Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent accusers, has died by suicide aged 41, her family has confirmed to the BBC.

They said in a statement on Friday that “the toll of abuse” became too heavy in a statement confirming her death.

“She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” a statement from her family reads.

Giuffre was one of the most outspoken accusers of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. She alleged they trafficked her to the Duke of York when she was 17, which Prince Andrew has strenuously denied.

“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,” her family’s statement said.

It said she died Thursday on her farm in Western Australia.

Giuffre alleged that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her to the Duke of York when she was 17. Prince Andrew has denied all claims but reached an out-of-court settlement with her in 2022.

The settlement included a statement in which he expressed regret for his association with Epstein but contained no admission of liability or apology.

Giuffre, an American, said she became a victim of sex trafficking when she was a teenager.

She said in the year 2000, she met Maxwell, a British socialite. From there, she was introduced to Epstein and alleges years of abuse before being “passed around like a platter of fruit” among his powerful associates.

US President Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine “are very close to a deal”, hours after his envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow.

Trump said it had been a “good day” of negotiations, while the Kremlin described the talks – which Ukraine was not present at – as “constructive”.

Earlier, Trump said on social media that “most of the major points are agreed to,” and urged Russia and Ukraine to meet “at very high levels” and “to finish it [the deal] off”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his video address late on Friday that “real pressure on Russia is needed” to accept an unconditional ceasefire.

Earlier in the day, Zelensky told the BBC that territorial issues between Kyiv and Moscow could be discussed if a “full and unconditional ceasefire” was agreed upon.

Reports suggest Ukraine would be expected to give up large portions of land annexed by Russia under a US peace proposal.

Trump – who spoke to reporters as he arrived in Rome for Saturday’s funeral of Pope Francis – has said he would support Russia keeping the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Zelensky rejects this idea.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.

On Friday, traffic was halted in Moscow as a convoy of cars carrying Witkoff arrived ahead of the high-level talks, the fourth such visit he has made to Russia since the start of the year.

The three-hour talks were described as “very useful” by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.

It had brought the “Russian and US positions closer together, not just on Ukraine but also on a range of other international issues”, he said.

“Specifically on the Ukrainian crisis, the possibility of resuming direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives was in particular discussed,” he added.

Earlier this week, Putin signalled for the first time since the early stages of the war that he was open to talks with Zelensky.

His remarks were believed to be in response to a proposal by the Ukrainian president for a 30-hour Easter truce to be extended for 30 days. No truce has yet been agreed on.

Kyiv has been on the receiving end of growing pressure from Trump to accept territorial concessions as part of an agreement with Moscow to end the war.

Crimea has become a particular flashpoint.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea of recognising the peninsula as part of Russia, telling reporters in Kyiv on Friday: “Our position is unchanged – only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide which territories are Ukrainian.”

However, in later remarks he suggested to the BBC that “a full and unconditional ceasefire opens up the possibility to discuss everything”.

He also referenced comments made by Trump in an interview with Time magazine, in which the US president said “Crimea will stay with Russia”.

“What President Trump says is true, and I agree with him in that today we do not have enough weapons to return control over the Crimean peninsula,” Zelensky said.

Washington’s peace plan has not been publicly released, but reports suggest it proposes Russia keeps the land it has gained – a condition that is in Moscow’s favour.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported it had seen US proposals handed to European officials last week, as well as subsequent counter-proposals from Europe and Ukraine.

It said there are significant disparities between them.

The US deal offers American legal acceptance of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control of other occupied areas, including all of the Luhansk region.

By contrast, the Europeans and Ukrainians will only discuss what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory after a ceasefire has come into effect.

The US plan also rules out Ukraine’s membership in the Nato military alliance, according to Reuters.

As the meeting between Witkoff and Putin was taking place, Trump claimed talks were going in the right direction.

“They’re meeting with Putin right now, as we speak, and we have a lot of things going on, and I think in the end we’re going to end up with a lot of good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals,” he told reporters in the US.

He said his aim was to bring about an end to fighting in Ukraine which he said was claiming the lives of 5,000 Ukrainian and Russians a week, adding he believed “we’re pretty close” to a peace deal.

Trump also said Zelensky had not signed the “final papers on the very important Rare Earths Deal with the United States”.

“It is at least three weeks late,” he said, adding that he hoped it would be signed “immediately”.

The long-talked of minerals deal, which would give the US a stake in Ukraine’s abundant natural resource deposits, was meant to be signed in February but was derailed after an acrimonious meeting between Trump and Zelensky in Washington.

Russia and Ukraine’s positions in securing a peace deal still seem miles apart, with no representative from Ukraine invited to take part in the talks in Moscow.

Writing on social media on Friday, Zelensky criticised Russia for failing to agree to a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the US on 11 March and urged allies to apply more pressure to it.

“It’s been 45 days since Ukraine agreed to President Trump’s proposal for quiet in the sky, sea and the frontline,” he said. “Russia rejects all this. Without pressure this cannot be resolved. Pressure on Russia is necessary.”

He said Russia was being allowed to import missiles from countries such as North Korea, which he said it then used in a deadly missile strike on Kyiv on Thursday, which killed 12 people and injured dozens.

“Insufficient pressure on North Korea and its allies allows them to make such ballistic missiles. The missile that killed the Kyiv residents contained at least 116 parts imported from other countries, and most of them, unfortunately, were made by US companies,” Zelensky alleged.

Following the attack on Kyiv, Trump said he was “putting a lot of pressure” on both sides to end the war, and directly addressed Putin in a post on social media, saying: “Vladimir STOP!”

Since then, however, Trump has blamed Kyiv for starting the war, telling Time magazine: “I think what caused the war to start was when they [Ukraine] started talking about joining Nato.”

Ahead of the talks between Witkoff and Putin, a senior Russian general was killed in a car bomb attack in the Russian capital. The Kremlin accused Ukraine of being responsible. Kyiv has not commented.

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.”

Pope Francis refused to heed advice to slow down in his final few years, preferring to “die with his boots on”, according to a close aide.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister since 2014, said the Pope was driven to carry on because he knew he had an opportunity to help the powerless.

While he describes a polite, gentle and compassionate man, Archbishop Gallagher also said Pope Francis knew his own mind and often defied the advice of those around him.

“One thing I always admired about him – though did not always agree with at first – was that he didn’t run away from difficult things,” said Archbishop Gallagher.

“He would face up to the issues and that showed remarkable courage,” he added.

Pope Francis, the first ever Latin American pope, died on Monday aged 88, following a period of ill health that led to him spending five weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.

Sitting in his reception room in the Vatican, Archbishop Gallagher said even he had been stunned by the magnitude of the void he feels has been left by the Pope’s death.

“He was very much the voice of the voiceless and was very aware that the vast majority of people are powerless and do not have their destiny in their hands. I think he felt that he could contribute something to make things a little bit better for them,” he added.

The Vatican official, who accompanied the Pope on his foreign trips, said he was drawn in particular to the plight of migrants and of women and children caught up in conflict, saying he felt their suffering “in a very real way”.

Archbishop Gallagher suggested Pope Francis’s sense he could have a hand in helping alleviate suffering is what drove him to keep working at full pace even when told not to, saying he thought it had been “66 or 67 years” since the Pope had taken a holiday.

Pope Francis’s very first trip outside Rome was to meet migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa. But he then travelled extensively abroad visiting more than 60 countries, and not always ones his aides wanted him to go to.

Archbishop Gallagher remembered the time the Pope wanted to visit the Central African Republic and a meeting at which many advisers told him it was too dangerous to go.

“He just said ‘well I’m going and if nobody wants to come, fine, I’ll go on my own’, which of course was rather putting us to shame,” said Archbishop Gallagher.

Pope Francis visited the Central African Republic in 2015 as he had wanted to.

“He was always willing to surprise us with who he was willing to meet and talk to. Sometimes this institution [the Vatican] would say one should be a bit more prudent and he wouldn’t listen to that.”

The Vatican foreign minister described the Pope’s ability to scythe through difficult subjects with clarity, reminding officials, for example, to remember migrants as human beings and not just “numbers” in their discussions about them.

On foreign trips over the years, Pope Francis could sometimes be seen nodding to sleep during formal events with politicians and heads of state, or wearing an expression that suggested he was not enjoying the moment.

Archbishop Gallagher acknowledged what observers had long suspected, that the Pope would rather be surrounded by regular people, and particularly young people, rather than meet the “great and the good”.

He feels the legacy of Pope Francis has many dimensions but certainly includes breaking down barriers between the public and the institution of the Church and particularly its leader, who he described as “very approachable, very normal”.

“I used to like telling anecdotes and he also liked that sort of thing. The last thing he ever said to me, two weeks ago, was, ‘don’t lose your sense of humour’.”

The Vatican said more than 250,000 people paid their respects to Pope Francis between Wednesday and Friday during his lying-in-state in St Peter’s Basilica, ahead of his funeral on Saturday.

Will India be able to stop the Indus river and two of its tributaries from flowing into Pakistan?

That’s the question on many minds, after India suspended a major treaty governing water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries, following Tuesday’s horrific attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) survived two wars between the nuclear rivals and was seen as an example of trans-boundary water management.

The suspension is among several steps India has taken against Pakistan, accusing it of backing cross-border terrorism – a charge Islamabad flatly denies. It has also hit back with reciprocal measures against Delhi, and said stopping water flow “will be considered as an Act of War”.

The treaty allocated the three eastern rivers – the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – of the Indus basin to India, while 80% of the three western ones – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan.

Disputes have flared in the past, with Pakistan objecting to some of India’s hydropower and water infrastructure projects, arguing they would reduce river flows and violate the treaty. (More than 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture and around a third of its hydropower depend on the Indus basin’s water.)

India, meanwhile, has been pushing to review and modify the treaty, citing changing needs – from irrigation and drinking water to hydropower – in light of factors like climate change.

Over the years, Pakistan and India have pursued competing legal avenues under the treaty brokered by the World Bank.

But this is the first time either side has announced a suspension – and notably, it’s the upstream country, India, giving it a geographic advantage.

But what does the suspension really mean? Could India hold back or divert the Indus basin’s waters, depriving Pakistan of its lifeline? And is it even capable of doing so?

Experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes.

“The infrastructure India has are mostly run-of-the-river hydropower plants that do not need massive storage,” said Himanshu Thakkar, a regional water resources expert with the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

Such hydropower plants use the force of running water to spin turbines and generate electricity, without holding back large volumes of water.

Indian experts say inadequate infrastructure has kept India from fully utilising even its 20% share of the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus waters under the treaty – a key reason they argue for building storage structures, which Pakistan opposes citing treaty provisions.

Experts say India can now modify existing infrastructure or build new ones to hold back or divert more water without informing Pakistan.

“Unlike in the past, India will now not be required to share its project documents with Pakistan,” said Mr Thakkar.

But challenges like difficult terrain and protests within India itself over some of its projects have meant that construction of water infrastructure in the Indus basin has not moved fast enough.

After a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2016, Indian water resources ministry officials had told the BBC they would speed up construction of several dams and water storage projects in the Indus basin.

Although there is no official information on the status of such projects, sources say progress has been limited.

Some experts say that if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season, when water availability is already at its lowest.

“A more pressing concern is what happens in the dry season – when the flows across the basin are lower, storage matters more, and timing becomes more critical,” Hassan F Khan, assistant professor of Urban Environmental Policy and Environmental Studies at Tufts University, wrote in the Dawn newspaper.

“That is where the absence of treaty constraints could start to be felt more acutely.”

The treaty requires India to share hydrological data with Pakistan – crucial for flood forecasting and planning for irrigation, hydropower and drinking water.

Pradeep Kumar Saxena, India’s former IWT commissioner for over six years, told the Press Trust of India news agency that the country can now stop sharing flood data with Pakistan.

The region sees damaging floods during the monsoon season, which begins in June and lasts until September. But Pakistani authorities have said India was already sharing very limited hydrological data.

“India was sharing only around 40% of the data even before it made the latest announcement,” Shiraz Memon, Pakistan’s former additional commissioner of the Indus Waters Treaty, told BBC Urdu.

Another issue that comes up each time there is water-related tension in the region is if the upstream country can “weaponise” water against the downstream country.

This is often called a “water bomb”, where the upstream country can temporarily hold back water and then release it suddenly, without warning, causing massive damage downstream.

Could India do that?

Experts say India would first risk flooding its own territory as its dams are far from the Pakistan border. However, it could now flush silt from its reservoirs without prior warning – potentially causing damage downstream in Pakistan.

• How water shortages are brewing wars

Himalayan rivers like the Indus carry high silt levels, which quickly accumulate in dams and barrages. Sudden flushing of this silt can cause significant downstream damage.

There’s a bigger picture: India is downstream of China in the Brahmaputra basin, and the Indus originates in Tibet.

In 2016, after India warned that “blood and water cannot flow together” following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir which India blamed on Pakistan, China blocked a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo – that becomes the Brahmaputra in northeast India.

China, that has Pakistan as its ally, said they had done it as it was needed for a hydropower project they were building near the border. But the timing of the move was seen as Beijing coming in to help Islamabad.

After building several hydropower plants in Tibet, China has green-lit what will be the world’s largest dam on the lower reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo.

Beijing claims minimal environmental impact, but India fears it could give China significant control over the river’s flow.

It was all smiles in the Kremlin.

“It’s so good to see you,” gushed Steve Witkoff as he shook the hand of the Russian president.

From his broad smile you could tell that Donald Trump’s special envoy was indeed delighted to see Vladimir Putin.

In fact, he’s been seeing rather a lot of him.

This was their fourth meeting in just over two months.

In that period Witkoff has surely had more face time with Russia’s president than any other American.

The Kremlin released 27 seconds of video from the meeting. What caught my attention wasn’t so much the body language or the greetings – it was the table.

On one side sat the combined might of the Russian delegation: President Putin, flanked by his veteran foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, his envoy on foreign investment Kirill Dmitriev, plus an interpreter.

On the other side, clearly outnumbered: Witkoff and a translator.

