US President Donald Trump has announced a universal “baseline” 10% tariff on imports into the US, on what he has dubbed “Liberation Day”.

Describing 2 April, 2025 as “our declaration of America’s economic independence”, he said “reciprocal tariffs” would start at that baseline, although many states would be hit with far higher rates of up to 50%.

The tariffs will take effect in the next few days.

Trump said that from midnight on 3 April, the US would start imposing 25% tariffs on all foreign-made cars. It is unclear if this was additional to the universal tariffs.

He has already introduced a series of taxes covering steel, aluminium and car imports as well as all goods from China.

Trump argues the measures – which make foreign goods more expensive – will help US manufacturers and protect jobs. However, prices could go up for consumers in America.

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.

Typically, tariffs are a percentage of a product’s value. For example, a 25% tariff on a $10 (£7.76) product would mean an additional $2.50 charge.

Companies that bring the foreign goods into the country have to pay the tax to the government.

Firms can choose to pass on some or all of the cost to customers.

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Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision. He says “tariff” is his favourite word.

He argues the taxes will encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, boosting the country’s economy and increasing the amount of tax raised.

Trump wants to reduce the gap between the value of goods the US imports and those it exports to other countries.

For example, the US had a trade deficit of $213bn (£165bn) with the European Union (EU) in 2024, something Trump has called “an atrocity”.

The US president also said tariffs were intended to force China, Mexico and Canada – the countries first targeted – to do more to stop migrants and drugs reaching the US.

He has refused to rule out the possibility of a recession as a result of his trade policies. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said tariffs were “worth it” even if they led to an economic downturn.

Several tariffs announced by Trump have subsequently been delayed, amended or scrapped.

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2 April:

• 25% tariff on cars coming into the US – 25% tariff on imported car parts due in May or later

12 March:

• 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports

6 March:

• Tariff exemption expanded to include other goods shipped under North America’s free-trade agreement, such as televisions, air conditioners, avocados and beef
• Tariffs on potash – used in fertiliser by US farmers – reduced from 25% to 10%

5 March:

• A month-long tariff exemption announced for cars made in North America which comply with the continent’s existing free trade agreement

4 March:

• 10% tariff on Chinese goods doubled to 20%
• 25% tariff against goods from Mexico and Canada, with a 10% tariff on Canadian energy imports

7 February:

• Exemption for shipments from China worth less than $800

4 February:

• 10% tariff on goods from China

Economists expect tariffs to increase prices for US consumers across many imported goods, as firms pass on some or all of their increased costs.

The products affected could include everything from beer, whisky and tequila to maple syrup, fuel and avocados.

Firms may also decide to import fewer foreign goods, which could in turn make those which are available more expensive.

Among Trump’s targets are overseas car firms. The US imported about eight million cars last year – accounting for about $240bn (£186bn) in trade and roughly half of overall sales.

The new import taxes of 25% on cars and car parts will take effect on 2 April, with charges on businesses importing vehicles starting the next day. Taxes on parts are due to kick in later, possibly in May.

Car prices were already expected to rise as a result of tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.

Component parts typically cross the US, Mexican and Canadian borders multiple times before a vehicle is completely assembled.

The cost of a car made using parts from Mexico and Canada alone could rise by $4,000-$10,000 depending on the vehicle, according to analysts at the Anderson Economic Group.

The tariffs Trump announced during his first term as president raised the average price of steel and aluminium in the US by 2.4% and 1.6% respectively, according to the US International Trade Commission.

US tariffs on imported washing machines between 2018 and 2023 increased the price of laundry equipment by 34%, according to official statistics.

Prices fell once the tariffs expired.

The UK exported around £58bn of goods to the US in 2024.

The economy will be affected by the car and steel tariffs which have already been introduced – and is expected to be hit again by the latest measures.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions ahead of the Trump announcement, PM Sir Keir Starmer said he was “preparing for all eventualities”, and ruling nothing out.

The UK government has so far not announced any taxes on US imports.

Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has previously insisted that ongoing trade talks with the Trump administration mean the UK is in the “best possible position of any country” to have tariffs weakened or reversed.

Economists have warned any major tariffs could knock the UK’s economy off course and make it harder for the government to hit its self-imposed borrowing rules.

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A number of other countries have introduced their own tariffs on goods imported from the US.

These will make US products more expensive, and are bolstering fears of a global trade war which could create problems for economies worldwide.

China has introduced a 10-15% tax on some US agricultural goods. It has also targeted US aviation, defence and tech firms.

EU tariffs targeting US goods worth €26bn (£22bn) will start on 1 April and be fully in place on 13 April. They will cover items ranging “from boats to bourbon to motorbikes”, as well as steel and aluminium products.

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has promised a “robust and calibrated response” to any further tariff announcements.

Canada has imposed 25% tariffs on US steel, aluminium and a range of other goods. Further counter tariffs may be introduced.

Mexico has delayed introducing its own retaliatory tariffs while negotiations continue.

US President Donald Trump has unveiled a list of tariffs on countries across the world that send their products to America.

The UK will be subject to 10% tariffs on imports from the UK and 20% on European Union imports.

We’ve spoken to firms which export to the US from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland about what they think the impact on their businesses will be.

For Scotch whisky makers, the US is its most important overseas market – worth £971 million a year.

Anthony Wills runs the Kilchoman distillery on the island of Islay and says he feels “deflated” at the prospect of tariffs. “It’s a huge blow for the industry,” he says.

“For us personally, it represents 10% of our sales. So it’s clearly going to be a big blow, especially with the current economic headwinds that we’re all experiencing, we’re all going to find this very difficult and very challenging.”

The industry has been hit with US tariffs before, with a 25% levy on single malts back in 2019. The Scottish Whisky Association estimates that for the 18 months the tariffs were in place, the industry lost £600m in sales.

Mr Wills says he split the cost of the tariff with his US importer so the price would stay the same for their American customers.

“I imagine we’ll be doing what we did last time, and trying to keep the shelf price as it was before,” he says.

“We have to react and we will be discussing this with our importer and deciding what the best way forward is.”

Wales sold £2.2bn of goods to the US last year – most of it was machinery and equipment manufactured by small companies.

Newport-based company, Tomoe Valve, makes high performance butterfly valves that are used in a wide variety of projects all over the world.

The firm hit £6m in sales in 2024/25 and its biggest order worth £1.2m ($1.6m) came from the US – a huge valve for a battery plant.

Financial director Denise Cole says she does not want tariffs on her products but understands why President Trump has brought them in.

“I’ve seen UK manufacturing decimated and the same has happened in America so he’s looking after his own which is exactly what it says on the tin with Trump.”

She says there was a lot of panic over tariffs and any changes could be “short-lived”.

“I really don’t think it’s going to impact us in a negative way,” she says. “The specialist products we sell, they don’t manufacture in the US anyway, they would struggle to get them elsewhere.

“Our own government has done me more damage by increasing employer National Insurance Contributions,” she says. “That’s added £35,000 to my costs – that’s a whole person’s wages. I would have taken on a new member of staff this year as we have some big orders but I won’t be able to now.”

The Treasury has previously said it was delivering the stability businesses need to invest and grow.

A new import tax of 25% on cars entering the US came into effect today, and car parts will face the same tax at some point in the next few months.

Some 17% of UK car exports went to the US last year, making it the second largest export market after the EU.

Barkley Plastics in Sutton Coldfield supplies parts to carmakers including Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Toyota and Mini.

Managing director Matt Harwood says: “The new tariffs will affect [car manufacturers] greatly, which in turn affects businesses like us in their supply chain.”

He says the UK’s automotive industry was already under pressure before the tariffs were announced. The UK produced more than 1.5 million cars a year before the pandemic – that’s now down to 800,000 a year.

Mr Harwood says: “Covid-19, chip shortages, and broader supply chain disruptions have made volumes unpredictable in recent years. These new US tariffs threaten to push that number even lower, which would be particularly damaging for smaller suppliers like us, who operate on tight margins.

“A further downturn in demand could quickly translate into job losses or even business closures,” he says. “So our main concern is how the US tariffs put tens of thousands of jobs at risk within the UK automotive supply chain.”

In 2022, Northern Ireland exported goods worth £1.9bn to the US, making it the third biggest external market for goods behind Great Britain (£11bn) and Ireland (£4.6bn).

Belfast watchmaker Nomadic makes 22% of its sales in the US.

Its founder Peter McAuley says there was huge potential for his business to grow in the US, but that’s now in doubt.

He says America is a strong market with a good trading environment, but he believes tariffs will have an impact on his sales – although he remains confident about the future of the trading relationship between Northern Ireland and the US.

Driving into Mandalay, the massive scale of the destruction from last Friday’s earthquake revealed itself bit by bit.

In nearly every street we turned into, especially in the northern and central parts of the city, at least one building had completely collapsed, reduced to a pile of rubble. Some streets had multiple structures which had come down.

Almost every building we saw had cracks running through at least one of its walls, unsafe to step into. At the main city hospital they’re having to treat patients outdoors.

Myanmar’s military government has said it’s not allowing foreign journalists into the country after the quake, so we went in undercover. We had to operate carefully, because the country is riddled with informers and secret police who spy on their own people for the ruling military junta.

What we witnessed was a people who had very little help coming their way in the face of this massive disaster.

“I have hope that he’s alive, even if it’s a small chance,” said Nan Sin Hein, 41, who’s been waiting on the street opposite a collapsed five-storey building, day and night for five days.

Her 21 year-old-son Sai Han Pha is a construction worker, renovating the interiors of the building, which used to be a hotel and was being turned into an office space.

“If they can rescue him today, there’s a chance he’ll survive,” she says.

When the 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck, the bottom of the building sank into the ground, its top lurching at an angle over the street, looking like it could tip over at any minute.

Sai Han Pha and four other workers were trapped inside.

When we visited, rescue efforts had not even begun at the building and there was no sign they would start soon. There just isn’t enough help available on the ground – and the reason for that is the political situation in the country.

Even before the earthquake Myanmar was in turmoil – locked in a civil war that has displaced an estimated 3.5 million people. Its military has continued operations against armed insurgent groups despite the disaster.

This means that security forces are too stretched to put their full might behind relief and rescue operations. Except in some key locations, we didn’t see them in large numbers in Mandalay.

The military junta has put out a rare appeal for international aid, but its uneasy relations with many foreign countries, including the UK and the US, has meant that while these countries have pledged aid, help in the form of manpower on the ground is currently only from countries like India, China and Russia, among a few others.

And so far those rescue efforts appear to be focused on structures where masses of people are feared trapped – the high-rise Sky Villa condominium complex which was home to hundreds of people, and U Hla Thein Buddhist academy where scores of monks were taking an examination when the earthquake struck.

Neeraj Singh, who is leading the Indian disaster response team working at the Buddhist academy, said the structure had collapsed like a “pancake” – one layer on top of another.

“It’s the most difficult collapse pattern and the chances of finding survivors are very low. But we are still hopeful and trying our best,” he told the BBC.

Working under the sweltering sun, in nearly 40C, rescuers use metal drills and cutters to break the concrete slabs into smaller pieces. It’s slow and extremely demanding work. When a crane lifts up the concrete pieces, the stench of decaying bodies, already quite strong, becomes overwhelming.

The rescuers spot four to five bodies, but it still takes a couple of hours to pull the first one out.

Sitting on mats under a makeshift tent in the compound of the academy are families of the students. Their faces are weary and despondent. As soon as they hear a body has been recovered, they crowd around the ambulance it is placed in.

Others gather around a rescuer who shows them a photo of the body on his mobile phone.

Agonising moments pass as the families try to see if the dead man is a loved one.

But the body is so disfigured, the task is impossible. It is sent to a morgue where forensic tests will have to be conducted to confirm the identity.

Among the families is the father of 29-year-old U Thuzana. He has no hope that his son survived. “Knowing my son ended up like this, I’m inconsolable, I’m filled with grief,” U Hla Aung said, his face crumpling into a sob.

Many of Mandalay’s historical sites have also suffered significant damage, including the Mandalay Palace and the Maha Muni Pagoda, but we could not get in to see the extent of the damage.

Access to everything – collapse sites, victims and their families – was not easy because of the oppressive environment created by the military junta, with people often fearful of speaking to journalists.

Close to the pagoda, we saw Buddhist funeral rituals being held on the street outside a destroyed house. It was the home of U Hla Aung Khaing and his wife Daw Mamarhtay, both in their sixties.

“I lived with them but was out when the earthquake struck. That’s why I survived. Both my parents are gone in a single moment,” their son told us.

Their bodies were extricated not by trained rescuers, but by locals who used rudimentary equipment. It took two days to pull out the couple, who were found with their arms around each other.

Myanmar’s military government says 2,886 people have died so far, but so many collapse sites have still not even been reached by the authorities, that that count is unlikely to be accurate. We may never find out what the real death toll of the earthquake was.

Parks and open spaces in Mandalay have turned into makeshift camps, as have the banks of the moat that runs around the palace. All over the city we saw people laying out mats and mattresses outside their homes as evening approached, preferring to sleep outdoors.

Mandalay is a city living in terror, and with good reason. Nearly every night since Friday there have been big aftershocks. We woke up to an aftershock of magnitude 5 in the middle of the night.

But tens of thousands are sleeping outdoors because they have no home to return to.

“I don’t know what to think anymore. My heart still trembles when I think of that moment when the earthquake struck,” said Daw Khin Saw Myint, 72, who we met while she was waiting in a queue for water, with her little granddaughter by her side. “We ran out, but my house is gone. I’m living under a tree. Come and see.”

She works as a washerwoman and says her son suffers from a disability which doesn’t allow him to work.

“Where will I live now? I am in so much trouble. I’m living next to a rubbish dump. Some people have given me rice and a few clothes. We ran out in these clothes we are wearing.

“We don’t have anyone to rescue us. Please help us,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Another elderly woman chimes in, eyes tearing up, “No one has distributed food yet today. So we haven’t eaten.”

Most of the vehicles we saw pulling up to distribute supplies were small vans with limited stocks – donations from individuals or small local organisations. It’s nowhere near enough for the number of people in need, leading to a scramble to grab whatever relief is available.

