Mandalay used to be known as the city of gold, dotted by glittering pagodas and Buddhist burial mounds, but the air in Myanmar’s former royal capital now reeks of dead bodies.

So many corpses have piled up since a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck last Friday close to Mandalay, that they have had to be “cremated in stacks”, one resident says.

The death toll from the quake and a series of aftershocks has climbed past 2,700, with 4,521 injured and hundreds still missing, Myanmar’s military chief said. Those figures are expected to rise.

Residents in the country’s second most populous city say they have spent sleepless nights wandering the streets in despair as food and water supplies dwindle.

The Mandalay resident who spoke of bodies being “cremated in stacks” lost her aunt in the quake.

“But her body was only pulled out of the rubble two days later, on 30 March,” said the 23-year-old student who wanted only to be known as J.

Poor infrastructure and a patchwork of civil conflicts are severely hampering the relief effort in Myanmar, where the military has a history of suppressing the scale of national disasters. The death toll is expected to keep rising as rescuers gain access to more collapsed buildings and cut-off districts.

J, who lives in Mandalay’s Mahaaungmyay district, has felt “dizzy from being deprived of sleep”, she said.

Many residents have been living out of tents – or nothing – along the streets, fearing that what’s left of their homes will not hold up against the aftershocks.

“I have seen many people, myself included, crouching over and crying out loud on the streets,” J said.

But survivors are still being found in the city. The fire service said it had rescued 403 people in Mandalay in the past four days, and recovered 259 bodies. The true number of casualties is thought to be much higher than the official version.

In a televised speech on Tuesday, military chief Min Aung Hlaing said the death toll may exceed 3,000, but the US Geological Survey said on Friday “a death toll over 10,000 is a strong possibility” based on the location and size of the quake.

Young children have been especially traumatised in the disaster.

A local pastor told the BBC his eight-year-old son had burst into tears all of a sudden several times in the last few days, after witnessing parts of his neighbourhood buried under rubble in an instant.

“He was in the bedroom upstairs when the earthquake struck, and my wife was attending to his younger sister, so some debris had fallen onto him,” says Ruate, who only gave his first name.

“Yesterday we saw bodies being brought out of collapsed buildings in our neighbourhood,” said Ruate, who lives in the Pyigyitagon area of southern Mandalay.

“It’s very sobering. Myanmar has been hit by so many disasters, some natural, some human made. Everyone’s just gotten so tired. We are feeling hopeless and helpless.”

A monk who lives near the Sky Villa condominium, one of the worst-hit buildings reduced from 12 to six storeys by the earthquake, told the BBC that while some people had been pulled out alive, “only dead bodies have been recovered” in the past 24 hours.

“I hope this will be over soon. There are many [bodies] still inside, I think more than a hundred,” he said.

Crematoriums close to Mandalay have been overwhelmed, while authorities have been running out of body bags, among other supplies, including food and drinking water.

Around the city, the remains of crushed pagodas and golden spires line the streets. While Mandalay used to be a major centre for the production of gold leaf and a popular tourist destination, poverty in the city has soared in recent years, as with elsewhere in Myanmar (formerly called Burma).

Last week’s earthquake also affected Thailand and China, but its impact has been especially devastating in Myanmar, which has been ravaged by a bloody civil war, a crippled economy and widespread disillusionment since the military took power in a coup in 2021.

On Tuesday, Myanmar held a minute of silence to remember victims, part of a week of national mourning. The junta called for flags to fly at half mast, media broadcasts to be halted and asked people to pay their respects.

Even before the quake, more than 3.5 million people had been displaced within the country.

Thousands more, many of them young people, have fled abroad to avoid forced conscription – this means there are fewer people to help with relief work, and the subsequent rebuilding of the country.

Russia and China, which have helped prop up Myanmar’s military regime, are among countries that have sent aid and specialist support.

But relief has been slow, J said.

“[The rescue teams] have been working non-stop for four days and I think they are a little tired. They need some rest as well.

“But because the damage has been so extensive, we have limited resources here, it is simply hard for the relief workers to manage such massive destruction efficiently,” she said.

While the junta had said that all assistance is welcome, some humanitarian workers have reported challenges accessing quake-stricken areas.

Local media in Sagaing, where the earthquake’s epicentre was located, have reported restrictions imposed by military authorities that require organisations to submit lists of volunteers and items that they want to bring into the area.

Several rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have urged the junta to allow aid workers immediate access to these areas.

“Myanmar’s military junta still invokes fear, even in the wake of a horrific natural disaster that killed and injured thousands,” said Bryony Lau, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director.

“The junta needs to break from its appalling past practice and ensure that humanitarian aid quickly reaches those whose lives are at risk in earthquake-affected areas,” she said.

The junta has also drawn criticism for continuing to open fire on villages even as the country reels from the disaster. Large parts of Sagaing are under control of resistance groups.

A commander in the People’s Defence Forces (PDF) – a network of pro-democracy civilian groups – told the BBC that the military was carrying out ground attacks.

Rebel commander Min Naing, who commands 300 fighters, said his forces were not fighting back, claiming to be respecting a two-week ceasefire announced by the opposition National Unity Government after the earthquake.

The Three Brotherhood Alliance – which is made up of three ethnic groups that also oppose the junta – on Tuesday also announced a month-long ceasefire in order, it said, to help facilitate relief efforts.

Meanwhile, BBC Burmese reported there had been drone attacks and aerial bombings in Kachin and Shan states.

President Vladimir Putin has called up 160,000 men aged 18-30, Russia’s highest number of conscripts since 2011, as the country moves to expand the size of its military.

The spring call-up for a year’s military service came several months after Putin said Russia should increase the overall size of its military to almost 2.39 million and its number of active servicemen to 1.5 million.

That is a rise of 180,000 over the coming three years.

Vice Adm Vladimir Tsimlyansky said the new conscripts would not be sent to fight in Ukraine for what Russia calls its “special military operation”.

However, there have been reports of conscripts being killed in fighting in Russia’s border regions and they were sent to fight in Ukraine in the early months of the full-scale war.

The current draft, which takes place between April and July, comes despite US attempts to forge a ceasefire in the war.

There was no let-up in the violence on Tuesday, with Ukraine saying that a Russian attack on a power facility in the southern city of Kherson had left 45,000 people without electricity.

Russia also claimed to have captured another Ukrainian village, at Rozlyiv in the Donetsk region.

Russia calls up conscripts in the spring and autumn but the latest draft of 160,000 young men is 10,000 higher than the same period in 2024.

Since the start of last year, the pool of young men available for the draft has been increased by raising the maximum age from 27 to 30.

As well as call-up notices delivered by post, young men will receive notifications on the state services website Gosuslugi.

Quite apart from its twice-yearly draft, Russia has also called up large numbers of men as contract soldiers and recruited thousands of soldiers from North Korea.

Moscow has had to respond to extensive losses in Ukraine, with more than 100,000 verified by the BBC and Mediazona as soldiers killed in Ukraine.

The true number could be more than double.

• Invisible losses fighting for Russia in Ukraine
• Why did Putin’s Russia invade Ukraine?

Putin has scaled up the size of the military three times since he ordered troops to capture Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s defence ministry linked the December 2023 increase in the size of the military to “growing threats” from both the war in Ukraine and the “ongoing expansion of Nato”.

Nato has expanded to include Finland and Sweden, as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Finland has Nato’s longest border with Russia, at 1,343km (834 miles) and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Tuesday that his country would join other states neighbouring Russia in pulling out of the Ottawa convention banning anti-personnel mines.

Poland and the Baltic states made similar decisions two weeks ago because of the military threat from Russia.

Orpo said the decision to resume using anti-personnel mines was based on military advice, and that the people of Finland had nothing to worry about.

The government in Helsinki also said defence spending would be increased to 3% of economic output (GDP), up from 2.4% last year.

Tourists and residents have been evacuated as a volcano erupted in south-west Iceland, threatening a town and popular attraction.

The volcano has been spewing lava and smoke in a fiery display of orange and red since the eruption began in the morning, creating a huge crack in the ground which has grown to 1.2km (0.75 miles) long.

Multiple earthquakes have occurred in the volcanic area throughout the day.

The volcano is close to the fishing town of Grindavik and the famous Blue Lagoon spa. A small number of people refused to evacuate the town, local media reported.

People were asked to “leave the danger zone,” the region’s police commissioner, Ulfar Ludviksson, told Iceland’s RUV broadcaster. But he said individuals staying in “seven or eight houses there… have decided to remain in the town.”

There were fears that the town was “in danger of having lava flows entering the inhabited area”, said Rikke Pedersen from the Nordic Volcanological Centre.

A hot water pipe has broken in the northern part of Grindavík, which confirms that considerable cracking has occurred within the town, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said.

The protective barriers around Grindavik have also been breached, as new eruptive fissure opened a few hundred meters inside, the IMO reported. But volcanic activity eased off in the early afternoon on Tuesday.

Roads in and out of the town remain closed, but flights are currently not affected.

Most of the 4,000 residents of Grindavík left in a mass evacuation in 2023 because of the dangers of the volcanic activity. The volcano has erupted several times since.

The length of the magma that formed on Tuesday under the crater series stretched to about 11 km (6.8 miles) – the longest that has been measured since 11 November 2023, meteorologists said. The magma corridor extends about 3km further northeast than seen in previous eruptions.

Based on current wind direction, gas pollution from the eruption will travel northeast towards the capital area, the IMO added.

The eruption, which began around 09.45 local time (10:45 BST), occurred after several earthquakes hit the area known as the Sundhnúk crater range.

Multiple eruptions have occurred on the Reykjanes Peninsula since 2021.

The last time the peninsula had a period of volcanic activity was 800 years ago – and the eruptions continued for decades.

Iceland has 33 active volcano systems and sits over what is known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the boundary between two of the largest tectonic plates on the planet.

Six Australian universities have quietly closed Chinese government-linked Confucius Institutes (CI) on their campuses.

The Australian government has ramped up scrutiny on the education centres in recent years over concerns that Beijing is using them to spread propaganda and spy on Chinese international students.

China says its Confucius Institutes, which offer Chinese language and cultural classes overseas, are a “bridge reinforcing friendship” with the world.

There have been growing global concerns about the Chinese government’s reach overseas through such education centres, with universities in America and Europe also choosing to close some of their branches.

These closures mean nearly half of all the Confucius institutes at Australia’s universities have been shuttered. Seven others remain open, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Confucius centres have now been removed from the campuses of the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland (UQ), the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

Several universities cited disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic as the reason for not renewing their CI contracts.

A spokesperson for UNSW said the university was developing its own programme in Chinese studies and is committed to “encouraging open dialogue in the China-Australia bilateral relationship”.

In recent years, Australia’s federal government had indicated it would not allow more of the centres – which are linked to the Chinese Communist Party – to open in the country.

It also required universities to provide more transparency about the institutes’ teachings and in some cases registering them on the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.

A UQ spokesperson said its Confucius Institute closed when the contract expired in December 2024, and it had “not been given any direction by the government”.

The University of Melbourne closed their CI in August 2024 after it was established through a partnership with Nanjing University in 2007.

The institution already offers a variety of Chinese language and Asia programmes and had “no additional need to renew” the agreement, a spokesperson said.

A University of Adelaide spokesperson did not confirm their CI had been shuttered, but said it continues to foster “connections with other countries, including China” through partnerships and education collaboration.

Human Rights Watch said in a 2019 report that Confucius Institutes were “extensions of the Chinese government” that censored discussions of politically sensitive issues to Beijing.

In Australia, the ABC reported in 2019 that applicants for volunteer teaching positions at the institutes were required to demonstrate political loyalty to the Chinese government.

Dr Jeffrey Gill from Flinders University, who studies Confucius Institutes, said he “wasn’t surprised” by the latest closures and that concerns around foreign interference were “likely to be one factor”, he told the ABC.

However, Dr Gill said he was not convinced that CIs were promoting “Chinese government propaganda” and had “very little influence on perceptions of China in Australia and the Western world more broadly”.

As Ukrainian cities are bombed almost nightly by Russia, the idea of holding elections here might seem fanciful.

But in the streets and offices of the capital, Kyiv, the prospect of the country going to the polls is once again being discussed.

Election rumours have come and gone in the three long years of Russia’s full-scale war.

Each time they have been dismissed by government, opposition and public alike, arguing unity of effort against the Russian invader must come first.

A presidential election due in 2024 was suspended in line with martial law, which was introduced in Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion two years earlier.

But that hasn’t stopped the Kremlin from claiming President Volodymyr Zelensky is an illegitimate leader and demanding new elections as a condition of a ceasefire deal – a talking point which has been repeated by President Trump.

• BBC Verify on why elections in Ukraine were suspended

Now there has been a fresh flurry of speculation that Zelensky might just be thinking again as ceasefire talks proceed, and some sources speaking to the BBC suggest there are reasons to think elections could go ahead later this year.

The president’s potential closest rival, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, former commander in chief of Ukraine’s army, has felt the need to deny rumours about his intentions.

“My answer to this has not changed,” he told the RBC-Ukraine news agency. “While the war continues, we all need to work to save the country, not think about elections. I don’t comment on any rumours.”

That the publicity-shy Zaluzhnyi, currently Ukraine’s ambassador in London, felt the need to issue a statement was striking in itself.

The head of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, Oleh Didenko, also chose to speak publicly about the speculation.

He told the Ukrainska Pravda news website the law would have to be changed before any elections could take place. He said current rules stated that parliamentary elections must be held 60 days after the lifting of martial law, and 90 days for presidential elections.

But more time would be needed because of the war and that would require legal changes.

The Economist newspaper claimed Zelensky held a meeting last week to discuss an election and instructed staff to prepare for a vote once the United States had forced Russia into accepting a ceasefire, potentially as early as Easter.

This report was denied by several government sources.

“There is fake information there,” one presidential source told BBC News Ukrainian. “There was no such meeting and there was no such instruction.”

The government source said the main focus was achieving peace and there was little hope of the war ending by Easter.

So in the face of so many public denials, why do some still think an election might be in the offing?

First, some sources note Zelensky’s support in the polls has picked up since he was harangued by Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance in the White House.

A poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in March suggested the number of Ukrainians who trusted Zelensky was up a couple of points on the previous month at 69%.

Diplomats say the president might think now was his best chance of winning a second term rather than wait until political divisions emerge after the war.

Second, by winning a second term, Zelensky would call Russia’s bluff and strengthen his hand in any long-term peace negotiations. Only last week President Vladimir Putin said the United Nations should take over Ukraine and organise a “democratic presidential election”. His assumption – perhaps mistaken – is that Zelensky would be replaced.

Third, martial law must be renewed by parliamentary vote in early May. Zelensky could use that timetable to announce martial law would be allowed to lapse with elections held later in the summer.

Fourth, the Americans are convinced elections are coming. Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, told the Tucker Carlson podcast on March 21: “They’ve agreed to it. There will be elections in Ukraine.”

Zelensky could use this pressure from the US – echoing Russian narratives – as a pretext, telling voters he had no choice but to hold elections.

Fifth, some Ukrainian sources believe logistical obstacles to elections can be overcome.

Millions of citizens are displaced overseas, on the front line and in occupied territories. The answer to that, some say, is to allow people to vote using a smart phone app called Diia. This contains people’s core documents such as passport, identity card and drivers’ licence.