This is not traditional diplomacy – but then again, Witkoff is not a traditional diplomat.

He is a billionaire New York real estate developer and long-time confidant of Trump – who himself is not a traditional president.

Like Trump, Witkoff has made a career in doing deals.

This is how high-level US-Russian diplomacy is being conducted now in the Trump era.

It’s how crucial decisions with potential implications for the global order are being debated.

Following this round of talks, Ushakov held a conference call for reporters. He insisted that the negotiations with Witkoff had been “constructive and very useful”.

“May I ask a question?” I began. “What are the main sticking points, the obstacles to peace in Ukraine?”

“Thank you,” Ushakov said. “We’ll end it there.” Conference call over.

From the various alleged peace proposals that have been leaked to the press, there seem to be plenty of “sticking points”. There are differences over the territorial concessions Ukraine would be required to make, security guarantees, sanctions relief for Russia and the sequencing – that is, the order in which obligations undertaken be carried out.

The day Witkoff flew to Moscow, on the edge of the city, peace was shattered.

A car bomb killed a senior Russian general.

Yaroslav Moskalik was deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian General Staff. The Kremlin accused Kyiv of assassinating him.

If that’s true, it’s a sign of how Russia’s war in Ukraine has come much closer to home.

There is no guarantee that talks between Putin and Witkoff will bring peace. And there will be concern in Kyiv and in Europe that they were not at the table.

What is clear is that Putin and Trump are determined to bring their countries closer – whatever happens with the Ukraine peace process.

For Moscow and Washington, now their watchword is co-operation.

On Friday, I attended a ceremony at a Moscow military park symbolising this.

It marked the moment, 80 years ago, when American and Soviet soldiers met on the Elbe River in the dying days of World War Two. That was a time when Russia and America were allies.

A military band played as people lined up to lay flowers at a memorial to the Meeting on the Elbe.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine put the US and Russia on opposite sides, but times are changing again.

The White House and the Kremlin are trying to repair relations. Could they secure a peace deal, one that’s acceptable to Ukraine?

“We are just re-establishing contact,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told me at the ceremony.

“We are just trying to find a way out of this terrible crisis which was created by the previous American administration. They ruined many things.”

Moscow presents itself as peacekeeper. It blames Kyiv and the “collective West” for the fighting.

And yet in February 2022, it was President Putin who ordered Russian troops to invade a sovereign neighbouring country, to force it back into Moscow’s orbit.

So much has changed, not least the attitude of the White House.

President Biden had promised to support Ukraine “for as long as we can”.

Earlier this month, Trump blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war.

“You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” Trump said.

The seat at the Vatican had been vacant for two days when a group of grey-clad nuns stood on St Peter’s Square and started to sing.

Softly at first then louder, as if to encourage those who joined in timidly, the nuns broke into Ave Maria.

Every so often they shuffled a few inches forward, following the queue for Pope Francis’s lying in state. And all the while they sang, their faces turned to St Peter’s Basilica to their left, their white veils glistening under their large sun hats.

It was a fitting sight for an extraordinary week in which Rome seemed to regain its reputation as the “capital of the world” – and St Peter’s Square as the centre of the Catholic universe.

There is mourning, but also recognition that the Pope, who lived to 88, died quickly and peacefully. “At least he didn’t suffer,” many say. Yet this isn’t the time for celebration either – that will have to wait until after the funeral, when the conclave will spark the usual frenzy of excitement, intrigue and inevitable speculation.

Before then, in Rome these in-between days have taken on a flavour of their own.

Elena, a Romanian woman in her 50s, said she had noticed a “pensive” atmosphere in the city. “There are big crowds around but I have felt everything was a bit quieter, there is something different in the air,” she told the BBC, guessing that the Pope’s death was encouraging people to “look inside” more.

She added that everyone she spoke to this week – even non-believers – had been marked by his death somehow.

Her friend Lina agreed. She was standing behind the counter of her tobacconist shop in Borgo Pio, a quiet cobblestoned street lined with buildings in earthy tones and flower boxes near the Vatican. “It’s neither a week of tragedy nor one of celebration,” she said. “It’s a chance for people to think, to reflect, and I think that’s much needed.”

Nearby, people slowly ambled down Via della Conciliazione – the pedestrian street that connects Italy and the Vatican city state, and the same one the Pope’s coffin will travel down on Saturday as he reaches his final place of rest in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

The 4th Century church is only located around 4km away from St Peter’s, but the journey there is set to take around two hours as the car carrying the Pope’s coffin will move at walking pace to allow people lining the streets to see it and say their goodbyes, the Vatican said earlier this week.

Two plain-clothed police officers acknowledged that the neighbourhood was much busier than usual, but that it “felt like a Saturday,” and that people had been very relaxed.

Still, the signs of the huge security operation mounted by the Vatican and Italian authorities were everywhere.

On Wednesday, a soldier stood outside a religious goods shop brandishing a hefty bazooka-like anti-drone device. Asked whether the contraption could, for instance, disrupt drone frequencies and force them to return to their bases, he replied mysteriously: “Maybe, among other things.”

Next to him, a fellow soldier scanned the sky with binoculars. On the day of the funeral, they will be joined by thousands of security personnel from various branches of the police and armed forces, as well as river patrol units, bomb-sniffing dogs and rooftop snipers.

American student Caislyn, who was sat on a bench sketching the dome of St Peter’s, said she was “shocked” at how safe she felt despite the number of people around.

The 21-year-old attributed that to the fact that “people are here to pay their respects to Francis, and to enjoy this beautiful city.” She called the atmosphere “bittersweet,” but said she saw the funeral as a “celebration of life”.

“He gave such a great example to the world,” she reminisced.

As Caislyn recalled Francis’ commitment to the poorest of society, many others referenced his last-known trip outside the Vatican on Maundy Thursday, when he visited prisoners at the Regina Coeli jail, as he had done many times before.

“He was close to the people,” Elena said fondly, adding that she understood why he “couldn’t stay away” from helping those worst off.

“I work as a volunteer for homeless people and every time I try to stop, something pulls me back. Why? Because I lived like them for three months, because I come from poverty too. It’s not hard for me to feel close to them,” she said.

“And I think it was the same for Francis,” she said, mentioning comments by Francis’s sister Maria Elena who told Italian media last month that she and her siblings had grown up in poverty in Argentina.

Elena added: “He never forgot where he was from. Even when he got to the highest role, he never let it change him.”

For Belgian tourist Dirk, whose wife was queuing to see the Pope lying in state in the basilica, the sombre atmosphere since the Pope’s death is something that “draws people in, it’s something they want to be a part of”.

“It might just be temporary, it’ll probably be over by Monday,” he laughed.

• IN PICTURES: Symbolism on show as Pope lies in open coffin
• PROFILE: Acting head of the Vatican Cardinal Kevin Farrell
• EXPLAINER: A visual guide to Pope Francis’s funeral
• WATCH: How previous Popes were laid to rest
• Are you in Rome for the Pope’s funeral? Get in touch.

Dryly, he remarked on the number of homeless – and often disabled – people around the Vatican. “I saw a woman who was walking almost bent over, and people in clergy clothes completely ignored her, in fact they looked in the other direction so they wouldn’t have to be confronted with it,” he said.

“So it remains shocking, the wealth of these churches around us and the poverty of the people sleeping on their doorsteps.” He shook his head. “The contrast is jarring to me.”

Katleho – an upbeat young woman from Lesotho – told the BBC that she felt “special, happy” when she received Pope Francis’s Easter blessing on the day before he died, when he appeared on St Peter’s balcony. “I thought: I’m a real Catholic now!,” she laughed.

She said she felt “so privileged to be joining a multitude of people” who were paying their respects to Pope Francis this week. “It’s a real shared experience, it’s so wonderful,” she said, skipping off to catch up with the rest of her group.

For three days this week, tens of thousands of people streamed into St Peter’s to bid their last farewell to the Argentinian Pope who – as he put it when he was elected – had come “from the end of the world”.

Father Ramez Twal, from Jerusalem, was the last in line in the queue to see Pope Francis’s body.

“It’s amazing that we as a group from the Holy Land get to say the last goodbye for our late Pope Francis,” he said.

“For us, it’s a really emotional moment to say thank you to him for being with us during this terrible time in the Holy Land.

“He means a lot to me, because he gave us a spiritual way of thinking, he had a love he gave for all, and he taught us to respect each other. We will miss him.”

As they entered the basilica after hours of queuing, visitors and pilgrims proceeded towards Francis’s body, lying in a casket by the high altar built over the tomb of St Peter, the Catholic Church’s first pope. Some brandished selfie sticks, others clutched their rosaries or their children’s hands. All were very quiet.

Outside, under the warm April sunshine, groups of joyous African pilgrims in flashy head wraps ate gelato by the Bernini fountain, seagulls circling overhead.

Retired Californian couples fanned themselves under the square’s colonnades, and journalists from around the world shouted questions in shaky Italian at any cardinal who looked like they may have a vote in the upcoming conclave.

Holding his phone out to show a caller back home his surroundings, a Brazilian priest spun on himself, laughing.

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.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – set up to cut US government spending – claims to have saved, on average, more than $10bn a week since President Trump entered office.

“We’re talking about almost $200bn and rising fast,” Trump told the BBC when talking about Mr Musk’s cost-cutting drive on 23 April.

Doge’s website says it is focusing on cancelling contracts, grants and leases put in place by previous administrations, as well as tackling fraud and reducing the government workforce.

BBC Verify has looked at the agency’s biggest claimed savings, examining the figures and speaking to experts.

Our analysis found that behind some of the large numbers, there is a lack of evidence to back them up.

In October, Mr Musk pledged to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal government budget. He subsequently halved this target and on 10 April talked about making savings of $150bn from “cutting fraud and waste” by the end of the next financial year in 2026.

The US federal budget for the last financial year was $6.75tn.

Doge publishes a running total of its estimated savings on its website – which stood at $160bn the last time the site was updated on 20 April.

However, less than 40% of this figure is broken down into individual savings.

We downloaded the data from the Doge website on 23 April and added up the total claimed savings from contracts, grants and leases.

Our analysis found only about half of these itemised savings had a link to a document or other form of evidence.

US media has also highlighted some accounting errors, including Doge mistakenly claiming to have saved $8bn from cancelling an immigration contract which in fact had a total value of $8m.

Doge says it is working to upload all receipts in a “digestible and transparent manner” and that, as of 20 April, it has posted receipts “representing around 30% of all total savings”. It also lists some receipts as being “unavailable for legal reasons”.

BBC Verify examined the four largest savings listed on the Doge website which had receipts attached.

The department claims these add up to $8.3bn, but after examining the evidence provided and speaking to people familiar with federal contracts, this figure appears to be overstated.

For three of the savings, Doge links to documents on the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). This is a database which records contracts given out by the US government.

The documents show a contract’s start and end date, the maximum amount the government has agreed to spend, and how much of that has been spent.

David Drabkin, a federal contracts expert who helped develop the FPDS database, said the maximum figure listed should be treated with caution.

“FPDS does not reflect the actual paid price until some period of time after the contract has been completed and the contract actions have been recorded,” he says.

“For example, when buying research and development into a vaccine no one really knows how much that’s going to cost – so when a price is set, it’s not a definite price but rather an upper limit.”

So if Doge counts the maximum figure, that can represent projected spending over a number of years, rather than a direct saving from the country’s yearly spending.

Doge’s largest listed individual saving is $2.9bn.

It comes from cancelling a contract – which started in 2023 under President Biden – for a facility in Texas to house up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

Doge appears to have taken the “total contract value” until 2028 – the end date listed – and subtracted the amount spent so far to get the $2.9bn figure.

But the contract was reviewed annually, meaning renewing it until 2028 was not guaranteed.

A source familiar with this contract – who spoke on condition of anonymity – told BBC Verify that Doge’s figure is “based on speculative, never-used figures” and that the actual spending depended on how many children were placed at the facility and the services they required.

“In truth, the government never incurred those costs and could never reach that ceiling amount. The real, documentable savings from early termination were approximately $153 million”, they estimated.

They say this figure comes from tallying up the $18m per month fixed running costs (for things like staffing and security at the facility) from February – when Doge announced the cut – to November – when the contract was subject to annual review.

They also told us that the site – which closed on the same day as the Doge announcement – never reached its maximum capacity of 3,000 children, and about 2,000 stayed at the Texas facility at its peak, before numbers fell significantly as border crossings decreased.

We contacted the Administration for Children and Families and the Department for Health and Human Services which awarded the contract but are yet to hear back.

The second largest saving listed by Doge comes from cancelling a contract between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and an IT company called Centennial Technologies which it claims was worth $1.9bn.

The document which Doge links to has a total contract value of $1.9bn and all of the other cost fields, including the amount already spent, are for $0.

However, Mr Drabkin told us this does not necessarily mean that nothing had been spent on the contract.

He said several government departments have poor recording keeping, meaning the amount spent during some contracts might not always be updated in a timely fashion.

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The contract start date is listed as August 2024 and was estimated to run until 2031.

However, Centennial Technologies’ CEO told the New York Times that the agreement had actually been cancelled last autumn during the Biden administration.

The company did not respond to our requests for further comment.

Another IT contract, this time with the Department of Defense, is the third largest claimed saving.

Doge says $1.76bn was saved by cancelling a contract with an IT services company called A1FEDIMPACT.

On the contract document, the total value is listed as $2.4bn. An online database of government contracts called Higher Gov says this amount was the ceiling value.

Again, there is $0 recorded for the amount that had been spent at the time the contract was terminated.

It is unclear where Doge’s figure of $1.76bn comes from – we have asked the Pentagon and the supplier about it.

The fourth largest claimed saving of $1.75bn comes from cancelling a USAID grant to Gavi, a global health organisation, which campaigns to improve access to vaccines.

Doge links to a page on USASpending.gov. It shows a grant was paid to Gavi in three instalments, during the Biden administration, totalling $880m.

Gavi confirmed that $880m had been paid out by USAID but said it had not been told the grant had been terminated.

