Mark Carney has won the race to succeed Justin Trudeau as Canada’s next prime minister, vowing to win the trade war against US President Donald Trump as he takes charge of the country at a time of deep instability.

The former governor of the Canadian and UK central banks beat three rivals in the Liberal Party’s leadership contest in a landslide.

In much of his victory speech, Carney, 59, attacked Trump, who has imposed tariffs on Canada and said he wants to make the country the 51st US state. “Americans should make no mistake,” he said. “In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”

Carney is expected to be sworn in as PM in the coming days and will lead the Liberals in the next general election, which is expected to be called in the coming weeks.

Carney, now prime minister-designate, has never served in elected office.

The Liberal leadership race began in January after Trudeau resigned following nearly a decade in office. He had faced internal pressure to quit over deep unpopularity with voters, who were frustrated with a housing crisis and the rising cost of living.

Carney won on the first ballot on Sunday evening, taking 85.9% of the vote to beat his nearest rival, former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Loud cheers erupted as the results were announced to a crowd of some 1,600 party faithful in Ottawa, Canada’s capital.

The party said more than 150,000 people had cast ballots in the race.

• How Britain’s former top banker became Canada’s new PM
• Carney talks tough on Trump threat – but can he reset relations?
• Bourbon is out, patriotism is in – How Canadians are facing Trump threats

Carney, who will lead a minority government in parliament, could either call a snap general election himself or opposition parties could force one with a no-confidence vote later this month.

The governing Liberals have seen a remarkable political turnaround since Trudeau’s exit, as Canadians have been galvanised by Donald Trump’s trade threats and support for annexing their country

At the beginning of the year, they trailed the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, by more than 20 points in election polls.

They have since narrowed the gap and some polls show them statistically tied with Poilievre’s party.

Much of Carney’s speech focused on what he called Trump’s “unjustified tariffs” on Canada, America’s largest trading partner.

The US imposed levies of 25% on Canadian goods last Tuesday, but rowed back within days to exempt goods compliant with an existing trade agreement.

Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs of its own as Trudeau accused his US counterpart of trying to collapse the country’s economy.

Carney echoed that in his victory speech, saying Trump was “attacking Canadian workers, families, and businesses”.

“We can’t let him succeed,” he added, as the crowd booed loudly.

He said his government would keep tariffs on US imports “until the Americans show us respect”.

Canada’s economy depends significantly on trade with the US and risks tipping into recession if the sweeping tariffs threatened by Trump are fully imposed.

“I know these are dark days,” Carney said. “Dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust.

“We’re getting over the shock, but let us never forget the lessons: we have to look after ourselves and we have to look out for each other. We need to pull together in the tough days ahead.”

Carney also pledged to “secure our borders” – a key demand of Trump who has accused Canada of failing to control the flow of migrants and fentanyl going south.

The US president even got a mention in Carney’s attacks on his main opponent, Conservative leader Poilievre.

“Pierre Poilievre’s plan will leave us divided and ready to be conquered,” said Carney.

“Because a person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him.”

Shortly before Carney took to the stage, Trudeau gave an emotional farewell speech, reflecting on his 12 years as Liberal leader.

He warned that Canada was facing an “existential challenge” from the US under Trump.

The Conservatives have had to pivot politically since Trudeau’s resignation, and are attacking Carney as not representing change but rather being “just like Justin”.

They accuse the Liberals of a “sneaky” plan to win a fourth term by simply substituting their leader.

Poilievre’s party has also accused Carney of lying about his role in moving investment firm Brookfield Asset Management’s head office from Toronto to New York.

Carney said the formal decision by shareholders to relocate the firm was made after he quit the board at the start of this year but a letter emerged showing he had recommended the move in December.

Federal Public Safety Minister David McGuinty, who endorsed Carney, told the BBC that he “embodies the kind of quiet determination, but steely determination and competence to deal with some of these big issues”.

“I’m really, really excited for what’s coming. And frankly, it’s time for an election.”

The Liberals will face Poilievre’s Conservatives, who are the official opposition with 120 seats in the House of Commons; the Bloc Quebecois, who have 33 seats; and the New Democrats, who have 24, when Canadians next go to the polls.

The former central banker has run on a broadly centrist agenda, a shift from Trudeau, who moved the Liberals to the left.

A major promise is to push forward major energy projects like pipelines, which have faced political roadblocks in recent years.

He has promised major investments in housing and clean energy projects, and to liberalise trade within Canada, where barriers remain between provinces, as well as diversifying the economy away from the US.

During the leadership race, Carney promised to cap the size of the federal government, which expanded 40% under Trudeau.

Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has been barred from participating in May’s presidential election rerun by the country’s Central Electoral Bureau (BEC), triggering clashes between his supporters and police.

Last year, Romania’s constitutional court annulled November’s first round of the vote – in which he came first – after intelligence revealed Russia had been involved in 800 TikTok accounts backing him.

The BEC rejected his candidacy on Sunday, saying it “doesn’t meet the conditions of legality”, as he “violated the very obligation to defend democracy”.

Georgescu called that decision a “direct blow” to democracy. He now has 24 hours from Sunday’s verdict to submit an official appeal to the top court, which should issue a ruling within 72 hours.

In a social media post, Georgescu called the ban a “direct blow to the heart of democracy worldwide”.

Tear gas was fired at supporters of the presidential hopeful as violence broke out between them and police while they gathered in their thousands outside the offices of the BEC in the capital Bucharest.

The BBC saw at least one car turned over, and the windows of neighbouring bars smashed. At least four people were detained.

While many protesters left the scene, several hundred people remained and continued to fight with riot police, who brought in reinforcements and attempted to cordon off the area.

On 26 February, Georgescu was arrested on his way to register as a candidate in the summer election, prompting tens of thousands of Romanians to march on Bucharest’s streets in protest.

He was charged with attempting to overthrow constitutional order and membership of a neo-fascist organisation. He has denied all wrongdoing.

The 62-year-old independent came from nowhere to win the first round of last year’s election, the results of which were annulled just days before the second round of voting.

One key to his sudden popularity was his promise to “restore Romania’s dignity” and end subservience to the international organisations it belongs to, including Nato and the EU.

Before last year’s annulment, the pro-Russian politician told the BBC he would end all support for Ukraine if he was elected.

Georgescu has also seen some support from the Trump administration.

Last month, US Vice-President JD Vance accused Romania of annulling the elections based on the “flimsy suspicions” of Romanian intelligence and pressure from its neighbours.

Meanwhile, Romanian Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu accused Elon Musk of a “form of interference” in Romania’s elections, after the billionaire posted several messages of support for Georgescu.

Syria’s interim leader has appealed for unity, as violence and revenge killings continued in areas loyal to ousted former leader Bashar al-Assad on Sunday.

Hundreds of people have reportedly fled their homes in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus – strongholds of Assad support.

Local residents have described scenes of looting and mass killings, including of children.

In Hai Al Kusour, a predominantly Alawite neighbourhood in the coastal city of Banias, residents say the streets are filled with scattered bodies, piled up and covered in blood. Men of different ages were shot dead there, witnesses said.

The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam and makes up around 10% of Syria’s population, which is majority Sunni Muslim. Assad belongs to the sect.

People were too scared to even look out of their windows on Friday. The internet connection is unstable, but when connected they learned of their neighbours’ deaths from Facebook posts.

One man, Ayman Fares, told the BBC he was saved by his recent imprisonment. He had posted a video on his Facebook account in August 2023 criticising Assad for his corrupt rule. He was arrested soon after, and only released when Islamist-led forces freed prisoners after Assad’s fall last December.

• UN urges Syria to act – follow updates
• Syria leader calls for peace after hundreds of civilians killed

The fighters who raided the streets of Hai Al Kusour recognised him, so he was spared death but not the looting. They took his cars and continued to raid other houses.

“They were strangers, I can’t identify their identity or language, but they seemed to be Uzbek or Chechen,” Mr Fares told me by phone.

“There were also some Syrians with them but not from the official security. Some civilians also were among those who carried out the killing,” he added.

Mr Fares said he saw families killed in their own homes, and women and children covered in blood. Some families ran to their rooftops to hide but were not spared the bloodshed. “It is horrific,” he said.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented more than 740 civilians killed in the coastal cities of Latakia, Jableh and Banias. A further 300 members of the security forces and remnants of the Assad regime are reported to have died in clashes.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the death toll.

Mr Fares said things stabilised when the Syrian army and security forces arrived in the city of Banias. They pushed other factions out of the city and provided corridors for families to access safe areas, he said.

Ali, another resident of Banias who asked us not to use his full name, corroborated Mr Fares’ account. Ali, who lived in Kusour with his wife and 14-year-old daughter, fled his home with the assistance of security forces.

“They came to our building. We were too scared just listening to the fire and screams of people in the neighbourhood. We learned about the deaths from sporadic Facebook posts when we managed to connect. But when they came to our building, we thought we are done,” he said.

“They were after money. They knocked on our neighbour’s door taking his car, his money and all the gold or valuables he had in his home. But he was not killed.”

Ali and his family were picked up by his Sunni neighbours, who follow a different branch of Islam, and are now staying with them. “We lived together for years, Alawites, Sunnis and Christians. We never experienced this,” he told me.

“The Sunnis rushed to protect Alawites from the killing that happened and now the official forces are in town to restore order.”

Ali said families were taken to a school in a neighbourhood that is predominantly Sunni, where they will be protected until members of the factions that carried out the killings are ousted from Banias.

The violence started on Thursday after Assad loyalists – who refused to give up arms – ambushed security forces around the coastal cities of Latakia and Jableh, killing dozens of them.

Ghiath Dallah, an ex-brigadier general in Assad’s army, has announced a new rebellion against the current government, saying he was establishing the “Military Council for the Liberation of Syria”.

Some reports suggest that former security officers of the Assad regime who refused to give up arms are forming a resistance group in the mountains.

Mr Fares said most of the Alawite community reject them and blame Dallah and other hardline Assad loyalists for the violence.

“They benefit from the bloodshed that’s happening. What we need now is official security to prevail and to prosecute the killers from the factions who did the mass killing so the country restores safety,” he said.

But others also blame interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, saying he dismantled Syria’s security, army and police establishments with no clear strategy for dealing with thousands of officers and personnel left unemployed.

Some of these individuals, especially among the police, had nothing to do with the killing during Assad’s regime. The new authorities also dismissed thousands of public employees from their work.

With 90% of Syria’s population living below the poverty line and thousands left without an income, it’s fertile ground for a rebellion.

There is a split in views in Syria over what is happening. The wider community condemns the killing of any civilians and demonstrations have been organised in Damascus to mourn the deaths and condemn the violence.

But over the past two days, there were also calls for “Jihad” in different parts of Syria. Residents in Banias said that along with the factions, there were some civilians who were armed and joined forces in the killing.

Syria’s majority Sunnis have faced atrocities at the hands of the Assad regime’s forces over the past 13 years. This fuelled sectarian hatred mainly towards the Alawite minority, where members of the community are affiliated with war crimes.

According to human rights groups, there is evidence that Alawite security officers were involved in the killing and torture of thousands of Syrians, the majority of which are Sunni Muslims, during the Assad regime.

Those members of the army and security forces who were killed are mostly from the Sunni community and now some in the Sunni community are calling for retaliation, but the president has called for calm.

Sharaa, whose Islamist forces toppled Assad three months ago, must now balance providing safety for all with pursuing justice for the crimes of the Assad regime and its henchmen.

While he has authority over some of the troops who helped him to power, some factions are clearly out of his control. Those factions also include foreign fighters with a radical Islamist agenda.

To lead Syria into a safe and democratic future, many argue Sharaa needs to end the presence of any foreign fighters and deliver a constitution that protects the rights of all Syrians, regardless of their background or religion.

While he is seen to be working towards the legal framework for such a constitution, controlling the violent factions and expelling foreign fighters will prove a major challenge.

Mark Carney’s thumping victory in the race to succeed Justin Trudeau makes him not only leader of the Liberal Party but, by default, the next Canadian prime minister.

It’s an extraordinary result for a man with very little political experience. He has never been elected as an MP, let alone served in a cabinet post.

What Carney does have though – as Governor of the Bank of Canada during the global financial crisis and Governor of the Bank of England during the Brexit negotiations – is a long track record in global finance during times of economic turbulence.

And at a moment like this, Carney has been arguing, that could prove invaluable.

Politics in this country has been turned on its head as a result of what’s happening south of the border, with US President Donald Trump launching a trade war and threatening to make Canada the 51st state of America.

Addressing a crowd of Liberal supporters after the result of the leadership contest was announced on Sunday evening, Carney promised to face down the threats from Trump, over the tariffs and the claims on Canada’s sovereignty.

“Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form,” he said. “We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.

“Americans should make no mistake”, he warned. “In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”

He repeatedly referred to the US president by name and said his government would keep retaliatory tariffs in place until “America shows us respect”.

How he will translate his strong language on the stage in Ottawa into practical solutions to those twin challenges was, however, far less clear.

Liberals might hope that Trudeau’s exit from the stage will, in itself, help clear the air.

Instead of the frequent mocking of Trudeau by Trump as a “weak” leader, they might dare to believe that Carney will at least be able to reset the personal chemistry.

On the other hand, if he has to push hard in an attempt to win concessions, will he also risk incurring the wrath of a man who uses unpredictability as a political art form?

Much of that will depend on how serious the US president is in his insistence that he wants to impose real economic pain on Canada and annex its territory.

And that’s a hard question to answer.

• Carney wins race to succeed Trudeau as Canada’s PM
• How Britain’s former top banker came to lead Canada

After Carney had accepted the party’s nomination, I caught up with former Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, who served for a decade from 1993 and who’d taken to the stage earlier in the evening.

Did he think Mr Trump was being serious?

“You know, I don’t know,” he told me. “Do you know? Does anyone know? I’m not a medical doctor or a psychiatrist. He changes his mind every two or three hours. So [for him] to be leader of the free world, it is preoccupying for everybody.”

While the US threat is dominating Canadian politics – Carney described the current situation as “dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust” – there are still domestic political matters to focus on too, not least the prospect of a general election.

Once sworn in as prime minister in the coming days, Carney will have to decide whether to call a snap election. If he doesn’t, the opposition parties in Parliament could force one later this month through a no-confidence vote.

Before Trudeau said he was stepping down, the Liberal Party was facing electoral oblivion.

After nine years in power, he’d become a liability and a lightning rod for public anger over the rising cost of living despite record levels of government spending and a ballooning national debt.

The stage appeared to be set for the Liberals to be swept from power by a Conservative Party under the stewardship of the young, populist leader Pierre Poilievre, who had turned lambasting Trudeau into something of a sport.

Now, not only has he lost the advantage of a deeply unpopular opponent, his political style is at risk of appearing out of step. In the current environment, even a loose alignment with the politics of Trump is a potential liability with Canadian voters.

The Republican president, for his part, recently said Canada’s Conservative leader was not Maga enough.

