Share markets in Asia have fallen after a selloff in the US was triggered by President Donald Trump not ruling out the suggestion that his tariffs could trigger a recession in the world’s biggest economy.

It followed the president saying in a TV interview that the US economy was in a “period of transition”, when asked about concerns over a potential recession.

Since those remarks were broadcast on Sunday, top Trump officials and advisers have sought to calm investor fears.

“The previous notion of Trump being a stock market president is being re-evaluated,” said Charu Chanana, an investment strategist at investment bank Saxo told the BBC.

In a Fox News interview broadcast on Sunday but recorded on Thursday, Trump appeared to acknowledge concerns about the economy. “I hate to predict things like that,” he said. “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.”

In morning trade on Tuesday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.7%, South Korea’s Kospi was 1.5% lower and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was off by 0.7%.

On Monday in New York, the S&P 500, which tracks the biggest American companies, ended the trading day 2.7% lower, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2%.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq was hit particularly hard, sinking 4%.

Tesla shares fell by 15.4%, while artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia was down more than 5%. Other major tech stocks including Meta, Amazon and Alphabet also fell sharply.

• Stocks slide as Trump warns of US economy ‘transition’

• Trump expands exemptions from Canada and Mexico tariffs

“Trump is keeping political leaders guessing regarding his next moves on tariffs, but the problem is that he’s also keeping investors guessing and that’s reflected in the dire market mood,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at financial services firm KCM Trade.

“Whilst recession talk may be premature, the mere prospect of this coming to fruition is enough to put traders into a defensive mindset.”

After trading closed on Monday, a White House official told reporters: “We’re seeing a strong divergence between [the] animal spirits of the stock market and what we’re actually seeing unfold from businesses and business leaders.”

“The latter is obviously more meaningful than the former on what’s in store for the economy in the medium to long term,” the official added.

In a separate statement later in the day, White House spokesman Kush Desai said “industry leaders” had responded to Trump’s agenda, including tariffs, “with trillions in investment commitments”.

Last week, the main US markets fell back to the level seen before Trump’s election victory last November, which had initially been welcomed by investors due to hopes of tax cuts and lighter regulation.

Investors fear Trump’s tariffs – which are taxes on goods applied as they enter the country – will lead to higher prices and dent growth in the world’s largest economy.

“The level of tariffs that Trump is imposing, I think no doubt, will have to cause inflation somewhere down the line,” Rachel Winter, investment manager at Killik & Co, told the Today programme.

The president introduced the measures after accusing 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.

Economist Mohamed El-Erian said investors were initially optimistic about Trump’s plans for de-regulation and lower taxes, while under-estimating the likelihood of a trade war.

He said the recent falls in the stock market, which started last week, reflect the adjustment of those bets.

“It’s a complete change in what the market expected,” he added, noting that investors are also responding to signs that businesses and households are starting to hold off on spending due to uncertainty, which could hurt economic growth.

But Kevin Hassett, an economic adviser to President Trump, has pushed back against those projecting this bleak outlook.

In an interview with CNBC, Hassett said there were many reasons to be optimistic about the US economy and that that tariffs imposed on Canada, Mexico and China were already bringing manufacturing and jobs to the United States.

“There are a lot of reasons to be extremely bullish about the economy going forward,” he said.

He admitted there were some “blips in the data” for this quarter, which he pinned on the timing of Trump’s tariffs and the “Biden inheritance”.

Philippine police have arrested former president Rodrigo Duterte, acting on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant following an investigation into his deadly “war on drugs”.

Duterte was arrested by police in Manila airport shortly after his arrival from Hong Kong.

Duterte’s brutal anti-drugs crackdown, which occured when he was president of the South East Asian nation from 2016 to 2022, saw thousands of people killed.

The 79-year-old had earlier said he was ready to go to prison, when responding to reports of his possible arrest.

America’s top diplomat has said that he sees promise in Ukraine’s proposal for a partial ceasefire to end the war with Russia, ahead of talks in Saudi Arabia between US and Ukrainian officials.

“I’m not saying that alone is enough but it’s the kind of concession you would need to see in order to end the conflict,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday.

Kyiv is expected to propose an aerial and naval truce with Russia during the negotiations on Tuesday, a Ukrainian official told AFP.

Russia has previously rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire, saying it was an attempt to buy time and prevent Ukraine’s military collapse.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, although he is not expected to play any formal role in the talks between his country and the US.

In his video address late on Monday, Zelensky said he was hoping for a “practical result” at the talks, adding that the Ukrainian position would be “absolutely constructive”.

The Ukrainian team will be represented by Zelensky’s head of office Andriy Yermak, the country’s national security adviser and several foreign and defence ministers.

Rubio will represent the US delegation alongside National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Before arriving in Jeddah on Monday, Rubio said that it was important to “establish clearly Ukraine’s intentions” for a peace deal and that the country would “have to be prepared to do difficult things like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things to end this”.

“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” he added. “We want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go, and compare that to what the Russians want, and then see how far apart we truly are.”

He said that both sides needed to realise that “there’s no military solution” to the conflict and it can only be resolved through “diplomatic means”.

It comes as Donald Trump steps up pressure on Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire with Moscow, without any promises of US security guarantees.

The talks mark the first official meeting since Zelensky’s visit to the White House descended into acrimony last month.

Following the meeting, the US paused military aid and intelligence sharing for Kyiv in an apparent bid to get Zelensky to the negotiating table.

Rubio said that he hoped the pause in aid could be “resolved” but that the negotiations on Tuesday “would be key to that”.

The suspension “came about because we felt that they [Ukraine] were not committed to any sort of peace process”, he said, and “if that changes, obviously our posture can change”.

“The President is going to use whatever tools he has at his disposal to try to get both sides to that table so this war will end,” he added.

Earlier on Monday, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff said he expected “substantial progress” during the negotiations.

Asked whether he thought Zelensky would return to the US to sign a minerals deal later in the week, he told Fox News: “I am really hopeful. All the signs are very, very positive.”

Zelensky has previously said he is willing to sign a minerals deal with the US, which would establish a joint fund from the sale of Ukrainian minerals.

Witkoff said that among the issues to be discussed in Saudi Arabia were security protocols for the Ukrainians and territorial issues.

He said the US administration had never shut off intelligence sharing for anything defensive that Ukraine needed, while on Sunday Trump told Fox News that he had “just about” lifted the intelligence sharing pause on Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also spoke to Trump ahead of the talks, Downing Street said.

“The Prime Minister said he hoped there would be a positive outcome to the talks that would enable US aid and intelligence-sharing to be restarted,” the spokeswoman said.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently holds around a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea which it annexed in 2014.

“She’s a phony, but I guess the public likes that…” This is the line that actress Joan Crawford is said to have declared about film star Bette Davis.

The back-and-forth sniping between the pair played out in the tabloids of the 1930s and 40s. “Bette is a survivor… She survived herself,” Crawford is also said to have remarked.

Their tempestuous relationship was so notorious that in 2017 it was made into an Emmy award-winning TV series, Feud.

Hollywood rivalries are of course nothing new – yet conflicts today rarely play out so publicly. That might be why the dispute between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, which spilled out into the open in December 2024, is still in the headlines three months on.

The subsequent legal battle brought to light a fallout during production of the film, It Ends With Us. After the promotional and cinematic run had ended, the pair – who didn’t appear on the red carpet together at the premiere in New York – filed lawsuits against each other.

Lively has accused Baldoni and others of carrying out a smear campaign against her after she complained about alleged sexual harassment on set. Baldoni, meanwhile, has accused Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist of carrying out a smear campaign against him, and claim that she tried to take over control of the film. Both sides deny all allegations.

What emerged as this all played out is that crisis PR managers had been employed. Legal representatives for Lively obtained numerous text messages between Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel and the crisis team he retained, led by Melissa Nathan, whose previous clients include Johnny Depp and Drake. Ms Nathan was alleged to have texted Ms Abel, “You know we can bury anyone.”

Lively has now reportedly taken on the CIA’s former deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro to advise on her legal communications strategy.

While the outcomes of the lawsuits remain to be seen, the feud has cast the spotlight on an industry that would ordinarily remain largely invisible: that is, the publicity machine at work behind the scenes in Hollywood.

“On every set, there are fights, liaisons… there are all sorts of things that go on,” explains Richard Rushfield, founder and columnist at Hollywood newsletter The Ankler. “Hollywood is a world full of very messy people coming together for these giant projects, where they put together teams quickly to make these things and disband immediately after.

“Between all that a lot of stuff goes on, and they deal with it quietly – they’re very obsessive about controlling the narrative. When this stuff explodes into the public, beyond control, it makes everyone very nervous.”

But the world of the Hollywood PR has shifted in recent years, partly because of the growth of social media, which has changed the relationship between celebrities and fans, bringing them into direct contact and removing some of the mystique.

So, what does that mean for the people whose job it is to keep a lid on the industry’s messy reality?

Few fallouts have spilled out into the open in recent years – and those that did were picked over simply because they’re so rare. Actor Dwayne Johnson revealed “a fundamental difference in philosophies on how we approach moviemaking and collaborating” with his Fast & Furious co-star Vin Diesel, in a 2018 interview.

The stars of another action film, Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, are reported to have filmed many of their scenes separately.

And then there were the alleged tensions between Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker, who were co-stars of Sex and the City, which ran for six years. In 2018, after Parker offered condolences for Cattrall’s brother’s death, Cattrall responded on social media, calling Parker a “hypocrite” and stating, “You are not my family. You are not my friend.”

But behind the scenes, hundreds of other spats will never see the light of day. “Some of a publicist’s best work may never be seen,” says Daniel Bee, a publicist and brand consultant based in Los Angeles, “because it stopped something that was wrong, or re-crafted something to a different narrative, or pointed the light in a different direction.

“The most interesting stuff I’ve ever done as a publicist is the stuff nobody will ever know about.”

Since Daniel Bee started out as an entertainment publicist in 1997, he has observed a shift in the wider industry. “I started my career in the British media, there were 11 national newspapers competing with each other. It was a bear pit, hard work, and it was getting to know individuals via relationships.

“Now, you’re up against an anonymous algorithm and accounts where you don’t know who you’re up against. It’s harder to control than ever before.”

Certainly, social media has posed challenges for those attempting to control narratives around major films and their stars – while also heralding new forms of “dark arts” through which publicists can attempt to shape opinion.

“There has always been an army of advisors and consultants doing PR voodoo,” says Eriq Gardner, entertainment law expert and founding partner of Puck News. “While I’d love to say the public is media-literate and savvy enough to read between the lines to see the spin, the truth is there are a lot of powerful forces at play and sometimes a large amount of misinformation.”

So-called PR voodoo is different now that a celebrity – or their fans – can access an audience of millions with a click.

While the publicists of previous eras might only have had to worry about print and broadcast platforms, smartphones and social media mean today’s digital landscape is a wild west where anyone can shape their own narrative. A badly judged post or comment can damage an actor’s career.

But the flipside is a whole new medium in which PRs can practise their “voodoo”.

One of the tactics is “astroturfing” – or disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous up-swelling of public opinion.

This works by manipulating public opinion and creating a false impression of grassroots support (hence the name) or opposition, often coordinated through social media accounts in a way that seems organic.

The practice isn’t new, but has been given new life with the advent of social media algorithms.

“It’s deliberately planting disinformation, or twisted versions of the truth, in certain sections of social media,” says Carla Speight, founder of the PR Mastery app. “The aim is the halfway point of influential where they will get a bit of traction, but so that it’s not too obvious – you wouldn’t hire a Kardashian to do it.

“It’s built up in layers,” she continues. “It’s like playing a very sinister game of chess. You’re putting all the pieces in the right places, just the right amount of mixed-up information, and then you just watch it explode.”

Although the posts might appear to be genuine public opinion, in fact it’s a faked crowd – whether that’s made up of bots or real people, who can be paid to coordinate their posts.

“All it takes is one or two people to create a meme and put it with the right people,” says Ms Speight. “It needs to appear as a trend, and then it’s gone. Something is dripped here, something else over there, and when it’s done well… it causes a bit of mischief.”

But all of this is simply a new platform for an age-old trend that has been going on long before the advent of social media, according to Mr Bee. “Undetected smear campaigns have always been a thing,” he points out.

“Previously it would have been a publicist whispering to a diarist of a national newspaper. The issue with digital media is it’s anonymous and untraceable.”

What has changed, he continues, is that audiences have become savvier. “Whereas before, a quite subservient audience would just take what was given to them in the media, with natural scepticism, curiosity, and a greater level of information, I think people use more critical thinking.”

Eriq Gardner is less convinced: “I’m not sure the public approaches what they read with enough scepticism.”

And yet those in the industry are often alert to it. According to Ms Speight, “Usually, there’s a distinct sort of tell, and it may be the PR thing where we have ‘spidey senses’ and we can sort of see it, but you’re asking, ‘Where has that come from? Who started that?’ And when there’s never a specific place to point it to, that’s usually a tell-tale sign.”

What’s clear, though, is that, with studios providing some publications with significant advertising revenue, as well as supplying talent for special events and front covers, revelations often emerge elsewhere in the media.

“When [scandals] come out, it’s usually from places outside of Hollywood,” argues Mr Rushfield. “The Harvey Weinstein story was broken by The New York Times and the New Yorker.”

It was The New York Times that first reported Lively’s legal complaint in December. “It’s one of the few places that can afford to do that, and then everyone else jumped in so nobody was sticking their neck out.” Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times in December, although a federal judge indicated this week that it might be dismissed.

Even when bigger outlets break news about Hollywood disputes, the growing dominance of social media means that stories might not have the same cut-through they had previously.

Doreen St Felix, a writer who was previously an editor on Lena Dunham’s newsletter, recently wrote in The New Yorker that stories of harassment and abuse, for example, now receive a “curdled, cynical, and exhausted reception” – this, less than a decade after the emergence of the MeToo movement.

She went on to claim that: “The late 2010s genre of #MeToo reportage cannot thrive on today’s volatile internet. Information is misinformation and vice versa. Victims are offenders and offenders are victims.”

Sometimes, however, the best way for publicists to prevent stories being amplified is by bypassing social media entirely when reacting to a scandal.

“If you give it to the press first, they don’t quote as many of the comments on social media,” says Ms Speight. “You control the narrative completely, because the comments come afterwards.”

Mr Rushfield points out that very little of the revelations in the entertainment press comes out because someone “uncovered” something. “Almost everything you read is there because somebody placed it there – somebody is dictating a story.”

None of this industry would exist if the appetite weren’t there and if the viewing public didn’t want to unpick details about their lives – and rifts. And yet attitudes towards celebrity have undoubtedly changed since the advent of social media.

“It’s now a two-way communication, which it never was before,” points out Mr Bee. “It was generally celebrities, or lawyer or government or whatever, just saying something that gets reported, and that message is conveyed. Now, you have to be prepared for a two-way conversation.”

But he thinks there are different attitudes to the media today than in the era of celebrity gossip magazines. Nodding to the UK, he continues: “We had the Leveson Inquiry, we’re about to get an ITV drama about phone hacking, it’s as if the curtain has been lifted.”

As for the Lively and Baldoni lawsuits, it’s not clear how these will play out – but the very fact that it has so unusually spilled into the public domain is a reminder of how well-oiled the Hollywood publicity machine is the rest of the time. And that is unlikely to change soon.

Head in hands, eight-year-old Timmy muttered to himself as he tried to beat a robot powered by artificial intelligence at a game of chess.

But this was not an AI showroom or laboratory – this robot was living on a coffee table in a Beijing apartment, along with Timmy.