“Gavi has not received a termination notice related to this grant,” a spokesperson told us.

We have not found any evidence for the $1.75bn saving claimed by Doge, and a source familiar with the contract said it was unclear where it comes from.

We asked the USAID Office of Inspector General about the grant but it did not respond to us.

While Doge may have cut a significant amount of government spending, the lack of evidence provided for its biggest claimed savings makes it impossible to independently confirm exactly how much.

Doge does not have a press office but BBC Verify has contacted the White House to ask for more evidence of these claimed savings.

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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.

As they walked through arrivals at Manchester Airport, a couple seemed to be behaving oddly towards their baby.

Something did not sit right with Border Force officers. One worried the relationship between the three was “not genuine”.

Officers pulled the couple for questioning. The man, Raphael Ossai, claimed to be the girl’s father.

He handed them a birth certificate for the baby, which showed his travelling companion, Oluwakemi Olasanoye, as the child’s mother.

But officers found a second birth certificate, hidden in the lining of the couple’s luggage. It named another woman, Raphael’s British wife, as the little girl’s mother.

It was the start of a mystery that remains unsolved – the little girl’s true identity is still not fully known.

What we do know is the child is not related to any of the adults. The girl, who we are calling Lucy, seems to have been born in rural Nigeria in September 2022, and given to an orphanage when she was just three days old.

The couple who carried her to the UK, Ossai and Olasanoye, pleaded guilty to immigration offences and were sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by deportation.

Now Lucy has been in care in Manchester for nearly two years. The Nigerian High Commission did not engage in depth with the case despite multiple requests from the High Court.

For the last nine months the High Court in Manchester has been trying to find out who Lucy really is, as it decides what her future should be.

The court heard that on June 20 2023, Ossai and Olasanoye unlawfully brought Lucy to the UK from Lagos, via Addis Ababa. Olasanoye had a visa to work in the UK and agreed to travel with Ossai and Lucy.

When the couple were sentenced in criminal court, it was believed that Lucy was the child of Ossai and his Nigerian-born British wife.

Ossai met his British wife in Kenya and married her in Nigeria in 2017 – but he had never been to the UK. When he applied for a visitor’s visa, he was turned down due to financial circumstances.

At the time of sentencing, the judge said the “principal motive for this offence” was to bring the bring the baby to the UK so him and his British wife could live as a “family” with Lucy.

However during the High Court hearing, DNA tests proved Lucy is not related either of the adults.

Documents presented to the court said that she had been born to a young student in rural Nigeria, who was not able to care for her. Her father was not known.

The papers indicated the mother had voluntarily relinquished Lucy to an orphanage.

Ossai and his British wife said they had been looking for a little girl to adopt, and he collected Lucy when she was a tiny baby.

The couple had permission to foster the little girl but not to adopt her or take her out of Nigeria.

Ossai, a music producer, took Lucy to a small flat in the Nigerian capital Lagos where he looked after her for the next nine months.

He told the court he had cared for the baby well – that he had fed her properly, played her music, and kept her safe.

But a social worker from the Children and Family Court Advisory Service CAFCASS said she believed Lucy had been neglected, underfed and under stimulated.

She had met the little girl when she was just over a year old, in October 2023.

“It was really sad when I met her,” a social worker told the court.

Giving evidence, she said it was as though the child did not realise “she was actually a person”.

“She was so lost, and not really present… she just felt so alone yet she was surrounded by people,” she added.

During an observation session, the social worker said Lucy became very “panicky” when her foster carer stood up to leave the room.

She also displayed an “extreme cry” that was “very difficult to soothe”.

When asked whether Lucy could have been traumatised by the flight or by her transfer to care, the social worker said she believes it is unlikely that alone was to blame.

She added that if Lucy had developed a secure attachment to Ossai, that would have been transferred to her foster carer.

The judge said the child lacked “basic parental attachment” but did not make a finding on the cause.

“I am sure that her being brought into this country illegally and thus separated from her carers is bound to be a significant factor,” he said.

Although Ossai has been sentenced to be deported, he and his British wife asked the High Court to assess them to care for Lucy.

Ossai said that he thought of Lucy as his daughter. His lawyers said that as the Nigerian authorities had approved him as her foster parent, the English court had no power to take her away.

Lucy had always been happy with him, Ossai said, and he thought taking her into care had upset her, especially placing her with white foster carers.

“The white may be strange to her,” he added. “When they took her from me I saw the way she was looking at them.”

His lawyers raised concerns that if Lucy were adopted by a white family, she would lose her cultural identity.

Ossai’s British wife said Lucy “is like that precious gift that I desired so much”.

She told the High Court she would do “anything and everything” for her, adding “I see her as my child”.

Both broke down and cried in court when they talked about the little girl.

The High Court Judge hearing the case, Sir Jonathan Cohen, rejected Ossai and his British wife’s application to be assessed to care for Lucy.

He said the lies they had told and the actions they had taken, especially moving Lucy from Nigeria, had “inevitably caused her very significant emotional harm”.

Lucy has been placed with several different foster carers and is residing in at least her third new home since her arrival in the UK. In April, the judge ordered she be placed for adoption in the UK and that her name be changed.

He said that Lucy “needs to have the best opportunities going forward in the world”, and that can “only be done in a placement in an alternative family”.

The judge added that she would be provided with “background” about her heritage and told what happened in her past.

He found that Ossai and his British wife had a genuine desire to adopt Lucy.

Julian Bild, an immigration lawyer for anti-trafficking charity Atleu, said in circumstances where a woman is a UK national and a child is a UK national via adoption or otherwise, “it is likely the family would be allowed to stay here”.

It is possible for a child to receive British citizenship if they are brought to and physically adopted in the UK, he said.

But he added that it is “very, very unlikely that a Nigerian could simply adopt a child to improve their immigration situation and get away with it because that would be pretty transparent”.

“A person seeking to bring a child to the UK for the purpose of adoption would first need to get a Certificate of Eligibility from the UK government before being able to do so.

“The genuineness for all of this to happen is obviously looked at very closely by the family courts, social workers and experts to ensure the arrangement is in the best interests of the child.”

The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases and therefore could not clarify whether Ossai and Olasanoye had been removed from the UK.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Foreign nationals who commit crime should be in no doubt that we will do everything to make sure they are not free to roam Britain’s streets, including removing them from the UK at the earliest possible opportunity.

“Since the election we’ve removed 3,594 foreign criminals, a 16% increase on the same period 12 months prior.”

The Nigerian High Commission did not respond to our requests for comment.

Federal agents arrested a Wisconsin judge and charged her with obstruction for allegedly trying to help an undocumented immigrant evade arrest.

Announcing her arrest, FBI director Kash Patel accused Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan of “intentionally misdirecting” immigration agents away from a Mexican man they were trying to arrest last week.

“Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” Patel wrote on X.

During a preliminary court hearing on Friday, Dugan’s lawyer said she “wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety”.

The judge has been charged with obstruction and concealing an individual to avoid arrest, and faces a maximum of six years in prison if convicted on both charges.

Dugan was released on her own recognisance pending a hearing on 15 May.

The charges stem from events that played out in Dugan’s courtroom last week.

On 17 April, an immigration judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national facing three misdemeanour battery counts stemming from a domestic fight, according to court documents filed in the case by the FBI.

The following day, Flores-Ruiz appeared in the Milwaukee court for a scheduled hearing, and six officers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency arrived at the courthouse to make the arrest.

The agents identified themselves to court officials and waited outside Dugan’s courtroom, but according to the FBI affidavit, the judge became “visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers” when she learned of their presence.

In the hallway outside the court, Dugan and the unnamed agents then argued over the type of arrest warrant that had been issued, before the judge instructed them to report to the office of the county’s chief judge.

While several agents were in the office, affidavit says, the judge ushered Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer to a side door meant for jury members leading out of the courtroom.

But two agents remained near the courtroom and spotted Flores-Ruiz attempting to escape, the affidavit says.

Flores-Ruiz, who authorities say had previously been deported from the US in 2013, managed to exit the courthouse but was arrested just minutes later after a short foot chase.

Dugan’s arrest came one day after a former judge in New Mexico was taken into custody accused of harbouring an alleged Venezuelan gang member in his home.

“I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law and they are not,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News in an interview on Friday.

“And if you are destroying evidence, if you are obstructing justice, when you have victims sitting in a courtroom of domestic violence, and you’re escorting a criminal defendant out a back door, it will not be tolerated.”

Reaction to the arrest largely split along partisan lines.

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, called it a “gravely serious and drastic move”.

“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in a statement. “By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this President is putting those basic democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.”

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson also criticised the arrest, calling it “showboating” and warned that it would have a “chilling effect” on court proceedings.

Wisconsin’s Republican US Senator, Ron Johnson, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “I would advise everyone to cooperate with federal law enforcement and not endanger them and the public by obstructing their efforts to arrest criminals and illegal aliens.”

Dugan was first elected as a judge in 2016, and was re-elected to a second six-year term in 2022.

Judicial elections in Wisconsin are non-partisan, however Dugan was endorsed by Milwaukee’s Democratic mayor.

The obstruction charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, while the concealment charges can be punished by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

In 2019, during the first Trump administration, a judge in Massachusetts was arrested after she allowed an undocumented immigrant defendant to retrieve property from a lockup in the courtroom. The immigrant then left the courtroom.

Judge Shelley M Richmond Joseph was charged with obstruction, but the charges were dropped in 2022, although she still faces an ongoing ethics complaint stemming from the incident.

The Trump administration is restoring visas for hundreds of foreign students who had their legal status abruptly terminated stoking panic among many who feared immediate deportation, government officials confirmed.

Justice department attorney Elizabeth Kurlan told a federal court that immigration officials are now working on a new system for reviewing and terminating visas for international students.

The announcement follows more than 100 lawsuits filed by students who were abruptly stripped of their legal right to study in US universities.

An estimated 1,800 students and 280 universities have been impacted , according to a tally from Inside Higher Ed.

Many affected students appeared to have participated in political protests or have had previous criminal charges, such as driving infractions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously said the administration would terminate status for people whose actions the administration believes run counter to US interests.

The policy has caused widespread fear and confusion across hundreds of US universities, with some students opting to leave the country pre-emptively rather than face possible detention or deportation.

The Justice Department told the court on Friday that records would be restored in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS), which tracks foreign students’ compliance with their visas.

But ICE still maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS record for other reasons.

For example, “if a student fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated, or engages in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act” justice department attorney Elizabeth Kurlan told a federal court in California, NBC News reported.

Attorneys for the students have argued that the revocations violate the students’ legal rights, and the fear of detention has prevented them from fulfilling their studies.

Attorneys representing students across the country said that their clients had seen their records restored in recent days, according to NBC News.

Losing their SEVIS records left students vulnerable to immigration actions — and possible detention and deportation, according to Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.

“What I’m hearing is that this is a reprieve for many students who have had their status reinstated in SEVIS,” Prof Mukherjee said. “But this doesn’t mean this ordeal is over for the students who have had their records terminated.”

The Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US President Donald Trump has some well-known nemeses: illegal immigrants, low-flow showers and last, but definitely not least, the head of the US central bank.

Elevated by Trump to lead the Federal Reserve starting in 2018, Jerome Powell almost immediately found himself under fire – described on social media as a bonehead and questioned about reports that the president wanted him gone.

But however uncomfortable Powell might have been then, his position has only gotten worse.

Not only is he overseeing an economy where the risk of recession is rapidly rising, Trump has been flirting publicly with his removal, writing on social media last week: “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

Coming at a time when Trump has pushed to expand presidential power, while cowing political opponents and ploughing past judicial efforts to check his action, it has raised alarm that he is more serious about, and might be more able to, exert control over the Fed than during his first term.

The tensions cooled this week, when Trump, a day after a market slide that some analysts tied to the comments, denied to reporters that he ever had any intention of firing Powell.

It came amid other hints of de-escalation in Trump’s economic rhetoric as his policies, especially trade tariffs, have faced rising political and business backlash.

But Trump did not offer much assurance that he would limit his interventions at the Fed, maintaining his right to have a view and noting that he might call Powell to discuss his concerns about the bank’s interest rate policy.

Donald Kohn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the former vice chair of the Federal Reserve, said the shift in tone appeared intended to calm financial markets but he did not think it marked the end of a fight over the Fed, an institution considered vital to the health of the world’s largest economy.

“It’s a testimony to the market’s response,” he said. “But I think it’s way too soon to say that there’s a stability there.”

Trump’s clash with the Fed is ostensibly rooted in differences over where the bank should fix its key interest rate, which plays an influential role shaping borrowing costs for credit cards, mortgages and other loans.

Lower rates make it easier to borrow and tend to deliver an economic boost. Higher interest rates dampen activity, helping to keep prices stable.

Trump, who cut his teeth professionally taking out loans as a property developer, has long confessed to liking a low interest rate policy.

He objected when the Fed raised rates in his first term and has been pushing Powell to cut them now, arguing that inflation has cooled and keeping rates too high could do unnecessary economic damage.

“There can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,” he wrote on social media earlier this week, referring to Powell.

Trump is hardly the first politician to cast the bank as a scapegoat at a moment of economic turmoil – or to press for lower interest rates.

Nor is he alone in his criticism of Powell, who infamously initially dismissed post-pandemic price inflation as “transitory” and has been faulted for being too focused on backward-looking data.

Trump’s pressure on the bank, however, breaks with Washington tradition in recent decades of presidential deference to the Fed.

It has drawn comparisons to former President Richard Nixon, who pushed his Fed chairman to loosen its policies ahead of the 1972 election, moves later blamed for feeding the high-inflation, low-growth “stagflationary” dynamic of that decade.

The idea that Trump could exert control over the Fed elicits horror among many economists, who say history is littered with examples of countries where political interference at central banks led to spiralling prices and economic ruin.

Sarah Binder, professor at George Washington University and a scholar of the Federal Reserve, said confidence in Fed independence is key to maintaining market faith that inflation will be controlled.