Parts of Mandalay’s main hospital are also damaged, and so in an already difficult situation, rows and rows of beds are laid out in the hospital compound for patients.

Shwe Gy Thun Phyo, 14, has suffered from a brain injury, and has bloodshot eyes. She’s conscious but unresponsive. Her father tries to make her as comfortable as possible.

There were very few doctors and nurses around to cope with the demand for treatment, which means families are stepping in to do what medical staff should.

Zar Zar has a distended belly because of a serious abdominal injury. Her daughter sits behind her, holding her up, and fans her, to give her some relief from the heat.

We couldn’t spend a lot of time at the hospital for fear of being apprehended by the police or military.

As the window to find survivors of the earthquake narrows, increasingly those being brought into the hospital are the dead.

Nan Sin Hein, who is waiting outside the collapsed building where her son was trapped, was initially stoical, but she now looks like she is preparing to face what seems like the most likely outcome.

“I’m heartbroken. My son loved me and his little sisters. He struggled to support us,” she says.

“I am just hoping to see my son’s face, even if he is dead. I want to see his body. I want them to do everything they can to find his body.”

Myanmar’s military has announced a temporary ceasefire to speed up relief and reconstruction efforts following last week’s devastating earthquake.

In a statement, the ruling junta’s State Administration Council said the deal would be in effect from 2 April to 22 April.

Earlier this week, rebel groups fighting the military unilaterally declared a ceasefire to support relief efforts – the military had refused to do the same until Wednesday’s announcement.

At least 2,886 people are now known to have been killed after the magnitude- 7.7 earthquake struck last Friday. Hundreds of people are still missing.

The earthquake was also felt hundreds of miles away in neighbouring countries like Thailand, where the death toll currently stands at 21.

Myanmar has been gripped by violence amid a civil war between the junta – which seized power in a 2021 coup – and ethnic militias and resistance forces across the country.

On Tuesday night, Myanmar’s military opened fire at a Chinese Red Cross convoy carrying earthquake relief supplies.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, an armed rebel group, said that military troops shot at the convoy of nine vehicles with machine guns in eastern Shan State.

The convoy was en route to Mandalay, the hard-hit city near the epicentre of the earthquake. No injuries have been reported.

The junta, which said it was investigating the incident, denied shooting directly at the vehicles. It said troops fired shots into the air after the convoy did not stop, despite it being signalled to do so.

China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that its rescue team and supplies were safe, adding that it hoped “all factions and parties in Myanmar will prioritize earthquake relief efforts”.

Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis has worsened significantly after last week’s earthquake. The actual death toll is believed to be much higher than the official figures provided by the junta.

Multiple international aid agencies and foreign governments have dispatched personnel and supplies to quake-hit regions.

A military spokesperson on Wednesday said troops saw the aid convoy coming from Naungcho township on Tuesday night, with vehicles sporting Chinese stickers and Myanmar number plates, but had not been given prior notice of the vehicles’ movement.

“When we saw the convoy, we stopped it. But they continued. We opened fire from about 200m away, but they didn’t stop,” he said.

“At about 100m away, we fired three shots in the air, after which the vehicles turned back towards Naungcho.”

China’s Blue Sky Rescue Team, which has been providing rescue support in Mandalay, had been given a security cover when they travelled through this route, the spokesperson said.

He added that when international agencies want to give aid, they need to inform the Myanmar government.

The TNLA, which was escorting the Red Cross convoy, said they had informed the military council about going to Mandalay.

After retreating to Naungcho, they would be continuing their journey, the group said in a statement.

On Tuesday morning, Rajesh Nayak stepped outside the firecracker warehouse in India’s Gujarat state where he worked to drink water.

Some moments later, an explosion ripped through the building, killing 21 people, including Mr Nayak’s brother.

“Some of my other relatives have also died. I had come to work here only from Sunday,” a distraught Nayak, who is in hospital with minor injuries, said.

Most of the victims were from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh state and had recently come to work at the warehouse, located in an industrial estate in Banaskantha district in Gujarat.

Their families lived in huts close to the building and some of them were also killed from the force of the explosion. Banaskantha District Collector Mihir Patel told BBC Gujarati that the victims included four women and three children.

It’s not clear yet what caused the explosion, but officials are investigating if firecrackers were being manufactured illegally at the warehouse.

“Primary information has been received that the explosion took place when firecrackers were being made here,” said Mr Patel, the collector.

India has strict rules around firecracker production but these are often not enforced strongly on the ground. Accidents are regularly reported, especially at illegal factories.

The incident in Gujarat came a day after eight people were killed in an explosion at an illegal firecracker factory hundreds of miles away in West Bengal state.

Police in Gujarat have arrested two men, owners of the warehouse, in connection with the explosion and are searching for one more person. A special investigation team has been set up to look into the incident.

Banaskantha district police chief Akshay Raj Makwana said a preliminary investigation showed that aluminium powder was stored in the building.

“This powder is non-explosive but flammable and easily available in the market. We are investigating the supply chain and how the accused sourced such material,” said Mr Makwana.

Mr Patel told reporters that the building had been registered as a warehouse for storing firecrackers, but its licence had expired in December. When a team went to inspect the area in March, he said, the building was empty.

When BBC Gujarati reached the area on Tuesday, the air smelt strongly of sulphur.

The explosion caused extensive damage, destroying the warehouse and a wall of the adjacent factory. Large concrete slabs were thrown up to 300ft away.

Mr Makwana, the police chief, said a slab in the building collapsed, trapping workers underneath.

The powerful blast also destroyed surrounding huts and killed some family members of the workers.

A sanitation worker told BBC Gujarati that he carried out four bodies on stretchers from the site. “My heart sank when I saw a child’s body,” he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is from Gujarat, has expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and announced financial assistance.

“I’m the only survivor who saw what happened to my colleagues,” Munther Abed says, scrolling through pictures of his fellow paramedics on his phone.

He survived the Israeli attack that killed 15 emergency workers in Gaza by diving to the floor in the back of his ambulance, as his two colleagues in the front were shot in the early hours of 23 March.

“We left the headquarters roughly at dawn,” he told one of the BBC’s trusted freelance journalists working in Gaza, explaining how the response team from the Palestinian Red Crescent, Gaza’s Civil Defence agency and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) gathered on the edge of the southern city of Rafah after receiving reports of gunfire and wounded people.

“Roughly by 04:30, all Civil Defence vehicles were in place. At 04:40 the first two vehicles went out. At 04:50, the last vehicle arrived. At around 05:00, the agency [UN] car was shot at directly in the street,” he says.

The Israeli military says its forces opened fire because the vehicles were moving suspiciously towards soldiers without prior co-ordination and with their lights off. It also claimed that nine Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives were killed in the incident.

Munther challenges that account.

“During day and at night, it’s the same thing. External and internal lights are on. Everything tells you it’s an ambulance vehicle that belongs to the Palestinian Red Crescent. All lights were on until the vehicle came under direct fire,” he says.

After that, he adds, he was pulled from the wreckage by Israeli soldiers, arrested and blindfolded. He claimed he was interrogated over 15 hours, before being released.

The BBC has put his claims to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but it is yet to respond.

“The IDF did not randomly attack an ambulance,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed, when questioned at a news conference, echoing the IDF’s statements.

“Several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals. IDF troops then opened fire at the suspected vehicles.”

He added: “Following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military terrorist, Mohammed Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who took part in the October 7 massacre, along with eight other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”

Shubaki’s name is not on the list of the 15 dead emergency workers – eight of whom were Palestinian Red Crescent medics, six were Civil Defence first responders, and one was an Unrwa staff member.

Israel has not accounted for the whereabouts of Shubaki’s body or offered any evidence of the direct threat the emergency workers posed.

Munther rejects Israel’s claim that Hamas may have used the ambulances as cover.

“That’s utterly untrue. All crews are civilian,” he says.

“We don’t belong to any militant group. Our main duty is to offer ambulance services and save people’s lives. No more, no less”.

Gaza’s paramedics carried their own colleagues to their funerals earlier this week. There was an outcry of grief along with calls for accountability. One bereaved father told the BBC that his son was killed “in cold blood”.

International agencies could only access the area to retrieve their bodies a week after the attack. They were found buried in sand alongside the wrecked ambulances, fire truck and UN vehicle.

Sam Rose, acting director of Unrwa’s Gaza office, says: “What we know is that fifteen people lost their lives, that they were buried in shallow graves in a sand berm in the middle of the road, treated with complete indignity and what would appear to be an infringement of international humanitarian law.

“But it’s only if we have an investigation, a full and complete investigation, that we’ll be able to get to the bottom of it.”

Israel is yet to commit to an investigation. According to the UN, at least 1,060 healthcare workers have been killed since the start of the conflict.

“Certainly all ambulance workers, all medics, all humanitarian workers inside Gaza right now feel increasingly insecure, increasingly fragile,” Mr Rose says.

One paramedic is still unaccounted for following the 23 March incident.

“They were not just colleagues but friends”, Munther says, nervously running prayer beads through his fingers. “We used to eat, drink, laugh and have jokes together… I consider them my second family.”

“I will expose the crimes committed by the occupation [Israel] against my colleagues. If I was not the only survivor, who could have told the world what they did to our colleagues, and who would have told their story?”

The deaths of a British couple in New Zealand are being investigated as a murder-suicide, police have said.

Police said a man and a woman, who have not been named, were found after officers were asked to conduct a welfare check in Roseneath, a suburb of the capital Wellington, on Monday.

The couple is reported to have moved to New Zealand from the UK late last year.

Det Insp Haley Ryan said police were not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident, but issued an appeal for any information related to the case with them.

The UK Foreign Office said it had not been contacted about the incident.

Police said in a statement that they were “providing support to the family at the centre of this tragic event”.

“The family have requested privacy as they grieve their loss,” they added.

Police said two bodies were found after officers forced entry to a property on Palliser Road, having been asked by a concerned family member that morning to check in on them.

The couple’s neighbour, Emma Prestidge, told public broadcaster Radio New Zealand that they had moved to the area from London.

“My understanding is they’d finally packed up their lives in London, and all their stuff was in a shipping container and they were kind of looking to move here for good,” she said.

“They were in the next phase of their life, I guess, and ready to kind of set themselves up for the next part of their chapter, which is truly sad.”

Police in New Zealand urged anyone with CCTV of the area to get in contact. Det Insp Ryan earlier said the case was being referred to the coroner.

In a statement to the BBC, a Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We have not been approached for consular assistance in this case, but our staff stand ready to support British nationals overseas 24/7.”

The BBC has contacted the New Zealand Coroner’s Office for comment.

The Slovak cabinet has approved a plan to shoot around a quarter of the country’s brown bears, after a man was mauled to death while walking in a forest in Central Slovakia.

Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist-nationalist government announced after a cabinet meeting that 350 out of an estimated population of 1,300 brown bears would be culled, citing the danger to humans after a spate of attacks.

“We can’t live in a country where people are afraid to go into the woods,” the prime minister told reporters afterwards.

A special state of emergency allowing bears to be shot has now been widened to 55 of Slovakia’s 79 districts, an area that now covers most of the country.

The government in Bratislava has already loosened legal protections allowing bears to be killed if they stray too close to human habitation. Some 93 had been shot by the end of 2024.

The plans to shoot even more were condemned by conservationists, who said the decision was in violation of international obligations and could be illegal.

“It’s absurd,” said Michal Wiezek, an ecologist and MEP for opposition party Progressive Slovakia.

“The Environment Ministry failed desperately to limit the number of bear attacks by the unprecedented culling of this protected species,” he told the BBC.

“To cover up their failure, the government has decided to cull even more bears,” he continued.

Wiezek argued that thousands of encounters a year passed without incident, and he hoped the European Commission would intervene.

Slovak police confirmed on Wednesday that a man found dead in forest near the town of Detva in Central Slovakia on Sunday night was killed by a bear. His wounds were consistent with an attack.

The 59-year-old man had been reported missing on Saturday after failing to return from a walk in the woods.

He was found with what authorities described as “devastating injuries to the head”. Evidence of a bear’s den was found nearby, a local NGO told Slovak newspaper Novy Cas.

Bears have become a political issue in Slovakia after a rising number of encounters, including fatal attacks.

In March 2024, a 31-year-old Belarusian woman fell into a ravine and died while being chased by a bear in northern Slovakia.

Several weeks later a large brown bear was captured on video running through the centre of the nearby town of Liptovsky Mikolas in broad daylight, bounding past cars and lunging at people on the pavement.

The authorities later claimed to have hunted down and killed the animal, although conservationists said later there was clear evidence they had shot a different bear.

Environment Minister Tomas Taraba said on Wednesday there were more than 1,300 bears in Slovakia, and that 800 was a “sufficient number”, as the population was growing.

However, experts say the population remains more or less stable at around 1,270 animals.

Bears are common across the Carpathian mountain range, which stretches in an arc from Romania through western Ukraine and on to Slovakia and Poland.

Deadly Israeli air strikes have been reported in Gaza, as Israel’s defence minister said its military would expand its offensive and seize large areas of the Palestinian territory – incorporating them into what he described as “security zones”.

Israel Katz said the expanded operation aimed to “destroy and clear the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure”, and would require a large-scale evacuation of Palestinians.

Later, at least 19 Palestinians, including nine children, were killed in a strike on a UN clinic sheltering displaced families in the northern town of Jabalia, the nearby Indonesian hospital said.

The Israeli military said it targeted “Hamas terrorists” hiding there.

Overnight strikes across Gaza killed at least 20 more people, according to local hospitals.

The Civil Defence said its first responders recovered the bodies of 12 people, including children and women, from a home in the southern Khan Younis area.

Rida al-Jabbour said a neighbour and her three-month-old baby were among the dead.

“From the moment the strike occurred we have not been able to sit or sleep or anything,” she told Reuters news agency.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.

The Civil Defence said the strike in Jabalia later on Wednesday hit two rooms in a clinic run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) which was being used as a shelter.