The Liberal Party is suddenly feeling a sense of rejuvenation – the gap in the opinion polls with the Conservatives, once a gulf, has narrowed dramatically. And you could feel that palpable sense of optimism in the room on Sunday evening.

Aware of the danger, Poilievre accused Liberals of “trying to trick Canadians” to elect them to a fourth term. But his statement also highlighted how Trump is changing the political messaging on this side of the border.

“It is the same Liberal team that drove up taxes, housing costs, and food prices, while Carney personally profited from moving billions of dollars and thousands of jobs out of Canada to the United States,” Poilievre wrote.

“We need a new Conservative government that will put Canada First – for a change.”

Donald Trump’s election has led Canada to rally to round its flag and has propelled a former central bank governor – an archetypal member of the country’s political elite – to the highest office in the land.

The Conservatives may still lead in the polls, but for the first time in a long time, the Liberals believe that, under Carney, they have a fighting chance again.

Syria’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has vowed to hold anyone involved in harming civilians accountable after days of clashes where Syrian security forces allegedly killed hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority.

A UK-based monitor said 830 civilians were killed in “massacres” targeting Alawites on the west coast on Friday and Saturday.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the death toll of the violence, which is believed to be the worst since the fall of the Assad regime.

In a speech broadcast on national TV and posted on social media, Sharaa, whose rebel movement toppled Bashar al-Assad in December, also promised to hunt down Assad loyalists.

• UN urges Syria to act – follow updates
• Syrians describe terror as Alawite families killed in their homes

The fighting has also killed 231 members of the security forces and 250 pro-Assad fighters, according to the monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), taking the overall death toll to 1,311.

“Today, as we stand at this critical moment, we find ourselves facing a new danger – attempts by remnants of the former regime and their foreign backers to incite new strife and drag our country into a civil war, aiming to divide it and destroy its unity and stability,” the interim president said on Sunday.

“We affirm that we will hold accountable, firmly and without leniency, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians or harming our people, who overstepped the powers of the state or exploits authority to achieve his own ends,” Sharaa added in the video speech, posted by state news agency Sana.

“No-one will be above the law and anyone whose hands are stained with the blood of Syrians will face justice sooner rather than later.”

Earlier on Sunday, he announced on Telegram that an “independent committee” had been formed to “investigate the violations against civilians and identify those responsible for them”.

He also appealed for national unity but did not comment directly on accusations that atrocities were being committed by his supporters in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartous.

“God willing, we will be able to live together in this country,” he said in an separate address from a Damascus mosque.

A Syrian security source said the pace of fighting had slowed around the cities of Latakia, Jabla and Baniyas on Sunday, according to Reuters.

The violence of recent days has been sparked after ambushes on government forces on Thursday.

A Syrian defence ministry spokesman described it to the Sana state news agency as “treacherous attacks” against security personnel.

It has since escalated into a wave of clashes between Assad loyalists and government forces.

Hundreds of Syrians gathered in Damascus to protest against the deadly violence in the country. Demonstrators congregated in Marjeh Square – also known as Martyrs’ Square – with placards on Sunday.

Amid the fighting, hundreds of civilians living along the Mediterranean coast have fled their homes. The provinces of Latakia and Tartous were former heartlands of deposed president Bashar al-Assad, who also belongs to the Alawite minority.

Alawites, whose sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam, make up around 10% of Syria’s population, which is majority Sunni Muslim.

The violence has left the Alawite community in “a state of horror”, an activist in Latakia told the BBC on Friday.

Large crowds sought refuge at a Russian military base at Hmeimim in Latakia, according to the Reuters news agency.

Video footage shared by Reuters showed dozens of people chanting “people want Russian protection” outside the base.

Meanwhile, local media reported dozens of families had also fled to neighbouring Lebanon.

The UN’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said he was “deeply alarmed” by “very troubling reports of civilian casualties” in Syria’s coastal areas.

He called on all sides to refrain from actions which could “destabilise” the country and jeopardise a “credible and inclusive political transition”.

Similarly, the UN human rights chief Volker Türk called the reports “extremely disturbing”, adding the need for “prompt, transparent and impartial investigations” into all the violations.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, described the killings of Alawites in Latakia and Tartous as “systematic” and “extremely dangerous”, and accused Syria’s interim government of failing to control the crisis.

“It was expected that after the fall of the Assad government, Syria would face a difficult transition,” Amani said. “But the scale of violence now unfolding is unprecedented and deeply troubling.”

Iran’s government was aligned with Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, which was toppled last December. Assad was ousted after decades of repressive and brutal rule by his family and an almost 14-year-long civil war.

Hackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime have successfully cashed out at least $300m (£232m) of their record-breaking $1.5bn crypto heist.

The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, swiped the huge haul of digital tokens in a hack on crypto exchange ByBit two weeks ago.

Since then, it’s been a cat-and-mouse game to track and block the hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable cash.

Experts say the infamous hacking team is working nearly 24 hours a day – potentially funnelling the money into the regime’s military development.

“Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they’re doing,” says Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic.

Out of all the criminal actors involved in crypto currency, North Korea is the best at laundering crypto, Dr Robinson says.

“I imagine they have an entire room of people doing this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see from their activity that they only take a few hours break each day, possibly working in shifts to get the crypto turned into cash.”

Elliptic’s analysis tallies with ByBit, which says that 20% of the funds have now “gone dark”, meaning it is unlikely to ever be recovered.

The US and allies accuse the North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacks in recent years to fund the regime’s military and nuclear development.

On 21 February the criminals hacked one of ByBit’s suppliers to secretly alter the digital wallet address that 401,000 Ethereum crypto coins were being sent to.

ByBit thought it was transferring the funds to its own digital wallet, but instead sent it all to the hackers.

Ben Zhou, the CEO of ByBit, assured customers that none of their funds had been taken.

The firm has since replenished the stolen coins with loans from investors, but is in Zhou’s words “waging war on Lazarus”.

ByBit’s Lazarus Bounty programme is encouraging members of the public to trace the stolen funds and get them frozen where possible.

All crypto transactions are displayed on a public blockchain, so it’s possible to track the money as it’s moved around by the Lazarus Group.

If the hackers try to use a mainstream crypto service to attempt to turn the coins into normal money like dollars, the crypto coins can be frozen by the company if they think they are linked to crime.

So far 20 people have shared more than $4m in rewards for successfully identifying $40m of the stolen money and alerting crypto firms to block transfers.

But experts are downbeat about the chances of the rest of the funds being recoverable, given the North Korean expertise in hacking and laundering the money.

“North Korea is a very closed system and closed economy so they created a successful industry for hacking and laundering and they don’t care about the negative impression of cyber crime,” Dr Dorit Dor from cyber security company Check Point said.

Another problem is that not all crypto companies are as willing to help as others.

Crypto exchange eXch is being accused by ByBit and others of not stopping the criminals cashing out.

More than $90m has been successfully funnelled through this exchange.

But over email the elusive owner of eXch – Johann Roberts – disputed that.

He admits they didn’t initially stop the funds, as his company is in a long-running dispute with ByBit, and he says his team wasn’t sure the coins were definitely from the hack.

He says he is now co-operating, but argues that mainstream companies that identify crypto customers are abandoning the private and anonymous benefits of crypto currency.

North Korea has never admitted being behind the Lazarus Group, but is thought to be the only country in the world using its hacking powers for financial gain.

Previously the Lazarus Group hackers targeted banks, but have in the last five years specialised in attacking cryptocurrency companies.

The industry is less well protected with fewer mechanisms in place to stop them laundering the funds.

Recent hacks linked to North Korea include:

• The 2019 hack on UpBit for $41m
• The $275m theft of crypto from exchange KuCoin (most of the funds were recovered)
• The 2022 Ronin Bridge attack which saw hackers make off with $600m in crypto
• Approximately $100m in crypto was stolen in an attack on Atomic Wallet in 2023

In 2020, the US added North Koreans accused of being part of the Lazarus Group to its Cyber Most Wanted list. But the chances of the individuals ever being arrested are extremely slim unless they leave their country.

US President Donald Trump has refused to say whether the US economy is facing a recession or price rises in the wake of his administration’s flip-flopping on tariff threats against some of its closest trading partners.

Asked if he was expecting a recession this year, Trump said there was a “period of transition” taking place.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, however, insisted there would be no contraction in the world’s largest economy, while acknowledging that the price of some goods may rise.

It comes after a volatile week for US financial markets as investors grappled with uncertainty from his administration’s U-turn on some key parts of its aggressive trade policies.

New tit-for-tat tariffs from China, which target some US farm products, came into effect on Monday.

Speaking to Fox News in an interview broadcast on Sunday but recorded on Thursday, Trump responded to a question about a recession: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing.”

“It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us,” Trump added.

Last week, the US imposed new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada but then exempted many of those goods just two days later.

Trump also doubled a blanket tariff on goods from China to 20%. In response, Beijing announced retaliatory taxes on some imports of agricultural goods from the US.

From today, certain US farm products going into China – including chicken, beef, pork, wheat, and soybeans – face new tariffs of 10 to 15%.

The US president has accused China, Mexico and Canada of not doing enough to end the flow of illegal drugs and migrants into the US. The three countries have rejected the accusations.

Stocks on Wall Street have fallen since Trump sparked a trade war with the US’s top trading partners.

Investors fear tariffs will lead to higher prices and ultimately dent growth in the world’s largest economy.

Speaking on NBC on Sunday, Lutnick said: “Foreign goods may get a little more expensive. But American goods are going to get cheaper”.

But when asked whether the US economy could face a recession Lutnick added: “Absolutely not… There’s going to be no recession in America.”

Former US Commerce Department official, Frank Lavin, told the BBC that he thinks the trade war is unlikely to escalate out of control.

Tariffs will eventually “fade a bit” but still be an “extra burden on the US economy,” he said.

A shorter winter has literally left Nitin Goel out in the cold.

For 50 years, his family’s clothing business in India’s northwestern textile city of Ludhiana has made jackets, sweaters and sweatshirts. But with the early onset of summer this year, the company is staring at a washout season and having to shift gears.

“We’ve had to start making t-shirts instead of sweaters as the winter is getting shorter with each passing year. Our sales have halved in the last five years and are down a further 10% during this season,” Goel told the BBC. “The only recent exception to this was Covid, when temperatures dropped significantly.”

Across India as cool weather beats a hasty retreat, anxieties are building up at farms and factories, with cropping patterns and business plans getting upended.

Data from the Indian Meteorological Department shows that last month was India’s hottest February in 125 years. The weekly average minimum temperature was also above normal by 1-3C in many parts of the country.

Above-normal maximum temperatures and heatwaves are likely to persist over most parts of the country between March and May, the weather agency has warned.

For small business owners like Goel, such erratic weather has meant much more than just slowing sales. His whole business model, practised and perfected over decades, has had to change.

Goel’s company supplies clothes to multi-brand outlets across India. And they are no longer paying him on delivery, he says, instead adopting a “sale or return” model where consignments not sold are returned to the company, entirely transferring the risk to the manufacturer.

He has also had to offer bigger discounts and incentives to his clients this year.

“Big retailers haven’t picked up goods despite confirmed orders,” says Goel, adding that some small businesses in his town have had to shut shop as a result.

Nearly 1,200 miles away in Devgad town on India’s western coast, the heat has wreaked havoc on India’s much-loved Alphonso mango orchards.

“Production this year would be only around 30% of the normal yield,” said Vidyadhar Joshi, a farmer who owns 1,500 trees.

The sweet, fleshy and richly aromatic Alphonso is a prized export from the region, but yields across the districts of Raigad, Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri, where the variety is predominantly grown, are lower, according to Joshi.

“We might make losses this year,” Joshi adds, because he has had to spend more than usual on irrigation and fertilisers in a bid to salvage the crop.

According to him, many other farmers in the area were even sending labourers, who come from Nepal to work in the orchards, back home because there wasn’t enough to do.

Scorching heat is also threatening winter staples such as wheat, chickpea and rapeseed.

While the country’s agriculture minister has dismissed concerns about poor yields and predicted that India will have a bumper wheat harvest this year, independent experts are less hopeful.

Heatwaves in 2022 lowered yields by 15-25% and “similar trends could follow this year”, says Abhishek Jain of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (Ceew) think tank.

India – the world’s second largest wheat producer – will have to rely on expensive imports in the event of such disruptions. And its protracted ban on exports, announced in 2022, may continue for even longer.

Economists are also worried about the impact of rising temperatures on availability of water for agriculture.

Reservoir levels in northern India have already dropped to 28% of capacity, down from 37% last year, according to Ceew. This could affect fruit and vegetable yields and the dairy sector, which has already experienced a decline in milk production of up to 15% in some parts of the country.

“These things have the potential to push inflation up and reverse the 4% target that the central bank has been talking about,” says Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist with Bank of Baroda.

Food prices in India have recently begun to soften after remaining high for several months, leading to rate cuts after a prolonged pause.

GDP in Asia’s third largest economy has also been supported by accelerating rural consumption recently after hitting a seven-quarter low last year. Any setback to this farm-led recovery could affect overall growth, at a time when urban households have been cutting back and private investment hasn’t picked up.

Think tanks like Ceew say a range of urgent measures to mitigate the impact of recurrent heatwaves needs to be thought through, including better weather forecasting infrastructure, agriculture insurance and evolving cropping calendars with climate models to reduce risks and improve yields.

As a primarily agrarian country, India is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Ceew estimates three out of every four Indian districts are “extreme event hotspots” and 40% exhibit what is called “a swapping trend” – which means traditionally flood-prone areas are witnessing more frequent and intense droughts and vice-versa.

The country is expected to lose about 5.8% of daily working hours due to heat stress by 2030, according to one estimate. Climate Transparency, the advocacy group, had pegged India’s potential income loss across services, manufacturing, agriculture and construction sectors from labour capacity reduction due to extreme heat at $159bn in 2021- or 5.4% of its GDP.

Without urgent action, India risks a future where heatwaves threaten both lives and economic stability.

Israel ordered all of Gaza’s electricity supply to be cut off on Sunday in an effort to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining Israeli hostages held in the territory.

Energy minister Eli Cohen’s announcement came a week after Israel cut off all aid supplies to the territory, which has a population of more than two million people.

In a video statement on Sunday, Cohen said: “We will use all the tools at our disposal to bring back the hostages and ensure that Hamas is no longer in Gaza the day after [the war].”

The decision to cut electricity is expected to primarily affect the operation of desalination plants which are crucial for providing clean drinking water.

The government said it has not ruled out cutting off water supplies.

In his statement, Cohen said: “I have just signed the order to stop supplying electricity immediately to the Gaza Strip.”

Israel cut off most of the mains electricity supply to Gaza earlier in the war.

Talks to prolong the fragile ceasefire, the first phase of which ended on 1 March, are expected to resume in Qatar on Monday.

Israel wants Hamas to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire.

But Hamas wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s second phase, which would see the release of the remaining hostages from Gaza, withdrawal of Israeli forces and a permanent end to war.

Hamas is believed to be holding 24 living hostages as well as the bodies of 35 others.