The first night it came home, Timmy hugged his little robot friend before heading to bed. He doesn’t have a name for it – yet.

“It’s like a little teacher or a little friend,” the boy said, as he showed his mum the next move he was considering on the chess board.

Moments later, the robot chimed in: “Congrats! You win.” Round eyes blinking on the screen, it began rearranging the pieces to start a new game as it continued in Mandarin: “I’ve seen your ability, I will do better next time.”

China is embracing AI in its bid to become a tech superpower by 2030.

DeepSeek, the breakthrough Chinese chatbot that caught the world’s attention in January, was just the first hint of that ambition.

Money is pouring into AI businesses seeking more capital, fuelling domestic competition. There are more than 4,500 firms developing and selling AI, schools in the capital Beijing are introducing AI courses for primary and secondary students later this year, and universities have increased the number of places available for students studying AI.

“This is an inevitable trend. We will co-exist with AI,” said Timmy’s mum, Yan Xue. “Children should get to know it as early as possible. We should not reject it.”

She is keen for her son to learn both chess and the strategy board game Go – the robot does both, which persuaded her that its $800 price tag was a good investment. Its creators are already planning to add a language tutoring programme.

Perhaps this was what the Chinese Communist Party hoped for when it declared in 2017 that AI would be “the main driving force” of the country’s progress. President Xi Jinping is now betting big on it, as a slowing Chinese economy grapples with the blow of tariffs from its biggest trading partner, the United States.

Beijing plans to invest 10tn Chinese yuan ($1.4tn; £1tn) in the next 15 years as it competes with Washington to gain the edge in advanced tech. AI funding got yet another boost at the government’s annual political gathering, which is currently under way. This comes on the heels of a 60 billion yuan-AI investment fund created in January, just days after the US further tightened export controls for advanced chips and placed more Chinese firms on a trade blacklist.

But DeepSeek has shown that Chinese companies can overcome these barriers. And that’s what has stunned Silicon Valley and industry experts – they did not expect China to catch up so soon.

It’s a reaction Tommy Tang has become accustomed to after six months of marketing his firm’s chess-playing robot at various competitions.

Timmy’s machine comes from the same company, SenseRobot, which offers a wide range in abilities – Chinese state media hailed an advanced version in 2022 that beat chess Grand Masters at the game.

“Parents will ask about the price, then they will ask where I am from. They expect me to come from the US or Europe. They seem surprised that I am from China,” Mr Tang said, smiling. “There will always be one or two seconds of silence when I say I am from China.”

His firm has sold more than 100,000 of the robots and now has a contract with a major US supermarket chain, Costco.

One of the secrets to China’s engineering success is its young people. In 2020, more than 3.5 million of the country’s students graduated with degrees in science, technology, engineering and maths, better known as STEM.

That’s more than any other country in the world – and Beijing is keen to leverage it. “Building strength in education, science and talent is a shared responsibility,” Xi told party leaders last week.

Ever since China opened its economy to the world in the late 1970s, it has “been through a process of accumulating talent and technology,” says Abbott Lyu, vice-president of Shanghai-based Whalesbot, a firm that makes AI toys. “In this era of AI, we’ve got many, many engineers, and they are hardworking.”

Behind him, a dinosaur made of variously coloured bricks roars to life. It’s being controlled through code assembled on a smartphone by a seven-year-old.

The company is developing toys to help children as young as three learn code. Every package of bricks comes with a booklet of code. Children can then choose what they want to build and learn how to do it. The cheapest toy sells for around $40.

“Other countries have AI education robots as well, but when it comes to competitiveness and smart hardware, China is doing better,” Mr Lyu insists.

The success of DeepSeek turned its CEO Liang Wenfeng into a national hero and “is worth 10 billion yuan of advertising for [China’s] AI industry,” he added.

“It has let the public know that AI is not just a concept, that it can indeed change people’s lives. It has inspired public curiosity.”

Six homegrown AI firms, including DeepSeek, have now been nicknamed China’s six little dragons by the internet – the others are Unitree Robotics, Deep Robotics, BrainCo, Game Science, and Manycore Tech.

Some of them were at a recent AI fair in Shanghai, where the biggest Chinese firms in the business showed off their advances, from search and rescue robots to a backflipping dog-like one, which wandered the halls among visitors.

In one bustling exhibition hall, two teams of humanoid robots battled it out in a game of football, complete in red and blue jerseys. The machines fell when they clashed – and one of them was even taken off the field in a stretcher by their human handler who was keen to keep the joke going.

It was hard to miss the air of excitement among developers in the wake of DeepSeek. “Deepseek means the world knows we are here,” said Yu Jingji, a 26-year-old engineer.

But as the world learns of China’s AI potential, there are also concerns about what AI is allowing the Chinese government to learn about its users.

AI is hungry for data – the more it gets, the smarter it makes itself and, with around a billion mobile phone users compared to just over 400 million in the US, Beijing has a real advantage.

The West, its allies and many experts in these countries believe that data gathered by Chinese apps such as DeepSeek, RedNote or TikTok can be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party. Some point to the country’s National Intelligence Law as evidence of this.

But Chinese firms, including ByteDance, which owns TikTok, says the law allows for the protection of private companies and personal data. Still, suspicion that US user data on TikTok could end up in the hands of the Chinese government drove Washington’s decision to ban the hugely popular app.

That same fear – where privacy concerns meet national security challenges – is hitting Deepseek. South Korea banned new downloads of DeepSeek, while Taiwan and Australia have barred the app from government-issued devices.

Chinese companies are aware of these sensitivities and Mr Tang was quick to tell the BBC that “privacy was a red line” for his company. Beijing also realises that this will be a challenge in its bid to be a global leader in AI.

“DeepSeek’s rapid rise has triggered hostile reactions from some in the West,” a commentary in the state-run Beijing Daily noted, adding that “the development environment for China’s AI models remains highly uncertain”.

But China’s AI firms are not deterred. Rather, they believe thrifty innovation will win them an undeniable advantage – because it was DeepSeek’s claim that it could rival ChatGPT for a fraction of the cost that shocked the AI industry.

So the engineering challenge is how to make more, for less. “This was our Mission Impossible,” Mr Tang said. His company found that the robotic arm used to move chess pieces was hugely expensive to produce and would drive the price up to around $40,000.

So, they tried using AI to help do the work of engineers and enhance the manufacturing process. Mr Tang claims that has driven the cost down to $1,000.

“This is innovation,” he says. “Artificial engineering is now integrated into the manufacturing process.”

This could have enormous implications as China applies AI on a vast scale. State media already show factories full of humanoid robots. In January, the government said that it would promote the development of AI-powered humanoid robots to help look after its rapidly ageing population.

Xi has repeatedly declared “technological self-reliance” a key goal, which means China wants to create its own advanced chips, to make up for US export restrictions that could hinder its plans.

The Chinese leader knows he is in for a long race – the Beijing Daily recently warned that the DeepSeek moment was not a time for “AI triumphalism” because China was still in “catch-up mode”.

President Xi is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, robots and advanced tech in preparation for a marathon that he hopes China will eventually win.

A former senior Facebook executive has told the BBC how the social media giant worked “hand in glove” with the Chinese government on potential ways of allowing Beijing to censor and control content in China.

Sarah Wynn-Williams – a former global public policy director – says in return for gaining access to the Chinese market of hundreds of millions of users, Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, considered agreeing to hiding posts that were going viral, until they could be checked by the Chinese authorities.

Ms Williams – who makes the claims in a new book – has also filed a whistleblower complaint with the US markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging Meta misled investors. The BBC has reviewed the complaint.

Facebook’s parent company Meta, says Ms Wynn-Williams had her employment terminated in 2017 “for poor performance”.

It is “no secret we were once interested” in operating services in China, it adds. “We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we’d explored.”

Meta referred us to Mark Zuckerberg’s comments from 2019, when he said: “We could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they [China] never let us in.”

Facebook also used algorithms to spot when young teenagers were feeling vulnerable as part of research aimed at advertisers, Ms Wynn-Williams alleges.

A former New Zealand diplomat, she joined Facebook in 2011, and says she watched the company grow from “a front row seat”.

Now she wants to show some of the “decision-making and moral compromises” that she says went on when she was there. It is a critical moment, she adds, as “many of the people I worked with… are going to be central” to the introduction of AI.

In her memoir, Careless People, Ms Wynn-Williams paints a picture of what she alleges working on Facebook’s senior team was like.

Mr Zuckerberg, she says, did not get up before midday, loved karaoke and did not like to be beaten at board games, such as Risk. “I didn’t realise that you were supposed to let him win. I was a little naive,” she told us.

However, Ms Wynn-Williams says her allegations about the company’s close relationship with China provide an insight into Facebook’s decision-making at the time.

“China is Mark Zuckerberg’s white whale,” meaning a goal that he obsessively pursued, says Ms Wynn-Williams.

The country is the world’s biggest social media market, but access to Facebook remains blocked there, alongside the likes of X and YouTube.

“It’s the one piece on the board game that he hasn’t conquered,” she says.

Ms Wynn-Williams claims that in the mid-2010s, as part of its negotiations with the Chinese government, Facebook considered allowing it future access to Chinese citizens’ user data.

“He was working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party, building a censorship tool… basically working to develop sort of the antithesis of many of the principles that underpin Facebook,” she told the BBC.

Ms Wynn-Williams says governments frequently asked for explanations of how aspects of Facebook’s software worked, but were told it was proprietary information.

“But when it came to the Chinese, the curtain was pulled back,” she says.

“Engineers were brought out. They were walked through every aspect, and Facebook was making sure these Chinese officials were upskilled enough that they could not only learn about these products, but then test Facebook on the censorship version of these products that they were building.”

Meta told the BBC that such claims about China had been “widely reported” at the time.

In her SEC complaint, Ms Wynn-Williams also alleges Mr Zuckerberg and other Meta executives had made “misleading statements… in response to Congressional inquiries” about China.

One answer given by Mr Zuckerberg to Congress in 2018 said Facebook was “not in a position to know exactly how the [Chinese] government would seek to apply its laws and regulations on content”

Meta told the BBC that Mr Zuckerberg gave accurate testimony, adding it did not operate services in China.

Most Facebook executives didn’t allow their own children on Facebook – according to Ms Wynn-Williams. “They had screen bans. They certainly wouldn’t allow them to use the product.”

And yet she says reports from 2017 – that the company had been using algorithms to target and categorise vulnerable teens – were true.

“The algorithm could infer that they were feeling worthless or unhappy,” she alleges.

The company – which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp – could, she claims, identify when a teenage girl had deleted a selfie on its platforms, and then notify a beauty company that it would be a good moment to target the child with an advert.

Ms Wynn-Williams says she “felt sick” at the thought and tried to push back, “although I knew it was futile”.

“They said: ‘The business side thinks this is exactly what we should be doing. We’ve got this amazing product, we can get young people, which is a really important advertising segment.'”

Meta told the BBC this was false – it has never offered tools to target people based on their emotional state – and that the research it previously did was to help marketers understand how people express themselves on Facebook, not to target ads.

Overall, Ms Wynn-Williams says the company has not done enough to address the issue of young people’s safety on social media.

“This is one of the most valuable companies in the world. They could invest in this and make it a real priority and do more to fix it.”

Facebook said it was transparent about advert-targeting and had shared updates regarding its approach to creating age-appropriate advert experiences for teens.

It also said it had introduced “Teen Accounts” for tens of millions of young people with built-in protections. It also said it was giving parents more oversight over their teens’ use of the app.

As well as poor performance, Meta says the 45-year-old was also fired for “toxic behaviour” after she had made “misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment”.

But Ms Wynn-Williams told the BBC she was let go after she had complained about inappropriate comments by one of her bosses – Joel Kaplan, who is now Meta’s chief global affairs officer.

Meta told us she had been paid by “anti-Facebook activists” and she was not a whistleblower.

“Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books,” it said.

In regard to Ms Wynn-Williams’ book, Meta has confirmed to the BBC that it has launched legal action in the US to “halt the further distribution of defamatory and untrue information”.

To counter this, a legal representative for Ms Wynn-Williams said: “Meta has made a number of false and inconsistent statements about Sarah since the news of her memoir broke… while Meta’s statements are trying to mislead the public, the book speaks for itself”

We asked her why she was speaking out now. She said she wanted Meta to change as it “influences so much of our day-to-day life” and we need to ensure “we get the future we deserve”.

“We’re in this moment where tech and political leaders are coming together and as they combine forces, that has a lot of consequences for all of us.

“I think it’s really important to understand that and to understand you look at all these engineers who are influencing the highest level of government.”

Fires are still burning on an oil tanker carrying jet fuel and a cargo ship carrying highly toxic chemicals that collided in the North Sea on Monday morning.

One crew member is still unaccounted for and the search has been called off, HM Coastguard said.

The collision involved the US-registered Stena Immaculate – which was transporting fuel on behalf of the US military – and the Portuguese-flagged Solong.

Coastguard Divisional Commander Matthew Atkinson said 36 people had been rescued, with one person taken to hospital. The missing crew member had been onboard the Solong, he said.

One of the men who was on the oil tanker told BBC News that the Solong came out of the blue and collided with the Stena Immaculate at 16 knots.

The crew scrambled to the life rafts taking only what they had on them.

Efforts to assess any environmental damage are still ongoing after it was confirmed some jet fuel had leaked into the sea off the Humber Estuary.

Maritime firm Crowley, which manages the Stena Immaculate, said there had been “multiple explosions onboard” when the vessel suffered a ruptured cargo tank.

A US official confirmed the tanker had been carrying jet fuel “in support of the Department of Defense” but said the incident would not impact operations or combat readiness.

A Coastguard rescue helicopter was sent to the scene, as well as four lifeboats and nearby vessels with fire-fighting capability.

Svitzer managing director Michael Paterson said the marine services group had sent four boats which had been “firefighting since they arrived and dealing with the flames”.

“The oil and jet fuel presents a problem for them. It’s obviously flammable, but there’s also fumes and toxins,” he said.

“The priority for us was to save the crew. I’ve seen some serious incidents, but this is one of the most serious.”

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch said a team of inspectors and support staff had started gathering evidence and was undertaking a preliminary assessment to determine its next steps.

Divisional Commander Atkinson said: “An assessment of any required counter pollution response is being carried out by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

“The Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention is working with the salvors and insurance companies.”

The transport secretary paid tribute to the efforts of the coastguard, RNLI and emergency services.

Heidi Alexander said: “They were on the scene swiftly, have helped rescue those in immediate danger and I know they will continue to work tirelessly over the coming days.”

According to MarineTraffic, the Stena Immaculate had travelled from the Greek port of Agioi Theodoroi and was anchored by the Humber Estuary.

The Solong had been sailing from the Scottish port of Grangemouth to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.

The cargo ship had been carrying 15 containers of the chemical sodium cyanide when it collided with the tanker.

Sodium cyanide has a variety of commercial uses, from being used to plate metals to dye production. It is highly soluble in water and can be toxic as it affects the uptake of oxygen.

It is not clear whether any sodium cyanide from the cargo ship has leaked into the sea.

But if it has come into contact with water, “there is a risk of some hydrogen cyanide gas being produced which could present a risk to any of those involved in rescue”, according to Alastair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at Leeds University.

The Stena Immaculate had been carrying jet fuel when it was hit, said Crowley.

Jet fuel has a high boiling point, so it will evaporate slowly. It is also relatively toxic, so marine life that comes into contact with it may be killed.

Greenpeace said it was “extremely concerned” about “multiple toxic hazards” from the North Sea ship collision.

Downing Street said details of the cause of the collision were “still becoming clear”.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said it was an “extremely concerning situation”.