If shaken, it could lead to higher borrowing costs for everyone, as investors demand higher interest rates for holding debt, she warned, noting that should the Fed eventually cut rates, it is likely to spark speculation about Trump’s influence – regardless of how, if at all, it played into the decision.

“That’s ultimately the problem. It is perceptions of independence that really matter and that’s what the pernicious effects of the attacks are they do raise doubts about whether the Fed can be as stalwart as central bankers want to be,” she said.

Joe Lavorgna, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, who served on the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, said he saw little need for Trump to dial back his attacks, noting that he was making a “very classic macro argument” about the bank’s flaws.

“I’m completely on board with the president’s sympathies or comments that the Fed has historically been late,” he said, adding that he thought stock market falls had been driven primarily by questions about trade policy.

He said he believed that Fed officials would remain more responsive to financial conditions than the president, noting that, if anything, Trump’s pressure could make it more hesitant to cut, lest it be perceived as being cowed.

“Ultimately the Fed is going to do what’s prudent,” he said. “The question is just the timing.”

Powell, a longtime Washington lawyer whose term as chair is due to end next year, has maintained that he is unbothered – and uninfluenced – by the criticism and asserted that Trump does not have the legal authority to remove him.

But the strength of his position is a matter of legal debate.

By law, Fed governors can only be removed for cause, but it is unclear whether that protection extends to the role leading the board.

The administration has already taken steps to reduce the Fed’s regulatory role and is engaged in a legal battle over expanding presidential authority over other government agencies set up with features, like for cause protections, intended to insulate them from partisan pressure.

Mark Spindel, founder and chief investment officer of the Washington-based investment advisory firm Potomac River Capital, who has worked with Prof Binder on Fed studies, noted that the tradition of Fed “independence” had evolved over time, often after political or economic crisis.

“Things that are given can be taken away,” he said, hours before Trump appeared to back off.

Asked again for his thoughts a few days later, Mr Spindel wrote back just two words in reply: “Damage done.”

Imposing statues of rams and lions used to stand in the grounds of Sudan’s National Museum – priceless artefacts from the time when Nubian rulers conquered what is now Egypt to the north, along with exquisite Christian wall paintings dating from many centuries ago.

On a typical day, groups of school children would stare in awe at this reminder of their nation’s imposing past, tourists would file through one of Khartoum’s must-sees, and on occasion concerts were held in the grounds.

But that was before war broke out two years ago.

As the Sudanese military reasserts its control over the capital, having finally chased out its rival the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the full scale of the destruction of two years of war is becoming clear.

Government ministries, banks and office blocks stand blackened and burned, while the museum – a symbol of the nation’s proud history and culture – has been particularly hard hit.

Senior officials say tens of thousands of artefacts were either destroyed or shipped off to be sold during the time the RSF was in control of central Khartoum, where the museum is situated.

“They destroyed our identity, and our history,” Ikhlas Abdel Latif Ahmed, director of museums at Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

Before the conflict, the National Museum was a gem.

Located at the very heart of Sudan – close to the Presidential Palace, and the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers – it told a story of the succession of great civilisations that inhabited this area over time.

Now, when museum officials made an inspection visit, they were greeted with shattered glass, bullet cases on the floor and traces of looting everywhere.

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“The building was very unique and very beautiful,” Ms Ahmed said.

“The militia [the description Sudanese officials give to the RSF] took so many of the unique and beautiful collections, and destroyed and damaged the rest.”

Looting has been reported at other Sudanese museums and ancient sites. Last September the UN’s world heritage organisation, Unesco, warned of a “threat to culture” and urged art dealers not to import or export artefacts smuggled out of Sudan.

Before the war, the National Museum was undergoing rehabilitation, and so many of its treasures were boxed up.

That may have made it easier for the collections to be removed.

Sudanese officials say precious artefacts from the National Museum were taken away to be sold.

They strongly suspect RSF fighters took some of the valuables to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE has been widely accused of funding the RSF, although both parties have always denied these accusations.

“We had a strong room for the gold collection, they managed to open it and took all the gold,” Ms Ahmed said.

“Maybe they kept it for themselves, or maybe they traded it in the market.”

So the whereabouts of pieces like a gold collar from the pyramid of King Talakhamani at Nuri, which dates to the 5th Century BC, are unknown.

Asked about the value of what was taken, Ms Ahmed replied simply: “There is no value for the museum artefacts, it’s more expensive than you could imagine.”

The de facto government of Sudan says it will contact Interpol and Unesco to attempt to recover artefacts looted from the National Museum and elsewhere.

However recovering the artefacts seems a difficult and perhaps even dangerous task, with little immediate prospect of success.

The government, and other Sudanese observers, say the RSF’s attacks against museums, universities and buildings like the National Records Office are a conscious attempt to destroy the Sudanese state – but, again, the RSF denies this.

Amgad Farid, who runs the Fikra for Studies and Development think-tank, is particularly critical of the looting.

“The RSF’s actions transcend mere criminality,” he wrote in a piece shared by his organisation.

“They constitute a deliberate and malicious assault on Sudan’s historical identity, targeting the invaluable heritage of Nubian, Coptic, and Islamic civilisations spanning over 7,000 years, constituting a cornerstone of African and global history, enshrined within these museums.

“This is not an incidental loss amid conflict – it is a calculated endeavour to erase Sudan’s legacy, to sever its people from their past, and to plunder millennia of human history for profit.”

The story of the National Museum – taken over by armed men, its gold and valuables looted and stolen – mirrors the individual stories of so many Sudanese in this conflict: they have been forced to flee, their houses occupied, their gold stolen.

According to the UN, nearly 13 million people have been forced from their homes since the fighting began in 2023, while an estimated 150,000 people have been killed.

“The war is against the people of Sudan,” Ms Ahmed says, bemoaning the war’s human cost, as well as the unimaginable loss of centuries of heritage.

She – along with other like-minded individuals – intend to restore the National Museum and other looted institutions.

“Inshallah [God willing] we will get all our collections back,” she said.

“And we build it more beautiful than before.”

• The mother and children trapped between two conflicts
• Will recapture of presidential palace change course of Sudan war?
• Sudan’s ‘invisible crisis’ – where more children are fleeing war than anywhere else

Israel’s destructive military campaign in Gaza has released a silent killer: asbestos.

The mineral, once widely-used in building materials, releases toxic fibres into the air when disturbed that can cling to the lungs and – over decades – cause cancer.

Nowadays, its use is banned across much of the world, but it is still present in many older buildings.

In Gaza, it is found primarily in asbestos roofing used across the territory’s eight urban refugee camps – which were set up for Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war – according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

In October 2024, UNEP estimated that up to 2.3 million tons of rubble across Gaza could be contaminated with asbestos.

“The Gaza rubble is a very, very toxic environment,” says Professor Bill Cookson, director of the National Centre for Mesothelioma Research in London. “People are going to suffer acutely, but also in the longer term as well, things that children may carry throughout their lives.”

“The lives lost now are not going to end here. The legacy is going to continue,” says Liz Darlison, CEO of Mesothelioma UK.

When asbestos is disturbed by something like an air strike, its fibres – too small to see with the human eye – can be breathed in by those nearby and can then work their way through to the lining of the lungs.

Over many years – usually decades – they can cause scarring which leads to a serious lung condition known as asbestosis, or, in some cases, an aggressive form of lung-cancer named mesothelioma.

“Mesothelioma is a terrible, intractable illness,” says Prof Cookson.

“The really worrying thing,” he adds, “is that it’s not dose related. So even small inhalations of asbestos fibre can cause subsequent mesothelioma.

“It grows within the pleural cavity. It’s extremely painful. It’s always diagnosed late. And it’s pretty well resistant to all treatments.”

Typically, those who contract mesothelioma do so 20 to 60 years after exposure – meaning it will take decades before the possible impact across the territory is felt. A higher level, or longer period, of exposure is believed to accelerate the progression of the disease.

Dr Ryan Hoy, whose research into dust inhalation was cited by the UNEP, says it is extremely difficult to avoid breathing in asbestos fibres because they are “really tiny particles that float in the air that can get very, very deep into the lungs.”

They are even harder to avoid, he says, because Gaza is so “densely populated”. The territory houses approximately 2.1 million people and is 365 sq km (141 sq miles) – about one quarter of the size of London.

Experts on the ground there say people are unable to manage the risks posed by asbestos or dust inhalation due to the more immediate dangers of Israel’s military offensive.

“At this point in time, [dust inhalation] is not something that is perceived as a worrying thing by the population. They even don’t have things to eat, and they’re more afraid to be killed by the bombs,” says Chiara Lodi, medical co-ordinator in Gaza for the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières.

“The lack of awareness about the risks of asbestos, combined with the ongoing challenges [people in Gaza] face in trying to rebuild their lives, means they are unable to take the necessary measures to protect themselves,” a Gaza-based spokesperson for the NGO SOS Children’s Villages said.

Many are “not fully aware of the harmful effects of the dust and debris”, they added.

After a previous conflict in Gaza in 2009, a UN survey of the territory found asbestos in debris from older buildings, sheds, temporary building extensions, roofs and the walls of livestock enclosures.

There are several types of asbestos ranging from so-called “white asbestos”, which is the least dangerous, to “blue”, or crocidolite, which is the most. Highly-carcinogenic crocidolite asbestos was previously found in Gaza by the UN.

Globally, around 68 countries have banned the use of asbestos, though some maintain exemptions for special use. It was banned in the UK in 1999, and Israel banned its use in buildings in 2011.

As well as mesothelioma, asbestos can cause other forms of lung cancer, larynx and ovarian cancer.

A further, lesser known risk is that of silicosis, a lung disease caused by breathing in silica dust, usually over many years. Concrete generally contains 20-60% silica.

Dr Hoy says the sheer amount of dust in Gaza could lead to an “increased risk of respiratory tract infections, upper and lower airway infections, pneumonia, exacerbations of pre-existing lung disease like asthma,” as well as, “emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which can be worsened by acute exposure to dust”.

For years, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York have been used as a case-study by health experts to examine the effects of a large toxic dust-cloud on a civilian population.

“The Twin Towers were not in the middle of a war zone,” says Ms Darlison, “so it was something we were able to measure and quantify easier”.

As of December 2023, 5,249 of those who were registered with the US government’s World Trade Center Health Programme have died as a result of aerodigestive illness or cancer – a far higher figure than the 2,296 people who were killed in the attack itself. A total of 34,113 people were diagnosed with cancer over the same period.

The US and a group of Arab States have proposed competing plans for the reconstruction of Gaza. The UN has warned that the process will have to be managed carefully to avoid disturbing the vast amounts of asbestos-contaminated rubble.

“Unfortunately,” says Ms Darlison, “the very properties that made us use so much of it are the properties that make it difficult to get rid of.”

A UNEP spokesperson told the BBC that the debris removals process will “increase the likelihood of asbestos disturbance and the release of hazardous fibres into the air”.

A UNEP assessment indicated that clearing all debris could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion (£929m).

The Israeli military launched its offensive on Gaza in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023 that killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 251 people taken hostage.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

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.”

The Netherlands, March 2025. Yungblud is leaving his hotel in Amsterdam when he’s approached by a fan in floods of tears.

“You saved my life,” she sobs.

“No, you saved your own life,” he replies, quietly. “Maybe the music was the soundtrack, but you saved your own life, OK?”

Leaning in for a hug, he adds, “Don’t be sad, be happy. I love ya.”

It’s a remarkably touching moment, full of compassion and devoid of rock star ego.

Two weeks later, after a video of the encounter goes viral, Yungblud is still moved by the memory.

“I didn’t think people would see that, except me and her,” he says, “but it was such a moment for me.”

The interaction crystallised something he’d felt for a while.

“I always said that Bowie and My Chemical Romance saved my life, but ultimately you have to find yourself,” he says.

“Like this morning, I put my headphones on and I listened to [The Verve’s] Lucky Man, and it made me go, ‘Oh, I’m ready to face the day’.

“But Richard Ashcroft didn’t tell me I was ready to face the day. I said that to myself.

“That’s what I was trying to tell that girl in Amsterdam.”

Self-assurance is a lesson he learned the hard way.

On the surface, Yungblud, aka 27-year-old Dominic Harrison, had it all. Two number one albums, an international fanbase, a Louis Theroux documentary and enough clout to run his own festival.

But if you looked more closely, there were chinks in the armour. Those number one albums both fell out of the Top 30 after one week, a sign of a strong core fanbase, with limited crossover appeal.

And the first year of his Bludfest in Milton Keynes was criticised after long queues and a lack of water caused fans to pass out and miss the concert.

Harrison was keenly aware of it all. As he released his self-titled third album in 2022, he hit a low.

“Yungblud was number one in seven countries, and I wasn’t happy because it wasn’t the album I wanted to make,” he says.

“It was a good album, but it wasn’t exceptional.”

The problem, he says, was a record label who’d pushed him in a more commercial direction. But in polishing his sound, he lost the angry unpredictability that characterised his best work.

“It’s funny, my-self titled album was actually the one where I was most lost,” he observes.

“I felt like I compromised but, because of that, I was never taking no for an answer again.”

Nowhere is that clearer than on his comeback single, Hello Heaven, Hello.

Over nine minutes and six seconds it achieves Caligulan levels of excess, full of scorching guitar solos, throat-shredding vocal runs, and even an orchestral coda.

“” Harrison asks himself, as he re-ignites his ambition.

The song’s purposefully unsuited to radio – unlike the follow-up single, Lovesick Lullaby. Released today, it’s a free-associating rampage through a messy night out, that ends with epiphany in a drug dealer’s apartment.

Combining Liam Gallagher’s sneer with Beach Boys’ harmonies, it’s uniquely Yungblud. But the singer reveals it was originally written for his last album.

“We were actually discouraged from doing it,” he says.

“My advisor at the time, a guy called Nick Groff [vice president of A&R at Interscope, responsible for signing Billie Eilish], was like, ‘I don’t get it’.”