The militant group – which has warned that cutting off supplies to Gaza would affect the hostages as well – said on Sunday that it had wrapped up the latest round of ceasefire talks with Egyptian mediators without changes to its position and called for an immediate start of the ceasefire’s second phase.

Gaza’s coastal territory and its infrastructure have been largely devastated by the war, and generators and solar panels are used for some of the power supply.

Israel has faced criticism over cutting off supplies to Gaza.

“Any denial of the entry of the necessities of life for civilians may amount to collective punishment,” the United Nations human rights office said on Friday.

Hamas has reiterated its support for a proposal for the establishment of an independent committee of technocrats to run Gaza until Palestinians hold presidential and legislative elections.

That committee would work under the umbrella of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is based in the occupied West Bank.

Israel has rejected the PA having any role in Gaza but has not put forward an alternative for post-war rule.

Hamas’s attack in October 2023 killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, inside Israel and saw 251 people taken hostage. Most have been released in ceasefire agreements or other arrangements.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain without power in Australia after a cyclone brought wild weather to the east coast.

Communities in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales (NSW) were beginning the clean-up on Sunday after the storm caused widespread flooding and knocked down power lines and trees.

A 61-year-old man’s body was recovered from floodwaters on Saturday, while in a separate incident, 12 soldiers were taken to hospital after their convoy crashed en route to rescue operations.

The storm had weakened by the time it made landfall near Brisbane on Saturday night, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday warned locals of the continued wild weather and risks from flooding.

“The situation in Queensland and northern New South Wales remains very serious due to flash flooding and heavy winds,” Albanese said.

“Heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts and coastal surf impacts are expected to continue over coming days.”

Cyclone Alfred had hovered for days off the country’s east coast as a category two cyclone before weakening into a tropical depression on Saturday.

By Sunday evening, emergency services had conducted over a dozen rescues in Queensland and NSW – most involving people trapped by rising waters in their cars or homes. The NSW State Emergency Service reported receiving more than 6,000 calls for help.

Almost 290,000 properties in the affected regions remain without power, and energy companies have warned residents the blackouts could persist for days.

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 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.

In a separate incident on Saturday, 12 soldiers were injured in a convoy crash in Lismore, about 200km south of Brisbane, as they were on their way to rescue and recovery efforts.

The soldiers were still in hospital on Sunday, two of them in a serious condition, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told a news conference.

“We wish a speedy recovery for all of those young soldiers,” he said.

Queensland’s police authorities said they had not recorded any fatalities or missing people in the state so far as a result of the weather event.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and tech billionaire Elon Musk have had a contentious exchange with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, in a series of X posts on Sunday over the use of Musk’s Starlink satellite system in Ukraine.

In a response to a post from Musk mentioning turning off the system, Sikorski implied that any threats to shut down Starlink would result in a search for other suppliers.

Rubio quickly dismissed the claims that Musk would shut down the system and urged Sikorski to be grateful.

The trio went back and forth in an exchange of posts on X that ended with Musk calling Sikorski “small man”.

Starlink’s system is part of SpaceX’s mission to provide high-speed internet to remote and underserved areas – like war zones – around the world.

Sunday’s exchange started when Musk posted that Starlink was the “backbone of the Ukrainian army”.

“Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off,” he wrote.

Sikorski then responded to Musk’s post, saying that Poland was paying for the service.

“Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year,” Sikorski wrote. “The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.”

Sikorski’s post caused Rubio to chime in, writing that the Polish foreign minister was “just making things up”.

“No-one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink,” Rubio wrote.

“And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now,” he added.

Musk later responded to Sikorski’s post calling him a “small man”.

“Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink,” Musk wrote.

The Starlink terminals are key to Ukraine’s army operations and have been used since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.

There are tens of thousands of terminals in the country, including up to 500 purchased by the US Department of Defence in June 2023.

A student who played a prominent role during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York City last year has been detained by federal immigration officials, says his lawyer.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, was lead student negotiator for the encampment at the campus on the west side of Manhattan.

His attorney, Amy Greer, told the BBC that Mr Khalil was inside his university-owned home when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took him into custody on Saturday.

Columbia was the epicentre last year of pro-Palestinian student protests nationwide against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel.

The BBC contacted the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State and Columbia University on Sunday for comment.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio later posted a news story on X about the arrest of Mr Khalil, commenting: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported”.

Ms Greer said the ICE agents told Mr Khalil his student visa had been revoked, but she said her client is a legal permanent resident with a green card and married to an American citizen.

“Initially we were informed this morning that he had been transferred to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey,” Ms Greer said.

“However, when his wife – a US citizen who is eight months’ pregnant and was threatened with arrest as well by the ICE agents last night – tried to visit him there today, she was told he is not detained there.”

She said she is unaware of Mr Khalil’s current location, although an online detainee locator search on the ICE website indicates a Syrian-born individual named Mahmoud Khalil was being held at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility in New Jersey.

Ms Greer said they had heard that Mr Khalil could be transferred as far away as Louisiana, without adding details.

The lawyer said what happened to her client is a “terrible and inexcusable – and calculated – wrong”.

During the protests last summer, Mr Khalil said he was leading negotiations with university administrators on behalf of the student protesters.

They had set up a huge tent encampment on the university lawn in protest against the Gaza war.

Some students also seized control of an academic building for several hours before police entered the campus to arrest them. Mr Khalil was not in that group.

He later told the BBC he had been temporarily suspended by the university, where he is a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Mr Khalil’s detention follows President Donald Trump’s executive order in January warning anyone involved in “pro-jihadist protests” and “all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses” would be deported.

Some Jewish students at Columbia have said that rhetoric at the demonstrations at times crossed the line into antisemitism. Other Jewish students on campus have joined the pro-Palestinian protests.

In a thread on X, the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association said it welcomed reports suggesting Mr Khalil’s green card would be revoked, describing him as “a ringleader of the chaos” at Columbia.

The Trump administration last week announced it was revoking $400m (£310m) in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to fight antisemitism on campus.

Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong said in a campus-wide email on Friday that “the cancellation of these funds will immediately impact research and other critical functions of the University”.

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.

More than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A man has been charged by police after scaling Big Ben’s Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster in central London on Saturday.

Daniel Day, 29, of Palmerston Road, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, has been charged with causing a public nuisance and trespassing on a protected site after climbing onto the clock tower, the Metropolitan Police said.

He has been remanded in custody to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

Emergency services were called at 07:24 GMT on Saturday to reports of a protester who had climbed up the tower holding a Palestinian flag.

The barefoot man was brought down in a cherry picker as Big Ben struck midnight, after more than 16 hours on a ledge several metres up the tower.

On Sunday, Westminster Police said a man had been arrested once he reached the ground after what it called a “protracted incident”.

The incident led to the closure of Westminster Bridge, one of the exits at Westminster Underground Station, and Bridge Street.

Tours of the Parliamentary Estate were also cancelled in response.

A small group of supporters gathered behind a police cordon below the tower shouting “free Palestine” and “you are a hero”.

If a passenger dies on board a flight, cabin crew members like Jay Robert have to think fast.

“We go from service to lifesaving to mortician, dealing with dead bodies and then doing crowd control,” the 40-year-old says. “We’re having to calculate: ‘Okay, we still need to serve 300 people breakfast or dinner and we have to deal with this’.”

Jay, a cabin manager for a major European airline and a former crew member for Emirates, has more than a decade’s experience working on planes. Like all cabin crew, he has been trained to deal with passenger deaths, but has only experienced one himself.

He says deaths on planes are “very uncommon” and that people are more likely to die on longer flights because of the physical toll of being immobile for a long period. Some flight crew don’t experience an on-board fatality during their entire career, he says.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013 concluded that dying on a flight was “rare”. The study, which looked at emergency calls from five airlines to a medical communications centre between January 2008 and October 2010, found that 0.3% of patients who had an in-flight medical emergency died.

Last month, an Australian couple spoke about their “traumatic” experience of sitting next to a body on a plane from Melbourne to Doha after a woman died during the flight.

Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin said cabin crew placed her corpse, covered in blankets, next to Mr Ring for the remaining four hours of the flight without offering to move him. Qatar Airways said it followed appropriate guidelines and apologised for “any inconvenience or distress this incident may have caused”.

BBC News has spoken to cabin crew and other aviation experts about how mid-air deaths are usually handled, what the rules are around storing corpses on planes and what it’s like to work on a flight when someone has died.

Flight crew themselves can’t certify a death – this has to be done by medical personnel. Sometimes, this happens on the plane if there’s someone qualified on board but more often, it is done upon landing. Most airlines follow the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) guidelines on what to do if a passenger has been presumed dead, though policies vary slightly by airline.

In a medical emergency, cabin crew would administer first aid and seek help from any passengers who were medical professionals, while the captain would use a telecommunications system to get instructions from emergency doctors on the ground, says Marco Chan, a former commercial pilot and a senior lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University. If necessary, the captain would divert the flight as soon as possible.

But it’s not always possible to save a passenger.

If a passenger is presumed dead, the person’s eyes should be closed and they should be placed in a body bag, if available, or otherwise, covered with a blanket up to the neck, according to the IATA guidelines.

Planes have very limited space, and it’s a challenge to find a suitable spot to place the body without disturbing other passengers and compromising the plane’s safety. Per the IATA, the body should be moved to a seat away from other passengers or to another area of the plane, if possible. But if the plane is full, they would usually be returned to their own seat.

In a narrow-body plane – those typically used for short-haul flights across the UK or within Europe – there isn’t enough room on board “to really shield a passenger from what has happened”, says Ivan Stevenson, associate professor in aviation management at Coventry University.

Space on these planes is “very, very confined”, he says. “If someone dies on board an aircraft like that, it’s quite likely they will need to be placed in a seat.”

Prof Stevenson acknowledges it’s “very unfortunate, very unpleasant” but that crew have to put the plane’s safety first.

Crew will “try to give some decency to the dead body” by placing it on an empty aisle and using curtains, blankets and dim lights, Jay says, but they might not have much choice.

The body can’t be placed in the galley in case it blocks an emergency exit. It also can’t be left in the aisles in case there is an emergency evacuation, Jay says, or placed in the crew rest area on a long-haul flight.

It’s also hard to physically manoeuvre a body in such a confined space, Jay says. This is what happened in the Qatar Airways case, when Mr Ring said the deceased passenger couldn’t be carried down the aisle.

A plane would divert to save a passenger’s life in the event of a medical emergency – but it usually wouldn’t if they were already presumed dead, aviation experts and cabin crew say. There’s “no point diverting”, Mr Chan says.

The captain would inform both the airline’s operations centre and air traffic control of the passenger’s death as soon as possible, and the plane would be met by local authorities, Prof Stevenson says. Either local authorities or a representative from the airline would contact the passenger’s family if they were flying alone.

Ally Murphy, who hosts the Red Eye Podcast where she interviews flight attendants, experienced one passenger death during a flight in her 14 years working as cabin crew.

A male passenger who had been travelling alone from Accra, Ghana, to London passed out in his seat. After being alerted by the passenger in the seat next to him, the crew realised he wasn’t breathing normally and didn’t have a pulse.

The crew moved the man to the galley to perform CPR. “You’re kind of trapped in a tin can that’s not designed for roaming around,” Ally recalls. But there was more space than usual in the galley because the carts were out for meal service.

Ally and another crew member performed CPR for 40 minutes without success. The captain then decided to divert the plane to Lyon, France, and though Ally and her colleague knew they should have strapped themselves in for landing, they continued performing CPR the whole time, she says.

“We didn’t want to leave him.”

After landing, paramedics took the passenger away. He was declared dead, having suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm, Ally recalls.

“I held him in my arms for the final moments of his life,” she says. “He probably would have chosen someone else for that, but he got me.”

After the plane set off again following the diversion, the passengers were “quite quiet and sombre,” she says. But on arrival at their destination airport, one passenger from the flight started shouting at her because he missed his connecting flight.

“That’s the one and only time that I’ve ever told a passenger where to go,” she says.

Witnessing a passenger dying was a traumatic experience for Ally.

“I went home and sat in the bath and I cried. I could taste the man’s breath for about a week afterwards,” she says. “It was a little traumatising for a while. I couldn’t watch anything with CPR for a long time.”

Cabin crew are offered support after a passenger dies, including therapy and the option to have their rosters cleared for a few days so they can process what has happened, Jay says.

Ally and her colleagues had a debrief with her airline after the passenger died where they were given “reassurances that we did everything that we could”. Afterwards, she was able to schedule her shifts with a friend for a month because she felt “a bit shell-shocked”.

Because cabin crew aren’t used to passenger fatalities, it can be an especially harrowing experience when a passenger does die on board, Jay says.

“We are not doctors, we are not nurses,” Jay says. “While we are trained to deal with it, we don’t face it every day, so we’re not really immune to it.”

Meat, dairy and sugar grown in a lab could be on sale in the UK for human consumption for the first time within two years from now, sooner than expected.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is looking at how it can speed up the approval process for lab-grown foods.

Such products are grown from cells in small chemical plants.

UK firms have led the way in the field scientifically but feel they have been held back by the current regulations.

Dog food made from meat that was grown in factory vats went on sale in the UK for the first time last month.

In 2020, Singapore became the first country to authorise the sale of cell-cultivated meat for human consumption, followed by the United States three years later and Israel last year.

However, Italy and the US states of Alabama and Florida have instituted bans.

The FSA is to develop new regulations by working with experts from high-tech food firms and academic researchers.

It says it aims to complete the full safety assessment of two lab-grown foods within the two-year process it is starting.

But critics say that having the firms involved in drawing up the new rules represents a conflict of interest.

The initiative is in response to concerns by UK firms that they are losing ground to competition overseas, where approvals processes take half the time.

Prof Robin May, the FSA’s chief scientist, told BBC News that there would be no compromise on consumer safety.

“We are working very closely with the companies involved and academic groups to work together to design a regulatory structure that is good for them, but at all costs ensures the safety of these products remains as high as it possibly can,” he said.

But critics such as Pat Thomas, director of the campaign group Beyond GM, are not convinced by this approach.

“The companies involved in helping the FSA to draw up these regulations are the ones most likely to benefit from deregulation and if this were any other type of food product, we would be outraged by it,” she said.

The science minister, Lord Vallance, took issue with the process being described as “deregulation”.

“It is not deregulation, it is pro-innovation regulation,” he told BBC News.

“It is an important distinction, because we are trying to get the regulation aligned with the needs of innovation and reduce some of the bureaucracy and duplication.”

Lab-grown foods are grown into plant or animal tissue from tiny cells. This can sometimes involve gene editing to tweak the food’s properties. The claimed benefits are that they are better for the environment and potentially healthier.

The government is keen for lab-grown food firms to thrive because it hopes they can create new jobs and economic growth.

The UK is good at the science, but the current approvals process is much slower than in other countries. Singapore, the US and Israel in particular have faster procedures.

Ivy Farm Technologies in Oxford is ready to go with lab-grown steaks, made from cells taken from Wagyu and Aberdeen Angus cows.