Using Diia, some argue, would allow people to vote quickly, cheaply and safely without having to travel to a polling booth overseas or in the trenches. They point out Ukrainians have used it successfully to vote in the Eurovision Song Contest. They also note President Zelensky gave every Ukrainian almost £20 as a winter allowance last December, with many registering for it using Diia.

But there remain many arguments against elections.

Using Diia would require new legislation that might struggle to get through parliament. Diia could be vulnerable to cyber-attack and technical failure. Western governments may not consider it trustworthy; Russia certainly would not.

Even if Diia were used, identifying who could vote would still take time with incomplete and out-of-date registers.

Lifting martial law during a temporary ceasefire could create unexpected consequences – including the flight of hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the front line – just as Russia prepared a counterattack. Russia could strike queues of voters at polling stations.

Any elections, however quickly held, would allow war-time unity to be replaced by political rows. An election would allow Russia to deploy digital and other propaganda to try to shape the result.

Holding an election may also be seen as accepting Russian arguments that Volodymyr Zelensky’s leadership is illegitimate because of the suspended elections last year.

Perhaps the strongest argument against elections is that Ukrainians themselves do not want them. That same March poll by the KIIS found about 78% of people opposed holding elections even after a complete settlement of the war.

French far-right leader Jordan Bardella has called on people to rally in the centre of Paris on Sunday in protest at a ruling that has banned Marine Le Pen from running for public office for five years.

Le Pen’s bid to become France’s next president in 2027 were dealt a dramatic blow on Monday, when judges said she had been at the heart of an operation which saw the embezzlement of €2.9m ($3.4m; £2.5m) of EU funds between 2004 and 2016.

She can appeal, but the ban has immediate effect and the appeals process may take some time, leaving her with only a slim hope of running for the presidency.

Bardella, the president of the National Rally (RN) party, said the French had to be “outraged” by the sentence.

“We’ll take to the streets this weekend,” Bardella added during a press conference on Tuesday, with a call for “democratic, peaceful, calm mobilisations”. The first event is planned for Place Vauban close to the Eiffel Tower on Sunday.

Sitting beside him, Le Pen said a “nuclear bomb” had been used used against the RN to stop the party getting into power.

The longtime figurehead of the French far right added that the “system” had used a “powerful weapon” against the RN, “evidently because we are about to win the elections”.

“We won’t let them get away with it,” she added. People had to use their “outrage and hurt” to motivate them to persevere: “We will hold on until the end, until victory.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Bardella condemned the “tyranny of the judges” and said that “everything was being done to stop us from getting to power”.

He also criticised the insults that the judges have received since handing down the sentence on Monday, as did Le Pen, who said any threats to magistrates were “unacceptable”.

They were echoing Rémy Heitz, the prosecutor general at the Court of Cassation – the highest court in France – who said earlier on Tuesday that there had been “very personalised attacks” and threats against the three judges who had determined Monday’s verdicts.

Citing a police source, newspaper Le Figaro reported that Bénédicte de Perthuis, the president judge in the Le Pen case, had been placed under protection following threats.

Le Pen was gearing up to run for the presidency for a fourth time and had a good chance of winning. She is clearly reluctant to hand the baton to Jordan Bardella, who at 29 is seen by some as lacking the experience necessary to hold France’s highest office.

Since she has been ruled ineligible, Le Pen has said she will not “let herself be eliminated like this”. Bardella has steered clear of being drawn into the discussion at this stage, refusing to say whether he was National Rally’s “plan B”.

However, RN spokesman Laurent Jacobelli said that although the party would fight to have Le Pen as candidate, Bardella was “the most naturally legitimate” alternative.

Voters may agree. A poll published a day before Le Pen was sentenced showed that around 60% of RN voters would back Bardella over Le Pen at the presidential election if he were to run, and that he would come out top with up to 36% of the total vote.

Le Pen has garnered the support of several rightwingers in Europe and beyond, including Hungary’s Viktor Orban and US President Donald Trump, who said her conviction was a “very big deal”.

And Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said “no-one who cares about democracy can rejoice at a sentence that… deprives millions of citizens of representation”.

On top of the ban on running for public office, Le Pen was also handed a €100,000 (£82,635) fine and four-year prison sentence, of which two will be suspended.

This will not apply until the appeals process is exhausted, which could take several years.

An Indian court has sentenced self-styled Christian preacher Bajinder Singh to life imprisonment for raping a woman in 2018.

The woman had accused Singh of raping her at his home in the northern state of Punjab, recording the act and using the video later to blackmail her.

Singh, who has millions of followers, rose to fame for his evangelist-style preaching and events, where he can be seen “healing” people suffering from serious illnesses by placing his hands on them.

His Church of Glory and Wisdom – which is one of the largest private churches in Punjab – counts some Bollywood stars as followers and says it has branches across the world.

According to his website, the branches are in countries such as the US, UK and Canada.

Singh also has significant presence on social media with more than three million subscribers on YouTube.

The preacher, who attends well-attended sessions in sharp suits, is known for giving fiery sermons – often claiming that he can make people extremely wealthy and cure them of illnesses. In many of his viral videos, he can be seen whipping the crowds into a frenzy.

He places his hands on his followers who shake and convulse before claiming to be miraculously healed from whatever is ailing them.

On Tuesday, after the court pronounced the punishment for Singh in the 2018 rape case, the woman’s lawyer, Anil Sagar, hailed the decision, calling it an “exemplary punishment”.

“Any leniency in such cases where people use their social position to rape poor and weak people increases the confidence of predators,” Mr Sagar said.

Singh’s lawyers have not commented on the verdict. He is expected to appeal against the order in the high court.

The preacher has also been accused of sexual assault by at least two other women. In February, police began an investigation after a former disciple accused him of sexual assault.

Days later, the Punjab police registered a third case against Singh for allegedly assaulting another woman after a prayer session. He has denied both the allegations.

His churches have also faced financial scrutiny. In January last year, some of them were investigated by India’s income-tax department.

Born in Haryana state in a Hindu family, he reportedly converted to Christianity about 15 years ago when he was in prison. Media reports said he was in jail in connection with a murder case, but he has publicly not commented on it.

On his website, he claims that “evil forces” had pushed him towards a life of crime before someone handed him a Bible and he found God. His website also refers to him as a “prophet” and offers “services” of healing people with holy oil and water.

Because of the various criminal cases against him, he is described as a controversial figure in the media. But his supporters defend him – and Singh himself has previously attributed some of the negative press to “schemes” and “plots” by rival pastors.

Most parts of India will experience an intense heatwave this summer with above normal temperatures expected across most of the country, its weather department has said.

Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, chief of the India Meteorological Department, said several states would experience more heatwave days than usual this year.

Many states already reported weekly average minimum temperatures above normal by 1-3C in February.

Hundreds die each year in India due to scorching heat. Sectors like agriculture also suffer as availability of water reduces.

In 2024, India recorded its hottest day at 50.5C on 28 May in western Rajasthan state’s Churu city. The country’s health ministry attributed 143 deaths to heatwaves between 1 March and 20 June.

Independent experts, however, believe the country is under counting the deaths caused by extreme heat. The Heat Watch 2024 report said 733 deaths due to heatstroke were reported across 17 states between March and June 2024.

This year, states like Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha could see as many as 10 to 11 heatwave days, Mr Mohapatra said in a press conference on Monday.

“From April to June, most parts of north and east India, central India, and the plains of north-west India are expected to experience two-to-four more heatwave days than normal,” he added.

Last year, Mr Mohapatra had warned that heatwaves in India could become a more regular occurrence if action wasn’t taken to address the extreme conditions.

India is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, relying heavily on coal to generate power for its needs.

“Human activities, increasing population, industrialisation and transport mechanisms are leading to increased concentration of carbon monoxide, methane and chloro-carbons,” Mr Mohapatra had said last year.

“We are endangering not only ourselves, but also our future generations.”

Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan have been confirmed as part of the all-star line-up who will play members of the Beatles in four major new films about the band.

Normal People and Gladiator II actor Mescal will portray Sir Paul McCartney, while Saltburn star Keoghan will step into Ringo Starr’s shoes.

The acting supergroup will also feature Harris Dickinson, who was most recently seen opposite Nicole Kidman in Babygirl, as John Lennon.

And Joseph Quinn will go from Marvel’s Fantastic Four to the Fab Four, playing George Harrison in the big-screen quadrilogy, which will be directed by Sir Sam Mendes.

The Oscar-winning director was joined by the four actors for the announcement at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas on Monday.

Each film will focus on a different member of the legendary group.

“Each one is told from the particular perspective of just one of the guys,” Sir Sam told the event. “They intersect in different ways – sometimes overlapping, sometimes not.

“They’re four very different human beings. Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply. But together, all four films will tell the story of the greatest band in history.”

The films will be released “in proximity” to each other in April 2028.

The director explained: “I just felt the story of the band was too huge to fit into a single movie, and that turning it into a TV mini-series just somehow didn’t feel right.”

Paul Mescal, 29, shot to fame in the BBC’s Normal People in 2020. He went on to star in acclaimed films Aftersun, for which he was Oscar-nominated, and All of Us Strangers, and he played the lead in the Gladiator sequel. As well as portraying Sir Paul McCartney, the Irish star is about to be seen as another British creative genius, William Shakespeare, in the film adaptation of award-winning novel Hamnet.

Harris Dickinson has become a star thanks to Maleficent, The King’s Man, Triangle of Sadness and Where the Crawdads Sing, before playing Kidman’s love interest in Babygirl. The 28-year-old Brit also received a Bafta TV Award nomination for A Murder at the End of the World, and is among the bookmakers’ favourites to be the next James Bond.

Barry Keoghan bears perhaps the closest resemblance to his Beatle – drummer Ringo. The Irish actor is the oldest of the acting quartet at 32, and is one of the hottest stars in Hollywood, having been nominated for an Oscar for The Banshees of Inisherin before leading the cast of cult hit Saltburn.

Joseph Quinn played Eddie Munson in the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, was in A Quiet Place: Day One, and appeared alongside Mescal in Gladiator II. Before appearing as guitarist Harrison, the 31-year-old Londoner will be seen as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in The Fantastic Four: First Steps and two Avengers films.

Although several previous movies like Backbeat, Nowhere Boy and I Wanna Hold Your Hand have depicted The Beatles, this is the first time that all four band members and their estates have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film.

Sir Sam called the films the “first bingeable theatrical experience”, adding: “Frankly, we need big cinematic events to get people out of the house.”

On stage, Dickinson, Mescal, Keoghan and Quinn recited from the band’s song Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: “It’s wonderful to be here, it’s certainly a thrill, you’re such a lovely audience, we’d like to take you home with us.”

They then gave a Beatles-style synchronised bow.

Formed in 1960, the original band transformed youth culture and changed the course of musical history.

Restlessly imaginative and experimental, they had an uncanny ability to communicate sophisticated musical ideas to a mass audience, on albums including Revolver, Sgt Pepper’s and The White Album.

Despite splitting in 1970, the quartet remain the biggest-selling band of all time.

Only two members survive. John Lennon was murdered in 1980, while Harrison died of cancer in 2001.

In 2023, the surviving members released what was described as the Beatles’ “final” song, Now And Then.

Based on one of Lennon’s old demo tapes, and featuring an archive recording of Harrison’s guitar work, it went to number one and was nominated for awards at the Brits and the Grammys.

This is by no means the first film project to explore the lives of The Beatles – Iain Softley’s Backbeat, released in 1994, dramatised their early career in Hamburg’s clubs, where they cut their musical teeth.

Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Nowhere Boy in 2009 starred her future husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Lennon and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as McCartney. It delved into Lennon’s early years and family relationships, and documented him meeting McCartney and Harrison and the band’s origins.

Martin Scorsese made a factual film in 2011 called George Harrison: Living in the Material World, which included contributions from the surviving band members plus archive material.

In 2021, Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson restored more than 50 hours of outtakes from 1970 Beatles documentary Let It Be for Get Back, a three-part film. The epic Disney+ movie, which was nearly seven hours long, shed new light on the relationship between McCartney and Lennon before the band split in 1970.

In 2019 Srija became the first transgender woman to legally marry in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu after a historic court ruling. Now a new documentary, Amma’s Pride, chronicles Srija’s battle for state recognition of her marriage and the unwavering support of her mother, Valli.

“Srija is a gift,” Valli, 45, tells the BBC as she and her daughter embrace.

“I know that not all trans people have what I have,” Srija, 25, from the port city of Thoothukudi, adds.

“My education, my job, my marriage – everything was possible because of my mother’s support.”

She and her mother are sharing their story for the first time in Amma’s Pride (Mother’s Pride), which follows Srija’s unique experience.

Srija met her future husband, Arun, at a temple in 2017. After learning they shared mutual friends they soon began texting each other regularly. She was already out as transgender and had begun her transition.

“We talked a lot. She confided in me about her experiences as a trans woman,” Arun tells the BBC.

Within months, they fell in love and decided they wanted to spend their lives together.

“We wanted legal recognition because we want a normal life like every other couple,” Srija says. “We want all the protections that come from a legal recognition of marriage.”

That incudes securities, such as the transfer of money or property if one spouse dies.

In 2014, the Indian Supreme Court established certain protections for transgender people, granting them equal rights to education, employment, healthcare and marriage – although India still does not allow same-sex marriages.

It’s not known how many trans couples have married in India, or who was the first. Activists say there was at least one trans wedding legally registered before Srija and Arun’s – in 2018 a couple married in Bangalore.

“Of course there are queer couples, or transgender couples, all over India,” says the director of Amma’s Pride, Shiva Krish, but because of continuing discrimination “several are secretive about their relationship. Srija and Arun, and Valli, are unique in choosing to live their everyday life out in the open.”

Srija and Arun’s attempt to register their 2018 wedding was rejected, with the registrar arguing that the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act defined marriage as a union between a “bride” and a “groom”, which therefore excluded trans women.

But the couple, backed by LGBT activists, pushed back, taking their relationship into the public domain. The effort was worth it.

They received global attention in 2019 when the Madras High Court in Chennai upheld their right to marry, stating that transgender people should be recognised as either a “bride” or “groom” as defined by the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act.

The ruling was seen by LGBT activists as a pivotal step in the acceptance of transgender people in India, with Srija and Arun both becoming well known locally for challenging cultural norms.

But media coverage also invited negative scrutiny.

“The day after local news coverage, I was fired from my job,” says Arun, who worked as a manual labourer in the transport sector. He believes it was due to transphobia.

Online trolling followed.

“People sent abusive messages criticising me for being married to a transgender woman,” he says.

The couple briefly separated under the strain.

Despite this, Srija excelled at her education, frequently coming first in class at high school.

She went on to complete a degree in English literature from a university in Tamil Nadu, becoming one of the only people in her family to receive higher education.

It’s a source of pride for Valli, who left school aged 14.

Even before battling to have her marriage recognised by the state, Srija and her family faced hostility and mistreatment.

After Srija came out as a transgender woman at the age of 17, she and her mother and younger brother, China, were evicted from their home by their landlord.

Several family members stopped speaking to them.

But Srija’s mother and brother were steadfast in their support.

“I will always stand by my daughter,” says Valli.

“All trans people should be supported by their family.”

Valli, who became a single parent when her husband died when Srija was just six, works in a kitchen at a school.