Warming to the theme, he continues: “The music industry is crap because it’s all about money but, as an artist, I need to make sure that anything I put out is exciting and unlimited.

“It can’t be like a 50% version of me.”

To achieve that, he shunned expensive recording studios and made his new album in a converted Tetley brewery in Leeds.

Professional songwriters were banished, too, in favour of a close group of collaborators, including guitarist Adam Warrington, and Matt Schwartz, the Israeli-British producer who helmed his 2018 debut.

“When you make an album in LA or London, everything is great, even if it’s mediocre, because people want a hit out of it,” he argues.

“When you make an album with family, all they want is the truth.”

One of the most honest tracks on the record is Zombie, a lighters-aloft ballad (think Coldplay, sung by Bruce Springsteen) about “feeling you’re ugly, and learning to battle that”.

“I always was insecure about my body, and that got highlighted as I got famous,” says the singer, who last year revealed he’d developed an eating disorder due to body dysmorphia.

“But I realised, the biggest power you can give someone over you is in how you react. So I decided, I’m going to get sober, I’m going to get fit, and I discovered boxing.”

He ended up working with the South African boxer Chris Heerden – who was recently in the news after Russia jailed his ballerina girlfriend, Ksenia Karelina.

“I met him before all that,” says Harrison, “but he’s been extremely inspirational. Boxing’s become like therapy for me.

“If someone says something bad about me, I go to the gym, hit the punch bag for an hour and talk it out.”

Fans have noticed the change… drooling over photos of his newly chiseled torso, and declaring 2025 his “shirt-off era”.

“Maybe the shirt-off era is a comeback to all the comments I’ve had,” he laughs.

“I’m claiming a freedom and a sexiness and a liberation.”

He’s clearly found a degree of serenity, without surrendering the restless energy that propelled him to fame.

Part of that is down to control. In January, he created a new company that brings together his core business of recorded music with touring operations, his fashion brand and his music festival, Bludfest.

The event kicked off in Milton Keynes last summer but suffered teething troubles, when fans were stuck in long queues.

“I will fully take responsibility for that,” says the star, who claims he was “backstage screaming” at police and promoters to get the lines moving.

“The problem was, there were six gates open when there should have been 12,” he says, suggesting people underestimated his fans’ dedication.

“When Chase and Status had played [there] a day before, there were 5,000 people when the doors opened, and another 30,000 trickled in during the day.

“With my fans, there were 20,000 kids at the gate at 10am. So we’ve learned a lot for this year. There’ll be pallets of water outside. It’ll be very different.”

Dedication to his fans is what makes Yungblud Yungblud.

He built the community directly from his phone and, whether intended or not, that connection has sustained his career – insulating him from the tyrannies of radio playlists and streaming placement.

Maintaining a personal relationship becomes harder as his fanbase grows but, ever astute, he hired a fan to oversee his social accounts.

“She’s called Jules Budd. She used to come to my gigs in Austin and she’d sell confetti to pay for gas money to the next city.

“She built an account called Yungblud Army, and she’s amazing at letting me understand what are people feeling.

“If people are outside and security aren’t treating them right, I know about it because she’s in contact with them. So I brought her in to make the community safer as it gets bigger.”

With his new album, he wants to make that community even bigger. Harking back to the sounds of Queen and David Bowie, he says it’ll “reclaim the good chords” (Asus4 and Em7, in case you’re wondering).

“The shackles are off,” he grins.

“We made an album to showcase our ambition and the way we want to play.

“Can you imagine seeing Yungblud in a stadium? 100% yes. Let’s do it.”

Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all federal charges brought over the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York last year.

The 26 year old, who was arrested in December and accused of shooting Mr Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, faces the charges of murder and stalking.

His not guilty plea means he will now face trial and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty if he is convicted.

Mr Mangione arrived at the Lower Manhattan court on Friday wearing a prison outfit and with his hands in cuffs. He acknowledged he had read the indictment against him before entering his plea, telling the judge: “not guilty”.

Earlier on Friday, federal prosecutors officially filed to seek the death penalty in this case.

They argued that he carried out Mr Thompson’s murder “to amplify an ideological message” and spark resistance to the health insurance industry.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who directed prosecutors to seek capital punishment, said in April that Mr Thompson’s death was “an act of political violence”.

Mr Mangione’s lawyers previously called discussion of executing him “barbaric”.

During the 35-minute hearing on Friday, Judge Margaret Garnett attempted to co-ordinate a pre-trial schedule, while Mr Mangione’s lawyers continued to raise objections to his indictments on both federal and state charges in New York.

The judge agreed Mr Mangione’s lawyers would need months to go through prosecutors’ “three terabytes” of evidence, including police footage, data from social media, financial and phone companies and other evidence from state prosecutors.

It means Mr Mangione’s federal trial will not take place before 2026 – with the judge planning his next federal appearance for 5 December, when a “firm trial date” will be set.

During the hearing, Mr Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, pushed for her client to be tried in federal court – where the death penalty is at stake – before state court, arguing the reverse would raise “constitutional issues”.

She also accused state prosecutors of “eavesdropping” on Mr Mangione’s recorded calls with her from jail. Judge Garnett asked prosecutors to write a letter within seven days explaining how Mr Mangione would be ensured access to a separate phone line to make privileged calls with his legal team.

The judge also asked Ms Friedman Agnifilo to submit a new motion by 27 June requesting the government be prevented from seeking the death penalty, since she submitted her first motion before prosecutors formally filed notice that they would do so.

Judge Garnett also asked prosecutors to remind Bondi and government officials of rules surrounding public statements and their impact on a fair trial and jury selection.

• The Mangione Trial – listen to the BBC’s new podcast
• Who is Luigi Mangione, CEO shooting suspect?

Mr Mangione is also facing state charges in both Pennsylvania, where he was arrested, and New York. At an arraignment in December, he pleaded not guilty to state murder and terrorism charges in New York.

Mr Thompson was shot dead in Manhattan early on 4 December last year.

The suspect escaped the scene before exiting the city. Five days later, Mr Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania.

Public reaction to Mr Thompson’s killing has shed light on deep frustrations with privatised healthcare. Some have celebrated Mr Mangione has a folk hero, and a fund set up for his legal defence garnered nearly $1m (£750,000) in donations.

Supporters gathered outside the courthouse on Friday too.

Shell casings with the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose” were found at the crime scene. Critics say these words are associated with healthcare companies avoiding payouts and increasing their profits.

Sudanese people are eating leaves and charcoal to survive after fleeing an attack on a camp for displaced people near the city of el-Fasher, an aid agency has told the BBC.

“The stories we’ve been hearing are truly horrific,” Noah Taylor, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s head of operations, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

People are fleeing el-Fasher for Tawila, but are dying “on arrival,” Mr Taylor added.

He said that some were “dying of thirst”, whilst making the 40km (25 mile) journey from Zamzam camp in “blistering” temperatures.

“We’ve heard stories there are still bodies on the road between el-Fasher and Tawila.

“We spoke to a family who told us of a girl who had walked on foot by herself from el-Fasher, was repeatedly raped along the journey, and then died of her wounds when she arrived in Tawila.”

El-Fasher is the last city in Sudan’s western region of Darfur under the control of the army and its allies. Earlier this month, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked the nearby Zamzam camp, forcing tens of thousands to flee their makeshift shelters.

Many Zamzam residents had been there for two decades, after escaping previous conflicts in Darfur.

The RSF has been battling the army for the past two years in a war that has killed an estimated 150,000 people and forced some 13 million from their homes.

Aid agencies say it is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

However, funding problems have led to the UN reducing the food aid it delivers to areas of Sudan hit by famine, it says.

The RSF has been accused of targeting non-Arabic residents of Darfur during the fighting.

On Thursday, UK Foreign Minister David Lammy said this displayed “the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing and may amount to crimes against humanity”.

He urged both sides to “give humanitarian actors the security guarantees needed to deliver aid rapidly”.

At least 481 people have been killed in North Darfur, around el-Fasher, since 10 April, the UN stated on Friday, warning that the total number was probably even higher.

The body’s Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk, expressed concern about the situation, saying: “The systems to assist victims in many areas are on the verge of collapse, medical workers are themselves under threat and even water sources have been deliberately attacked.”

He also expressed concern over “widespread reports of sexual violence”.

The Zamzam camp had been burned “to the ground”, according to Nathaniel Raymond, head of the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab.

Mr Raymond described “systematic destruction through arson of homes” and “aid facilities”, adding that people who managed to escape Zamzam were on the road “dying of starvation”.

Mr Taylor also warned that Tawila was struggling to cope with the influx of people fleeing their homes.

“There is very little in the way of food, there is very little in the way of water,” he said, adding that the small town was currently sheltering around 130,000 to 150,000 people.

Last week, people fleeing Zamzam told the BBC their homes had been burned down and that they had been shot at. The RSF says it attacked the camp but denies committing any atrocities.

Fighting is also continuing elsewhere in Sudan.

In the southern province of West Kordofan 74 people were killed when the RSF attacked the village of al-Za’afah, the Sudan Doctors network said on Friday.

• The mother and children trapped between two conflicts
• Will recapture of presidential palace change course of Sudan war?
• Sudan’s ‘invisible crisis’ – where more children are fleeing war than anywhere else

Former Republican congressman George Santos has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The 36-year-old pleaded guilty to the federal charges in New York court last August.

Prosecutors had asked for 87 months in prison – the sentence Santos ultimately received – while Santos’s attorneys had requested he serve two years, the minimum sentence for aggravated identity theft.

The sentencing marks the final step in the downfall of the novice New York politician, who was expelled from Congress after the fraud case alleged that he lied about his background and misused campaign funds to finance his lifestyle.

Santos reportedly apologised for his actions while crying in court on Friday, saying: “I cannot rewrite the past, but I can control the road ahead.”

The judge overseeing the case appeared unconvinced. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies,” she said.

Santos will report to prison on 25 July.

The federal government alleged Santos laundered campaign funds to pay for his personal expenses, illegally claimed unemployment benefits while he was employed and lied to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Prosecutors said he charged more than $44,000 (£32,000) to his campaign over a period of months using credit cards belonging to contributors who were unaware they were being defrauded.

In court last year, Santos admitted to theft and applying for unemployment benefits that he was not entitled to receive. He has also acknowledged making false statements and omissions on financial statements submitted to the House Ethics Committee and the FEC.

The former lawmaker has been ordered to pay at least $374,000 (£280,000) in restitution.

He has been attempting to raise money on Cameo, a platform where people can purchase personalized videos from celebrities.

Santos’s downfall began after the New York Times in 2022 published an investigation revealing the freshman congressman had lied about his CV, including having a university degree and working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

From there, the lies continued to pile up, including allegations that he stole money from a fundraiser for a dying dog and that he lied about his mother surviving the 11 September terrorist attacks. Shortly after, local and federal officials began to investigate.

He was eventually charged with 23 federal felony crimes, and in 2023, he became the first member of Congress to be expelled in more than 20 years, only the sixth in history.

A report from the House ethics panel accused him of misusing campaign funds for personal benefits, including Botox and subscriptions on the OnlyFans website.

Santos defeated a Democratic incumbent in 2022, flipping the district that encompasses parts of New York’s Long Island and Queens, where he grew up.

Santos, an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, has said that he would not ask the president for a pardon.

“If the president thinks I’m worthy of any level of clemency that is bestowed upon him, he can go ahead and do it, but for me to seek a pardon is to deny accountability and responsibility,” Santos told the New York Times.

Yet he appeared to contradict himself in an episode of his podcast, when his guest, blogger Perez Hilton asked him if he would request a pardon if he were sentenced to years in prison.

“You bet your sweet ass I would,” he told the TV personality.

Traders are counting their losses as Tanzania clamps down on people trying to flout a ban on goods from neighbouring Malawi in an escalating regional trade row.

On Friday, businesswomen told the BBC that some fellow traders had been arrested on the second day of a ban imposed by Tanzania on all agricultural imports from Malawi and South Africa.

“My bananas were seized and destroyed. Right now, our business has brought losses, and we only have a little money left,” said Jestina Chanya, a trader in Karongo, about 50km (30 miles) from the border with Tanzania.

Diplomatic efforts to address the dispute have failed but Tanzania’s agriculture minister said fresh talks were ongoing.

Last month, Malawi blocked imports of flour, rice, ginger, bananas and maize from Tanzania, and other countries, saying this was to protect local producers.

South Africa has for years prohibited the entry of bananas from Tanzania.

On Thursday, Tanzania’s Agriculture Minister Hussein Bashe said trade restrictions from those two countries “directly affected” traders from his country and described the trade barrier as “unfair and harmful”.

Bashe announced an immediate ban on all agricultural imports from the two countries, “to protect our business interests”.

Trade flows have been greatly affected at Kasumulu – the official border crossing between Tanzania and Malawi.

When the BBC visited the Malawian town of Karonga, traders – mostly women – said they were still shaken by the sight of tonnes of their produce slowly rotting, then ultimately being dumped after being denied entry into Tanzania.

“The losses I have incurred are big because I can’t go buy anything any more, and I don’t even know how I will feed my children,” said June Mwamwaja.

But Tanzanian traders have also been hit.

On Saturday Tanzania’s agriculture minister posted a video on social media showing a pile of rotten bananas in a truck which had been prevented from entering Malawi.

Tonnes of tomatoes also spoiled at the border recently after lorries from Tanzania were denied entry into Malawi.

Malawian traders like Jeniffa Mshani said they preferred agricultural goods from Tanzania because it was easier and more affordable to source them across the border.

“Tanzanian products are big and sell very well in the market, and their prices are good. Our local [Malawi] products are more expensive. I have nothing to do – I don’t have the capacity to compete with those [who have big capital]. I just can’t,” she told the BBC.

They said Tanzanian produce, especially potatoes, were larger and of better quality.

Others said their customers preferred Tanzanian plantains over Malawian ones, describing the former as tastier, while the latter were often spongy.

But since Thursday, Malawian authorities, both at the border and in nearby markets, have become increasingly strict – often arresting traders found with Tanzanian produce.