He said: “We thank the emergency services for their rapid response. I understand the Department for Transport is working closely with the coastguard to help support the response to the incident.”

P&O Ferries said the Humber Estuary remained closed to all traffic and departure times from Hull and Rotterdam remained unconfirmed on Monday evening.

Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Soundslatest episode of Look North here.

A Kurdish-led militia alliance which controls north-eastern Syria has agreed a deal to integrate all military and civilian institutions into the Syrian state, the country’s presidency says.

The agreement says the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will cease hostilities and hand over control of the region’s border posts, airport, and vital oil and gas fields.

It also recognises the Kurdish minority as “an integral part of the Syrian state” and guarantees “the rights of all Syrians to representation and participation in the political process”.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi called the deal, which he signed alongside interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a “real opportunity to build a new Syria”.

“We are committed to building a better future that guarantees the rights of all Syrians and fulfils their aspirations for peace and dignity,” he wrote on X on Monday night.

The deal represents a major step towards Sharaa’s goal to unite the fractured country after his Sunni Islamist group led the rebel offensive that overthrew president Bashar al-Assad in December.

The size of that challenge has been made clear by the recent violence in western Syria, where attacks on security forces by Assad loyalists triggered reprisals in which more than 1,000 civilians were reportedly killed, most of them members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

The deal could also de-escalate the SDF’s conflict with neighbouring Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian former rebel factions allied to the government, which are trying to push the alliance out of areas near the border.

The SDF, which has tens of thousands of well-armed and well-trained fighters, was not aligned with either Assad’s regime or the opposition during the country’s 13-year civil war.

It currently controls more than 46,000 sq km (18,000 sq miles) of territory in the north-east, where it defeated the Islamic State (IS) group in 2019 with the help of a US-led coalition.

The SDF plays a major role in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which governs the region also known to Kurds as Rojava.

About 10,000 IS fighters are being detained in SDF-run prisons spread across the region and about 46,000 other people linked to IS, mostly women and children, are held in several camps.

Since the fall of Assad, the SDF has warned that attacks from Turkish-backed factions are forcing it to divert fighters away from guarding the prisons and paving the way for an IS resurgence.

The Turkish government views the biggest militia in the SDF, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), as a terrorist organisation. It says it the YPG is an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) group that waged an insurgency in Turkey for decades but whose imprisoned leader recently declared a ceasefire.

There was no immediate comment from Turkey in response to Monday’s agreement.

Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.

Syria’s Kurds, which make up about make up about 10% of the population, were suppressed and denied basic rights during the Assad family’s rule.

US Vice-President JD Vance’s cousin has criticised him and President Donald Trump for “belittling” Volodymyr Zelensky during the three men’s Oval Office showdown in February.

“There’s a certain level of decorum that I expect from political leaders, especially in front of cameras,” Nate Vance – who spent three years volunteering with the Ukrainian military after Russia’s full-scale invasion – told the BBC.

It follows his earlier comment that Trump and Vance were acting like “useful idiots” for President Vladimir Putin in their handling of the conflict.

Last month US and Russian officials held direct talks on ending the war. US and Ukrainian officials are currently in Saudi Arabia for talks.

Nate Vance told the BBC’s PM programme on Monday that he was “not happy” with the way in which the White House meeting had been handled by his cousin and Trump.

“I’m kind of attached to the Ukrainian issue but, looking at that, if it were some other completely neutral issue and I saw White House officials and hack journalists that are political belittling a foreign leader, I’d be like ‘what the hell is going on?'” he told the BBC.

The televised Oval Office meeting between the leaders quickly turned heated, with Trump threatening to withdraw support from Ukraine if a deal was not made and accusing the Ukrainian President of “gambling with World War Three”.

Vance called Zelensky “disrespectful” for “litigating” the dispute in front of the media and accused him of not expressing gratitude for America’s support during the war.

Nate Vance said that he did not agree that Zelensky had failed to show appreciation. “Zelensky does a daily or nightly address and thanks everyone who supports Ukraine on a daily basis,” he said.

He said that perhaps the Ukrainian leader had not shown “enough deference to Donald Trump” but that it would be “odd for my cousin and Donald Trump to ask for deference because they’ve been actively working against his initiatives for the past three years”.

Zelensky was eventually asked to leave the White House and a planned news conference was cancelled.

Following the meeting, the Trump administration halted military aid, satellite imagery and intelligence sharing to Kyiv.

One American reporter during the meeting in the White House accused Zelensky of disrespecting the occasion by not wearing a suit. Since the start of the war, Zelensky has eschewed suits for military-style dress in what he says is solidarity with soldiers.

“Everyone knows that’s why he does that and it’s kind of a symbolic thing,” Nate Vance said. “Who cares? It’s a silly hill to die on. And speaking of which, why is Elon Musk in the Oval Office wearing a baseball hat and a T-shirt all the time?”

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro earlier on Monday, Nate Vance said his cousin was a “good guy, intelligent” but that the meeting with Zelensky was “an ambush of absolute bad faith”.

He later told the PM programme that he had been a “Republican my whole life so this is an odd stance for me to be taking but I’m pretty passionate about it and it’s one issue where I think we’re doing wrong”.

He said it was unlikely his cousin would want to speak to him following his comments.

Asked about other Americans’ view of the encounter, he said 20% would be “disheartened” and that “all of this alienation is isolating us and the last time we decided to take an isolationist path we ended up with World War One and World War Two”.

Zelensky subsequently said the angry exchange had been “regrettable” and it was “time to make things right”.

The US is attempting to mediate with both Russia and Ukraine in hopes of ending the war.

Last week, Trump said that he was “doing very well with Russia” and that it was “more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine”.

Actor Gene Hackman was alone.

The two-time Academy Award winner didn’t make any calls and missed meals.

Medical experts say it’s possible the 95-year-old, who was in declining health and suffering from advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, did not even realise his wife of more than 30 years was dead in the home where he was living.

If he did, experts told the BBC, he likely went through various stages of confusion and grief, trying to wake her up before the disease caused him to become distracted or too overwhelmed to act – a process that likely repeated for days before he, too, died.

Officials in New Mexico say Betsy Arakawa, 65, died of a rare virus about seven days before Hackman perished on 18 February of natural causes.

The pair – and one of their dogs – were found dead in their Santa Fe home after neighbourhood security conducted a welfare check and saw their bodies on the ground through a window.

Authorities, at first, said the grim discovery was “suspicious enough” to launch an investigation.

Their remains were discovered in advanced stages of decomposition. Arakawa was found in a bathroom with scattered pills nearby. Hackman was found near the kitchen with a cane and sunglasses. One of their three dogs was found dead in a crate.

But a police investigation found no foul play.

Instead, the case has shed light on the grim realities of Alzheimer’s disease, which damages and destroys cells in one’s brain over time – taking away memory and other important mental functions.

“It’s like he was living in a reel,” Catherine V Piersol, PhD, an occupational therapist with decades of experience in dementia care, told the BBC of how Hackman may have experienced the repeated loss of his wife.

She noted patients with advanced Alzheimer’s disease like the actor live in the present and are unable to both look back at moments in the past or look forward and act.

“I imagine he would be trying to wake her up and not being successful. But then [he] could have been distracted in another room because of one of the dogs or something,” she described.

Then later, he’d again notice his wife on the ground and would “live through it again”, she said.

Though no one knows how Hackman spent his last days alive, the grim nature of the possibilities were discussed by authorities and the area’s medical examiner.

At a press conference last week, Dr Heather Jarrell, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner, said Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a respiratory illness caused by exposure to infected rodents. Hackman’s death was the result of significant heart disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a contributing factor.

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

His autopsy indicated he had not eaten recently, though he showed no signs of dehydration. Officials found no evidence that he had communicated with anyone after his wife’s death and could not determine whether he was able to care for himself.

Ms Piersol said patients with advanced Alzheimer’s aren’t able to pick up on environmental cues like light and darkness, making it harder to determine when he should eat, sleep or bathe themselves.

“Those [cues] are oftentimes just, no longer available to people at this stage of dementia,” she said.

Dr Brendan Kelley, a neurologist who specialises in memory and cognition at UT Southwestern Medical Center, explained why Hackman may also not have been able to call authorities for help. He said Alzheimer’s disease can leave patients caught between emotional discomfort and the inability to act on it.

“A person might feel worried or frightened, but at the same time they might not be capable to take the actions that you or I might normally think to do in order to alleviate that worry or concern, such as calling somebody else, or going to speak to a neighbour.”

Dr Kelley says Alzheimer’s patients experience emotions like pain and sadness, and experience physical needs like hunger and thirst, it’s just harder for them to identify what they are feeling.

He said missing meals could also increase levels of confusion and agitation.

The couple’s deaths and the startling details of Hackman living in the home for a week after his wife’s passing has shocked the Santa Fe area, where the couple had lived for more than 20 years.

“It’s just absolutely devastating,” says Jeffery Gomez, a long-time resident of the city, who remembers seeing Hackman around town in his different cars, always with a smile on his face.

His partner, Linda, said the details were triggering, explaining she cared for her elderly mother with dementia. “Even when you have help, it’s a lot,” she said.

“We know Gene and his wife were very private people and she was probably trying to shield him from the public,” she added, “but the thought of doing that alone? It’s a lot to shoulder.”

Laura N Gitlin, PhD, a behavioural scientist who researches ways to support caregivers told the BBC, this is becoming a common problem among caregivers.

“With the aging of a population, we also simultaneously have a shrinking of the number of people in the family, number of children, or relatives who live nearby,” she explained.

Ms Gitlin noted along with there being less caregivers, there is less support for these individuals on making big decisions – such as when it’s time to place a loved one in a home instead of caring for them by yourself.

Jeffery Gomez said he couldn’t understand how no one checked in on the couple for such a long while.

“It breaks my heart he was alone so long.”

Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, experienced massive outages throughout Monday morning that impacted thousands of users in the US and UK.

The outage came as platform monitor Downdetector said it had seen tens of thousands of reports from US users of technical issues affecting the platform.

There were more than 8,000 outage reports from UK users shortly before 14:00 GMT, following a brief but notable surge of reports on Monday morning.

Connection issues lasted for some users into the afternoon.

Many users trying to access the platform and refresh feeds on its app and desktop site during Monday’s outages were met with a loading icon.

Musk claims the outages stemmed from a “massive cyber-attack” that originated “in the Ukraine area.”

But the technology billionaire, who has been a frequent critic of Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelensky, offered no evidence to support the claim and did not say whether or not he thought state actors were involved.

Earlier, he posted on X that “either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved”.

The BBC has approached the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC for comment.

“We’re not sure exactly what happened but there was a massive cyber-attack to try and bring down the X system with [Internet Protocol] addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” Musk said in an interview with the Fox Business channel.

Alp Toker, director of Netblocks, which monitors the connectivity of web services, said its own metrics suggested the outages could well be linked to a cyber-attack.

“What we’ve been seeing is consistent with what we’ve seen in past denial of service attacks, rather than a configuration or coding error in the platform,” he told the BBC.

He said the organisation has seen several major outages spanning more than six hours on Monday, “each having global impact”.

“This is amongst the longest X/Twitter outages we’ve tracked in terms of duration, and the pattern is consistent with a denial of service attack targeting X’s infrastructure at scale,” he added.

A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is an attempt to take a website offline by overwhelming it with internet traffic.

Mr Musk has previously claimed that the platform has been targeted by DDoS attacks, but these have not been confirmed.

Also on Monday, Musk called US Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, a “traitor” for going to Ukraine over the weekend. Sen Kelly had said the visit “proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people”.

Sen Kelly replied: “Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.”

The exchange took place on X.

A former Thai police chief who was jailed for life three years ago for torturing a drug suspect to death has been found dead in his Bangkok jail cell, authorities said.

Thitisan Utthanaphon, who was nicknamed Joe Ferrari for his many luxury cars, died by suicide, according to a preliminary autopsy.

In 2021, a leaked video showed Thitisan and his colleagues wrapping plastic bags around the head of a 24-year-old drug suspect during an interrogation, leading to the suspect’s death.

The video sparked national outrage at that time over police brutality in Thailand. It has made fresh rounds on social media in the wake of Thitisan’s death.

Thailand’s justice ministry has launched an investigation into his death after his family expressed doubts that he killed himself. Further tests were needed to confirm that he had indeed died in a suicide, authorities said.

Justice minister Tawee Sodsong said on Monday that all evidence related to Thitisan’s death should be disclosed, and urged prison authorities to cooperate with investigators.

The family said Thitisan was previously assaulted by a prison staffer. They said officials did not allow them to see his body, which was found in his cell on Friday.

But on Sunday authorities said “no prison officer or inmate has harmed or caused [his] death”.

A previous raid on Thitisan’s house revealed that he owned a dozen luxury sportscars. Authorities believe he owned at least 42, one of them a rare Lamborghini Aventador Anniversario, of which only 100 were made, priced in Thailand at 47 million baht ($1.45m; £1.05m).

As a police colonel, Thitisan was paid about $1,000 a month.

There were allegations that he demanded bribes from the suspect in the viral video, Jirapong Thanapat, while suffocating him. Thitisan denied this.

Thitisan surrendered in 2021 following a manhunt.

Besides Thitisan, five other police officers were convicted of murdering Jirapong and were also sentenced to life in prison in 2022.

“It’s like he has paid off the karma he committed,” Jirapong’s father said in an interview on local media on Saturday.

The Department of Corrections said they had been investigating a previous complaint filed by Thitisan’s family alleging that he had been bullied and assaulted by prison officers earlier this year.

Thitisan had consulted doctors over anxiety issues and trouble sleeping, the department said.

His family visited him on the day that he died and prison staff did not notice any “abnormalities”, it said.

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Head in hands, eight-year-old Timmy muttered to himself as he tried to beat a robot powered by artificial intelligence at a game of chess.

But this was not an AI showroom or laboratory – this robot was living on a coffee table in a Beijing apartment, along with Timmy.

The first night it came home, Timmy hugged his little robot friend before heading to bed. He doesn’t have a name for it – yet.

“It’s like a little teacher or a little friend,” the boy said, as he showed his mum the next move he was considering on the chess board.

Moments later, the robot chimed in: “Congrats! You win.” Round eyes blinking on the screen, it began rearranging the pieces to start a new game as it continued in Mandarin: “I’ve seen your ability, I will do better next time.”

China is embracing AI in its bid to become a tech superpower by 2030.

DeepSeek, the breakthrough Chinese chatbot that caught the world’s attention in January, was just the first hint of that ambition.

Money is pouring into AI businesses seeking more capital, fuelling domestic competition. There are more than 4,500 firms developing and selling AI, schools in the capital Beijing are introducing AI courses for primary and secondary students later this year, and universities have increased the number of places available for students studying AI.

“This is an inevitable trend. We will co-exist with AI,” said Timmy’s mum, Yan Xue. “Children should get to know it as early as possible. We should not reject it.”

She is keen for her son to learn both chess and the strategy board game Go – the robot does both, which persuaded her that its $800 price tag was a good investment. Its creators are already planning to add a language tutoring programme.

Perhaps this was what the Chinese Communist Party hoped for when it declared in 2017 that AI would be “the main driving force” of the country’s progress. President Xi Jinping is now betting big on it, as a slowing Chinese economy grapples with the blow of tariffs from its biggest trading partner, the United States.

Beijing plans to invest 10tn Chinese yuan ($1.4tn; £1tn) in the next 15 years as it competes with Washington to gain the edge in advanced tech. AI funding got yet another boost at the government’s annual political gathering, which is currently under way. This comes on the heels of a 60 billion yuan-AI investment fund created in January, just days after the US further tightened export controls for advanced chips and placed more Chinese firms on a trade blacklist.