But despite earning a modest income, she helped pay for her daughter’s gender reassignment, in part by selling some of her jewellery, and cared for her afterwards.

“She takes good care of me,” Srija says.

There are thought to be about two million transgender people in India, the world’s most populous country, although activists say the number is higher.

While the country has passed trans-inclusive legislation and recognised in law a “third gender”, stigma and discrimination remain.

Studies have found transgender people in India face high rates of abuse, mental health issues, and limited access to education, employment, and healthcare. Many are forced to beg or enter sex work.

Globally, the UN says significant numbers of transgender people face rejection from their families.

“Not a lot of trans people in India, or even the world, have the support of their families,” says filmmaker, Shiva Krish.

“Srija and Valli’s story is unique.”

Srija says she hopes the film will help challenge stereotypes about trans people and the types of stories that are often promoted in the media about the group – especially those that focus on trauma and abuse.

“This documentary shows that we can be leaders. I am a manager, a productive member of the workforce,” Srija says.

“When people see new kinds of stories on trans people, hopefully their mindsets will also change.”

After premiering at international film festivals, Amma’s Pride was shown at a special screening in Chennai, for members of the LGBT community and allies, to mark International Trans Day of Visibility on Monday 31 March.

Following the Chennai screening, a workshop was held where participants in small groups discussed family acceptance and community support for trans individuals.

“We hope our screening events will foster connections between trans individuals, their families, and local communities,” adds Chithra Jeyaram, another one of the filmmakers behind Amma’s Pride.

The Amma’s Pride production team hope that the universal themes of family support in the face of stigma means the documentary and workshops can be rolled out to rural audiences, as well as other cities in India, and neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh.

As for Srija and Arun, they now work as managers for private companies and hope to adopt a child soon. “We’re hoping for a normal future,” says Srija.

“I would like to become a grandmother soon,” Valli adds, smiling.

Standing in front of a few dozen supporters in a strip-mall parking lot in Ocala, Florida, on Monday evening, Democratic congressional candidate Josh Weil made a prediction.

The public school maths teacher said that in less than 24 hours, he was going to make history by flipping a solidly Republican congressional seat – helping to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans.

“Their 2025 agenda stops here,” he promised, railing against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to slash government services and personnel.

Just an hour earlier, in a telephone town hall meeting, Randy Fine, his Republican opponent in Tuesday’s special election, had a similar message – although he framed it as a warning, not a promise.

“Democrats are mad,” he said. “They’re going to do whatever it takes to grind Donald Trump’s agenda to a halt.”

Voters in the eastern half of central Florida, from Ocala to the towns north of Daytona Beach, head to the polls to fill the seat vacated by Michael Waltz, chosen by Trump to be national security advisor. Waltz recently sparked a media frenzy after inadvertently adding a prominent journalist to a high-level group chat about the US strikes in Yemen.

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That Waltz’s job may now be in jeopardy is just one reason Tuesday’s contest for one of the 435 House seats is now a national story.

The other is that Weil, despite running in a district Trump carried by more than 30 points last November, just might win. And if he does, Democrats would take a big step closer to a majority in the narrowly divided House.

Win or lose, the race also could serve as a barometer of voters’ motivation as Trump begins his second term – and offer hints at the political landscape ahead of next year’s mid-term congressional elections.

It is one of two special elections in Florida on Tuesday. The other, in Florida’s panhandle region, will determine a replacement for Matt Gaetz, the firebrand congressman Trump originally picked to be attorney general before he withdrew under a cloud of sexual misconduct and ethics allegations. A Republican is widely expected to win there.

But that is not the case here. Weil has raised about $10m in campaign donations, dwarfing the $1m brought in by Fine, a Florida state senator.

According to a recent public opinion survey, Weil narrowly trails Fine. An internal poll by a respected Republican firm reportedly showed Weil ahead by 3.

That’s enough to cause more than a little anxiety in Republican ranks.

“There’s no excuse for a Republican not to win this race,” said Randy Ross, a Florida-based conservative activist who campaigned there for Trump in 2016 and 2024. “The only excuse that can possibly be had is Republicans weren’t excited and didn’t get out to vote.”

Mr Ross added that Republican voters need to understand that Fine will support Trump’s agenda in Congress – and Weil will not.

To this end, some of the party’s heaviest hitters stepped in to help. Last Thursday, Trump joined the Republican candidate in two telephone town hall events. On Monday night, Florida Congressman Byron Donalds and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro held their own event.

“Donald Trump’s agenda is hanging by a thread,” Shapiro said. “This is a district that simply cannot fall into Democratic hands.”

Tech multi-billionaire Musk, a close Trump ally, may be campaigning in person for a hotly contested Wisconsin Supreme Court race, but his political committee directed more than $75,000 to support Fine in recent days. Other conservative groups followed suit, helping Fine level the financial playing field.

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Of particular concern for the party is that special elections take place during times of lower political engagement and usually involve only the one race in question. They often tilt toward the party with the most enthusiasm, according to Mr Ross. For Republicans, a Democratic show of strength on Tuesday would be troubling.

“You can’t go just on name recognition in a special election,” he said. “You’ve got to drive people out to vote for you.”

Republican nervousness is a result of simple math in the House of Representatives. With a 218 to 213 majority in the 435 seat chamber, the party cannot afford to lose any winnable elections – let alone ones that should be a slam dunk.

While a Weil victory alone wouldn’t be enough to flip control of the chamber, two of the currently vacant seats are in safely Democratic districts. If the results of those special elections go as expected, Democrats would be on the verge of control.

That could explain why the president announced on Friday he was withdrawing his pick of New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to be US ambassador to the United Nations, despite her having all but formally vacated her office. A Weil victory on Tuesday would mean the Republicans could not afford to lose a New York election to replace Stefanik.

Even before Tuesday’s balloting, both Democrats and Republicans jockeyed to frame the results in the best light for their party.

Conservatives downplayed the national implications of the race and placed blame on Fine, who has been accused of running a lacklustre campaign and taking victory for granted.

“It’s a reflection of the candidate that’s running the race, ” Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said of Fine’s apparent underperformance.

Meanwhile, Democrats are declaring a victory – at least, the moral variety.

“These are races that should not, under ordinary circumstances, be on anyone’s political radar,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said last Monday. “The American people are not buying what the Republicans are selling.”

That sentiment was echoed by many of Weil’s supporters on Monday night in Ocala, even if the candidate himself told the BBC he would win by eight points.

“If we lose but come close, moderate Republicans might take notice,” said Buddy Oswald, an attorney and educator. If they were worried their party could lose a safe seat, he added, maybe they would feel the heat and be more willing to break with the president.

Eight years ago, in the aftermath of Trump’s stunning 2016 presidential victory, Democrats sought solace in special election races across the map. They pulled off some stunners, including a Doug Jones Senate victory in deeply conservative Alabama. In other races, such as a bid by Jon Ossoff in a suburban Atlanta district, the Democrat came up just short.

Those races presaged a high level of Democratic enthusiasm that led to a wave in the mid-terms the following year, when the party won 39 seats in taking back the House of Representatives and putting a decisive end to Trump’s first-term legislative agenda.

Republicans, with convincing victories on Tuesday, want to squelch any chance of history repeating itself.

Democrats, engaged in a sometimes acrimonious debate over strategy and political priorities, would like Florida to get them back in the win column – or at least give them hope of better days to come.

People who spend more time looking at a screen in bed are more likely to report insomnia and sleep loss, a study has found.

The research is based on a Norwegian survey of more than 45,000 students.

It indicates that each additional hour of screen time was linked to a 63% increase in insomnia risk, and 24 minutes less sleep.

However, the researchers said they had only established a correlation between screen use and lower sleep quality and had not demonstrated that the former caused the latter.

Experts say putting down your phone before bed, doing something relaxing and establishing a routine may help improve sleep.

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The researchers behind the study, based on nationally representative survey data of 18-28 year old students gathered in 2022, wanted to examine the link between the amount of time spent using screens in bed and sleep patterns.

They also sought to probe the impact on sleep of using social media compared to other screen activities.

Dr Gunnhild Johnsen Hjetland of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, who is lead author of the research – which was published in a Frontiers journal – said the type of screen activity appeared to be less impactful than screen time on the whole.

“We found no significant differences between social media and other screen activities, suggesting that screen use itself is the key factor in sleep disruption,” he said.

The 2022 Norway health and wellbeing survey asked participants to identify if they used any digital media after they had gone to bed.

Options included watching films or TV, checking social media, browsing the internet and gaming.

Among those saying they used screens in bed before sleep, 69% said they used social media as well as other screen-based activities.

Participants were also asked to identify how many nights a week they would engage with such media, and for how much time, as well as how often they had difficultly falling or staying asleep, waking up early or experiencing tiredness.

It identified those who said they experienced such issues at least three nights or days a week, for at least three months as experiencing insomnia.

While the study found a link between bedtime screen use and people reporting sleep disruption or insomnia, researchers say it does not mean it is a cause.

“This study cannot determine causality — for example, whether screen use causes insomnia or if students with insomnia use screens more,” said Dr Hjetland.

They also note that the study’s reliance on survey data of self-reported experiences may mean it contains biases, and its findings should not be considered globally representative.

Joshua Piper, a sleep clinician at ResMed UK, said the study provided “valuable, mounting evidence” of electronic device use negatively impacting sleep.

“It steals both opportunity and the quality of your sleep, which is why some may struggle for onset, others struggle to stay asleep,” he told the BBC.

While people may try to mitigate the impact by adjusting screen brightness or using night mode, Mr Piper said previous studies suggested it was scrolling and engaging with a device that was likely to cause sleep disruptions.

Insomnia is believed to affect as many as one in three people in the UK.

The sleep disorder is among a whole host of problems people have reported experiencing with sleep – with late night phone use and doomscrolling often blamed.

While common practice, the actual impact of using social media or scrolling through online content in bed on physical and mental health remains contested.

Still, experts recommend that people stop using digital devices shortly before trying to go to sleep.

They also say establishing a routine by going to bed and getting up at the same time every day may help improve sleep.

Mental health charities Mind and Rethink recommend trying to do something relaxing before going to sleep such as breathing exercises, reading a book or having a bath, rather than trying to force yourself to sleep.

They also suggest avoiding caffeine, alcohol or large meals before bed, doing gentle exercise and trying to make your bedroom more comfortable, where possible.

Sleep therapist Dr Kat Lederle told the BBC that getting exposure to natural daylight, particularly in the morning, was vital to help regulate our internal body clock.

She said finding ways to “let go of the busy, thinking day”, such as by doing an enjoyable activity that is not too stimulating, can also be key to better sleep.

The authors of this study echo the need for further research into the subject, including longer-term monitoring of sleep patterns as well as investigations into areas such as the disruption caused overnight by device notifications.

“Together, such efforts could clarify the impact of bedtime screen use on sleep and inform targeted recommendations for students and other populations,” they conclude.

Gang members stormed the town of Mirebalais in central Haiti on Monday and released about 500 inmates from prison.

A spokesman for Haiti’s national police said extra officers had been deployed to the town, which is located 50km (30 miles) north-east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Police officials said they had regained control of Mirebalais, but local reports warned that many of the escaped inmates were still roaming the streets.

Armed gangs are in control of almost the entire capital, but this latest attack seems to suggest that they are increasingly targeting towns in other areas of the country.

Mirebalais is located on the crossroads of two main roads, one leading north from Port-au-Prince to the coast, and another leading east to the Dominican Republic.

Locals said heavily armed men had fired at buildings and passers-by and had set buildings and cars alight, sending residents fleeing for their lives.

They also attacked the local police station and stormed the jail, where an estimated 500 people were being held, and freed those inside.

A local radio journalist told the Associated Press news agency that the attackers belonged to two gangs – the 400 Mawozo and a group calling itself “Taliban” – which both form part of the Viv Ansam gang coalition and control northern parts of Port-au-Prince.

It is thought the two gangs may be trying to gain control of key roads leading from their areas into the countryside.

The 400 Mawozo is infamous for kidnapping people for ransom. They have often targeted busses travelling to and from the capital.

The Taliban gang has its stronghold in Canaan, a suburb in the north of Port-au-Prince.

The attack came just days after the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti confirmed that a Kenyan police officer, Benedict Kabiru, had been shot dead in a gang attack.

The multinational force has been trying to help Haiti’s national police regain control of gang-ruled areas but locals say they have so far made little progress.

Kabiru was the second Kenyan to be killed while on duty in Haiti.

In total, more than 5,600 people were killed in Haiti last year as a result of gang violence, according to United Nations figures.

A further 2,212 people were injured and 1,494 kidnapped in 2024, the UN said.

About 15 children’s backpacks lie torn apart in the rubble – pink, blue and orange bags with books spilling out of them.

Spiderman toys and letters of the alphabet are scattered among broken chairs, tables and garden slides at the remains of this preschool destroyed by the huge earthquake that hit Myanmar on Friday.

It is in the town of Kyaukse, about 40km (25 miles) south of Mandalay, one of the areas hit hardest by the 7.7 magnitude quake that killed at least 2,000 people.

Kywe Nyein, 71, weeps as he explains that his family are preparing to hold the funeral of his five-year-old granddaughter, Thet Hter San.

He says her mother was having lunch when the devastating earthquake began. She ran to the school, but the building had collapsed completely.

The little girl’s body was found about three hours later. “Fortunately, we got our beloved’s body intact, in one piece,” he says.

Locals say there were about 70 children, aged between two and seven, at the school on Friday, learning happily. But now there is little left except a pile of bricks, concrete and iron rods.

The school says 12 children and a teacher died, but locals believe the number is at least 40 – that is how many were in the downstairs section that collapsed.

Residents and parents are distraught. People say the whole town came to help with the rescue work and several bodies were retrieved on Friday. They describe mothers crying and calling out the names of their children long into the night.

Now, three days later, the site is quiet. People look at me with grief etched on their faces.

Aid groups are warning of a worsening humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, with hospitals damaged and overwhelmed, though the full scale of devastation is still emerging.

Before we arrived in Kyaukse, we had been in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw.

The worst-hit area we saw there was a building that had been residential quarters for civil servants. The whole ground floor had collapsed, leaving the three upper floors still standing on top of it.

There were traces of blood in the rubble. The intense stench suggested many people had died there, but there was no sign of rescue work.

A group of policemen were loading furniture and household goods on to trucks, and appeared to be trying to salvage what was still useable.

The police officer in charge would not give us an interview, though we were allowed to film for a while.

We could see people mourning and desolate, but they did not want to speak to the media, fearing reprisals from the military government.

We were left with so many questions. How many people were under the rubble? Could any of them still be alive? Why was there no rescue work, even to retrieve the bodies of the dead?

Just 10 minutes’ drive away, we had visited the capital’s largest hospital – known here as the “1,000-bed hospital”.

The roof of the emergency room had collapsed. At the entrance, a sign saying “Emergency Department” in English lay on the ground.

There were six military medical trucks and several tents outside, where patients evacuated from the hospital were being cared for.

The tents were being sprayed with water to give those inside some relief from the intense heat.

It looked like there were about 200 injured people there, some with bloodied heads, others with broken limbs.

We saw an official angrily reprimanding staff about other colleagues who had not turned up to work during the emergency.

I realised the man was the minister for health, Dr Thet Khaing Win, and approached him for an interview but he curtly rejected my request.

