China’s government says it will “fight to the end” if the US continues to escalate the trade war, after Donald Trump threatened huge additional tariffs in response to China’s retaliatory measures.

On Tuesday, China’s commerce ministry accused the US of “blackmail” and said the US president’s threats of additional 50% tariffs if Beijing did not reverse its own 34% reciprocal tariff were a “mistake on top of a mistake”.

It vowed to “resolutely take countermeasures”, adding: “China will fight to the end if the US side is bent on going down the wrong path.”

On Tuesday Asian markets appeared to improve slightly in early trading, a day after torrid day on the global markets that prompted the billionaire investor Bill Ackman, one of the US president’s backers in the 2024 race for the White House, to call for a moratorium.

Tuesday’s response from Beijing is the latest in a worsening tit-for-tat between the two countries. Last week Trump announced a swathe of tariffs ranging from 10%-50% against US trading partners to come into effect this Wednesday. He placed a 34% tariff on imports from China – in addition to a previous 20% levy. Beijing then retaliated with a reciprocal 34% tariff on all US imports. That prompted Trump on Monday to threaten an additional 50% tariff on to Chinese imports if Beijing did not reverse theirs.

“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose additional tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!”

A scathing editorial in Chinese official state news outlet Xinhua accused Trump of “naked extortion”.

“Utterly absurd is the underlying logic of the United States: ‘I can hit you at my will, and you must not respond. Instead, you must surrender unconditionally’,” it said. “This is not diplomacy. It is blunt coercion dressed up as policy.”

On social media a 1987 speech by then US president Ronald Reagan posted by China’s foreign ministry has been widely shared. The video clip, in which Reagan criticises the use of tariffs as leading to retaliation and ultimately hurting the US economy, “has a new meaning in 2025”, China’s The Paper said.

Wen-ti Sung, a non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub said the US and China were “locked in a game of chicken”. “Like two race cars driving directly toward each other, whoever swerves first will stand to lose prestige and profit,” Sung told the Guardian.

“China seems determined to signal that the world is still bipolar, and that Beijing will not let Washington get to call the shots, lest it sets the tone for the years to come. Plus China is still waiting to get more assurance from Trump that if it accommodates Trump’s demand will it get China out of his crosshairs or whether it will only whet his appetite more.

“If not, China’s main option is to respond with proportional retaliatory trade sanctions against the US, while trying to negotiate with Washington at the same time.”

On Tuesday, Japan’s Nikkei index rose 6%, rebounding from an 18-month low on Monday, after Trump and Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba agreed to open trade talks in a phone call late on Monday.

Chinese blue-chips climbed 0.7%, recouping a fraction of the more than 7% slide on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index jumped 2% after suffering the worst day since 1997. US stock futures also pointed higher after a rollercoaster session in which it touched its lowest level in more than a year.

Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs targeted dozens of countries, and China is not the only one to respond. The European Commission has proposed counter-tariffs of 25% on a range of US goods, including soybeans, nuts and sausages, while saying they stood ready to negotiate a “zero for zero” deal with Trump.

EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said at a news conference: “Sooner or later, we will sit at the negotiation table with the US and find a mutually acceptable compromise.”

The 27-member EU, which had already been hit with tariffs on vehicles and metals, faces another 20% on other items from Wednesday. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on alcoholic drinks from the bloc.

Taiwan, which faces a 32% reciprocal tariff and saw its worst ever market fall on Monday, has said it is ready to negotiate “at any time”, with president Lai Ching-te proposing a zero-tariffs agreement, removal of trade barriers, and increased investment in the US.

Taiwan has repeatedly said its large trade surplus with the US is due to the US’s soaring demand for tech, given its companies are major suppliers to companies such as Apple and Nvidia.

Global stock markets fell catastrophically on Monday following President Trump’s tariff rollout.

Despite the economic turmoil, the US president doubled down on his plan, threatening to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday, unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.

Trump has defended his sweeping tariffs, saying: “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something”. Top officials in the administration have brushed aside fears of a recession and reiterated the tariff policy will be implemented as planned.

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 6 April 2025.

Autopsies conducted on 15 Palestinian paramedics and civil emergency responders who were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza show they were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill”, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is demanding an international investigation into the attack.

The killings took place in the southern Gaza Strip on 23 March, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory, and sparked international condemnation.

