Australians will head to the polls tomorrow to elect a new government.

But the country’s 18 million eligible voters won’t just be going to pick their preferred candidate – they’ll also be fulfilling a legal obligation.

Since 1924, voting has been compulsory for all Australian citizens over the age of 18, with failure to vote carrying a fine of A$20 ($13; £10).

Today, while many countries are struggling to get people to the ballot box, Australia boasts one of the highest voter turnouts in the world.

The country’s last federal election in 2022 saw ballots counted from around 90% of eligible voters, according to official statistics.

For comparison, the voter turnout for the UK general election in 2024 was 60%, while the figure for the US presidential election in the same year was 64%.

Compulsory voting has broad popular support in Australia, and is seen as a way to capture representation from the majority of society – not just the majority of people who choose to vote.

Here’s what you need to know about compulsory voting in Australia.

You can be exempted from voting with a valid reason, but Australian authorities have put in place a variety of policies to reduce barriers to voting. For one, elections are held on Saturdays, when more workers will be free to go down to polling stations.

Employers are also required to give workers paid leave on election day to ensure that people have enough time to go vote.

An added incentive for people to perform their democratic duty are “democracy sausages”, grilled on barbeques near polling booths. These snacks have become icons of Australian elections, often making them the largest fundraising events of the year for local schools and community groups.

Voting became compulsory for federal elections when the Electoral Act was amended in 1924, and the effect was swift and stark: voter turnout surged from less than 60% in the 1922 election to more than 91% in 1925.

A big argument for compulsory voting in Australia is the legitimacy it grants the election winner.

“Proponents of compulsory voting argue that a parliament elected by a compulsory vote more accurately reflects the will of the electorate,” reads a guide published by the Australian Election Commission.

“Compulsory voting is claimed to encourage policies which collectively address the full spectrum of elector values,” said the commission. On the flipside, it notes, compulsory voting also runs the risk of “pork barrelling” – the use of government funds for projects that will curry favour with voters – as parties focus on winning over voters on the margins.

While there is no scientific consensus on how compulsory voting affects the policy issues championed by political parties, many believe it counters political polarisation by drawing out more moderate voters.

Conversely, places without compulsory voting may see parties appealing to more extreme voter bases.

“That means they can be tempted towards much more extreme political issues,” historian Judith Brett told the BBC in 2022, when the last Australian federal election was held. “Whereas because everybody has to vote, in a way it pulls politics towards the centre.”

Compulsory voting also helps ensure that marginalised people are better represented, said Ms Brett. Research shows that people who are less affluent are also less likely to vote.

“Now that means that politicians, when they’re touting for votes, know that all of the groups, including the poor, are going to have a vote,” Brett said. “And I think that makes for a more egalitarian public policy.”

Compulsory voting is fairly uncontroversial in Australia.

National surveys since 1967 show public support for the laws have consistently hovered around 70%.

Over the decades there have been individuals campaigning to end compulsory voting, arguing that citizens should have the right to choose whether to vote at all – but such calls have gained little traction among the wider population.

In 2022, 77% of Australians said they would have still voted if it was voluntary.

Buying or renting a home has become unaffordable for the average Australian, driven by a perfect storm of astronomical house prices, relentless rental increases and a lack of social housing.

With less than a month until the federal election, housing remains among the top issues for voters, and the country’s two major parties – the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition – have both pledged to tackle the crisis in a range of ways.

Australians are already struggling under cost-of-living pressures and bracing for the effects of Donald Trump’s global tariff war. And it remains to be seen whether either party will sway voters with their promise of restoring the Australian dream.

Simply put, Australia has not been building enough homes to meet the demands of its rapidly growing population, creating a scarcity that makes any available home more expensive to buy or rent.

Compounding the issue are Australia’s restrictive planning laws, which prevent homes being built where most people want to live, such as in major cities.

Red tape means that popular metropolitan areas like Melbourne and Sydney are far less dense than comparably sized cities around the world.

The steady decline of public housing and ballooning waitlists have made matters worse, tipping people into homelessness or overcrowded living conditions.

Climate change has also made many areas increasingly unliveable, with natural disasters such as bushfires and severe storms destroying large swathes of properties.

Meanwhile, decades of government policies have commercialised property ownership. So the ideal of owning a home, once seen as a right in Australia, has turned into an investment opportunity.

In short: it depends where you live.

Sydney is currently the second least affordable city in the world to buy a property, according to a 2023 Demographia International Housing Affordability survey.

The latest data from property analytics company CoreLogic shows the average Sydney home costs almost A$1.2m (£570,294, $742,026).

Across the nation’s capital cities, the combined average house price sits at just over A$900,000.

House prices in Australia overall have also jumped 39.1% in the last five years – and wages have failed to keep up.

It now takes the average prospective homeowner around 10 years to save the 20% deposit usually required to buy an average home, according to a 2024 State of the Housing System report.

The rental market has provided little relief, with rents increasing by 36.1% nationally since the onset of Covid – an equivalent rise of A$171 per week.

Sydney topped the charts with a median weekly rent of A$773, according to CoreLogic’s latest rental review. Perth came in second with average rents at A$695 per week, followed by Canberra at A$667 per week.

Immigration and foreign property purchases are often cited as causes for Australia’s housing crisis. But experts say that they are not significant contributors statistically.

Many people who move to Australia are temporary migrants, such as international students who live in dedicated student accommodation rather than entering the housing market, according to Michael Fotheringham, head of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

“The impact [of migrants] on the housing market is not as profound as some commentators have suggested,” Mr Fotheringham tells the BBC.

The federal government also recently sought to crack down on foreign homebuyers, by tripling fees.

However that is “a very small issue” with not much meaningful impact on housing strain, says Brendan Coates, from the Grattan Institute public policy think tank.

The latest data released by the Australian Taxation Office supports this, with homes purchased by foreign buyers in 2022-23 representing less than one percent of all sales.

“It’s already very difficult for foreigners to purchase homes under existing foreign investment rules. They are subject to a wide range of taxes, particularly in some states,” Mr Coates explains.

Labor and the Coalition have both promised to invest in building more homes – with Labor offering 1.2 million by 2029, and the Coalition vowing to unlock 500,000.

In their respective campaign launches, both parties promote housing initiatives aimed at first homebuyers.

Labor has pledged to expand an existing shared-equity scheme to allow all first homebuyers to purchase homes with a 5% deposit, an ease on the 20% deposit typically needed.

Albanese also promised 100,000 of the new homes his government creates will only be available to first homebuyers, in addition to building more social housing and introducing subsidies to help low-to-moderate-income earners.

The Coalition, if elected, will allow first-time buyers to use up to $50,000 from their superannuation retirement savings to fund a house purchase. They will make mortgage payments partially tax free for up to five years for all first homebuyers with newly built properties.

Central to the Coalition’s housing affordability policy is cutting migration, reducing the number of international students and implementing a two-year ban on foreign investment in existing properties.

Additionally, they have promised a A$5bn boost to infrastructure to support local councils by paying for water, power and sewerage at housing development sites.

The Greens’ policies, meanwhile, have focused on alleviating pressures on renters by calling for national rent freezes and caps.

They have also said that in the event of a minority government, they will be pushing to reform tax incentives for investors.

In short, experts say that while both Labor and the Coalition’s policies are steps in the right direction, neither are sufficient to solve the housing problem.

“A combination of both parties’ platforms would be better than what we’re seeing from either side individually,” Mr Coates tells the BBC.

A 2025 State of the Land report by the Urban Development Institute of Australia says the federal government will fail to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029 – falling short by almost 400,000.

The Coalition’s focus on reducing immigration, meanwhile, will only make housing marginally cheaper while making Australia poorer in the long-term, according to Mr Coates.

The cuts to migration will mean fewer skilled migrants, he explains, and the loss of revenue from those migrants will result in higher taxes for Australians.

Decades of underinvestment in social housing also means demand in that area is massively outstripping supply – which at 4% of housing stock is significantly lower than many other countries, according to Mr Fotheringham.

There’s also concern about grants for first homebuyers, which drive prices up further.

While commending the fact that these issues are finally being treated seriously, Mr Fotheringham believes it will take years to drag Australia out of a housing crisis that has been building for decades.

“We’ve been sleepwalking into this as a nation for quite some time,” he says. “[Now] the nation is paying attention, the political class is paying attention.”

From an office perched on the scalloped edge of the continent, Victoria Bradley jokes that she has the most beautiful doctor’s practice in Australia.

Outside her window, farmland rolls into rocky coastline, hemming a glasslike bay striped with turquoise and populated by showboating dolphins.

Home to about 3,000 people, a few shops, two roundabouts and a tiny hospital, Streaky Bay is an idyllic beach town.

For Dr Bradley, though, it is anything but. The area’s sole, permanent doctor, she spent years essentially on call 24/7.

Running the hospital and the general practitioner (GP) clinic, life was a never-ending game of catch up. She’d do rounds at the wards before, after and in between regular appointments. Even on good days, lunch breaks were often a pipe dream. On bad days, a hospital emergency would blow up her already punishing schedule.

Burnt out, two years ago she quit – and the thread holding together the remnants of the town’s healthcare system snapped.