“When we bring goods from Tanzania, they turn us back. One of us was stopped and arrested right at the border,” another trader said.

Some of them said they had no idea why they were being blocked while some rich business people were still allowed to transport goods across the border.

“They are targeting us who have little capital, while those with big money are still bringing in goods,” said Ms Chanya, who sells potatoes and bananas in Karonga market.

Following the crackdown, some traders have resorted to selling their goods in secret, afraid to display them openly for fear of arrest.

“We only carry three or four bunches [of bananas], just to earn a living for the children,” said Evelina Mwakijungu, adding: “But our large consignments have been blocked, so we have no business – we’re struggling with our families”.

The normally bustling border crossing of Kasumulu remained noticeably quieter than usual with drivers seen relaxing in the shade of trees, while others played draughts or lounged in the back of their lorries.

They declined to be quoted directly but explained that they were simply waiting for word from their bosses on what to do next.

On a normal day, more than 15 lorries loaded with agricultural produce would cross the border, drivers told the BBC.

Malawi’s trade ministry spokesperson Patrick Botha told local media that they were yet to get official communication on the issue.

“We are hearing [about] this from social media. At an appropriate time, we will comment,” he was quoted as saying.

Malawi has become an increasingly important market for Tanzanian goods in recent years, with exports trebling between 2018 and 2023, according to official Tanzanian figures.

But landlocked Malawi, which has relied on Tanzanian ports to carry its exports such as tobacco, sugar and soybeans to the rest of the world, will have to reroute its goods.

It is not yet clear how hard South Africa, which exports various fruits, including apples and grapes, to Tanzania, will be hit by the ban. South African authorities are yet to comment.

The row comes at a time when Africa is supposed to be moving towards greater free trade through the establishment of a continent-wide free-trade area, which began operating four years ago.

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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 taken advantage of.

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.

Six police officers have been killed in Thailand after their plane crashed into the sea during a test flight for parachute training, police have said.

The small plane was seen crashing into the water at around 08:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Friday in the Cha-am district, a coastal resort area some 130km (80 miles) southwest of Bangkok.

Royal Thai Police said in a statement on Facebook that five of the officers died at the scene, with a sixth later dying in hospital.

Authorities are examining the aircraft’s black box data recorder to determine the cause of the crash.

Local media said that the aircraft hit the water around 100 metres from the shore, while footage shared online showed people wading into the sea to reach the crash site.

The officers who died were three pilots, one engineer and two mechanics, police confirmed.

“The Royal Thai Police express their deepest condolences to the brave officers who lost their lives,” a statement added.

Police chief Kitrat Phanphet, who visited the scene alongside other officials, said initial investigations showed the plane was heading towards houses but its pilots managed to manoeuvre it towards the sea, avoiding any further fatalities.

Photographs from later on Friday showed the plane wreckage lying part-submerged in shallow water.

A senior Russian general has been killed in a car bomb attack in Moscow, officials have confirmed.

Russia’s Investigative Committee (SK) – the main federal investigating authority in the country – confirmed Gen Yaroslav Moskalik died when a Volkswagen Golf car exploded after an improvised explosive device stuffed with pellets went off.

Local media reported that the car was parked next to the general’s house in the eastern suburb of Balashikha and exploded as he walked past it.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has blamed Ukraine for the attack, saying Kyiv “continues its involvement in terrorist activities inside our country”. Ukraine has not commented.

Moskalik represented Russia’s General Staff in talks with Ukraine in Paris in 2015, which resulted in the Minsk agreements set up to end the war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist forces that started in 2014.

According to the Kremlin website, he joined the Russian contingent led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kremlin aide and former Russian ambassador to the US, Yuri Ushakov, for those ceasefire talks.

Videos and photos circulating on Telegram on Friday show a car in flames outside a block of flats.

As a matter of policy, Ukraine never officially admits or claims responsibility for targeted attacks such as the one which killed Gen Moskalik.

But unnamed sources within Ukrainian security services have previously told the media, including the BBC, that they have been behind similar assassinations, such as the killing of Gen Igor Kirillov in December 2024. Named officials, though, never went on the record.

Within Russia, there does not appear to be a force willing and able to carry out such attacks.

The incident came before US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.

Lavrov earlier said Moscow was “ready to reach a deal” with the US to end the Ukraine war, although some elements needed to be “fine-tuned”.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, suggested his country may have to give away territory as part of any peace deal.

Drone attacks on Ukraine continued overnight into Friday.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 103 drones, which killed three people, including a child and a 76-year-old woman, in the town of Pavlohrad, in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Kharkiv also came under attack with its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, saying several private buildings were damaged.

US President Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine “are very close to a deal”, hours after his envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow.

Trump said it had been a “good day” of negotiations, while the Kremlin described the talks – which Ukraine was not present at – as “constructive”.

Earlier, Trump said on social media that “most of the major points are agreed to,” and urged Russia and Ukraine to meet “at very high levels” and “to finish it [the deal] off”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his video address late on Friday that “real pressure on Russia is needed” to accept an unconditional ceasefire.

Earlier in the day, Zelensky told the BBC that territorial issues between Kyiv and Moscow could be discussed if a “full and unconditional ceasefire” was agreed upon.

Reports suggest Ukraine would be expected to give up large portions of land annexed by Russia under a US peace proposal.

Trump – who spoke to reporters as he arrived in Rome for Saturday’s funeral of Pope Francis – has said he would support Russia keeping the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Zelensky rejects this idea.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.

On Friday, traffic was halted in Moscow as a convoy of cars carrying Witkoff arrived ahead of the high-level talks, the fourth such visit he has made to Russia since the start of the year.

The three-hour talks were described as “very useful” by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.

It had brought the “Russian and US positions closer together, not just on Ukraine but also on a range of other international issues”, he said.

“Specifically on the Ukrainian crisis, the possibility of resuming direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives was in particular discussed,” he added.

Earlier this week, Putin signalled for the first time since the early stages of the war that he was open to talks with Zelensky.

His remarks were believed to be in response to a proposal by the Ukrainian president for a 30-hour Easter truce to be extended for 30 days. No truce has yet been agreed on.

Kyiv has been on the receiving end of growing pressure from Trump to accept territorial concessions as part of an agreement with Moscow to end the war.

Crimea has become a particular flashpoint.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea of recognising the peninsula as part of Russia, telling reporters in Kyiv on Friday: “Our position is unchanged – only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide which territories are Ukrainian.”

However, in later remarks he suggested to the BBC that “a full and unconditional ceasefire opens up the possibility to discuss everything”.

He also referenced comments made by Trump in an interview with Time magazine, in which the US president said “Crimea will stay with Russia”.

“What President Trump says is true, and I agree with him in that today we do not have enough weapons to return control over the Crimean peninsula,” Zelensky said.

Washington’s peace plan has not been publicly released, but reports suggest it proposes Russia keeps the land it has gained – a condition that is in Moscow’s favour.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported it had seen US proposals handed to European officials last week, as well as subsequent counter-proposals from Europe and Ukraine.

It said there are significant disparities between them.

The US deal offers American legal acceptance of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control of other occupied areas, including all of the Luhansk region.

By contrast, the Europeans and Ukrainians will only discuss what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory after a ceasefire has come into effect.

The US plan also rules out Ukraine’s membership in the Nato military alliance, according to Reuters.

As the meeting between Witkoff and Putin was taking place, Trump claimed talks were going in the right direction.

“They’re meeting with Putin right now, as we speak, and we have a lot of things going on, and I think in the end we’re going to end up with a lot of good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals,” he told reporters in the US.

He said his aim was to bring about an end to fighting in Ukraine which he said was claiming the lives of 5,000 Ukrainian and Russians a week, adding he believed “we’re pretty close” to a peace deal.

Trump also said Zelensky had not signed the “final papers on the very important Rare Earths Deal with the United States”.

“It is at least three weeks late,” he said, adding that he hoped it would be signed “immediately”.

The long-talked of minerals deal, which would give the US a stake in Ukraine’s abundant natural resource deposits, was meant to be signed in February but was derailed after an acrimonious meeting between Trump and Zelensky in Washington.

Russia and Ukraine’s positions in securing a peace deal still seem miles apart, with no representative from Ukraine invited to take part in the talks in Moscow.

Writing on social media on Friday, Zelensky criticised Russia for failing to agree to a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the US on 11 March and urged allies to apply more pressure to it.

“It’s been 45 days since Ukraine agreed to President Trump’s proposal for quiet in the sky, sea and the frontline,” he said. “Russia rejects all this. Without pressure this cannot be resolved. Pressure on Russia is necessary.”

He said Russia was being allowed to import missiles from countries such as North Korea, which he said it then used in a deadly missile strike on Kyiv on Thursday, which killed 12 people and injured dozens.

“Insufficient pressure on North Korea and its allies allows them to make such ballistic missiles. The missile that killed the Kyiv residents contained at least 116 parts imported from other countries, and most of them, unfortunately, were made by US companies,” Zelensky alleged.

Following the attack on Kyiv, Trump said he was “putting a lot of pressure” on both sides to end the war, and directly addressed Putin in a post on social media, saying: “Vladimir STOP!”

Since then, however, Trump has blamed Kyiv for starting the war, telling Time magazine: “I think what caused the war to start was when they [Ukraine] started talking about joining Nato.”

Ahead of the talks between Witkoff and Putin, a senior Russian general was killed in a car bomb attack in the Russian capital. The Kremlin accused Ukraine of being responsible. Kyiv has not commented.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – set up to cut US government spending – claims to have saved, on average, more than $10bn a week since President Trump entered office.

“We’re talking about almost $200bn and rising fast,” Trump told the BBC when talking about Mr Musk’s cost-cutting drive on 23 April.

Doge’s website says it is focusing on cancelling contracts, grants and leases put in place by previous administrations, as well as tackling fraud and reducing the government workforce.

BBC Verify has looked at the agency’s biggest claimed savings, examining the figures and speaking to experts.

Our analysis found that behind some of the large numbers, there is a lack of evidence to back them up.

In October, Mr Musk pledged to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal government budget. He subsequently halved this target and on 10 April talked about making savings of $150bn from “cutting fraud and waste” by the end of the next financial year in 2026.

The US federal budget for the last financial year was $6.75tn.

Doge publishes a running total of its estimated savings on its website – which stood at $160bn the last time the site was updated on 20 April.

However, less than 40% of this figure is broken down into individual savings.

We downloaded the data from the Doge website on 23 April and added up the total claimed savings from contracts, grants and leases.

Our analysis found only about half of these itemised savings had a link to a document or other form of evidence.

US media has also highlighted some accounting errors, including Doge mistakenly claiming to have saved $8bn from cancelling an immigration contract which in fact had a total value of $8m.

Doge says it is working to upload all receipts in a “digestible and transparent manner” and that, as of 20 April, it has posted receipts “representing around 30% of all total savings”. It also lists some receipts as being “unavailable for legal reasons”.

BBC Verify examined the four largest savings listed on the Doge website which had receipts attached.

The department claims these add up to $8.3bn, but after examining the evidence provided and speaking to people familiar with federal contracts, this figure appears to be overstated.

For three of the savings, Doge links to documents on the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). This is a database which records contracts given out by the US government.

The documents show a contract’s start and end date, the maximum amount the government has agreed to spend, and how much of that has been spent.

David Drabkin, a federal contracts expert who helped develop the FPDS database, said the maximum figure listed should be treated with caution.

“FPDS does not reflect the actual paid price until some period of time after the contract has been completed and the contract actions have been recorded,” he says.

“For example, when buying research and development into a vaccine no one really knows how much that’s going to cost – so when a price is set, it’s not a definite price but rather an upper limit.”

So if Doge counts the maximum figure, that can represent projected spending over a number of years, rather than a direct saving from the country’s yearly spending.

Doge’s largest listed individual saving is $2.9bn.

It comes from cancelling a contract – which started in 2023 under President Biden – for a facility in Texas to house up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

Doge appears to have taken the “total contract value” until 2028 – the end date listed – and subtracted the amount spent so far to get the $2.9bn figure.

But the contract was reviewed annually, meaning renewing it until 2028 was not guaranteed.

A source familiar with this contract – who spoke on condition of anonymity – told BBC Verify that Doge’s figure is “based on speculative, never-used figures” and that the actual spending depended on how many children were placed at the facility and the services they required.

“In truth, the government never incurred those costs and could never reach that ceiling amount. The real, documentable savings from early termination were approximately $153 million”, they estimated.

They say this figure comes from tallying up the $18m per month fixed running costs (for things like staffing and security at the facility) from February – when Doge announced the cut – to November – when the contract was subject to annual review.

They also told us that the site – which closed on the same day as the Doge announcement – never reached its maximum capacity of 3,000 children, and about 2,000 stayed at the Texas facility at its peak, before numbers fell significantly as border crossings decreased.

We contacted the Administration for Children and Families and the Department for Health and Human Services which awarded the contract but are yet to hear back.

The second largest saving listed by Doge comes from cancelling a contract between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and an IT company called Centennial Technologies which it claims was worth $1.9bn.

The document which Doge links to has a total contract value of $1.9bn and all of the other cost fields, including the amount already spent, are for $0.

However, Mr Drabkin told us this does not necessarily mean that nothing had been spent on the contract.

He said several government departments have poor recording keeping, meaning the amount spent during some contracts might not always be updated in a timely fashion.

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The contract start date is listed as August 2024 and was estimated to run until 2031.

However, Centennial Technologies’ CEO told the New York Times that the agreement had actually been cancelled last autumn during the Biden administration.

The company did not respond to our requests for further comment.

Another IT contract, this time with the Department of Defense, is the third largest claimed saving.

Doge says $1.76bn was saved by cancelling a contract with an IT services company called A1FEDIMPACT.

On the contract document, the total value is listed as $2.4bn. An online database of government contracts called Higher Gov says this amount was the ceiling value.

Again, there is $0 recorded for the amount that had been spent at the time the contract was terminated.

It is unclear where Doge’s figure of $1.76bn comes from – we have asked the Pentagon and the supplier about it.