On the route into the city, people sat clustered under trees on the central reservation of the highway, trying to get some relief from the hot sun.

It is the hottest time of year – it must have been close to 40C – but they were afraid to be inside buildings because of the continuing aftershocks.

We had set out on our journey to the earthquake zone at 4am on Sunday morning from Yangon, about 600 km (370 miles) south of Mandalay. The road was pitch black, with no street lights.

After more than three hours’ driving, we saw a team of about 20 rescue workers in orange uniforms, with logos on their vests showing they had come from Hong Kong. We started to find cracks in the roads as we drove north.

The route normally has several checkpoints, but we had travelled for 185km (115 miles) before we saw one. A lone police officer told us the road ahead was closed because of a broken bridge, and showed us a diversion.

We had hoped to reach Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, by Sunday night.

But the diversion, and problems with our car in the heat, made that impossible.

A day later, we have finally reached the city. It is in complete darkness, with no street lights on and homes without power or running water.

We are anxious about what we will find here when morning comes.

Myanmar is reeling following the huge earthquake which hit the country on Friday, 28 March.

The 7.7 magnitude tremor was felt elsewhere, including in Thailand and south-west China.

More than 2,700 people have died and more than 4,500 have been injured, say the leaders of Myanmar’s military government. Those figures are expected to rise. In Thailand, at least 21 people lost their lives.

Here is what we know so far.

The earthquake’s epicentre was located 16km (10 miles) north-west of the town of Sagaing, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

This is also near Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, with a population of about 1.5 million people – and about 200km (125 miles) north of the capital, Nay Pyi Taw.

The first earthquake struck at about 12:50 (06:20 GMT), according to the USGS. A second earthquake struck 12 minutes later, with a 6.4 magnitude. Its epicentre was 18km south of Sagaing.

Aftershocks have continued since – the latest on Sunday was a magnitude-5.1 tremor north-west of Mandalay, with a resident telling BBC Burmese it was the strongest they had felt since 28 March.

• Live: Follow the latest on the Myanmar earthquake
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The strong quake buckled roads, damaged bridges and flattened many buildings in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) – a country of some 55 million people.

It is considered one of the world’s most geologically “active” areas.

A state of emergency has been declared in the six most impacted regions – Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway, Bago, Shan and Nay Pyi Taw.

The ruling junta said on Saturday that 1,591 houses had been damaged in the Mandalay region, and that scores of people remained trapped with rescuers searching “with bare hands”.

Strong tremors were also felt elsewhere, including in Thailand and south-west China.

• What caused the Myanmar earthquake – and why did it make a tower in Bangkok collapse?

The Thai capital, Bangkok, sits more than 1,000km (621 miles) from the epicentre of Friday’s earthquake – and yet an unfinished high-rise building in the city was felled by it.

Videos also showed rooftop pools in Bangkok spilling over the sides of swaying buildings.

The official death toll in Myanmar now stands at more than 2,700 but this is expected to keep rising as rescuers gain access to more collapsed buildings. Many of the fatalities so far were in Mandalay.

More than 4,500 people were injured and at least 441 are missing, the military government said. Rescue operations are ongoing.

The US Geological Survey’s modelling estimates Myanmar’s death toll could exceed 10,000, with losses surpassing annual economic output.

Meanwhile, in Bangkok, 21 people have been confirmed dead – 14 of them at the high-rise building that collapsed, where dozens of people remain missing.

Getting information out of Myanmar is difficult, which is part of the reason why the exact earthquake death toll is currently unknown.

Since a coup in 2021 it has been ruled by a military junta, which has a history of suppressing the scale of national disasters.

The state controls almost all local radio, television, print and online media. Internet use is also restricted.

Mobile lines in the affected areas have been patchy, but tens of thousands of people also live without electricity, making it difficult for the BBC to reach residents.

Foreign journalists are rarely allowed into the country officially.

The junta has said it will not grant visas for foreign reporters requested to cover the aftermath the earthquake, citing an inability to guarantee their safety.

The 2021 coup triggered huge protests, which evolved into a widespread insurgency involving pro-democracy and ethnic rebel groups – eventually sparking an all-out civil war.

Large parts of the Sagaing region, the epicentre of the earthquake, are now under the control of pro-democracy resistance groups. The junta, however, has greater control over urban areas – including the cities of Mandalay, Nay Pyi Taw and Yangon.

The National Unity Government (NUG), which represents the ousted civilian administration, announced that its armed wing – the People’s Defence Force (PDF) – was pausing “offensive military operations” for two weeks from 30 March in earthquake-affected areas, except for “defensive actions.”

Anti-coup PDF battalions have been fighting the military junta since the latter seized power in 2021.

The impact of any pause is uncertain as many ethnic armed groups act independently of the NUG.

Meanwhile, the junta has continued airstrikes in some areas, with the UN condemning them as “completely outrageous and unacceptable”.

Some international aid – mainly from China and India – has begun to arrive after the military authorities issued a rare appeal.

Aid has also been sent from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Russia.

Rescuers from several countries have joined local efforts to locate and pull out any survivors.

The Red Cross has issued an urgent appeal for $100m (£77m), while the UN is seeking $8m for its earthquake response.

“People urgently require medical care, clean drinking water, tents, food, and other basic necessities,” the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said on Monday.

The need is especially great in and around Mandalay, according to the IRC, where there is no electricity, water is running out and hospitals are overwhelmed.

Michael Dunford, country director for the UN World Food Programme, told the BBC that bringing aid from Yangon to Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay was taking twice as long as it normally would, due to damage to roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

The Earth’s crust is made up of separate bits, called plates, that nestle alongside each other.

These plates often try to move but are prevented by the friction of rubbing up against an adjoining one.

But sometimes, the pressure builds until one plate suddenly jerks across, causing the surface to move.

They are measured on a scale called the Moment Magnitude Scale (Mw). This has replaced the Richter scale, which is now considered outdated and less accurate.

The number attributed to an earthquake represents a combination of the distance the fault line has moved and the force that moved it.

A tremor of 2.5 or less usually cannot be felt but can be detected by instruments. Quakes of up to five are felt and cause minor damage. The Myanmar earthquake at 7.7 is classified as major and usually causes serious damage, as it has in this instance.

Anything above 8.0 causes catastrophic damage and can totally destroy communities at its centre.

This earthquake and its aftershocks were relatively shallow – about 10km in depth.

That means the impact on the surface is likely to have been more devastating than a deeper earthquake, with buildings shaken much harder and more likely to collapse.

On 26 December 2004, one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded struck off the coast of Indonesia, triggering a tsunami that swept away entire communities around the Indian Ocean. That 9.1 magnitude quake killed about 228,000 people.

The largest ever earthquake registered 9.5 and was recorded in Chile in 1960.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has warned about the possibility of several strong aftershocks in places affected by the earthquake.

It has advised people in the area, or tourists planning to travel to Myanmar, Thailand or Laos, to monitor local media and follow the advice of local authorities and tour operators.

The FCDO has also previously issued advice against travel to parts of Myanmar and all but essential travel to parts of Thailand and Laos.

Myanmar’s security situation “may deteriorate at short notice and the military regime can introduce travel restrictions at any time” amid an “increasingly volatile” conflict, it said.

The FCDO’s warning for parts of Thailand is “due to regular attacks in the provinces by the border with Malaysia” and its advice for Laos relates to “intermittent attacks on infrastructure and armed clashes with anti-government groups” in Xaisomboun province.

It’s only been five months since voters in Wisconsin faced a bitterly fought election, but residents of the US state are already heading back to the polls.

This time, Elon Musk looms large in the race to fill a vacancy on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, even if the billionaire’s name doesn’t appear on the ballot.

It’s the most expensive judicial contest in US history, with more than $90m (£70m) spent so far, including $20m from Musk and groups affiliated with him.

The choice is between conservative Brad Schimel, backed by President Donald Trump and Musk, and liberal Susan Crawford, who is supported by former President Barack Obama and Democratic mega-donors like George Soros.

It’s forecast to be a tight contest that could flip control of the Midwestern state’s top court, which is currently controlled 4-3 by liberal justices.

But it’s also one of the first real tests of voter sentiment towards Trump, in a state that he won by less than a percentage point during his decisive White House election victory last November.

The Republican president’s second administration has slashed federal programmes – cuts that have been shepherded by Musk, the world’s richest man and a close Trump ally.

“This really matters,” said canvasser Ronneisha Mallet. “People aren’t looking at the bigger picture. People just think this is just a local election. But it goes all the way to the White House.”

The 23-year-old was out knocking doors in a quiet residential area on the outskirts of Milwaukee on Monday, a day before voters were set to cast their ballots.

She was here with Bloc – Black Leaders Organising for Communities –  encouraging people to vote.

These kinds of special elections typically see low voter turnout. But Musk’s involvement has supercharged emotions on all sides.

Groups like Bloc put in extra time to engage with voters.

Not everyone opened their front door on Monday, but some of those who did told Ms Mallet they had already voted. By Monday, some 644,000 people had cast ballots early, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“I hate Musk! I hate his guts!” Peggy, standing at her door, said. She didn’t want to give the BBC her full name, but described herself as an independent voter who has soured on the Republican Party.

“I think Musk bought the presidency,” she said, in reference to the quarter-of-a-billion dollars that Musk spent in support of Trump’s presidential campaign.

“And so I think he’s trying to buy the election here,” Peggy continued. “And I am hoping that people are starting to wake up.”

Democrats, too, have rallied deep-pocketed donors in support of Crawford. Along with Soros, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman have reportedly contributed large sums. But their names haven’t inspired the same vitriol as Musk’s.

Another resident – who gave his name as Palman – said he had already voted, in part as a reaction to Musk.

“When you’re a billionaire, you don’t spend money for no reason,” he said. “He’s just spending it with purpose.”

On Sunday, Musk hosted a rally where he handed out two $1m cheques to voters who had signed a petition to stop “activist” judges who might disrupt Trump’s plans.

We drove about a half-hour outside of Milwaukee to Waukesha – a swing county that President Trump won. Around 100 people were gathered at the Dockhaus brewery and restaurant overlooking a baseball park, where Schimel made a campaign stop.

Conor Gunar was wearing a red shirt with Musk’s name on it.

“I’m a big fan,” he said, clutching his beer. “He is doing a fantastic job with Doge.”

“Why not?” he added when asked about Musk’s involvement in the race. “Democrats have people like George Soros and JB Pritzker; why can’t we have billionaires?”

Another Schimel supporter, Scarlett Johnson, agreed.

She was at Musk’s town hall-style event over the weekend, which she described as “great fun”.

But she said she also understood the criticism.

“Look, I think it would be great if no billionaires were involved at all, but if they’re going to be as they have for Democrats, it’s only fair they’re involved for Republicans.”

On the left, strategists see a glimmer of light as they search for a clear political strategy.

Drive down the roads, and you can see billboards plastered in cities like Green Bay and Madison that read “don’t let Elon buy our court” and depict the SpaceX and Tesla boss as a puppeteer.

Switch on the TV and you’ll see attack ads that say: “Elon Musk is out of control.”

Going after Musk instead of Trump seems to be a strategic option for Democrats.

A poll by Marquette Law School suggests Musk is viewed unfavorably by 53% of registered voters here.

Driving in his car across rural Wisconsin, Ben Wickler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told the BBC that if Crawford could beat Schimel, “there’ll be a very clear kind of game plan for how to fight back against the world’s richest man trying to destroy American democracy”.

Allison Prasch, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specialises in US political rhetoric, said this race was a strategy test for both sides.

“We know that Wisconsin, up to the very end of the presidential cycle, was very close,” she said, noting that some cities such as Milwaukee and Madison unexpectedly swung towards Trump and helped deliver him the state’s electoral college votes.

“What happens in Wisconsin [now] is going to tell us a lot about what’s going to happen, not just in 2026 but in 2028.”

Musk’s critics say he has practical reasons to care about the Wisconsin race.

They point to an ongoing case involving Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, that could head to the state’s supreme court in the future.

The billionaire is suing because Wisconsin bans car manufacturers from owning dealerships, but Tesla’s business model involves running its own showrooms.

The BBC has contacted Musk’s America PAC for comment.

Wisconsin Republican strategist Matt Terrill said Musk was allowed to donate to campaigns for things he personally cared about, like any other citizen might – including the Democratic donors heavily backing Crawford.

“Musk has obviously got his views from a political standpoint of what he as an American citizen wants to see happen, not just as someone who’s a part of the Trump administration,” said Terrill.

The result won’t just be a referendum on Trump’s presidency so far, but will test Musk’s reputation as a kingmaker in American politics.

The prosecution of Karen Read, who is accused of murdering her police officer boyfriend in January 2022, has garnered massive internet attention and drawn crowds to the Massachusetts courthouse where her trial was held.

After a mistrial last July, Ms Read is once again going to court to face a new trial and jury.

The case surrounds the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe, who was found unresponsive in the snow outside a colleague’s suburban home in January 2022 and later pronounced dead.

His girlfriend, Ms Read, was charged in his murder – though she maintains her innocence and says she is being framed by police.

She faces multiple charges and is accused of dropping Mr O’Keefe off at a fellow police officer’s home after a night of drinking, hitting him with her car and driving away from the scene.

Here is everything else you need to know about the case.

Before the case, Ms Read, 44, worked as an adjunct professor at Bentley University and an equity analyst at Fidelity Investments.

She and Mr O’Keefe were together for about two years before his 2022 death, but the latter part of the pair’s relationship was troubled, prosecutors said during her first trial.

Mr O’Keefe, who died at age 46, spent 16 years with the Boston Police Department.

Ms Read faces multiple charges, including second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death.

If she is found guilty of second-degree murder, she could face a maximum sentence of life in prison under Massachusetts law.

She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Prosecutors allege the couple were drinking the evening before Mr O’Keefe’s body was found.

Ms Read allegedly dropped her boyfriend off at a house party. When leaving she made a three-point turn and struck Mr O’Keefe and then drove away, according to prosecutors.

She returned to the party a few hours later with two other women and found Mr O’Keefe in a snowbank.

His cause of death was later determined to be blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia, NBC News reported.

Throughout their case, prosecutors alleged the couple had a rocky relationship.

They claim Ms Read intentionally struck her then-boyfriend with her car because of their relationship problems.

Mr O’Keefe’s brother, Paul O’Keefe, was among the people called to the stand who detailed the couple’s disagreements.

Ms Read did not take the stand as part of her defence.

Instead, her lawyers argued that she was framed, and that investigators had inappropriate relationships with witnesses and others involved in the case.

The defence claimed Mr O’Keefe was beaten inside the house party and later dragged outside where he was found.

Much of the case they presented focused on what the defence called a poorly done investigation into O’Keefe’s death by local law enforcement.

Some of the investigators who oversaw the case knew the police officers who attended the house party that January night, the defence claimed.

For example, the lead investigator, Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, admitted he was friends with the the Boston police officer who hosted the party where Mr O’Keefe died.

Ms Read was a “convenient outsider” who was targeted to ensure investigators did not look at other suspects, the defence alleged.

Among the witnesses who took the stand as part of the defence’s case was a retired forensic pathologist, Dr Frank Sheridan.

He claimed that Mr O’Keefe’s body would have had more bruising if it were hit by a heavy vehicle, according to the Associated Press.