Streaky Bay is at the forefront of a national crisis: inadequate government funding is exacerbating a shortage of critical healthcare workers like Dr Bradley; wait times are ballooning; doctors are beginning to write their own rules on fees, and costs to patients are skyrocketing.

A once-revered universal healthcare system is crumbling at every level, sometimes barely getting by on the sheer willpower of doctors and local communities.

As a result, more and more Australians, regardless of where they live, are delaying or going without the care they need.

Health has become a defining issue for voters ahead of the nation’s election on 3 May, with both of Australia’s major parties promising billions of dollars in additional funding.

But experts say the solutions being offered up are band-aid fixes, while what is needed are sweeping changes to the way the system is funded – reform for which there has so far been a lack of political will.

Australians tell the BBC the country is at a crossroads, and needs to decide if universal healthcare is worth saving.

Healthcare was the last thing on Renee Elliott’s mind when she moved to Streaky Bay – until the 40-year-old found a cancerous lump in her breast in 2019, and another one four years later.

Seeing a local GP was the least of her problems. With the expertise and treatment she needed only available in Adelaide, about 500km away, Mrs Elliott has spent hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars accessing life-saving care, all while raising three boys and running a business.

Though she has since clawed back a chunk of the cost through government schemes, it made an already harrowing time that much more draining: financially, emotionally and physically.

“You’re trying to get better… but having to juggle all that as well. It was very tricky.”

When Australia’s modern health system was born four decades ago – underpinned by a public insurance scheme called Medicare – it was supposed to guarantee affordable and accessible high-quality care to people like Mrs Elliott as “a basic right”.

Health funding here is complex and shared between states and federal governments. But the scheme essentially meant Australians could present their bright green Medicare member card at a doctor’s office or hospital, and Canberra would be sent a bill. It paid through rebates funded by taxes.

Patients would either receive “bulk billed” – completely free – care, mostly through the emerging public system, or heavily subsidised treatment through a private healthcare sector offering more benefits and choice to those who wanted them.

Medicare became a national treasure almost instantly. It was hoped this set up would combine the best parts of the UK’s National Health Service and the best of the United States’ system.

Fast forward 40 years and many in the industry say we’re on track to end up with the worst of both.

There is no denying that healthcare in Australia is still miles ahead of much of the world, particularly when it comes to emergency care.

But the core of the crisis and key to this election is GP services, or primary care, largely offered by private clinics. There has historically been little need for public ones, with most GPs choosing to accept Medicare rebates as full payment.

That is increasingly uncommon though, with doctors saying those allowances haven’t kept up with the true cost of delivering care. At the same time, staff shortages, which persist despite efforts to recruit from overseas, create a scarcity that only drives up prices further.

According to government data, about 30% of patients must now pay a “gap fee” for a regular doctor’s appointment – on average A$40 (£19.25; $25.55) out of pocket.

But experts suspect the true figure is higher: it’s skewed by seniors and children, who tend to visit doctors more often and still enjoy mostly bulk-billed appointments. Plus there’s a growing cohort of patients not captured by statistics, who simply don’t go to the doctor because of escalating fees.

Brisbane electrician Callum Bailey is one of them.

“Mum or my partner will pester and pester and pester… [but] I’m such a big ‘I’ll just suffer in silence’ person because it’s very expensive.”

And every dollar counts right now, the 25-year-old says: “At my age, I probably should be in my prime looking for housing… [but] even grocery shopping is nuts.

“[I] just can’t keep up.”

This is a tale James Gillespie kept hearing.

So his startup Cleanbill began asking the question: if the average Australian adult walked into a GP clinic, could they get a free, standard appointment?

This year, they called almost all of the nation’s estimated 7,000 GP clinics – only a fifth of them would bulk bill a new adult patient. In the entire state of Tasmania, for example, they couldn’t find a single one.

The results resonate with many Australians, he says: “It really brought it home to them that, ‘Okay, it’s not just us. This is happening nationwide’.”

And that’s just primary care.

Public specialists are so rare and so overwhelmed – with wait times often far beyond safe levels – that most patients are funnelled toward exorbitantly expensive private care. The same goes for a lot of non-emergency hospital treatments or dental work.

There are currently no caps on how much private specialists, dentists or hospitals can charge and neither private health insurance nor slim Medicare rebates reliably offer substantial relief.

The BBC spoke to people across the country who say the increasing cost of healthcare had left them relying on charities for food, avoiding dental care for almost a decade, or emptying their retirement savings to fund treatment.

Others are borrowing from their parents, taking out pay-day loans to buy medication, remortgaging their houses, or selling their possessions.

Kimberley Grima regularly lies awake at night, calculating which of her three children – who, like her, all have chronic illnesses – can see their specialists. Her own overdue health checks and tests are barely an afterthought.

“They’re decisions that you really don’t want to have to make,” the Aboriginal woman from New South Wales tells the BBC.

“But when push comes to shove and you haven’t got the money… you’ve got no other option. It’s heart-breaking.”

Another woman tells the BBC that had she been able to afford timely appointments, her multiple sclerosis, a degenerative neurological disease, would have been identified, and slowed, quicker.

“I was so disabled by the time I got a diagnosis,” she says.

The people missing out tend to be the ones who need it the most, experts say.

“We have much more care in healthier, wealthier parts of Australia than in poorer, sicker parts of Australia,” Peter Breadon, from the Grattan Institute think tank says.

All of this creates a vicious cycle which feeds even more pressure back into an overwhelmed system, while entrenching disadvantage and fuelling distrust.

Every single one of those issues is more acute in the regions.

Streaky Bay has long farewelled the concept of affordable healthcare, fighting instead to preserve access to any at all.

It’s why Dr Bradley lasted only three months after quitting before “guilt” drove her back to the practice.

“There’s a connection that goes beyond just being the GP… You are part of the community.

“I felt that I’d let [them] down. Which was why I couldn’t just let go.”

She came back to a far more sustainable three-day week in the GP clinic, with Streaky Bay forced to wage a bidding war with other desperate regions for pricey, fly-in-fly-out doctors to fill in the gaps.

It’s yet another line on the tab for a town which has already invested so much of its own money into propping up a healthcare system supposed to be funded by state and private investment.

“We don’t want a gold service, but what we want is an equitable service,” says Penny Williams, who helps run the community body which owns the GP practice.

When the clinic was on the verge of closure, the town desperately rallied to buy it. When it was struggling again, the local council diverted funding from other areas to top up its coffers. And even still most standard patients – unless they are seniors or children – fork out about A$50 per appointment.

It means locals are paying for their care three times over, Ms Williams says: through their Medicare taxes, council rates, and then out-of-pocket gap fees.

“No-one would say this is the Australia that we want, surely,” Elizabeth Deveny, from the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, tells the BBC.

Like many wealthy countries, the nation is struggling to cope with a growing population which is, on average, getting older and sicker.

There’s a small but increasing cohort which says it is time to let go of the notion of universal healthcare, as we’ve known it.

Many doctors, a handful of economists, and some conservative politicians have sought to redefine Medicare as a “safety net” for the nation’s most vulnerable rather than as a scheme for all.

Health economist Yuting Zhang argues free healthcare and universal healthcare are different things.

The taxes the government collects for Medicare are already nowhere near enough to support the system, she says, and the country either needs to have some tough conversations about how it will find additional funds, or accept reasonable fees for those who can afford them.

“There’s always a trade-off… You have limited resources, you have to think about how to use them effectively and efficiently.”

The original promise of Medicare has been “undermined by decades of neglect”, the Australian Medical Association’s Danielle McMullen says, and most Australians now accept they need to contribute to their own care.

She says freezes to Medicare rebates – which were overseen by both parties between 2013 and 2017 and meant the payments didn’t even keep up with inflation – were the last straw. Since then, many doctors have been dipping into their own pockets to help those in need.

Both the Labor Party and the Liberal-National coalition accept there is a crisis, but blame each other for it.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton says his government will invest A$9bn in health, including funds for extra subsidised mental health appointments and for regional universities training key workers.

“Health has become another victim of Labor’s cost of living crisis… we know it has literally never been harder or more expensive to see a GP than it is right now,” health spokesperson Anne Ruston told the BBC in a statement.

On the other side, Albanese – whipping out his Medicare card almost daily – has sought to remind voters that Labor created the beloved system, while pointing out the Coalition’s previously mixed support of the universal scheme and the spending cuts Dutton proposed as Health Minister a decade ago.

“At this election, this little card here, your Medicare card, is what is at stake,” Albanese has said.

His government has started fixing things already, he argues, and has pledged an extra A$8.5bn for training more GPs, building additional public clinics, and subsidising more medicines.

But the headline of their rescue packages is an increase to Medicare rebates and bigger bonuses for doctors who bulk bill.

Proposed by Labor, then matched by the Coalition, the changes will make it possible for 9 out of 10 Australians to see a GP for free, the parties claim.

One Tasmanian doctor tells the BBC it is just a “good election sound bite”. He and many other clinicians say the extra money is still not enough, particularly for the longer consults more and more patients are seeking for complex issues.

Labor has little patience for those criticisms, citing research which they claim shows their proposal will leave the bulk of doctors better off and accusing them of wanting investment “without strings attached”.

But many of the patients the BBC spoke to are sceptical either parties’ proposals will make a huge difference.