The fourth largest claimed saving of $1.75bn comes from cancelling a USAID grant to Gavi, a global health organisation, which campaigns to improve access to vaccines.

Doge links to a page on USASpending.gov. It shows a grant was paid to Gavi in three instalments, during the Biden administration, totalling $880m.

Gavi confirmed that $880m had been paid out by USAID but said it had not been told the grant had been terminated.

“Gavi has not received a termination notice related to this grant,” a spokesperson told us.

We have not found any evidence for the $1.75bn saving claimed by Doge, and a source familiar with the contract said it was unclear where it comes from.

We asked the USAID Office of Inspector General about the grant but it did not respond to us.

While Doge may have cut a significant amount of government spending, the lack of evidence provided for its biggest claimed savings makes it impossible to independently confirm exactly how much.

Doge does not have a press office but BBC Verify has contacted the White House to ask for more evidence of these claimed savings.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Will India be able to stop the Indus river and two of its tributaries from flowing into Pakistan?

That’s the question on many minds, after India suspended a major treaty governing water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries, following Tuesday’s horrific attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) survived two wars between the nuclear rivals and was seen as an example of trans-boundary water management.

The suspension is among several steps India has taken against Pakistan, accusing it of backing cross-border terrorism – a charge Islamabad flatly denies. It has also hit back with reciprocal measures against Delhi, and said stopping water flow “will be considered as an Act of War”.

The treaty allocated the three eastern rivers – the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – of the Indus basin to India, while 80% of the three western ones – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan.

Disputes have flared in the past, with Pakistan objecting to some of India’s hydropower and water infrastructure projects, arguing they would reduce river flows and violate the treaty. (More than 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture and around a third of its hydropower depend on the Indus basin’s water.)

India, meanwhile, has been pushing to review and modify the treaty, citing changing needs – from irrigation and drinking water to hydropower – in light of factors like climate change.

Over the years, Pakistan and India have pursued competing legal avenues under the treaty brokered by the World Bank.

But this is the first time either side has announced a suspension – and notably, it’s the upstream country, India, giving it a geographic advantage.

But what does the suspension really mean? Could India hold back or divert the Indus basin’s waters, depriving Pakistan of its lifeline? And is it even capable of doing so?

Experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes.

“The infrastructure India has are mostly run-of-the-river hydropower plants that do not need massive storage,” said Himanshu Thakkar, a regional water resources expert with the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

Such hydropower plants use the force of running water to spin turbines and generate electricity, without holding back large volumes of water.

Indian experts say inadequate infrastructure has kept India from fully utilising even its 20% share of the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus waters under the treaty – a key reason they argue for building storage structures, which Pakistan opposes citing treaty provisions.

Experts say India can now modify existing infrastructure or build new ones to hold back or divert more water without informing Pakistan.

“Unlike in the past, India will now not be required to share its project documents with Pakistan,” said Mr Thakkar.

But challenges like difficult terrain and protests within India itself over some of its projects have meant that construction of water infrastructure in the Indus basin has not moved fast enough.

After a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2016, Indian water resources ministry officials had told the BBC they would speed up construction of several dams and water storage projects in the Indus basin.

Although there is no official information on the status of such projects, sources say progress has been limited.

Some experts say that if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season, when water availability is already at its lowest.

“A more pressing concern is what happens in the dry season – when the flows across the basin are lower, storage matters more, and timing becomes more critical,” Hassan F Khan, assistant professor of Urban Environmental Policy and Environmental Studies at Tufts University, wrote in the Dawn newspaper.

“That is where the absence of treaty constraints could start to be felt more acutely.”

The treaty requires India to share hydrological data with Pakistan – crucial for flood forecasting and planning for irrigation, hydropower and drinking water.

Pradeep Kumar Saxena, India’s former IWT commissioner for over six years, told the Press Trust of India news agency that the country can now stop sharing flood data with Pakistan.

The region sees damaging floods during the monsoon season, which begins in June and lasts until September. But Pakistani authorities have said India was already sharing very limited hydrological data.

“India was sharing only around 40% of the data even before it made the latest announcement,” Shiraz Memon, Pakistan’s former additional commissioner of the Indus Waters Treaty, told BBC Urdu.

Another issue that comes up each time there is water-related tension in the region is if the upstream country can “weaponise” water against the downstream country.

This is often called a “water bomb”, where the upstream country can temporarily hold back water and then release it suddenly, without warning, causing massive damage downstream.

Could India do that?

Experts say India would first risk flooding its own territory as its dams are far from the Pakistan border. However, it could now flush silt from its reservoirs without prior warning – potentially causing damage downstream in Pakistan.

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Himalayan rivers like the Indus carry high silt levels, which quickly accumulate in dams and barrages. Sudden flushing of this silt can cause significant downstream damage.

There’s a bigger picture: India is downstream of China in the Brahmaputra basin, and the Indus originates in Tibet.

In 2016, after India warned that “blood and water cannot flow together” following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir which India blamed on Pakistan, China blocked a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo – that becomes the Brahmaputra in northeast India.

China, that has Pakistan as its ally, said they had done it as it was needed for a hydropower project they were building near the border. But the timing of the move was seen as Beijing coming in to help Islamabad.

After building several hydropower plants in Tibet, China has green-lit what will be the world’s largest dam on the lower reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo.

Beijing claims minimal environmental impact, but India fears it could give China significant control over the river’s flow.

Federal agents arrested a Wisconsin judge and charged her with obstruction for allegedly trying to help an undocumented immigrant evade arrest.

Announcing her arrest, FBI director Kash Patel accused Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan of “intentionally misdirecting” immigration agents away from a Mexican man they were trying to arrest last week.

“Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” Patel wrote on X.

During a preliminary court hearing on Friday, Dugan’s lawyer said she “wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety”.

The judge has been charged with obstruction and concealing an individual to avoid arrest, and faces a maximum of six years in prison if convicted on both charges.

Dugan was released on her own recognisance pending a hearing on 15 May.

The charges stem from events that played out in Dugan’s courtroom last week.

On 17 April, an immigration judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national facing three misdemeanour battery counts stemming from a domestic fight, according to court documents filed in the case by the FBI.

The following day, Flores-Ruiz appeared in the Milwaukee court for a scheduled hearing, and six officers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency arrived at the courthouse to make the arrest.

The agents identified themselves to court officials and waited outside Dugan’s courtroom, but according to the FBI affidavit, the judge became “visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers” when she learned of their presence.

In the hallway outside the court, Dugan and the unnamed agents then argued over the type of arrest warrant that had been issued, before the judge instructed them to report to the office of the county’s chief judge.

While several agents were in the office, affidavit says, the judge ushered Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer to a side door meant for jury members leading out of the courtroom.

But two agents remained near the courtroom and spotted Flores-Ruiz attempting to escape, the affidavit says.

Flores-Ruiz, who authorities say had previously been deported from the US in 2013, managed to exit the courthouse but was arrested just minutes later after a short foot chase.

Dugan’s arrest came one day after a former judge in New Mexico was taken into custody accused of harbouring an alleged Venezuelan gang member in his home.

“I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law and they are not,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News in an interview on Friday.

“And if you are destroying evidence, if you are obstructing justice, when you have victims sitting in a courtroom of domestic violence, and you’re escorting a criminal defendant out a back door, it will not be tolerated.”

Reaction to the arrest largely split along partisan lines.

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, called it a “gravely serious and drastic move”.

“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in a statement. “By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this President is putting those basic democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.”

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson also criticised the arrest, calling it “showboating” and warned that it would have a “chilling effect” on court proceedings.

Wisconsin’s Republican US Senator, Ron Johnson, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “I would advise everyone to cooperate with federal law enforcement and not endanger them and the public by obstructing their efforts to arrest criminals and illegal aliens.”

Dugan was first elected as a judge in 2016, and was re-elected to a second six-year term in 2022.

Judicial elections in Wisconsin are non-partisan, however Dugan was endorsed by Milwaukee’s Democratic mayor.

The obstruction charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, while the concealment charges can be punished by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

In 2019, during the first Trump administration, a judge in Massachusetts was arrested after she allowed an undocumented immigrant defendant to retrieve property from a lockup in the courtroom. The immigrant then left the courtroom.

Judge Shelley M Richmond Joseph was charged with obstruction, but the charges were dropped in 2022, although she still faces an ongoing ethics complaint stemming from the incident.

As they walked through arrivals at Manchester Airport, a couple seemed to be behaving oddly towards their baby.

Something did not sit right with Border Force officers. One worried the relationship between the three was “not genuine”.

Officers pulled the couple for questioning. The man, Raphael Ossai, claimed to be the girl’s father.

He handed them a birth certificate for the baby, which showed his travelling companion, Oluwakemi Olasanoye, as the child’s mother.

But officers found a second birth certificate, hidden in the lining of the couple’s luggage. It named another woman, Raphael’s British wife, as the little girl’s mother.

It was the start of a mystery that remains unsolved – the little girl’s true identity is still not fully known.

What we do know is the child is not related to any of the adults. The girl, who we are calling Lucy, seems to have been born in rural Nigeria in September 2022, and given to an orphanage when she was just three days old.

The couple who carried her to the UK, Ossai and Olasanoye, pleaded guilty to immigration offences and were sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by deportation.

Now Lucy has been in care in Manchester for nearly two years. The Nigerian High Commission did not engage in depth with the case despite multiple requests from the High Court.

For the last nine months the High Court in Manchester has been trying to find out who Lucy really is, as it decides what her future should be.

The court heard that on June 20 2023, Ossai and Olasanoye unlawfully brought Lucy to the UK from Lagos, via Addis Ababa. Olasanoye had a visa to work in the UK and agreed to travel with Ossai and Lucy.

When the couple were sentenced in criminal court, it was believed that Lucy was the child of Ossai and his Nigerian-born British wife.

Ossai met his British wife in Kenya and married her in Nigeria in 2017 – but he had never been to the UK. When he applied for a visitor’s visa, he was turned down due to financial circumstances.

At the time of sentencing, the judge said the “principal motive for this offence” was to bring the bring the baby to the UK so him and his British wife could live as a “family” with Lucy.

However during the High Court hearing, DNA tests proved Lucy is not related either of the adults.

Documents presented to the court said that she had been born to a young student in rural Nigeria, who was not able to care for her. Her father was not known.

The papers indicated the mother had voluntarily relinquished Lucy to an orphanage.

Ossai and his British wife said they had been looking for a little girl to adopt, and he collected Lucy when she was a tiny baby.

The couple had permission to foster the little girl but not to adopt her or take her out of Nigeria.

Ossai, a music producer, took Lucy to a small flat in the Nigerian capital Lagos where he looked after her for the next nine months.

He told the court he had cared for the baby well – that he had fed her properly, played her music, and kept her safe.

But a social worker from the Children and Family Court Advisory Service CAFCASS said she believed Lucy had been neglected, underfed and under stimulated.

She had met the little girl when she was just over a year old, in October 2023.

“It was really sad when I met her,” a social worker told the court.

Giving evidence, she said it was as though the child did not realise “she was actually a person”.

“She was so lost, and not really present… she just felt so alone yet she was surrounded by people,” she added.

During an observation session, the social worker said Lucy became very “panicky” when her foster carer stood up to leave the room.

She also displayed an “extreme cry” that was “very difficult to soothe”.

When asked whether Lucy could have been traumatised by the flight or by her transfer to care, the social worker said she believes it is unlikely that alone was to blame.

She added that if Lucy had developed a secure attachment to Ossai, that would have been transferred to her foster carer.

The judge said the child lacked “basic parental attachment” but did not make a finding on the cause.

“I am sure that her being brought into this country illegally and thus separated from her carers is bound to be a significant factor,” he said.

Although Ossai has been sentenced to be deported, he and his British wife asked the High Court to assess them to care for Lucy.

Ossai said that he thought of Lucy as his daughter. His lawyers said that as the Nigerian authorities had approved him as her foster parent, the English court had no power to take her away.

Lucy had always been happy with him, Ossai said, and he thought taking her into care had upset her, especially placing her with white foster carers.

“The white may be strange to her,” he added. “When they took her from me I saw the way she was looking at them.”

His lawyers raised concerns that if Lucy were adopted by a white family, she would lose her cultural identity.

Ossai’s British wife said Lucy “is like that precious gift that I desired so much”.

She told the High Court she would do “anything and everything” for her, adding “I see her as my child”.

Both broke down and cried in court when they talked about the little girl.

The High Court Judge hearing the case, Sir Jonathan Cohen, rejected Ossai and his British wife’s application to be assessed to care for Lucy.

He said the lies they had told and the actions they had taken, especially moving Lucy from Nigeria, had “inevitably caused her very significant emotional harm”.

Lucy has been placed with several different foster carers and is residing in at least her third new home since her arrival in the UK. In April, the judge ordered she be placed for adoption in the UK and that her name be changed.

He said that Lucy “needs to have the best opportunities going forward in the world”, and that can “only be done in a placement in an alternative family”.

The judge added that she would be provided with “background” about her heritage and told what happened in her past.

He found that Ossai and his British wife had a genuine desire to adopt Lucy.

Julian Bild, an immigration lawyer for anti-trafficking charity Atleu, said in circumstances where a woman is a UK national and a child is a UK national via adoption or otherwise, “it is likely the family would be allowed to stay here”.

It is possible for a child to receive British citizenship if they are brought to and physically adopted in the UK, he said.

But he added that it is “very, very unlikely that a Nigerian could simply adopt a child to improve their immigration situation and get away with it because that would be pretty transparent”.

“A person seeking to bring a child to the UK for the purpose of adoption would first need to get a Certificate of Eligibility from the UK government before being able to do so.

“The genuineness for all of this to happen is obviously looked at very closely by the family courts, social workers and experts to ensure the arrangement is in the best interests of the child.”

The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases and therefore could not clarify whether Ossai and Olasanoye had been removed from the UK.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Foreign nationals who commit crime should be in no doubt that we will do everything to make sure they are not free to roam Britain’s streets, including removing them from the UK at the earliest possible opportunity.