The firm applied for approval to sell its steaks to restaurants at the beginning of last year. Ivy Farm’s CEO, Dr Harsh Amin, explained that two years was a very long time to wait.

“If we can shorten that to less than a year, while maintaining the very highest of Britain’s food safety standards, that would help start-up companies like ours to thrive.”

Dr Alicia Graham has a similar story. Working at Imperial College’s Bezos centre in west London, she has found a way to grow an alternative to sugar. It involves introducing a gene found in a berry into yeast. This process enables her to produce large amounts of the crystals that make it taste sweet.

It doesn’t make you fat, she says, and so is a potential sweetener and healthy substitute in fizzy drinks.

In this case I am allowed to taste it. It was incredibly sweet and slightly sour and fruity, reminding me of lemon sherbet. But Dr Graham’s firm, MadeSweetly, is not allowed to sell it until it gets approval.

“The path to getting approval is not straightforward,” she tells me.

“They are all new technologies, which are not easy for the regulator to keep up with. But that means that we don’t have one specific route to product approval, and that is what we would like.”

The FSA says it will complete a full safety assessment of two lab-grown foods within the next two years and have the beginnings of a faster and better system for applications for approvals of new lab-grown foods.

Prof May of the FSA says the purpose of working with experts from the companies involved as well as academics is to get the science right.

“It can be quite complex, and it is critical that we understand the science to make sure the foods are safe before authorising them.”

But Ms Thomas says that these high-tech foods may not be as environmentally friendly as they are made out to be as it takes energy to make them and that in some cases their health benefits are being oversold.

“Lab-grown foods are ultimately ultra-processed foods and we are in an era where we are trying to get people to eat fewer ultra-processed foods because they have health implications,” he said.

“And it is worth saying that these ultra-processed foods have not been in the human diet before.”

A man drawn into the world of having sex while high on illegal drugs has described how he became a “zombie” whose life was slowly deteriorating.

Chris – whose name has been changed – told the BBC he started to take part in chemsex, short for chemical sex, which helped mask the “the shame and guilt” he said he felt growing up gay.

The Londoner said after becoming addicted to chemsex – which typically involves men who have sex with men using the drugs crystal meth, methedrone and GHB/GBL to enhance their sexual experience – he faced a “wall of silence” from helplines and others within the community.

Campaigners say support is “patchy” due to gay sex stigma and has called for this to change. The government says it is aware of the harm caused by chemsex and has issued guidance to local authorities on managing the issue.

Chris was initially offered drugs at a party, but it was not until a few months later that he then began to actively seek it out more and find people who were taking drugs.

He said at first it took away “a lot of the shame and guilt you have about growing up being gay. It’s kind of quite liberating”.

However, that quickly changed.

“No-one really speaks about it. Everyone is slightly ashamed about it. It’s all behind closed doors. It doesn’t really spill out into the real world. It’s very secretive,” he said.

Chris said his friends told him he was almost like a “zombie”.

“Slowly, your life starts to deteriorate because you are missing work on a Monday. And then your work is obviously not up to standard.

“You can’t do much until Wednesday. And then it all starts again on a Friday,” he said.

“You have to eat, you have to sleep, you have to get on with your life but all you’re really doing is looking forward to the next time you can take drugs,” he added.

“Which is to escape the horror that is your life, the misery that is your life which you’ve created but, in a way, you don’t seem to see that because all you want to do is take drugs.”

Campaigners have said chemsex among some gay men has a stigma attached that meant many were not seeking the help they needed.

Ignacio Labayen De Inza, chief executive of the London-based charity Controlling Chemsex, is calling for people to start a conversation around chemsex to help change that stigma.

He said: “Chemsex is very available but not everyone has access to reliable information.

“Not just the government but no-one is doing very much. People think there is nothing we can do because it’s going to carry on happening, but people could make sure that they set boundaries and to keep safe.”

He said there was a stigma attached to it because “we are talking about sex, we are talking about gay sex, we are talking about drugs”.

Philip Hurd, a specialist adviser at Controlling Chemsex, was involved in chemsex 12 years ago and said it took a near-death overdose for him to realise he needed to stop.

He said: “You get close to the criminal justice system, and you start doing things that are dangerous.

“And then I had a near-death overdose. The doctors said I was very lucky to survive, and I had to get my parents down from the country in their early eighties. That was the point I thought I can’t do this; I’m going to die.”

Mr Hurd, who lives in London and now volunteers at Controlling Chemsex, uses his personal experience to help others.

“I think it’s possible for a person with good psychology, sociology skills to support somebody coming out of chemsex but nothing can replace having been there knowing,” he said.

An Opinium Research poll of 2,000 people for the charity found that 76% of those surveyed were not familiar with chemsex.

Just over a third of those who identified as gay/lesbian were not familiar with the risks of chemsex, the study also found.

Veronika Carruthers, a lecturer at Portsmouth University, has been looking into the current support available across the south of England and found it was still “pretty limited” and “patchy”.

“We consider this to be a bit of a postcode lottery,” she said.

She explained that some people did not know the right services to turn to.

“Particularly if we look at it from a divide of drug counselling services and sexual health clinics, while sexual health clinics are preferred there is still an element of staff not having the appropriate knowledge of what chemsex actually is and in turn not being able to provide the most effect support,” she said.

“In regards to drug counselling services, quite often we have recovery workers who have never actually heard of chemsex and therefore they’re not able to provide any form of support and individuals often don’t feel that is the most appropriate place for them.

“As a result people don’t want to call for help or support from particular organisations over others.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said in addition to issuing guidance to local authorities, it had boosted the Public Health Grant by almost £200m.

“Local authorities can use this to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery interventions, including for people involved in chemsex,” the spokesperson said.

“We continue to work with substance misuse commissioners and sexual health commissioners to improve access to support services for those who use drugs in this context.”

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.

Six months ago, a viral TikTok trend made us obsessed with being very demure and very mindful – but now, modesty has taken a back seat among celebrities who have made see-through outfits all the rage on red carpets and catwalks.

At the Brit Awards last week, big winner Charli XCX went full brat as she wore a sheer black dress, prompting hundreds of complaints to media watchdog Ofcom.

She used one of her acceptance speeches to address the controversy of her outfit. “I heard that ITV were complaining about my nipples,” she said. “I feel like we’re in the era of ‘free the nipple’ though, right?”

The nearly naked look has been a talking point at other award ceremonies – including last Sunday’s Oscars and the Grammys in February, when Kanye West’s girlfriend Bianca Censori dropped her coat on the red carpet to reveal an almost entirely invisible dress.

The love for transparent textiles has continued at London and Paris fashion weeks, with many of the celebrities watching on also getting the memo.

At Stella McCartney’s Paris show, US actress and Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris Jackson wore a translucent black off-the-shoulder maxi dress with only a nude-coloured thong underneath.

Rapper Ice Spice sported a black lace catsuit with a feathered coat at the show.

Naked dressing was a key trend in some designers’ spring/summer collections, and the theme has continued in autumn/winter looks too.

As Vogue wrote in January: “For a period of time, sheerness was few and far between, but nowadays, ‘naked dressing’ is commonplace every season.”

Dior’s latest collection embraced see-through material and presented it in an ethereal way, with intricate detailing and gender-fluid silhouettes.

Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri described her collection as “demonstrating how clothing is a receptacle that affirms cultural, aesthetic and social codes”.

The trend divides opinion but is certainly part of a wider movement – last summer Charli XCX’s definition of being a brat included wearing “a strappy white top with no bra”.

Sheer dressing is a nod to the minimalist looks of the 1990s – think transparent blouses and Kate Moss wearing a thin slip dress – and with our love for nostalgia fashion, it’s no wonder it is taking off again.

The trend also had a resurgence a decade ago. The “free the nipple” movement was everywhere in the early 2010s, with Rihanna stirring up headlines with her sheer crystal-embellished dress at the CFDA awards in 2014.

Charli XCX’s Brits outfit was praised by some on social media. “Stop policing women’s bodies,” one person wrote, while another said she looked comfortable in her outfit so “why is society judging?”

But many found it too risque for prime-time TV. Ofcom received 825 complaints about the Brits ceremony, the majority relating to Charli’s outfit and Sabrina Carpenter’s eye-opening pre-watershed performance.

“Maybe think about putting this on at a time when kids ain’t gonna be watching,” one person wrote on social media.

Fashion stylist and CEO of clothing brand Mermaid Way, Julia Pukhalskaia, calls the choice to wear revealing dresses a “provocative statement”, but says it’s a “way to reclaim the right to govern one’s body”.

The controversy around it feeds into a wider dialogue about women’s rights and double standards when it comes to dress codes, she adds.

Abhi Madan, creative director of fashion brand Amarra, believes the trend “is about embracing freedom and boldness in fashion”.

The idea of freeing the nipple “isn’t just about exposure – it’s a movement towards body positivity and challenging conventional fashion norms”, he argues.

“Designers are now integrating sheer elements not just for shock value but to create a refined and elegant silhouette that empowers wearers.”

It seems many Hollywood stars this year were feeling empowered as chiffon, lace and tulle were in plentiful supply at the Oscars.

Shock value is surely a factor for some, too, though.

At Vanity Fair’s Oscars afterparty, Julia Fox wore a mesh dress with only long wavy hair to cover some of her modesty.

There were other interpretations of the naked dress – Megan Thee Stallion wore a green dress with strategically placed foliage and nipple coverings, while Zoe Kravitz opted to cover up the front but expose the back as a beaded mesh panel revealed her buttocks in her Saint Laurent dress.

“This year, naked dressing seemed to particularly thrive at the event,” the New York Times noted.

However, not everyone is on board. The Times fashion director Anna Murphy wrote that she’s over the trend because “it’s only women who do this”.

“It is not an equal opportunities endeavour. It is, rather, a manifestation of the kind of thing that keeps this world unequal. That women’s bodies are for public consumption and men’s, usually, aren’t,” she wrote.

Some men have been embracing the nearly naked trend, though. In 2022, Timothée Chalamet wore striking a backless red top at Venice Film Festival, and at the 2023 Grammys Harry Styles freed the nipple in a plunge harlequin jumpsuit.

It’s the women who will continue to cause more of a stir on runways and red carpets – and society will still be split on whether it’s redefining conventional notions of modesty in fashion, a product of misogyny, or simply seeking attention.

Gurpreet Singh was handcuffed, his legs shackled and a chain tied around his waist. He was led on to the tarmac in Texas by US Border Patrol, towards a waiting C-17 military transport aircraft.

It was 3 February and, after a months-long journey, he realised his dream of living in America was over. He was being deported back to India. “It felt like the ground was slipping away from underneath my feet,” he said.

Gurpreet, 39, was one of thousands of Indians in recent years to have spent their life savings and crossed continents to enter the US illegally through its southern border, as they sought to escape an unemployment crisis back home.

There are about 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US, the third largest group behind Mexicans and El Salvadoreans, according to the most recent figures from Pew Research in 2022.

Now Gurpreet has become one of the first undocumented Indians to be sent home since President Donald Trump took office, with a promise to make mass deportations a priority.

Gurpreet intended to make an asylum claim based on threats he said he had received in India, but – in line with an executive order from Trump to turn people away without granting them asylum hearings – he said he was removed without his case ever being considered.

About 3,700 Indians were sent back on charter and commercial flights during President Biden’s tenure, but recent images of detainees in chains under the Trump administration have sparked outrage in India.

US Border Patrol released the images in an online video with a bombastic choral soundtrack and the warning: “If you cross illegally, you will be removed.”

“We sat in handcuffs and shackles for more than 40 hours. Even women were bound the same way. Only the children were free,” Gurpreet told the BBC back in India. “We weren’t allowed to stand up. If we wanted to use the toilet, we were escorted by US forces, and just one of our handcuffs was taken off.”

Opposition parties protested in parliament, saying Indian deportees were given “inhuman and degrading treatment”. “There’s a lot of talk about how Prime Minister Modi and Mr Trump are good friends. Then why did Mr Modi allow this?” said Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a key opposition leader.

Gurpreet said: “The Indian government should have said something on our behalf. They should have told the US to carry out the deportation the way it’s been done before, without the handcuffs and chains.”

An Indian foreign ministry spokesman said the government had raised these concerns with the US, and that as a result, on subsequent flights, women deportees were not handcuffed and shackled.

But on the ground, the intimidating images and President Trump’s rhetoric seem to be having the desired effect, at least in the immediate aftermath.

“No-one will try going to the US now through this illegal ‘donkey’ route while Trump is in power,” said Gurpreet.

In the longer term, this could depend on whether there are continued deportations, but for now many of the Indian people-smugglers, locally called “agents”, have gone into hiding, fearing raids against them by Indian police.

Gurpreet said Indian authorities demanded the number of the agent he had used when he landed back home, but the smuggler could no longer be reached.

“I don’t blame them, though. We were thirsty and went to the well. They didn’t come to us,” said Gurpreet.

While the official headline figure puts the unemployment rate at only 3.2%, it conceals a more precarious picture for many Indians. Only 22% of workers have regular salaries, the majority are self-employed and nearly a fifth are “unpaid helpers”, including women working in family businesses.

“We leave India only because we are compelled to. If I got a job which paid me even 30,000 rupees (£270/$340) a month, my family would get by. I would never have thought of leaving,” said Gurpreet, who has a wife, a mother and an 18-month-old baby to look after.

“You can say whatever you want about the economy on paper, but you need to see the reality on the ground. There are no opportunities here for us to work or run a business.”

Gupreet’s trucking company was among the cash-dependent small businesses that were badly hit when the Indian government withdrew 86% of the currency in circulation with four hours notice. He said he didn’t get paid by his clients, and had no money to keep the business afloat. Another small business he set up, managing logistics for other companies, also failed because of the Covid lockdown, he said.

He said he tried to get visas to go to Canada and the UK, but his applications were rejected.

Then he took all his savings, sold a plot of land he owned, and borrowed money from relatives to put together 4 million rupees ($45,000/£36,000) to pay a smuggler to organise his journey, Gurpreet told us.

On 28 August 2024, he flew from India to Guyana in South America to start an arduous journey to the US.

Gurpreet pointed out all the stops he made on a map on his phone. From Guyana he travelled through Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, mostly by buses and cars, partly by boat, and briefly on a plane – handed from one people-smuggler to another, detained and released by authorities a few times along the way.

From Colombia, smugglers tried to get him a flight to Mexico, so he could avoid crossing the dreaded Darién Gap. But Colombian immigration didn’t allow him to board the flight, so he had to make a dangerous trek through the jungle.

A dense expanse of rainforest between Colombia and Panama, the Darién Gap can only be crossed on foot, risking accidents, disease and attacks by criminal gangs. Last year, 50 people died making the crossing.

“I was not scared. I’ve been a sportsman so I thought I would be OK. But it was the toughest section,” said Gurpreet. “We walked for five days through jungles and rivers. In many parts, while wading through the river, the water came up to my chest.”

Each group was accompanied by a smuggler – or a “donker” as Gurpreet and other migrants refer to them, a word seemingly derived from the term “donkey route” used for illegal migration journeys.