There’s far more they need to be doing, they say, rattling off a wish list: more work on training and retaining rural doctors; effective regulation of private fees and more investment in public specialist clinics; universal bulk billing of children for all medical and dental expenses; more funding for allied health and prevention.

Experts like Mr Breadon say, above all else, the way Medicare pays clinicians needs to be overhauled to keep healthcare access genuinely universal.

That is, the government needs to stop paying doctors a set amount per appointment, and give them a budget based on how large and sick the populations they serve are – that is something several recent reviews have said.

And the longer governments wait to invest in these reforms, the more they’re going to cost.

“The stars may be aligning now… It is time for these changes, and delaying them would be really dangerous,” Mr Breadon says.

In Streaky Bay though, locals like Ms Williams wonder if it’s too late. Things are already dangerous here.

“Maybe that’s the cynic in me,” she says, shaking her head.

“The definition of universal is everyone gets the same, but we know that’s not true already.”

In the Hunter Valley, long, brown trains chug through lush pastures, carrying stacks of black rock – the lifeblood of the region, though not for much longer.

This has long been Australia’s coal country. But the area, a three-hour drive from Sydney, is now begrudgingly on the frontline of the country’s transition to clean energy.

“This town was built around a coal mine,” says Hugh Collins from Muswellbrook, “so it’ll be a big shift. I don’t know what will happen.”

Nowhere captures this dilemma quite like the soon-to-be demolished smokestacks of Liddell power station, which tower over the rolling hillside nearby. Liddell, one of Australia’s oldest coal plants, was closed two years ago. Across the highway is sister-power station Bayswater, scheduled for retirement by 2033.

Liddell’s owners want to redevelop both stations into a renewable energy hub – in line with the Labor government’s plans for a grid powered almost completely by solar and wind energy.

The opposition Liberal-National coalition, though, has proposed converting Liddell into one of seven nuclear power plants across the country.

Currently banned, nuclear is the controversial centrepiece of the Coalition’s clean energy plan.

Nuclear has historically been deeply unpopular among Australians scared of having radioactive plants in their metaphorical backyards. But with the Coalition plugging it as a cheap and reliable option to complement renewables, interest is growing.

Ahead of the election on 3 May, each party has insisted that their visions are the best way to both fulfil Australia’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 and tame rising power bills.

But there are fears this renewed debate over Australia’s energy future takes the country back to the past.

Brutal arguments over climate change had plagued Australian politics for years – but the incoming Labor government last election declared that that era was over.

Now experts worry the so-called “climate wars” are back, and this could potentially delay the urgent emissions reduction that the globe has been begging the country to take for years.

“I don’t think peace will be declared no matter what happens with the election,” says Tony Wood from the Grattan Institute think tank.

It is hard to overstate just how central coal has been to the Hunter region.

In 1799, Newcastle, the area’s biggest city, farewelled Australia’s first commodity export – a shipment of coal. Today it is home to the world’s largest coal port, with A$38.6bn-worth ($26.8bn; £18.9bn) passing through in 2023.

The livelihoods of about 52,000 people here rely on coal mines, power stations or supporting industries.

Made up of a handful of parliamentary seats, the region has traditionally been a Labor stronghold. But in recent years electorates like Hunter and Paterson have been faltering, and the Coalition is banking on its vision of a nuclear-powered future to win over these largely blue-collar constituents.

It says it can have the first nuclear plant up and running by 2037 and that nuclear plants will provide a similar number and range of jobs as the coal-fired power stations they’re going to supersede.

“I think in the Hunter, and elsewhere to be honest, people realise that if there is not a replacement industry for coal, then these jobs go,” opposition leader Peter Dutton said on the campaign trail.

While nuclear power has been part of the energy mix in many countries around the globe for decades, this is uncharted territory for Australia.

The country’s only nuclear reactor, at Lucas Heights in Sydney, is used for medical research.

Nuclear has been banned at a federal level since the late 1990s. If the Coalition wins the election, it could convince parliament to overturn that, but persuading states to scrap their own bans on nuclear may not be so simple.

Leaders in four of the five states where nuclear plants are proposed have ruled out doing so.

Critics also say the Coalition’s claims on timeframe and its $300bn price tag are unrealistic given the need to train workers, develop regulations and build the infrastructure. 

Some have accused it of simply trying to prolong the use of fossil fuels – the ageing coal plants will have to run for longer to plug the energy gap.

From Mr Collins’ perspective, that wouldn’t be so bad. “Being in the coal industry, I would like coal to go as long as possible,” he says.

But he understands the need to “embrace” cleaner sources of energy. Though a variety of sources “all have their place”, he is particularly interested in nuclear.

“There [may have been] a lot of scary notions around nuclear power… but technology has come a long way,” he says, referring to deadly disasters like Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011.

But others in Muswellbrook are adamant the need for employment in the region does not outweigh the “risks” of nuclear.

“Liddell’s closure meant a few jobs were lost but I don’t think that really affected the community… I think [nuclear] is dangerous,” says 25-year-old Chloe.

Another cafe owner simply says “it’s not going to happen”.

“We don’t have the technology to build it. We can’t afford it,” he says. “We’re always going to have to burn coal, I believe.”

The topic clearly evokes strong feelings. Many people here are more than happy to share their opinions with the BBC, but are hesitant to be named or photographed. “Our community group is ruthless,” one woman explains.

But elsewhere in the Hunter region, it is Labor’s renewables plan that is stirring heated conversation.

Renewables currently supply 46% of Australia’s electricity and Labor wants to raise the proportion to 82% by 2030. As weather is unpredictable, this plan must be backed up by batteries and gas, it argues.

“Australia needs to be ambitious. We must be optimistic… We can be a renewable energy superpower for the world,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said last month, adding that this vision will create jobs in “every part of the country”.

Ben Abbott is one of those unconvinced by these plans.

“We are not experts in energy. But where we will put our hat into the ring is when it concerns where we live. We know what’s at stake,” said Mr Abbott, who is president of No Offshore Turbines Port Stephens.

The government has earmarked a 1,854 sq km (716 sq miles) area between Newcastle and Port Stephens – a popular spot for whale watching and game fishing – as Australia’s second offshore wind zone.

Mr Abbott’s group is concerned that the construction and operation of wind turbines will disturb marine life – though scientists say more research is needed – and adversely affect tourism.

He also accused Labor of running a “scare campaign” against nuclear.

Some in the party have savaged the opposition’s nuclear pitch by flooding social media with, among other things, memes featuring beloved cartoon koala Blinky Bill with three eyes.

“I’d like to learn more about it from an impartial point of view, not as a political issue,” Mr Abbott says.

On the other hand, some have also accused the Coalition of capitalising on fear around wind farms. Billboards along the highway to Port Stephens profess that only their local candidate will “stop Labor’s offshore wind farms”.

There is also concern that local anti-renewables movements are being driven or backed by people who outright reject climate change, as a tactic to delay the country’s turn away from fossil fuels. According to Guardian Australia, that includes the Saltbush Club, a group of the country’s most prominent and powerful climate change deniers.

Mr Abbott says the Port Stephens campaign is not one of these. “None of us are against renewables,” he says, noting that he agrees with the commitment to net zero.

The conversations taking place in the Hunter region are playing out on a national level too.

Polls indicate the country is still split on the best path forward, with support for nuclear hovering around 40%, with the rest fluctuating between undecided or opposed.

For every argument from each side of the debate, there’s a point to counter it on the other.

Both parties have been flouting the jobs created for communities hosting their energy infrastructure, but have been using cost-of-living relief to appeal to the nation more broadly.

However the price tag on each of these plans depends on who you ask.

Labor has for years said a grid dominated by renewables would cost A$122bn, and has dangled energy bill rebates and discounts on solar home batteries as part of its pitch.

But the Coalition says they believe it will cost at least five times more, and that their plan is half the price. They too have promised lower power bills with nuclear.

Australia’s national science agency, though, says they estimate electricity generated from nuclear reactors will cost twice as much as renewable energy, even after accounting for their longer lifespans.

Environmental economics professor Frank Jotzo argues that the Coalition’s promises can only be put to test a long time in the future. “Given that Australia runs on three-year terms of government, they will not be under pressure to deliver,” he says.

Grattan Institute’s Mr Wood believes the Coalition is wielding nuclear energy as a political weapon, noting that Australia has for at least the last decade seen bipartisan support for renewables.

“They needed a point of difference. And nuclear met the objective,” he says.

Both note the Coalition has already signalled it could abandon Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target if it wins government – while Labor says it is on track to meet it.

“A Coalition government, majority or minority, would have very big challenges introducing the nuclear proposal. I suspect we would see an escalation in the climate war,” Mr Wood said.

But nuclear advocates are frustrated nuclear power isn’t even an option here.

While Australia has abundant solar and wind resources, these are intermittent, says nuclear engineer Jasmin Diab. Nuclear is more reliable and facilities last twice as long – so she argues an “ideal energy mix” would be heavy on renewables with a “backbone built on nuclear”.

“Labor’s position prevents Australia from making use of what’s going to be an important source of energy in the future,” said nuclear law expert Helen Cook. She points to countries across the world already benefiting from nuclear energy, such as the US and Canada, and several others at least studying it, including Indonesia.

But Justin Page, from the Hunter Jobs Alliance, argues the Hunter doesn’t have time to opt for the Coalition’s “fundamentally flawed” plan.