The results of the postmortems join a growing body of evidence that sharply contradicts Israel’s account of the incident, including video footage that shows the vehicles were travelling with headlights and flashing red lights that identified them, with personnel wearing hi-vis vests, at the time they were fired on.

Germany, one of Israel’s closest backers in the EU, called for an urgent investigation into the incident on Monday. “There are very significant questions about the actions of the Israeli army now,” the foreign ministry spokesperson Christian Wagner said after the video footage emerged.

“An investigation and accountability of the perpetrators are urgently needed,” he said, adding that a full investigation of the incident would be “a question that ultimately affects the credibility of the Israeli constitutional state”.

Those killed included eight Red Crescent staff, six members of the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The bodies were later found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs described as a mass grave.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially said its soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, insisting they fired on “terrorists” that were approaching in “suspicious vehicles”.

Lt Col Nadav Shoshani said troops had opened fire on vehicles that had no prior clearance from Israeli authorities and had their lights off, a statement contradicted by video recovered from the mobile phone of one of those killed.

The IDF later changed its story and conceded its earlier account had been “mistaken”. It claimed on Sunday that at least six of the medics were linked to Hamas, but has provided no evidence. None of those killed were armed.

It said on Monday that its initial investigation into the killings had shown that the incident occurred “due to a sense of threat”, and claimed six Hamas militants had been in the vicinity.

The Israeli army chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir ordered a more in-depth investigation into the attack after completion of the initial one.

The president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Younis al-Khatib, told journalists in Ramallah: “There has been an autopsy of the martyrs from the Red Crescent and civil defence teams. We cannot disclose everything we know, but I will say that all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill.”

He called for an international investigation into the killings, which the IDF has separately announced it was looking into.

“Why did you hide the bodies?” Khatib asked of the Israeli forces involved in the attack. “We call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip.

“It is no longer sufficient to speak of respecting the international law and Geneva convention. It is now required from the international community and the UN security council to implement the necessary punishment against all who are responsible.”

In the past 18 months of war Israeli forces have conducted attacks that have killed hundreds of medical workers and the staff of NGOs and UN organisations, including foreign nationals working in Gaza. Six members of World Central Kitchen, including the Briton James Kirby, died in a sustained Israeli attack on their clearly marked vehicles.

Human rights organisations have long accused Israel of a culture of impunity with few soldiers ever facing justice.

A Palestinian journalist was killed and several others wounded on Monday, when Israel struck a media tent near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

According to the Palestinian Civil Defence, an organisation affiliated with Hamas’s interior ministry, two people – Helmi al-Faqawi and a civilian, Yousef al-Khazandar – were killed when the Palestine Today agency’s tent was struck.

An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp within a hospital complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis has killed 10 people, including a journalist, while seriously injuring dozens more after their encampment caught fire.

Images and video from the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis showed people desperately attempting to extinguish the fires as it burned through a row of tents. One video showed people screaming as a bystander attempted to move a burning piece of furniture, while a journalist, later identified as Ahmed Mansour of the news outlet Palestine Today, sat upright engulfed by the blaze.

His colleague Helmi al-Faqawi was killed in the strike, while at least nine other journalists were among the wounded. Mansour received treatment for severe burns while the photographer Hassan Aslih was reportedly in a stable condition after suffering a head injury and cuts to his right hand.

The Palestinian foreign ministry in Ramallah said 10 people had been killed in the airstrike, with many more wounded. The ministry called al-Faqawi’s death an act of “extrajudicial killing,” labelling it part of growing crimes against journalists and an attempt to prevent the media from covering events on the ground.

Dozens of journalists in Gaza joined al-Faqawi’s relatives to bury the slain reporter in the hours after the attack, placing a blue flak jacket on top of the white shroud covering his body on a stretcher. His killing has brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 2023 to 207, according to the Palestinian foreign ministry in the occupied West Bank.

“We will continue to deliver the message and convey the truth to the whole world. This is our humanitarian duty,” the journalist Abd Shaat told Reuters. He said that the noise of the airstrike had woken them, only for them to see that a nearby tent sheltering their colleagues was on fire.

Since the beginning of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip hundreds of people have sought shelter in encampments in hospital grounds across the besieged territory, hoping that proximity will provide a measure of safety.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet security agency said the airstrike on the hospital grounds was targeting Aslih, whom they accused of being a member of Hamas. In a statement, the IDF accused Aslih of taking part in Hamas’s attack on a string of Israeli towns and kibbutzim on 7 October 2023, when 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.