Video verified by the BBC showed dozens of people and ambulances rushing to the building. Smoke was seen billowing from a wing where two floors appeared to have collapsed.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it targeted Hamas operatives who were “hiding inside a command-and-control centre that was being used for co-ordinating terrorist activity and served as a central meeting point”.

“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of aerial surveillance and additional intelligence,” it added.

A spokeswoman for Unrwa told the Associated Press that one of the agency’s buildings had been hit, but that she had no further details on casualties or what the building was being used as.

There were also reports of extensive Israeli air strikes and shelling along the Egypt border overnight and there is a growing sense that a new major Israeli ground offensive is looming in Gaza.

Israeli Army Radio said on Wednesday that Israeli tanks and ground forces had begun to advance into central and eastern parts of the southernmost city of Rafah.

This week, Israel’s military ordered an estimated 140,000 people in Rafah to leave their homes and issued new evacuation orders for parts of northern Gaza.

Israel has already significantly expanded a buffer zone around the edge of Gaza over the course of the war, and seized control of a corridor of land cutting through its centre.

Israel launched its renewed Gaza offensive on 18 March, blaming Hamas for rejecting a new US proposal to extend the ceasefire and free the 59 hostages still held captive in Gaza.

Hamas, in turn, accused Israel of violating the original deal they had agreed to in January.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel, which represents many hostages’ relatives, said they were “horrified to wake up” to the news of the expanded military operation.

The group urged the Israeli government to prioritise securing the release of all hostages still held in Gaza.

In his statement announcing plans to seize more territory, Katz also urged Gazans to act to remove Hamas and free remaining Israeli hostages, without suggesting how they should do so.

The humanitarian situation across Gaza has dramatically worsened in recent weeks, with Israel refusing to allow aid into the Gaza Strip since 2 March – the longest aid blockage since the war began.

Last month the UN announced it was reducing its operations in Gaza, one day after eight Palestinian medics, six Civil Defence first responders and a UN staff member were killed by Israeli forces in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 50,399 people have been killed in Gaza during the ensuing war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The Environment Agency (EA) has launched a comprehensive review into shipments of waste tyres from the UK to India.

Last week, BBC File on 4 Investigates heard that millions of these tyres – sent for recycling – were actually being “cooked” in makeshift furnaces, causing serious health problems and environmental damage.

The pressure group Fighting Dirty has threatened legal proceedings against the EA over what it called a “lack of action” over the issue of tyre exports.

The EA has asked the group to wait until its own review is complete, and it has also asked File on 4 Investigates to share the evidence from its investigation.

The UK generates about 50 million waste tyres (nearly 700,000 tonnes) every year. According to official figures, about half of these are exported to India, supposedly to be recycled.

But BBC File on 4 Investigates revealed that some 70% of tyres exported to India from the UK and the rest of the world are being sent to makeshift industrial plants, where they are “cooked” in order to extract steel, small amounts of oil as well as carbon black – a powder or pellet that can be used in various industries.

Conditions at these plants – many of which are in rural backwaters – can be toxic and harmful to public health, as well as potentially dangerous.

In January, two women and two children were killed in an explosion at a plant in the western state of Maharashtra, where European-sourced tyres were being processed.

A BBC team visited the site and saw soot, dying vegetation and polluted waterways around. Villagers complained of persistent coughs and eye problems.

Following the broadcast, the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) told BBC File on 4 Investigates that officials and lawyers within the EA were “very keen” to investigate the claims made in the programme, including any potential criminal activity.

In a letter seen by the BBC, lawyers for the EA said that our investigation would be carefully considered as part of a review it has launched into its approach to waste tyre shipments.

They added that the EA has been working to engage the relevant environmental authorities in India on this issue and is taking steps to arrange a delegation to meet with officials later this year.

Fighting Dirty founder Georgia Elliott-Smith, who has been in correspondence with the EA over this issue since 2023, said it was a “major victory” for the group and that “the government must stop turning a blind eye to the illegal and immoral activity”.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

Tesla sales have plummeted to their lowest level in three years after a backlash against its boss Elon Musk.

The electric car maker delivered almost 337,000 electric vehicles in the first three months of 2025, a 13% drop from a year ago.

Tesla shares tumbled in early trading on Wednesday after the release of the unexpectedly low sales numbers.

The cars face increasing competition from Chinese firm BYD, but experts believe Musk’s controversial role in the Trump administration has had an effect too.

The firm has blamed the sales drop on the transition to a new version of its most popular car.

However some analysts have pointed the finger at Musk himself.

“These numbers suck,” early Tesla investor Ross Gerber of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management wrote on X.

“The brand is broken and may not be fixable”, added Mr Gerber, who was once a Musk supporter but has recently called for the board to remove the billionaire as CEO.

There have been protests and boycotts around the world prompted by Musk’s outspoken and controversial political involvement.

He has been heading up President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative to cut federal spending and slash the government workforce.

On Wednesday, Politico reported that Trump had told his inner circle Musk would be stepping back from the administration in the coming weeks.

Shortly after the report was published, Tesla’s share price turned positive.

The White House shot down the report as “garbage”. Because he is considered a special government employee, Musk by law can only serve 130 days in the administration this year, which would put his departure closer to June.

The Tesla boss is the world’s richest man and contributed more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump get elected in November.

In recent weeks, he poured millions into a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, supporting former Republican attorney general Brad Schimel who was soundly defeated on Tuesday.

The backlash against Mr Musk has included “Tesla Takedown” protests at Tesla dealerships across the US and in Europe.

Tesla vehicles have also been vandalised, and Trump has said his administration would charge people who deface Teslas with “domestic terrorism.”

Musk’s stewardship of his businesses, including Tesla, has been called into question.

In an recent interview, he admitted he was running his enterprises “with great difficulty,” adding: “Frankly, I can’t believe I’m here doing this.”

Tesla shares have lost more than a quarter of their value since the beginning of this year, as of 13:51 EDT (18:51 BST) on Wednesday.

“We are not going to look at these numbers with rose colored glasses… they were a disaster on every metric,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note on Wednesday.

“The more political [Musk] gets with DOGE the more the brand suffers, there is no debate.”

Tesla did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment, but said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the numbers released on Wednesday “represent only two measures” of the company’s performance and “should not be relied on as an indicator of quarterly financial results.”

Those results will be made public on April 22 in a full earnings report for the quarter. They will “depend on a variety of factors, including average selling price, cost of sales, foreign exchange movements and others”, Tesla said.

It also noted that it had temporarily suspended production of its Model Y sport utility vehicles in January.

Following the release of Wednesday’s report, Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers, one of the most powerful labour unions in the US, wrote to dozens of public pension funds about the state of Tesla, saying the company’s latest sales numbers were “shaping up to be abysmal”.

She urged them to take close looks at their Tesla holdings and at what their money managers are doing to “safeguard retirement assets”.

“These declines seem in part to be driven by Musk spending his time pursuing political activities, some of which appear to be in conflict with Tesla’s brand and business interests, rather than managing Tesla,” Weingarten wrote.

The comptroller for New York City has already announced he is seeking to sue Tesla on behalf of the city’s massive pension systems, saying on Tuesday they had lost more than $300m in three months from the company’s plummeting stock price.

“Elon Musk is so distracted that he’s driving Tesla off a financial cliff,” said Comptroller Brad Lander in a statement.

China’s military conducted a live-fire exercise in the Taiwan Strait to simulate strikes on key ports and energy facilities, it said on Wednesday.

The exercise, codenamed “Strait Thunder”, is an escalation of military drills China held on Tuesday around Taiwan, the democratic island Beijing claims as its territory.

Taiwan’s presidential office said on Tuesday that it “strongly condemns” the “military provocations”, which have become increasingly routine amid souring cross-strait ties.

The drills come as China sharpened its rhetoric against Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, labelling him a “parasite” and “separatist”. Lai had earlier this month referred to China as a “foreign hostile force”.

The drills were meant to be a “serious warning and powerful containment of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces”, said a statement from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

It also released a series of cartoons depicting Lai as a “parasite” that was “poisoning Taiwan island” and – along with an image of Lai being grilled over a fire – “courting ultimate destruction”.

Another video by the PLA, titled “Subdue demons and vanquish evils”, likened the military’s capabilities to the magical powers of the Monkey King, a mythical Chinese character.

In recent days, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily published a series of op-eds denouncing Lai as a “troublemaker” and “warmonger”.

“Facts have fully proven that Lai Ching-te is a vicious war maker,” read one of the articles published on Wednesday. “Subdue demons and vanquish evils, use force to stop war.”

While the trigger for this week’s drills were not spelled out, Chinese authorities and state media have referenced a slew of policies announced by Lai last month to counter influence and infiltration operations by Beijing – where Lai used the “foreign hostile force” term.

However, the timing of the exercises, coming weeks after Lai’s announcement, suggests that Chinese authorities wanted to wait for the conclusion of meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and international business leaders, along with the annual Boao business summit that wrapped up on 28 March.

They also come with the world’s attention turned elsewhere, as global markets brace for the Trump administration’s latest round of tariffs.

In response to China’s latest military drills, the White House said on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump was “emphasising the importance of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait”. On Wednesday, the US State Department reaffirmed its “enduring commitment” to Taiwan.

During his recent visit to Asia, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth also repeatedly criticised China’s aggression in the region and pledged to provide “robust, ready and credible deterrence”, including in the Taiwan Strait.

However, the PLA seems to be moving towards a situation where such exercises around Taiwan occur regularly rather than in response to any specific perceived provocation.

Some experts see the drills as a dress rehearsal for a possible real blockade in an attempt to overthrow the government in Taipei in the future.

In the words of the Chinese military this week, they serve as a practice run “close in on Taiwan from all directions”.

In addition, analysts believe that Beijing has been increasing the frequency and size of its military exercises as a way of trying to increase pressure on Taiwan’s population to eventually accept an annexation by China as inevitable.

This is despite the fact that opinion polls have routinely shown that the vast majority of Taiwanese people firmly oppose a takeover of their democratically governed island group by China’s Communist Party.

Taiwanese officials have warned that China may stage more military drills later this year, on dates like the anniversary of Lai taking office or Taiwan’s National Day in October.

However, in Taiwan, movements by the PLA can also provide an opportunity.

Each time China conducts such war games, Taiwan’s military chiefs have said that they can study the manoeuvres in order to better prepare their own forces for any real attack.

A federal judge has permanently dismissed the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, weeks after the Trump administration directed prosecutors to drop the corruption charges.

The move led to the resignation of Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor who accused Adams of striking a deal with the Trump administration to dismiss his case in exchange for immigration enforcement.

The Manhattan judge dismissed the case “with prejudice”, which means the Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot refile the charges against Adams based on the same evidence.

Adams was charged with conspiracy, fraud, soliciting illegal campaign contributions, and bribery. He had denied any wrongdoing.

In an indictment last September, Adams was alleged to have accepted gifts totalling more than $100,000 (£75,000) from Turkish citizens in exchange for favours.

But in February, acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove, a Trump appointee, ordered New York prosecutors to drop the case against Adams. He argued the case “restricted” the mayor’s ability to address “illegal immigration and violent crime” – a key goal of the Trump administration.

Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon and six other high-level Justice officials resigned over the order, saying there was no legal justification to dismiss Adams’ case.

Sassoon, in a letter to Bove’s boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleged that the mayor’s team had offered “what amounted to a quid pro quo”, saying Adams would be able to help with administration policies “only if the indictment were dismissed”.

In a scathing 78-page ruling on Wednesday, US District Judge Dale Ho said he was unconvinced by the justice department’s logic that the case against Adams was preventing the mayor from enforcing the administration’s immigration actions.

“Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” he said.

His decision to drop the case permanently, Judge Ho said, ensured that the administration could not use the indictment as “leverage” over Adams or the city of New York.

“Dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents,” the judge wrote.

Judge Ho noted that some people would “undoubtedly” find his ruling unsatisfying, wondering why “if DOJ’s ostensible reasons for dropping this case are so troubling, the Court does not simply deny the Motion to Dismiss altogether”.

But, he repeated, the court cannot order the justice department to continue prosecuting if it has decided to drop the case.

A DOJ spokesperson called the case “an example of political weaponization and a waste of resources”. “We are focused on arresting and prosecuting terrorists while returning the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe,” the spokesperson told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday after the case was dismissed, Adams said the case “should have never been brought and I did nothing wrong”.

The dismissal ruling comes less than three months before the 24 June New York City mayoral race primary. Polls suggest Adams is trailing behind several other Democratic candidates.

But he told reporters that he did plan to run for re-election.

“And you know what, I’m gonna win,” he said.

Male fruit flies that drink alcohol become more attractive to females, according to a new study.

Adding alcohol to males’ food increases their release of chemicals that attract females and leads to higher mating success.

Fruit flies, or Drosophila melanogaster, are often found around our food waste bins as they feed on rotting fruit which gradually produces alcohol.

Scientists have been trying to study why they are attracted to alcohol and how it affects them.

Previous research has studied different theories about this attraction, such as the flies were seeking a euphoric state or a substitute for the high of mating among males rejected by females.

Study author Bill Hansson, head of the Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology at the Max Planck Institute, said such research has taken an anthropomorphic view of fly behaviour, whereas this latest study suggests drinking alcohol gives the flies a reproductive advantage.

“We don’t think flies drink alcohol because they are depressed,” he said.

The fly’s attraction both to the carbohydrates and yeast in rotting fruit, as well as to the alcohol, cannot be separated, he added.

In the study, alcohol, and particularly methanol, increased the males’ production and release of chemical sex signals, called pheromones, which made them more attractive to females.

Pheromones are released into the air from one individual to influence the behaviour of another animal of the same species.

Males were therefore strongly attracted to alcohol, especially those males which had never mated.

The new study also showed that the fly’s response to smelling alcohol is controlled by three different neural circuits in its brain.

While two are responsible for attracting male flies to small amounts of alcohol, a third ensures that excessive amounts have a deterrent effect.

Because alcohol is toxic, the fly’s brain must carefully weigh the risks and benefits of drinking it, and it does this by balancing signals of attraction with aversion.