After a nine-week trial and five days of deliberations, a jury was unable to reach a verdict and a mistrial was declared. During that trial, 70 witnesses testified and more than 600 pieces of evidence scrutinized.

On Tuesday, jury selection will begin for her second trial. Officials said that up to 2,000 potential jurors will be screened, and around 20 ultimately selected.

Ahead of the second trial, Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone banned Ms Read’s defense team from calling a law enforcement expert to criticise the government’s investigation.

Protesters have been banned from the areas around the courthouse, to reduce the risk of influencing the jurors.

Much attention will be on the witness list, which includes a state trooper who was fired after he disclosed during the first trial that he used unprofessional language to describe Ms Read, and two other policemen who were formally disciplined after the first trial.

Ms Read gave several media interviews after declining to take the stand in her first trial. She also gave permission to HBO to create the mini-series, A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read, which has been watched by millions.

“I have nothing to hide,” Ms Read told Boston 25 News in February. “My life is in the balance, and it shouldn’t be. The more information the public has, the more they understand what we already know.”

Aidan Kearny, also known as “Turtleboy”, is an intriguing character to have come out of this trial.

He now faces charges for allegedly intimidating witnesses involved with the trial.

Mr Kearny runs the website “TB Daily News” where he writes under the name “Turtleboy”.

He has asserted that Ms Read is innocent and has followed the case closely.

His writing frequently questions the investigation into Mr O’Keefe’s death and he often publicly confronts witnesses about the case.

During the case, prosecutors shared several examples of witness intimidation with the jury.

Mr Kearny was charged with witness intimidation in October 2023 and later pleaded not guilty.

“They will never shut me up, they will never, ever, ever stop me from reporting the truth about what happened to John O’Keefe,” Mr Kearney told reporters after his 2023 arraignment. “Reporting the news is not harassment. Asking questions is not harassment.”

In December, he was indicted again. This time on 16 new charges that include witness intimidation and conspiracy to intimidate witnesses.

Prosecutors alleged Mr Kearny and Ms Read were in communication and she was sharing information from the case that was not yet public.

Judge Cannone, who is overseeing the case, ruled Mr Kearny would have to leave the courtroom when certain witnesses testified because of the witness intimidation charges brought against him.

Some 68 years ago today, millions of people tuned into a BBC Panorama report about a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti from trees.

It may sound implausible, but many viewers believed it.

Watch the grainy black-and-white footage today and you almost forget everything you know about Italian cuisine for a moment.

The actors “harvesting” spaghetti strands give committed performances, and the late Richard Dimbleby’s deadpan narration lends an air of authenticity to the report.

It was, of course, an April Fool’s Day joke.

For the avoidance of doubt, spaghetti is made from wheat and water. It does not grow on trees.

But spaghetti was not a common dish in the UK at the time, so you can see why some may have taken it seriously.

This vintage Panorama report is part of what became a tradition in the UK press.

Every year on 1 April, newspapers would publish outlandish stories with zero or very little basis in fact, all to have a bit of fun with their readers.

The Guardian ran an entire pull-out guide to the fictional Indian Ocean island of “San Serriffe” in the 1970s. Its name is a pun on the sans serif group of typefaces, and the island was depicted as being shaped like a semi-colon.

Ten years ago, April Fool’s stories in the newspapers were so prevalent that the BBC published this roundup of them.

Many focused on the looming 2015 general election, with the Sun’s election website saying then-Labour leader Ed Miliband had dyed his hair blond in a “desperate bid for the BoJo [Boris Johnson] factor”.

It is unclear whether the move would have swayed the election had this story been true.

The Scottish independence referendum was the focus on 1 April 2014, with the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Guardian all publishing prank stories that year.

The Guardian, for example, said an independent Scotland would switch to driving on the right.

Reading through the papers today, you might find one or two April Fool’s Day stories. But they do not have the same presence they once had.

The rise of social media has ushered in a “different kind of relationship” between readers and the press, says Stuart Allan, professor of journalism and communication at Cardiff University.

“We are enmeshed in an era of ‘fake news’ and disinformation, where matters of trust are at the forefront of editors’ minds,” he tells the BBC.

The decline of April Fool’s Day news stories comes against “a backdrop of growing scepticism about news in general,” Prof Allan adds, “where playing with journalistic credibility may actually prove damaging”.

Jim Waterson, who edits news outlet London Centric, agrees.

“Publishing fake news to purposefully trick readers and then saying it’s all a joke doesn’t really work well when you spend the rest of the year banging on about how much trusted facts matter,” he says.

“But the biggest crime against journalism is that very few newspaper April Fool’s stories are remotely funny.”

The global political climate, with Donald Trump’s re-election to the US presidency, has also had an impact.

“If you’ve got world leaders who are only too happy to dismiss anything factual they don’t like as ‘fake news’, why would you give them the ammunition of literal fake news?” Mr Waterson asks.

Social media also makes it easy to take a news story out of context.

People used to read their news in a newspaper. They’d be aware, on 1 April, that all of the news stories were published that day. The tell-tale date was at the top of the page.

Now, readers can share online news stories on social media days, months or even years after they were first published.

Many people share news articles without reading a single word of them, according to a Columbia University study. So are they likely to read the publication date?

Then there is the rise of generative AI, which has been widely used in the spread of misinformation in recent years.

In a world where AI-generated images can appear almost real, the media’s role of separating fact from fiction has never been more important.

April Fool’s stories serve the entertainment function of journalism, but not truth or accuracy, says Dr Bina Ogbebor, a lecturer in journalism studies at Sheffield University.

In some cases, these stories could “backfire”, make some readers angry, and hamper a media organisation’s credibility, she tells the BBC.

“It’s still something that makes people laugh,” she says, adding she thinks news websites should add very clear disclaimers if they do choose to run them.

Though news publishers have taken a step back, the April Fool’s tradition is alive and well on social media. But it is brands, not broadcasters, that are leading the charge.

Each year, many of them post announcements for new products or promotions that are slightly too ridiculous to be genuine.

Tesco once announced it would be trialling trampoline-inspired bouncy aisles in its supermarkets.

But brands could find themselves in hot water for playing tricks on newspapers without letting them in on the joke.

In late March 2021, Volkswagen claimed it was changing its name to “Voltswagen” in a nod to electric vehicles.

Dozens of publications had to publish corrections when it was revealed to have been an April Fool’s prank sent to the media early.

Based on current trends, it is unlikely we will see an April Fool’s hoax on the scale of Panorama’s spaghetti report any time soon.

“The Spaghetti Harvest story of 1957 landed with such a splash because of the very limited news brand choice in those days,” says Richard Thomas, media professor at Swansea University.

Thanks to the wider range of news sources available instantly on the internet, “the joke is dead before it even takes its first breath”, he adds.

“So the days when the country’s most trusted broadcaster and news source can playfully tease its audience on such a scale that we are remembering it almost 70 years later are over.

“And – all sentiments about how news should be honest and truthful aside – in a world where happy news is often at a premium, that does seem a shame, somehow.”

In 2019 Srija became the first transgender woman to legally marry in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu after a historic court ruling. Now a new documentary, Amma’s Pride, chronicles Srija’s battle for state recognition of her marriage and the unwavering support of her mother, Valli.

“Srija is a gift,” Valli, 45, tells the BBC as she and her daughter embrace.

“I know that not all trans people have what I have,” Srija, 25, from the port city of Thoothukudi, adds.

“My education, my job, my marriage – everything was possible because of my mother’s support.”

She and her mother are sharing their story for the first time in Amma’s Pride (Mother’s Pride), which follows Srija’s unique experience.

Srija met her future husband, Arun, at a temple in 2017. After learning they shared mutual friends they soon began texting each other regularly. She was already out as transgender and had begun her transition.

“We talked a lot. She confided in me about her experiences as a trans woman,” Arun tells the BBC.

Within months, they fell in love and decided they wanted to spend their lives together.

“We wanted legal recognition because we want a normal life like every other couple,” Srija says. “We want all the protections that come from a legal recognition of marriage.”

That incudes securities, such as the transfer of money or property if one spouse dies.

In 2014, the Indian Supreme Court established certain protections for transgender people, granting them equal rights to education, employment, healthcare and marriage – although India still does not allow same-sex marriages.

It’s not known how many trans couples have married in India, or who was the first. Activists say there was at least one trans wedding legally registered before Srija and Arun’s – in 2018 a couple married in Bangalore.

“Of course there are queer couples, or transgender couples, all over India,” says the director of Amma’s Pride, Shiva Krish, but because of continuing discrimination “several are secretive about their relationship. Srija and Arun, and Valli, are unique in choosing to live their everyday life out in the open.”

Srija and Arun’s attempt to register their 2018 wedding was rejected, with the registrar arguing that the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act defined marriage as a union between a “bride” and a “groom”, which therefore excluded trans women.

But the couple, backed by LGBT activists, pushed back, taking their relationship into the public domain. The effort was worth it.

They received global attention in 2019 when the Madras High Court in Chennai upheld their right to marry, stating that transgender people should be recognised as either a “bride” or “groom” as defined by the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act.

The ruling was seen by LGBT activists as a pivotal step in the acceptance of transgender people in India, with Srija and Arun both becoming well known locally for challenging cultural norms.

But media coverage also invited negative scrutiny.

“The day after local news coverage, I was fired from my job,” says Arun, who worked as a manual labourer in the transport sector. He believes it was due to transphobia.

Online trolling followed.

“People sent abusive messages criticising me for being married to a transgender woman,” he says.

The couple briefly separated under the strain.

Despite this, Srija excelled at her education, frequently coming first in class at high school.

She went on to complete a degree in English literature from a university in Tamil Nadu, becoming one of the only people in her family to receive higher education.

It’s a source of pride for Valli, who left school aged 14.

Even before battling to have her marriage recognised by the state, Srija and her family faced hostility and mistreatment.

After Srija came out as a transgender woman at the age of 17, she and her mother and younger brother, China, were evicted from their home by their landlord.

Several family members stopped speaking to them.

But Srija’s mother and brother were steadfast in their support.

“I will always stand by my daughter,” says Valli.

“All trans people should be supported by their family.”

Valli, who became a single parent when her husband died when Srija was just six, works in a kitchen at a school.

But despite earning a modest income, she helped pay for her daughter’s gender reassignment, in part by selling some of her jewellery, and cared for her afterwards.

“She takes good care of me,” Srija says.

There are thought to be about two million transgender people in India, the world’s most populous country, although activists say the number is higher.

While the country has passed trans-inclusive legislation and recognised in law a “third gender”, stigma and discrimination remain.

Studies have found transgender people in India face high rates of abuse, mental health issues, and limited access to education, employment, and healthcare. Many are forced to beg or enter sex work.

Globally, the UN says significant numbers of transgender people face rejection from their families.

“Not a lot of trans people in India, or even the world, have the support of their families,” says filmmaker, Shiva Krish.

“Srija and Valli’s story is unique.”

Srija says she hopes the film will help challenge stereotypes about trans people and the types of stories that are often promoted in the media about the group – especially those that focus on trauma and abuse.

“This documentary shows that we can be leaders. I am a manager, a productive member of the workforce,” Srija says.

“When people see new kinds of stories on trans people, hopefully their mindsets will also change.”

After premiering at international film festivals, Amma’s Pride was shown at a special screening in Chennai, for members of the LGBT community and allies, to mark International Trans Day of Visibility on Monday 31 March.

Following the Chennai screening, a workshop was held where participants in small groups discussed family acceptance and community support for trans individuals.

“We hope our screening events will foster connections between trans individuals, their families, and local communities,” adds Chithra Jeyaram, another one of the filmmakers behind Amma’s Pride.

The Amma’s Pride production team hope that the universal themes of family support in the face of stigma means the documentary and workshops can be rolled out to rural audiences, as well as other cities in India, and neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh.

As for Srija and Arun, they now work as managers for private companies and hope to adopt a child soon. “We’re hoping for a normal future,” says Srija.

“I would like to become a grandmother soon,” Valli adds, smiling.

The 15th annual Scottish Nature Photography Awards winners have been announced.

Nicki Gwynn-Jones, who lives in Orkney, won the main prize with a picture of a fulmar in a rain shower on a cold December day.

She said it was the middle of the day and the sun was low in the sky.

“I was desperately hoping for something special in those few moments when the raking winter light was producing deep shadows and gorgeous golden tones,” said Nicki.

Edinburgh filmmaker Richard Nicholls won the video award with a short film called 19th July 2022, which looked at climate change and Scotland.

He was filming in Edinburgh on Scotland’s hottest day when the unusually high temperature spurred him into embarking on a project on the climate crisis.

The film documents his journey working with NatureScot’s Peatland Action team to raise awareness of the need to restore peatland.

When new Doctor Who companion Varada Sethu first told her family she wanted to be an actress, there wasn’t immediate support.

“They had difficulty coming to terms with it initially,” she tells BBC Asian Network News.

Varada, who will be playing Ncuti Gatwa’s sidekick, Belinda Chandra in the upcoming series, feels going into acting is “sadly still not encouraged in the South Asian community”.

“There’s an element of resistance we face,” the 32-year-old says.

But Varada wants to change all of that, and says inspiring young girls to follow their dreams is one of her big goals.

“I want to be the person that these girls can point out to and say: ‘She made it and she came from a community that looks like mine’.

“So I think I’ve gone about this with the energy of, I can’t fall flat on my face,” she says.

But the actress, who has had roles in Disney+ Star Wars series Andor, 2018 crime drama Hard Sun and Jurassic World Dominion, says change comes with challenges.

A report by the Creative Diversity Network found in 2022/23 the percentage of on-screen contributions by those who identify as South Asian or South Asian British was 4.9%.

That’s compared with the latest census data, analysed by the UK Government, that found around 8% of people from those backgrounds are in the working-age population.

“It’s a constant battle of failure isn’t an option,” says Varada.

“Because, you know, your uncle’s daughter who’s six, who might wanna go into acting when she’s a bit older, won’t be allowed to, if I become the cautionary tale.”

Despite that, Varada says she tries not to put too much pressure on herself while filming.

Rather, she tries to stay authentic to her true self instead of getting caught up in the moment.

“Occasionally it does hit me in my face like ‘oh, that’s a lot, that’s a big thing that’s happening’, she says.

“But I try not to get swept up in it. You know, I try to just do the best I can.”

Playing the role of Belinda in Doctor Who has been an “honour”, Varada says.

“Everyone’s heard of Doctor Who, everyone knows of Doctor Who, even if you don’t regularly watch it.

“It’s so iconic and British, and it’s such a part of our culture.”

Praising Ncuti Gatwa for the “energy he brings to the role”, she describes him as inspiring to watch work and “an absolute joy” to work with.

Her character Belinda travels to a number of different planets and time periods after asking the doctor for help to get home, which Varada says was the most exciting thing about the role.

“This character is discovering all these different sides to herself in circumstances that, no human gets to experience in real life.”

And she says some of her character’s “feisty” and “independent” traits have helped her in her real life.

“As an actor you get to practice saying things that you maybe you wouldn’t be as brave in saying.

“And it’s safer because you know what the other person is going to say, but you know, your nervous system gets used to that.

“I think with each character I play, I discover a new chapter about myself as well.

“And Belinda’s taught me a lot about that,” she says.

Listen to Ankur Desai’s show on BBC Asian Network live from 15:00-18:00 Monday to Thursday – or listen back here.