The region is well on the way in its transition to renewables, he says, with proposed wind projects, for example, expected to create some 3,000 jobs.

“To go nuclear will mean starting off the ground… Such a transition will take too long and be too costly,” he says. “It will be ridiculous to change courses now.”

Many Hunter residents say they just want certainty.

“The best plan will be for the two parties to get together and come up with a credible, realistic and deliverable plan… rather than using such a serious issue for electioneering,” one Newcastle resident tells us.

Last week’s deadly militant attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, which claimed 26 civilian lives, has reignited a grim sense of déjà vu for India’s security forces and diplomats.

This is familiar ground. In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan – targeting militant bases.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

And before that, the horrific 2008 Mumbai attacks – a 60-hour siege on hotels, a railway station, and a Jewish centre – claimed 166 lives.

Each time, India has held Pakistan-based militant groups responsible for the attacks, accusing Islamabad of tacitly supporting them – a charge Pakistan has consistently denied.

Since 2016, and especially after the 2019 airstrikes, the threshold for escalation has shifted dramatically. Cross-border and aerial strikes by India have become the new norm, provoking retaliation from Pakistan. This has further intensified an already volatile situation.

Once again, experts say, India finds itself walking the tightrope between escalation and restraint – a fragile balance of response and deterrence. One person who understands this recurring cycle is Ajay Bisaria, India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan during the Pulwama attack, who captured its aftermath in his memoir, Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship between India and Pakistan.

“There are striking parallels between the aftermath of the Pulwama bombing and the killings in Pahalgam,” Mr Bisaria told me on Thursday, 10 days after the latest attack.

Yet, he notes, Pahalgam marks a shift. Unlike Pulwama and Uri, which targeted security forces, this attack struck civilians – tourists from across India – evoking memories of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. “This attack carries elements of Pulwama, but much more of Mumbai,” he explains.

“We’re once again in a conflict situation, and the story is unfolding in much the same way,” Mr Bisaria says.

A week after the latest attack, Delhi moved quickly with retaliatory measures: closing the main border crossing, suspending a key water-sharing treaty, expelling diplomats, and halting most visas for Pakistani nationals – who were given days to leave. Troops on both sides have exchanged intermittent small-arms fire across the border in recent days.

Delhi also barred all Pakistani aircraft – commercial and military – from its airspace, mirroring Islamabad’s earlier move. Pakistan retaliated with its own visa suspensions and suspended a 1972 peace treaty with India. (Kashmir, claimed in full by both India and Pakistan but administered in parts by each, has been a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed nations since their partition in 1947.)

In his memoir, Mr Bisaria recounts India’s response after the Pulwama attack on 14 February 2019.

He was summoned to Delhi the morning after, as the government moved quickly to halt trade – revoking Pakistan’s most-favoured-nation status, granted in 1996. In the following days, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) imposed a 200% customs duty on Pakistani goods, effectively ending imports, and suspended trade at the land border at Wagah.

Mr Bisaria notes that a broader set of measures was also proposed to scale down engagement with Pakistan, most of which were subsequently implemented.

They included suspending a cross-border train known as the Samjhauta Express, and a bus service linking Delhi and Lahore; deferring talks between border guards on both sides and negotiations over the historic Kartarpur corridor to one of Sikhism’s holiest shrines, halting visa issuance, ceasing cross border, banning Indian travel to Pakistan, and suspending flights between the two countries.

“How hard it was to build trust, I thought. And how easy was it to break it,” Mr Bisaria writes.

“All the confidence-building measures planned, negotiated, and implemented over years in this difficult relationship, could be slashed off on a yellow notepad in minutes.”

The strength of the Indian high commission in Islamabad was reduced from 110 to 55 only in June 2020 after a separate diplomatic incident. (It now stands at 30 after the Pahalgam attack.) India also launched a diplomatic offensive.

A day after the attack, then foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale briefed envoys from 25 countries – including the US, UK, China, Russia, and France – on the role of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the Pakistan-based militant group behind the bombing, and accused Pakistan of using terrorism as state policy. JeM, designated a terrorist organisation by India, the UN, the UK, and the US, had claimed responsibility for the bombing.

India’s diplomatic offensive continued on 25 February, 10 days after the attack, pushing for JeM chief Masood Azhar‘s designation as a terrorist by the UN sanctions committee and inclusion on the EU’s “autonomous terror list”.

While there was pressure to abrogate the Indus Waters Treaty – a key river water sharing agreement – India opted instead to withhold any data beyond treaty obligations, Mr Bisaria writes. A total of 48 bilateral agreements were reviewed for possible suspension. An all-party meeting was convened in Delhi, resulting in a unanimous resolution.

At the same time, communication channels remained open – including the hotline between the two countries’ Directors General of Military Operations (DGMO), a key link for military-to-military contact, as well as both high commissions. In 2019, as now, Pakistan said the attack was a “false-flag operation”.

Much like this time a crackdown in Kashmir saw the arrest of over 80 “overground workers” – local supporters who may have provided logistical help, shelter, and intelligence to militants from the Pakistan-based group. Rajnath Singh, then Indian home minister, visited Jammu and Kashmir, and dossiers on the attack and suspected perpetrators were prepared.

In a meeting with the external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Mr Bisaria told her that “that India’s diplomatic options in dealing with a terrorist attack of this nature was limited”.

“She gave me the impression that some tough action was round the corner, after which, I should expect the role of diplomacy to expand,” Mr Bisaria writes.

On 26 February, Indian airstrikes – its first across the international border since 1971 – targeted JeM’s training camp in Balakot.

Six hours later, the Indian foreign secretary announced the strikes had killed “a very large number” of militants and commanders. Pakistan swiftly denied the claim. More high-level meetings followed in Delhi.

The crisis escalated dramatically the next morning, 27 February, when Pakistan launched retaliatory air raids.

In the ensuing dogfight, an Indian fighter jet was shot down, and its pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, ejected and landed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Captured by Pakistani forces, his detention in enemy territory triggered a wave of national concern and further heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Mr Bisaria writes India activated multiple diplomatic channels, with US and UK envoys pressing Islamabad. The Indian message was “any attempt by Pakistan to escalate situation further or to cause harm to the pilot would lead to escalation by India.”

Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan announced the pilot’s release on 28 February, with the handover occurring on 1 March under prisoner of war protocol. Pakistan presented the move as a “goodwill gesture” aimed at de-escalating tensions.

By 5 March, with the dust settling from Pulwama, Balakot, and the pilot’s return, India’s political temperature had cooled. The Cabinet Committee on Security decided to send India’s high commissioner back to Pakistan, signalling a shift towards diplomacy.

“I arrived in Islamabad on 10 March, 22 days after leaving in the wake of Pulwama. The most serious military exchange since Kargil had run its course in less than a month,” Mr Bisaria writes,

“India was willing to give old-fashioned diplomacy another chance…. This, with India having achieved a strategic and military objective and Pakistan having claimed a notion of victory for its domestic audience.”

Mr Bisaria described it as a “testing and fascinating time” to be a diplomat. This time, he notes, the key difference is that the targets were Indian civilians, and the attack occurred “ironically, when the situation in Kashmir had dramatically improved”.

He views escalation as inevitable, but notes there’s also a “de-escalation instinct alongside the escalation instinct”. When the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meets during such conflicts, he says, their decisions weigh the conflict’s economic impact and seek measures that hurt Pakistan without triggering a backlash against India.

“The body language and optics are similar [this time],” he says, but highlights what he sees as the most significant move: India’s threat to annul the Indus Waters Treaty. “If India acts on this, it would have long-term, serious consequences for Pakistan.”

“Remember, we’re still in the middle of a crisis,” says Mr Bisaria. “We haven’t yet seen any kinetic [military] action.”

This BBC interview with Prince Harry will become one of those famous moments when television collides with the world of the royals.

It was like an emotional avalanche. It began with some stones being kicked over with questions about security and then the interview turned into a spectacular release of what seemed to be a rolling mountain of pent-up frustration and a poignant sense of separation.

The starting point was Prince Harry’s defeat in the courts as he sought to overturn a downgrading of his security in the UK. He seemed wounded. Had he decided it was time to have his say? And then really say some more?

A conversation about security was suddenly becoming about a whole range of insecurities.

Prince Harry looked upset, it seemed a cry from the heart when he said that his father “won’t speak to me because of this security stuff”, even though he didn’t know “how much longer my father has”.

This was a first-hand confirmation of the scale of the rift in the Royal Family. There was also the lack of contact between his children and their wider family in the UK. He was “gutted” and “devastated” and tired of only coming home for funerals and court cases.

And like all family rows, there was a balancing act between wanting to air grievances, to throw emotional punches, and then still want to get back together and hug and make friends.

So Prince Harry talked of the downgrading in his security in terms of this family dispute, suggesting that the Royal Household had influenced the decision, using security as leverage to keep him within the Royal Family.

Then he talked with great frankness, sounding like a slightly homesick son stuck overseas, when he spoke about wanting reconciliation. “There’s no point continuing to fight any more. Life is precious,” he said, holding out an olive branch the size of a small palace.

The “sticking point” for reconciliation is security when he visits the UK, said Prince Harry. And as well as calling on his father the King to help resolve this, he also called on the prime minister and home secretary to intervene.