He took part in the attack by uploading “footage of looting, arson and murder to social media”, the IDF said. Aslih has documented the impact of Israeli attacks on Gaza by uploading photos and video to his Instagram page, followed by 571,000 people.

His most recent post showed the funeral of the journalist Islam Miqdad, her blue flak jacket also draped across the white shroud over her body, in a burial ritual for journalists. Miqdad was killed in an attack on the building where she was sheltering with her young son in western Khan Younis.

“My daughter is innocent. She had no involvement, she loved journalism and adored it,” Miqdad’s mother Amal Kaskeen told the Associated Press.

Last year was the deadliest on record for journalists, with Israel responsible for 70% of the total deaths of media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Israel’s assault on Gaza claimed the lives of 82 Palestinian journalists in 2024, according to CPJ.

Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza after a fragile ceasefire collapsed last month. The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said another 142,000 people were displaced in just six days in March after the resumption of fighting.

Fifty-nine hostages, including 24 understood to be alive, are still held by militants in Gaza. Israel’s assault on the territory has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in 18 months of war, a third of them children, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

A Texas man who buried his eight-year-old daughter on Sunday after the unvaccinated child died with measles says Robert F Kennedy Jr “never said anything” about the vaccine against the illness or its proven efficacy while visiting the girl’s family and community for her funeral.

“He did not say that the vaccine was effective,” Pete Hildebrand, the father of Daisy Hildebrand, said in reference to Kennedy during a brief interview on Monday. “I had supper with the guy … and he never said anything about that.”

Hildebrand’s remarks came in response to a question about the national health secretary’s publicized visit to Daisy’s funeral. It was also after Kennedy issued a statement in which he accurately said: “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” which also provides protection against mumps and rubella.

Kennedy, an avowed vaccine skeptic helming the Trump administration’s response to a measles outbreak that has been steadily growing across the US, then undermined that conventional messaging by soon publishing another statement that lavished praise on a pair of unconventional practitioners who have eschewed the two-dose MMR shot in favor of vitamins and cod liver oil.

The comments from Hildebrand provided a glimpse into how Kennedy simply demurred on vaccines – rather than express a position on them – during his first visit to the center of an outbreak that as of Monday had claimed three lives.

When asked for comment on Monday, Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not dispute Hildebrand’s claims that the agency’s leader was silent on Sunday about vaccines.

It instead provided a link to Kennedy’s statement after the funeral, which read in part: “My intention was to come down here quietly to console the families and to be with [their] community in their moment of grief.”

Public health experts have repeatedly said the MMR vaccine is the best way to prevent deaths or serious illness from measles, a highly contagious respiratory disease.

Yet, during his brief interview on Monday, Hildebrand made clear that he stood by his skepticism of vaccines.

“I know it’s not effective because some family members ended up getting the vaccine, and they got the measles way worse than some of my kids,” said Hildebrand, who is raising two other children with his wife, Eva. “The vaccine was not effective.”

Medical professionals have long established that getting an illness one was vaccinated against does not mean the vaccination failed. Vaccines also work by reducing the severity of illness – and, in some cases, can prevent death – should people catch the sickness they were immunized against.

Daisy Hildebrand died last week at University medical center in Lubbock, Texas, about 80 miles (129km) away from her family’s home in the rural community of Seminole. Her doctors attributed her death to what they described as “measles pulmonary failure”, noting that she was not MMR-vaccinated and had no reported underlying conditions, according to a statement from Texas’s state health services department.

She was the second young child from Seminole to die from measles in about five weeks. Kayley Fehr, who was also not given the MMR vaccine, died aged six in February after contracting measles and being hospitalized in Lubbock.

An unvaccinated adult in Lea county, New Mexico, also died after contracting the measles.

Fehr was the first person in the US to die from measles since 2015. Measles had been declared eliminated from the US in 2000, but it has recently been spreading in undervaccinated communities.

Funeral services for Hildebrand and Fehr were held in the same Mennonite church in Seminole, which has a population of about 7,000, according to publicly available information. Many Mennonite communities – which tend to be close-knit – have historically been undervaccinated as they prioritize what they interpret to be medical freedom over vaccine mandates.

Children who get the MMR vaccine are typically given the first dose at 12-15 months. They usually get the second dose between ages four and six.

Respectively, the shots are 93% and 97% effective, says the US Centers for Diseases Control.