An Indian court has sentenced self-styled Christian preacher Bajinder Singh to life imprisonment for raping a woman in 2018.

The woman had accused Singh of raping her at his home in the northern state of Punjab, recording the act and using the video later to blackmail her.

Singh, who has millions of followers, rose to fame for his evangelist-style preaching and events, where he can be seen “healing” people suffering from serious illnesses by placing his hands on them.

His Church of Glory and Wisdom – which is one of the largest private churches in Punjab – counts some Bollywood stars as followers and says it has branches across the world.

According to his website, the branches are in countries such as the US, UK and Canada.

Singh also has significant presence on social media with more than three million subscribers on YouTube.

The preacher, who attends well-attended sessions in sharp suits, is known for giving fiery sermons – often claiming that he can make people extremely wealthy and cure them of illnesses. In many of his viral videos, he can be seen whipping the crowds into a frenzy.

He places his hands on his followers who shake and convulse before claiming to be miraculously healed from whatever is ailing them.

On Tuesday, after the court pronounced the punishment for Singh in the 2018 rape case, the woman’s lawyer, Anil Sagar, hailed the decision, calling it an “exemplary punishment”.

“Any leniency in such cases where people use their social position to rape poor and weak people increases the confidence of predators,” Mr Sagar said.

Singh’s lawyers have not commented on the verdict. He is expected to appeal against the order in the high court.

The preacher has also been accused of sexual assault by at least two other women. In February, police began an investigation after a former disciple accused him of sexual assault.

Days later, the Punjab police registered a third case against Singh for allegedly assaulting another woman after a prayer session. He has denied both the allegations.

His churches have also faced financial scrutiny. In January last year, some of them were investigated by India’s income-tax department.

Born in Haryana state in a Hindu family, he reportedly converted to Christianity about 15 years ago when he was in prison. Media reports said he was in jail in connection with a murder case, but he has publicly not commented on it.

On his website, he claims that “evil forces” had pushed him towards a life of crime before someone handed him a Bible and he found God. His website also refers to him as a “prophet” and offers “services” of healing people with holy oil and water.

Because of the various criminal cases against him, he is described as a controversial figure in the media. But his supporters defend him – and Singh himself has previously attributed some of the negative press to “schemes” and “plots” by rival pastors.

A decorated World War Two code breaker who spent her youth deciphering enemy messages at Bletchley Park has died at the age of 101.

Charlotte “Betty” Webb MBE – who was among the last surviving Bletchley code breakers – died on Monday night, the Women’s Royal Army Corps Association confirmed.

Mrs Webb, from Wythall in Worcestershire, joined operations at the Buckinghamshire base at the age of 18, later going on to help with Japanese codes at The Pentagon in the US. She was awarded France’s highest honour – the Légion d’Honneur – in 2021.

The Women’s Royal Army Corps Association described Mrs Webb as a woman who “inspired women in the Army for decades”.

Bletchley Park Trust CEO Iain Standen said Mrs Webb will not only be remembered for her work but “also for her efforts to ensure that the story of what she and her colleagues achieved is not forgotten.”

“Betty’s passion for preserving the history and legacy of Bletchley Park has undoubtedly inspired many people to engage with the story and visit the site,” he said in a statement.

Tributes to Mrs Webb have begun to be posted on social media, including one from historian and author Dr Tessa Dunlop who said she was with her in her final hours.

Describing Mrs Webb as “the very best”, she said on X: “She is one of the most remarkable woman I have ever known.”

Mrs Webb told the BBC in 2020 that she had “never heard of Bletchley”, Britain’s wartime code-breaking centre, before starting work there as a member of the ATS, the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

She had been studying at a college near Shrewsbury, Shropshire, when she volunteered as she said she and others on the course felt they “ought to be serving our country rather than just making sausage rolls”.

Her mother had taught her to speak German as a child and ahead of her posting remembered being “taken into the mansion [at Bletchley] to read the Official Secrets Act”.

“I realised that from then on there was no way that I was going to be able to tell even my parents where I was and what I was doing until 1975 [when restrictions were lifted],” she recalled.

She would tell the family with whom she lodged that she was a secretary.

When the War ended in Europe in May of 1945, she went to work at the Pentagon after spending four years at Bletchley, which with its analysis of German communications had served as a vital cog in the Allies’ war machine.

At the Pentagon she would paraphrase and transcribe already-decoded Japanese messages. She said she was the only member of the ATS to be sent to Washington, describing it as a “tremendous honour”.

Mrs Webb, in 2020, recalled she had had no idea the Americans planned to end the conflict by dropping atomic weapon on Japanese cities, describing the weapons’ power as “utterly awful”

After the Allies’ final victory, it took Mrs Webb several months to organise return passage to the UK, where she worked as a secretary at a school in Shropshire.

The head teacher there had also worked at Bletchley so knew of her professionalism, whereas other would-be employers, she recalled, were left stumped by her being unable to explain – due to secrecy requirements – her previous duties.

More than half a century later, in 2021, Mrs Webb was one of 6,000 British citizens to receive the Légion d’Honneur, following a decision by President François Hollande in 2014 to recognise British veterans who helped liberate France.

In 2023, she and her niece were among 2,200 people from 203 countries invited to Westminster Abbey to see King Charles III’s coronation.

The same year she celebrated her 100th birthday at Bletchley Park with a party.

She and her guests were treated to a fly-past by a Lancaster bomber. She said at the time: “It was for me – it’s unbelievable isn’t it? Little me.”

A Cornell University graduate student who had his US visa revoked due to protest activities against Israel has chosen to leave the US rather than be deported.

Momodou Taal, who is a joint citizen of the UK and The Gambia, had his student visa revoked due to his on-campus protest activities last year as the Israel-Gaza war raged.

Mr Taal previously sued to block his deportation, but on Monday posted on X that he had chosen to leave the country “free and with my head held high”. It comes after a judge had denied his request to delay his deportation.

The Trump administration is cracking down on international students who have been active in protests against Israel on university campuses.

Mr Taal is at least the second international student to opt to leave the US after being targeted for removal by the US Department of Homeland Security. The Trump administration identifies these cases as “self-deportations”.

“Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Mr Taal posted on X on Monday.

“I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted. Weighing up these options. I took the decision to leave on my own terms.”

Mr Taal was suspended twice by Cornell, an Ivy League school in upstate New York, due to protest activities. On the day of the Hamas attack against Israel in 2023, he posted: “Glory to the Resistance.”

“We are in solidarity with the armed resistance in Palestine from the river to the sea,” he later told a crowd of protesters, according to The Cornell Daily Sun newspaper.

At least 300 university students had their student visas revoked due to involvement in pro-Palestinian protests, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week.

Trump officials said the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the State Department to deport non-citizens who are “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the US.

The arrests are a part of Trump’s pledge to combat what the administration has classified as antisemitism, which was written into an executive order in January.

Critics have decried the deportations as a violation of free speech.

Another student who chose to flee the US, Indian scholar Ranjani Srinivasan, told CNN that she wants to clear her name.

“I’m not a terrorist sympathiser,” she told CNN, adding: “I’m literally just a random student.”

She added that she hopes to re-enrol at Columbia University, which was the epicentre of student protests last year, and finish her PhD programme.

Hooters of America has filed for bankruptcy in Texas, as it tries to deal with its debts by selling all of its company-owned restaurants to a group backed by its founders.

The firm currently directly owns and operates 151 restaurants, with another 154 operated by franchisees, mainly in the US.

The company said its restaurants, which serve classic American bar food, will stay open during the process and operate “in a business-as-usual manner”.

Like many other casual dining chains, Hooters has struggled in recent years as it faces rising costs and wages, as well as customers spending less.

“Our renowned Hooters restaurants are here to stay,” Sal Melilli, chief executive of Hooters of America, said in a statement.

“Today’s announcement marks an important milestone in our efforts to reinforce Hooters’ financial foundation.”

The firm said it plans to sell all of its corporate-owned restaurants to a group of two existing Hooters franchisees, who operate 14 of Hooters’ most popular outlets, around the Tampa, Florida, and Chicago, Illinois, areas.

The group includes some of the chain’s founders, who have promised to take the firm “back to its roots” and make it more family-friendly.

Hooters did not reveal the value of the planned deal, which still needs to be approved by a US bankruptcy judge.

It said the rescue plan is expected to be completed within the next four months.

Hooters was founded in 1983 and is known for its serving staff, who are mainly young women – known as “Hooters Girls” – as well as its chicken wings.

The form-fitting outfits worn by its waiting staff have become central to the chain’s public image.

A Scottish tourist has died from his injuries after his holiday home was destroyed in a suspected gas explosion.

Grant Paterson, from East Kilbride, was on a break in Rome when the B&B in the city’s Monteverde area collapsed on 23 March.

The 54-year-old, who worked for ferry operator CalMac as a senior catering rating, was understood to have suffered burns on 75% of his body after the explosion.

His employer described him as a “true gentleman” and said colleagues were “distraught” at his death.

Mr Paterson had arrived in Rome a few days before the building collapsed.

Diane Burke, CalMac’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “Everyone at CalMac is distraught that Grant has passed away. He was a true gentleman and a credit to MV Clansman, the vessel he served aboard.

“During a distinguished 12-year career with us, he embodied the very best of CalMac and, with his larger-than-life character, he was much-loved by colleagues and passengers alike.

“Our thoughts are with Grant’s friends and family at this extremely difficult time.”

In a statement the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, said the news “saddens all of Rome”.

He added: ” I want to express my personal condolences and those of the entire city to his loved ones and fellow citizens. I sincerely hope that the investigations into the incident will swiftly shed light on this terrible accident.”

Mayor Gualtieri had already ordered an investigation into the collapse.

At the time of the incident he said the burns suggested an “explosion caused by gas, which also causes flames.”

He added: “It was a very loud explosion, a building collapsed and the wall of Villa Pamphili was also damaged.”

Social media posts show Mr Paterson visited famous sites such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon before the explosion.

A fundraiser organised by a friend of Mr Paterson and aimed at raising funds for him and his daughter had raised over £12,000.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who died in Italy and are in touch with the local authorities.”

King Charles appeared in “good spirits” as he attended his first public engagement since side effects from his cancer treatment stopped him carrying out a visit last Friday.

The King hosted an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on Tuesday morning, recognising key figures and community leaders.

Among those granted honours were reigning world heptathlon champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who became an MBE, and TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh, who was appointed CBE.

The King, who will be 77 this year, was pictured smiling as he greeted guests.

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Speaking after the ceremony, Johnson-Thompson said of the King: “He seemed in good spirits,” adding: “you know it’s long, all day, because so many people are getting honoured today.

“So he seems in really good spirits and I’m happy to see that he’s fit and well.”

Asked about her conversation with the King, the Liverpool athlete said: “We were just chatting about… the toll that athletics puts on, or sports puts on the human body, and just how long I’ve been doing it.”

“He also mentioned that you need a good physiotherapist.”

Meanwhile, Alan Titchmarsh praised the King for his “boundless energy” despite his cancer diagnosis.

Over the weekend the King rested at Highgrove, his estate in Gloucestershire, and will continue his return to public duties this week.

His engagements are set to include his weekly audience with the prime minister, and an event marking the 50th anniversary of independence for Papua New Guinea.

After attending hospital last Thursday, he was said to have been feeling well later that day and carried out some work in his study at Clarence House before having dinner with the Queen.

A Palace source described the hospital visit as a “most minor bump in a road that is very much heading in the right direction”.

President Vladimir Putin has called up 160,000 men aged 18-30, Russia’s highest number of conscripts since 2011, as the country moves to expand the size of its military.

The spring call-up for a year’s military service came several months after Putin said Russia should increase the overall size of its military to almost 2.39 million and its number of active servicemen to 1.5 million.

That is a rise of 180,000 over the coming three years.

Vice Adm Vladimir Tsimlyansky said the new conscripts would not be sent to fight in Ukraine for what Russia calls its “special military operation”.

However, there have been reports of conscripts being killed in fighting in Russia’s border regions and they were sent to fight in Ukraine in the early months of the full-scale war.

The current draft, which takes place between April and July, comes despite US attempts to forge a ceasefire in the war.

There was no let-up in the violence on Tuesday, with Ukraine saying that a Russian attack on a power facility in the southern city of Kherson had left 45,000 people without electricity.

Russia also claimed to have captured another Ukrainian village, at Rozlyiv in the Donetsk region.

Russia calls up conscripts in the spring and autumn but the latest draft of 160,000 young men is 10,000 higher than the same period in 2024.

Since the start of last year, the pool of young men available for the draft has been increased by raising the maximum age from 27 to 30.

As well as call-up notices delivered by post, young men will receive notifications on the state services website Gosuslugi.

Quite apart from its twice-yearly draft, Russia has also called up large numbers of men as contract soldiers and recruited thousands of soldiers from North Korea.

Moscow has had to respond to extensive losses in Ukraine, with more than 100,000 verified by the BBC and Mediazona as soldiers killed in Ukraine.

The true number could be more than double.

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Putin has scaled up the size of the military three times since he ordered troops to capture Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s defence ministry linked the December 2023 increase in the size of the military to “growing threats” from both the war in Ukraine and the “ongoing expansion of Nato”.

Nato has expanded to include Finland and Sweden, as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Finland has Nato’s longest border with Russia, at 1,343km (834 miles) and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Tuesday that his country would join other states neighbouring Russia in pulling out of the Ottawa convention banning anti-personnel mines.

Poland and the Baltic states made similar decisions two weeks ago because of the military threat from Russia.

Orpo said the decision to resume using anti-personnel mines was based on military advice, and that the people of Finland had nothing to worry about.

The government in Helsinki also said defence spending would be increased to 3% of economic output (GDP), up from 2.4% last year.

Mandalay used to be known as the city of gold, dotted by glittering pagodas and Buddhist burial mounds, but the air in Myanmar’s former royal capital now reeks of dead bodies.

So many corpses have piled up since a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck last Friday close to Mandalay, that they have had to be “cremated in stacks”, one resident says.

The death toll from the quake and a series of aftershocks has climbed past 2,700, with 4,521 injured and hundreds still missing, Myanmar’s military chief said. Those figures are expected to rise.

Residents in the country’s second most populous city say they have spent sleepless nights wandering the streets in despair as food and water supplies dwindle.

The Mandalay resident who spoke of bodies being “cremated in stacks” lost her aunt in the quake.

“But her body was only pulled out of the rubble two days later, on 30 March,” said the 23-year-old student who wanted only to be known as J.

Poor infrastructure and a patchwork of civil conflicts are severely hampering the relief effort in Myanmar, where the military has a history of suppressing the scale of national disasters. The death toll is expected to keep rising as rescuers gain access to more collapsed buildings and cut-off districts.

J, who lives in Mandalay’s Mahaaungmyay district, has felt “dizzy from being deprived of sleep”, she said.

Many residents have been living out of tents – or nothing – along the streets, fearing that what’s left of their homes will not hold up against the aftershocks.

“I have seen many people, myself included, crouching over and crying out loud on the streets,” J said.

But survivors are still being found in the city. The fire service said it had rescued 403 people in Mandalay in the past four days, and recovered 259 bodies. The true number of casualties is thought to be much higher than the official version.

