The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has told the BBC that Ukraine may have to give up land as part of a peace deal with Russia, amid a growing pressure from President Donald Trump to accept territorial concessions.

“One of the scenarios is… to give up territory. It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” he said.

But the 53-year-old former boxing champion-turned politician stressed that the Ukrainian people would “never accept occupation” by Russia.

He was speaking hours after a Russian missile-and-drone attack on Kyiv killed 12 people and injured more than 80.

It was one of the deadliest Russian assaults on the Ukrainian capital in months.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Klitschko is now one of the most senior Ukrainian politicians to indicate publicly that his country may have to give up territory, albeit temporarily.

The Kyiv mayor and Zelensky are political opponents. The mayor has repeatedly accused the president and his team of trying to undermine his authority.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme from his office in central Kyiv on Thursday, Klitschko noted that he was “responsible for the capital of Ukraine”, describing it as “the heart” of the war-torn country.

He said President Volodymyr Zelensky might be forced to take a “painful solution” to achieve peace.

When asked whether Zelensky has been discussing with him any details of a possible settlement, Klitschko replied bluntly: “No.”

“President Zelensky does [it] himself. It’s not my function,” he added.

Referring to a very public bust-up between Zelensky and Trump at the White House in February, the mayor suggested that key issues between top politicians would be better discussed “without video cameras”.

Earlier this week, Trump accused Zelensky of harming peace negotiations, after the Ukrainian leader again ruled out recognising Russian control of Crimea, a southern Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Trump said Crimea “was lost years ago” and was currently “not even a point of discussion”.

But Zelensky pointed to a 2018 “Crimea declaration” by Trump’s then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo saying the US “rejects Russia’s attempted annexation”.

Ukraine and its European allies have in recent weeks expressed alarm over what many on the continent see as Trump’s warming of relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

• Trump criticises Zelensky as Ukraine refuses Russian control of Crimea
• Why Zelensky can’t and won’t give up Crimea

China will let scientists from six countries, including the US, examine the rocks it collected from the Moon – a scientific collaboration that comes as the two countries remain locked in a bitter trade war.

Two Nasa-funded US institutions have been granted access to the lunar samples collected by the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Thursday.

CNSA chief Shan Zhongde said that the samples were “a shared treasure for all humanity,” local media reported.

Chinese researchers have not been able to access Nasa’s Moon samples because of restrictions imposed by US lawmakers on the space agency’s collaboration with China.

Under the 2011 law, Nasa is banned from collaboration with China or any Chinese-owned companies unless it is specifically authorised by Congress.

But John Logsdon, the former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BBC Newshour that the latest exchange of Moon rocks have “very little to do with politics”.

While there are controls on space technology, the examination of lunar samples had “nothing of military significance”, he said.

“It’s international cooperation in science which is the norm.”

Washington has imposed tariffs Chinese goods that go up to 245%, while Beijing has hit back with 125% tariffs on US goods.

US President Donald Trump previously hinted at a de-escalation in the trade war, but Beijing has denied that there were negotiations between the two sides.

In 2023, the CNSA put out a call for applications to study its Chang’e-5 moon samples.

What’s special about the Chang’e-5 Moon samples is that they “seem to be a billion years younger” than those collected from Apollo missions, Dr Logsdon said. “So it suggests that volcanic activity went on in the moon more recently than people had thought”.

Space officials from the US and China had reportedly tried to negotiate an exchange of moon samples last year – but it appears the deal did not materialise.

Besides Brown University and Stony Brook University in the US, the other winning bids came from institutions in France, Germany, Japan, Pakistan, the UK.

Shan, from the CNSA, said the agency will “maintain an increasingly active and open stance” in international space exchange and cooperation, including along the space information corridor under the Belt and Road Initiative

“I believe China’s circle of friends in space will continue to grow,” he said.

Indonesia is on an ambitious mission to offer free meals to 80 million school children – but that hasn’t exactly gone according to plan.

Nearly 80 students across two high schools in Cianjur, south of the capital Jakarta, fell ill after eating the meals this week. Most of those who ended up in hospital have since been discharged.

This is the latest in a series of food poisonings that have been linked to the programme, a signature policy of President Prabowo Subianto.

Authorities investigating the case say the suspected cause is negligent food preparation. Samples from the vomit of students have been sent for lab testing, and police say they have questioned people handling the food, from cooks to packers to delivery workers.

A 16-year-old student told local media that the shredded chicken in the meal had an “unpleasant odour”. “I felt dizzy, nauseous and vomited,” he said.

Across the world, programmes offering free meals to students have proved to be effective in improving health, academic performance and attendance.

But Indonesia’s $28bn (£21bn) version – shaping up to be the most expensive of its kind – has become the target of food safety concerns and heated anti-government protests.

In February, when thousands took to the streets to protest at budget cuts, they aimed their ire at the hefty price of Prabowo’s free school meals: “Children eat for free, parents are laid off,” read one of their protest signs.

A centrepiece of Prabowo’s presidential campaign last year, the free meals programme was pitched as a way to tackle stunting – a condition caused by malnutrition that affects a fifth of children below the age of five in Indonesia.

“Through this initiative, our children will grow taller and emerge as champions,” Prabowo said in 2023.

Since he took office last October, this programme, along with other populist policies like new houses and free medical check-ups, has earned him political points. His approval ratings stood at 80% after his first 100 days in power.

In the first phase, which began in January, free school meals have made their way to 550,000 students in 26 provinces.

While the programme is “well-intentioned”, Maria Monica Wihardja, a visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told the BBC there has been “no evidence” of “widespread urgency” for free school meals.