But DeepSeek has shown that Chinese companies can overcome these barriers. And that’s what has stunned Silicon Valley and industry experts – they did not expect China to catch up so soon.

It’s a reaction Tommy Tang has become accustomed to after six months of marketing his firm’s chess-playing robot at various competitions.

Timmy’s machine comes from the same company, SenseRobot, which offers a wide range in abilities – Chinese state media hailed an advanced version in 2022 that beat chess Grand Masters at the game.

“Parents will ask about the price, then they will ask where I am from. They expect me to come from the US or Europe. They seem surprised that I am from China,” Mr Tang said, smiling. “There will always be one or two seconds of silence when I say I am from China.”

His firm has sold more than 100,000 of the robots and now has a contract with a major US supermarket chain, Costco.

One of the secrets to China’s engineering success is its young people. In 2020, more than 3.5 million of the country’s students graduated with degrees in science, technology, engineering and maths, better known as STEM.

That’s more than any other country in the world – and Beijing is keen to leverage it. “Building strength in education, science and talent is a shared responsibility,” Xi told party leaders last week.

Ever since China opened its economy to the world in the late 1970s, it has “been through a process of accumulating talent and technology,” says Abbott Lyu, vice-president of Shanghai-based Whalesbot, a firm that makes AI toys. “In this era of AI, we’ve got many, many engineers, and they are hardworking.”

Behind him, a dinosaur made of variously coloured bricks roars to life. It’s being controlled through code assembled on a smartphone by a seven-year-old.

The company is developing toys to help children as young as three learn code. Every package of bricks comes with a booklet of code. Children can then choose what they want to build and learn how to do it. The cheapest toy sells for around $40.

“Other countries have AI education robots as well, but when it comes to competitiveness and smart hardware, China is doing better,” Mr Lyu insists.

The success of DeepSeek turned its CEO Liang Wenfeng into a national hero and “is worth 10 billion yuan of advertising for [China’s] AI industry,” he added.

“It has let the public know that AI is not just a concept, that it can indeed change people’s lives. It has inspired public curiosity.”

Six homegrown AI firms, including DeepSeek, have now been nicknamed China’s six little dragons by the internet – the others are Unitree Robotics, Deep Robotics, BrainCo, Game Science, and Manycore Tech.

Some of them were at a recent AI fair in Shanghai, where the biggest Chinese firms in the business showed off their advances, from search and rescue robots to a backflipping dog-like one, which wandered the halls among visitors.

In one bustling exhibition hall, two teams of humanoid robots battled it out in a game of football, complete in red and blue jerseys. The machines fell when they clashed – and one of them was even taken off the field in a stretcher by their human handler who was keen to keep the joke going.

It was hard to miss the air of excitement among developers in the wake of DeepSeek. “Deepseek means the world knows we are here,” said Yu Jingji, a 26-year-old engineer.

But as the world learns of China’s AI potential, there are also concerns about what AI is allowing the Chinese government to learn about its users.

AI is hungry for data – the more it gets, the smarter it makes itself and, with around a billion mobile phone users compared to just over 400 million in the US, Beijing has a real advantage.

The West, its allies and many experts in these countries believe that data gathered by Chinese apps such as DeepSeek, RedNote or TikTok can be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party. Some point to the country’s National Intelligence Law as evidence of this.

But Chinese firms, including ByteDance, which owns TikTok, says the law allows for the protection of private companies and personal data. Still, suspicion that US user data on TikTok could end up in the hands of the Chinese government drove Washington’s decision to ban the hugely popular app.

That same fear – where privacy concerns meet national security challenges – is hitting Deepseek. South Korea banned new downloads of DeepSeek, while Taiwan and Australia have barred the app from government-issued devices.

Chinese companies are aware of these sensitivities and Mr Tang was quick to tell the BBC that “privacy was a red line” for his company. Beijing also realises that this will be a challenge in its bid to be a global leader in AI.

“DeepSeek’s rapid rise has triggered hostile reactions from some in the West,” a commentary in the state-run Beijing Daily noted, adding that “the development environment for China’s AI models remains highly uncertain”.

But China’s AI firms are not deterred. Rather, they believe thrifty innovation will win them an undeniable advantage – because it was DeepSeek’s claim that it could rival ChatGPT for a fraction of the cost that shocked the AI industry.

So the engineering challenge is how to make more, for less. “This was our Mission Impossible,” Mr Tang said. His company found that the robotic arm used to move chess pieces was hugely expensive to produce and would drive the price up to around $40,000.

So, they tried using AI to help do the work of engineers and enhance the manufacturing process. Mr Tang claims that has driven the cost down to $1,000.

“This is innovation,” he says. “Artificial engineering is now integrated into the manufacturing process.”

This could have enormous implications as China applies AI on a vast scale. State media already show factories full of humanoid robots. In January, the government said that it would promote the development of AI-powered humanoid robots to help look after its rapidly ageing population.

Xi has repeatedly declared “technological self-reliance” a key goal, which means China wants to create its own advanced chips, to make up for US export restrictions that could hinder its plans.

The Chinese leader knows he is in for a long race – the Beijing Daily recently warned that the DeepSeek moment was not a time for “AI triumphalism” because China was still in “catch-up mode”.

President Xi is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, robots and advanced tech in preparation for a marathon that he hopes China will eventually win.

Mark Carney’s elevation to the top job in Canada is of particular significance at this moment when his country is at the frontline of a North American trade war. He becomes the “anti-Trump” on the US president’s doorstep.

The former Bank of England governor chose to lean strongly into resisting Donald Trump’s policies at his acceptance speech. He said the US president had brought “dark days” from “a country we can no longer trust” and that he was “proud” of Canadians resisting the US “with their wallets”.

While on trade specifically Mr Carney vowed to keep the retaliatory tariffs “until Americans show us respect”, it was clear that the general threats against Canadian sovereignty are equally as important in his thinking.

Trump has repeatedly said he will use economic power to encourage Canada to become the 51st state of the US, but Carney hit back. “The Americans want our resources, our land, our water, our country… Canada will never be part of America in any way, shape or form,” he said.

Behind the scenes, Carney has been encouraging a very robust response to Mr Trump. As he told me last month in his only UK interview during his campaign to succeed current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, it was necessary to “stand up to a bully”.

He ridiculed Trump’s allegations of Canada’s involvement in fentanyl trade, and the US president’s suggestion that Canada has ripped off the US. Canada’s trade deficit is caused “entirely” by its exports of subsidised oil, Carney told me, and “perhaps we should ask for that subsidy back”.

• Canada’s next PM Mark Carney vows to win trade war with Trump
• Carney talks tough on Trump threat – but can he reset relations?
• How Britain’s former top banker became Canada’s next prime minister

He follows in the footsteps of former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi as a former top central banker who became a G7 leader. It is an otherwise rare path, but it may be good timing when Canada’s nearest neighbour has suggested using economic power to take over.

Carney has experience in this area having dealt with a number of acute political-economic crises, such as the banking crash, the eurozone crisis, sterling’s sharp slide after Brexit, and the start of the pandemic.

He has also regularly attended G20 meetings at leader level, including in the presence of Trump, as chair of the Financial Stability Board, an international economic body. At one such meeting, the Trump team threatened to leave the International Monetary Fund.

Carney believes that Trump only respects power. Of any attempt to mollify Trump, he said “good luck with that”. He will focus further tariff retaliation on bringing inflation and interest rate rises to Canada’s “southern neighbour”.

The Canadian election is due by October, but Carney might call an earlier one. Depending on that, he is on course to host Trump in Canada at the G7 Summit in June.

His rise to the top job raises the stakes for the UK. On the one hand, a more robust approach from an allied G7 leader stands in contrast to the UK’s attempt to hug the White House closely.

On the other hand, Carney also hinted at wanting to diversify trade towards “more reliable” partners, which would include the UK and EU. Canada might send its subsidised energy to Europe, rather than the US.

The bigger strategic point is that Carney’s background means a focus on international solidarity, and defence of the existing multilateral system. He says Canada can “stand on its own feet” but sees merit in creating a more coherent international alliance to focus the minds of Congress and tariff-sceptics in the Trump administration.

Canada’s new leadership expects support from its Commonwealth ally, the UK. After my recent interview with him, Carney turned the camera to the portrait on the wall of the office from which he was talking to me: King Charles. The message was clear. Canada and the UK should be on the same side in this new world era.

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.

One person is missing and more than 30 people have been rescued after an oil tanker and cargo vessel collided in the North Sea off the coast of East Yorkshire.

Both ships remained on fire late on Monday evening, and the possible environmental impact is still being assessed. Here is what we know so far.

The Stena Immaculate is a US-flagged oil and chemical tanker, which was on its way to Hull after departing from a Greek port, according to ship tracking site MarineTraffic.

The Solong is a Portuguese-flagged container vessel with capacity to carry 9,500 tonnes of cargo.

It had been making its way south from the Scottish port of Grangemouth to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Photos and videos from the scene showed large clouds of smoke billowing out from the oil tanker after the ships collided on Monday morning, and the company which manages the Stena Immaculate reported “multiple explosions”.

At around 22:00 GMT on Monday, the Coastguard said both vessels were still on fire.

One crew member on the Solong remained missing and the search for them has been called off, the rescue service said.

Another 36 crew members from both vessels were safely brought back to shore and one person was taken to hospital.

The Stena Immaculate was carrying jet fuel – which, a US official confirmed to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, was being transported on behalf of the American military.

Crowley, the company which manages the vessel, confirmed that fuel had been released into the sea, though the Coastguard said the extent of any pollution was still being assessed.

Jet fuel has a high boiling point, meaning it will evaporate slowly and is relatively toxic.

Marine life that comes into contact with it may be killed. This type of fuel can be broken down in the water by bacteria and it appears from images some of it has already caught fire and been burnt off.

The Solong was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among its cargo, according to a report from maritime data provider Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

Dr Mark Hartl, associate professor of marine biology at Herriot Watt University, said sodium cyanide is very soluble in water and can be toxic because it interferes with the respiration of animals, but at this point it is not clear if any has entered the water.

Alastair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at Leeds University, said there is a risk that some hydrogen cyanide gas might have been produced if the sodium cyanide came into contact with water. If this happened, the hydrogen cyanide “could present a risk to any of those involved in rescue”, Prof Hay added.

Dr Hartl said marine creatures have a major avoidance reaction so may have already vacated the affected area.

Marine ecology and conservation expert Dr Tom Webb said the chemical pollution resulting from incidents like this one “can directly impact birds, and it can also have long-lasting effects on the marine food webs that support them”.

Data from tracking site MarineTraffic appears to indicate that one ship was moving and the other was nearly stationary when the collision happened.

The Stena Immaculate was drifting at a speed of 0.1 knots at 09:48 GMT.

The Solong approached from the north at a speed of 16 knots.

Crowley said the Stena Immaculate was struck by the Solong while it was anchored.

It said its cargo tank carrying jet fuel was ruptured in the crash, causing a fire and the release of fuel.

However, it is still unclear what caused the cargo ship to strike the oil tanker.

Ernst Russ, the owner of the Solong, says both vessels had sustained significant damage in the impact of the collision and the subsequent fire.

Residents of Greenland head to the polls on Tuesday in a vote that in previous years has drawn little outside attention – but which may prove pivotal for the Arctic territory’s future.

US President Donald Trump’s repeated interest in acquiring Greenland has put it firmly in the spotlight and fuelled the longstanding debate on the island’s future ties with Copenhagen.

“There’s never been a spotlight like this on Greenland before,” says Nauja Bianco, a Danish-Greenlandic policy expert on the Arctic.

Greenland has been controlled by Denmark – nearly 3,000km (1,860 miles) away – for about 300 years. It governs its own domestic affairs, but decisions on foreign and defence policy are made in Copenhagen.

Now, five out of six parties on the ballot favour Greenland’s independence from Denmark, differing only on how quickly that should come about.

The debate over independence has been “put on steroids by Trump”, says Masaana Egede, editor of Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq.

The island’s strategic location and untapped mineral resources have caught the US president’s eye. He first floated the idea of buying Greenland during his first term in 2019.

Since taking office again in January, he has reiterated his intention to acquire the territory. Greenland and Denmark’s leaders have repeatedly rebuffed his demands.

Addressing the US Congress last week, however, Trump again doubled down. “We need Greenland for national security. One way or the other we’re gonna get it,” he said, prompting applause and laughter from a number of politicians, including Vice-President JD Vance.

In Nuuk, his words struck a nerve with politicians who were quick to condemn them. “We deserve to be treated with respect and I don’t think the American president has done that lately since he took office,” Prime Minister Mute Egede said.

Still, the US interest has stoked calls for Greenland to break away from Denmark, with much of the debate focused on when – not if – the process of independence should begin.

Greenland’s independence goal is not new, Nauja Bianco points out, and has been decades in the making.

A string of revelations about past mistreatment of Inuit people by the Danes have hurt Greenlandic public opinion about Denmark. Earlier this year, PM Egede said the territory should free itself from “the shackles of colonialism”.

But it is the first time the subject has taken centre stage in an election.

Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), the party of Prime Minister Mute Egede, favours gradual steps towards autonomy. “Citizens must feel secure,” he told local media.

Arctic expert Martin Breum says Egede’s handling of the challenge from Trump and strong words against Denmark over past colonial wrongdoings “will give him a lot of votes”.

Smaller rivals could also gain ground and potentially shake up alliances.

Opposition party Naleraq wants to immediately kick-off divorce proceedings from Copenhagen and have closer defence dealings with Washington.

Pointing to Greenland’s EU departure and Brexit, party leader Pele Broberg has said that Greenland could be “out of the Danish kingdom in three years”.

Naleraq is fielding the largest number of candidates and has gained momentum by riding the wave of discontent with Denmark.

“Naleraq will also be a larger factor too in parliament,” predicts Mr Breum, who says party candidates have performed well on TV and on social media.

However, the centre-right Demokraatit party believes it is too soon to push for independence.

“The economy will have to be much stronger than it is today,” party candidate Justus Hansen told Reuters.

Greenland’s economy is driven by fishing, and government spending relies on annual subsidies from Denmark.

Talk of Trump and independence has overshadowed other key issues for voters, says newspaper editor Masaana Egede.

“It’s an election where we should be talking about healthcare, care of the elderly and social problems. Almost everything is about independence.”

According to recent polls, almost 80% of Greenlanders back moves towards future statehood.

About 44,000 people are eligible to vote, and given the low numbers and few polls, results are difficult to forecast.

Even though a majority of Greenlanders favour independence, a survey has shown that half would be less enthusiastic about independence if that meant lower living standards.

One poll found that 85% of Greenlanders do not wish to become a part of the United States, and nearly half see Trump’s interest as a threat.

One fear among some Greenlanders, says Masaana Egede, is how long the Arctic island could remain independent and whether it would break off from Denmark only to have another country “standing on our coasts and start taking over”.

Experts say it is this worry that could steer votes towards keeping the status quo.

Although Greenland’s right to self-determination is enshrined into law by the 2009 Self-Rule Act, there are several steps to take before the territory could break away from Denmark, including holding a referendum.

This means getting full independence could take “about 10 to 15 years,” says Kaj Kleist, a veteran Greenlandic politician and civil servant who prepared the Self-Rule Act.

“There is lot of preparation and negotiations with the Danish government before you can make that a reality,” he adds.

Whatever the election’s outcome, experts do not believe Greenland could become independent before Trump’s second term is over in 2028.

The results are expected in the early hours of Wednesday.

The vast majority of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programmes have been terminated after a six-week purge, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced.