In a televised speech on Tuesday, military chief Min Aung Hlaing said the death toll may exceed 3,000, but the US Geological Survey said on Friday “a death toll over 10,000 is a strong possibility” based on the location and size of the quake.

Young children have been especially traumatised in the disaster.

A local pastor told the BBC his eight-year-old son had burst into tears all of a sudden several times in the last few days, after witnessing parts of his neighbourhood buried under rubble in an instant.

“He was in the bedroom upstairs when the earthquake struck, and my wife was attending to his younger sister, so some debris had fallen onto him,” says Ruate, who only gave his first name.

“Yesterday we saw bodies being brought out of collapsed buildings in our neighbourhood,” said Ruate, who lives in the Pyigyitagon area.

“It’s very sobering. Myanmar has been hit by so many disasters, some natural, some human made. Everyone’s just gotten so tired. We are feeling hopeless and helpless.”

A monk who lives near the Sky Villa condominium, one of the worst-hit buildings reduced from 12 to six storeys by the earthquake, told the BBC that while some people had been pulled out alive, “only dead bodies have been recovered” in the past 24 hours.

“I hope this will be over soon. There are many [bodies] still inside, I think more than a hundred,” he said.

Crematoriums close to Mandalay have been overwhelmed, while authorities have been running out of body bags, among other supplies, including food and drinking water.

Around the city, the remains of crushed pagodas and golden spires line the streets. While Mandalay used to be a major centre for the production of gold leaf and a popular tourist destination, poverty in the city has soared in recent years, as with elsewhere in Myanmar (formerly called Burma).

Last week’s earthquake also affected Thailand and China, but its impact has been especially devastating in Myanmar, which has been ravaged by a bloody civil war, a crippled economy and widespread disillusionment since the military took power in a coup in 2021.

On Tuesday, Myanmar held a minute of silence to remember victims, part of a week of national mourning. The junta called for flags to fly at half mast, media broadcasts to be halted and asked people to pay their respects.

Even before the quake, more than 3.5 million people had been displaced within the country.

Thousands more, many of them young people, have fled abroad to avoid forced conscription – this means there are fewer people to help with relief work, and the subsequent rebuilding of the country.

Russia and China, which have helped prop up Myanmar’s military regime, are among countries that have sent aid and specialist support.

But relief has been slow, J said.

“[The rescue teams] have been working non-stop for four days and I think they are a little tired. They need some rest as well.

“But because the damage has been so extensive, we have limited resources here, it is simply hard for the relief workers to manage such massive destruction efficiently,” she said.

While the junta had said that all assistance is welcome, some humanitarian workers have reported challenges accessing quake-stricken areas.

Local media in Sagaing, the earthquake’s epicentre, have reported restrictions imposed by military authorities that require organisations to submit lists of volunteers and items that they want to bring into the area.

Several rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have urged the junta to allow aid workers immediate access to these areas.

“Myanmar’s military junta still invokes fear, even in the wake of a horrific natural disaster that killed and injured thousands,” said Bryony Lau, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director.

“The junta needs to break from its appalling past practice and ensure that humanitarian aid quickly reaches those whose lives are at risk in earthquake-affected areas,” she said.

The junta has also drawn criticism for continuing to open fire on villages even as the country reels from the disaster.

An Indian court has sentenced self-styled Christian preacher Bajinder Singh to life imprisonment for raping a woman in 2018.

The woman had accused Singh of raping her at his home in the northern state of Punjab, recording the act and using the video later to blackmail her.

Singh, who has millions of followers, rose to fame for his evangelist-style preaching and events, where he can be seen “healing” people suffering from serious illnesses by placing his hands on them.

His Church of Glory and Wisdom – which is one of the largest private churches in Punjab – counts some Bollywood stars as followers and says it has branches across the world.

According to his website, the branches are in countries such as the US, UK and Canada.

Singh also has significant presence on social media with more than three million subscribers on YouTube.

The preacher, who attends well-attended sessions in sharp suits, is known for giving fiery sermons – often claiming that he can make people extremely wealthy and cure them of illnesses. In many of his viral videos, he can be seen whipping the crowds into a frenzy.

He places his hands on his followers who shake and convulse before claiming to be miraculously healed from whatever is ailing them.

On Tuesday, after the court pronounced the punishment for Singh in the 2018 rape case, the woman’s lawyer, Anil Sagar, hailed the decision, calling it an “exemplary punishment”.

“Any leniency in such cases where people use their social position to rape poor and weak people increases the confidence of predators,” Mr Sagar said.

Singh’s lawyers have not commented on the verdict. He is expected to appeal against the order in the high court.

The preacher has also been accused of sexual assault by at least two other women. In February, police began an investigation after a former disciple accused him of sexual assault.

Days later, the Punjab police registered a third case against Singh for allegedly assaulting another woman after a prayer session. He has denied both the allegations.

His churches have also faced financial scrutiny. In January last year, some of them were investigated by India’s income-tax department.

Born in Haryana state in a Hindu family, he reportedly converted to Christianity about 15 years ago when he was in prison. Media reports said he was in jail in connection with a murder case, but he has publicly not commented on it.

On his website, he claims that “evil forces” had pushed him towards a life of crime before someone handed him a Bible and he found God. His website also refers to him as a “prophet” and offers “services” of healing people with holy oil and water.

Because of the various criminal cases against him, he is described as a controversial figure in the media. But his supporters defend him – and Singh himself has previously attributed some of the negative press to “schemes” and “plots” by rival pastors.

A missile launcher sends a cloud of brown dust into the air as it hurtles across a field towards the firing line. Moments later comes a soldier’s countdown, from five to ‘Fire!’, before a rocket roars into the sky.

The blasts and booms from such military training exercises are so constant that locals in the nearby small town of Munster barely notice anymore.

But life here is set to get even louder.

Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr, recently got the all-clear for a massive increase in investment after parliament voted to exempt defence spending from strict rules on debt.

The country’s top general has told the BBC the cash boost is urgently needed because he believes Russian aggression won’t stop at Ukraine.

“We are threatened by Russia. We are threatened by Putin. We have to do whatever is needed to deter that,” Gen Carsten Breuer says. He warns that Nato should be braced for a possible attack in as little as four years.

“It’s not about how much time I need, it’s much more about how much time Putin gives us to be prepared,” the defence chief says bluntly. “And the sooner we are prepared the better.”

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has changed thinking in Germany profoundly.

For decades people here have been raised on a rejection of military might, acutely aware of Germany’s past role as the aggressor in Europe.

“We started two world wars. Even though it’s 80 years since World War Two ended, the idea that Germans should stay out of conflict is still very much in many people’s DNA,” explains Markus Ziener of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

Some remain wary of anything that might be seen as militarism even now, and the armed forces have been chronically underfunded.

“There are voices cautioning: ‘Are we really on the right track? Is our threat perception right?'”

When it comes to Russia, Germany has had a specific approach.

Whilst countries like Poland and the Baltic States cautioned against getting too close to Moscow – and increased their own defence spending – Berlin under former Chancellor Angela Merkel believed in doing business.

Germany imagined it was delivering democratisation by osmosis. But Russia took the cash and invaded Ukraine anyway.

So in February 2022 a stunned Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a national pivot in priorities, a “Zeitenwende”.

That’s when he committed a giant €100 billion ($108bn; £83bn) to boost the country’s military and keep “warmongers like Putin” in check. But General Breuer says it wasn’t enough.

“We filled up a little bit the potholes,” he recounts. “But it’s really bad.”

By contrast, he points to heavy spending in Russia on weapons and equipment, for stocks as well as the frontline in Ukraine.

He also highlights Russia’s hybrid warfare: from cyber attacks to sabotage, as well as unidentified drones over German military sites.

Add to that Vladimir Putin’s aggressive rhetoric and General Breuer sees “a really dangerous mixture.”

“Unlike the western world, Russia is not thinking in boxes. It’s not about peacetime and war, it’s a continuum: let’s start with hybrid, then escalate, then back. This is what makes me think we are facing a real threat.”

He argues Germany has to act fast.

The defence chief’s stark assessment of his forces’ current state chimes with a recent report to parliament. The Bundeswehr, it concluded, had “too little of everything”.

The report’s author, armed forces commissioner Eva Högl, revealed dire shortages ranging from ammunition to soldiers, right down to dilapidated barracks. She estimated the budget for renovation work alone at around €67 billion ($72bn; £56bn).

Lifting the debt cap, allowing the military to borrow – in theory, without limit – will give it access to a “steady line” of funding to start to address that, General Breuer says.

The historic move was made by Scholz’s expected successor, Friedrich Merz, in a rush that raised some eyebrows. He submitted the proposal to parliament just before it was disbanded following the February elections.

The new parliament, with an anti-militarist left and Russia-sympathising far right, might have been less favourably disposed.

But the “turn” that Germany started in 2022 gained fresh momentum this year.

A recent YouGov poll showed that 79% of Germans still see Vladimir Putin as “very” or “quite” dangerous to European peace and security.

Now 74% said the same for Donald Trump.

The survey followed a speech in Munich in which his Vice President JD Vance laid into Europe and its values.

“That was a clear signal that something fundamentally has changed in the United States,” says Markus Ziener.

“We don’t know where the US is heading but we know the belief that we can 100% rely on American protection when it comes to our security – that trust has now gone.”

In Berlin, Germans’ traditional caution about all things military seems to be fading fast.

Eighteen-year-old Charlotte Kreft says her own pacifist views have changed.

“For a really long time, we thought the only way to make up for the atrocities we committed in World War Two was to make sure it never happened again […] and we thought we needed to demilitarise,” Charlotte explains.

“But now we are in a situation where we have to fight for our values and democracy and freedom. We need to adapt.”

“There are lots of Germans who still feel strange about big investments in our military,” Ludwig Stein agrees. “But I think considering the things that have happened in the past few years, there’s no other real option.”

Sophie, a young mum, thinks investing in defence is now “necessary in the world we live in”.

But Germany needs troops as well as tanks, and she’s far less keen on her own son being enlisted.

The Bundeswehr only has one permanent drop-in centre, a small unit sandwiched between a pharmacy and a shoe store beside Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station.

With camouflage-clad dummies in the window and slogans like “cool and spicy” it aims to attract men and women to serve, but only gets a handful of callers each day.

Germany has already missed a target of boosting its ranks by 20,000 soldiers, to 203,000, and lowering the average age from 34.

But Gen Breuer’s ambitions are far greater.

He told us Germany needs an extra 100,000 troops to defend itself and Nato’s eastern flank adequately – a total of 460,000, including reserves. So he insists a return to military service is “absolutely” necessary.

“You won’t get this 100,000 without one or other model of conscription,” the general said.

“We don’t have to determine now what model brings them. For me it’s only important that we get the soldiers in.”

That debate has only just begun.

General Breuer is clearly positioning himself at the front of an effort to push Germany’s “turn” further and faster.

With his easy, engaging manner, he likes to visit regional town halls and challenge audiences there with a question: “Are you ready for war?”

One day a woman accused him of scaring her. “I said, ‘It’s not me scaring you, it’s the other guy!'” he remembers his reply.

He was referring to Vladimir Putin.

The twin “wake-up” alarm – of the Russia threat and an isolationist, disengaged United States – is now ringing loudly for Germany, the general argues, and can’t be ignored.

“Now it’s understandable to each and every one of us that we have to change.”

Police have shot a man dead at a railway station after reports he was carrying a firearm.

Thames Valley Police said it was called with British Transport Police to Milton Keynes Central Station at 12:55 BST.

Armed officers challenged the man before shots were fired at the suspect, the force continued.

“Life-saving actions were immediately taken at the scene, but the man was pronounced dead at 13:44 BST,” a spokesperson said.

“There is not believed to be any further risk to the public at this time.”

Standing in front of a few dozen supporters in a strip-mall parking lot in Ocala, Florida, on Monday evening, Democratic congressional candidate Josh Weil made a prediction.

The public school maths teacher said that in less than 24 hours, he was going to make history by flipping a solidly Republican congressional seat – helping to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans.

“Their 2025 agenda stops here,” he promised, railing against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to slash government services and personnel.

Just an hour earlier, in a telephone town hall meeting, Randy Fine, his Republican opponent in Tuesday’s special election, had a similar message – although he framed it as a warning, not a promise.

“Democrats are mad,” he said. “They’re going to do whatever it takes to grind Donald Trump’s agenda to a halt.”

Voters in the eastern half of central Florida, from Ocala to the towns north of Daytona Beach, head to the polls to fill the seat vacated by Michael Waltz, chosen by Trump to be national security advisor. Waltz recently sparked a media frenzy after inadvertently adding a prominent journalist to a high-level group chat about the US strikes in Yemen.

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That Waltz’s job may now be in jeopardy is just one reason Tuesday’s contest for one of the 435 House seats is now a national story.

The other is that Weil, despite running in a district Trump carried by more than 30 points last November, just might win. And if he does, Democrats would take a big step closer to a majority in the narrowly divided House.

Win or lose, the race also could serve as a barometer of voters’ motivation as Trump begins his second term – and offer hints at the political landscape ahead of next year’s mid-term congressional elections.

It is one of two special elections in Florida on Tuesday. The other, in Florida’s panhandle region, will determine a replacement for Matt Gaetz, the firebrand congressman Trump originally picked to be attorney general before he withdrew under a cloud of sexual misconduct and ethics allegations. A Republican is widely expected to win there.

But that is not the case here. Weil has raised about $10m in campaign donations, dwarfing the $1m brought in by Fine, a Florida state senator.

According to a recent public opinion survey, Weil narrowly trails Fine. An internal poll by a respected Republican firm reportedly showed Weil ahead by 3.

That’s enough to cause more than a little anxiety in Republican ranks.

“There’s no excuse for a Republican not to win this race,” said Randy Ross, a Florida-based conservative activist who campaigned there for Trump in 2016 and 2024. “The only excuse that can possibly be had is Republicans weren’t excited and didn’t get out to vote.”

Mr Ross added that Republican voters need to understand that Fine will support Trump’s agenda in Congress – and Weil will not.

To this end, some of the party’s heaviest hitters stepped in to help. Last Thursday, Trump joined the Republican candidate in two telephone town hall events. On Monday night, Florida Congressman Byron Donalds and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro held their own event.

“Donald Trump’s agenda is hanging by a thread,” Shapiro said. “This is a district that simply cannot fall into Democratic hands.”

Tech multi-billionaire Musk, a close Trump ally, may be campaigning in person for a hotly contested Wisconsin Supreme Court race, but his political committee directed more than $75,000 to support Fine in recent days. Other conservative groups followed suit, helping Fine level the financial playing field.

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Of particular concern for the party is that special elections take place during times of lower political engagement and usually involve only the one race in question. They often tilt toward the party with the most enthusiasm, according to Mr Ross. For Republicans, a Democratic show of strength on Tuesday would be troubling.

“You can’t go just on name recognition in a special election,” he said. “You’ve got to drive people out to vote for you.”

Republican nervousness is a result of simple math in the House of Representatives. With a 218 to 213 majority in the 435 seat chamber, the party cannot afford to lose any winnable elections – let alone ones that should be a slam dunk.

While a Weil victory alone wouldn’t be enough to flip control of the chamber, two of the currently vacant seats are in safely Democratic districts. If the results of those special elections go as expected, Democrats would be on the verge of control.