According to a national survey in 2024, less than 1% of Indonesia’s households went at least one day without any meals in the past year.

Since January, a series of food poisonings have raised apprehension about the free meals.

Michelle, an elementary school student in East Nusa Tenggara province, was one of several in her school who suffered suspected food poisoning in February. She told BBC Indonesian at the time that the food, which had given her a stomach ache, was “bland and stale”.

After the incident, some parents started preparing homemade lunches for their children instead, a school official told BBC Indonesian.

This week, after the food poisoning in Cianjur, authorities have promised to step up food safety processes.

“We must improve quality,” said Dadan Hindayana, head of the National Nutrition Agency, who had visited the students in hospital.

“⁠One obvious thing is the lack of mature and in-depth planning before this program was launched,” Eliza Mardian, a researcher at the Center of Reform on Economics Indonesia, told the BBC.

“The haste ends up sacrificing quality and effectiveness, which actually worsens the public’s perception of this programme.”

The cost of the programme has not helped matters.

Indonesia has set aside more than $10bn this year for the free school meals.

By comparison, India spends $1.5bn a year to feed 120 million children in what is the world’s largest such programme. Brazil’s version costs about the same and serves some 40 million students.

To foot the steep bill in Indonesia, Prabowo has urged the country’s tycoons to help, and accepted a funding offer from China.

He also ordered $19bn in cuts to pay for it, along with other populist schemes – which made it especially controversial.

Several ministries, including education, had their budgets slashed by half. Bureaucrats who were not furloughed alleged they were forced to scrimp by limiting the use of air conditioning, lifts and even printers.

University students were furious as news spread of cancelled scholarship programmes and disruptions to their classes.

“The worst thing is when the stomach is full, but the brain is not filled,” Muhammad Ramadan, a student protester in Bandung, told BBC Indonesian – referring to Prabowo’s school meals plan.

There could be more challenges ahead, such as allegations of budget mismanagement, which have begun to emerge after Indonesia’s anti-graft bureau flagged a “real possibility” of fraud in March.

Police launched an investigation this month after a meal provider in south Jakarta accused authorities of embezzlement, saying that she has not been paid since her kitchen started preparing school meals in February.

Prabowo, who has continued to defend the programme, said this week that his administration will “handle” the allegations and “safeguard every cent of public money”.

Experts, however, say the problem runs much deeper.

Large-scale social assistance programmes in Indonesia have historically been “riddled with corruption”, Muhammad Rafi Bakri, a research analyst at Indonesia’s audit board, told the BBC.

“Given the sheer size of the budget,” he said, “this program is a goldmine for corrupt officials.”

California’s economy has overtaken that of the country of Japan, making the US state the fourth largest global economic force.

Governor Gavin Newsom touted new data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showing California’s growth.

The data shows California’s gross domestic product (GDP) hit $4.10 trillion (£3.08 trillion) in 2024, surpassing Japan, which was marked at $4.01 trillion. The state now only trails Germany, China and the US as a whole.

“California isn’t just keeping pace with the world – we’re setting the pace,” Newsom said.

The new figures come as Newsom has spoken out against President Donald Trump’s tariffs and voiced concern about the future of the state’s economy.

California has the largest share of manufacturing and agricultural production in the US. It is also home to leading technological innovation, the centre of the world’s entertainment industry and the country’s two largest seaports.

Newsom, a prominent Democrat and possible presidential candidate in 2028, filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s authority to impose the levies, which have caused disruption to global markets and trade.

Trump has enacted 10% levies on almost all countries importing to the US, after announcing a 90-day pause on higher tariffs.

Another 25% tariff was imposed on Mexico and Canada. The levies on China, however, have led to an all-out trade war with the world’s second largest economy.

Trump imposed import taxes of up to 145% on Chinese goods coming into the US and China hit back with a 125% tax on American products.

His administration said last week that when the new tariffs were added on to existing ones, the levies on some Chinese goods could reach 245%.

Newsom noted his worries about the future of the state’s economy.

“While we celebrate this success, we recognise that our progress is threatened by the reckless tariff policies of the current federal administration,” he said. “California’s economy powers the nation, and it must be protected.”

Trump has argued his trade war is only levelling the playing field after years of the US being taxed.

The tariffs are an effort to encourage factories and jobs to return to the US. It is one major pillar of his economic agenda, as is a cut in interest rates, aimed at reducing the cost of borrowing for Americans.

The new data shows California’s GDP behind the US at $29.18 trillion, China at $18.74 trillion and Germany at $4.65 trillion. It also shows California was the fastest growing among those countries.

Japan’s economy is under pressure because of its decreasing and ageing population, which means its workforce is shrinking and social care costs are ballooning.

This week, the IMF cut its economic growth forecast for Japan and projected that the central bank would raise interest rates more slowly than previously expected because of the impact of higher tariffs.

“The effect of tariffs announced on April 2 and associated uncertainty offset the expected strengthening of private consumption with above-inflation wage growth boosting household disposable income,” its World Economic Outlook report said.

Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese has pledged to invest A$1.2bn (£580m) in a strategic reserve for critical minerals if he wins next month’s election, as trade tensions escalate.

The announcement came after China imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements, essential to the production of advanced technologies – including electric vehicles, fighter jets, and robots.

China’s controls apply to all countries but were widely seen as retaliation to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Albanese said Australia would prioritise minerals that are key to its security, and that of its partners, including rare earths. But could his plan challenge China’s dominance?

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements – named “rare” because they are notoriously difficult to extract and refine.