At night they would pitch tents in the jungle, eat a bit of food they were carrying and try to rest.

“It was raining all the days we were there. We were drenched to our bones,” he said. They were guided over three mountains in their first two days. After that, he said they had to follow a route marked out in blue plastic bags tied to trees by the smugglers.

“My feet had begun to feel like lead. My toenails were cracked, and the palms of my hands were peeled off and had thorns in them. Still, we were lucky we didn’t encounter any robbers.”

When they reached Panama, Gurpreet said he and about 150 others were detained by border officials in a cramped jail-like centre. After 20 days, they were released, he said, and from there it took him more than a month to reach Mexico, passing through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.

Gurpreet said they waited for nearly a month in Mexico until there was an opportunity to cross the border into the US near San Diego.

“We didn’t scale a wall. There is a mountain near it which we climbed over. And there’s a razor wire which the donker cut through,” he said.

Gurpreet entered the US on 15 January, five days before President Trump took office – believing that he had made it just in time, before the borders became impenetrable and rules became tighter.

Once in San Diego, he surrendered to US Border Patrol, and was then detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

During the Biden administration, illegal or undocumented migrants would appear before an immigration officer who would do a preliminary interview to determine if each person had a case for asylum. While a majority of Indians migrated out of economic necessity, some also left fearing persecution because of their religious or social backgrounds, or their sexual orientation.

If they cleared the interview, they were released, pending a decision on granting asylum from an immigration judge. The process would often take years, but they were allowed to remain in the US in the meantime.

This is what Gurpreet thought would happen to him. He had planned to find work at a grocery store and then to get into trucking, a business he is familiar with.

Instead, less than three weeks after he entered the US, he found himself being led towards that C-17 plane and going back to where he started.

In their small house in Sultanpur Lodhi, a city in the northern state of Punjab, Gurpreet is now trying to find work to repay the money he owes, and fend for his family.

Fighting back the tears, 22-year-old rubbish collector Okuku Prince recalls the moment his best friend’s lifeless body was found at a massive rubbish dump in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

The landslide at the Kiteezi dump last August killed 30 people, including his friend Sanya Kezia.

“I think some people are still underneath the garbage,” he tells the BBC.

Many of them eked out a living by washing and selling whatever discarded items they found that still had value – anything from fishing nets to plastic bottles, glass jars and the components of old electronic devices.

A blame-game erupted after the fatal collapse, with Kampala’s city council and central government accusing each other of negligence, while some of the dead still languished under tonnes of rubbish without the dignity of a burial.

When government tractors did eventually dig up Kezia’s body, there were injuries to the 21-year-old’s face.

It was horrifying for his friend to see him enveloped by stinking, rotting waste.

“We’re not safe here. Unless they [repair] it, maybe level it. Otherwise, people are not safe,” says Mr Prince, who before becoming a rubbish-picker had been studying law at the Islamic University of Uganda.

Unable to afford tuition fees after his family became financially unstable, his daily routine is now a far cry from libraries and lecture halls.

Youth unemployment is at crisis levels in Uganda, and there are many like Mr Prince who often risk their health and abandon their dreams just to make a living.

“I come here to the dump in the morning, collect polythene bags, take them for washing and sell them,” says Mr Prince. “I make 10,000 shillings [equivalent to $2.70 or £2.10] a day.”

The collapse has left him in further financial distress as he used to live by the side of the dump – but has had to move because of safety concerns.

The houses of others were also destroyed during rescue operations.

Compensation money has been paid to the families of those who died, but not to around 200 people who lost their homes, local authorities have admitted to the BBC.

Officials are “waiting for the valuation and budget allocation”, says Dr Sarah Karen Zalwango, the new head of public health and the environment at the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).

Some argue that the Kiteezi collapse was inevitable because basic common sense was ignored.

“You can’t take four million people, get all that waste, mingled – degradable and non-degradable – and take it to one dumping site. No, that’s not how we [ought to] do it. But we’ve been doing it for over 20 years,” Frank Muramuzi, a Kampala-based urban planner, tells the BBC.

The Kiteezi landfill was built in 1996, with financing from the World Bank, to provide a single, major depository for solid waste generated by Kampala.

As Kampala has grown, so too has its biggest rubbish dump.

On the northern edge of the city, it now covers 15 hectares (37 acres) – an area the size of more than 22 football pitches – with its stench spreading further still.

Birds of prey can be seen flying overhead.

The city’s residents and businesses generate an estimated 2,500 tonnes of waste every day, half of which ends up in dumping sites across the city – the biggest being Kiteezi.

But the problem is that Kiteezi lacks the on-site recycling, sorting and incineration facilities that landfills are supposed to have.

“With each layer of trash piled up, the bottom layers become weaker, especially as the decay and decomposition of organic waste increases the temperature,” Mr Muramuzi explains.

“Without vents, methane and other gases remain trapped at the bottom, further multiplying the fragility of the loosely held structure.”

Yet this can easily be fixed, he adds, so long as the government commits to periodic monitoring and audits which factor in environmental, social and economic needs.

Had that already been in place, “the havoc that happened in Kiteezi would have been avoided”, he says.

So, if the solution is this simple, why is it not already happening?

The answer seems to be a combination of power struggles and financial mismanagement.

Ultimate responsibility for keeping Kampala “clean, habitable, and sustainable environment” lies with the KCCA, but Mayor Erias Lukwago, from the opposition Forum for Democratic Change party, says his office lacks the necessary power to enact the changes.

The KCCA says it has repeatedly proposed plans to decommission Kiteezi but says the funds needed to do so – $9.7m – exceed the city’s budget and have not been made available by central government.

“All the support we have been getting is courtesy of development partners and donors like Bill and Melinda Gates, GIZ, and WaterAid… but their capacity is very limited,” the Kampala mayor said recently.

“If we were getting adequate funding from the central government, we would be very far right now.”

There is no word from the government on whether it will allocate funds for Kampala’s biggest dump.

It did pay $1,350 to each of the families of the deceased, saying any further money would only be forthcoming if government agencies were “found to be responsible”.

A month later, a report furnished by the country’s police and crime investigation department led to President Yoweri Museveni – a noted political opponent of Kampala’s mayor – sacking three senior KCCA officials, including the authority’s executive and public health directors.

James Bond Kunobere, Kampala’s solid waste management officer, admits that last year’s deadly collapse was a much-needed wake-up call.

At present, the authorities in the Ugandan capital are drafting plans to turn organic waste into compost and reduce “unnecessary waste” coming into the city.

But they want the public to take some responsibility too. At the moment people pay one of the seven private waste firms operating in Kampala to collect their rubbish, which is all bundled together with little thought given to recycling.

“We haven’t changed the mindset of residents to sort waste,” Mr Kunobere tells the BBC.

“If you sort, waste has different destinations. If you mix, it all goes to one – the landfill.”

Experts say such initiatives are important but do not address the bigger structural inadequacies at Kiteezi.

And for people whose lives have been shattered by recent events there, it is too little too late.

“They promised us compensation, but I haven’t received anything – almost everyone is complaining too,” Mr Prince tells the BBC.

“We lost our friend. All that transpired in the process was sorrow.”

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Jayne’s excessive hoarding after her husband died got so bad that she could only sleep on one half of her bed.

“The other half was three to four foot high of boxes,” said the mum-of-two, who started collecting to fill the gap left behind after her husband took his own life.

Jayne is one of an estimated one in 20 people in the UK thought to have a hoarding disorder, and is trying a new technique to release the “millstone” around her neck.

With hoarding relapse rates very high, instead of the usual method of throwing it all away, Jayne is getting help to reuse and repurpose her stuff so she doesn’t hoard again.

The 75-year-old said hoarding became a small way to find pleasure in life again after being left a widowed single mum with two teenage children.

The items Jayne holds on to, including her large collection of ornamental cats, gave her the enjoyment she said she was missing after her husband’s death almost 30 years ago.

”I think I cried every day for years,” said the retired librarian.

”I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Jayne said going on shopping trips and buying “nice things” helped her grief.

“I was looking for pleasure in my life,” she recalled.

“I had money and had to keep myself occupied. I overcompensated but that’s the way I dealt with it.”

Jayne said she “never felt happier” when she came home from a shopping trip with “so much stuff in my car that I couldn’t get anything else in it”.

But when she found herself sleeping on half of her bed because the other half was piled 4ft [1.2m] high with boxes, she thought to herself things needed to change.

“It was like a millstone around my neck,” said Jayne.

“I was sleeping in half of my bed because the other half was three to four foot high with boxes,” she said.

“This room was about six foot high with stuff, the whole house was like that. You realise this is an addiction.”

Jayne is now being helped by an organisation who find new uses for her hoarded items and stop them going to landfill.

The animal lover has started boxing up her collectables and giving them away – like to a school not far from her in south Wales.

She said being a home owner has saved her from forced clearances but she’s heard many stories about them from the people at the support group she attends every week.

“I’ve got so much stuff I’m attached to, I don’t know how I would’ve coped with someone coming in and throwing all my stuff away,” admitted Jayne, who lives with her eight cats and one dog in Newport.

“But if somebody gets some pleasure out of my stuff, I’m quite happy for it to go now.”

Jayne was referred to Holistic Hoarding two years ago to help, and now gives away boxes week after week, something which the charity says 12 months ago would have been “impossible” for her.

“If you value every single item in your home and somebody comes in with no care and just throws it in the bin – how would that make you feel?” said sustainability officer Celeste Lewis.

“If we can show them that other people can find value in their items, they have pride instead of shame.”

Hawthorn Primary School in Cardiff is one of the recipients of the objects and their headteacher Gareth Davies said it gave the children “equipment we would never be able to afford within the budget”.

Without supported intervention, experts estimate nearly all people with hoarding behaviours who are forced to clear their homes will relapse.

“We are looking at a 97% relapse rate of enforced clearances without therapeutic intervention,” said Holistic Hoarding founder Kayley Hyman.

Support workers can spend up to two years working with someone and Holistic Hoarding, which covers parts of south-east Wales, get at least two new referrals for help every day.

“This is a very hard-to-reach population,” said Prof Mary O’Connell, a University of South Wales lecturer who researches hoarding.

“I think there is a massive idea that if you can’t cope with a bit of washing up, keep up with keeping your house clean then somehow, you’re failing. It’s a very private disorder.”

Jayne said she appreciated the support she has had and hopes people can be more understanding of hoarding and why people do it.

“You’re just trying to keep yourself as happy as you can in the circumstances,” she said. “I feel more positive because I can see the wood from the trees now.”

Police in Kenya have fired tear gas to disperse protesters who tried to occupy a church that was recently given a substantial donation by President William Ruto.

The gift to the Jesus Winner Ministry in the Roysambu suburb of Nairobi of 20m shillings ($155,000; £120,000) drew criticism from some young Kenyans struggling with the high cost of living.

Ruto has defended his donation and has offered a similar gift to another church in Eldoret.

Last year, both Kenya’s Catholic and Anglican leaders rejected donations, arguing that there was a need to protect the church from being used for political purposes.

Several people have been arrested during the clashes, which saw protesters try to get into the church and light fires and use rocks to block nearby roads.

But the church service went ahead with tight security for worshippers, local media report.

Bishop Edward Mwai said that unnamed people had mobilised “thugs” to disrupt the church service, reports the Star website.

Ruto, an evangelical Christian, defended the donation, saying it was an attempt to address the country’s moral decay.

“Kenya must know God so that we shame the people who are telling us that we cannot associate with the church,” the Nation site quoted him as saying at another church, in Eldoret.

Kenyans have been angered by a series of tax rises introduced since Ruto was elected in 2022.

He says they were needed to pay off the huge debts he inherited from the previous government but many Kenyans argue that he should first tackle public waste and corruption.

Last year, a wave of nationwide protests forced Ruto to withdraw his Finance Bill, which contained a series of tax rises.

Iran’s Supreme leader has criticised “bullying” countries in an apparent response to Donald Trump’s letter demanding negotiations over its nuclear programme.

Trump said on Friday he had warned Tehran in a letter it could face military action unless it agreed to talks for a nuclear deal.

In a furious response on Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would not negotiate with “bullying governments” insisting on talks.

His regime has rapidly advanced its nuclear programme in recent years, the UN’s monitor says.

Trump has said he wants to strike a new deal with Iran to prevent it from developing its nuclear programme further.

On Friday he said he had offered Iran a chance to negotiate or risk its nuclear programme being targeted.

“I’ve written them a letter, saying I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily it’s going to be a terrible thing for them,” Trump told Fox Business on Friday.

“There are two ways Iran can be handled – militarily, or you make a deal,” Trump said. “I would prefer to make a deal, because I am not looking to hurt Iran.”

Iran’s Ayatollah appeared to respond to Trump’s statements in a Ramadan meeting with officials on Saturday, reported by local media.

Khamenei did not name the US but said “some bully governments insist on negotiations.”

“Their negotiations are not aimed at solving problems, they aim at domination,” he said according to Iranian media.

“The issue is not just the nuclear issue.They are setting new expectations that these new expectations will definitely not be met on the part of Iran.”

In December, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran’s decision to begin producing significantly more highly enriched uranium was “very worrisome”.

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Iran was increasing its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, just below the level of purity needed for a nuclear weapon.

Tehran has denied accusation it is building nuclear weapons, emphasising instead that its programme has peaceful aims.

Iran had previously agreed to limits on its nuclear programme under the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, an agreement signed with the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany in return for sanctions relief.

But during his first term in office, Trump withdrew the US from the deal and reinstated US sanctions on Iran.

In the years since the collapse of the deal, Iran has accelerated its nuclear programme, accelerating its enrichment of uranium. It now has stocks that are near weapons grade, analysts say.

The conflicts in the Middle East this past year have also heightened nuclear tensions.

President Trump has said he would give Israel the the green light to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, after Israel and Iran exchanged attacks last year linked to the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Iran’s air defence systems – which protect its nuclear facilities – were damaged in Israeli strikes on military targets.

Iran’s government is also under economic pressure from Western sanctions and has seen nationwide protests during the past few years over both social and economic grievances.

Iran is due to hold annual joint naval drills with Russia and China on Monday, in the Iranian port of Chabahar.

The Democratic Republic of Congo government has offered a reward of $5m (£4m) for help arresting three leaders of a rebel group which has seized much of the east of the country this year.

Corneille Nangaa, a former head of DR Congo’s electoral commission, now leads the Congo River Alliance, which includes the M23 rebel group. He has addressed large rallies in the cities under the group’s control.

The bounty is also on offer for M23 leaders Sultani Makenga and Bertrand Bisimwa.

Last year the three men were prosecuted in absentia by a military court and given death sentences for treason.

A reward of $4m (£3) was also offered for the arrest of two journalists living in exile, and others the government describes as accomplices.

But the chances of anyone being arrested appear slim.

In recent weeks the army has been no match for the Rwandan-backed rebels who have captured large parts of the mineral-rich eastern DR Congo, including the region’s two largest cities – Goma and Bukavu.

So President Félix Tshisekedi has instead focused on trying to build international pressure for Rwanda to face sanctions for backing the rebels.