On X, Rubio said that the initiatives “spent tens of billions in ways that did not serve” or harmed US interests.

The remaining programmes – just 18% – will now be administered by the State Department.

Humanitarian organisations around the world have warned that the controversial move to end long-running US aid programmes is already having dire consequences around the world, potentially endangering lives.

The Trump administration has repeatedly made clear that it wants overseas spending to be closely aligned with its “America First” approach.

Shortly after Trump returned to the White House on 20 January, thousands of USAID employees were put on leave, and those working overseas recalled.

• What is USAID and why is Trump poised to ‘close it down’?

In an executive order signed on his first day, Trump also moved to freeze foreign assistance funding and ordered a review of USAID’s work abroad, led by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge.

Thousands of development contracts also were cancelled, and thousands of employees ultimately fired.

In his X post, Rubio said that after the review, the US was “officially ending” about 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programmes.

“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programmes we are keeping….to be administered more effectively under the State Department,” Rubio added.

Additionally, Rubio thanked Doge and State Department staff “who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform”.

Democrats and various humanitarian organisations have characterised the shutdown of USAID’s programmes – which were funded by Congress – as illegal, prompting several lawsuits.

USAID was tasked with a wide variety of missions around the globe, ranging from famine detection to polio vaccinations and emergency food kitchens in conflict zones.

The freezes in funding and elimination of programmes is already having an impact.

In Sudan, for example, the freeze in humanitarian assistance has led to the shuttering of over 1,100 communal kitchens set up to help those left destitute by the country’s ongoing civil war.

It is estimated that almost two million people have been affected.

In Oman, dozens of Afghan women who fled the Taliban government to pursue higher education now face return after their USAID-funded scholarships were abruptly terminated.

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

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deport pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested over the weekend by immigration agents.

Mr Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and permanent US resident, played a key role in last year’s Gaza war protests at the Ivy League campus in New York City.

The arrest is part of President Donald Trump’s pledge to crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses, in what he called “the first arrest of many to come”.

Protesters gathered in New York City on Monday afternoon pushing for Mr Khalil’s release and condemning the Trump administration’s actions.

“Now we’re facing a horrifying reality that our own student, a member of the Columbia community, has become a political prisoner here in the United States,” Columbia University Professor Michael Thaddeus said in a statement.

The judge set a hearing for Wednesday where Syrian-born Mr Khalil is expected to make an appearance, according to court documents.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents informed Mr Khalil they were revoking his student visa and green card upon taking him into custody on Saturday, his attorney said.

The Department of Homeland Security accused the former student of “leading activities aligned to Hamas” but provided no details.

The BBC has asked the agency for further information on the allegations.

Trump has previously stated that foreign students found to be “terrorist sympathisers” would face deportation. Mr Khalil is the first known detainee under this policy.

His lawyer, Amy Greer, condemned his detention as “terrible and inexcusable”, calling it part of “the US government’s open repression of student activism and political speech”.

Mr Khalil has not been charged with any crime.

ICE agents detained him at his university-owned Manhattan apartment and initially placed him in a New Jersey immigration facility before transferring him to a detention centre in Jena, Louisiana, according to ICE records.

His attorney claims ICE also threatened to arrest his wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant. When she attempted to visit him in New Jersey, officials told her he was not there.

Columbia University stated that law enforcement can enter campus property with a warrant but denied that university leadership had invited ICE agents.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed the administration’s stance, posting on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

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

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

Mr Khalil was lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest when its protesters set up a huge tent encampment on the university lawn in protest against the Gaza war.

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

New York Civil Liberties Union President Donna Lieberman called his deportation “targeted retaliation and an extreme attack on the First Amendment.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James said she was “extremely concerned” and monitoring the case.

Some Jewish students at Columbia claim that protest rhetoric sometimes crossed the line into antisemitism, while others have joined the the pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Carly, a Jewish-American graduate student at Columbia and a friend of Mr Khalil, told the BBC that the detainee was a “very, very caring soul”.

“He has been very targeted online and just seeing how he has been so misrepresented, it’s very painful, as someone who knows him on a personal level,” said Carly, who declined to share her surname for privacy reasons.

Speaking on Fox News, Trump’s border tsar Tom Homan alleged that Mr Khalil had violated the terms of his visa by “locking down buildings and destroying property”.

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 caravan found packed with explosives in outer Sydney earlier this year was part of a “fabricated terrorism plot” concocted by criminals, Australian police have said.

The caravan, which was found in north-western Sydney on 19 January, contained enough explosives to produce a 40m-wide blast, along with a note displaying antisemitic messages and a list of Jewish synagogues.

Its discovery, following a spate of antisemitic attacks in Australia, triggered widespread panic.

But on Monday, Australian Federal Police (AFP) revealed that they knew “almost immediately” that the caravan was “essentially a criminal con job”.

AFP’s deputy commissioner of national security, Krissy Barrett, said investigators within the New South Wales Joint Counter Terrorism Team believed that the caravan was “part of a fabricated terrorism plot”.

Authorities arrived at that belief based on information they already had, the ease with which they found the caravan and the visibility of the explosives contained inside – as well as the fact that there was no detonator.

Yet police refrained from telling the public that they believed the plot was fake “out of an abundance of caution”, as they continued to receive tip-offs about other related terror plots. They are now confident that these tip-offs were also fabricated, Ms Barrett said.

The fake caravan plot involved several people with different levels of involvement, according to police. Between them, they had planned to purchase a caravan, load it with explosives and antisemitic materials and leave it in a specific location, before informing law enforcement about “an impending terror attack against Jewish Australians”.

Ms Barrett described it as “an elaborate scheme contrived by organised criminals, domestically and from offshore”, adding that the leader of the plot maintained a distance and hired alleged local criminals to carry out parts of the operation.

That individual is a known organised crime figure, Ms Barrett confirmed. She also added that while no arrests had been made in relation to the incident, police have a number of ongoing targets both in Australia and offshore.

“Too many criminals are accused of paying others to carry out antisemitic or terrorism incidents to get our attention or divert our resources,” Ms Barrett said. She also noted that police believe “the person pulling the strings wanted changes to their criminal status”.

Criminals in these kinds of scenarios often leverage the exchange of information into law enforcement for some kind of personal gain, mostly around sentence reduction, Ms Barrett explained.

BBC News contacted AFP for more details on the suspected agenda of those behind the caravan hoax, but received no further comment.

“Regardless of the motivation of those responsible for this fake plot, this has had a chilling effect on the Jewish community,” Ms Barrett said in her statement.

“What organised crime has done to the Jewish community is reprehensible, and it won’t go without consequence. There was also unwarranted suspicion directed at other communities – and that is also reprehensible.”

Separately, New South Wales police arrested 14 people on Monday morning as part of Strike Force Pearl: a police operation established in December 2024 to investigate antisemitic hate crimes across Sydney.

The establishment of the Strike Force followed a string of antisemitic attacks in Australia in late-2024, including the vandalism of a Jewish school in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and the arson of a childcare centre, which was set alight and sprayed with antisemitic messages.

Speaking to the media on Monday, police said they believed all those incidents had a “common source” with the caravan plot.

“The caravan job was orchestrated by the same individual or individuals that were orchestrating the Pearl incidents,” said NSW Police deputy commissioner David Hudson.

Mr Hudson further noted, however, that “none of the individuals we have arrested during Pearl have displayed any form of antisemitic ideology.”

“I think what these organised crime heads have done is play to vulnerabilities in the community,” he later explained.

“Obviously there have been antisemitic attacks of a lower nature, and a lot of anger and angst in the community – we’ve seen that since October 7th, 2023… And I think these organised crime figures have taken an opportunity to play on the vulnerability of the Jewish community.”

Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has appealed against the country’s Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) decision to bar him from participating in May’s presidential election.

Constitutional court judges will meet on Tuesday afternoon to discuss Georgescu’s appeal, and a final ruling should be issued the same day.

The BEC rejected his candidacy on Sunday after a 10-4 vote, saying it did not “meet the conditions of legality”, as Georgescu “violated the very obligation to defend democracy”.

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

In his appeal, Georgescu said that the “BEC exceeded its legal powers”. He also argued that the constitutional court’s decision on the November election should have no bearing on his candidacy for the upcoming vote in May.

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

The electoral bureau’s decision sparked unrest in Bucharest on Sunday evening. Clashes broke out between police and Georgescu supporters who had gathered in their thousands outside the offices of the BEC.

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

Georgescu put out a video on social media thanking the Romanian people but adding that “we should not give birth to violence or other forms of this kind compared to how it was last night. We are moving forward with great confidence for the future of this country”.

A few hundred demonstrators gathered in the city centre on Monday evening, many of them waving Romania’s national flag. There was no repeat of the clashes on Sunday night.

The crowd stood behind fences set up by police, chanting their anger at the constitutional court inside the giant building across the road.

“The court has to defend our democracy and our constitution. But they don’t do this,” Eugen told the BBC, arguing that the court’s election rulings have been politicised. “They lost their meaning.”

Around him, the crowd burst into regular chants of “Romania wake up”, “The Constitutional Court is Garbage!” and “Georgescu is our president!”.

Some voiced conspiracy theories about the Covid pandemic, like Georgescu does. One young man, his face covered “for security” was openly homophobic, saying that the far-right politician appealed to his own “conservative” and “orthodox” views.

Another group described themselves as “hooligans” and didn’t want to speak on camera.

The grievances were varied, but all talked of their disillusion with a ruling class they called corrupt and far from the people.

“They sold out our country. We have to send our kids abroad for work. We can’t be successful and have a family here. They destroyed that. But they can’t take our right to vote,” factory worker Elena told the BBC.

Like several people we spoke to, Elena did not vote for Calin Georgescu in the first round of presidential elections in November, which was later overturned. At that point, she had not heard of him.

But the controversy over the cancelled vote has propelled the far-right populist into the spotlight and increased his support.

Now the crowd want him reinstated as a candidate.

George Simion, an ally of Georgescu and the leader of the far-right opposition Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR), parliament’s second-largest party, said on Monday that Romania was in “the midst of a coup d’état”.

In a video on Sunday night, Simion called for “those who committed the coup to be skinned in public for what they did… Whether you like Calin Georgescu or not, he is the man Romanians voted for”.

The Romanian prosecutor general has opened a case against Simion for instigation of violence, and on Monday he rowed back on the comments, saying he was using a “metaphor”.

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

Georgescu – a fierce EU and Nato critic – came out of almost nowhere last year to lead the first round two weeks ago amid allegations of Russian interference. He has since 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.

And Trump adviser Elon Musk posted on X, saying: “How can a judge end democracy in Romania?”

King Charles III and Catherine, Princess of Wales have attended the annual Commonwealth Day service, a year after both were forced to cancel because they were receiving cancer treatment.

The event at Westminster Abbey on Monday celebrated the Commonwealth’s “powerful influence for good in the world”.

Queen Camilla, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal also attended, along with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

The King’s appearance at the service was his first in two years, while Catherine was absent last year as she was undergoing chemotherapy, which she has since completed.

Ahead of commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, the King paid tribute to the “sacrifice and selflessness” of Commonwealth forces.

He also said restoring the “disrupted harmony of our entire planet” is the most “important” task facing humanity.

In an address included in a booklet given to the congregation, the King wrote: “More than one and-a-half million men and women who served during the war came from across the Commonwealth to support the United Kingdom and its allies.

“On this special anniversary, we remember with particular pride and everlasting gratitude the untold sacrifice and selflessness of so many from around our family of nations who gave their lives in that dreadful conflict.”

The theme of this year’s Commonwealth Day is Together We Thrive, which celebrates the “enduring spirit of the Commonwealth family”.

During his bidding, the Dean of Westminster said: “As different peoples we rejoice in this opportunity to reflect, in mutual respect, on our shared dignity and commitment to the service of others.

“We celebrate the love and affection that binds us in unity and gives us resilience and strength.”

Among the performers at the service were Shree Muktajeevan Swamibapa, a Hindu Scottish pipe band, and musicians, acrobats and singers from the Masai Cultural Arts team.

Violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason and his sister Jeneba on piano also played during the service.

Protesters from the anti-monarchy group Republic held up placards reading “not my King” and “down with the Crown” as they gathered outside the abbey ahead of the service.

Hundreds of foreign tourists have left a Unesco heritage site in southern India in the past few days after two women – an Israeli tourist and an Indian homestay owner – were gang-raped and a man was murdered.

The three were stargazing with two other male tourists near the town of Hampi in Karnataka state last Thursday when they were attacked by three men following an argument over money, police said.

All three suspects wanted in connection with the crime have been arrested.

The incident, which made global headlines, sparked fear among tourists and sent shockwaves through India.

Once the capital of the Hindu Vijayanagara kingdom, Hampi is described as an open-air museum, filled with magnificent stone ruins on the banks of Tungabhadra river. It was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1986.

Thursday’s assault took place in Sanapur village, which is about 28km (17 miles) from the main ruins of Hampi.

Located on the other side of the river from Hampi, the village is “a very isolated area”, says Ram Arasiddi, the superintendent of police of the district.

Many tourists, especially from Israel and Europe, who visit Hampi stay at Sanapur, which also has towering ruins and a famous Hindu temple.

“Overall, about 100,000 or more foreign tourists visit the area every year,” says Virupaksha V Hampi, general secretary of the Karnataka tourist guides’ association.

However, since the news of the attack, most visitors have either cancelled bookings or left.

“Almost 90% of the tourists, most of whom are Israelis, have vacated homestays and left the area after Thursday,” Syed Ismael, a tour guide, told BBC Hindi.

Mr Ismael added that those who were staying had been advised to move in groups and avoid venturing too far out.

Some said they’ve had to make last-minute changes to their plans.

“The incident is really scary and we are concerned about our safety. We had plans to stay here until [the Hindu festival of] Holi, but now we will be heading to Rajasthan state,” Talia Zilber, a 21-year-old Israeli tourist, told The Indian Express newspaper. Mr Zilber left the guest house where he was staying with his five friends on Sunday.

State minister Shivaraj Tangadagi has also cautioned people against travelling late at night in the area.

According to one survivor’s testimony, the group was stargazing near a temple when three men arrived on a motorcycle and asked where they could get petrol.

They gave them directions but the men then demanded 100 rupees ($1.15; £0.90) from them.

The group initially refused as they didn’t know the men, but one male tourist eventually gave them 20 rupees.

The men then began arguing with the tourists which led to a confrontation.

The attackers pushed the three men into a nearby river canal before raping the women, Mr Arasiddi said on Saturday.

Two men swam to safety while the third, from Odisha state, drowned.

Police say they have filed a case for attempted murder, robbery and rape based on the survivors’ testimony.

Two suspects were arrested on Saturday while a third man was arrested from neighbouring Tamil Nadu state on Sunday. He is being brought to Karnataka on Monday.

Violent crimes against women continue in India despite tough laws. The 2012 gang rape and murder of a medical student by a group of men in the capital Delhi drew global attention and triggered large-scale protests.

The incident prompted authorities to introduce stricter rape laws in 2013. Yet, tens of thousands of cases are reported each year. The National Crime Records Bureau reported nearly 32,000 rapes in India in 2022.

Experts believe many rapes go unreported because of social stigma, distrust of police and lack of confidence in the justice system.

In 2023, public outrage followed the alleged gang rape of a Brazilian-Spanish tourist in Jharkhand state. The victim and her husband shared their ordeal on Instagram, but later removed their posts.

Share markets in Asia have fallen after a selloff in the US was triggered by President Donald Trump not ruling out the suggestion that his tariffs could trigger a recession in the world’s biggest economy.