Rare earths, like samarium and terbium, are critical to the production of technologies set to shape the world in the coming decades – including electric vehicles and highly advanced weapons systems.

Albanese’s proposed reserve includes rare earths as well as other critical minerals of which Australia is a top producer – like lithium and cobalt.

Both China and Australia have rare earth reserves. But 90% of rare earth refining – which makes them usable in technology – takes place in China, giving the country significant control over supply.

And that has spooked Western governments.

Beijing said its restrictions on rare earths were in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports to the US, currently at 145%.

But analysts say Washington’s inability to secure the supply of rare earths has become one of the Trump administration’s chief anxieties, especially as diplomatic tensions with Beijing have deepened.

Around 75% of US rare earth imports came from China between 2019 and 2022, according to the US Geological Survey.

Philip Kirchlechner, director of Iron Ore Research in Perth, Western Australia, told the BBC that the US and EU had “dropped the ball” on recognising the importance of the rare earths over recent decades, as China swiftly developed a monopoly over refinement.

“China has its foot on the blood vein… of US and European defence systems,” he added.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, this week said that China halting exports of rare earths used in advanced magnets was affecting the company’s ability to develop humanoid robots, in an early symbol of the pain Beijing has the power to inflict on US companies.

Albanese’s proposal says that minerals in the reserve will be available to both “domestic industry and international partners”, in a likely reference to allies such as the US and EU.

But Kirchlechner, while welcoming the move as “long overdue”, added that the proposal is “not going to solve the problem”.

The fundamental issue is that even if Australia stockpiles more critical minerals, the refining process of rare earths will still largely be controlled by China.

Lithium – not a rare earth, but a crucial metal in the production electric vehicle batteries and solar panels – is a good example. Australia mines 33% of the world’s lithium, but only refines and exports a tiny fraction. China, on the other hand, mines just 23% of the world’s lithium, but refines 57% of it, according to the International Energy Agency.

Australia has been investing in refining rare earths as part of its Future Made in Australia plan, aimed at leveraging the country’s critical minerals reserves to drive the green transition.

Arafura Rare Earths, headquartered in Perth, Western Australia, last year received A$840m in funding to create the country’s first combined mine and refinery for rare earths. And in November, Australia opened its first rare earths processing plant, also in Western Australia, operated by Lynas Rare Earths.

But the country is expected to depend on China for refining until at least 2026, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, headquartered in Washington.

China has been trying to seize on the volatility brought by Trump.

In a series of editorials in Australian newspapers, China’s ambassador to Canberra lambasted Washington’s approach to global trade, and called on Australia to “join hands” with Beijing – something that Albanese quickly rejected.

Australia has touted its resource industry in its talks with Trump. Some critical minerals were exempt from a 10% tariff he imposed on imports of most Australian products.

But analysts say Albanese’s proposal is mainly aimed at protecting Australia and its partners from strategic adversaries like China.

Alicia García-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis, told the BBC that Albanese’s plan was “more sophisticated” than previous proposals, because it included the ability to sell Australia’s resources at moments of economic tension.

If China imposes export controls, she added, Australia could begin selling more of its mineral reserves to help lower prices on global markets, and loosen the control China has had on setting prices.

But she said that Australia still cannot completely replace China.

“If [Australia’s] goal is to serve the West, become more instrumental to the West – especially the US – there are weak spots China can enter – and the most important is refining.”

Myanmar authorities have arrested an astrologer for causing panic by predicting a new earthquake in a viral TikTok video.

John Moe The posted his prediction on 9 April, just two weeks after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake killed 3,500 people and destroyed centuries-old temples in the South East Asian nation.

He was arrested Tuesday for making “false statements with the intention of causing public panic”, Myanmar’s information ministry said.

John Moe The had warned that an earthquake would “hit every city in Myanmar” on 21 April. But experts say earthquakes are impossible to predict due to the complexity of the factors involved in such disasters.

In his video, which got more than three million views, John Moe The urged people to “take important things with you and run away from buildings during the shaking.”

“People should not stay in tall buildings during the day,” read its caption.

A Yangon resident told AFP that many of her neighbours believed in the prediction. They refused to stay in their homes and camped outside the day John Moe The said the earthquake would happen.

His now-defunct TikTok account, which has more than 300,000 followers, claims to make predictions based on astrology and palmistry.

He was arrested during a raid on his home in Sagaing, central Myanmar.

The areas of Mandalay and Sagaing were hit especially hard by the earthquake on 28 March, which prompted a rare request from the Myanmar junta for foreign aid.

That earthquake was felt some 1,000km away in Bangkok, where a building collapsed at a construction site, killing dozens.

China has called on the US to cancel its sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods entering the country as a sign that the President Donald Trump is serious about resolving the trade war between the two countries.

A Chinese official said there had been no trade talks with the US, despite suggestions otherwise from the Trump administration.

The trade war between the world’s two largest economies has been escalating, with China sending back Boeing planes it ordered from the US in its latest retaliation over tariffs.

But Trump has appeared to soften his stance on China, saying that the taxes he has so far imposed on Chinese imports would “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”.

A trade war between China and the US is in full swing, with Trump imposing import taxes of up to 145% on Chinese goods coming into the US, and China hitting back with a 125% tax on American products.

In one of China’s strongest statements yet over the tariff war, Commerce Ministry spokesman He Yadong said the US should remove all “unilateral tariff measures” against China “if it truly wanted” to solve the issue.

“The person who tied the bell must untie it,” he added.

Separately, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said China and the US had “not conducted consultations or negotiations on tariffs, let alone reached an agreement”.