Last year, a report by UN experts said up to 4,000 Rwanda troops were working with the M23 in DR Congo.

Thousands of people have been killed during the fighting and hundreds of thousands left without shelter after fleeing their homes.

The Congolese government is also seeking US support in exchange for access to its minerals.

DR Congo accuses Rwanda of trying to take control of its minerals, which include gold and coltan, used in consumers electronics such as mobile phones and computers.

In response to the reports that DR Congo was offering access to the minerals in exchange for military help fighting the M23 rebels, presidential spokeswoman Tina Salama said on X last month that President Tshisekedi was inviting the US “whose companies source strategic raw materials from Rwanda, materials that are looted from the DRC and smuggled to Rwanda” to instead buy them from the Congolese – the “rightful owners”.

Rwanda denies looting minerals from DR Congo.

It no longer denies backing the M23 but says it is trying to prevent the conflict in DR Congo from spilling over into its own territory.

Rwanda also accuses the Congolese government of working with a different armed group in DR Congo, which is linked to those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which some 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis were massacred.

Both the M23 and Rwanda’s government are led by Tutsis.

The Congolese government denies working with the FDLR group accused by Rwanda of being a “genocidal militia”.

A whippet from Venice in Italy has been named best in show at the 2025 Crufts dog show in Birmingham.

Four-year-old Miuccia beat more than 18,000 dogs from around the world to claim the top award on Sunday at the NEC.

“It’s really a dream come true,” said her handler Giovanni Liguori. “I am truly overwhelmed. Miuccia performed her best”.

It is the first time a dog from Italy has won best in show, which comes with a trophy and small cash prize of reportedly £200.

Miuccia, who is owned by Enrico De Gaspari, was the winner of the hound group earlier in the show, and beat the winners of six other groups to win the top prize.

“I absolutely adore her,” said handler Mr Liguori. “She is the sweetest dog.

“She always wants to be super close to me and that’s the most important thing.”

Mr Liguori said it was “incredible, it’s amazing” to be the first dog from Italy to be crowned best in show.

“As Italians we are super proud and means that we are doing a fantastic job.”

Helen Kerfoot, Crufts show manager, said it was “fantastic” to watch Miuccia and her handler’s “strong relationship together in the ring, and they are truly deserving winners”.

“Well done to all of our other wonderful finalists too.

“The dogs, their owners, and handlers should be incredibly proud to have taken part in such a momentous final – it’s an incredible achievement, one we are sure they’ll treasure for years to come.”

The runner-up was Viking, a Tibetan mastiff from Romania.

When Branneisha Cooper was overweight, she felt both invisible and like she stood out.

Her friends would get attention when they were out together, while she was overlooked. But she also had a sense that everyone was staring at her, scrutinising her.

Everyday scenarios were daunting: fairground rides (would she fit in the seat?), working out (would it hurt?), clothes shopping (would she find attractive clothing in her size?).

At the end of 2022, Branneisha, now 28 and working in Texas for a major retailer, began using weight-loss injection Mounjaro. She’s lost about six stone (38kg).

Things changed quickly. Suddenly, she could exercise without her body getting sore, colleagues made more small talk with her and she felt comfortable going on adventurous dates with her boyfriend. She was go-karting, dancing and going to arcades – activities that previously made her feel self-conscious.

But despite feeling like she had a “second chance at life”, weight loss was bittersweet.

“It was almost like I had stepped into a different world overnight,” Branneisha recalls. “People were suddenly more friendly, more attentive, and I was given opportunities and respect that didn’t exist before.”

“That rapid shift was jarring and really opened my eyes to just how deeply size bias is ingrained in our culture,” she continues. “Psychologically, it was a lot to process because while I was the same person, the way I was perceived had completely changed.”

Weight-loss transformations are nothing new. In the 90s and 00s, they filled the pages of tabloid newspapers, sold celebrity diet regimes and inspired popular TV series like The Biggest Loser, You Are What You Eat and Celebrity Fit Club.

But in the 2020s, the advent of weight-loss injections like semaglutide and tirzepatide (marketed under brand names Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro) has meant people can lose huge amounts of weight rapidly, without undergoing invasive surgery. The jabs suppress people’s appetites, causing them to feel fuller sooner.

Wegovy has been available on the NHS in England, Wales and Scotland since September 2023 with strict eligibility criteria, but weight-loss drugs are expected to become more accessible when Mounjaro becomes available through NHS England later this year.

The jabs, which are not suitable for everyone and can have severe side effects, are also available from pharmacies in the UK for people who can’t get them prescribed by their GPs.

So other than the physical difference, how does the way you’re perceived change when you lose weight quickly and look different to the world?

People who have used the injections have told BBC News that rapid weight loss has caused a massive shift in the way they are treated – by both strangers and loved ones – as well as a change in how they approach their lives.

Branneisha’s feeling of sticking out and being overlooked at the same time while overweight is one others can relate to.

When you’re overweight, people either avoid eye contact or “really stare and glare at you”, says Jess Phillips, 29, a primary school teacher from Sittingbourne, Kent.

She previously felt uncomfortable taking flights, travelling on public transport and eating at restaurants. Finding suitable seating worried her, as well as the feeling she was “taking other people’s space”.

People had even shouted “fat” at her from cars and at a festival.

A trip in 2023 to Sorrento, on the Italian coast, was a major catalyst for starting weight-loss injections last June.

“Everyone was staring at me the whole time,” she says. “They’re just not used to people being that big out there.”

Since losing weight, Jess has noticed a big difference in how she’s treated in public.

“Strangers seem to be a lot more chatty with me than they ever were before,” she explains.

She feels “more invisible in a nice way”, she continues. “I don’t feel like people are looking at me when I go to different places. I feel nicely anonymous… I’m not standing out in any particular way.”

This is something that Jeannine A Gailey, sociology professor at Texas Christian University, explored in her 2014 book The Hyper(in)visible Fat Woman.

“My argument is that those who are marginalised, including fat people, become hyper-visible and hyper-invisible”, meaning they’re sometimes ignored and sometimes made into a “spectacle”, she tells the BBC.

Amy Toon, 34, a content creator from Solihull, felt this way. Before starting on the drugs, she shopped online “because of the overwhelming fear of people looking at me”, she says. “I just didn’t want to leave the house.”

Since losing weight, “people are a lot more smiley and just make eye contact,” she says. “I never had that before. It’s really strange and it’s also really sad at the same time.”

Society has preconceptions about how overweight people are expected to behave, and treats them accordingly, says Caleb Luna, an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara specialising in fat studies.

“Fat people are expected to hide and shrink ourselves and not be proud,” says Prof Luna.

Weight isn’t a protected characteristic in the UK or in most other parts of the world, meaning it isn’t illegal to discriminate based on size, except if the person’s weight is classed as a disability.

Academics say that anti-fat bias can have significant implications, from how people are perceived in job interviews to how doctors interact with them. People make “all kinds of personality assumptions” about other people based on their body size, according to Prof Luna.

“I don’t understand why there’s this rage that some people seem to feel upon looking at someone who’s overweight,” says Alix Harvey, a 35-year-old marine biologist from Plymouth who’s lost around three stone (20kg) after starting weight-loss injections last year. “It’s socially acceptable to hate fat people.”

Weight-loss drugs have helped people like Branneisha, Jess, Amy and Alix lose weight – but they’re not right for everyone. Some in the healthcare industry have concerns about the wrong people getting hold of the jabs – including those who are already a healthy weight or have a history of eating disorders.

Common side effects of semaglutide and tirzepatide include diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). Rarer side effects include acute gallstone disease and pancreatitis, and the NHS warns that there is also a risk of hypoglycaemia, which happens when your blood sugar level drops too low.

Jonathan Pinkney, professor of endocrinology and diabetes at the University of Plymouth, says while there are “great expectations and hope around the drugs”, trials show people “do tend to relapse” after they stop taking them, meaning the weight loss isn’t sustained.

Alix says this worries her. “Am I going to be treated differently again? Because I like the way I’m currently being treated.”

Some people who take the medication say there’s stigma attached to using the drugs to lose weight, too, which Alix says puts some people off taking the injections.

“I didn’t expect the hatred,” she says, noting that some people see the use of weight-loss injections as “cheating” and a “socially unacceptable” way to lose weight.

“A lot of people see it as the lazy way out,” Amy says, referring to comments about weight-loss drugs left on her social media videos.

For sustained weight loss, the injections need to be used as part of a healthy lifestyle, including a balanced diet and regular exercise.

“People think that it’s a magic wand then it’s not,” Amy says. “It doesn’t just melt the fat away.”

“Even if you injected yourself once a week and a pound a week just evaporated from your body, what would that matter?” Alix says. “Why is that cheating?”

“You basically can’t win,” she says, referring to the stigma attached to both being overweight and using injections to lose weight.

People who’ve lost weight using the jabs tell the BBC their self-confidence has massively improved. Many say they feel much happier to take trains and planes. Some say they now wear brighter colours and tighter clothes. Others say they’re more vocal sharing their opinions at work.

Amy says she now feels comfortable taking her children swimming, while Jess says she’s been able to book her first-ever ski trip, something she’d never thought was possible before.

“I actually think it must be annoying how confident I am at the moment,” Jess laughs.

But many of the women we spoke to were left feeling sad for their previous selves, or frustrated at the unfairness of their past treatment.

“It’s so sad that your weight can define you,” Amy says. “I haven’t changed at all as a person. The only thing that has changed my appearance.”

Branneisha echoes these thoughts.

“It makes me sad when I have experiences that are different now because the larger me deserved that same attention and love,” Branneisha says. “Being smaller now makes me sad for my former self because people looked at me differently.”

We asked our readers to send in their best pictures on the theme of “monochrome”. Here is a selection of the photographs we received from around the world.

The next theme is “my best photo” and the deadline for entries is 18 March.

The pictures will be published later that week and you will be able to find them, along with other galleries, on the In Pictures section of the BBC News website.

You can upload your entries directly here or email them to yourpics@bbc.co.uk.

Terms and conditions apply.

Further details and themes are at: We set the theme, you take the pictures.

All photographs subject to copyright.

Mark Carney has won the race to succeed Justin Trudeau as Canada’s next prime minister, vowing to win the trade war against US President Donald Trump as he takes charge of the country at a time of deep instability.

The former governor of the Canadian and UK central banks beat three rivals in the Liberal Party’s leadership contest in a landslide.

In much of his victory speech, Carney, 59, attacked Trump, who has imposed tariffs on Canada and said he wants to make the country the 51st US state. “Americans should make no mistake,” he said. “In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”

Carney is expected to be sworn in as PM in the coming days and will lead the Liberals in the next general election, which is expected to be called in the coming weeks.

Carney, now prime minister-designate, has never served in elected office.

The Liberal leadership race began in January after Trudeau resigned following nearly a decade in office. He had faced internal pressure to quit over deep unpopularity with voters, who were frustrated with a housing crisis and the rising cost of living.

Carney won on the first ballot on Sunday evening, taking 85.9% of the vote to beat his nearest rival, former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Loud cheers erupted as the results were announced to a crowd of some 1,600 party faithful in Ottawa, Canada’s capital.

The party said more than 150,000 people had cast ballots in the race.

• How Britain’s former top banker became Canada’s new PM
• Carney talks tough on Trump threat – but can he reset relations?
• Bourbon is out, patriotism is in – How Canadians are facing Trump threats

Carney, who will lead a minority government in parliament, could either call a snap general election himself or opposition parties could force one with a no-confidence vote later this month.

The governing Liberals have seen a remarkable political turnaround since Trudeau’s exit, as Canadians have been galvanised by Donald Trump’s trade threats and support for annexing their country

At the beginning of the year, they trailed the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, by more than 20 points in election polls.

They have since narrowed the gap and some polls show them statistically tied with Poilievre’s party.

Much of Carney’s speech focused on what he called Trump’s “unjustified tariffs” on Canada, America’s largest trading partner.

The US imposed levies of 25% on Canadian goods last Tuesday, but rowed back within days to exempt goods compliant with an existing trade agreement.

Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs of its own as Trudeau accused his US counterpart of trying to collapse the country’s economy.

Carney echoed that in his victory speech, saying Trump was “attacking Canadian workers, families, and businesses”.

“We can’t let him succeed,” he added, as the crowd booed loudly.

He said his government would keep tariffs on US imports “until the Americans show us respect”.

Canada’s economy depends significantly on trade with the US and risks tipping into recession if the sweeping tariffs threatened by Trump are fully imposed.

“I know these are dark days,” Carney said. “Dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust.

“We’re getting over the shock, but let us never forget the lessons: we have to look after ourselves and we have to look out for each other. We need to pull together in the tough days ahead.”

Carney also pledged to “secure our borders” – a key demand of Trump who has accused Canada of failing to control the flow of migrants and fentanyl going south.

The US president even got a mention in Carney’s attacks on his main opponent, Conservative leader Poilievre.

“Pierre Poilievre’s plan will leave us divided and ready to be conquered,” said Carney.

“Because a person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him.”

Shortly before Carney took to the stage, Trudeau gave an emotional farewell speech, reflecting on his 12 years as Liberal leader.

He warned that Canada was facing an “existential challenge” from the US under Trump.

The Conservatives have had to pivot politically since Trudeau’s resignation, and are attacking Carney as not representing change but rather being “just like Justin”.

They accuse the Liberals of a “sneaky” plan to win a fourth term by simply substituting their leader.

Poilievre’s party has also accused Carney of lying about his role in moving investment firm Brookfield Asset Management’s head office from Toronto to New York.

Carney said the formal decision by shareholders to relocate the firm was made after he quit the board at the start of this year but a letter emerged showing he had recommended the move in December.

Federal Public Safety Minister David McGuinty, who endorsed Carney, told the BBC that he “embodies the kind of quiet determination, but steely determination and competence to deal with some of these big issues”.

“I’m really, really excited for what’s coming. And frankly, it’s time for an election.”

The Liberals will face Poilievre’s Conservatives, who are the official opposition with 120 seats in the House of Commons; the Bloc Quebecois, who have 33 seats; and the New Democrats, who have 24, when Canadians next go to the polls.

The former central banker has run on a broadly centrist agenda, a shift from Trudeau, who moved the Liberals to the left.

A major promise is to push forward major energy projects like pipelines, which have faced political roadblocks in recent years.

He has promised major investments in housing and clean energy projects, and to liberalise trade within Canada, where barriers remain between provinces, as well as diversifying the economy away from the US.

During the leadership race, Carney promised to cap the size of the federal government, which expanded 40% under Trudeau.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and tech billionaire Elon Musk have had a contentious exchange with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, in a series of X posts on Sunday over the use of Musk’s Starlink satellite system in Ukraine.

In a response to a post from Musk mentioning turning off the system, Sikorski implied that any threats to shut down Starlink would result in a search for other suppliers.

Rubio quickly dismissed the claims that Musk would shut down the system and urged Sikorski to be grateful.

The trio went back and forth in an exchange of posts on X that ended with Musk calling Sikorski “small man”.