At that point, it’s worth stepping away from the drama and taking a cold draught of unemotive legal air, from the judge who ruled against Prince Harry on Friday afternoon.

Sir Geoffrey Vos told the court that Prince Harry’s “sense of grievance” did not add up to the same thing as a legal argument. He upheld the decision that security arrangements had been changed because Prince Harry’s circumstances had changed, he was no longer a working royal and no longer living in the UK.

It might have annoyed Prince Harry, but the courts had again rejected his claim about unfair treatment.

There was also a response from Buckingham Palace that sounded like a weary parent.

“All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”

It wouldn’t be right for the King to wade into issues being reviewed by the courts and considered by government departments, suggested the Palace.

The Home Office, meanwhile, said it was “pleased” that the judgement was in the government’s favour, adding the UK’s security system is “rigorous and proportionate”.

While Prince Harry wore his frustration on his sleeve in this interview, you have to wonder how the rest of his family will privately respond to this outburst, with this story ricocheting around the world, on billions of mobile phones and TV screens.

These clips are going to be seen again and again. Netflix would have spun it out into a mini-series.

VE Day 80 is coming up next week, with the Royal Family prominent at commemorations. But the public might still be thinking of Prince Harry’s accusations about them. How will that work alongside messages of togetherness and unity?

Like in all families, arguments can go back a long way. And Prince Harry’s testimony was disarmingly candid, restlessly baring his feelings, and suggesting that his departure from the UK was still unresolved.

He was looking back with some uncertainty at home, and the question now will be how people at home look back at him.

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Five people have been rescued after spending 36 hours atop a plane in an alligator-infested swamp in the Amazon after it was forced to make an emergency landing, local authorities said.

The small plane was found by local fishermen in Bolivia’s Amazonas region on Friday having been missing for 48 hours.

The survivors – three women, a child and the 29-year-old pilot – were rescued in “excellent condition”, Wilson Avila, director of the Beni Department’s emergency operations centre, said.

A search and rescue mission was launched on Thursday after the plane disappeared from the radar of the Beni Department in central Bolivia.

The pilot told local media that an engine failure had prompted an emergency landing near the Itanomas River during a flight from Baures in northern Bolivia to the city of Trinidad.

Andres Velarde said that the plane had suddenly started to lose altitude and he had been forced to land the craft in a swamp near a lagoon.

The five that had been on board stood on top of the plane and were “surrounded by alligators that came within three metres of us”.

Velarde added that he believed petrol leaking from the plane had kept the predators at bay. They also saw an anaconda in the water, he said.

While awaiting rescue, they ate local cassava flour one of the passengers had brought.

“We couldn’t drink water and we couldn’t go anywhere else because of the alligators,” Velarde said.

After fishermen discovered the craft, a helicopter was sent to transport the survivors to hospital.

Ruben Torres, Director of the Beni Region Health Department, said that there had been “a lot of speculation about the case” and “many theories” after the plane went missing.

“I am really happy because in the end all the institutions joined together to be able to find the missing people and save those lives,” he told Reuters.

Conservatives in Canada are trading blame for Monday night’s election loss, showing that Pierre Poilievre will need to heal divisions within the movement as he fights to stay on as leader.

As a clear Liberal win was emerging on election night, Conservative candidates and their supporters had one question: What the heck just happened?

The party had lost a remarkable 27-point lead in opinion polls and failed to win an election for the fourth time in a row.

And while it gained seats and earned almost 42% of the popular vote – its highest share since the party was founded in 2003 – its leader Poilievre was voted out of the seat he had held for the past 20 years.

“Nobody’s happy about that,” Shakir Chambers, a Conservative strategist and vice-president of Ontario-based consultancy firm the Oyster Group, told the BBC.

The party is now trying to work out how it will move forward.

At the top of the agenda will be finding a way for the Conservatives to perform their duties as the Official Opposition – the second-place party in Canada’s parliament whose job is to hold the sitting government to account – without their leader in the House.

Ahead of a caucus meeting next Tuesday to discuss this, Poilievre announced on Friday his plan to run in an Alberta constituency special election to win back a seat.

That special election will be triggered by the resignation of Conservative MP-elect Damien Kurek, who said he will voluntarily step down to let Poilievre back in after what he called “a remarkable national campaign”.

“An unstoppable movement has grown under his leadership, and I know we need Pierre fighting in the House of Commons,” Kurek said in a statement.

Unlike the US, federal politicians in Canada do not have to live in the city or province they run in. Poilievre grew up in Alberta, however, and will likely win handily as the constituency he is running in is a Conservative stronghold.

A big question is whether Poilievre still has the backing of his own party to stay on as leader. Mr Chambers said the answer, so far, is a resounding yes.

“Pierre has a lot of support in the caucus,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anybody that wants him removed, or that has super high ambitions that wants to replace him as leader.”

A number of high-profile Conservatives have already rallied behind him. One of them is Andrew Scheer, a current MP and former leader of the party, who said Poilievre should stay on to “ensure we finish the job next time”.

Others are casting blame on where they went wrong.

Jamil Jivani, who won his own constituency in a suburb of Toronto handily, felt that Ontario leader Doug Ford had betrayed the conservative movement and cost the party the election.

The federal and provincial Conservative parties are legally different entities, though they belong to the same ideological tent, and Ford is leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party.

He frequently made headlines during the election campaign for his get-tough attitude with Donald Trump and the US president’s trade war.

“He couldn’t stay out of our business,” Jivani told a CBC reporter.

Jivani, who in a past life attended Yale University with US Vice-President JD Vance, where the two became good friends, accused Ford of distracting from the federal Conservatives’ campaign and of “positioning himself as some political genius that we need to be taking cues from”.

But Mr Chambers, the Conservative strategist, said that Poilievre will also need to confront where the party fell short.

Poilievre, who is known for his combative political style, has struggled with being unlikeable among the general Canadian public.

He has also failed to shore up the support of popular Conservative leaders in some provinces, like Ontario’s Ford, who did not campaign for Poilievre despite his recent landslide victory in a provincial election earlier this year. Ford did, however, post a photo of him and Liberal leader Mark Carney having a coffee.

“Last time I checked, Pierre Poilievre never came out in our election,” Ford told reporters earlier this week. “Matter of fact, he or one of his lieutenants told every one of his members, ‘don’t you dare go out and help'”.

“Isn’t that ironic?”

Another Conservative premier, Tim Houston of Nova Scotia – who also did not campaign for Poilievre – said the federal party needs to do some “soul-searching” after its loss.

“I think the Conservative Party of Canada was very good at pushing people away, not so good at pulling people in,” Houston said.

Not every premier stood on the sidelines. Poilievre was endorsed by Alberta’s Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe, both western Conservatives.

Kory Teneycke, Ford’s campaign manager, who publicly criticised Poilievre’s campaign during the election, angering federal Conservatives, rejected the notion that Ford’s failure to endorse Poilievre had cost him the election.

He told the BBC that, to him, the bigger problem was Poilievre’s failure to unite Conservative voters in Canada.

“What constitutes a Conservative in different parts of the country can look quite different,” he said, adding that Poilievre’s populist rhetoric and aggressive style appealed to Conservatives in the west, but alienated those in the east.

“There was a lot of Trump mimicry in terms of how they presented the campaign,” Mr Teneycke said.

“Donald Trump is public enemy number one to most in Canada, and I don’t think it was coming across very well.”

He added he believes some of the “soul-searching” by Poilievre’s Conservatives will need to include a plan of how to build a coalition of the right in a country “as big and diverse as Canada”.

Asked by reporters what it would take to heal the rift, Ford answered: “All they have to do is make a phone call.”

Germany’s Foreign Office has defended a decision to classify the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as right-wing extremist, after sharp criticism from the White House.

US Vice-President JD Vance accused “bureaucrats” of rebuilding the Berlin Wall, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed the designation as “tyranny in disguise”.

In an unusual move, the foreign office directly replied to Rubio on X, writing: “We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped.”

The intelligence agency that made the classification found AfD’s “prevailing understanding of people based on ethnicity and descent” goes against Germany’s “free democratic order”.

The AfD came second in federal elections in February, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote.

The agency, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), had already classed the AfD as right-wing extremist in three eastern states where its popularity is highest. Now, that designation has been extended to the entire party.

The AfD “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society”, it said in a statement. The agency said specifically that the party did not consider citizens “from predominantly Muslim countries” as equal members of the German people.

Joint party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said the decision was “clearly politically motivated” and a “severe blow to German democracy”.

Beatrix von Storch, the party’s deputy parliamentary leader, told the BBC’s Newshour programme that the designation was “the way an authoritarian state, a dictatorship, would treat their parties”.

• AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

The new classification gives authorities greater powers to monitor the AfD using tactics like phone interception and undercover agents.

“That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise,” wrote Marco Rubio on X.

But the German Foreign Office hit back.

“This is democracy,” it wrote, directly replying to the politician’s X account.

The post said the decision had been made after a “thorough and independent investigation” and could be appealed.

“We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped,” the statement concluded – a reference to Hitler’s Nazi party and the Holocaust.

JD Vance, who met Weidel in Munich nine days before the election and used a speech to the Munich Security Conference to show support for the AfD, said that “bureaucrats” were trying to destroy the party.

“The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt – not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” he wrote on X.