The west Texas county to which Seminole belongs, Gaines, has one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the state. Around the time of Hildebrand’s death, it had reported about 300 measles cases since January. That was more than 65% of the nearly 500 measles cases which had then been reported in Texas.

As of Friday, the US government was reporting more than 605 measles cases across 22 states for the year so far. At least 74 of those cases – roughly 12% – had led to hospitalizations.

Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma joined Texas as well as New Mexico in having active measles outbreaks, defined as three or more cases, officials said.

The US reported 285 measles cases in all of 2024.

Experts have warned that the US’s collective outbreak could continue for several more months, if not for about a year. They have also said the US should prepare for more measles-related deaths without a more aggressive response.

The US Senate’s health committee has summoned Kennedy to testify before the group on Thursday. Despite Kennedy’s well-documented vaccine skepticism, the Senate voted 52-48 to confirm him as the national health secretary.

A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.

Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.

Stedsans, formed of 16 wooden cottages looking out on to nature, attracted praise from influencers and reviewers, who described it as “magical” and “enchanting luxury”.

But a few months ago it was discovered that the couple had vanished, leaving multiple animals behind and 158 barrels of human waste, an investigation by newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Politiken has found. It also found that wastewater was left to run into the forest.

Staff said multiple animals – including ducks – had died as a result of being left outside through the night by the couple, and others were left abandoned after the owners vanished.

Stedsans was declared bankrupt in March and the couple reportedly registered themselves as living abroad before Christmas.

According to the investigation, they left the Danish capital, where they owed millions of kroner in debt to Danish tax authorities, in 2016 to move to Sweden. There they set up Stedsans, but started accumulating debt to Swedish tax authorities, which reportedly amounted to 6m SEK (£470,000). They have since started a new hotel business in Guatemala.

In a message posted on their website, they said: “We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise on the way that being soul-driven entrepreneurs on a mission in a country where taxes are some of the highest in the world and bureaucracy is relentless, it is an impossible task.”

They added: “When you read this we have probably been declared bankrupt by the Swedish tax authorities. All we ever wanted was to be a part of creating a more beautiful planet.”

Local authorities described their actions as “environmental crime”. Daniel Helsing, head of building and environment for the local county, Hylte, told Dagens Nyheter: “Voilà. Over 150 barrels of human shit.”

Hansen denied any problems with handling animals when approached by the newspaper. He described Swedish tax authorities as a “narcissistic entity” and said he believed he owed them “over 7m” SEK. He also claimed he was now “sentenced to a life in poverty”.

The Guardian contacted the Danish and Swedish tax authorities. The Danish tax agency said: “We have no comments here subject to confidentiality.” The Swedish tax agency did not comment on the case.

The Guardian has contacted Hansen and Helbæk for comment.

South Korea will hold a presidential election on 3 June, the country’s acting president said on Tuesday, after predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and removed from office over a disastrous declaration of martial law.

The government “is to set June 3 as the date for South Korea’s 21st presidential election”, prime minister Han Duck-soo said, adding that the day would be designated as a temporary public holiday to facilitate voting.

Yoon was removed by the constitutional court for violating his official duty by issuing the martial law decree on 3 December and mobilising troops in an attempt to halt parliamentary proceedings.

The law requires a new presidential election within 60 days if the position becomes vacant.

South Korea has faced months of political turmoil since Yoon stunned the country by declaring martial law, triggering his impeachment by parliament and the impeachment of prime minister Han Duck-soo, who is also acting president.

Han’s impeachment was later overturned by the constitutional court and he will continue in the role of acting president until the election.

The power vacuum at the top of South Korea’s government has overshadowed Seoul’s efforts to deal with the administration of US President Donald Trump at a time of spiralling US tariffs and slowing growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Lee Jae-myung, the populist leader of the opposition liberal Democratic party who had lost to Yoon by a razor-thin margin in 2022, is a clear front-runner but faces legal challenges of his own under multiple trials for charges including violating the election law and bribery.

Yoon’s conservative People Power party has a wide-open field of candidates, led by labour minister Kim Moon-soo, who announced his intention to run on Tuesday.

According to a Gallup poll published on 4 April, 34% of respondents supported Lee as the next leader, 9% backed conservative Kim Moon-soo, 5% former ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon, 4% Daegu mayor Hong Joon-pyo, and 2% Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

South Korea will hold a presidential election on 3 June, the country’s acting president said on Tuesday, after predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and removed from office over a disastrous declaration of martial law.