“Since the election we’ve removed 3,594 foreign criminals, a 16% increase on the same period 12 months prior.”

The Nigerian High Commission did not respond to our requests for comment.

It was all smiles in the Kremlin.

“It’s so good to see you,” gushed Steve Witkoff as he shook the hand of the Russian president.

From his broad smile you could tell that Donald Trump’s special envoy was indeed delighted to see Vladimir Putin.

In fact, he’s been seeing rather a lot of him.

This was their fourth meeting in just over two months.

In that period Witkoff has surely had more face time with Russia’s president than any other American.

The Kremlin released 27 seconds of video from the meeting. What caught my attention wasn’t so much the body language or the greetings – it was the table.

On one side sat the combined might of the Russian delegation: President Putin, flanked by his veteran foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, his envoy on foreign investment Kirill Dmitriev, plus an interpreter.

On the other side, clearly outnumbered: Witkoff and a translator.

This is not traditional diplomacy – but then again, Witkoff is not a traditional diplomat.

He is a billionaire New York real estate developer and long-time confidant of Trump – who himself is not a traditional president.

Like Trump, Witkoff has made a career in doing deals.

This is how high-level US-Russian diplomacy is being conducted now in the Trump era.

It’s how crucial decisions with potential implications for the global order are being debated.

Following this round of talks, Ushakov held a conference call for reporters. He insisted that the negotiations with Witkoff had been “constructive and very useful”.

“May I ask a question?” I began. “What are the main sticking points, the obstacles to peace in Ukraine?”

“Thank you,” Ushakov said. “We’ll end it there.” Conference call over.

From the various alleged peace proposals that have been leaked to the press, there seem to be plenty of “sticking points”. There are differences over the territorial concessions Ukraine would be required to make, security guarantees, sanctions relief for Russia and the sequencing – that is, the order in which obligations undertaken be carried out.

The day Witkoff flew to Moscow, on the edge of the city, peace was shattered.

A car bomb killed a senior Russian general.

Yaroslav Moskalik was deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian General Staff. The Kremlin accused Kyiv of assassinating him.

If that’s true, it’s a sign of how Russia’s war in Ukraine has come much closer to home.

There is no guarantee that talks between Putin and Witkoff will bring peace. And there will be concern in Kyiv and in Europe that they were not at the table.

What is clear is that Putin and Trump are determined to bring their countries closer – whatever happens with the Ukraine peace process.

For Moscow and Washington, now their watchword is co-operation.

On Friday, I attended a ceremony at a Moscow military park symbolising this.

It marked the moment, 80 years ago, when American and Soviet soldiers met on the Elbe River in the dying days of World War Two. That was a time when Russia and America were allies.

A military band played as people lined up to lay flowers at a memorial to the Meeting on the Elbe.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine put the US and Russia on opposite sides, but times are changing again.

The White House and the Kremlin are trying to repair relations. Could they secure a peace deal, one that’s acceptable to Ukraine?

“We are just re-establishing contact,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told me at the ceremony.

“We are just trying to find a way out of this terrible crisis which was created by the previous American administration. They ruined many things.”

Moscow presents itself as peacekeeper. It blames Kyiv and the “collective West” for the fighting.

And yet in February 2022, it was President Putin who ordered Russian troops to invade a sovereign neighbouring country, to force it back into Moscow’s orbit.

So much has changed, not least the attitude of the White House.

President Biden had promised to support Ukraine “for as long as we can”.

Earlier this month, Trump blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war.

“You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” Trump said.

The seat at the Vatican had been vacant for two days when a group of grey-clad nuns stood on St Peter’s Square and started to sing.

Softly at first then louder, as if to encourage those who joined in timidly, the nuns broke into Ave Maria.

Every so often they shuffled a few inches forward, following the queue for Pope Francis’s lying in state. And all the while they sang, their faces turned to St Peter’s Basilica to their left, their white veils glistening under their large sun hats.

It was a fitting sight for an extraordinary week in which Rome seemed to regain its reputation as the “capital of the world” – and St Peter’s Square as the centre of the Catholic universe.

There is mourning, but also recognition that the Pope, who lived to 88, died quickly and peacefully. “At least he didn’t suffer,” many say. Yet this isn’t the time for celebration either – that will have to wait until after the funeral, when the conclave will spark the usual frenzy of excitement, intrigue and inevitable speculation.

Before then, in Rome these in-between days have taken on a flavour of their own.

Elena, a Romanian woman in her 50s, said she had noticed a “pensive” atmosphere in the city. “There are big crowds around but I have felt everything was a bit quieter, there is something different in the air,” she told the BBC, guessing that the Pope’s death was encouraging people to “look inside” more.

She added that everyone she spoke to this week – even non-believers – had been marked by his death somehow.

Her friend Lina agreed. She was standing behind the counter of her tobacconist shop in Borgo Pio, a quiet cobblestoned street lined with buildings in earthy tones and flower boxes near the Vatican. “It’s neither a week of tragedy nor one of celebration,” she said. “It’s a chance for people to think, to reflect, and I think that’s much needed.”

Nearby, people slowly ambled down Via della Conciliazione – the pedestrian street that connects Italy and the Vatican city state, and the same one the Pope’s coffin will travel down on Saturday as he reaches his final place of rest in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

The 4th Century church is only located around 4km away from St Peter’s, but the journey there is set to take around two hours as the car carrying the Pope’s coffin will move at walking pace to allow people lining the streets to see it and say their goodbyes, the Vatican said earlier this week.

Two plain-clothed police officers acknowledged that the neighbourhood was much busier than usual, but that it “felt like a Saturday,” and that people had been very relaxed.

Still, the signs of the huge security operation mounted by the Vatican and Italian authorities were everywhere.

On Wednesday, a soldier stood outside a religious goods shop brandishing a hefty bazooka-like anti-drone device. Asked whether the contraption could, for instance, disrupt drone frequencies and force them to return to their bases, he replied mysteriously: “Maybe, among other things.”

Next to him, a fellow soldier scanned the sky with binoculars. On the day of the funeral, they will be joined by thousands of security personnel from various branches of the police and armed forces, as well as river patrol units, bomb-sniffing dogs and rooftop snipers.

American student Caislyn, who was sat on a bench sketching the dome of St Peter’s, said she was “shocked” at how safe she felt despite the number of people around.

The 21-year-old attributed that to the fact that “people are here to pay their respects to Francis, and to enjoy this beautiful city.” She called the atmosphere “bittersweet,” but said she saw the funeral as a “celebration of life”.

“He gave such a great example to the world,” she reminisced.

As Caislyn recalled Francis’ commitment to the poorest of society, many others referenced his last-known trip outside the Vatican on Maundy Thursday, when he visited prisoners at the Regina Coeli jail, as he had done many times before.

“He was close to the people,” Elena said fondly, adding that she understood why he “couldn’t stay away” from helping those worst off.

“I work as a volunteer for homeless people and every time I try to stop, something pulls me back. Why? Because I lived like them for three months, because I come from poverty too. It’s not hard for me to feel close to them,” she said.

“And I think it was the same for Francis,” she said, mentioning comments by Francis’s sister Maria Elena who told Italian media last month that she and her siblings had grown up in poverty in Argentina.

Elena added: “He never forgot where he was from. Even when he got to the highest role, he never let it change him.”

For Belgian tourist Dirk, whose wife was queuing to see the Pope lying in state in the basilica, the sombre atmosphere since the Pope’s death is something that “draws people in, it’s something they want to be a part of”.

“It might just be temporary, it’ll probably be over by Monday,” he laughed.

• IN PICTURES: Symbolism on show as Pope lies in open coffin
• PROFILE: Acting head of the Vatican Cardinal Kevin Farrell
• EXPLAINER: A visual guide to Pope Francis’s funeral
• WATCH: How previous Popes were laid to rest
• Are you in Rome for the Pope’s funeral? Get in touch.

Dryly, he remarked on the number of homeless – and often disabled – people around the Vatican. “I saw a woman who was walking almost bent over, and people in clergy clothes completely ignored her, in fact they looked in the other direction so they wouldn’t have to be confronted with it,” he said.

“So it remains shocking, the wealth of these churches around us and the poverty of the people sleeping on their doorsteps.” He shook his head. “The contrast is jarring to me.”

Katleho – an upbeat young woman from Lesotho – told the BBC that she felt “special, happy” when she received Pope Francis’s Easter blessing on the day before he died, when he appeared on St Peter’s balcony. “I thought: I’m a real Catholic now!,” she laughed.

She said she felt “so privileged to be joining a multitude of people” who were paying their respects to Pope Francis this week. “It’s a real shared experience, it’s so wonderful,” she said, skipping off to catch up with the rest of her group.

For three days this week, tens of thousands of people streamed into St Peter’s to bid their last farewell to the Argentinian Pope who – as he put it when he was elected – had come “from the end of the world”.

Father Ramez Twal, from Jerusalem, was the last in line in the queue to see Pope Francis’s body.

“It’s amazing that we as a group from the Holy Land get to say the last goodbye for our late Pope Francis,” he said.

“For us, it’s a really emotional moment to say thank you to him for being with us during this terrible time in the Holy Land.

“He means a lot to me, because he gave us a spiritual way of thinking, he had a love he gave for all, and he taught us to respect each other. We will miss him.”

As they entered the basilica after hours of queuing, visitors and pilgrims proceeded towards Francis’s body, lying in a casket by the high altar built over the tomb of St Peter, the Catholic Church’s first pope. Some brandished selfie sticks, others clutched their rosaries or their children’s hands. All were very quiet.

Outside, under the warm April sunshine, groups of joyous African pilgrims in flashy head wraps ate gelato by the Bernini fountain, seagulls circling overhead.

Retired Californian couples fanned themselves under the square’s colonnades, and journalists from around the world shouted questions in shaky Italian at any cardinal who looked like they may have a vote in the upcoming conclave.

Holding his phone out to show a caller back home his surroundings, a Brazilian priest spun on himself, laughing.

The Trump administration is restoring visas for hundreds of foreign students who had their legal status abruptly terminated stoking panic among many who feared immediate deportation, government officials confirmed.

Justice department attorney Elizabeth Kurlan told a federal court that immigration officials are now working on a new system for reviewing and terminating visas for international students.

The announcement follows more than 100 lawsuits filed by students who were abruptly stripped of their legal right to study in US universities.

An estimated 1,800 students and 280 universities have been impacted , according to a tally from Inside Higher Ed.

Many affected students appeared to have participated in political protests or have had previous criminal charges, such as driving infractions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously said the administration would terminate status for people whose actions the administration believes run counter to US interests.

The policy has caused widespread fear and confusion across hundreds of US universities, with some students opting to leave the country pre-emptively rather than face possible detention or deportation.

The Justice Department told the court on Friday that records would be restored in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS), which tracks foreign students’ compliance with their visas.

But ICE still maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS record for other reasons.

For example, “if a student fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated, or engages in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act” justice department attorney Elizabeth Kurlan told a federal court in California, NBC News reported.

Attorneys for the students have argued that the revocations violate the students’ legal rights, and the fear of detention has prevented them from fulfilling their studies.

Attorneys representing students across the country said that their clients had seen their records restored in recent days, according to NBC News.

Losing their SEVIS records left students vulnerable to immigration actions — and possible detention and deportation, according to Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.

“What I’m hearing is that this is a reprieve for many students who have had their status reinstated in SEVIS,” Prof Mukherjee said. “But this doesn’t mean this ordeal is over for the students who have had their records terminated.”

The Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former Republican congressman George Santos has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The 36-year-old pleaded guilty to the federal charges in New York court last August.

Prosecutors had asked for 87 months in prison – the sentence Santos ultimately received – while Santos’s attorneys had requested he serve two years, the minimum sentence for aggravated identity theft.

The sentencing marks the final step in the downfall of the novice New York politician, who was expelled from Congress after the fraud case alleged that he lied about his background and misused campaign funds to finance his lifestyle.

Santos reportedly apologised for his actions while crying in court on Friday, saying: “I cannot rewrite the past, but I can control the road ahead.”

The judge overseeing the case appeared unconvinced. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies,” she said.

Santos will report to prison on 25 July.

The federal government alleged Santos laundered campaign funds to pay for his personal expenses, illegally claimed unemployment benefits while he was employed and lied to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Prosecutors said he charged more than $44,000 (£32,000) to his campaign over a period of months using credit cards belonging to contributors who were unaware they were being defrauded.

In court last year, Santos admitted to theft and applying for unemployment benefits that he was not entitled to receive. He has also acknowledged making false statements and omissions on financial statements submitted to the House Ethics Committee and the FEC.

The former lawmaker has been ordered to pay at least $374,000 (£280,000) in restitution.

He has been attempting to raise money on Cameo, a platform where people can purchase personalized videos from celebrities.

Santos’s downfall began after the New York Times in 2022 published an investigation revealing the freshman congressman had lied about his CV, including having a university degree and working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

From there, the lies continued to pile up, including allegations that he stole money from a fundraiser for a dying dog and that he lied about his mother surviving the 11 September terrorist attacks. Shortly after, local and federal officials began to investigate.

He was eventually charged with 23 federal felony crimes, and in 2023, he became the first member of Congress to be expelled in more than 20 years, only the sixth in history.

A report from the House ethics panel accused him of misusing campaign funds for personal benefits, including Botox and subscriptions on the OnlyFans website.

Santos defeated a Democratic incumbent in 2022, flipping the district that encompasses parts of New York’s Long Island and Queens, where he grew up.

Santos, an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, has said that he would not ask the president for a pardon.

“If the president thinks I’m worthy of any level of clemency that is bestowed upon him, he can go ahead and do it, but for me to seek a pardon is to deny accountability and responsibility,” Santos told the New York Times.

Yet he appeared to contradict himself in an episode of his podcast, when his guest, blogger Perez Hilton asked him if he would request a pardon if he were sentenced to years in prison.

“You bet your sweet ass I would,” he told the TV personality.

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.”