Starlink’s system is part of SpaceX’s mission to provide high-speed internet to remote and underserved areas – like war zones – around the world.

Sunday’s exchange started when Musk posted that Starlink was the “backbone of the Ukrainian army”.

“Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off,” he wrote.

Sikorski then responded to Musk’s post, saying that Poland was paying for the service.

“Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year,” Sikorski wrote. “The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.”

Sikorski’s post caused Rubio to chime in, writing that the Polish foreign minister was “just making things up”.

“No-one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink,” Rubio wrote.

“And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now,” he added.

Musk later responded to Sikorski’s post calling him a “small man”.

“Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink,” Musk wrote.

The Starlink terminals are key to Ukraine’s army operations and have been used since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.

There are tens of thousands of terminals in the country, including up to 500 purchased by the US Department of Defence in June 2023.

Hackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime have successfully cashed out at least $300m (£232m) of their record-breaking $1.5bn crypto heist.

The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, swiped the huge haul of digital tokens in a hack on crypto exchange ByBit two weeks ago.

Since then, it’s been a cat-and-mouse game to track and block the hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable cash.

Experts say the infamous hacking team is working nearly 24 hours a day – potentially funnelling the money into the regime’s military development.

“Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they’re doing,” says Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic.

Out of all the criminal actors involved in crypto currency, North Korea is the best at laundering crypto, Dr Robinson says.

“I imagine they have an entire room of people doing this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see from their activity that they only take a few hours break each day, possibly working in shifts to get the crypto turned into cash.”

Elliptic’s analysis tallies with ByBit, which says that 20% of the funds have now “gone dark”, meaning it is unlikely to ever be recovered.

The US and allies accuse the North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacks in recent years to fund the regime’s military and nuclear development.

On 21 February the criminals hacked one of ByBit’s suppliers to secretly alter the digital wallet address that 401,000 Ethereum crypto coins were being sent to.

ByBit thought it was transferring the funds to its own digital wallet, but instead sent it all to the hackers.

Ben Zhou, the CEO of ByBit, assured customers that none of their funds had been taken.

The firm has since replenished the stolen coins with loans from investors, but is in Zhou’s words “waging war on Lazarus”.

ByBit’s Lazarus Bounty programme is encouraging members of the public to trace the stolen funds and get them frozen where possible.

All crypto transactions are displayed on a public blockchain, so it’s possible to track the money as it’s moved around by the Lazarus Group.

If the hackers try to use a mainstream crypto service to attempt to turn the coins into normal money like dollars, the crypto coins can be frozen by the company if they think they are linked to crime.

So far 20 people have shared more than $4m in rewards for successfully identifying $40m of the stolen money and alerting crypto firms to block transfers.

But experts are downbeat about the chances of the rest of the funds being recoverable, given the North Korean expertise in hacking and laundering the money.

“North Korea is a very closed system and closed economy so they created a successful industry for hacking and laundering and they don’t care about the negative impression of cyber crime,” Dr Dorit Dor from cyber security company Check Point said.

Another problem is that not all crypto companies are as willing to help as others.

Crypto exchange eXch is being accused by ByBit and others of not stopping the criminals cashing out.

More than $90m has been successfully funnelled through this exchange.

But over email the elusive owner of eXch – Johann Roberts – disputed that.

He admits they didn’t initially stop the funds, as his company is in a long-running dispute with ByBit, and he says his team wasn’t sure the coins were definitely from the hack.

He says he is now co-operating, but argues that mainstream companies that identify crypto customers are abandoning the private and anonymous benefits of crypto currency.

North Korea has never admitted being behind the Lazarus Group, but is thought to be the only country in the world using its hacking powers for financial gain.

Previously the Lazarus Group hackers targeted banks, but have in the last five years specialised in attacking cryptocurrency companies.

The industry is less well protected with fewer mechanisms in place to stop them laundering the funds.

Recent hacks linked to North Korea include:

• The 2019 hack on UpBit for $41m
• The $275m theft of crypto from exchange KuCoin (most of the funds were recovered)
• The 2022 Ronin Bridge attack which saw hackers make off with $600m in crypto
• Approximately $100m in crypto was stolen in an attack on Atomic Wallet in 2023

In 2020, the US added North Koreans accused of being part of the Lazarus Group to its Cyber Most Wanted list. But the chances of the individuals ever being arrested are extremely slim unless they leave their country.

US President Donald Trump has refused to say whether the US economy is facing a recession or price rises in the wake of his administration’s flip-flopping on tariff threats against some of its closest trading partners.

Asked if he was expecting a recession this year, Trump said there was a “period of transition” taking place.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, however, insisted there would be no contraction in the world’s largest economy, while acknowledging that the price of some goods may rise.

It comes after a volatile week for US financial markets as investors grappled with uncertainty from his administration’s U-turn on some key parts of its aggressive trade policies.

New tit-for-tat tariffs from China, which target some US farm products, came into effect on Monday.

Speaking to Fox News in an interview broadcast on Sunday but recorded on Thursday, Trump responded to a question about a recession: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing.”

“It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us,” Trump added.

Last week, the US imposed new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada but then exempted many of those goods just two days later.

Trump also doubled a blanket tariff on goods from China to 20%. In response, Beijing announced retaliatory taxes on some imports of agricultural goods from the US.

From today, certain US farm products going into China – including chicken, beef, pork, wheat, and soybeans – face new tariffs of 10 to 15%.

The US president has accused China, Mexico and Canada of not doing enough to end the flow of illegal drugs and migrants into the US. The three countries have rejected the accusations.

Stocks on Wall Street have fallen since Trump sparked a trade war with the US’s top trading partners.

Investors fear tariffs will lead to higher prices and ultimately dent growth in the world’s largest economy.

Speaking on NBC on Sunday, Lutnick said: “Foreign goods may get a little more expensive. But American goods are going to get cheaper”.

But when asked whether the US economy could face a recession Lutnick added: “Absolutely not… There’s going to be no recession in America.”

Former US Commerce Department official, Frank Lavin, told the BBC that he thinks the trade war is unlikely to escalate out of control.

Tariffs will eventually “fade a bit” but still be an “extra burden on the US economy,” he said.

Six months ago, a viral TikTok trend made us obsessed with being very demure and very mindful – but now, modesty has taken a back seat among celebrities who have made see-through outfits all the rage on red carpets and catwalks.

At the Brit Awards last week, big winner Charli XCX went full brat as she wore a sheer black dress, prompting hundreds of complaints to media watchdog Ofcom.

She used one of her acceptance speeches to address the controversy of her outfit. “I heard that ITV were complaining about my nipples,” she said. “I feel like we’re in the era of ‘free the nipple’ though, right?”

The nearly naked look has been a talking point at other award ceremonies – including last Sunday’s Oscars and the Grammys in February, when Kanye West’s girlfriend Bianca Censori dropped her coat on the red carpet to reveal an almost entirely invisible dress.

The love for transparent textiles has continued at London and Paris fashion weeks, with many of the celebrities watching on also getting the memo.

At Stella McCartney’s Paris show, US actress and Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris Jackson wore a translucent black off-the-shoulder maxi dress with only a nude-coloured thong underneath.

Rapper Ice Spice sported a black lace catsuit with a feathered coat at the show.

Naked dressing was a key trend in some designers’ spring/summer collections, and the theme has continued in autumn/winter looks too.

As Vogue wrote in January: “For a period of time, sheerness was few and far between, but nowadays, ‘naked dressing’ is commonplace every season.”

Dior’s latest collection embraced see-through material and presented it in an ethereal way, with intricate detailing and gender-fluid silhouettes.

Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri described her collection as “demonstrating how clothing is a receptacle that affirms cultural, aesthetic and social codes”.

The trend divides opinion but is certainly part of a wider movement – last summer Charli XCX’s definition of being a brat included wearing “a strappy white top with no bra”.

Sheer dressing is a nod to the minimalist looks of the 1990s – think transparent blouses and Kate Moss wearing a thin slip dress – and with our love for nostalgia fashion, it’s no wonder it is taking off again.

The trend also had a resurgence a decade ago. The “free the nipple” movement was everywhere in the early 2010s, with Rihanna stirring up headlines with her sheer crystal-embellished dress at the CFDA awards in 2014.

Charli XCX’s Brits outfit was praised by some on social media. “Stop policing women’s bodies,” one person wrote, while another said she looked comfortable in her outfit so “why is society judging?”

But many found it too risque for prime-time TV. Ofcom received 825 complaints about the Brits ceremony, the majority relating to Charli’s outfit and Sabrina Carpenter’s eye-opening pre-watershed performance.

“Maybe think about putting this on at a time when kids ain’t gonna be watching,” one person wrote on social media.

Fashion stylist and CEO of clothing brand Mermaid Way, Julia Pukhalskaia, calls the choice to wear revealing dresses a “provocative statement”, but says it’s a “way to reclaim the right to govern one’s body”.

The controversy around it feeds into a wider dialogue about women’s rights and double standards when it comes to dress codes, she adds.

Abhi Madan, creative director of fashion brand Amarra, believes the trend “is about embracing freedom and boldness in fashion”.

The idea of freeing the nipple “isn’t just about exposure – it’s a movement towards body positivity and challenging conventional fashion norms”, he argues.

“Designers are now integrating sheer elements not just for shock value but to create a refined and elegant silhouette that empowers wearers.”

It seems many Hollywood stars this year were feeling empowered as chiffon, lace and tulle were in plentiful supply at the Oscars.

Shock value is surely a factor for some, too, though.

At Vanity Fair’s Oscars afterparty, Julia Fox wore a mesh dress with only long wavy hair to cover some of her modesty.

There were other interpretations of the naked dress – Megan Thee Stallion wore a green dress with strategically placed foliage and nipple coverings, while Zoe Kravitz opted to cover up the front but expose the back as a beaded mesh panel revealed her buttocks in her Saint Laurent dress.

“This year, naked dressing seemed to particularly thrive at the event,” the New York Times noted.

However, not everyone is on board. The Times fashion director Anna Murphy wrote that she’s over the trend because “it’s only women who do this”.

“It is not an equal opportunities endeavour. It is, rather, a manifestation of the kind of thing that keeps this world unequal. That women’s bodies are for public consumption and men’s, usually, aren’t,” she wrote.

Some men have been embracing the nearly naked trend, though. In 2022, Timothée Chalamet wore striking a backless red top at Venice Film Festival, and at the 2023 Grammys Harry Styles freed the nipple in a plunge harlequin jumpsuit.

It’s the women who will continue to cause more of a stir on runways and red carpets – and society will still be split on whether it’s redefining conventional notions of modesty in fashion, a product of misogyny, or simply seeking attention.

Mark Carney’s thumping victory in the race to succeed Justin Trudeau makes him not only leader of the Liberal Party but, by default, the next Canadian prime minister.

It’s an extraordinary result for a man with very little political experience. He has never been elected as an MP, let alone served in a cabinet post.

What Carney does have though – as Governor of the Bank of Canada during the global financial crisis and Governor of the Bank of England during the Brexit negotiations – is a long track record in global finance during times of economic turbulence.

And at a moment like this, Carney has been arguing, that could prove invaluable.

Politics in this country has been turned on its head as a result of what’s happening south of the border, with US President Donald Trump launching a trade war and threatening to make Canada the 51st state of America.

Addressing a crowd of Liberal supporters after the result of the leadership contest was announced on Sunday evening, Carney promised to face down the threats from Trump, over the tariffs and the claims on Canada’s sovereignty.

“Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form,” he said. “We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.

“Americans should make no mistake”, he warned. “In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”

He repeatedly referred to the US president by name and said his government would keep retaliatory tariffs in place until “America shows us respect”.

How he will translate his strong language on the stage in Ottawa into practical solutions to those twin challenges was, however, far less clear.

Liberals might hope that Trudeau’s exit from the stage will, in itself, help clear the air.

Instead of the frequent mocking of Trudeau by Trump as a “weak” leader, they might dare to believe that Carney will at least be able to reset the personal chemistry.

On the other hand, if he has to push hard in an attempt to win concessions, will he also risk incurring the wrath of a man who uses unpredictability as a political art form?

Much of that will depend on how serious the US president is in his insistence that he wants to impose real economic pain on Canada and annex its territory.

And that’s a hard question to answer.

• Carney wins race to succeed Trudeau as Canada’s PM
• How Britain’s former top banker came to lead Canada

After Carney had accepted the party’s nomination, I caught up with former Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, who served for a decade from 1993 and who’d taken to the stage earlier in the evening.

Did he think Mr Trump was being serious?

“You know, I don’t know,” he told me. “Do you know? Does anyone know? I’m not a medical doctor or a psychiatrist. He changes his mind every two or three hours. So [for him] to be leader of the free world, it is preoccupying for everybody.”

While the US threat is dominating Canadian politics – Carney described the current situation as “dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust” – there are still domestic political matters to focus on too, not least the prospect of a general election.

Once sworn in as prime minister in the coming days, Carney will have to decide whether to call a snap election. If he doesn’t, the opposition parties in Parliament could force one later this month through a no-confidence vote.

Before Trudeau said he was stepping down, the Liberal Party was facing electoral oblivion.

After nine years in power, he’d become a liability and a lightning rod for public anger over the rising cost of living despite record levels of government spending and a ballooning national debt.

The stage appeared to be set for the Liberals to be swept from power by a Conservative Party under the stewardship of the young, populist leader Pierre Poilievre, who had turned lambasting Trudeau into something of a sport.

Now, not only has he lost the advantage of a deeply unpopular opponent, his political style is at risk of appearing out of step. In the current environment, even a loose alignment with the politics of Trump is a potential liability with Canadian voters.

The Republican president, for his part, recently said Canada’s Conservative leader was not Maga enough.

The Liberal Party is suddenly feeling a sense of rejuvenation – the gap in the opinion polls with the Conservatives, once a gulf, has narrowed dramatically. And you could feel that palpable sense of optimism in the room on Sunday evening.

Aware of the danger, Poilievre accused Liberals of “trying to trick Canadians” to elect them to a fourth term. But his statement also highlighted how Trump is changing the political messaging on this side of the border.

“It is the same Liberal team that drove up taxes, housing costs, and food prices, while Carney personally profited from moving billions of dollars and thousands of jobs out of Canada to the United States,” Poilievre wrote.

“We need a new Conservative government that will put Canada First – for a change.”

Donald Trump’s election has led Canada to rally to round its flag and has propelled a former central bank governor – an archetypal member of the country’s political elite – to the highest office in the land.

The Conservatives may still lead in the polls, but for the first time in a long time, the Liberals believe that, under Carney, they have a fighting chance again.

Syria’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has vowed to hold anyone involved in harming civilians accountable after days of clashes where Syrian security forces allegedly killed hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority.

A UK-based monitor said 830 civilians were killed in “massacres” targeting Alawites on the west coast on Friday and Saturday.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the death toll of the violence, which is believed to be the worst since the fall of the Assad regime.

In a speech broadcast on national TV and posted on social media, Sharaa, whose rebel movement toppled Bashar al-Assad in December, also promised to hunt down Assad loyalists.