“This means that the flies have a control mechanism that allows them to get all the benefits of alcohol consumption without risking alcohol intoxication,” lead author Ian Keesey, of the University of Nebraska, said.

For their investigations, the researchers combined physiological studies – such as imaging techniques to visualise processes in the fly brain, chemical analyses of environmental odours, and behavioural studies.

The paper is published in the journal Science Advances.

As the call to prayer rang out in Sagaing last Friday, hundreds of Muslims hurried to the five mosques in the city in central Myanmar.

They were eager to hold their last Friday prayers for Ramadan, just days away from the festive period of Eid that would mark the end of the holy month.

Then, at 12:51 local time (06:21 GMT), a deadly earthquake struck. Three mosques collapsed, including the biggest one, Myoma, killing almost everyone inside.

Hundreds of kilometres away, the former imam of Myoma mosque, Soe Nay Oo, felt the quake in the Thai border town of Mae Sot.

In the following days, he found out that around 170 of his relatives, friends and members of his former congregation had died, mostly in the mosques. Some were leading figures in the city’s close-knit Muslim community.

“I think about all the people who lost their lives, and the victims’ children – some of them are young children,” he told the BBC. “I can’t hold back my tears when I talk about this.”

More than 2,700 people have died in the quake which happened near Sagaing and Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city. The death toll is expected to rise as rescuers continue to pull out bodies from rubble.

• What we know about the earthquake
• Mandalay was the ‘city of gold’ – now it reeks of death
• Heartbroken parents call out children’s names at earthquake-hit pre-school

While the area was known for its ancient Buddhist temples, the cities were also home to a significant Muslim population.

An estimated 500 Muslims died while praying in their mosques, according to figures given by the country’s leader, Min Aung Hlaing, on Monday.

Eyewitnesses in Sagaing have told the BBC that the road where the mosques were, Myoma Street, was the worst hit in the city. Many other houses on the street have also collapsed.

Hundreds of people have sought shelter by the side of the road, either because they are now homeless, or are too afraid to go back to their homes in case there are aftershocks. Food supplies are reported to be scarce.

In Myoma alone, more than 60 people were said to be crushed in the collapse, while scores more died in the Myodaw and Moekya mosques. More bodies were still being pulled out on Tuesday.

There are indications that the worshippers had tried to escape, according to Soe Nay Oo, who has received multiple reports from surviving members of his community.

He currently lives in the Thai city of Mae Sot with his wife and daughter, after escaping from Myanmar soon after a coup that took place in 2021.

There were bodies found outside of the main prayer hall, he said, in the area where worshippers wash themselves. Some were also found clutching other people’s hands, in what looked like attempts to pull them away from the crumbling building.

Among the many loved ones Soe Nay Oo lost was one of his wife’s cousins. Her death, he said, was “the most painful thing that I have endured” in his 13 years as an imam.

“She was the one who showed her love to us the most,” said Soe Nay Oo. “Everyone in the family loved her. The loss is unbearable for us.”

Another of his wife’s cousins, a well-respected businessman who had performed the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, also died.

“He always called me Nyi Lay [‘little brother’ in Burmese]…When I married my wife, he said we are family now and he always treated me like his own little brother,” said Soe Nay Oo.

“He was always there for us whenever we needed him. I have lost those whom I love like brothers like him.”

Some of the close friends who died include Soe Nay Oo’s former assistant imam, whom he remembered for his strong work ethic and remarkable talent in reciting the Quran.

The principal of the local public school, who was also the only female trustee of the Myoma mosque, also died. She was remembered by Soe Nay Oo as a generous soul who would often pay for mosque programmes out of her own pocket.

He said every time he hears of yet another person from the community who died, he experiences a new wave of grief. “I feel devastated… it always comes to my mind, the memories I cherish of them.

“Even though they were not close relatives, they were the ones who always welcomed me, followed my prayers, and who prayed together.”

The fact that they died during Ramadan is not lost on him. “All the departed have returned to Allah’s home, I would say. They will be remembered as martyrs accordingly,” he said.

Like other parts of Myanmar affected by the quake, the community is struggling to deal with the sheer number of bodies.

It has been complicated by ongoing fighting between the military junta and resistance groups. The Muslim cemetery in Sagaing is close to an area controlled by the rebel People’s Defence Forces (PDF), and has been closed to the public for several years. The military has continued to bomb some parts of the wider Sagaing region following the quake.

Sagaing city’s Muslim community has had to move the bodies of their dead to Mandalay, crossing the Irrawaddy River using the sole bridge connecting the two cities, according to Soe Nay Oo.

Their bodies are being left at Mandalay’s biggest mosque for burial. Some have not been buried within 24 hours of their death per Islamic tradition.

“For Muslims, it is the saddest thing, that we cannot bury our families by ourselves at the end of their journey,” he said.

The survivors have been trying to help in the rescue, even as they cope with the trauma. “Some from my community told me to pray for them. To be honest, they couldn’t even describe their loss in words when I speak to them.”

It is hard for Soe Nay Oo to be far from his former congregation. Like many other people from Myanmar who have migrated abroad, he feels survivor’s guilt.

“If I were the imam still, at the time of the quake, I would have gone with them – that I can accept peacefully. If not, at least I could be on the ground to do anything that I can.

“Now I can’t go back. It’s painful to think about it.

Soe Nay Oo began to sob. “This sad and frustrated feeling I have right now, I have never felt this way before in my life. I am the kind of man who would hardly cry.

He adds that he has not been able to sleep for days. His worry has been magnified by the fact he has yet to hear from some family members, including his own siblings who were in Mandalay.

Soe Nay Oo has paused his work for a human rights group in Thailand and is currently helping to coordinate rescue efforts in Sagaing – sharing any information he can get from his contacts in the city.

At least 1,000 Muslims in the area have been affected who still need assistance, he estimates.

“I feel relief only whenever somebody on the ground asks for help, and I can help them.”

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.

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
• Watch: Moment Bangkok high-rise under construction collapses
• Eyewitnesses describe horror in quake’s aftermath
• In pictures: Damaged buildings and buckled roads

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.

Val Kilmer, who has died at the age of 65, was often underrated as an actor.

He had extraordinary range: excelling in comedies, westerns, crime dramas, musical biopics and action-adventures films alike.

And perhaps his best performance combined his skills as a stage actor with a fine singing voice, to bring to life 1960s-counterculture icon Jim Morrison, in Oliver Stone’s film The Doors.

Critic Roger Ebert wrote: “If there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Val Kilmer should get it.

“In movies as different as Real Genius, Top Gun, Top Secret!, he has shown a range of characters so convincing that it’s likely most people, even now, don’t realise they were looking at the same actor.”

• Top Gun and Batman actor dies aged 65
• Look back at Val Kilmer’s best-known roles

Val Edward Kilmer was born, on 31 December 1959, into a middle-class family in Los Angeles.

His parents were Christian Scientists, a movement to which Kilmer would adhere for the rest of his life.

He attended Chatsworth High School, in the San Fernando Valley, where future actor Kevin Spacey was among his classmates and where he developed a love of drama.

Kilmer’s ambition was to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada), in London, but his application was rejected because, at 17, he was a year below the minimum entry age.

Instead, Kilmer became the then youngest pupil to enrol at the Julliard School, in New York, one of the world’s most prestigious drama conservatories.

A gifted student, Kilmer co-wrote and made his stage debut in How It All Began, a play based on the life of a German radical, at the Public Theatre.

But he recalled a tough regime.

“I had a mean teacher once, who kind of said, ‘How dare you think you can act Shakespeare? You don’t know how to walk across the room yet,’… and in a way, that’s true,” Kilmer said.

Minor parts, including in Henry IV Part 1 and As You Like It, preceded a meatier role as Alan Downie in the 1983 production of Slab Boys, with Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon.

Kilmer made his film debut in spy spoof Top Secret!, written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker. He played star Nick Rivers, sucked into an East German plot to reunify Germany.

The film proved Kilmer had a good voice and he later released an album under the name of his fictional character.

He also published a book of poetry, My Edens After Burns, some of which reflected on a relationship with a young Michelle Pfeiffer.

Two years later, Kilmer played Lt Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Tom Cruise’s deadly fighter pilot rival in Top Gun.

A thrilling patriotic Cold War buddy movie, it cost just $15m (£12m) to make but took more than $350m at the box office.

Kilmer’s increased profile led to renewed press interest in his eventful private life.

He dated Daryl Hannah, Angelina Jolie and Cher. In 1988, he married Joanne Whalley, whom he had met when they appeared in the fantasy film Willow,

The couple had two children but divorced after eight years of marriage.

Despite his rising popularity in the cinema, Kilmer did not abandon the stage, playing Hamlet at the 1988 Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and then Giovanni in a New York production of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore.

But in the 1990s, he proved he could carry a major film as a lead actor.

Director Stone had long wanted to make a biopic of The Doors, focusing on the band’s singer, who had died of a drugs overdose in Paris in 1971.

A number of actors were considered, including John Travolta and Richard Gere, before Stone chose Kilmer because of his physical resemblance to Morrison and strong singing voice.

In his trademark single-minded approach, Kilmer lost weight and learned 50 Doors songs by heart, as well as spending time in a studio perfecting Morrison’s stage style.

And in his 1996 biography of Oliver Stone, James Riordan said the surviving Doors could not tell recordings of Kilmer singing their songs from Morrison’s original.

Kilmer also played Elvis Presley in Tony Scott’s True Romance, written by Quentin Tarantino, and sickly alcoholic gambler and dentist Doc Holliday in the 1993 film Tombstone – a retelling of the story of Wyatt Earp’s gunfight at the OK Corral, which some critics called his finest performance.

In 1995, Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton in the third of a trilogy of Batman films, Batman Forever.

But he later said he had been uncomfortable with the role and declined to play it in the follow-up, Batman and Robin.

Kilmer’s reputation for being difficult on set had reportedly exploded into open warfare with the director, Joel Schumacher, normally the most temperate of men, who called his leading man’s behaviour “difficult and childish”.

John Frankenheimer, who directed Kilmer in The Island of Dr Moreau, was even blunter.

“I don’t like Val Kilmer,” he said. “I don’t like his work ethic and I don’t want to be associated with him ever again.”

The actor responded: “When certain people criticise me for being demanding, I think that’s a cover for something they didn’t do well. I think they’re trying to protect themselves.

“I believe I’m challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that,” he told the Orange County Register newspaper in 2003.

Kilmer remained much in demand and reportedly received $6m for his role as Simon Templar in the 1997 film The Saint – although, critics were not overwhelmed by the film or his performance.

In the early 2000s, there was no shortage of film appearances – but Kilmer’s cinema career had hit a plateau.

In 2004, he returned to the theatre, in a musical production of The Ten Commandments, in Los Angeles.

A year later, Kilmer starred in London’s West End, in Andrew Rattenbury’s adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice – as Frank Chambers, the drifter played by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film.

And in 2006, he reunited with director Scott, for sci-fi film Deja Vu, which received a mixed response.

Kilmer also voiced Kitt – the futuristic car – in a pilot for television series Nightrider.

He spent years working on a one-man show, Citizen Twain, which examined the relationship between Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy and her long-term critic writer Mark Twain.

A 90-minute film was eventually released, directed by Kilmer.

In 2014, Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer.

Chemotherapy and radiation left him with a tube in his trachea and difficulty breathing.

As a Christian Scientist, Kilmer had mixed views about seeking medical interventions and at times ascribed physical improvements to the power of prayer rather than medicine. On occasion, he denied he had cancer at all.

In 2021, Kilmer made Val, a documentary about his life.

It delved into his darkest places and experiences, including his brother Wesley’s accidental drowning as a teenager and the breakdown of his marriage.

A year later, there was time for a final starring role.

Planned for a decade, Top Gun: Maverick reunited Kilmer and Cruise, updating their former rivalry in the post-Cold War era.

Kilmer’s cancer could not be hidden. Instead, it was written into his character’s story.

“It’s time to let go,” Iceman tells Maverick in one poignant scene.

Kilmer will be remembered as a complicated man and a fine but difficult actor.

He never embraced the kind of Hollywood party lifestyle his looks and fame might have brought him.

Instead, he tended to slip away to spend time with his children, on a ranch he owned in New Mexico.

“I don’t really have too much of a notion about success or popularity, ” Kilmer once said.

“I never cultivated fame, I never cultivated a persona, except possibly the desire to be regarded as an actor.”

A British couple who face being deported from Australia after one of them was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) have said it is not fair the life they built could be taken away “any minute”.

Jessica Mathers was told the potential cost to health services of treating her condition meant her 2023 application for permanent residency alongside boyfriend Rob O’Leary was rejected.

The 30-year-old, a project manager and DJ from Macclesfield who has lived in Sydney since 2017, said the couple had been “living in a state of uncertainty” for years as they waited for an outcome of an appeal against the decision.

The Australian Department of Home Affairs said it cannot comment on individual cases.

Ms Mathers and Mr O’Leary, 31, from East London, met while backpacking in the country in 2017 and have lived there ever since.

He started a business in the carpentry and construction trade three years ago, and said the couple had “made the most of our lives here”.

But Ms Mathers’s diagnosis of the relapsing-remitting variant of MS in 2020 has led to a visa battle with authorities that could see the pair thrown out of the country.

Symptoms are typically mild for this form of MS, according to the NHS, but about half of cases can develop into a more progressive form of the disease.

She has received treatment in Australia under a reciprocal health agreement with the UK and said her condition had been “well managed” so far.

But the couple’s requests for permanent residency were rejected in 2023 due to the costs associated with her medical care.

Non-citizens entering Australia must meet certain health requirements, including not having “unduly increasing costs” for the country’s publicly-funded healthcare service Medicare.

The couple lodged an appeal with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal after the visa rejection in 2023, and have been waiting for the past two years for an outcome.

Mr O’Leary said they had offered to pay the medical costs themselves or take out private insurance, “but the law is black and white, and the refusal is based on that, it’s really hard for us”.

They have started an online petition to call for Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs to review their case and look into immigration policies that “unfairly target individuals with well-managed health conditions”.