The government “is to set June 3 as the date for South Korea’s 21st presidential election”, prime minister Han Duck-soo said, adding that the day would be designated as a temporary public holiday to facilitate voting.

Yoon was removed by the constitutional court for violating his official duty by issuing the martial law decree on 3 December and mobilising troops in an attempt to halt parliamentary proceedings.

The law requires a new presidential election within 60 days if the position becomes vacant.

South Korea has faced months of political turmoil since Yoon stunned the country by declaring martial law, triggering his impeachment by parliament and the impeachment of prime minister Han Duck-soo, who is also acting president.

Han’s impeachment was later overturned by the constitutional court and he will continue in the role of acting president until the election.

The power vacuum at the top of South Korea’s government has overshadowed Seoul’s efforts to deal with the administration of US President Donald Trump at a time of spiralling US tariffs and slowing growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Lee Jae-myung, the populist leader of the opposition liberal Democratic party who had lost to Yoon by a razor-thin margin in 2022, is a clear front-runner but faces legal challenges of his own under multiple trials for charges including violating the election law and bribery.

Yoon’s conservative People Power party has a wide-open field of candidates, led by labour minister Kim Moon-soo, who announced his intention to run on Tuesday.

According to a Gallup poll published on 4 April, 34% of respondents supported Lee as the next leader, 9% backed conservative Kim Moon-soo, 5% former ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon, 4% Daegu mayor Hong Joon-pyo, and 2% Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Meta is expanding its safety measures for teenagers on Instagram with a block on livestreaming, as the social media company extends its under-18 safeguards to the Facebook and Messenger platforms.

Under-16s will be barred from using Instagram’s Live feature unless they have parental permission. They will also require parental permission to turn off a feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in their direct messages.

The changes were announced alongside the extension of Instagram’s teen accounts system to Facebook and Messenger. Teen accounts were introduced last year and placed under-18s by default into a setting that includes giving parents the ability to set daily time limits for using the app, to block teenagers from using Instagram at certain times and to see the accounts with which their child is exchanging messages.

Facebook and Messenger teen accounts will be rolled out initially in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. As with the Instagram accounts, users under the age of 16 will need parental permission to change the settings, while 16- and 17-year-olds defaulted into the new features will be able to change them independently.

Meta said the Instagram teen accounts were used by 54 million under-18s around the world, with more than 90% of 13- to 15-year-olds keeping on their default restrictions.

The NSPCC, a leading child protection charity, said it welcomed extending the measures to Facebook and Messenger, but said Meta had to do more work to prevent harmful material appearing on its platforms.

“For these changes to be truly effective, they must be combined with proactive measures so dangerous content doesn’t proliferate on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger in the first place,” said Matthew Sowemimo, associate head of policy for child safety online at the NSPCC.

The announcement comes as the UK implements the Online Safety Act. Since March, every site and app within the scope of the legislation, which covers more than 100,000 services from Facebook, Google and X to Reddit and OnlyFans, is required to take steps to stop the appearance of illegal content such as child sexual abuse, fraud and terrorism material, or to take it down if it goes online.

The act also contains provisions for protecting children from harm and requires tech platforms to shield under-18s from damaging material such as suicide and self-harm-related content. Reports last week that the act could be watered down as part of a UK-US trade deal were met with protests from child safety groups, which said any compromise would be an “appalling sellout” that would be rejected by voters.

Speaking at the time the Instagram restrictions were launched, Meta’s then president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said the aim was to “shift the balance in favour of parents” when it came to using parental controls. The announcement had come days after Clegg said parents tended not to use child safety measures.

Donald Trump has announced that the US is to hold direct talks with Iran in a bid to prevent the country from obtaining an atomic bomb, while also warning Tehran of dire consequences if they fail.

Sitting beside Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Oval Office, Trump indicated that discussions would start this coming weekend, though he also implied communications had already begun.

He said the talks were happening in an effort to avoid what he called “the obvious” – an apparent reference to US or Israeli military strikes against the regime’s nuclear facilities.

“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” he told reporters.

“And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or, frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with, if they can avoid it.

“So we’re going to see if we can avoid it. But it’s getting to be very dangerous territory. And hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran’s best interests if they are successful.”

He gave no details of where the talks would take place or which officials would be involved. When questioned by journalists, Trump issued a thinly veiled threat if the talks failed, saying Iran would be in “great danger”.