He added that reports to the contrary were “false”.

Trump previously said negotiations between the countries were “active” – but this was also contradicted by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said on Wednesday they had not yet begun.

Bessent added that there was an opportunity for a “big deal” between the US and China on trade.

He has previously said he expected a de-escalation of the “unsustainable” trade war, and said the current situation was “not a joke”.

Trump said on Tuesday that he would be “very nice” in negotiations with Beijing in the hope of securing a trade deal.

But following China’s latest comments, he said on his Truth Social media platform “Boeing should default China for not taking the beautifully finished planes that China committed to purchase”.

“This is just a small example of what China has done to the USA, for years,” he added, before repeating accusations that synthetic opioid fentanyl “continues to pour into our country from China, through Mexico and Canada, killing hundreds of thousands of our people”.

The boss of plane manufacturer Boeing revealed China had sent back aircraft it had ordered from the US as part of its retaliation to tariffs.

Kelly Ortberg said this week that two planes had already been returned and another would follow due trade tensions between the two countries.

China held a roundtable on Wednesday to address the concerns of more than 80 foreign firms over the impact of US tariffs on their investments and operations in China, the commerce ministry said.

“It is hoped that foreign firms will turn crises into opportunities,” said Vice Commerce Minister Ling Ji.

Israel’s military has admitted killing a United Nations (UN) worker with tank fire, having previously denied responsibility, in an incident in the Gaza Strip last month.

After a UN staff member was killed when a UN compound in Deir al-Balah was damaged on 19 March, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had not struck the site.

But the IDF said on Thursday that the initial findings of its investigation into the incident indicated its troops had in fact killed the UN worker after wrongly identifying the building as containing an “enemy presence”.

It said in a statement: “The building was struck due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a UN facility.”

These preliminary findings have been shared with the UN and the full conclusion will also be provided, it said.

It added: “The IDF regrets this serious incident and continues to conduct thorough review processes to draw operational lessons and evaluate additional measures to prevent such events in the future.

“We express our deep sorrow for the loss and send our condolences to the family.”

The incident, which killed Bulgarian UN worker Marin Valev Marinov and seriously injured five other UN personnel, came a day after Israel renewed its offensive against Hamas after a two-month ceasefire collapsed.

At the time, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a full investigation into the incident, while a spokesperson said: “The locations of all UN premises are known to the parties to the conflict, who are bound by international law to protect them and maintain their absolute inviolability.”

Following the attack, the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) said that “explosive ordnance was dropped or fired” at a guesthouse, which was in an “isolated” location. Its executive director, Jorge Moreira da Silva, said it was “not an accident”.

The IDF said in a statement on the day of the attack: “Contrary to reports, the IDF did not strike a UN compound in Deir el-Balah. The IDF calls on media outlets to act with caution regarding unverified reports.”

Footage verified by the BBC showed injured people – two wearing blue UN flak jackets – arriving at a hospital in an ambulance and a UN car.

Separately, the IDF said earlier this week that “professional failures” had led to the killing of 15 emergency workers in an incident in Gaza last month.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says at least 1,978 people have been killed since Israel renewed its offensive on the territory, with at least 50 reported killed by Israeli strikes on Thursday.

Israel says it is putting military pressure on Hamas to release the 59 hostages it is still holding, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

It has also blocked all deliveries of humanitarian aid and other supplies to Gaza for seven weeks. The UN says this is “further depriving people of the means for survival and undermining every aspect of civilian life”.

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 others were taken hostage.

More than 51,300 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said he will step back from his role with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team known as Doge.

Those at the White House, including the president, have said it has long been the plan that Musk would soon step away, but the news came as the billionaire’s car business saw earnings plunge.

Musk’s announcement left many unanswered questions, including when he will actually leave the administration and what will happen to Doge, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency.

When asked by the BBC on Wednesday, President Donald Trump reinforced the message that the administration was preparing for Musk’s departure.

“We have to, at some point, let him go and do that. We expected to be doing it about this time. I’ll talk to Elon about it,” Trump said at the White House.

The president also said Tesla will “be taken care of” once Musk returns and alleged that Musk was being “treated very unfairly, I guess, by some of the public”.

“He’s a great patriot, and [that] should have never happened to him,” Trump added.

However, under government rules, spending fewer days at Doge could actually prolong Musk’s stint in government.

Musk has been designated a “special government employee” (SGE) – a label that allows him to work at a paid or unpaid government job for 130 days each year.

According to a 2007 Department of Justice memo, cited in an October 2024 guidance document from the Office of Government Ethics, any day on which an SGE performs any work for the government counts as a full day towards that limit.

Measured from Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the 130-day limit – assuming Musk, who brags about working weekends, clocks roughly five days a week at Doge – would run out toward the end of May.

But scaling back would extend that timeframe. Additionally, the 130-day limit would reset in January 2026.

Musk has not given details on his intended schedule. He made the announcement on Tuesday, after Tesla reported financial troubles including a 71% drop in profits.

The drop came after repeated “Tesla takedown” protests across the globe and calls for boycotts against the car manufacturer amid Musk’s government role. While organisers have said most protests have been peaceful, some have been destructive with fires set at Tesla showrooms or at charging stations.

• Musk’s Tesla facilities in US face ‘Takedown’ protests
• Trump says anti-Tesla protesters will face ‘hell’
• Musk to reduce Doge role after Tesla profits plunge

The company warned investors that the pain could continue, declining to offer a growth forecast while saying “changing political sentiment” could meaningfully hurt demand for the vehicles.

Musk told investors on an earnings call that the time he allocates to Doge “will drop significantly” and that he would be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla”.