It followed the president saying in a TV interview that the US economy was in a “period of transition”, when asked about concerns over a potential recession.

Since those remarks were broadcast on Sunday, top Trump officials and advisers have sought to calm investor fears.

“The previous notion of Trump being a stock market president is being re-evaluated,” said Charu Chanana, an investment strategist at investment bank Saxo told the BBC.

In a Fox News interview broadcast on Sunday but recorded on Thursday, Trump appeared to acknowledge concerns about the economy. “I hate to predict things like that,” he said. “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.”

In morning trade on Tuesday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.7%, South Korea’s Kospi was 1.5% lower and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was off by 0.7%.

On Monday in New York, the S&P 500, which tracks the biggest American companies, ended the trading day 2.7% lower, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2%.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq was hit particularly hard, sinking 4%.

Tesla shares fell by 15.4%, while artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia was down more than 5%. Other major tech stocks including Meta, Amazon and Alphabet also fell sharply.

• Stocks slide as Trump warns of US economy ‘transition’

• Trump expands exemptions from Canada and Mexico tariffs

“Trump is keeping political leaders guessing regarding his next moves on tariffs, but the problem is that he’s also keeping investors guessing and that’s reflected in the dire market mood,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at financial services firm KCM Trade.

“Whilst recession talk may be premature, the mere prospect of this coming to fruition is enough to put traders into a defensive mindset.”

After trading closed on Monday, a White House official told reporters: “We’re seeing a strong divergence between [the] animal spirits of the stock market and what we’re actually seeing unfold from businesses and business leaders.”

“The latter is obviously more meaningful than the former on what’s in store for the economy in the medium to long term,” the official added.

In a separate statement later in the day, White House spokesman Kush Desai said “industry leaders” had responded to Trump’s agenda, including tariffs, “with trillions in investment commitments”.

Last week, the main US markets fell back to the level seen before Trump’s election victory last November, which had initially been welcomed by investors due to hopes of tax cuts and lighter regulation.

Investors fear Trump’s tariffs – which are taxes on goods applied as they enter the country – will lead to higher prices and dent growth in the world’s largest economy.

“The level of tariffs that Trump is imposing, I think no doubt, will have to cause inflation somewhere down the line,” Rachel Winter, investment manager at Killik & Co, told the Today programme.

The president introduced the measures after accusing 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.

Economist Mohamed El-Erian said investors were initially optimistic about Trump’s plans for de-regulation and lower taxes, while under-estimating the likelihood of a trade war.

He said the recent falls in the stock market, which started last week, reflect the adjustment of those bets.

“It’s a complete change in what the market expected,” he added, noting that investors are also responding to signs that businesses and households are starting to hold off on spending due to uncertainty, which could hurt economic growth.

But Kevin Hassett, an economic adviser to President Trump, has pushed back against those projecting this bleak outlook.

In an interview with CNBC, Hassett said there were many reasons to be optimistic about the US economy and that that tariffs imposed on Canada, Mexico and China were already bringing manufacturing and jobs to the United States.

“There are a lot of reasons to be extremely bullish about the economy going forward,” he said.

He admitted there were some “blips in the data” for this quarter, which he pinned on the timing of Trump’s tariffs and the “Biden inheritance”.

Fires are still burning on an oil tanker carrying jet fuel and a cargo ship carrying highly toxic chemicals that collided in the North Sea on Monday morning.

One crew member is still unaccounted for and the search has been called off, HM Coastguard said.

The collision involved the US-registered Stena Immaculate – which was transporting fuel on behalf of the US military – and the Portuguese-flagged Solong.

Coastguard Divisional Commander Matthew Atkinson said 36 people had been rescued, with one person taken to hospital. The missing crew member had been onboard the Solong, he said.

One of the men who was on the oil tanker told BBC News that the Solong came out of the blue and collided with the Stena Immaculate at 16 knots.

The crew scrambled to the life rafts taking only what they had on them.

Efforts to assess any environmental damage are still ongoing after it was confirmed some jet fuel had leaked into the sea off the Humber Estuary.

Maritime firm Crowley, which manages the Stena Immaculate, said there had been “multiple explosions onboard” when the vessel suffered a ruptured cargo tank.

A US official confirmed the tanker had been carrying jet fuel “in support of the Department of Defense” but said the incident would not impact operations or combat readiness.

A Coastguard rescue helicopter was sent to the scene, as well as four lifeboats and nearby vessels with fire-fighting capability.

Svitzer managing director Michael Paterson said the marine services group had sent four boats which had been “firefighting since they arrived and dealing with the flames”.

“The oil and jet fuel presents a problem for them. It’s obviously flammable, but there’s also fumes and toxins,” he said.

“The priority for us was to save the crew. I’ve seen some serious incidents, but this is one of the most serious.”

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch said a team of inspectors and support staff had started gathering evidence and was undertaking a preliminary assessment to determine its next steps.

Divisional Commander Atkinson said: “An assessment of any required counter pollution response is being carried out by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

“The Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention is working with the salvors and insurance companies.”

The transport secretary paid tribute to the efforts of the coastguard, RNLI and emergency services.

Heidi Alexander said: “They were on the scene swiftly, have helped rescue those in immediate danger and I know they will continue to work tirelessly over the coming days.”

According to MarineTraffic, the Stena Immaculate had travelled from the Greek port of Agioi Theodoroi and was anchored by the Humber Estuary.

The Solong had been sailing from the Scottish port of Grangemouth to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.

The cargo ship had been carrying 15 containers of the chemical sodium cyanide when it collided with the tanker.

Sodium cyanide has a variety of commercial uses, from being used to plate metals to dye production. It is highly soluble in water and can be toxic as it affects the uptake of oxygen.

It is not clear whether any sodium cyanide from the cargo ship has leaked into the sea.

But if it has come into contact with water, “there is a risk of some hydrogen cyanide gas being produced which could present a risk to any of those involved in rescue”, according to Alastair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at Leeds University.

The Stena Immaculate had been carrying jet fuel when it was hit, said Crowley.

Jet fuel has a high boiling point, so it will evaporate slowly. It is also relatively toxic, so marine life that comes into contact with it may be killed.

Greenpeace said it was “extremely concerned” about “multiple toxic hazards” from the North Sea ship collision.

Downing Street said details of the cause of the collision were “still becoming clear”.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said it was an “extremely concerning situation”.

He said: “We thank the emergency services for their rapid response. I understand the Department for Transport is working closely with the coastguard to help support the response to the incident.”

P&O Ferries said the Humber Estuary remained closed to all traffic and departure times from Hull and Rotterdam remained unconfirmed on Monday evening.

Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Soundslatest episode of Look North here.

US Vice-President JD Vance’s cousin has criticised him and President Donald Trump for “belittling” Volodymyr Zelensky during the three men’s Oval Office showdown in February.

“There’s a certain level of decorum that I expect from political leaders, especially in front of cameras,” Nate Vance – who spent three years volunteering with the Ukrainian military after Russia’s full-scale invasion – told the BBC.

It follows his earlier comment that Trump and Vance were acting like “useful idiots” for President Vladimir Putin in their handling of the conflict.

Last month US and Russian officials held direct talks on ending the war. US and Ukrainian officials are currently in Saudi Arabia for talks.

Nate Vance told the BBC’s PM programme on Monday that he was “not happy” with the way in which the White House meeting had been handled by his cousin and Trump.

“I’m kind of attached to the Ukrainian issue but, looking at that, if it were some other completely neutral issue and I saw White House officials and hack journalists that are political belittling a foreign leader, I’d be like ‘what the hell is going on?'” he told the BBC.

The televised Oval Office meeting between the leaders quickly turned heated, with Trump threatening to withdraw support from Ukraine if a deal was not made and accusing the Ukrainian President of “gambling with World War Three”.

Vance called Zelensky “disrespectful” for “litigating” the dispute in front of the media and accused him of not expressing gratitude for America’s support during the war.

Nate Vance said that he did not agree that Zelensky had failed to show appreciation. “Zelensky does a daily or nightly address and thanks everyone who supports Ukraine on a daily basis,” he said.

He said that perhaps the Ukrainian leader had not shown “enough deference to Donald Trump” but that it would be “odd for my cousin and Donald Trump to ask for deference because they’ve been actively working against his initiatives for the past three years”.

Zelensky was eventually asked to leave the White House and a planned news conference was cancelled.

Following the meeting, the Trump administration halted military aid, satellite imagery and intelligence sharing to Kyiv.

One American reporter during the meeting in the White House accused Zelensky of disrespecting the occasion by not wearing a suit. Since the start of the war, Zelensky has eschewed suits for military-style dress in what he says is solidarity with soldiers.

“Everyone knows that’s why he does that and it’s kind of a symbolic thing,” Nate Vance said. “Who cares? It’s a silly hill to die on. And speaking of which, why is Elon Musk in the Oval Office wearing a baseball hat and a T-shirt all the time?”

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro earlier on Monday, Nate Vance said his cousin was a “good guy, intelligent” but that the meeting with Zelensky was “an ambush of absolute bad faith”.

He later told the PM programme that he had been a “Republican my whole life so this is an odd stance for me to be taking but I’m pretty passionate about it and it’s one issue where I think we’re doing wrong”.

He said it was unlikely his cousin would want to speak to him following his comments.

Asked about other Americans’ view of the encounter, he said 20% would be “disheartened” and that “all of this alienation is isolating us and the last time we decided to take an isolationist path we ended up with World War One and World War Two”.

Zelensky subsequently said the angry exchange had been “regrettable” and it was “time to make things right”.

The US is attempting to mediate with both Russia and Ukraine in hopes of ending the war.

Last week, Trump said that he was “doing very well with Russia” and that it was “more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine”.

Head in hands, eight-year-old Timmy muttered to himself as he tried to beat a robot powered by artificial intelligence at a game of chess.

But this was not an AI showroom or laboratory – this robot was living on a coffee table in a Beijing apartment, along with Timmy.

The first night it came home, Timmy hugged his little robot friend before heading to bed. He doesn’t have a name for it – yet.

“It’s like a little teacher or a little friend,” the boy said, as he showed his mum the next move he was considering on the chess board.

Moments later, the robot chimed in: “Congrats! You win.” Round eyes blinking on the screen, it began rearranging the pieces to start a new game as it continued in Mandarin: “I’ve seen your ability, I will do better next time.”

China is embracing AI in its bid to become a tech superpower by 2030.

DeepSeek, the breakthrough Chinese chatbot that caught the world’s attention in January, was just the first hint of that ambition.

Money is pouring into AI businesses seeking more capital, fuelling domestic competition. There are more than 4,500 firms developing and selling AI, schools in the capital Beijing are introducing AI courses for primary and secondary students later this year, and universities have increased the number of places available for students studying AI.

“This is an inevitable trend. We will co-exist with AI,” said Timmy’s mum, Yan Xue. “Children should get to know it as early as possible. We should not reject it.”

She is keen for her son to learn both chess and the strategy board game Go – the robot does both, which persuaded her that its $800 price tag was a good investment. Its creators are already planning to add a language tutoring programme.

Perhaps this was what the Chinese Communist Party hoped for when it declared in 2017 that AI would be “the main driving force” of the country’s progress. President Xi Jinping is now betting big on it, as a slowing Chinese economy grapples with the blow of tariffs from its biggest trading partner, the United States.

Beijing plans to invest 10tn Chinese yuan ($1.4tn; £1tn) in the next 15 years as it competes with Washington to gain the edge in advanced tech. AI funding got yet another boost at the government’s annual political gathering, which is currently under way. This comes on the heels of a 60 billion yuan-AI investment fund created in January, just days after the US further tightened export controls for advanced chips and placed more Chinese firms on a trade blacklist.

But DeepSeek has shown that Chinese companies can overcome these barriers. And that’s what has stunned Silicon Valley and industry experts – they did not expect China to catch up so soon.

It’s a reaction Tommy Tang has become accustomed to after six months of marketing his firm’s chess-playing robot at various competitions.

Timmy’s machine comes from the same company, SenseRobot, which offers a wide range in abilities – Chinese state media hailed an advanced version in 2022 that beat chess Grand Masters at the game.

“Parents will ask about the price, then they will ask where I am from. They expect me to come from the US or Europe. They seem surprised that I am from China,” Mr Tang said, smiling. “There will always be one or two seconds of silence when I say I am from China.”

His firm has sold more than 100,000 of the robots and now has a contract with a major US supermarket chain, Costco.

One of the secrets to China’s engineering success is its young people. In 2020, more than 3.5 million of the country’s students graduated with degrees in science, technology, engineering and maths, better known as STEM.

That’s more than any other country in the world – and Beijing is keen to leverage it. “Building strength in education, science and talent is a shared responsibility,” Xi told party leaders last week.

Ever since China opened its economy to the world in the late 1970s, it has “been through a process of accumulating talent and technology,” says Abbott Lyu, vice-president of Shanghai-based Whalesbot, a firm that makes AI toys. “In this era of AI, we’ve got many, many engineers, and they are hardworking.”

Behind him, a dinosaur made of variously coloured bricks roars to life. It’s being controlled through code assembled on a smartphone by a seven-year-old.

The company is developing toys to help children as young as three learn code. Every package of bricks comes with a booklet of code. Children can then choose what they want to build and learn how to do it. The cheapest toy sells for around $40.

“Other countries have AI education robots as well, but when it comes to competitiveness and smart hardware, China is doing better,” Mr Lyu insists.

The success of DeepSeek turned its CEO Liang Wenfeng into a national hero and “is worth 10 billion yuan of advertising for [China’s] AI industry,” he added.

“It has let the public know that AI is not just a concept, that it can indeed change people’s lives. It has inspired public curiosity.”

Six homegrown AI firms, including DeepSeek, have now been nicknamed China’s six little dragons by the internet – the others are Unitree Robotics, Deep Robotics, BrainCo, Game Science, and Manycore Tech.

Some of them were at a recent AI fair in Shanghai, where the biggest Chinese firms in the business showed off their advances, from search and rescue robots to a backflipping dog-like one, which wandered the halls among visitors.

In one bustling exhibition hall, two teams of humanoid robots battled it out in a game of football, complete in red and blue jerseys. The machines fell when they clashed – and one of them was even taken off the field in a stretcher by their human handler who was keen to keep the joke going.

It was hard to miss the air of excitement among developers in the wake of DeepSeek. “Deepseek means the world knows we are here,” said Yu Jingji, a 26-year-old engineer.

But as the world learns of China’s AI potential, there are also concerns about what AI is allowing the Chinese government to learn about its users.

AI is hungry for data – the more it gets, the smarter it makes itself and, with around a billion mobile phone users compared to just over 400 million in the US, Beijing has a real advantage.

The West, its allies and many experts in these countries believe that data gathered by Chinese apps such as DeepSeek, RedNote or TikTok can be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party. Some point to the country’s National Intelligence Law as evidence of this.

But Chinese firms, including ByteDance, which owns TikTok, says the law allows for the protection of private companies and personal data. Still, suspicion that US user data on TikTok could end up in the hands of the Chinese government drove Washington’s decision to ban the hugely popular app.

That same fear – where privacy concerns meet national security challenges – is hitting Deepseek. South Korea banned new downloads of DeepSeek, while Taiwan and Australia have barred the app from government-issued devices.

Chinese companies are aware of these sensitivities and Mr Tang was quick to tell the BBC that “privacy was a red line” for his company. Beijing also realises that this will be a challenge in its bid to be a global leader in AI.

“DeepSeek’s rapid rise has triggered hostile reactions from some in the West,” a commentary in the state-run Beijing Daily noted, adding that “the development environment for China’s AI models remains highly uncertain”.