“I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran … Iran is going to be in great danger, and I hate to say it – because they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

“It’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Right now we have countries that have nuclear power that shouldn’t have it. But I’m sure we’ll be able to negotiate out of that too as part of this later on down the line.

“And if the talks aren’t successful I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran.”

During his presidency, Trump pulled out of a deal signed by Barack Obama known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. That deal offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limitations on its uranium enrichment activities – resorting instead to a policy of “maximum pressure” that tightened economic embargoes.

Critics say Iran nevertheless accelerated its nuclear program and is now closer to building a bomb than ever before. Attempts by Joe Biden at reviving the deal negotiated by Obama faltered.

Netanyahu, who views Iran as an existential threat to Israel, actively undermined Obama’s agreement and has long railed against any deal that would allow the country’s theocratic rulers to maintain a program that could converted to nuclear weaponry.

Iran, for its part, has consistently denied any intent to build a bomb and said its program is meant for purely civilian purposes.

Iran and the US have had no direct diplomatic relations since 1980, when ties were severed after revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran and held 53 diplomats hostage for 444 days.

A Belgian prince has lost a legal battle to claim social security benefits on top of his royal allowance, with a court ruling his claim – the first of its kind in the country’s nearly 200-year history – “unfounded”.

Prince Laurent, the youngest of three children of the former king and queen, had argued that his work entitled him to the coverage granted to independent entrepreneurs – and that he was acting out of “principle” rather than for money.

But a Brussels court found on Monday that the 61-year-old’s duties were more akin to those in the civil service, where categories of workers receive specific benefits but there is no overarching social security system.

A lawyer for the prince, Olivier Rijckaert, said his client was considering whether to appeal. “We’re not where we wanted to be, but the judgment is very detailed, very reasoned, I understand the reasoning,” Rijckaert told Agence France-Presse.

In 2018, his annual state allowance was cut by 15% for a year because he met foreign dignitaries without the federal government’s approval.

Laurent received €388,000 (£333,000) last year from state coffers and lives in his home rent-free. “This is not about financial means but principle,” he told Belgian broadcaster RTBF. “When a migrant comes here, he registers, he has a right to it. I may be a migrant too, but one whose family established the state in place,” he added.

The prince did not take legal action on a “whim”, lawyer Rijckaert said in an article in Le Soir newspaper. Social security is “a right granted by Belgian law to every resident, from the poorest to the biggest billionaire”, he said.

He said Laurent received a salary worth only 25% of his allowance, because the rest went on covering professional expenses including travel and wages for a staff member.

Rijckaert said this results in a monthly net wage for the prince of €5,000 which is comparable to the “average salary of a senior executive in Belgium” but without the usual “full social security coverage”.

Laurent and his British wife, Claire, have three children now in their 20s. He pointed to medical costs and his concerns over his family’s financial well-being, since the royal allowance will be cut when he dies.

Without the social security coverage, Laurent cannot claim reimbursement for certain medical expenses, or sick pay if he is unable to work.

The prince has had an animal welfare foundation offering free veterinary care in clinics for the past 10 years. He said the foundation work, alongside dozens of visits representing Belgium and participation on several boards, meant he has a busy schedule.

He is not the only Belgian royal to have been unhappy about money. When King Albert II abdicated in favour of his son Philippe in 2013 after reigning for 20 years, the ex-monarch found his €923,000 a year insufficient.

An Italian ticketing company and six tour operators have been fined almost €20m (£17m) over illegal practices that made it difficult for regular visitors to access Rome’s Colosseum at the standard cost, including using software bots to hoard tickets and sell them at higher prices.

Italy’s antitrust authority, AGCM, said the hoarding practice made it “essentially impossible” to buy tickets for the Roman amphitheatre online.

The Colosseum is among the most popular landmarks in the world. More than 12 million people visited it in 2024.

AGCM said it had fined CoopCulture, which managed official ticket sales for the site between 1997 and 2024, €7m for “knowingly contributing to the substantial and prolonged unavailability” of standard-priced tickets.

“On the one hand, CoopCulture failed to take adequate steps to counter automated ticket hoarding,” it said in a statement. “On the other, it kept a sizeable share of tickets for bundled sales tied to its own educational tours, which generated considerable profits.”

This meant customers were forced to turn to tour operators and online platforms which resold tickets at higher tickets, bundling them with additional services such as guided tours, pickups from hotels and priority access.