After the comments, Tesla’s languishing stock price rose.

It’s also unclear how many days Musk has already worked for the government, whether the government is keeping a tally, and how the limit would be enforced.

There has been criticism that the Trump administration may have flouted government rules in creating Musk’s unprecedented role, and concerns that he may not follow the time limit.

Under rules for SGEs, Musk would have to undergo ethics training, provide a confidential financial disclosure statement, and avoid conflicts of interest.

His corporate empire includes large companies that do business with the US government and foreign governments, including SpaceX, which has $22 billion in US government contracts, according to the company’s chief executive.

The rules also prohibit special government employees from partisan activities, including wearing clothing with political slogans, while in government offices or carrying out official duties. Musk has been pictured wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat in the Oval Office.

Still, in February, an anonymous White House official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that Musk would file a confidential financial disclosure at some point, and had been given an ethics briefing.

The following month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the BBC: “Elon Musk is selflessly serving President Trump’s administration as a special government employee, and he has abided by all applicable federal laws.”

For now, Musk appears to serve at Trump’s behest, with no clear oversight other than the president himself.

In a report released last week, progressive think-tank Public Citizen criticised the Trump administration and said the White House was “wildly abusing” the SGE rules.

“Right now, the public has no way to know whether SGEs like Musk who don’t file public financial disclosure reports or are permitted to oversee themselves are putting the people’s interests ahead of their own,” said report author Jon Golinger.

The BBC has contacted Musk and the Office of Personnel Management – the agency overseeing special government employees, and one where Doge employees have reportedly taken over several functions – for comment.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that around 100 Doge employees would remain in various government departments after Musk departs this year.

Musk and Trump set a deadline for Doge to finish its work, which corresponds to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence.

The executive order setting up Doge, signed by Trump on Inauguration Day in January, mentioned 4 July 2026 as the ending date.

Earlier, in December, Musk responded to a tweet that also said Doge would finish entirely on that date.

“The final step of DOGE is to delete itself,” he wrote.

A teenage girl has been killed and three students were injured in a stabbing at a private school in western France.

The attack took place at Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides school in Nantes on Thursday afternoon.

The attacker is said to have been arrested at the scene after being restrained by a teacher.

A significant police presence and emergency services were sent to the school, with army officers also present. It has since been evacuated.

Eye-witness accounts in local media described students running through the site, with some confined to classrooms after an alarm was sounded around lunch time.

Families were informed of the knife attack and told students had been immediately held inside the school.

Authorities helped students gradually leave the site from 15:30 local time (13:30 GMT), as some parents waited nearby.

One father told the Reuters news agency they were “waiting to hold them [our children] in our arms” and “help deal with the stress this will have caused”.

The school has around 2,000 students and educates pupils from nursery through to high school, according to its website.

Psychological support has been put in place for students and teachers. Rue des Épinettes, where the school is located in the east of the city, has been closed off.

French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the casualties on X later on Thursday, and praised teachers at the scene.

He wrote: “By their intervention, the teachers undoubtedly prevented further tragedies. Their courage commands respect.”

After the attack, Prime Minister François Bayrou urged “an intensification” of checks for knives in schools.

National and local politicians visited the school after the attack, where Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told reporters: “This tragedy is not a news item, it is a social phenomenon.”

He added that the “psychological profile” of the suspect was not known.

Nantes public prosecutor Antoine Leroy is said to have visited the school and will hold a news conference in the coming days.

It’s a bright spring morning in Hanover, Germany, and I’m on my way to meet a robot.

I have been invited to see the G1, a humanoid robot built by Chinese firm, Unitree, at the Hannover Messe, one of the world’s largest industrial trade shows.

Standing at about 4’3″ (130cm), G1 is smaller and more affordable than other humanoid robots on the market, and has such a highly fluid range of motion and dexterity that videos of it performing dance numbers and martial arts have gone viral.

Today the G1 is being controlled remotely by Pedro Zheng, the Unitree sales manager.

He explains that customers must program each G1 for autonomous functions.

Passers-by stop and actively try to engage with the G1, which cannot be said for a lot of the other machines being shown off in the cavernous conference room.

They reach out to shake its hand, make sudden movements to see if it will respond, they laugh when G1 waves or bends backwards, they apologise if they bump into it. There’s something about its human shape that, uncanny as it is, sets people at ease.

Unitree is just one of dozens of companies around the world developing robots that have a human form.

The potential is huge – for business it promises a workforce that doesn’t need holidays or pay rises.

It could also be the ultimate domestic appliance. After all, who wouldn’t want a machine that could do the laundry and stack the dishwasher.

But the technology is still some way off. While robotic arms and mobile robots have been common in factories and warehouses for decades, conditions in those workplaces can be controlled and workers can be kept safe.

Introducing a humanoid robot to a less predictable environment, like a restaurant or a home, is a much more difficult problem.

To be useful humanoid robots would have to be strong, but that also makes them potentially dangerous – simply falling over at the wrong time could be hazardous.

So much work needs to be done on the artificial intelligence that would control such a machine.

“The AI simply has not yet reached a breakthrough moment,” a Unitree spokesperson tells the BBC.

“Today’s robot AI finds basic logic and reasoning – such as for understanding and completing complex tasks in a logical way – a challenge,” they said.

At the moment their G1 is marketed at research institutions and tech companies, who can use Unitree’s open source software for development.

For now entrepreneurs are focussing their efforts on humanoid robots for warehouses and factories.