The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, separated East and West Berlin for nearly 30 years during the Cold War.

The new designation has reignited calls to ban the AfD ahead of a vote next week in the parliament, or Bundestag, to confirm conservative leader Friedrich Merz as chancellor. He will be leading a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Lars Klingbeil, the SPD leader who is expected to become vice-chancellor and finance minister, said that while no hasty decision would be made, the government would consider banning the AfD.

“They want a different country, they want to destroy our democracy. And we must take that very seriously,” he told Bild newspaper.

The blood of a US man who deliberately injected himself with snake venom for nearly two decades has led to an “unparalleled” antivenom, say scientists.

Antibodies found in Tim Friede’s blood have been shown to protect against fatal doses from a wide range of species in animal tests.

Current therapies have to match the specific species of venomous snake anyone has been bitten by.

But Mr Friede’s 18-year mission could be a significant step in finding a universal antivenom against all snakebites – which kill up to 140,000 people a year and leave three times as many needing amputations or facing permanent disability.

In total, Mr Friede has endured more than 200 bites and more than 700 injections of venom he prepared from some of the world’s deadliest snakes, including multiple species of mambas, cobras, taipans and kraits.

He initially wanted to build up his immunity to protect himself when handling snakes, documenting his exploits on YouTube.

But the former truck mechanic said that he had “completely screwed up” early on when two cobra bites in quick succession left him in a coma.

“I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to lose a finger. I didn’t want to miss work,” he told the BBC.

Mr Friede’s motivation was to develop better therapies for the rest of the world, explaining: “It just became a lifestyle and I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing as hard as I could push – for the people who are 8,000 miles away from me who die from snakebite”.

Antivenom is currently made by injecting small doses of snake venom into animals, such as horses. Their immune system fights the venom by producing antibodies and these are harvested to be used as a therapy.

But venom and antivenom have to be closely matched because the toxins in a venomous bite vary from one species to another.

There is even wide variety within the same species – antivenom made from snakes in India is less effective against the same species in Sri Lanka.

A team of researchers began searching for a type of immune defence called broadly neutralising antibodies. Instead of targeting the part of a toxin that makes it unique, they target the parts that are common to entire classes of toxin.

That’s when Dr Jacob Glanville, chief executive of biotech company Centivax, came across Tim Friede.

“Immediately I was like ‘if anybody in the world has developed these broadly neutralising antibodies, it’s going to be him’ and so I reached out,” he said.

“The first call, I was like ‘this might be awkward, but I’d love to get my hands on some of your blood’.”

Mr Friede agreed and the work was given ethical approval because the study would only take blood, rather than giving him more venom.

The research focused on elapids – one of the two families of venomous snakes – such as coral snakes, mambas, cobras, taipans and kraits.

Elapids primarily use neurotoxins in their venom, which paralyses their victim and is fatal when it stops the muscles needed to breathe.

Researchers picked 19 elapids identified by the World Health Organization as being among the deadliest snakes on the planet. They then began scouring Mr Friede’s blood for protective defences.

Their work, detailed in the journal Cell, identified two broadly neutralising antibodies that could target two classes of neurotoxin. They added in a drug that targets a third to make their antivenom cocktail.

In experiments on mice, the cocktail meant the animals survived fatal doses from 13 of the 19 species of venomous snake. They had partial protection against the remaining six.

This is “unparalleled” breadth of protection, according to Dr Glanville, who said it “likely covers a whole bunch of elapids for which there is no current antivenom”.

The team is trying to refine the antibodies further and see if adding a fourth component could lead to total protection against elapid snake venom.

The other class of snake – the vipers – rely more on haemotoxins, which attack the blood, rather than neurotoxins. In total there are around a dozen broad classes of toxin in snake venom, which also includes cytotoxins that directly kill cells.

“I think in the next 10 or 15 years we’ll have something effective against each one of those toxin classes,” said Prof Peter Kwong, one of the researchers at Columbia University.

And the hunt continues inside Mr Friede’s blood samples.

“Tim’s antibodies are really quite extraordinary – he taught his immune system to get this very, very broad recognition,” said Prof Kwong.

The ultimate hope is to have either a single antivenom that can do everything, or one injection for elapids and one for vipers.

Prof Nick Casewell, who is the head of the centre for snakebite research and interventions at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said the breadth of protection reported was “certainly novel” and provided “a strong piece of evidence” that this was a feasible approach.

“There is no doubt that this work moves the field forwards in an exciting direction.”

But he cautioned there was “much work to do” and that the antivenom still needed extensive testing before it could be used in people.

But for Mr Friede, reaching this stage “makes me feel good”.

“I’m doing something good for humanity and that was very important to me. I’m proud of it. It’s pretty cool.”

At a military training ground near the city of Wroclaw, ordinary Poles are lining up, waiting to be handed guns and taught how to shoot. “Once the round is loaded, the weapon is ready to fire,” barks the instructor, a Polish soldier, his face smeared with camouflage paint.

Young and old, men and women, parents and children, they’ve all come here for one reason: to learn how to survive an armed attack.

As well as a turn on the shooting range, this Saturday morning programme, called “Train with the Army”, also teaches civilians hand-to-hand combat, first aid and how to put on a gas mask.

“The times are dangerous now, we need to be ready,” says the co-ordinator of the project, Captain Adam Sielicki. “We have a military threat from Russia, and we are preparing for this.”

Capt Sielicki says the programme is oversubscribed, and the Polish government now has plans to expand it so that every adult male in the country receives training. Poland, which shares borders with both Russia and Ukraine, says it will spend almost 5% of GDP on defence this year, the highest in Nato.

Last week, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland aims to build “the strongest army in the region”. Warsaw has been on a spending spree, buying planes, ships, artillery systems and missiles from the US, Sweden and South Korea, among others.

Dariusz is one of those attending the Saturday course in Wroclaw, and says he would be the “very first” to volunteer if Poland were attacked. “History has taught us that we must be prepared to defend ourselves on our own. We cannot rely on anyone else. Today alliances exist, and tomorrow they are broken.”

As he removes his gas mask, Bartek says he thinks most Poles “will take up arms” if attacked, “and be ready to defend the country.”

Agata is attending with a friend. She says the election of Donald Trump has made people more worried. “He wants to pull out [of Europe]. That’s why we feel even less safe. If we’re not prepared and Russia attacks us, we’ll simply become their prisoners.”

Statements by Donald Trump and members of his administration have caused deep concern among officials in Warsaw. During a visit to the Polish capital in February, the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said Europe mustn’t assume that the US troop presence on the continent “will last forever”.

The US currently has 10,000 troops stationed in Poland, but Washington announced last month it was pulling out of a key military base in the city of Rzeszow in the east of Poland. Officials say the troops will be redeployed within Poland, but the move has caused yet more unease in the country.

Donald Trump’s apparent hostility towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and warm words for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have only added to the worry.

Poland is due to sign a defence agreement with France in the coming days, and another pact with the UK is in the pipeline – further moves by Warsaw to pivot away from its historically strong military ties with Washington. There is also talk of Poland being brought under the French military’s “nuclear umbrella”.

“I think [Trump] has certainly pressed us to think more creatively about our security,” says Tomasz Szatkowski, the permanent representative of Poland to Nato and presidential advisor on defence. “I think the US can’t afford to lose Poland, because that would be a sign… that you can’t rely on the US. However, we do have to think of other options and develop our own capabilities.”

“If the Russians continue their aggressive intentions towards Europe, we’re going to be the first one – the gatekeeper,” Mr Szatkowski says. He ascribes Poland’s rapid military build-up to “first of all, the geopolitical situation, but also, the experience of history.”

The painful legacy of Russian occupation can be felt everywhere here.

At a state-run care home in Warsaw, 98-year-old Wanda Traczyk-Stawska recalls the last time Russian forces invaded – in 1939, when a pact between Stalin and Hitler resulted in Poland being carved up between the USSR and Nazi Germany.

“In 1939 I was twelve years old. I remember my father was very concerned about [the Russians],” Wanda recalls, “We knew that Russia had attacked us, they took advantage of the fact that the Germans had exposed us.”

On a shelf is a photograph of Wanda as a fighter, brandishing a machine gun during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when the Polish underground fought the German Army amidst the ruins of the city. After pushing back the Germans in the dying days of World War Two, the Soviet Union installed a pro-Moscow regime in Poland, which ruled the country until 1989.

Currently, around 216,000 servicemen and women make up the Polish armed forces. The government says they intend to increase that to half a million, including reservists – which would give it the second-largest military in Nato after the United States.

I ask Wanda whether she thinks it’s a good thing that Poland is building up its military. “Of course, yes. Russia has this aggression written into its history. I’m not talking about people, but the authorities are always like that,” she sighs. “It is better to be a well-armed country than to wait for something to happen. Because I am a soldier who remembers that weapons are the most important thing.”

Eighty years since the end of World War Two, Poles are once again eyeing their neighbours nervously. In a warehouse in southern Poland, by popular demand, one company has constructed a mock-up of a bomb shelter.

“These shelters are designed primarily to protect against a nuclear bomb, but also against armed attacks,” says Janusz Janczy, the boss of ShelterPro, who shows me around the steel bunker, complete with bunk beds and a ventilation system. “People are building these shelters simply because they don’t know what to expect tomorrow.”