Mr O’Leary said the couple were “not asking for special treatment” but a chance to continue “working hard to contribute to this country in meaningful ways”.

He said: “We’ve always paid tax, we’ve always worked, Jess has done heaps of charity work.”

Ms Mathers said the couple had been “stuck not knowing what to do” as they waited for the outcome of their appeal, which had made it difficult for her to find anything other than temporary work.

She said: “It’s held up our whole life, it’s really upsetting.

“We know that we could get a refusal from the tribunal and then get given 28 days to leave the country, at any minute.

“We’ve got so much opportunity in Australia, and to walk away from it would be so sad.”

On Tuesday morning, Rajesh Nayak stepped outside the firecracker warehouse in India’s Gujarat state where he worked to drink water.

Some moments later, an explosion ripped through the building, killing 21 people, including Mr Nayak’s brother.

“Some of my other relatives have also died. I had come to work here only from Sunday,” a distraught Nayak, who is in hospital with minor injuries, said.

Most of the victims were from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh state and had recently come to work at the warehouse, located in an industrial estate in Banaskantha district in Gujarat.

Their families lived in huts close to the building and some of them were also killed from the force of the explosion. Banaskantha District Collector Mihir Patel told BBC Gujarati that the victims included four women and three children.

It’s not clear yet what caused the explosion, but officials are investigating if firecrackers were being manufactured illegally at the warehouse.

“Primary information has been received that the explosion took place when firecrackers were being made here,” said Mr Patel, the collector.

India has strict rules around firecracker production but these are often not enforced strongly on the ground. Accidents are regularly reported, especially at illegal factories.

The incident in Gujarat came a day after eight people were killed in an explosion at an illegal firecracker factory hundreds of miles away in West Bengal state.

Police in Gujarat have arrested two men, owners of the warehouse, in connection with the explosion and are searching for one more person. A special investigation team has been set up to look into the incident.

Banaskantha district police chief Akshay Raj Makwana said a preliminary investigation showed that aluminium powder was stored in the building.

“This powder is non-explosive but flammable and easily available in the market. We are investigating the supply chain and how the accused sourced such material,” said Mr Makwana.

Mr Patel told reporters that the building had been registered as a warehouse for storing firecrackers, but its licence had expired in December. When a team went to inspect the area in March, he said, the building was empty.

When BBC Gujarati reached the area on Tuesday, the air smelt strongly of sulphur.

The explosion caused extensive damage, destroying the warehouse and a wall of the adjacent factory. Large concrete slabs were thrown up to 300ft away.

Mr Makwana, the police chief, said a slab in the building collapsed, trapping workers underneath.

The powerful blast also destroyed surrounding huts and killed some family members of the workers.

A sanitation worker told BBC Gujarati that he carried out four bodies on stretchers from the site. “My heart sank when I saw a child’s body,” he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is from Gujarat, has expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and announced financial assistance.

As the call to prayer rang out in Sagaing last Friday, hundreds of Muslims hurried to the five mosques in the city in central Myanmar.

They were eager to hold their last Friday prayers for Ramadan, just days away from the festive period of Eid that would mark the end of the holy month.

Then, at 12:51 local time (06:21 GMT), a deadly earthquake struck. Three mosques collapsed, including the biggest one, Myoma, killing almost everyone inside.

Hundreds of kilometres away, the former imam of Myoma mosque, Soe Nay Oo, felt the quake in the Thai border town of Mae Sot.

In the following days, he found out that around 170 of his relatives, friends and members of his former congregation had died, mostly in the mosques. Some were leading figures in the city’s close-knit Muslim community.

“I think about all the people who lost their lives, and the victims’ children – some of them are young children,” he told the BBC. “I can’t hold back my tears when I talk about this.”

More than 2,700 people have died in the quake which happened near Sagaing and Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city. The death toll is expected to rise as rescuers continue to pull out bodies from rubble.

• What we know about the earthquake
• Mandalay was the ‘city of gold’ – now it reeks of death
• Heartbroken parents call out children’s names at earthquake-hit pre-school

While the area was known for its ancient Buddhist temples, the cities were also home to a significant Muslim population.

An estimated 500 Muslims died while praying in their mosques, according to figures given by the country’s leader, Min Aung Hlaing, on Monday.

Eyewitnesses in Sagaing have told the BBC that the road where the mosques were, Myoma Street, was the worst hit in the city. Many other houses on the street have also collapsed.

Hundreds of people have sought shelter by the side of the road, either because they are now homeless, or are too afraid to go back to their homes in case there are aftershocks. Food supplies are reported to be scarce.

In Myoma alone, more than 60 people were said to be crushed in the collapse, while scores more died in the Myodaw and Moekya mosques. More bodies were still being pulled out on Tuesday.

There are indications that the worshippers had tried to escape, according to Soe Nay Oo, who has received multiple reports from surviving members of his community.

He currently lives in the Thai city of Mae Sot with his wife and daughter, after escaping from Myanmar soon after a coup that took place in 2021.

There were bodies found outside of the main prayer hall, he said, in the area where worshippers wash themselves. Some were also found clutching other people’s hands, in what looked like attempts to pull them away from the crumbling building.

Among the many loved ones Soe Nay Oo lost was one of his wife’s cousins. Her death, he said, was “the most painful thing that I have endured” in his 13 years as an imam.

“She was the one who showed her love to us the most,” said Soe Nay Oo. “Everyone in the family loved her. The loss is unbearable for us.”

Another of his wife’s cousins, a well-respected businessman who had performed the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, also died.

“He always called me Nyi Lay [‘little brother’ in Burmese]…When I married my wife, he said we are family now and he always treated me like his own little brother,” said Soe Nay Oo.

“He was always there for us whenever we needed him. I have lost those whom I love like brothers like him.”

Some of the close friends who died include Soe Nay Oo’s former assistant imam, whom he remembered for his strong work ethic and remarkable talent in reciting the Quran.

The principal of the local public school, who was also the only female trustee of the Myoma mosque, also died. She was remembered by Soe Nay Oo as a generous soul who would often pay for mosque programmes out of her own pocket.

He said every time he hears of yet another person from the community who died, he experiences a new wave of grief. “I feel devastated… it always comes to my mind, the memories I cherish of them.

“Even though they were not close relatives, they were the ones who always welcomed me, followed my prayers, and who prayed together.”

The fact that they died during Ramadan is not lost on him. “All the departed have returned to Allah’s home, I would say. They will be remembered as martyrs accordingly,” he said.

Like other parts of Myanmar affected by the quake, the community is struggling to deal with the sheer number of bodies.

It has been complicated by ongoing fighting between the military junta and resistance groups. The Muslim cemetery in Sagaing is close to an area controlled by the rebel People’s Defence Forces (PDF), and has been closed to the public for several years. The military has continued to bomb some parts of the wider Sagaing region following the quake.

Sagaing city’s Muslim community has had to move the bodies of their dead to Mandalay, crossing the Irrawaddy River using the sole bridge connecting the two cities, according to Soe Nay Oo.

Their bodies are being left at Mandalay’s biggest mosque for burial. Some have not been buried within 24 hours of their death per Islamic tradition.

“For Muslims, it is the saddest thing, that we cannot bury our families by ourselves at the end of their journey,” he said.

The survivors have been trying to help in the rescue, even as they cope with the trauma. “Some from my community told me to pray for them. To be honest, they couldn’t even describe their loss in words when I speak to them.”

It is hard for Soe Nay Oo to be far from his former congregation. Like many other people from Myanmar who have migrated abroad, he feels survivor’s guilt.

“If I were the imam still, at the time of the quake, I would have gone with them – that I can accept peacefully. If not, at least I could be on the ground to do anything that I can.

“Now I can’t go back. It’s painful to think about it.

Soe Nay Oo began to sob. “This sad and frustrated feeling I have right now, I have never felt this way before in my life. I am the kind of man who would hardly cry.

He adds that he has not been able to sleep for days. His worry has been magnified by the fact he has yet to hear from some family members, including his own siblings who were in Mandalay.

Soe Nay Oo has paused his work for a human rights group in Thailand and is currently helping to coordinate rescue efforts in Sagaing – sharing any information he can get from his contacts in the city.

At least 1,000 Muslims in the area have been affected who still need assistance, he estimates.

“I feel relief only whenever somebody on the ground asks for help, and I can help them.”

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 US has been unable to meaningfully respond to the Myanmar earthquake due to the Trump administration’s decision to slash foreign aid, according to three former senior US officials.

One former US Agency for International Development (USAID) mission director for Myanmar told the BBC that “America has been on the sidelines” after the disaster.

“The US basically was not there for the rescue-window period,” said another official. All three suggested the deep cuts to aid probably cost lives.

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck on Friday, leaving at least 2,700 people dead, more than 4,500 injured and hundreds still missing, according to the country’s military. Those figures are expected to rise.

The former USAID officials said the agency mobilised Disaster Assistance Response Teams (Darts) from the US after previous major earthquakes. Comprised of highly trained rescuers, sniffer dogs and specialist equipment, the teams are immediately made ready then dispatched when the affected country requests them.

A typical deployment, like that sent to the Turkey-Syria earthquake in 2023, could comprise some 200 people – the majority of them rescue workers. US teams are often the biggest of all foreign assistance groups on the ground.

The US Department of State said on Monday a US team based in the region was on its way to Myanmar. It is believed to comprise three people who are advisers, not rescuers.

The state department also said it was donating $2m (£1.6m) to humanitarian assistance organisations to support earthquake-affected communities. This figure is significantly smaller than previous US government donations during disasters, according to the former officials.

President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk is finalising the shutdown of USAID after weeks spent dismantling the agency and placing staff on administrative leave. Trump targeted foreign assistance on his first day in office, calling it an “industry” that was in many cases “antithetical to American values”.

• What is USAID and why is Trump poised to ‘close it down’?
• More than 80% of USAID programmes ‘officially ending’

On Friday, after the earthquake struck, the White House attempted to mobilise a Dart team, according to Andrew Natsios, who served as USAID administrator in George W Bush’s administration. But, he said, it couldn’t because key officials were on administrative leave.

“The problem is they fired most of the 500 people that make up the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, so obviously there are no people [from the bureau] to be on the Dart team to be sent – and the people have to be trained and be familiar with disaster relief operations,” he said.

Staff at the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance received letters of termination the day the earthquake struck, said Chris Milligan, who served as USAID Mission Director in Myanmar from 2012 to 2016.

“The employees… were told to go home by one o’clock. Everyone was told. All employees in that building were told to go home at one o’clock, and then they were told later to come back,” said Mr Milligan.

“It shows the lack of management and the confusion that there was an earthquake earlier, and they didn’t have the foresight to say ‘Okay, let’s retain these people’.”

Two of the former USAID officials said the administration couldn’t deploy US search and rescue teams, sniffer dogs and specialist equipment to Myanmar because logistics contracts to transport them from Virginia and California had been cancelled as part of the cuts, led by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

“It is the first time that I can think of that the US has simply not responded meaningfully to a major disaster,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who ran the USAID Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) from 2013 to 2016.

He said for the last few decades, with every disaster on this scale, the US would be the largest and most capable team on the ground.

“You’ve got 75 to 100 people, the dogs and it’s a pretty substantial lift [which] you’ve got to get there, operating and excavating piles, within the first really four days.”

“The US basically was not there for the rescue window, period. And it’s too late,” said Mr Konyndyk.

It’s unlikely the agency could reactivate logistics contracts in time for a Dart team to Myanmar in time to save lives, he said. “If you wanted to issue new ones, the people who could issue new contracts and do the tenders for that, they’ve all been fired,” explained Mr Konyndak.

The US state department rejects the notion that the cuts have impacted disaster relief in Myanmar.

The department had partners it worked with “that may not require us to be physically present”, spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said on Monday.

“With the reform that the government is going through with the lead of President Trump… certain things won’t necessarily look the same. But the success in the work and our impact will still be there,” she said.

• ‘I feel guilty for not being in Myanmar – our people need us the most now’
• The man mourning 170 loved ones lost in Myanmar’s earthquake
• ‘We still have hope’: Searching for quake survivors in Mandalay
• Teacher captures aftermath of Myanmar earthquake

However, Mr Konyndyk described the claim as “fantasy land”.

“You can’t pull people out of a building virtually, you can’t excavate, you can’t do live rescues from a collapsed building without boots on the ground,” he said.

Chris Milligan, the former USAID mission director for Myanmar, said the rescue capacity available in the United States would double the capacity already on the ground in Myanmar.

“This is the new normal. This is what it looks like when the United States sits on the international sidelines, when the United States is a weaker international player, when it cedes the space to other global players like China,” said Mr Milligan.

The state department told the BBC it did not intend to deploy a Dart team to Myanmar, adding it was continuing many existing lifesaving programs and strategic investments that “strengthen our partners and our own country”.

A state department spokesperson said: “USAID has contracts in place with Urban Search and Rescue Teams to assist in responding to disasters.”

“[A] USAID team of humanitarian experts based in the region are traveling to Burma to assess additional needs,” the spokesperson continued.

“A Dart is essentially a coordination mechanism. We are able to coordinate with our partners for this specific response without a Dart. Every response is different,” added the spokesperson.

Stewards are to be stationed next to a statue of Molly Malone in Dublin to discourage people from touching it.

Dublin City Council is running a pilot scheme for a week in May after complaints of people groping the sculpture’s breasts.

The council also said it has plans to re-patinate (re-cover) parts of the statue that have become discoloured by people touching it.

“Dublin City Council do not want anyone to touch any work of art whether indoors or outdoors to avoid damage and costly repairs,” a spokesperson said.

“The low plinth height and space around the statue allows crowds to congregate easily and the Molly Malone statue is a feature of tours given by tour guides.”

The council said other potential options to stop people touching the statue such as moving it or raising the plinth that it sits on are “under review”.

However, it said that these options would be “costly”, adding that placing a railing around the artwork “may increase risk”.

“A pilot week of stewarding will occur in May to begin educating those who are interacting with the statue and requesting they do not touch the statue or step on the plinth and discussing the reasons for not doing so,” the council statement said.