The highest profile of those is Elon Musk. His car company, Tesla, is developing a humanoid robot called Optimus. In January he said that “several thousand” will be built this year and he expects them to be doing “useful things” in Tesla factories.

Other carmakers are following a similar path. BMW recently introduced humanoid robots to a US factory. Meanwhile, South Korean car firm Hyundai has ordered tens of thousands of robots from Boston Dynamics, the robot firm it bought in 2021.

Thomas Andersson, founder of research firm STIQ, tracks 49 companies developing humanoid robots – those with two arms and legs. If you broaden the definition to robots with two arms, but propel themselves on wheels, then he looks at more than 100 firms.

Mr Andersson thinks that Chinese companies are likely to dominate the market.

“The supply chain and the entire ecosystem for robotics is huge in China, and it’s really easy to iterate developments and do R&D [research and development],” he says.

Unitree underlines that advantage – its G1 is cheap (for a robot) with an advertised price of $16,000 (£12,500).

Also, Mr Andersson points out, the investment favours Asian nations.

In a recent report STIQ notes that almost 60% of all funding for humanoid robots has been raised in Asia, with the US attracting most of the rest.

Chinese companies have the added benefit of support from the national and local government.

For example, in Shanghai there is a state-backed training facility for robots, where dozens of humanoid robots are learning to complete tasks.

So how can US and European robot makers compete with that?

Bristol-based Bren Pierce has founded three robotics companies and the latest, Kinisi has just launched the KR1 robot.

While the robot has been designed and developed in the UK, it will be manufactured in Asia.

“The problem you get as a European or American company, you have to buy all these sub-components from China in the first place.

“So then it becomes stupid to buy your motors, buy your batteries, buy your resistors, shift them all halfway around the world to put together when you could just put them all together at the source, which is in Asia.”

As well as making his robots in Asia, Mr Pierce is keeping costs down by not going for the full humanoid form.

Designed for warehouses and factories, the KR1 does not have legs.

“All of these places have flat floors. Why would you want the added expense of a very complex form factor… when you could just put it on a mobile base?” he asks.

Where possible, his KR1 is built with mass-produced components – the wheels are the same as you would find on an electric scooter.

“My philosophy is buy as many things as you can off the shelf. So all our motors, batteries, computers, cameras, they’re all commercially available, mass produced parts,” he says.

Like his competitors at Unitree, Mr Pierce says that the real “secret sauce” is the software that allows the robot to work with humans.

“A lot of companies come out with very high-tech robots, but then you start needing a PhD in robotics to be able to actually install it and use it.

“What we’re trying to design is a very simple to use robot where your average warehouse or factory worker can actually learn how to use it in a couple of hours,” Mr Pierce says.

He says the KR1 can perform a task after being guided through it by a human 20 or 30 times.

The KR1 will be given to pilot customers to test this year.

So will robots ever break out of factories into the home? Even the optimistic Mr Pierce says it’s a long way off.

“My long term dream for the last 20 years has been building the everything robot. This is what I was doing my PhD work in I do think that is the end goal, but it’s a very complicated task,” says Mr Pierce.

“I still think eventually they will be there, but I think that’s at least 10 to 15 years away.”

A trade war between the world’s two biggest economies is now in full swing.

Chinese exports to the US face up to 245% tariffs, and Beijing has hit back with a 125% levy on American imports. Consumers, businesses and markets are braced for more uncertainty as fears of a global recession have heightened.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government has repeatedly said it is open to dialogue, but warned that, if necessary, it would “fight to the end”.

Here’s a look at what Beijing has in its arsenal to counter US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

China is the world’s second-largest economy, which means it can absorb the impacts of the tariffs better than other smaller countries.

With more than a billion people, it also has a huge domestic market that could take some of the pressure off exporters who are reeling from tariffs.

Beijing is still fumbling with the keys because Chinese people are not spending enough. But with a range of incentives, from subsidies for household appliances to “silver trains” for travelling retirees, that could change.

And Trump’s tariffs have given the Chinese Communist Party an even stronger impetus to unlock the country’s consumer potential.

The leadership may “very well be willing to endure the pain to avoid capitulating to what they believe is US aggression”, Mary Lovely, a US-China trade expert at the Peterson Institute in Washington DC, told BBC Newshour earlier this month.

China also has a higher threshold for pain as an authoritarian regime, as it is far less worried about short-term public opinion. There is no election around the corner that will judge its leaders.

Still, unrest is a concern, especially because there is already discontent over an ongoing property crisis and job losses.

The economic uncertainty over tariffs is yet another blow for young people who have only ever known a rising China.

The Party has been appealing to nationalist sentiments to justify its retaliatory tariffs, with state media calling on people to “weather storms together”.

President Xi Jinping may be worried but, so far, Beijing has struck a defiant and confident tone. One official assured the country: “The sky will not fall.”

China has always been known as the world’s factory – but it has been pouring billions into becoming a far more advanced one.

Under Xi, it has been in a race with the US for tech dominance.

It has invested heavily in homegrown tech, from renewables to chips to AI.

Examples include the chatbot DeepSeek, which was celebrated as a formidable rival to ChatGPT, and BYD, which beat Tesla last year to become the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) maker. Apple has been losing its prized market share to local competitors such as Huawei and Vivo.

Recently Beijing announced plans to spend more than $1tn over the next decade to support innovation in AI.

US companies have tried to move their supply chains away from China, but they have struggled to find the same scale of infrastructure and skilled labour elsewhere.

Chinese manufacturers at every stage of the supply chain have given the country a decades-long advantage that will take time to replicate.

That unrivalled supply chain expertise and government support have made China a formidable foe in this trade war – in some ways, Beijing has been preparing for this since Trump’s previous term.