That could explain why the president announced on Friday he was withdrawing his pick of New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to be US ambassador to the United Nations, despite her having all but formally vacated her office. A Weil victory on Tuesday would mean the Republicans could not afford to lose a New York election to replace Stefanik.

Even before Tuesday’s balloting, both Democrats and Republicans jockeyed to frame the results in the best light for their party.

Conservatives downplayed the national implications of the race and placed blame on Fine, who has been accused of running a lacklustre campaign and taking victory for granted.

“It’s a reflection of the candidate that’s running the race, ” Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said of Fine’s apparent underperformance.

Meanwhile, Democrats are declaring a victory – at least, the moral variety.

“These are races that should not, under ordinary circumstances, be on anyone’s political radar,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said last Monday. “The American people are not buying what the Republicans are selling.”

That sentiment was echoed by many of Weil’s supporters on Monday night in Ocala, even if the candidate himself told the BBC he would win by eight points.

“If we lose but come close, moderate Republicans might take notice,” said Buddy Oswald, an attorney and educator. If they were worried their party could lose a safe seat, he added, maybe they would feel the heat and be more willing to break with the president.

Eight years ago, in the aftermath of Trump’s stunning 2016 presidential victory, Democrats sought solace in special election races across the map. They pulled off some stunners, including a Doug Jones Senate victory in deeply conservative Alabama. In other races, such as a bid by Jon Ossoff in a suburban Atlanta district, the Democrat came up just short.

Those races presaged a high level of Democratic enthusiasm that led to a wave in the mid-terms the following year, when the party won 39 seats in taking back the House of Representatives and putting a decisive end to Trump’s first-term legislative agenda.

Republicans, with convincing victories on Tuesday, want to squelch any chance of history repeating itself.

Democrats, engaged in a sometimes acrimonious debate over strategy and political priorities, would like Florida to get them back in the win column – or at least give them hope of better days to come.

A Cornell University graduate student who had his US visa revoked due to protest activities against Israel has chosen to leave the US rather than be deported.

Momodou Taal, who is a joint citizen of the UK and The Gambia, had his student visa revoked due to his on-campus protest activities last year as the Israel-Gaza war raged.

Mr Taal previously sued to block his deportation, but on Monday posted on X that he had chosen to leave the country “free and with my head held high”. It comes after a judge had denied his request to delay his deportation.

The Trump administration is cracking down on international students who have been active in protests against Israel on university campuses.

Mr Taal is at least the second international student to opt to leave the US after being targeted for removal by the US Department of Homeland Security. The Trump administration identifies these cases as “self-deportations”.

“Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Mr Taal posted on X on Monday.

“I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted. Weighing up these options. I took the decision to leave on my own terms.”

Mr Taal was suspended twice by Cornell, an Ivy League school in upstate New York, due to protest activities. On the day of the Hamas attack against Israel in 2023, he posted: “Glory to the Resistance.”

“We are in solidarity with the armed resistance in Palestine from the river to the sea,” he later told a crowd of protesters, according to The Cornell Daily Sun newspaper.

At least 300 university students had their student visas revoked due to involvement in pro-Palestinian protests, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week.

Trump officials said the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the State Department to deport non-citizens who are “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the US.

The arrests are a part of Trump’s pledge to combat what the administration has classified as antisemitism, which was written into an executive order in January.

Critics have decried the deportations as a violation of free speech.

Another student who chose to flee the US, Indian scholar Ranjani Srinivasan, told CNN that she wants to clear her name.

“I’m not a terrorist sympathiser,” she told CNN, adding: “I’m literally just a random student.”

She added that she hopes to re-enrol at Columbia University, which was the epicentre of student protests last year, and finish her PhD programme.

It’s only been five months since voters in Wisconsin faced a bitterly fought election, but residents of the US state are already heading back to the polls.

This time, Elon Musk looms large in the race to fill a vacancy on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, even if the billionaire’s name doesn’t appear on the ballot.

It’s the most expensive judicial contest in US history, with more than $90m (£70m) spent so far, including $20m from Musk and groups affiliated with him.

The choice is between conservative Brad Schimel, backed by President Donald Trump and Musk, and liberal Susan Crawford, who is supported by former President Barack Obama and Democratic mega-donors like George Soros.

It’s forecast to be a tight contest that could flip control of the Midwestern state’s top court, which is currently controlled 4-3 by liberal justices.

But it’s also one of the first real tests of voter sentiment towards Trump, in a state that he won by less than a percentage point during his decisive White House election victory last November.

The Republican president’s second administration has slashed federal programmes – cuts that have been shepherded by Musk, the world’s richest man and a close Trump ally.

“This really matters,” said canvasser Ronneisha Mallet. “People aren’t looking at the bigger picture. People just think this is just a local election. But it goes all the way to the White House.”

The 23-year-old was out knocking doors in a quiet residential area on the outskirts of Milwaukee on Monday, a day before voters were set to cast their ballots.

She was here with Bloc – Black Leaders Organising for Communities –  encouraging people to vote.

These kinds of special elections typically see low voter turnout. But Musk’s involvement has supercharged emotions on all sides.

Groups like Bloc put in extra time to engage with voters.

Not everyone opened their front door on Monday, but some of those who did told Ms Mallet they had already voted. By Monday, some 644,000 people had cast ballots early, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“I hate Musk! I hate his guts!” Peggy, standing at her door, said. She didn’t want to give the BBC her full name, but described herself as an independent voter who has soured on the Republican Party.

“I think Musk bought the presidency,” she said, in reference to the quarter-of-a-billion dollars that Musk spent in support of Trump’s presidential campaign.

“And so I think he’s trying to buy the election here,” Peggy continued. “And I am hoping that people are starting to wake up.”

Democrats, too, have rallied deep-pocketed donors in support of Crawford. Along with Soros, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman have reportedly contributed large sums. But their names haven’t inspired the same vitriol as Musk’s.

Another resident – who gave his name as Palman – said he had already voted, in part as a reaction to Musk.

“When you’re a billionaire, you don’t spend money for no reason,” he said. “He’s just spending it with purpose.”

On Sunday, Musk hosted a rally where he handed out two $1m cheques to voters who had signed a petition to stop “activist” judges who might disrupt Trump’s plans.

We drove about a half-hour outside of Milwaukee to Waukesha – a swing county that President Trump won. Around 100 people were gathered at the Dockhaus brewery and restaurant overlooking a baseball park, where Schimel made a campaign stop.

Conor Gunar was wearing a red shirt with Musk’s name on it.

“I’m a big fan,” he said, clutching his beer. “He is doing a fantastic job with Doge.”

“Why not?” he added when asked about Musk’s involvement in the race. “Democrats have people like George Soros and JB Pritzker; why can’t we have billionaires?”

Another Schimel supporter, Scarlett Johnson, agreed.

She was at Musk’s town hall-style event over the weekend, which she described as “great fun”.

But she said she also understood the criticism.

“Look, I think it would be great if no billionaires were involved at all, but if they’re going to be as they have for Democrats, it’s only fair they’re involved for Republicans.”

On the left, strategists see a glimmer of light as they search for a clear political strategy.

Drive down the roads, and you can see billboards plastered in cities like Green Bay and Madison that read “don’t let Elon buy our court” and depict the SpaceX and Tesla boss as a puppeteer.

Switch on the TV and you’ll see attack ads that say: “Elon Musk is out of control.”

Going after Musk instead of Trump seems to be a strategic option for Democrats.

A poll by Marquette Law School suggests Musk is viewed unfavorably by 53% of registered voters here.

Driving in his car across rural Wisconsin, Ben Wickler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told the BBC that if Crawford could beat Schimel, “there’ll be a very clear kind of game plan for how to fight back against the world’s richest man trying to destroy American democracy”.

Allison Prasch, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specialises in US political rhetoric, said this race was a strategy test for both sides.

“We know that Wisconsin, up to the very end of the presidential cycle, was very close,” she said, noting that some cities such as Milwaukee and Madison unexpectedly swung towards Trump and helped deliver him the state’s electoral college votes.

“What happens in Wisconsin [now] is going to tell us a lot about what’s going to happen, not just in 2026 but in 2028.”

Musk’s critics say he has practical reasons to care about the Wisconsin race.

They point to an ongoing case involving Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, that could head to the state’s supreme court in the future.

The billionaire is suing because Wisconsin bans car manufacturers from owning dealerships, but Tesla’s business model involves running its own showrooms.

The BBC has contacted Musk’s America PAC for comment.

Wisconsin Republican strategist Matt Terrill said Musk was allowed to donate to campaigns for things he personally cared about, like any other citizen might – including the Democratic donors heavily backing Crawford.

“Musk has obviously got his views from a political standpoint of what he as an American citizen wants to see happen, not just as someone who’s a part of the Trump administration,” said Terrill.

The result won’t just be a referendum on Trump’s presidency so far, but will test Musk’s reputation as a kingmaker in American politics.

Tourists and residents have been evacuated as a volcano erupted in south-west Iceland, threatening a town and popular attraction.

The volcano has been spewing lava and smoke in a fiery display of orange and red since the eruption began in the morning, creating a huge crack in the ground which has grown to 1.2km (0.75 miles) long.

Multiple earthquakes have occurred in the volcanic area throughout the day.

The volcano is close to the fishing town of Grindavik and the famous Blue Lagoon spa. A small number of people refused to evacuate the town, local media reported.

People were asked to “leave the danger zone,” the region’s police commissioner, Ulfar Ludviksson, told Iceland’s RUV broadcaster. But he said individuals staying in “seven or eight houses there… have decided to remain in the town.”

There were fears that the town was “in danger of having lava flows entering the inhabited area”, said Rikke Pedersen from the Nordic Volcanological Centre.

A hot water pipe has broken in the northern part of Grindavík, which confirms that considerable cracking has occurred within the town, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said.

The protective barriers around Grindavik have also been breached, as new eruptive fissure opened a few hundred meters inside, the IMO reported. But volcanic activity eased off in the early afternoon on Tuesday.

Roads in and out of the town remain closed, but flights are currently not affected.

Most of the 4,000 residents of Grindavík left in a mass evacuation in 2023 because of the dangers of the volcanic activity. The volcano has erupted several times since.

The length of the magma that formed on Tuesday under the crater series stretched to about 11 km (6.8 miles) – the longest that has been measured since 11 November 2023, meteorologists said. The magma corridor extends about 3km further northeast than seen in previous eruptions.

Based on current wind direction, gas pollution from the eruption will travel northeast towards the capital area, the IMO added.

The eruption, which began around 09.45 local time (10:45 BST), occurred after several earthquakes hit the area known as the Sundhnúk crater range.

Multiple eruptions have occurred on the Reykjanes Peninsula since 2021.

The last time the peninsula had a period of volcanic activity was 800 years ago – and the eruptions continued for decades.

Iceland has 33 active volcano systems and sits over what is known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the boundary between two of the largest tectonic plates on the planet.

As Ukrainian cities are bombed almost nightly by Russia, the idea of holding elections here might seem fanciful.

But in the streets and offices of the capital, Kyiv, the prospect of the country going to the polls is once again being discussed.

Election rumours have come and gone in the three long years of Russia’s full-scale war.

Each time they have been dismissed by government, opposition and public alike, arguing unity of effort against the Russian invader must come first.

A presidential election due in 2024 was suspended in line with martial law, which was introduced in Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion two years earlier.

But that hasn’t stopped the Kremlin from claiming President Volodymyr Zelensky is an illegitimate leader and demanding new elections as a condition of a ceasefire deal – a talking point which has been repeated by President Trump.

• BBC Verify on why elections in Ukraine were suspended

Now there has been a fresh flurry of speculation that Zelensky might just be thinking again as ceasefire talks proceed, and some sources speaking to the BBC suggest there are reasons to think elections could go ahead later this year.

The president’s potential closest rival, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, former commander in chief of Ukraine’s army, has felt the need to deny rumours about his intentions.

“My answer to this has not changed,” he told the RBC-Ukraine news agency. “While the war continues, we all need to work to save the country, not think about elections. I don’t comment on any rumours.”

That the publicity-shy Zaluzhnyi, currently Ukraine’s ambassador in London, felt the need to issue a statement was striking in itself.

The head of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, Oleh Didenko, also chose to speak publicly about the speculation.

He told the Ukrainska Pravda news website the law would have to be changed before any elections could take place. He said current rules stated that parliamentary elections must be held 60 days after the lifting of martial law, and 90 days for presidential elections.

But more time would be needed because of the war and that would require legal changes.

The Economist newspaper claimed Zelensky held a meeting last week to discuss an election and instructed staff to prepare for a vote once the United States had forced Russia into accepting a ceasefire, potentially as early as Easter.

This report was denied by several government sources.

“There is fake information there,” one presidential source told BBC News Ukrainian. “There was no such meeting and there was no such instruction.”

The government source said the main focus was achieving peace and there was little hope of the war ending by Easter.

So in the face of so many public denials, why do some still think an election might be in the offing?

First, some sources note Zelensky’s support in the polls has picked up since he was harangued by Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance in the White House.

A poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in March suggested the number of Ukrainians who trusted Zelensky was up a couple of points on the previous month at 69%.

Diplomats say the president might think now was his best chance of winning a second term rather than wait until political divisions emerge after the war.

Second, by winning a second term, Zelensky would call Russia’s bluff and strengthen his hand in any long-term peace negotiations. Only last week President Vladimir Putin said the United Nations should take over Ukraine and organise a “democratic presidential election”. His assumption – perhaps mistaken – is that Zelensky would be replaced.

Third, martial law must be renewed by parliamentary vote in early May. Zelensky could use that timetable to announce martial law would be allowed to lapse with elections held later in the summer.

Fourth, the Americans are convinced elections are coming. Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, told the Tucker Carlson podcast on March 21: “They’ve agreed to it. There will be elections in Ukraine.”

Zelensky could use this pressure from the US – echoing Russian narratives – as a pretext, telling voters he had no choice but to hold elections.

Fifth, some Ukrainian sources believe logistical obstacles to elections can be overcome.

Millions of citizens are displaced overseas, on the front line and in occupied territories. The answer to that, some say, is to allow people to vote using a smart phone app called Diia. This contains people’s core documents such as passport, identity card and drivers’ licence.

Using Diia, some argue, would allow people to vote quickly, cheaply and safely without having to travel to a polling booth overseas or in the trenches. They point out Ukrainians have used it successfully to vote in the Eurovision Song Contest. They also note President Zelensky gave every Ukrainian almost £20 as a winter allowance last December, with many registering for it using Diia.

But there remain many arguments against elections.

Using Diia would require new legislation that might struggle to get through parliament. Diia could be vulnerable to cyber-attack and technical failure. Western governments may not consider it trustworthy; Russia certainly would not.

Even if Diia were used, identifying who could vote would still take time with incomplete and out-of-date registers.

Lifting martial law during a temporary ceasefire could create unexpected consequences – including the flight of hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the front line – just as Russia prepared a counterattack. Russia could strike queues of voters at polling stations.

Any elections, however quickly held, would allow war-time unity to be replaced by political rows. An election would allow Russia to deploy digital and other propaganda to try to shape the result.

Holding an election may also be seen as accepting Russian arguments that Volodymyr Zelensky’s leadership is illegitimate because of the suspended elections last year.

Perhaps the strongest argument against elections is that Ukrainians themselves do not want them. That same March poll by the KIIS found about 78% of people opposed holding elections even after a complete settlement of the war.