But China’s AI firms are not deterred. Rather, they believe thrifty innovation will win them an undeniable advantage – because it was DeepSeek’s claim that it could rival ChatGPT for a fraction of the cost that shocked the AI industry.

So the engineering challenge is how to make more, for less. “This was our Mission Impossible,” Mr Tang said. His company found that the robotic arm used to move chess pieces was hugely expensive to produce and would drive the price up to around $40,000.

So, they tried using AI to help do the work of engineers and enhance the manufacturing process. Mr Tang claims that has driven the cost down to $1,000.

“This is innovation,” he says. “Artificial engineering is now integrated into the manufacturing process.”

This could have enormous implications as China applies AI on a vast scale. State media already show factories full of humanoid robots. In January, the government said that it would promote the development of AI-powered humanoid robots to help look after its rapidly ageing population.

Xi has repeatedly declared “technological self-reliance” a key goal, which means China wants to create its own advanced chips, to make up for US export restrictions that could hinder its plans.

The Chinese leader knows he is in for a long race – the Beijing Daily recently warned that the DeepSeek moment was not a time for “AI triumphalism” because China was still in “catch-up mode”.

President Xi is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, robots and advanced tech in preparation for a marathon that he hopes China will eventually win.

A former senior Facebook executive has told the BBC how the social media giant worked “hand in glove” with the Chinese government on potential ways of allowing Beijing to censor and control content in China.

Sarah Wynn-Williams – a former global public policy director – says in return for gaining access to the Chinese market of hundreds of millions of users, Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, considered agreeing to hiding posts that were going viral, until they could be checked by the Chinese authorities.

Ms Williams – who makes the claims in a new book – has also filed a whistleblower complaint with the US markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging Meta misled investors. The BBC has reviewed the complaint.

Facebook’s parent company Meta, says Ms Wynn-Williams had her employment terminated in 2017 “for poor performance”.

It is “no secret we were once interested” in operating services in China, it adds. “We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we’d explored.”

Meta referred us to Mark Zuckerberg’s comments from 2019, when he said: “We could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they [China] never let us in.”

Facebook also used algorithms to spot when young teenagers were feeling vulnerable as part of research aimed at advertisers, Ms Wynn-Williams alleges.

A former New Zealand diplomat, she joined Facebook in 2011, and says she watched the company grow from “a front row seat”.

Now she wants to show some of the “decision-making and moral compromises” that she says went on when she was there. It is a critical moment, she adds, as “many of the people I worked with… are going to be central” to the introduction of AI.

In her memoir, Careless People, Ms Wynn-Williams paints a picture of what she alleges working on Facebook’s senior team was like.

Mr Zuckerberg, she says, did not get up before midday, loved karaoke and did not like to be beaten at board games, such as Risk. “I didn’t realise that you were supposed to let him win. I was a little naive,” she told us.

However, Ms Wynn-Williams says her allegations about the company’s close relationship with China provide an insight into Facebook’s decision-making at the time.

“China is Mark Zuckerberg’s white whale,” meaning a goal that he obsessively pursued, says Ms Wynn-Williams.

The country is the world’s biggest social media market, but access to Facebook remains blocked there, alongside the likes of X and YouTube.

“It’s the one piece on the board game that he hasn’t conquered,” she says.

Ms Wynn-Williams claims that in the mid-2010s, as part of its negotiations with the Chinese government, Facebook considered allowing it future access to Chinese citizens’ user data.

“He was working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party, building a censorship tool… basically working to develop sort of the antithesis of many of the principles that underpin Facebook,” she told the BBC.

Ms Wynn-Williams says governments frequently asked for explanations of how aspects of Facebook’s software worked, but were told it was proprietary information.

“But when it came to the Chinese, the curtain was pulled back,” she says.

“Engineers were brought out. They were walked through every aspect, and Facebook was making sure these Chinese officials were upskilled enough that they could not only learn about these products, but then test Facebook on the censorship version of these products that they were building.”

Meta told the BBC that such claims about China had been “widely reported” at the time.

In her SEC complaint, Ms Wynn-Williams also alleges Mr Zuckerberg and other Meta executives had made “misleading statements… in response to Congressional inquiries” about China.

One answer given by Mr Zuckerberg to Congress in 2018 said Facebook was “not in a position to know exactly how the [Chinese] government would seek to apply its laws and regulations on content”

Meta told the BBC that Mr Zuckerberg gave accurate testimony, adding it did not operate services in China.

Most Facebook executives didn’t allow their own children on Facebook – according to Ms Wynn-Williams. “They had screen bans. They certainly wouldn’t allow them to use the product.”

And yet she says reports from 2017 – that the company had been using algorithms to target and categorise vulnerable teens – were true.

“The algorithm could infer that they were feeling worthless or unhappy,” she alleges.

The company – which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp – could, she claims, identify when a teenage girl had deleted a selfie on its platforms, and then notify a beauty company that it would be a good moment to target the child with an advert.

Ms Wynn-Williams says she “felt sick” at the thought and tried to push back, “although I knew it was futile”.

“They said: ‘The business side thinks this is exactly what we should be doing. We’ve got this amazing product, we can get young people, which is a really important advertising segment.'”

Meta told the BBC this was false – it has never offered tools to target people based on their emotional state – and that the research it previously did was to help marketers understand how people express themselves on Facebook, not to target ads.

Overall, Ms Wynn-Williams says the company has not done enough to address the issue of young people’s safety on social media.

“This is one of the most valuable companies in the world. They could invest in this and make it a real priority and do more to fix it.”

Facebook said it was transparent about advert-targeting and had shared updates regarding its approach to creating age-appropriate advert experiences for teens.

It also said it had introduced “Teen Accounts” for tens of millions of young people with built-in protections. It also said it was giving parents more oversight over their teens’ use of the app.

As well as poor performance, Meta says the 45-year-old was also fired for “toxic behaviour” after she had made “misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment”.

But Ms Wynn-Williams told the BBC she was let go after she had complained about inappropriate comments by one of her bosses – Joel Kaplan, who is now Meta’s chief global affairs officer.

Meta told us she had been paid by “anti-Facebook activists” and she was not a whistleblower.

“Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books,” it said.

In regard to Ms Wynn-Williams’ book, Meta has confirmed to the BBC that it has launched legal action in the US to “halt the further distribution of defamatory and untrue information”.

To counter this, a legal representative for Ms Wynn-Williams said: “Meta has made a number of false and inconsistent statements about Sarah since the news of her memoir broke… while Meta’s statements are trying to mislead the public, the book speaks for itself”

We asked her why she was speaking out now. She said she wanted Meta to change as it “influences so much of our day-to-day life” and we need to ensure “we get the future we deserve”.

“We’re in this moment where tech and political leaders are coming together and as they combine forces, that has a lot of consequences for all of us.

“I think it’s really important to understand that and to understand you look at all these engineers who are influencing the highest level of government.”

“She’s a phony, but I guess the public likes that…” This is the line that actress Joan Crawford is said to have declared about film star Bette Davis.

The back-and-forth sniping between the pair played out in the tabloids of the 1930s and 40s. “Bette is a survivor… She survived herself,” Crawford is also said to have remarked.

Their tempestuous relationship was so notorious that in 2017 it was made into an Emmy award-winning TV series, Feud.

Hollywood rivalries are of course nothing new – yet conflicts today rarely play out so publicly. That might be why the dispute between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, which spilled out into the open in December 2024, is still in the headlines three months on.

The subsequent legal battle brought to light a fallout during production of the film, It Ends With Us. After the promotional and cinematic run had ended, the pair – who didn’t appear on the red carpet together at the premiere in New York – filed lawsuits against each other.

Lively has accused Baldoni and others of carrying out a smear campaign against her after she complained about alleged sexual harassment on set. Baldoni, meanwhile, has accused Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist of carrying out a smear campaign against him, and claim that she tried to take over control of the film. Both sides deny all allegations.

What emerged as this all played out is that crisis PR managers had been employed. Legal representatives for Lively obtained numerous text messages between Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel and the crisis team he retained, led by Melissa Nathan, whose previous clients include Johnny Depp and Drake. Ms Nathan was alleged to have texted Ms Abel, “You know we can bury anyone.”

Lively has now reportedly taken on the CIA’s former deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro to advise on her legal communications strategy.

While the outcomes of the lawsuits remain to be seen, the feud has cast the spotlight on an industry that would ordinarily remain largely invisible: that is, the publicity machine at work behind the scenes in Hollywood.

“On every set, there are fights, liaisons… there are all sorts of things that go on,” explains Richard Rushfield, founder and columnist at Hollywood newsletter The Ankler. “Hollywood is a world full of very messy people coming together for these giant projects, where they put together teams quickly to make these things and disband immediately after.

“Between all that a lot of stuff goes on, and they deal with it quietly – they’re very obsessive about controlling the narrative. When this stuff explodes into the public, beyond control, it makes everyone very nervous.”

But the world of the Hollywood PR has shifted in recent years, partly because of the growth of social media, which has changed the relationship between celebrities and fans, bringing them into direct contact and removing some of the mystique.

So, what does that mean for the people whose job it is to keep a lid on the industry’s messy reality?

Few fallouts have spilled out into the open in recent years – and those that did were picked over simply because they’re so rare. Actor Dwayne Johnson revealed “a fundamental difference in philosophies on how we approach moviemaking and collaborating” with his Fast & Furious co-star Vin Diesel, in a 2018 interview.

The stars of another action film, Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, are reported to have filmed many of their scenes separately.

And then there were the alleged tensions between Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker, who were co-stars of Sex and the City, which ran for six years. In 2018, after Parker offered condolences for Cattrall’s brother’s death, Cattrall responded on social media, calling Parker a “hypocrite” and stating, “You are not my family. You are not my friend.”

But behind the scenes, hundreds of other spats will never see the light of day. “Some of a publicist’s best work may never be seen,” says Daniel Bee, a publicist and brand consultant based in Los Angeles, “because it stopped something that was wrong, or re-crafted something to a different narrative, or pointed the light in a different direction.

“The most interesting stuff I’ve ever done as a publicist is the stuff nobody will ever know about.”

Since Daniel Bee started out as an entertainment publicist in 1997, he has observed a shift in the wider industry. “I started my career in the British media, there were 11 national newspapers competing with each other. It was a bear pit, hard work, and it was getting to know individuals via relationships.

“Now, you’re up against an anonymous algorithm and accounts where you don’t know who you’re up against. It’s harder to control than ever before.”

Certainly, social media has posed challenges for those attempting to control narratives around major films and their stars – while also heralding new forms of “dark arts” through which publicists can attempt to shape opinion.

“There has always been an army of advisors and consultants doing PR voodoo,” says Eriq Gardner, entertainment law expert and founding partner of Puck News. “While I’d love to say the public is media-literate and savvy enough to read between the lines to see the spin, the truth is there are a lot of powerful forces at play and sometimes a large amount of misinformation.”

So-called PR voodoo is different now that a celebrity – or their fans – can access an audience of millions with a click.

While the publicists of previous eras might only have had to worry about print and broadcast platforms, smartphones and social media mean today’s digital landscape is a wild west where anyone can shape their own narrative. A badly judged post or comment can damage an actor’s career.

But the flipside is a whole new medium in which PRs can practise their “voodoo”.

One of the tactics is “astroturfing” – or disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous up-swelling of public opinion.

This works by manipulating public opinion and creating a false impression of grassroots support (hence the name) or opposition, often coordinated through social media accounts in a way that seems organic.

The practice isn’t new, but has been given new life with the advent of social media algorithms.

“It’s deliberately planting disinformation, or twisted versions of the truth, in certain sections of social media,” says Carla Speight, founder of the PR Mastery app. “The aim is the halfway point of influential where they will get a bit of traction, but so that it’s not too obvious – you wouldn’t hire a Kardashian to do it.

“It’s built up in layers,” she continues. “It’s like playing a very sinister game of chess. You’re putting all the pieces in the right places, just the right amount of mixed-up information, and then you just watch it explode.”

Although the posts might appear to be genuine public opinion, in fact it’s a faked crowd – whether that’s made up of bots or real people, who can be paid to coordinate their posts.

“All it takes is one or two people to create a meme and put it with the right people,” says Ms Speight. “It needs to appear as a trend, and then it’s gone. Something is dripped here, something else over there, and when it’s done well… it causes a bit of mischief.”

But all of this is simply a new platform for an age-old trend that has been going on long before the advent of social media, according to Mr Bee. “Undetected smear campaigns have always been a thing,” he points out.

“Previously it would have been a publicist whispering to a diarist of a national newspaper. The issue with digital media is it’s anonymous and untraceable.”

What has changed, he continues, is that audiences have become savvier. “Whereas before, a quite subservient audience would just take what was given to them in the media, with natural scepticism, curiosity, and a greater level of information, I think people use more critical thinking.”

Eriq Gardner is less convinced: “I’m not sure the public approaches what they read with enough scepticism.”

And yet those in the industry are often alert to it. According to Ms Speight, “Usually, there’s a distinct sort of tell, and it may be the PR thing where we have ‘spidey senses’ and we can sort of see it, but you’re asking, ‘Where has that come from? Who started that?’ And when there’s never a specific place to point it to, that’s usually a tell-tale sign.”

What’s clear, though, is that, with studios providing some publications with significant advertising revenue, as well as supplying talent for special events and front covers, revelations often emerge elsewhere in the media.

“When [scandals] come out, it’s usually from places outside of Hollywood,” argues Mr Rushfield. “The Harvey Weinstein story was broken by The New York Times and the New Yorker.”

It was The New York Times that first reported Lively’s legal complaint in December. “It’s one of the few places that can afford to do that, and then everyone else jumped in so nobody was sticking their neck out.” Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times in December, although a federal judge indicated this week that it might be dismissed.

Even when bigger outlets break news about Hollywood disputes, the growing dominance of social media means that stories might not have the same cut-through they had previously.

Doreen St Felix, a writer who was previously an editor on Lena Dunham’s newsletter, recently wrote in The New Yorker that stories of harassment and abuse, for example, now receive a “curdled, cynical, and exhausted reception” – this, less than a decade after the emergence of the MeToo movement.

She went on to claim that: “The late 2010s genre of #MeToo reportage cannot thrive on today’s volatile internet. Information is misinformation and vice versa. Victims are offenders and offenders are victims.”

Sometimes, however, the best way for publicists to prevent stories being amplified is by bypassing social media entirely when reacting to a scandal.

“If you give it to the press first, they don’t quote as many of the comments on social media,” says Ms Speight. “You control the narrative completely, because the comments come afterwards.”

Mr Rushfield points out that very little of the revelations in the entertainment press comes out because someone “uncovered” something. “Almost everything you read is there because somebody placed it there – somebody is dictating a story.”

None of this industry would exist if the appetite weren’t there and if the viewing public didn’t want to unpick details about their lives – and rifts. And yet attitudes towards celebrity have undoubtedly changed since the advent of social media.

“It’s now a two-way communication, which it never was before,” points out Mr Bee. “It was generally celebrities, or lawyer or government or whatever, just saying something that gets reported, and that message is conveyed. Now, you have to be prepared for a two-way conversation.”

But he thinks there are different attitudes to the media today than in the era of celebrity gossip magazines. Nodding to the UK, he continues: “We had the Leveson Inquiry, we’re about to get an ITV drama about phone hacking, it’s as if the curtain has been lifted.”

As for the Lively and Baldoni lawsuits, it’s not clear how these will play out – but the very fact that it has so unusually spilled into the public domain is a reminder of how well-oiled the Hollywood publicity machine is the rest of the time. And that is unlikely to change soon.