Ever since Trump tariffs hit Chinese solar panels back in 2018, Beijing sped up its plans for a future beyond a US-led world order.

It has pumped billions into a contentious trade and infrastructure programme, better known as the Belt and Road initiative, to shore up ties with the so-called Global South.

The expansion of trade with South East Asia, Latin America and Africa comes as China tries to wean itself off the US.

American farmers once supplied 40% of China’s soybean imports – that figure now hovers at 20%. After the last trade war, Beijing ramped up soy cultivation at home and bought record volumes of the crop from Brazil, which is now its largest soybean supplier.

“The tactic kills two birds with one stone. It deprives America’s farm belt of a once‑captive market and burnishes China’s food security credentials,” says Marina Yue Zhang, associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney’s Australia-China Relations Institute.

The US is no longer China’s biggest export market: that spot now belongs to South East Asia. In fact China was the largest trading partner for 60 countries in 2023 – nearly twice as many as the US. The world’s biggest exporter, it made a record surplus of $1tn at the end of 2024.

That doesn’t mean the US, the world’s biggest economy, is not a crucial trading partner for China. But it does mean it’s not going to be easy for Washington to back China into a corner.

Following reports that the White House will use bilateral trade negotiations to isolate China, Beijing has warned countries against “reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests”.

That would be an impossible choice for much of the world

“We can’t choose, and we will never choose [between China and the US],” Malaysia’s trade minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told the BBC last week.

Trump held firm as stocks plummeted following his sweeping tariffs announcement in early April, likening his staggering levies to “medicine”.

But he made a U-turn, pausing most of those tariffs for 90 days after a sharp sell-off in US government bonds. Also known as Treasuries, these have long been seen as a safe investment. But the trade war has shaken confidence in the assets.

Trump has since hinted at a de-escalation in trade tensions with China, saying that the tariffs on Chinese goods will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”.

So, experts point out, Beijing now knows that the bond market can rattle Trump.

China also holds $700bn in US government bonds. Japan, a staunch American ally, is the only non-US holder to own more than that.

Some argue that this gives Beijing leverage: Chinese media has regularly floated the idea of selling or withholding purchases of US bonds as a “weapon”.

But experts warn that China will not emerge unscathed from such a situation.

Rather, it will lead to huge losses for Beijing’s investments in the bond market and destabilise the Chinese yuan.

China will only be able to exert pressure with US government bonds “only up to a point”, Dr Zhang says. “China holds a bargaining chip, not a financial weapon.”

What China can weaponise, however, is its near monopoly in extracting and refining rare earths, a range of elements important to advanced tech manufacturing.

China has huge deposits of these, such as dysprosium, which is used in magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines, and Yttrium, which provides heat-resistant coating for jet engines.

Beijing has already responded to Trump’s latest tariffs by restricting exports of seven rare earths, including some that are essential for making AI chips.

China accounts for about 61% of rare earths production and 92% of their refining, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

While Australia, Japan and Vietnam have begun mining for rare earths, it will take years before China can be cut out of the supply chain.

In 2024, China banned the export of another critical mineral, antimony, that is crucial to various manufacturing processes. Its price more than doubled amid a wave of panic buying and a search for alternative suppliers.

The fear is that the same can happen to the rare earths market, which would severely disrupt various industries from electric vehicles to defence.

“Everything you can switch on or off likely runs on rare earths,” Thomas Kruemmer, director of Ginger International Trade and Investment, told the BBC previously.

“The impact on the US defence industry will be substantial.”

The Post Office has paid more than £600m of public money to continue using the faulty Horizon IT system despite deciding to ditch it more than a decade ago, the BBC can reveal.

The terms of the original 1999 deal with computer giant Fujitsu mean the Post Office has been stuck with the system and unable to build a replacement so far, even after it contributed to one of the UK’s biggest miscarriages of justice.

Former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair and other senior Labour government figures were warned about potential problems with the terms of the deal before it was signed, the BBC has learned.

The Post Office said it “apologises unreservedly to victims of the Horizon IT scandal” and said it was committed to moving away from Fujitsu and the Horizon software.

Under the terms of the original £548m deal, struck under pressure from the then-Labour government, the Post Office did not own the computer code for the core part of the Horizon system.

Although the Post Office has wanted to switch suppliers since 2012, buying the rights to the code from Fujitsu or building a completely new system from scratch was considered too expensive – even as the amounts paid to Fujitsu to retain the Horizon system grew and grew.

Because it did not own the code, the Post Office was also unable to inspect the part of the software that processed transactions, and had to rely on assurances from Fujitsu that it was functioning correctly.

The Post Office, which is owned by the government, prosecuted about 700 sub-postmasters between 1999 and 2015 for theft, fraud and false accounting over supposed cash shortfalls in branches reported by the Horizon system, based on these assurances. The convictions were overturned by Parliament last year.

Earlier this year, Business Minister Baroness Jones of Whitchurch told the House of Lords that the Post Office is “unfortunately, still dependent on the Horizon system”, and the only way Fujitsu could be “out of the picture” immediately would mean shutting down all local post offices.

An attempt to replace the system with one built by IBM failed in 2016, at a cost of £40m, and the Post Office extended its contract with Fujitsu for at least four more years at a cost of £107m.

The Post Office told the BBC that it finally obtained rights related to the Horizon software and code in 2023, although it is not known if this includes the core system that processes transactions.

The £10m price for the licence was “cheap – because who else would buy it?” according to IT expert Jason Coyne, one of the first people to identify flaws in the system.