Tilly Cripwell, a student who has campaigned for the statue to be treated with more respect, criticised the idea of stewards as “short sighted and quite short term”.

However, she welcomed the planned restoration work as an “important advancement”.

She told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that she hoped behaviours would change “and if not [the statue should] potentially raised on a plinth”.

She also called for a plaque to be installed to explain the legacy of Molly Malone.

The Molly Malone statue was erected 37 years ago in tribute to a legendary Dublin woman who sold shellfish in the streets of the Irish capital.

It is not clear if the character is based on a real or fictional person, but the figure of Molly Malone has come to represent part of Dublin’s working class community.

She was also the subject of a traditional folk song, which tells the story of a fishmongers’ daughter who sold cockles and mussels from a wheelbarrow.

According to the colourful lyrics, Molly died of a fever but then returned as a ghost, still wheeling her wheelbarrow through the city’s streets.

Many public artworks in Dublin are popularly referred to by rhyming nicknames and for years, the Molly Malone statue was known as “the tart with the cart”.

This name was in part due to suggestions that Molly Malone worked as a fishmonger by day and as a sex worker by night.

The statue was first erected in Dublin’s Grafton Street in 1988, created by the renowned bronze sculptor, Jeanne Rynhart.

It was later moved to nearby St Andrews’ Street to accommodate the construction of a tram line.

China’s military conducted a live-fire exercise in the Taiwan Strait to simulate strikes on key ports and energy facilities, it said on Wednesday.

The exercise, codenamed “Strait Thunder”, is an escalation of military drills China held on Tuesday around Taiwan, the democratic island Beijing claims as its territory.

Taiwan’s presidential office said on Tuesday that it “strongly condemns” the “military provocations”, which have become increasingly routine amid souring cross-strait ties.

The drills come as China sharpened its rhetoric against Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, labelling him a “parasite” and “separatist”. Lai had earlier this month referred to China as a “foreign hostile force”.

The drills were meant to be a “serious warning and powerful containment of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces”, said a statement from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

It also released a series of cartoons depicting Lai as a “parasite” that was “poisoning Taiwan island” and – along with an image of Lai being grilled over a fire – “courting ultimate destruction”.

Another video by the PLA, titled “Subdue demons and vanquish evils”, likened the military’s capabilities to the magical powers of the Monkey King, a mythical Chinese character.

In recent days, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily published a series of op-eds denouncing Lai as a “troublemaker” and “warmonger”.

“Facts have fully proven that Lai Ching-te is a vicious war maker,” read one of the articles published on Wednesday. “Subdue demons and vanquish evils, use force to stop war.”

While the trigger for this week’s drills were not spelled out, Chinese authorities and state media have referenced a slew of policies announced by Lai last month to counter influence and infiltration operations by Beijing – where Lai used the “foreign hostile force” term.

However, the timing of the exercises, coming weeks after Lai’s announcement, suggests that Chinese authorities wanted to wait for the conclusion of meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and international business leaders, along with the annual Boao business summit that wrapped up on 28 March.

They also come with the world’s attention turned elsewhere, as global markets brace for the Trump administration’s latest round of tariffs.

In response to China’s latest military drills, the White House said on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump was “emphasising the importance of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait”. On Wednesday, the US State Department reaffirmed its “enduring commitment” to Taiwan.

During his recent visit to Asia, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth also repeatedly criticised China’s aggression in the region and pledged to provide “robust, ready and credible deterrence”, including in the Taiwan Strait.

However, the PLA seems to be moving towards a situation where such exercises around Taiwan occur regularly rather than in response to any specific perceived provocation.

Some experts see the drills as a dress rehearsal for a possible real blockade in an attempt to overthrow the government in Taipei in the future.

In the words of the Chinese military this week, they serve as a practice run “close in on Taiwan from all directions”.

In addition, analysts believe that Beijing has been increasing the frequency and size of its military exercises as a way of trying to increase pressure on Taiwan’s population to eventually accept an annexation by China as inevitable.

This is despite the fact that opinion polls have routinely shown that the vast majority of Taiwanese people firmly oppose a takeover of their democratically governed island group by China’s Communist Party.

Taiwanese officials have warned that China may stage more military drills later this year, on dates like the anniversary of Lai taking office or Taiwan’s National Day in October.

However, in Taiwan, movements by the PLA can also provide an opportunity.

Each time China conducts such war games, Taiwan’s military chiefs have said that they can study the manoeuvres in order to better prepare their own forces for any real attack.

After spending eight years in jail, a Nigerian televangelist accused of raping young women from his South African church has been found not guilty of all charges.

Timothy Omotoso had denied the 32 charges in a trial that was broadcast live and gained huge interest across the country.

In 2018, one witness told the court she had been raped by the pastor – who ran a church in the city of Port Elizabeth – when she was 14 years old.

When delivering the verdict on Wednesday, the judge presiding over the trial said that Mr Omotoso had been found not guilty because prosecutors had mishandled the case.

South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) shared a similar assessment, saying that “former prosecutors in the case acted improperly and the accused were not sufficiently cross-examined by the state”.

The NPA said it would now “consider its legal options” and that the drawn-out nature of the trial was partly down to Mr Omotoso filing numerous legal challenges.

For his part, Mr Omotoso told the media he thanked God for the verdict.

Hi co-accused, Lusanda Sulani and Zikiswa Sitho, were also found not guilty.

Mr Omotoso was dramatically arrested at an airport in 2017 as he sought to leave the country.

His trial was the first prominent rape case to be broadcast live in a country where sexual violence is rampant.

The hearings attracted huge interest, and raised difficult questions about victims’ rights, impartiality and whether justice is best served by having television cameras in courtrooms.

Following Wednesday’s verdict, Mr Omotoso will be deported to Nigeria, South African media outlet News24 reported.

• South Africa shocked by live rape trial of Timothy Omotoso
• Sexual violence in South Africa: ‘I was raped, now I fear for my daughters’
• The volunteer crime fighters using whistles, whips and guns

A developer behind titles in the Call of Duty (CoD) series has defended the effect of video games on young men.

Pete Actipis says makers like him are “not here to dictate anything other than an outlet for enjoyment and entertainment for a player”.

It follows criticism by former England manager Sir Gareth Southgate, who said he feared young men were “falling into unhealthy alternatives like gaming”.

“Every person can determine what’s right for their situation, for their family,” Pete tells BBC Newsbeat.

“You can look at anything and say it’s a problem,” adds Pete, whose work as designer includes CoD titles such as last year’s Black Ops 6.

“It’s just really about how you use the medium.”

Sir Gareth referenced “gaming, gambling and pornography” when discussing young men in the UK during a speech at the BBC’s annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture in March.

And the subject has since been brought into even sharper focus by hit Netflix drama Adolescence.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described the series, which tells the story of a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a girl from his class, as “really hard to watch”.

CoD designer Pete feels gaming isn’t any more responsible for negatively influencing young players than any of their other interests.

“Gaming has its place with everything else,” he says.

“It depends what you’re looking for and how you handle the moderation of that, how you handle what it means to your life.

“It’s kind of a personal journey from there.”

He also denied the CoD series has a responsibility to educate younger gamers about violence.

Its latest title was rated as suitable for players aged 18 and above by PEGI, which sets age recommendations for games in Europe.

CoD player Rhys tells Newsbeat that while he accepts abusive behaviour can take place, he believes playing games doesn’t necessarily have a negative influence on male players.

“People look at someone playing games for eight hours and think ‘he’s not really doing much’.

“But he might be preparing for a tournament.

“That could be worth a month’s salary, sometimes a yearly salary for some people.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” he says.

Gamer Abi, who plays and streams as AbiCoops, has mixed feelings about her gaming experiences.

“I had a stalker,” she says.

“I’d block his account, he’d make new accounts and actually re-bought the game [CoD] to constantly try and find me in it.”

Abi adds she’s had “derogatory things” said to her by other male players.

“About sexual assault, about rape, the stereotypical ‘go back to the kitchen’.

“It really messes with your mental health.

“We’ll be fat-shamed, bullied about our appearance, bullied about whether you’re in a relationship.

“They will nit-pick everything about you just to get to you but women do it to women as well,” she says.

Despite the abuse and harassment, Abi says she won’t “back down to it” because of the positive impact gaming has had on her life.

“I met all of my friends online.

“I’ve made friendships, it’s brought my family closer together, I met my partner through gaming.”

And CoD developer Pete Actipis claims its positive impact on players hit new heights during Covid lockdowns.

“People were stuck in their house,” he says.

“[The game] was actually a very social experience. A lot of memories were formed, a lot of friendships were formed, online.”

That period in the series’ history is virtually bringing players together again in 2025.

An update to Call of Duty: Warzone has revived a fan favourite – a map called Verdansk, based in Ukraine, where people around the world can play each other online.

For Rhys, it brings back memories of bonding with other players during the UK’s tightest Covid restrictions.

“It gave [players] the opportunity to just get to know each other,” Rhys says.

“I built bonds with people I now class as really good friends.

“It’s a really bizarre and amazing experience.”

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

A British Sikh who has been imprisoned in India on terror charges for more than seven years has now been moved into solitary confinement, according to his brother and a human rights group.

Jagtar Singh Johal from Dumbarton was detained on a trip to Punjab a few weeks after his wedding in 2017 accused of being a part of a series of targeted killings of religious and political figures.

A series of nine criminal cases were launched against him in Punjab and in Delhi, but last month he was acquitted in the first of those.

His family and lawyers have always insisted that the evidence against him is almost entirely based on a confession given under severe duress.

Jagtar Singh Johal’s brother, Gurpreet Singh Johal, told an All Party Parliamentary Group on arbitrary detention on Wednesday that his brother’s conditions had worsened since his acquittal in the first case and that the family had been disappointed with a lack of urgency shown by the UK government.

Mr Johal said: “Jagtar’s conditions in prison have deteriorated. He’s had his basic privileges taken away and he’s isolated in a cell on his own, not allowed to speak to other prisoners.

“As a result he’s feeling mentally tortured.”

Mr Johal told the BBC that although his brother has been held in solitary confinement for periods in the past, the conditions in which he is being currently held are the most harsh he has faced for years.

He added that 4 March had been a joyful day for his family because of Jagtar’s acquittal in the first case. They hoped that the other cases would also collapse because they are based on the same evidence.

Mr Johal said the British government had failed to seize an opportunity to act to call for his acquittal on all other charges and for his release.

He continued: “The Foreign Secretary has offered us a meeting, but that offer is for a meeting in seven to eight weeks’ time. We believe that the meeting should be taking place a lot quicker than that.

“As it stands, we don’t see the urgency, and we need to see the action from the government.”

Human Rights charity Reprieve said now was the moment to secure Jaghtar’s release.

Deputy executive director Dan Dolan said: “It’s time for the British government to capitalise on that moment and say ‘we need to bring him home now’ and that is no disrespect to the Indian system, which recognises this principle. An Indian court has found Jagtar not guilty.

“Under the current government, the political leadership’s mood music has changed at least. We don’t hear so much talk of due process these days.

“But the proof is in the pudding, and we will need to see if that position has changes substantively as well as rhetorically.”

A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson said: “The UK government remains committed to working for faster progress on Jagtar’s case, and the FCDO continue to work to support Mr Johal and his family.

“The Foreign Secretary has offered to meet Mr Johal’s brother and representatives from Reprieve again to discuss Mr Johal’s case.”

The Indian High Commission (IHC) have been approached for comment. It has always denied poor treatment of Jagtar Singh Johal.

Tesla sales have plummeted to their lowest level in three years after a backlash against its boss Elon Musk.

The electric car maker delivered almost 337,000 electric vehicles in the first three months of 2025, a 13% drop from a year ago.

Tesla shares tumbled in early trading on Wednesday after the release of the unexpectedly low sales numbers.

The cars face increasing competition from Chinese firm BYD, but experts believe Musk’s controversial role in the Trump administration has had an effect too.

The firm has blamed the sales drop on the transition to a new version of its most popular car.

However some analysts have pointed the finger at Musk himself.

“These numbers suck,” early Tesla investor Ross Gerber of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management wrote on X.

“The brand is broken and may not be fixable”, added Mr Gerber, who was once a Musk supporter but has recently called for the board to remove the billionaire as CEO.

There have been protests and boycotts around the world prompted by Musk’s outspoken and controversial political involvement.

He has been heading up President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative to cut federal spending and slash the government workforce.

On Wednesday, Politico reported that Trump had told his inner circle Musk would be stepping back from the administration in the coming weeks.

Shortly after the report was published, Tesla’s share price turned positive.

The White House shot down the report as “garbage”. Because he is considered a special government employee, Musk by law can only serve 130 days in the administration this year, which would put his departure closer to June.

The Tesla boss is the world’s richest man and contributed more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump get elected in November.

In recent weeks, he poured millions into a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, supporting former Republican attorney general Brad Schimel who was soundly defeated on Tuesday.

The backlash against Mr Musk has included “Tesla Takedown” protests at Tesla dealerships across the US and in Europe.

Tesla vehicles have also been vandalised, and Trump has said his administration would charge people who deface Teslas with “domestic terrorism.”

Musk’s stewardship of his businesses, including Tesla, has been called into question.

In an recent interview, he admitted he was running his enterprises “with great difficulty,” adding: “Frankly, I can’t believe I’m here doing this.”

Tesla shares have lost more than a quarter of their value since the beginning of this year, as of 13:51 EDT (18:51 BST) on Wednesday.

“We are not going to look at these numbers with rose colored glasses… they were a disaster on every metric,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note on Wednesday.

“The more political [Musk] gets with DOGE the more the brand suffers, there is no debate.”

Tesla did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment, but said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the numbers released on Wednesday “represent only two measures” of the company’s performance and “should not be relied on as an indicator of quarterly financial results.”

Those results will be made public on April 22 in a full earnings report for the quarter. They will “depend on a variety of factors, including average selling price, cost of sales, foreign exchange movements and others”, Tesla said.