The remainder of the fine was handed out to six tours operators based in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland, which scooped up tickets in bulk using software bots and other tools, contributing to their rapid disappearance from CoopCulture’s website.

AGCM said: “By doing so, the operators benefited from the constant unavailability of tickets, which left consumers seeking access to the Colosseum with no choice but to purchase them through these channels – often at much higher prices due to the bundling with additional services offered either directly or via other operators.”

The authority did not say how much people ended up paying for entrance to the Colosseum as a result of the illegal practices. The website for the monument, which is operated by Italy’s culture ministry, lists the basic ticket price for adults at €18. That gives tourists 20 minutes to explore the amphitheatre’s main floor. A “full experience” ticket costs €24 and gives visitors access to the wider Colosseum archaeological park, including the ruins of the Roman forum, imperial forums and Palatine hill.

A visitor cap was imposed in 2019, limiting numbers to 3,000 at any given time. Among those visiting on Tuesday afternoon will be King Charles and Queen Camilla, who are on a four-day state visit to Italy.

When LS Lowry sold one of his earliest paintings to the literary editor of the Manchester Guardian in 1926, he had an immediate change of heart.

Arthur Wallace had edited a supplement for the Guardian to accompany a civic week organised by Manchester city council in October 1926, and featured three paintings by the then struggling artist.

As Wallace’s grandson Keith explains, Lowry was featured in an accompanying exhibition at a Manchester department store, and Wallace – who had fallen for his sooty panoramas of factory-bound crowds – offered to buy one.

“Lowry said with great daring: ‘Could we say £10?’ and Grandpa wrote a cheque. Then Lowry wrote back to him saying: ‘I think I’ve charged you too much. Can I give you another one as well?’ So Grandpa got two Lowrys for his £10.”

Going to the Mill, the painting that caught Arthur Wallace’s eye, is now coming to auction for the first time since that generous exchange, after the Wallace family finally decided to part with it.

The rare early work, which is to be sold by Lyon & Turnbull in London at the beginning of May, is a preliminary depiction of what would become Lowry’s classic subject, said Simon Hucker, a fine art specialist at the auctioneer.

“That mill and the chimney behind, the domed roof and then the wall of windows – he will paint that view for the next three decades. This is his subject and the little figures all scurrying towards a door, like water pouring towards a drain.”

What is especially rare is for a painting such as this to have had only one owner, Hucker added. A work of similar size and date sold from HSBC’s collection last year went for £1.2m, and the estimate for Going to the Mill is £700,000 to £1m.

As a child, Keith Wallace ate family dinners overlooked by the Lowry. “By the time I was a lad of eight, we kept it in the dining room, so we’d see it every evening over dinner and it was probably a bit grubby by then.”

It remained on his mother’s wall, “uninsured and unsecured”, until the family arranged a long-term loan to the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester in 2013, allowing the public to view it for the first time in more than 80 years.

Keith’s father sold the other work that Lowry gave to his grandfather “to pay for my two sisters’ weddings”, he said.

Arthur and Lowry remained in touch in later years, and Arthur’s retirement book from the Guardian included “a nice letter from Lowry saying ‘so sorry to hear you’re retiring through ill health’,” said Keith.

“They first met well before Lowry had any individual showings at any galleries. It was well before he was able to sell any work to any public gallery. He was very much struggling, and so we Wallaces like to think that at the very least [the sale to Arthur] gave him a bit of a boost and encouraged him to keep on painting.”

Hucker said it was possible to trace the development of Lowry’s signature style from Going to the Mill. “As he went on it becomes a little bit more stylised – that famous white background with black figures on – but here you’ve still got the sooty grey background which is a little more impressionistic, a little more realistic.”

The more you examine the work, the more you discover, he said. “Initially, you see this sweeping movement of the crowd and a great mass of people. But when you look more closely you see that they’re all individuals.

“There’s the woman standing alone looking out at us, in the style of Seurat, drawing the viewer into the lives of others, or the man carrying what seems like a large portfolio, who could be Lowry himself.”

Lowry was immortalised in popular culture through the one-hit-wonder pop song Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs by the folk duo Brian and Michael, released in late 1977 as a tribute to the artist who had died the previous year.

“But he’s much more sophisticated than that,” said Hucker. “This idea that he’s a naive painter who can’t paint any better … god, he can paint, he’s a proper impressionist. These people are not caricatures – he can give you the impression of a man with a couple of strokes at the brush. In these little tiny figures you get a lot of story, and that’s his genius.”