The BBC understands that the Post Office may try to use this licence for Horizon’s replacement. But while this is being built, IT experts believe the Post Office’s contract with Fujitsu will need to be extended beyond March 2026 – when it is currently due to end.

Issues over who would own the Horizon software began when the contract to computerise the network of Post Office branches – then numbering 18,000 – was negotiated between the Post Office, Fujitsu and its subsidiary ICL Pathway, and the government.

In May 1999, Sir Tony Blair received an update from the Treasury, in a document warning that discussions with ICL over the terms of a deal “have foundered”.

One of the sticking points was around intellectual property rights (IPR) – which included ownership of the code within the Horizon software.

The document says that ICL was “not prepared to… give perpetual licences for all the IPR”.

It goes on to say that if the Post Office ever wanted to change suppliers, the owner of the IPR “would be in a strong position to drive a costly settlement with the Post Office”.

The BBC has also obtained a document from 20 May the same year, which was sent to then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and other government officials, warning about the issue of who owned the code.

In it, a Treasury civil servant states that one of the “main problems” with the terms of a proposed deal with ICL for the Horizon software was the “issues surrounding ownership of assets and IPR of the kit acquired by” the Post Office.

Mr Coyne, the IT expert, said it was “utter madness” that the deal went ahead in July 1999 because it meant that the Post Office became “operationally reliant on Horizon”, even though it did not own the rights to use the system without Fujitsu.

A spokesperson for Sir Tony Blair did not address the BBC’s questions around his knowledge of the IPR issues but said he “took very seriously the issues raised about the Horizon contract” at the time.

“The final decision was taken after an investigation by an independent panel recommended it was viable.

“It is now clear that the Horizon product was seriously flawed, leading to tragic and completely unacceptable consequences, and Mr Blair has deep sympathy with all those affected.”

A spokesperson for Gordon Brown said he “would not have been shown the memo” from 20 May 1999 and he would have been copied in as a “formality”.

“He was not involved in any work related to the purchasing, award or management of the Horizon contract.”

The warnings about ownership of the IPR came true more than a decade later when Post Office decided to invite other companies to take over the Horizon contract.

Former executives told the Post Office Inquiry, which is examining decisions leading up to the wrongful convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters, how the company had found it difficult to replace Fujitsu.

Alisdair Cameron, former chief financial officer at the Post Office, said that Fujitsu had been “difficult colleagues” and “it was accepted that Horizon, and the infrastructure on which it was built, was vulnerable”.

But Mike Young, chief operations officer at the Post Office between October 2010 and April 2012, told the inquiry that Fujitsu management said to him “the code is ours. You own the service because you pay for that but you don’t pay [for] the code”.

Documents released by the Post Office Inquiry show the “IPR issue” was often discussed by top-level Post Office executives.

“There is a risk that we may be unable to agree an IP license with Fujitsu on reasonable terms”, said an agenda for a Post Office board meeting in July 2013 – while other documents describe concerns over costs.

Procurement specialist Ian Makgill told us he believes not owning the IPR to the Horizon software would have been a factor in the collapse of the 2016 IBM deal to replace the system.

He said that if IBM had tried to build new software without any of the IPR from Horizon, it would have needed to “start from scratch, which would have cost the Post Office hundreds of millions of pounds”.

“IPR is the reason why the Post Office hasn’t been able to move away from Fujitsu and the Horizon software,” he said.

Since 1999, the Post Office has spent £2.5bn on contracts with Fujitsu. This figure includes more than £600m spent on bridging or extension contracts to continue the Horizon contract since the Post Office started looking for new suppliers in 2012, according to analysis from data firm Tussell and the BBC.

Many of the sub-postmasters wrongly accused by the Post Office maintained that there was no missing money and the shortfalls were down to errors in the Horizon system.

But with the Post Office unable to directly inspect the system which processed transactions, it accepted assurances from Fujitsu that the system was working correctly.

“Fujitsu were fighting the whole time to protect their investment and their intellectual property, rather than looking after the interests of the sub-postmasters,” said Mr Makgill.

Fujitsu did not respond to the BBC’s specific questions but stated that it was “focused on supporting the Post Office in their plans for a new service delivery model” so branches can continue to operate.

Mr Makgill said that the Post Office bears the “ultimate responsibility” over the fate of wrongly accused sub-postmasters.

“They didn’t have to take those prosecutions, they didn’t have to take people to court.”

Sub-postmasters currently using the Horizon IT software continue to report issues with it. Seven in 10 said they had experienced an “unexplained discrepancy” on the system since January 2020, according to a YouGov survey with 1,015 respondents commissioned by the Post Office Inquiry in 2024.

The Post Office has said that it has not undertaken any prosecutions related to Horizon since 2015 and “has no intention of doing so”.

It told the BBC that it is “implementing changes across the entire organisation” so that it is “fit for the future, fundamentally changed and with postmasters at its heart”.

It said this includes working with Fujitsu to correct discrepancies and reviewing the current version of Horizon – replacing it in stages, under a five-year plan named the “Future Technology Portfolio”.

Post Office chairman Nigel Railton has said a new IT system would not be introduced in one “big bang” but there would be gradual changes.

The Post Office did not respond to the BBC’s specific questions about IPR being the reason why the company was unable to ditch Fujitsu, and said it would not be appropriate to comment ahead of the Post Office Inquiry’s final report.

The Department of Business and Trade told the BBC that it was providing £136m of funding over the next five years to the Future Technology Portfolio, and was “working at pace” to ensure the Post Office had the technology it needed, including replacing the Horizon system.

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