches further back than the mid-20th Century.

“If you look at this globe, Greenland is the most centrally located place on Earth,” says world-renowned geologist Prof Minik Rosing, gesticulating in his wood-panelled office.

The serenity of his room reflects the temperament of a man who grew up in a settlement of just “seven or eight people” in the Nuuk fjord of the island.

But a key reason his homeland is now coming under increasing scrutiny from outsiders is the rich mineral deposits beneath the Arctic ice.

We’ve seen how Ukraine’s natural resources have caught President Trump’s eye in much the same way.

“All these minerals that they talk about like rare metals, rare earth elements – they are actually not rare. What is rare is the use of them,” he reasons.

Prof Rosing says the vastness of Greenland and the lack of infrastructure are just two elements why the island may not be the cashpoint some Americans are hoping for.

“They are a minuscule part of the mining industry and the economy of extracting them is very uncertain, whereas the investment to start extracting is very high. The risk of the investment is too high relative to the potential gain.”

The current Greenlandic government says there will be a vote on independence at some point following next week’s election.

Although surely unintentional, President Trump’s designs on the island have shone a light on a desire found among the Inuit to finally break free from 300 years of Danish control.

But Prof Rosing believes, despite all the latent mineral wealth, his fellow Greenlanders are in no hurry to forego the annual block grant of the equivalent of £480m (€570m) it receives from Copenhagen.

This accounts for easily more than half of the island’s public budget.

“People talk about health services, schools, the next outboard engine they want on their boat and what is the price of gas and all of these things that normal people do,” he says.

“It’s not like they stand up with a big knife, wave it in the air and shout independence, independence.”

In terms of Trump’s apparent obsession with taking Greenland, Fogh Rasmussen fears there may be a troubling conclusion to be drawn.

One that would render the Danes unable to do business with a man whose view on territorial integrity is so wildly incompatible from theirs.

“I understand very well the American strategic interest in the minerals, but when it comes to mining in Greenland, they have shown no interest,” he says.

“That leaves me with the concern that maybe it’s not about security, maybe it’s not about minerals, maybe it is just a question of expanding the territory of the United States.

“And that’s actually a point where we are not able to accommodate President Trump.”

US President Donald Trump has said he is “strongly considering large-scale sanctions” and tariffs on Russia until a ceasefire and peace deal with Ukraine is reached.

Trump said he was contemplating the move because “Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now”.

Trump’s comments marked a sharp change in tone. Since coming into office, he has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and blamed Ukraine’s leader for not wanting peace with Russia.

Hours later, however, the US president told reporters he was “finding it more difficult to deal with Ukraine”, and repeated that he trusted Putin.

Last Friday, Trump berated Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. Days earlier, he had even called him a dictator and blamed Ukraine for starting the war which began on 24 February 2022 when Putin launched a full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country.

The public dressing-down was followed this week by Trump pausing all US military aid and intelligence-sharing with Kyiv.

It is not clear if this enabled Russia’s large-scale missile and drone attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Thursday night.

On Friday morning, Trump issued his threat of sanctions tariffs against Russia – apparently over the attack.

“They [Russia] are bombing the hell out of them [Ukraine] right now… and I put a statement out, a very strong statement ‘can’t do that, can’t do that’,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday.

Asked if that was a result of the US pause in military co-operation with Ukraine, Trump said Putin was doing “what anyone else would do”.

And he justified the US move by saying: “I want to know they [Ukraine] want to settle and I don’t know they want to settle.”

In Friday’s post, Trump wrote: “I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED. To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late.”

He did not provide any details as to how such sanctions and tariffs against Russia may work.

Moscow is already under the heaviest Western sanctions in its history, many of which target its oil exports and foreign currency reserves.

It has been able to get around them to a large extent by selling discounted oil to India and China, while importing many of the goods it previously got from the West through countries like Kazakhstan.

China is reported to be helping to sustain Russia’s war effort with large volumes of dual-use technology, which it denies.

The White House administration cannot have failed to notice the chorus of criticism that all the pressure for a peace deal is being piled on just Ukraine, not Russia. So it is possible that Trump’s threat is an attempt to present itself as being more even-handed.

The problem is, we simply do not know what was discussed and what was agreed in that “lengthy and highly productive” 90-minute phone call that Donald Trump suddenly announced he had held last month with the Russian president.

So far, Vladimir Putin has played a clever hand, sitting back and doubtless enjoying watching the transatlantic alliance come apart at the seams.

Compared to that gain, the threat of US tariffs is unlikely to bother him unduly.