It also noted that it had temporarily suspended production of its Model Y sport utility vehicles in January.

Following the release of Wednesday’s report, Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers, one of the most powerful labour unions in the US, wrote to dozens of public pension funds about the state of Tesla, saying the company’s latest sales numbers were “shaping up to be abysmal”.

She urged them to take close looks at their Tesla holdings and at what their money managers are doing to “safeguard retirement assets”.

“These declines seem in part to be driven by Musk spending his time pursuing political activities, some of which appear to be in conflict with Tesla’s brand and business interests, rather than managing Tesla,” Weingarten wrote.

The comptroller for New York City has already announced he is seeking to sue Tesla on behalf of the city’s massive pension systems, saying on Tuesday they had lost more than $300m in three months from the company’s plummeting stock price.

“Elon Musk is so distracted that he’s driving Tesla off a financial cliff,” said Comptroller Brad Lander in a statement.

The deaths of a British couple in New Zealand are being investigated as a murder-suicide, police have said.

Police said a man and a woman, who have not been named, were found after officers were asked to conduct a welfare check in Roseneath, a suburb of the capital Wellington, on Monday.

The couple is reported to have moved to New Zealand from the UK late last year.

Det Insp Haley Ryan said police were not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident, but issued an appeal for any information related to the case with them.

The UK Foreign Office said it had not been contacted about the incident.

Police said in a statement that they were “providing support to the family at the centre of this tragic event”.

“The family have requested privacy as they grieve their loss,” they added.

Police said two bodies were found after officers forced entry to a property on Palliser Road, having been asked by a concerned family member that morning to check in on them.

The couple’s neighbour, Emma Prestidge, told public broadcaster Radio New Zealand that they had moved to the area from London.

“My understanding is they’d finally packed up their lives in London, and all their stuff was in a shipping container and they were kind of looking to move here for good,” she said.

“They were in the next phase of their life, I guess, and ready to kind of set themselves up for the next part of their chapter, which is truly sad.”

Police in New Zealand urged anyone with CCTV of the area to get in contact. Det Insp Ryan earlier said the case was being referred to the coroner.

In a statement to the BBC, a Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We have not been approached for consular assistance in this case, but our staff stand ready to support British nationals overseas 24/7.”

The BBC has contacted the New Zealand Coroner’s Office for comment.

Directors including Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Mann have paid tribute to actor Val Kilmer, following his death aged 65.

Kilmer starred in some of the biggest movies of the 1980s and 90s, including Top Gun and Batman Forever.

Coppola described Kilmer as “a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know”, while Howard praised his “awesome range as an actor”.

Singer Cher, a former girlfriend of Kilmer’s, summed him up as “funny, crazy, pain in the ass, GREAT FRIEND” and “brave” during his illness.

• Obituary: A brilliant, underrated and unpredictable film star
• Look back at Val Kilmer’s best-known roles

Kilmer died of pneumonia on Tuesday in Los Angeles, his daughter Mercedes told US media. She said her father had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered.

Tracheotomy surgery affected his voice and curtailed his acting career, but he returned to the screen to reprise his role as fighter pilot Iceman alongside Tom Cruise in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick.

Kilmer’s other film credits included 1991’s The Doors – playing the legendary band’s frontman Jim Morrison – plus the Western Tombstone and crime drama Heat.

Paying tribute on Instagram, Heat director Mann said: “While working with Val I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character.

“After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news,” he said.

Coppola, who directed Kilmer in 2011’s Twixt, said in a statement: “Val Kilmer was the most talented actor when in his High School, and that talent only grew greater throughout his life.

“He was a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know – I will always remember him.”

Howard, who made 1988’s Willow, remembered Kilmer’s “amazing” filmography and praised his “awesome range as an actor”.

“His art extended to his poetry, artworks, filmmaking and simply the way he lived,” he wrote. “Bon Voyage, Val and thank you.”

“See ya, pal. I’m going to miss you,” US actor Josh Brolin wrote alongside a picture of himself and Kilmer on Instagram.

“You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker. There’s not a lot left of those”, he added.

British actor David Thewlis, who worked with Kilmer on 1996’s ill-fated The Island of Dr Moreau, posted: “He was one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met. Proud to have called him a friend and co-conspirator.”

Fellow Brit Will Kemp, who appeared in 2004 film Mindhunters with Kilmer, wrote: “So many great memories of working with him. He was fun, unpredictable, generous and overall very kind to me when I was very new to the job.”

Actor Josh Gad posted: “RIP Val Kilmer. Thank you for defining so many of the movies of my childhood. You truly were an icon.”

James Woods wrote: “His rendition of Doc Holliday in Tombstone was what every actor dreams of achieving. So many wonderful performances. Sad to lose him so soon.”

Born Val Edward Kilmer on 31 December 1959, Kilmer grew up in a middle-class family in Los Angeles.

His parents were Christian Scientists, a movement to which Kilmer would adhere for the rest of his life.

Aged 17, he became the then-youngest pupil to enrol at the Julliard School, in New York, one of the world’s most prestigious drama conservatories.

He made his name in the comedies Top Secret! in 1984 and Real Genius the following year, before cementing his acting credentials as Iceman, the nemesis to Cruise’s character Maverick in 1986’s Top Gun, one of the decade’s defining movies.

Kilmer went on to star in fantasy Willow and crime thriller Kill Me Again – both alongside British actress Joanne Whalley, who he married in 1988. The couple had two children.

He further proved his dynamic and versatile talents when he convincingly portrayed rock frontman Morrison in The Doors, 20 years after the singer’s death.

Tombstone, in which Kilmer played gunfighter Doc Holliday, and Heat, in which he appeared alongside Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, were also hits.

He took over Batman’s cape from Michael Keaton for Batman Forever in 1995, which achieved box office success but mixed reviews, and Kilmer pulled out of the next Batman movie.

In 1997, he appeared in The Saint as the master criminal and master of disguise – based on Leslie Charteris’ books, which had also inspired the 1960s TV show starring Roger Moore.

Kilmer voiced both God and Moses in animated film The Prince of Egypt, and starred as Marlon Brando’s crazed sidekick in The Island of Dr Moreau – but that film became one of Hollywood’s most notorious flops.

Its director John Frankenheimer declared he would never work again with Kilmer, who had gained a reputation for being difficult on set.

He said that reputation was because “I care very much about telling the story well”.

He played a gay private detective who teamed up with Robert Downey Jr’s petty thief in 2005’s Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.

In 2021, Kilmer released a documentary chronicling the highs and lows of his life and career. Val, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, features 40 years of home recordings, including him speaking with a voice box post-cancer surgery.

He had continued acting, but his comeback with a cameo appearance as Iceman in the long-awaited Top Gun sequel was particularly poignant.

Cruise said at the time: “I’ve known Val for decades, and for him to come back and play that character… he’s such a powerful actor that he instantly became that character again.”

Kilmer was also an artist, often creating paintings inspired by his film roles.

Film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that his role in The Doors summed up his appeal and persona.

“There was something sort of dark and troubling and sensual and kind of self-destructive about him,” she said.

“It was a quality that meant he was never just the bland Hollywood pretty boy that led so many roles. There was something else going on underneath the surface.”

US entertainment journalist KJ Matthews echoed that, telling BBC Radio 5 Live: “He’s your bad boy, he’s edgy, good looking, definitely Hollywood star looks.

“And I like the way he played roles. He always played them in an unconventional, unpredictable way.

“When Val Kilmer was attached to a project, you just knew he was going to do something interesting with that character.”

Driving into Mandalay, the massive scale of the destruction from last Friday’s earthquake revealed itself bit by bit.

In nearly every street we turned into, especially in the northern and central parts of the city, at least one building had completely collapsed, reduced to a pile of rubble. Some streets had multiple structures which had come down.

Almost every building we saw had cracks running through at least one of its walls, unsafe to step into. At the main city hospital they’re having to treat patients outdoors.

Myanmar’s military government has said it’s not allowing foreign journalists into the country after the quake, so we went in undercover. We had to operate carefully, because the country is riddled with informers and secret police who spy on their own people for the ruling military junta.

What we witnessed was a people who had very little help coming their way in the face of this massive disaster.

“I have hope that he’s alive, even if it’s a small chance,” said Nan Sin Hein, 41, who’s been waiting on the street opposite a collapsed five-storey building, day and night for five days.

Her 21 year-old-son Sai Han Pha is a construction worker, renovating the interiors of the building, which used to be a hotel and was being turned into an office space.

“If they can rescue him today, there’s a chance he’ll survive,” she says.

When the 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck, the bottom of the building sank into the ground, its top lurching at an angle over the street, looking like it could tip over at any minute.

Sai Han Pha and four other workers were trapped inside.

When we visited, rescue efforts had not even begun at the building and there was no sign they would start soon. There just isn’t enough help available on the ground – and the reason for that is the political situation in the country.

Even before the earthquake Myanmar was in turmoil – locked in a civil war that has displaced an estimated 3.5 million people. Its military has continued operations against armed insurgent groups despite the disaster.

This means that security forces are too stretched to put their full might behind relief and rescue operations. Except in some key locations, we didn’t see them in large numbers in Mandalay.

The military junta has put out a rare appeal for international aid, but its uneasy relations with many foreign countries, including the UK and the US, has meant that while these countries have pledged aid, help in the form of manpower on the ground is currently only from countries like India, China and Russia, among a few others.

And so far those rescue efforts appear to be focused on structures where masses of people are feared trapped – the high-rise Sky Villa condominium complex which was home to hundreds of people, and U Hla Thein Buddhist academy where scores of monks were taking an examination when the earthquake struck.

Neeraj Singh, who is leading the Indian disaster response team working at the Buddhist academy, said the structure had collapsed like a “pancake” – one layer on top of another.

“It’s the most difficult collapse pattern and the chances of finding survivors are very low. But we are still hopeful and trying our best,” he told the BBC.

Working under the sweltering sun, in nearly 40C, rescuers use metal drills and cutters to break the concrete slabs into smaller pieces. It’s slow and extremely demanding work. When a crane lifts up the concrete pieces, the stench of decaying bodies, already quite strong, becomes overwhelming.

The rescuers spot four to five bodies, but it still takes a couple of hours to pull the first one out.

Sitting on mats under a makeshift tent in the compound of the academy are families of the students. Their faces are weary and despondent. As soon as they hear a body has been recovered, they crowd around the ambulance it is placed in.

Others gather around a rescuer who shows them a photo of the body on his mobile phone.

Agonising moments pass as the families try to see if the dead man is a loved one.

But the body is so disfigured, the task is impossible. It is sent to a morgue where forensic tests will have to be conducted to confirm the identity.

Among the families is the father of 29-year-old U Thuzana. He has no hope that his son survived. “Knowing my son ended up like this, I’m inconsolable, I’m filled with grief,” U Hla Aung said, his face crumpling into a sob.

Many of Mandalay’s historical sites have also suffered significant damage, including the Mandalay Palace and the Maha Muni Pagoda, but we could not get in to see the extent of the damage.

Access to everything – collapse sites, victims and their families – was not easy because of the oppressive environment created by the military junta, with people often fearful of speaking to journalists.

Close to the pagoda, we saw Buddhist funeral rituals being held on the street outside a destroyed house. It was the home of U Hla Aung Khaing and his wife Daw Mamarhtay, both in their sixties.

“I lived with them but was out when the earthquake struck. That’s why I survived. Both my parents are gone in a single moment,” their son told us.

Their bodies were extricated not by trained rescuers, but by locals who used rudimentary equipment. It took two days to pull out the couple, who were found with their arms around each other.

Myanmar’s military government says 2,886 people have died so far, but so many collapse sites have still not even been reached by the authorities, that that count is unlikely to be accurate. We may never find out what the real death toll of the earthquake was.

Parks and open spaces in Mandalay have turned into makeshift camps, as have the banks of the moat that runs around the palace. All over the city we saw people laying out mats and mattresses outside their homes as evening approached, preferring to sleep outdoors.

Mandalay is a city living in terror, and with good reason. Nearly every night since Friday there have been big aftershocks. We woke up to an aftershock of magnitude 5 in the middle of the night.

But tens of thousands are sleeping outdoors because they have no home to return to.

“I don’t know what to think anymore. My heart still trembles when I think of that moment when the earthquake struck,” said Daw Khin Saw Myint, 72, who we met while she was waiting in a queue for water, with her little granddaughter by her side. “We ran out, but my house is gone. I’m living under a tree. Come and see.”

She works as a washerwoman and says her son suffers from a disability which doesn’t allow him to work.

“Where will I live now? I am in so much trouble. I’m living next to a rubbish dump. Some people have given me rice and a few clothes. We ran out in these clothes we are wearing.

“We don’t have anyone to rescue us. Please help us,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Another elderly woman chimes in, eyes tearing up, “No one has distributed food yet today. So we haven’t eaten.”

Most of the vehicles we saw pulling up to distribute supplies were small vans with limited stocks – donations from individuals or small local organisations. It’s nowhere near enough for the number of people in need, leading to a scramble to grab whatever relief is available.

Parts of Mandalay’s main hospital are also damaged, and so in an already difficult situation, rows and rows of beds are laid out in the hospital compound for patients.

Shwe Gy Thun Phyo, 14, has suffered from a brain injury, and has bloodshot eyes. She’s conscious but unresponsive. Her father tries to make her as comfortable as possible.

There were very few doctors and nurses around to cope with the demand for treatment, which means families are stepping in to do what medical staff should.

Zar Zar has a distended belly because of a serious abdominal injury. Her daughter sits behind her, holding her up, and fans her, to give her some relief from the heat.

We couldn’t spend a lot of time at the hospital for fear of being apprehended by the police or military.

As the window to find survivors of the earthquake narrows, increasingly those being brought into the hospital are the dead.

Nan Sin Hein, who is waiting outside the collapsed building where her son was trapped, was initially stoical, but she now looks like she is preparing to face what seems like the most likely outcome.

“I’m heartbroken. My son loved me and his little sisters. He struggled to support us,” she says.

“I am just hoping to see my son’s face, even if he is dead. I want to see his body. I want them to do everything they can to find his body.”