• UN urges Syria to act – follow updates
• Syrians describe terror as Alawite families killed in their homes

The fighting has also killed 231 members of the security forces and 250 pro-Assad fighters, according to the monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), taking the overall death toll to 1,311.

“Today, as we stand at this critical moment, we find ourselves facing a new danger – attempts by remnants of the former regime and their foreign backers to incite new strife and drag our country into a civil war, aiming to divide it and destroy its unity and stability,” the interim president said on Sunday.

“We affirm that we will hold accountable, firmly and without leniency, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians or harming our people, who overstepped the powers of the state or exploits authority to achieve his own ends,” Sharaa added in the video speech, posted by state news agency Sana.

“No-one will be above the law and anyone whose hands are stained with the blood of Syrians will face justice sooner rather than later.”

Earlier on Sunday, he announced on Telegram that an “independent committee” had been formed to “investigate the violations against civilians and identify those responsible for them”.

He also appealed for national unity but did not comment directly on accusations that atrocities were being committed by his supporters in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartous.

“God willing, we will be able to live together in this country,” he said in an separate address from a Damascus mosque.

A Syrian security source said the pace of fighting had slowed around the cities of Latakia, Jabla and Baniyas on Sunday, according to Reuters.

The violence of recent days has been sparked after ambushes on government forces on Thursday.

A Syrian defence ministry spokesman described it to the Sana state news agency as “treacherous attacks” against security personnel.

It has since escalated into a wave of clashes between Assad loyalists and government forces.

Hundreds of Syrians gathered in Damascus to protest against the deadly violence in the country. Demonstrators congregated in Marjeh Square – also known as Martyrs’ Square – with placards on Sunday.

Amid the fighting, hundreds of civilians living along the Mediterranean coast have fled their homes. The provinces of Latakia and Tartous were former heartlands of deposed president Bashar al-Assad, who also belongs to the Alawite minority.

Alawites, whose sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam, make up around 10% of Syria’s population, which is majority Sunni Muslim.

The violence has left the Alawite community in “a state of horror”, an activist in Latakia told the BBC on Friday.

Large crowds sought refuge at a Russian military base at Hmeimim in Latakia, according to the Reuters news agency.

Video footage shared by Reuters showed dozens of people chanting “people want Russian protection” outside the base.

Meanwhile, local media reported dozens of families had also fled to neighbouring Lebanon.

The UN’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said he was “deeply alarmed” by “very troubling reports of civilian casualties” in Syria’s coastal areas.

He called on all sides to refrain from actions which could “destabilise” the country and jeopardise a “credible and inclusive political transition”.

Similarly, the UN human rights chief Volker Türk called the reports “extremely disturbing”, adding the need for “prompt, transparent and impartial investigations” into all the violations.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, described the killings of Alawites in Latakia and Tartous as “systematic” and “extremely dangerous”, and accused Syria’s interim government of failing to control the crisis.

“It was expected that after the fall of the Assad government, Syria would face a difficult transition,” Amani said. “But the scale of violence now unfolding is unprecedented and deeply troubling.”

Iran’s government was aligned with Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, which was toppled last December. Assad was ousted after decades of repressive and brutal rule by his family and an almost 14-year-long civil war.

Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has been barred from participating in May’s presidential election rerun by the country’s Central Electoral Bureau (BEC), triggering clashes between his supporters and police.

Last year, Romania’s constitutional court annulled November’s first round of the vote – in which he came first – after intelligence revealed Russia had been involved in 800 TikTok accounts backing him.

The BEC rejected his candidacy on Sunday, saying it “doesn’t meet the conditions of legality”, as he “violated the very obligation to defend democracy”.

Georgescu called that decision a “direct blow” to democracy. He now has 24 hours from Sunday’s verdict to submit an official appeal to the top court, which should issue a ruling within 72 hours.

In a social media post, Georgescu called the ban a “direct blow to the heart of democracy worldwide”.

Tear gas was fired at supporters of the presidential hopeful as violence broke out between them and police while they gathered in their thousands outside the offices of the BEC in the capital Bucharest.

The BBC saw at least one car turned over, and the windows of neighbouring bars smashed. At least four people were detained.

While many protesters left the scene, several hundred people remained and continued to fight with riot police, who brought in reinforcements and attempted to cordon off the area.

On 26 February, Georgescu was arrested on his way to register as a candidate in the summer election, prompting tens of thousands of Romanians to march on Bucharest’s streets in protest.

He was charged with attempting to overthrow constitutional order and membership of a neo-fascist organisation. He has denied all wrongdoing.

The 62-year-old independent came from nowhere to win the first round of last year’s election, the results of which were annulled just days before the second round of voting.

One key to his sudden popularity was his promise to “restore Romania’s dignity” and end subservience to the international organisations it belongs to, including Nato and the EU.

Before last year’s annulment, the pro-Russian politician told the BBC he would end all support for Ukraine if he was elected.

Georgescu has also seen some support from the Trump administration.

Last month, US Vice-President JD Vance accused Romania of annulling the elections based on the “flimsy suspicions” of Romanian intelligence and pressure from its neighbours.

Meanwhile, Romanian Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu accused Elon Musk of a “form of interference” in Romania’s elections, after the billionaire posted several messages of support for Georgescu.

Syria’s interim leader has appealed for unity, as violence and revenge killings continued in areas loyal to ousted former leader Bashar al-Assad on Sunday.

Hundreds of people have reportedly fled their homes in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus – strongholds of Assad support.

Local residents have described scenes of looting and mass killings, including of children.

In Hai Al Kusour, a predominantly Alawite neighbourhood in the coastal city of Banias, residents say the streets are filled with scattered bodies, piled up and covered in blood. Men of different ages were shot dead there, witnesses said.

The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam and makes up around 10% of Syria’s population, which is majority Sunni Muslim. Assad belongs to the sect.

People were too scared to even look out of their windows on Friday. The internet connection is unstable, but when connected they learned of their neighbours’ deaths from Facebook posts.

One man, Ayman Fares, told the BBC he was saved by his recent imprisonment. He had posted a video on his Facebook account in August 2023 criticising Assad for his corrupt rule. He was arrested soon after, and only released when Islamist-led forces freed prisoners after Assad’s fall last December.

• UN urges Syria to act – follow updates
• Syria leader calls for peace after hundreds of civilians killed

The fighters who raided the streets of Hai Al Kusour recognised him, so he was spared death but not the looting. They took his cars and continued to raid other houses.

“They were strangers, I can’t identify their identity or language, but they seemed to be Uzbek or Chechen,” Mr Fares told me by phone.

“There were also some Syrians with them but not from the official security. Some civilians also were among those who carried out the killing,” he added.

Mr Fares said he saw families killed in their own homes, and women and children covered in blood. Some families ran to their rooftops to hide but were not spared the bloodshed. “It is horrific,” he said.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented more than 740 civilians killed in the coastal cities of Latakia, Jableh and Banias. A further 300 members of the security forces and remnants of the Assad regime are reported to have died in clashes.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the death toll.

Mr Fares said things stabilised when the Syrian army and security forces arrived in the city of Banias. They pushed other factions out of the city and provided corridors for families to access safe areas, he said.

Ali, another resident of Banias who asked us not to use his full name, corroborated Mr Fares’ account. Ali, who lived in Kusour with his wife and 14-year-old daughter, fled his home with the assistance of security forces.

“They came to our building. We were too scared just listening to the fire and screams of people in the neighbourhood. We learned about the deaths from sporadic Facebook posts when we managed to connect. But when they came to our building, we thought we are done,” he said.

“They were after money. They knocked on our neighbour’s door taking his car, his money and all the gold or valuables he had in his home. But he was not killed.”

Ali and his family were picked up by his Sunni neighbours, who follow a different branch of Islam, and are now staying with them. “We lived together for years, Alawites, Sunnis and Christians. We never experienced this,” he told me.

“The Sunnis rushed to protect Alawites from the killing that happened and now the official forces are in town to restore order.”

Ali said families were taken to a school in a neighbourhood that is predominantly Sunni, where they will be protected until members of the factions that carried out the killings are ousted from Banias.

The violence started on Thursday after Assad loyalists – who refused to give up arms – ambushed security forces around the coastal cities of Latakia and Jableh, killing dozens of them.

Ghiath Dallah, an ex-brigadier general in Assad’s army, has announced a new rebellion against the current government, saying he was establishing the “Military Council for the Liberation of Syria”.

Some reports suggest that former security officers of the Assad regime who refused to give up arms are forming a resistance group in the mountains.

Mr Fares said most of the Alawite community reject them and blame Dallah and other hardline Assad loyalists for the violence.

“They benefit from the bloodshed that’s happening. What we need now is official security to prevail and to prosecute the killers from the factions who did the mass killing so the country restores safety,” he said.

But others also blame interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, saying he dismantled Syria’s security, army and police establishments with no clear strategy for dealing with thousands of officers and personnel left unemployed.

Some of these individuals, especially among the police, had nothing to do with the killing during Assad’s regime. The new authorities also dismissed thousands of public employees from their work.

With 90% of Syria’s population living below the poverty line and thousands left without an income, it’s fertile ground for a rebellion.

There is a split in views in Syria over what is happening. The wider community condemns the killing of any civilians and demonstrations have been organised in Damascus to mourn the deaths and condemn the violence.

But over the past two days, there were also calls for “Jihad” in different parts of Syria. Residents in Banias said that along with the factions, there were some civilians who were armed and joined forces in the killing.

Syria’s majority Sunnis have faced atrocities at the hands of the Assad regime’s forces over the past 13 years. This fuelled sectarian hatred mainly towards the Alawite minority, where members of the community are affiliated with war crimes.

According to human rights groups, there is evidence that Alawite security officers were involved in the killing and torture of thousands of Syrians, the majority of which are Sunni Muslims, during the Assad regime.

Those members of the army and security forces who were killed are mostly from the Sunni community and now some in the Sunni community are calling for retaliation, but the president has called for calm.

Sharaa, whose Islamist forces toppled Assad three months ago, must now balance providing safety for all with pursuing justice for the crimes of the Assad regime and its henchmen.

While he has authority over some of the troops who helped him to power, some factions are clearly out of his control. Those factions also include foreign fighters with a radical Islamist agenda.

To lead Syria into a safe and democratic future, many argue Sharaa needs to end the presence of any foreign fighters and deliver a constitution that protects the rights of all Syrians, regardless of their background or religion.

While he is seen to be working towards the legal framework for such a constitution, controlling the violent factions and expelling foreign fighters will prove a major challenge.

I’m standing in what feels like a suite in a posh hotel – all soft lighting, marble counter tops, plush seating and parquet-style flooring.

An ornate platter of food catches the corner of my eye.

“That is a seafood tower as a welcome food amenity, as well as caviar, and you can also see the champagne there for guests to enjoy,” says Dana Pouwels, head of airport lounge benefits at US bank Chase.

She is showing me around Chase’s new Sapphire Lounge at New York’s La Guardia Airport.

This is what waiting to catch a flight can look like these days – if you can afford to pay $550 (£433) a year to have the correct credit card required to gain entry.

Then once inside Chase’s new La Guardia lounge you can then choose to pay up to $3,000 to access a private suite for a few hours.

It is all part of what has been described as a global arms race among the credit card companies that you are probably entirely unaware of – they are competing to outdo each other with bigger, better, bolder airport lounges.

And while most of us don’t have access to these lounges, experts say we are almost certainly helping pay for them. And they don’t come cheap.

“Yes, it’s an arms race, and they’re getting extraordinary,” says Clint Thompson, the news editor at the flight and travel website The Points Guy. “From what we do know, we’re talking up to tens of millions of dollars per lounge.

“Like the new [American Express-owned] Centurion lounge in Atlanta, I believe they spent about $100m to make that happen.”

Airport lounges aren’t a new concept, and credit card issuers have long teamed up with airlines to offer branded credit cards with lounge access.

But now the card issuers are building lounges themselves, as a way of directly appealing to card holders – and potential new customers too.

JP Morgan Chase, American Express, Capital One, they’re all now in the lounge – and lifestyle – business.

For American Express this includes opening a high-end lounge in midtown Manhattan.

Its Centurion New York venue is located on the 55th floor of a skyscraper, with floor to ceiling windows offering sweeping views of New York, and fine dining and private bars.

It’s designed for Centurion card holders – a card which will cost you $10,000 as a signing on fee, plus $5,000 a year. And it is invite-only to get one.

“We’re more than a credit card company or a charge card company, it’s more a lifestyle brand, getting you special access to concerts, getting you into restaurants,” says Audrey Hendley, the head of global travel at American Express.

The card issuers have even moved into a 21st Century staple, the coffee shop.

Capital One have Capital One Cafés – now you have a barista in a bank.

Their branch in the Georgetown neighbourhood of Washington DC has all the classic signs of the hip coffee shop – exposed vents, bare brick walls, barista coffee machine.

The only immediate giveaway you might be in the bank is the neon Capital One sign on the wall and their branded touch screens. Look a bit closer, and you might spot one of their casually dressed people who looks like a customer, but is actually what Capital One calls their ambassadors, here to welcome you in and help you with all your banking needs.

Anyone can use the café, but hold a Capital One card and you get money off your brew.

“We’re creating a showroom for our products,” says Shaun Rowley the director of Capital One Cafes.

“For customers to come in and see Capital One in action, to touch it, to smell it and even taste it with our cafes. And watching them walk out, as you know, raving fans and advocates for us is kind of the return that we’re looking for.”

None of this sounds like the sort of language you hear normally hear from financial institutions.

Dan Bennett is the head of behavioural science the ad giant Ogilvy. He says this is all about brands tapping into how people think about themselves, and other people.

“Yeah, it is a piece of plastic with the chip in it that holds your money, but it is something that actually gives you a position in society,” he says. “It is something that says something about who you are. It is something that can make you feel elevated.

“The credit card firms are not just building rooms at airports, they’re building a sense of self. It’s kind of amazing that financial services companies have managed to kind of look at some deep-core human drivers, and then build experiences around that.

“And that’s why they’re so successful with them, because they’ve managed to find the psychological levers to pull, rather than just looking at the world through a rational lens.”

But even if you’re never going to get access to these places, you are ultimately still paying for them, according to Lulu Wang. He’s assistant professor of finance at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University near Chicago, and has studied how card payment systems work.

He points out that credit cards are more expensive for merchants, be they retailers, or bars and restaurants to accept than debit cards as they incur a higher processing fee.

Prof Wang says merchants are likely to put up prices to cover the additional cost of people using credit cards.

“We typically think that corporations, you know, they’re facing higher costs, they’re going to pass on a pretty substantial share of those costs onto consumers,” he explains.

“If we impose all these costs on the merchant, it ends up being a cost that is ultimately borne by all of us as consumers. Well-off people get to use the high merchant fee, high reward cards, and then it’s the rest of society that has to bear that cost.”

Whoever is picking up the cost, the direction of travel is clear. More lounges and lifestyle experiences are coming as card issuers compete against each other.

The arms race to get your credit card loyalty isn’t slowing down.