Janusz says demand for his shelters has soared since Donald Trump took office. “It used to be just a few phone calls a month. Now there are dozens a week,” he says, “My clients are most afraid of Russia. And they’re concerned that Nato wouldn’t come to defend Poland.”

But are Poles ready to defend the country if those fears become a reality? A recent poll found that only 10.7% of adults said they would join the army as volunteers in the event of war, and a third said they would flee.

On a sunny afternoon in Wroclaw, I ask Polish students whether they’d be ready to defend their country if attacked. Most say they wouldn’t. “The war is very close but feels quite far,” says medical student Marcel, “but if Russia attacked, I think I’d run.”

“I would probably be the first one trying to escape the country,” says another student, Szymon. “I just don’t really see anything worth dying for here.”

On the night Israeli forces entered Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank and began ordering its 20,000 Palestinian residents to leave their homes, 66-year-old Jumaa Zawayda said he would refuse.

“My family all left but I told them I had to stay, if Israeli forces come to raid our house I want to be there to stop it being damaged.”

What followed was three days of fear, with the constant sound of gunfire, explosions and drones flying through the neighbourhood, and issuing of orders that Jumaa couldn’t make out amid the noise. Then water and electricity was cut off, his phone ran out of battery and Jumaa felt he could no longer stay.

Now, three months later, Jumaa is standing on a hill in Jenin city, looking out over the ghost town of the refugee camp to which he and the other residents are still prevented from returning by the Israeli military.

He’s trying to see if his home is one of the many destroyed by the Israeli forces during their operations against Palestinian armed groups that were present in the camp. The sound of ongoing explosions can be heard below.

“Some people have told me they think our building was demolished, but we don’t know for certain,” says Jumaa, struggling to express himself through his emotion.

The father of nine, who used to work in construction, stayed for three months in a school-turned-shelter for the camp’s displaced residents. He has now moved into accommodation for university students that he shares with his brother.

Before the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Israel was already engaged in a military campaign against armed groups in the West Bank.

A number of groups emerged in the densely-populated urban refugee camps created for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the war that followed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

The main groups in Jenin camp are affiliated to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Their fighters have mostly attacked Israeli military forces, alongside sporadic attacks on Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

The number of fighters is unknown but local journalists estimate that there were around 150 fighters in Jenin camp prior to the recent operations by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, launched its own crackdown in Jenin camp in December 2024 and its forces only withdrew when the Israeli military began its major operation there in January.

Israel’s defence minister has called the camps “nests of terror” and in January stepped up its campaign against the armed groups operating inside them – entering and blockading a number of refugee camps in the northern West Bank that are home to tens of thousands of Palestinians.

It ordered residents to leave and began a wave of building demolitions, while giving some residents brief opportunities to gather belongings.

But with Israel almost entirely blocking access to the camps and not publicly announcing which buildings they’ve destroyed, many Palestinians are distraught about whether they have a home to return to.

The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa says its best estimate is that Israel has razed at least 260 buildings containing around 800 apartments during “Operation Iron Wall”, focusing on three refugee camps in the north of the West Bank: Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams. Unrwa estimates that 42,000 Palestinians have been displaced from the camps since January.

In February, the Israeli military announced it had killed 60 fighters in its operations and arrested 280 others. Meanwhile Palestinian health officials say 100 people have been killed in the West Bank since the start of Israel’s January operation until today.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said the army was destroying weapons and infrastructure “on an extensive scale” and said he had instructed the military to remain in the refugee camps for a year and prevent residents returning there.

The Israeli military told the BBC that the militias “exploit the civilian population as human shields and endanger them by planting explosive devices and hiding weapons”.

On 1 May, Israel gave Palestinian officials in the West Bank a new map of 106 buildings it said it would demolish in Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps in the next 24 hours for “military purposes”. It said residents could apply for a brief window to return home to retrieve essential belongings.

Aid agencies say that Israel’s campaign has caused the largest forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank in decades.

“What’s happening is unprecedented,” says Roland Friedrich, Unrwa’s West Bank director.

“In terms of the number of displaced people and the level of destruction, we’ve never seen anything like it since 1967,” he added, referring to the year Israel began its military occupation of the West Bank.

While filming an interview with the mayor of Jenin, the BBC witnessed Israeli forces detain several Palestinians, including municipality workers who were attempting to enter the camp in order to clear a route to a nearby hospital. They were kept for three hours before being released.

“There are big challenges, in terms of providing services to citizens. As everyone knows, the infrastructure in Jenin camp has been totally demolished,” says Mayor Mohammad Jarrar.

“Israel’s goal is to try to make Jenin camp totally unfit to live in, and I’m telling you it has now become completely unliveable.”

Israel’s blockade of West Bank refugee camps has made establishing information about what is happening inside nearly impossible, says Unrwa’s Roland Friedrich, including the exact extent of demolitions.

Jumaa is among some of the displaced Palestinians who were granted a brief visit home by Israeli forces in order to retrieve belongings. He was able just to grab his UN ID card and the family dog. Then two months later, in March, Israel issued a map of over 90 buildings it identified for demolition in Jenin. Jumaa’s residence looked to be among them.

The Israeli military told the BBC that it was necessary to demolish these buildings in order to improve “freedom of movement” for its forces, but did not confirm whether Jumaa’s home was indeed destroyed.

The BBC has compared Israel’s March demolition map to satellite imagery of Jenin taken a week later. We have been able to confirm that, by 27 March, at least 33 buildings on the list, including Jumaa’s, were destroyed. Satellite imagery reveals many further demolitions have taken place since January, including the construction of new roads by Israeli forces where buildings previously stood.

“Why did they demolish my house? I want to know. I want the Israeli army to give me justification. I had no links to militants. I’m a peaceful person,” says Jumaa.

“I worked job to job for 50 years to build my home.”

Despite learning that his house was demolished, Jumaa remains insistent that he will return home.

“I won’t leave the camp. If they won’t let me rebuild my house, I will set up a tent in its place,” he said.

“Isn’t it enough that my family were displaced in 1948, now we must face displacement again?”

Brazil’s Social Security Minister, Carlos Lupi, has resigned nine days after police unveiled a major corruption scandal which defrauded pensioners of $1.1bn (£829m).

Federal police allege that over the past decade, the National Social Security Institute (INSS) made unauthorised deductions from payments made to millions of pensioners.

The money was allegedly paid to several associations and unions, which then shared the earnings with corrupt government officials.

Lupi has always denied any wrongdoing and said he ordered an investigation as soon as he heard about the allegations.

“I am making this decision with the certainty that my name has not been mentioned at any time in the ongoing investigations,” Lupi wrote on X when announcing his resignation.

“I hope that the investigations follow their natural course, identify those responsible and punish, with rigor, those who used their positions to harm the working people,” he wrote.

Operation No Discount ( in Portuguese) has seen 700 federal agents issue 211 search warrants across Brazil, federal police said in a statement.

Assets worth more than $177m have been seized – including luxury cars, jewellery and more than $200,000 in cash.

The fraud allegedly involved registering pensioners as members of retirees’ associations without their consent, but as a result they had money regularly deducted from their benefits for the memberships.

Police said the scheme targeted some of the poorest areas of the country, where pensioners were unlikely to notice the fraud or complain about it.

The head of the INSS resigned last week over the allegations, and six public servants have been removed from their posts, federal police said.

Investigators are focusing on more than 6bn real they believe was diverted between 2019-2024, but how much of that money was taken illegally remains unclear.

The INSS’s director of budgets and finance, Débora Floriano, said a task force will will be set up to return the missing money, but at this stage they are still trying to determine the size of the fraud.

Carlos Lupi is the second person in President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government to lose their position due to corruption allegations in less than a month.

In early April, communications minister Juscelino Filho stepped down after he was charged with taking bribes in 2022.

Lula himself spent 1.5 years in prison in 2018-2019 for corruption, but the conviction was later thrown out, allowing him to run – and win – his third term as Brazil’s president.

Seven people have died in a collision between a tour bus and a truck near Yellowstone National Park.

Eight others were injured when a Chevy pickup truck and a van carrying 14 tourists crashed on a highway in eastern Idaho on Thursday. Police said an air ambulance flew some victims to hospital “due to the severity of the injuries”.

Both vehicles caught fire. “Tragically, six individuals in the van and the driver of the pickup died as a result of the crash,” Idaho State Police said. The identities or nationalities of the victims have not been revealed.

Police are still investigating the cause. The route where the crash took place leads into the park, which is now entering peak tourist season.

A photo from a passerby shows flames and billowing smoke near the crumpled front of the truck.

The witness who took the photo, local resident Roger Merrill, told the BBC’s US partner CBS News he was on his way home when he saw the wreck.

Both vehicles were on fire, he said, and bystanders were trying to care for the survivors on the side of the highway.

“It is a very dangerous highway because it leads to the main entrance of Yellowstone National Park,” he said. “It’s extremely busy.”

The road was closed for seven hours while emergency teams treated victims and cleared the crash site, about 16 miles (25km) from Yellowstone’s entrance.

Police said the local coroner’s office will release the names of the dead after family members have been notified.

Yellowstone, the US’s oldest national park, covers nearly 3,500 sq miles in three states: Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

It draws an average of four million tourists every year, with the majority of visitors coming between May and September, according to the National Park Service.