Every time Donald Trump has mentioned his plan to levy massive tariffs on imports into the US, there has been a widespread assumption that they will be delayed, watered down or rowed back.

Today, he will reveal in the White House Rose Garden not just how serious he is about “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”, but effectively call time on decades of economic globalisation.

And it is still possible that he will do this by launching the equivalent of a salvo of ballistic missiles into the global trading system, with a universal tariff on all imports into the USA.

The option of a 20% universal tariff is the only way to get to some of the massive revenues of trillions of dollars claimed by some of his advisers.

World braces as Trump set to announce sweeping tariffs

In recent days, President Trump has been adamant that the tariffs will be “reciprocal” and the US will be “nicer” to its trade partners.

That doesn’t rule out wide-scale imposition of tariffs at 10 or 20%, if, for example, the US deems that Value Added Taxes are tariffs.

It is possible that countries could be very broadly bracketed into different levels of a basically universal tariff. As one G7 negotiator told me at the weekend, “it all comes down to President Trump”.

A system such as this, with equivalent global retaliation, would see the UK economy shrinking by 1%, enough to wipe out growth and lead to pressure for tax rises or spending cuts.

The total cost around the world could, according to an Aston University Business School study, be $1.4 trillion (£1.1tn), as trade is diverted, and prices rise.

• UK will take calm approach to US tariffs, PM says
• Three big unknowns ahead of Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs
• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• Is Trump right when he says the US faces unfair trade?
• Six things that could get more expensive for Americans under Trump tariffs

In industry, there is some expectation that the European Union will target US tech companies. There could be quite the contrast should the UK choose not just to hold back on retaliation, but offer a significant tax cut to US big tech.

Trade wars are hard to win, and easy for everyone to lose.

A universal tariff of 20%, or its equivalent, would be a historic hit to the global trading system.

There is something bigger here, however. As the Vice President JD Vance said in a speech last month, globalisation has failed in the eyes of this administration because the idea was that “rich countries would move further up the value chain, while the poor countries made the simpler things”.

As that has not panned out, especially in the case of China, the US is moving away from this world.

If the US overplays its hand in alienating its allies today, China will be waiting. The hit to US business in Europe, for example, could be offset by cheaper electronics, clothes, and toys from the East arriving in the UK and lowering prices, diverted from the US market.

What starts later today is designed not just to reshape America, and trade, but the way the world itself has been run.

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.

Although Russia has turned down a full US-brokered ceasefire with Ukraine, it says it did agree to stop attacking Ukraine’s energy facilities. In an apparent attempt to deny Moscow had broken the terms of that deal, Russian officials said they had told Putin that Ukrainian drones had carried out attacks with little sign of a break.

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, Russia’s young men will be receiving notifications on the state services website Gosuslugi.

In Moscow there were reports that call-ups had already been sent out on 1 April via the mos.ru city website.

Increasing numbers of Russians are trying to avoid the army by taking on “alternative civilian service”. But human rights lawyer Timofey Vaskin warned on independent Russian media that every new call-up since the start of the war had become a lottery: “Authorities are coming up with new forms of refilling the army.”

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.

“I’m the only survivor who saw what happened to my colleagues,” Munther Abed says, scrolling through pictures of his fellow paramedics on his phone.

He survived the Israeli attack that killed 15 emergency workers in Gaza by diving to the floor in the back of his ambulance, as his two colleagues in the front were shot in the early hours of 23 March.

“We left the headquarters roughly at dawn,” he told one of the BBC’s trusted freelance journalists working in Gaza, explaining how the response team from the Palestinian Red Crescent, Gaza’s Civil Defence agency and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) gathered on the edge of the southern city of Rafah after receiving reports of gunfire and wounded people.

“Roughly by 04:30, all Civil Defence vehicles were in place. At 04:40 the first two vehicles went out. At 04:50, the last vehicle arrived. At around 05:00, the agency [UN] car was shot at directly in the street,” he says.

The Israeli military says its forces opened fire because the vehicles were moving suspiciously towards soldiers without prior co-ordination and with their lights off. It also claimed that nine Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives were killed in the incident.

Munther challenges that account.

“During day and at night, it’s the same thing. External and internal lights are on. Everything tells you it’s an ambulance vehicle that belongs to the Palestinian Red Crescent. All lights were on until the vehicle came under direct fire,” he says.

After that, he adds, he was pulled from the wreckage by Israeli soldiers, arrested and blindfolded. He claimed he was interrogated over 15 hours, before being released.

The BBC has put his claims to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but it is yet to respond.

“The IDF did not randomly attack an ambulance,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed, when questioned at a news conference, echoing the IDF’s statements.

“Several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals. IDF troops then opened fire at the suspected vehicles.”

He added: “Following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military terrorist, Mohammed Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who took part in the October 7 massacre, along with eight other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”

Shubaki’s name is not on the list of the 15 dead emergency workers – eight of whom were Palestinian Red Crescent medics, six were Civil Defence first responders, and one was an Unrwa staff member.

Israel has not accounted for the whereabouts of Shubaki’s body or offered any evidence of the direct threat the emergency workers posed.

Munther rejects Israel’s claim that Hamas may have used the ambulances as cover.

“That’s utterly untrue. All crews are civilian,” he says.

“We don’t belong to any militant group. Our main duty is to offer ambulance services and save people’s lives. No more, no less”.

Gaza’s paramedics carried their own colleagues to their funerals earlier this week. There was an outcry of grief along with calls for accountability. One bereaved father told the BBC that his son was killed “in cold blood”.

International agencies could only access the area to retrieve their bodies a week after the attack. They were found buried in sand alongside the wrecked ambulances, fire truck and UN vehicle.

Sam Rose, acting director of Unrwa’s Gaza office, says: “What we know is that fifteen people lost their lives, that they were buried in shallow graves in a sand berm in the middle of the road, treated with complete indignity and what would appear to be an infringement of international humanitarian law.

“But it’s only if we have an investigation, a full and complete investigation, that we’ll be able to get to the bottom of it.”

Israel is yet to commit to an investigation. According to the UN, at least 1,060 healthcare workers have been killed since the start of the conflict.

“Certainly all ambulance workers, all medics, all humanitarian workers inside Gaza right now feel increasingly insecure, increasingly fragile,” Mr Rose says.

One paramedic is still unaccounted for following the 23 March incident.

“They were not just colleagues but friends”, Munther says, nervously running prayer beads through his fingers. “We used to eat, drink, laugh and have jokes together… I consider them my second family.”

“I will expose the crimes committed by the occupation [Israel] against my colleagues. If I was not the only survivor, who could have told the world what they did to our colleagues, and who would have told their story?”

The former president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, says his US visa has been revoked.

Arias, a Nobel laureate, said he was informed of the decision weeks after he had publicly criticised Donald Trump, comparing the behaviour of the US president to that of a Roman emperor.

The 84-year-old, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering an end to conflicts in Central America, said US authorities had given no explanation.

Arias hinted, however, that it may be due to his rapprochement with China during the time he was president from 2006 to 2010.

Speaking at an news conference in the Costa Rican capital, San José, Arias said he had “no idea” what the reason for the cancellation was.

He said he had received a “terse” email “of a few lines” from the US government informing him of the decision.

He added that he thought that it was not President Trump but the US State Department which had taken the decision.

While he said it would be conjecture on his part to speculate about the reason behind the visa revocation, he did point out that “I established diplomatic relations with China.

“That, of course, is known throughout the world,” he told journalists of his 2007 decision to cut ties with Taiwan and establish them with China instead.

The Trump administration has sought to oppose China’s influence in the Western hemisphere and has accused a number of Central American governments of cosying up to the Chinese government and Chinese companies.

• Read: Rubio demands Panama ‘reduce China influence’ over canal

However, it has been supportive of the current Costa Rican President, Rodrigo Chaves, praising his decision to exclude Chinese firms from participating in the development of 5G in Costa Rica.

But this perceived closeness between President Chaves and the US was criticised by Arias, who wrote a post on social media in February saying that “it has never been easy for a small country to disagree with the US government, less so when its president behaves like a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do”.

He added that “during my governments, Costa Rica never received orders from Washington as if we were a banana republic”.

Arias is not the only Costa Rican to have had his US visa revoked. Three members of the country’s national assembly who opposed President Chaves’s decree to exclude Chinese companies from participating in the development of 5G have also had theirs cancelled.

The Slovak cabinet has approved a plan to shoot around a quarter of the country’s brown bears, after a man was mauled to death while walking in a forest in Central Slovakia.

Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist-nationalist government announced after a cabinet meeting that 350 out of an estimated population of 1,300 brown bears would be culled, citing the danger to humans after a spate of attacks.

“We can’t live in a country where people are afraid to go into the woods,” the prime minister told reporters afterwards.

A special state of emergency allowing bears to be shot has now been widened to 55 of Slovakia’s 79 districts, an area that now covers most of the country.

The government in Bratislava has already loosened legal protections allowing bears to be killed if they stray too close to human habitation. Some 93 had been shot by the end of 2024.

The plans to shoot even more were condemned by conservationists, who said the decision was in violation of international obligations and could be illegal.

“It’s absurd,” said Michal Wiezek, an ecologist and MEP for opposition party Progressive Slovakia.

“The Environment Ministry failed desperately to limit the number of bear attacks by the unprecedented culling of this protected species,” he told the BBC.

“To cover up their failure, the government has decided to cull even more bears,” he continued.

Wiezek argued that thousands of encounters a year passed without incident, and he hoped the European Commission would intervene.

Slovak police confirmed on Wednesday that a man found dead in forest near the town of Detva in Central Slovakia on Sunday night was killed by a bear. His wounds were consistent with an attack.

The 59-year-old man had been reported missing on Saturday after failing to return from a walk in the woods.

He was found with what authorities described as “devastating injuries to the head”. Evidence of a bear’s den was found nearby, a local NGO told Slovak newspaper Novy Cas.

Bears have become a political issue in Slovakia after a rising number of encounters, including fatal attacks.

In March 2024, a 31-year-old Belarusian woman fell into a ravine and died while being chased by a bear in northern Slovakia.

Several weeks later a large brown bear was captured on video running through the centre of the nearby town of Liptovsky Mikolas in broad daylight, bounding past cars and lunging at people on the pavement.

The authorities later claimed to have hunted down and killed the animal, although conservationists said later there was clear evidence they had shot a different bear.

Environment Minister Tomas Taraba said on Wednesday there were more than 1,300 bears in Slovakia, and that 800 was a “sufficient number”, as the population was growing.

However, experts say the population remains more or less stable at around 1,270 animals.

Bears are common across the Carpathian mountain range, which stretches in an arc from Romania through western Ukraine and on to Slovakia and Poland.

Donald Trump says tariffs are coming. That message from the US president has been consistent.

But what tariffs and when? Import taxes have come so thick and fast since he took office that it can be hard to keep track.

Trump has already raised duties on Chinese imports, as well as steel, aluminium and some goods from Canada and Mexico. Higher levies on cars are due to go into effect this week.

We’re now waiting for Trump to unveil the details of his plan for a wider set of tariffs, which his team has spent the last few weeks developing.

The White House is calling it “Liberation Day”. So what might we learn on Wednesday?

• Live updates as Trump plans to announce sweeping tariffs
• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?

The White House has not said how high the tariffs could go, although various possible rates have been floated by analysts.

On the campaign trail last year, Trump backed a 10% across-the-board tariff on all imports coming into the US, sometimes suggesting that could be 20% – even 60% on imports from China.

Once in office, he introduced the idea of “reciprocal” tariffs, suggesting the rates could vary country by country.

“Very simply, it’s if they charge us, we charge them,” he said in February, shortly before he ordered officials to develop such a plan.

The White House almost immediately complicated the picture, noting that their recommendations would reflect not just tariffs but also other policies they believe are unfair to US businesses, like Value Added Tax (VAT).

It has a led to a scramble, as businesses and political leaders try to get a sense of how big a new tax their products might be facing; and how whatever is announced on Wednesday will interact with other duties, such as those on steel and aluminium, already put into effect by Trump.

Officials in Europe, for example, are preparing for a double-digit tariff on their exports. Trump earlier this year said he planned to hit goods from the bloc with a 25% import tax.

The Trump administration has not confirmed which countries will be hit, although it has trailed Wednesday’s announcement as a sweeping one.

On Sunday, the president said the new tariffs could apply to “all countries”, suggesting a possible return to the across-the-board tariff he backed in the campaign.

It dashed hopes in some countries, such as the UK, that thought they might float under the radar, though many are still hoping eventually to work out some sort of deal.

But it is still unclear to what extent the tariffs will be universally applied or more targeted.

Last month, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said efforts were focused on the “Dirty 15” – the 15% of countries that account for the bulk of trade with the US and impose tariffs or other rules that put US firms at a disadvantage.

The Office of the US Trade Representative, as it prepared to craft recommendations, identified the countries in which it was “particularly interested”.

They were Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the UK and Vietnam.

Trump himself has reserved some of his harshest criticism for historic allies and major trade partners, such as Canada and the EU.

“Friend has been, oftentimes, much worse than foe,” he declared last week.

Tariffs are taxes on imports. So the big question is, who will pay?

Technically, there is a simple answer: the US firms bringing in the goods are the companies that will face the bill, especially if the White House starts levying the tariffs “immediately”, as spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt suggested on Tuesday.

But the larger the tariffs are, the more firms will be looking for ways to offset those costs, either by changing suppliers, pushing business partners to share the burden – or by raising prices for Americans.

Many firms have said they are already preparing for that step. But it is a risky game because if companies raise prices too much, buyers will simply stay away.

The dynamics have raised the risks of an economic recession both in the US – and far outside its borders, where many firms rely on US sales.

Trump says companies looking to avoid tariffs can simply do their business in the US, but that’s not an immediate, or easy fix, given the high costs of hiring and setting up factories.

Introduce currency swings and retaliation by other countries into the mix, and the repercussions of Trump’s bid to reset global trade balances are likely to prove hard to predict long after Wednesday’s announcement.