Sir Keir Starmer has called the current benefits system “unsustainable”, “indefensible” and “unfair”, and said the government could not shrug its “shoulders and look away”.

Addressing Labour MPs on Monday evening, the prime minister said the current welfare system was “the worst of all worlds”, discouraging people from working while producing a “spiralling bill”.

The comments come as Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall prepares to set out changes to the welfare system and cut the benefits bill in the coming weeks.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has earmarked several billion pounds in draft spending cuts to welfare and other government departments ahead of the Spring Statement.

There is unease over the plans within the party, with Labour MP Rachael Maskell warning against “draconian cuts” that risk “pushing disabled people into poverty”.

Maskell told the BBC she had picked up “deep, deep concern” among Labour MPs.

She said: “I look in the past at what Labour has achieved in this space and believe that we can hold on to our values, ensure that we’re helping people and not harming people.”

Another Labour MP, Neil Duncan-Jordan, also expressed concern, telling Newsnight: “If we are going to make poor people poorer then there will be a number of MPs who won’t be able to sign up to that.

“It feels like it could be a re-run of austerity and I’m worried about that.”

However, other sections of the Parliamentary Labour Party are calling for change.

The Get Britain Working group of 36 Labour MPs has said the government has a “moral duty” to help long-term sick and disabled people to work if they can

In a letter to Kendall, the MPs said the country faced “hard choices” to overcome a “crisis of economic inactivity”.

Speaking at a meeting of Labour MPs on Monday night, Sir Keir said: “We’ve found ourselves in a worst of all worlds situation – with the wrong incentives – discouraging people from working, the taxpayer funding a spiralling bill.

“A wasted generation, one-in-eight young people not in education, employment or training, and the people who really need that safety net still not always getting the dignity they deserve.

“That’s unsustainable, it’s indefensible and it is unfair, people feel that in their bones.”

“So, this needs to be our offer to people up and down the country: If you can work, we will make work pay – if you need help, that safety net will be there for you.

“But this is the Labour Party – we believe in the dignity of work and we believe in the dignity of every worker.”

A number of MPs leaving the meeting said they had been satisfied with the prime minister’s words.

One said they accepted that welfare reform had to happen and were reassured that he had said it had to be done with Labour values and through the dignity of work.

However, another said constituents were frightened and needed to know that support would be there.

They said there had been little recognition that reducing benefits like the Personal Independence Payment, which helps people keep their independence, had the potential to push up costs.

In a letter to Reeves, a dozen charities have argued there is “little evidence to suggest cutting benefits increases employment outcomes”.

The charities – including Disability Rights UK, Citizens Advice, Scope and Sense – urged her to “think again about cuts to disability benefits”.

They said: “There are disabled people out of work who want to work given the right support. And for some disabled people, work isn’t appropriate.

“Changes to welfare must start here. Not with cuts.”

But ministers are worried about the surge in the number of people claiming benefits since the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost to the taxpayer.

As of January, 9.3 million people aged 16 to 64 in the UK were economically inactive – a rise of 713,000 since the pandemic.

The Department of Work and Pensions says some 2.8 million people are economically inactive because of long-term sickness.

Last year, the government spent £65bn on sickness benefits and that figure is forecast to increase by tens of billions before the next general election.

Some of the reforms to the welfare system have already been announced and include plans to use 1,000 work coaches to help the long-term unemployed into work.

In its letter, the Get Britain Working group said the cost of worklessness among the long-term sick and disabled “goes far beyond economic necessity”.

“It is a moral duty,” the letter said.

The letter said the group – most of whom were elected for the first time at last July’s general election – was formed to “press for fundamental change to our welfare system to support work”.

“We believe reforming our broken system is not only necessary, but also a truly progressive endeavour,” the letter said.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said too many people were being signed off sick.

He said the benefits system needed to be made tougher and suggested it was too easy for people to get welfare payments.

“I think it’s gone far too far and it is costing us billions and billions of pounds a year,” he said.

Actor Gene Hackman was alone.

The two-time Academy Award winner didn’t make any calls and missed meals.

Medical experts say it’s possible the 95-year-old, who was in declining health and suffering from advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, did not even realise his wife of more than 30 years was dead in the home where he was living.

If he did, experts told the BBC, he likely went through various stages of confusion and grief, trying to wake her up before the disease caused him to become distracted or too overwhelmed to act – a process that likely repeated for days before he, too, died.

Officials in New Mexico say Betsy Arakawa, 65, died of a rare virus about seven days before Hackman perished on 18 February of natural causes.

The pair – and one of their dogs – were found dead in their Santa Fe home after neighbourhood security conducted a welfare check and saw their bodies on the ground through a window.

Authorities, at first, said the grim discovery was “suspicious enough” to launch an investigation.

Their remains were discovered in advanced stages of decomposition. Arakawa was found in a bathroom with scattered pills nearby. Hackman was found near the kitchen with a cane and sunglasses. One of their three dogs was found dead in a crate.

But a police investigation found no foul play.

Instead, the case has shed light on the grim realities of Alzheimer’s disease, which damages and destroys cells in one’s brain over time – taking away memory and other important mental functions.

“It’s like he was living in a reel,” Catherine V Piersol, PhD, an occupational therapist with decades of experience in dementia care, told the BBC of how Hackman may have experienced the repeated loss of his wife.

She noted patients with advanced Alzheimer’s disease like the actor live in the present and are unable to both look back at moments in the past or look forward and act.

“I imagine he would be trying to wake her up and not being successful. But then [he] could have been distracted in another room because of one of the dogs or something,” she described.

Then later, he’d again notice his wife on the ground and would “live through it again”, she said.

Though no one knows how Hackman spent his last days alive, the grim nature of the possibilities were discussed by authorities and the area’s medical examiner.

At a press conference last week, Dr Heather Jarrell, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner, said Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a respiratory illness caused by exposure to infected rodents. Hackman’s death was the result of significant heart disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a contributing factor.

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

His autopsy indicated he had not eaten recently, though he showed no signs of dehydration. Officials found no evidence that he had communicated with anyone after his wife’s death and could not determine whether he was able to care for himself.

Ms Piersol said patients with advanced Alzheimer’s aren’t able to pick up on environmental cues like light and darkness, making it harder to determine when he should eat, sleep or bathe themselves.

“Those [cues] are oftentimes just, no longer available to people at this stage of dementia,” she said.

Dr Brendan Kelley, a neurologist who specialises in memory and cognition at UT Southwestern Medical Center, explained why Hackman may also not have been able to call authorities for help. He said Alzheimer’s disease can leave patients caught between emotional discomfort and the inability to act on it.

“A person might feel worried or frightened, but at the same time they might not be capable to take the actions that you or I might normally think to do in order to alleviate that worry or concern, such as calling somebody else, or going to speak to a neighbour.”

Dr Kelley says Alzheimer’s patients experience emotions like pain and sadness, and experience physical needs like hunger and thirst, it’s just harder for them to identify what they are feeling.

He said missing meals could also increase levels of confusion and agitation.

The couple’s deaths and the startling details of Hackman living in the home for a week after his wife’s passing has shocked the Santa Fe area, where the couple had lived for more than 20 years.

“It’s just absolutely devastating,” says Jeffery Gomez, a long-time resident of the city, who remembers seeing Hackman around town in his different cars, always with a smile on his face.

His partner, Linda, said the details were triggering, explaining she cared for her elderly mother with dementia. “Even when you have help, it’s a lot,” she said.

“We know Gene and his wife were very private people and she was probably trying to shield him from the public,” she added, “but the thought of doing that alone? It’s a lot to shoulder.”

Laura N Gitlin, PhD, a behavioural scientist who researches ways to support caregivers told the BBC, this is becoming a common problem among caregivers.

“With the aging of a population, we also simultaneously have a shrinking of the number of people in the family, number of children, or relatives who live nearby,” she explained.

Ms Gitlin noted along with there being less caregivers, there is less support for these individuals on making big decisions – such as when it’s time to place a loved one in a home instead of caring for them by yourself.

Jeffery Gomez said he couldn’t understand how no one checked in on the couple for such a long while.

“It breaks my heart he was alone so long.”

America’s top diplomat has said that he sees promise in Ukraine’s proposal for a partial ceasefire to end the war with Russia, ahead of talks in Saudi Arabia between US and Ukrainian officials.

“I’m not saying that alone is enough but it’s the kind of concession you would need to see in order to end the conflict,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday.

Kyiv is expected to propose an aerial and naval truce with Russia during the negotiations on Tuesday, a Ukrainian official told AFP.

Russia has previously rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire, saying it was an attempt to buy time and prevent Ukraine’s military collapse.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, although he is not expected to play any formal role in the talks between his country and the US.

In his video address late on Monday, Zelensky said he was hoping for a “practical result” at the talks, adding that the Ukrainian position would be “absolutely constructive”.

The Ukrainian team will be represented by Zelensky’s head of office Andriy Yermak, the country’s national security adviser and several foreign and defence ministers.

Rubio will represent the US delegation alongside National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Before arriving in Jeddah on Monday, Rubio said that it was important to “establish clearly Ukraine’s intentions” for a peace deal and that the country would “have to be prepared to do difficult things like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things to end this”.

“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” he added. “We want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go, and compare that to what the Russians want, and then see how far apart we truly are.”

He said that both sides needed to realise that “there’s no military solution” to the conflict and it can only be resolved through “diplomatic means”.

It comes as Donald Trump steps up pressure on Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire with Moscow, without any promises of US security guarantees.

The talks mark the first official meeting since Zelensky’s visit to the White House descended into acrimony last month.

Following the meeting, the US paused military aid and intelligence sharing for Kyiv in an apparent bid to get Zelensky to the negotiating table.

Rubio said that he hoped the pause in aid could be “resolved” but that the negotiations on Tuesday “would be key to that”.

The suspension “came about because we felt that they [Ukraine] were not committed to any sort of peace process”, he said, and “if that changes, obviously our posture can change”.

“The President is going to use whatever tools he has at his disposal to try to get both sides to that table so this war will end,” he added.

Earlier on Monday, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff said he expected “substantial progress” during the negotiations.

Asked whether he thought Zelensky would return to the US to sign a minerals deal later in the week, he told Fox News: “I am really hopeful. All the signs are very, very positive.”

Zelensky has previously said he is willing to sign a minerals deal with the US, which would establish a joint fund from the sale of Ukrainian minerals.

Witkoff said that among the issues to be discussed in Saudi Arabia were security protocols for the Ukrainians and territorial issues.

He said the US administration had never shut off intelligence sharing for anything defensive that Ukraine needed, while on Sunday Trump told Fox News that he had “just about” lifted the intelligence sharing pause on Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also spoke to Trump ahead of the talks, Downing Street said.

“The Prime Minister said he hoped there would be a positive outcome to the talks that would enable US aid and intelligence-sharing to be restarted,” the spokeswoman said.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently holds around a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea which it annexed in 2014.

An Albanian national who travelled to the UK illegally has told the BBC how his life became “unbearable” after he ended up working on a cannabis farm.

Gzim, who wished to remain anonymous, was one of more than 12,600 Albanians who made the trip to the UK by small boat in 2022 – the peak year for English Channel migrant crossings.

Last year the number of Albanians that made the dangerous journey dropped to just 616 people, following a campaign by the UK and Albanian governments.

Gzim says he is speaking out to warn others, as the UK government relaunches a social media campaign aimed at warning Albanians who enter illegally of possible hardships in the UK.

He says he found a smuggler on TikTok who agreed to help him make the journey to England, and after travelling to France via buses, he arrived in Dunkirk, where a boat was launched to Dover.

He says his cousins, who were already in the UK, paid the smuggler £3,500 for him to cross the channel.

After being placed in a hotel, he says he was able to leave unnoticed to work on a cannabis farm.

He said: “I wanted a better life, to help my family, like all the other people who have done this journey.

“I knew the risks involved with this kind of business, but I hoped that I wouldn’t be unlucky.”

He says the cannabis farm was broken into and because of this he didn’t get paid.

Gzim moved into a construction role where he says he felt forced to take a lower wage – not enough to cover his own expenses and support his family back home.

Five months after arriving in the UK he said it got so “unbearable” he decided to return to Albania.

He added: “I dreamed of other things. I hoped I would make it.

“Nobody wants to leave his homeland. Nobody wants to leave his people and his friends. But in Albania it is a war of survival and I didn’t have any other choice.”

• How many people cross the Channel in small boats

New social media adverts are highlighting stories of migrants who entered the UK illegally “only to face debt and exploitation”.

This approach originally started in 2023 under the Conservative government.

It followed a cooperation agreement signed by the UK and Albania under the previous government to try and reduce illegal migration.

The numbers on small boats had already started to fall before the agreement was struck.

The National Crime Agency said the reduction in crossings is due to a number of different factors, including law enforcement activity, deportations, diminished demand for travel to the UK and potential displacement to other methods.

Last year more than 2,600 people were returned to Albania, more than any other nationality.

Balkans expert Andi Hoxhaj told a a committee of MPs in 2022 that he estimated about 40% of people leave Albania for “economic opportunities”.

Lavdrim Krashi, an MP in the ruling Socialist Party, said some people had been lured on social media by promises of a better life in Britain.

He told the BBC: “The promotion was made to especially young people to come to the UK and if you make it there, don’t worry about any finances because money really grows on trees, and we know that’s not the case.”

“The numbers travelling illegally has drastically reduced in the last few years, but always more can be done”.

“It’s not in our interest to lose our young people, we want to make them thrive in the Albanian economy”.

But there are also ongoing concerns about Albanians being trafficked into the UK.

They are still among the most common nationalities referred to the National Referral Mechanism as potential modern day slaves.

Jorida Tabaku, an opposition MP from the Democratic Party said: “When people go there they face a different reality”.

“A lot of them are paying very much to go to the UK, a lot of them are leaving families behind because they are unemployed men.”

Albanian TV journalist Eraldo Harlicaj says depopulation of the country has been an issue for years.

“We have lots of problems here again, ” he said.

“Nothing has changed about Albania from 2022 when we had the peak of illegal migration.

“Most of the young Albanians who wanted to go to England are in England, so we don’t have any more to send.”

Since 2022 the British Embassy has invested £6m in a project aimed at stemming the flow of people leaving northern Albania for a life of illegal working in the UK.

The New Perspectives programme is designed to create job and business opportunities.

Vasyl Chornyi, the team leader, said: “There are organised criminal groups using their social media, trying to lure people into trafficking scheme.”

“Trying to change the narrative with a positive image that people can make their life here is extremely important,” he added.

The project provides business mentoring and coaches people in employment and entrepreneurship skills.

Albert Halilaj, the Mayor of Kukës said: “The number of immigrants going abroad is falling down. The young people of Kukës are not looking to migrate anymore.

“Tourism is the sole focus of the future of Kukës, and i’d like to make a public call to all the immigrants abroad that they can return here and they will find support for their investments in every field.”

The migration agreement with Britain has also resulted in closer co-operation to tackle people smuggling.

Head of the Albanian Border and Migration Police, Saimir Boshnjaku, said: “Albanian law enforcement officers have been deployed in the UK, especially in Dover, to support the British authorities”.

A network of UK-funded cameras has also been installed on the Albania-Kosovo border to tackle illegal migration and criminal gangs.

The equipment includes a fleet of drones and number plate recognition cameras to recognise British vehicles which criminals use to avoid detection by the local police.

Minister for Europe, Stephen Doughty said: “By working directly with Albanian communities, we are discouraging the dangerous journeys to the UK.

“Together with tougher border controls and cracking down on people-smuggling gangs, the government is focused on the international challenge and delivering on its Plan for Change.”