In his first news conference since the federal election, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out his priorities, including how he will approach upcoming talks with US President Donald Trump.

His election campaign focused on standing up to Trump’s tariff plans and threats to make Canada the 51st US state, which Carney has said will “never ever” happen.

The Liberals won 168 seats out of 343 in Canada’s House of Commons in Monday’s election, enough to form a minority government but falling short of the 172 necessary for a majority.

Carney’s new cabinet will be sworn in the week of 12 May.

Here are three things we learned from Carney’s comments:

Off the top, Carney announced an upcoming visit from King Charles III and Queen Camilla, who will visit Canada later this month.

“This is a historic honour that matches the weight of our times,” he told reporters gathered in Ottawa.

Carney says he had invited the King to formally open Canada’s 45th Parliament on 27 May.

That request is certainly strategic.

Carney said the King’s visit “clearly underscores the sovereignty of our country” – a nod to Trump’s 51st state remarks.

Trump also has a well-known admiration for the Royal family. In February, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer used his trip to the White House to present Trump with a letter from King Charles offering to host a second state visit.

The King is Canada’s head of state and is represented in Canada by Governor General Mary Simon.

After an election, the new parliamentary session is usually opened by the governor general, who reads the Speech from the Throne on behalf of the prime minister. The speech, read in Canada’s Senate, sets out the government’s agenda.

While it is not unprecedented for the Throne speech to be read by the head of state, the last time this happened was in October 1977 when Queen Elizabeth II read the speech for the second time. The first was in 1957.

Carney will visit the White House on Tuesday, barely a week after the federal election.

His first official visit to the White House as prime minister comes amid frayed ties between the close allies in the wake of Trump’s threatened and imposed tariffs, as well as the president’s repeated comments about making Canada the 51st US state.

Carney said there are two sets of issues to discuss: the immediate tariffs and the broader relationship.

• Trump disliked Trudeau – why Carney may fare better
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“My government will fight to get the best deal for Canada,” Carney said, making it clear there would be no rush to secure an agreement.

He added that the high-level dialogue indicates seriousness of the conversation between the leaders.

He said he expects “difficult but constructive” discussions with the president.

He also said he would strengthen relationship with “reliable” trading partners, pointing to recent conversations he has had with world leaders in Europe and Asia.

Canada’s election highlighted divisions within Canada, along regional, demographic and political lines.

On Friday, Carney said Canada must be united in this “once in a lifetime crisis”.

“It’s time to come together put on our Team Canada sweaters and win big,” he said.

He offered olive branches both to Canadians who did not vote for his Liberal Party and to his political rivals.

• Why young voters flocked to Canada’s Conservatives

While Canadians voted for a robust response to Trump, they also sent “a clear message that their cost of living must come down and their communities need to be safe”, Carney said.

“As prime minister I’ve heard these messages loud and clear and I will act on them with focus and determination.”

He said he is committed to working with others, including those across the aisle.

Under leader Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative campaign focused heavily on cost of living issues and crime.

The Conservatives came in second, forming Official Opposition but Poilievre lost his own Ottawa-area seat.

Carney said he is open to calling a special election that would allow Poilievre to seek another seat if that is the path the Conservatives wanted to take.

“No games,” he said.

On Friday, an MP-elect in Alberta announced he would resign his safe Conservative seat to allow Poilievre to run. Poilievre later confirmed he will run in that constituency “to hold the Liberal minority government to account”.

Dawn in a beautiful, expensively landscaped home in Santa Barbara, Californa, is a strange time and place to meet a British prince.

However, the Duke of Sussex infamously stepped away from the usual business of being royal. It’s a decision he says he was forced to make.

The home wasn’t his, but rather a convenient meeting point a few miles from where he lives with his wife Meghan and their two children – Archie, five, and Lilibet, three.

As we set up our cameras in the living room, we pulled up the latest court updates and news lines being filed by our teams in London.

Meanwhile, we were warned to keep the doors closed so that the screaming peacocks on the porch wouldn’t come inside.

• Watch: Prince Harry’s exclusive interview in full
• Sean Coughlan: Harry’s emotional avalanche hits the Royal Family
• Six key moments from Prince Harry’s BBC interview

The court’s judgment wasn’t the outcome Prince Harry had hoped for and I expected that when he arrived for our interview, he would be disappointed. It had been a years-long, deeply personal battle.

I have interviewed my fair share of famous people during my career – from celebrities and fashion designers to diplomats and politicians. Before the cameras even start rolling, you get a sense of how it might play out based on your interviewee’s demeanour, mood and banter.

I found Prince Harry to be down-to-earth, softly spoken and easy to talk to. He didn’t arrive with an entourage and politely introduced himself to us, shaking each of our hands. I was surprised that he knew I had flown in from New York to do the interview.

We began with some very brief small talk, which always helps to break the ice before a formal sit down, but we didn’t touch the topic at hand until the cameras started rolling.

Prince Harry was eager to share his feelings, despite the critical scrutiny that follows him. As the interviewer, I was also keenly aware of that scrutiny.

Sitting there, close up, there was a lot to unpack. I felt it was important to ask why taxpayers should pay for his security, why a change of status wasn’t warranted given he wasn’t a working royal, and why protection on a case-by-case basis made him feel at greater risk.

He wasn’t defensive or combative, and he wanted to address each of those points.

Equally, it was important to give him space to share his perspective. Because whatever anyone feels about the duke, he raises interesting questions for the public to ponder.

He asked why some people were comfortable with him not having top level security, but okay with other public officials being granted lifetime protection upon leaving office, regardless of the risk against them.

Prince Harry also raised questions about duty of care, given he can’t escape who he is, and national security. If something happened to him – the King’s son, or his family – what then?

With his foot tapping frequently as he spoke, he was surprisingly candid and forthcoming. His security, or lack thereof, was the sticking point preventing a reconciliation with his family, he said. Whether the Royal Family agrees with him is another matter.

The central coast of California, with its stunning landscapes, is not a shabby place to call home. The problem is that Prince Harry has another home – one that he says he misses but doesn’t feel safe in.

Solving that problem has not been possible in the courts.

Friday’s ruling leaves the prince, in the glamour and comfort of California, hoping for a change of heart in the palaces of London.

On Friday morning, a spokesperson for China’s ministry of commerce announced that Beijing was assessing the possibility of tariff negotiations with the United States.

It was news the rest of the world had been waiting to hear as astonishingly high tariffs – up to 245% on some Chinese exports to the US – throttle trade between the world’s two biggest economies, raising the spectre of a recession.

“US officials have repeatedly expressed their willingness to negotiate with China on tariffs,” the spokesperson told reporters.

“China’s position is consistent. If we fight, we will fight to the end; if we talk, the door is open… If the US wants to talk, it should show its sincerity and be prepared to correct its wrong practices and cancel unilateral tariffs.”

The statement comes a day after a Weibo account linked to Chinese state media said the US had been seeking to initiate discussions, and a week after Trump claimed discussions were already underway – a suggestion Beijing denied.

“China has no need to talk to the United States,” Yuyuantantian, a Weibo account affiliated with China Central Television (CCTV), said in Thursday’s post. “From the perspective of negotiations, the United States must be the more anxious party at present.”

Such comments follow a cycle of assertions and denials from both the US and China, as each side refuses to publicly initiate discussions.

The question is not whether those discussions will take place, but rather when, under what circumstances and at whose behest.

Experts characterise the tussle as a game of chicken between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as both men attempt to save face while covertly pursuing a mutually beneficial outcome – namely, a de-escalation of the trade war.

“I expect some of this back-and-forth, because neither Washington nor Beijing wants to look like they are the side that’s giving in,” says Ja Ian Chong, assistant professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

“[But] a de-escalation would be to the overall benefit of both sides, so there is some overarching incentive to do so.”

Wen-Ti Sung, an academic member of the Australian Centre on China in the World, puts it another way: “It’s like two race cars going at each other: whoever swerves first will be seen as the weaker of the two parties. And at this juncture, neither party wants to look soft.”

The leader who admits he was the first to initiate tariff talks would be seen as the one compromising his position in negotiations.

“Whoever seems desperate loses bargaining leverage,” Mr Sung says. “Both sides want to portray the other side as the more desperate one.”

This peculiar stalemate – where both parties seek the same outcome, but neither wants to be the first to suggest it – has resulted in a tactic of “constructive ambiguity”: the deliberate use of language so vague that each party could arguably claim to be in the right.

It is this tactic that Mr Sung points to as an explanation for Yuyuantantian’s Weibo post.

“This is Beijing trying to explore the possibility of using word games to create an off-ramp for both sides, so that they can gradually climb their way down from this escalation spiral,” he says.

One way to escape this game of chicken is when a third party mediates, offering both sides an off-ramp. The other option, Mr Sung explains, is a “much looser understanding of what ‘the other side has reached out’ means”.

That way, the side that does indeed come to the table first is still able to characterise it as a response rather than the first move.

In Trump and Xi’s case, it would also mean that tariff negotiations could begin with both leaders claiming to have achieved some kind of victory in the trade war.

The optics here are important. As Mr Chong points out, de-escalation is one thing – but another top priority for Trump and Xi is to “deliver a win for their domestic audiences”.

“Trump obviously wants to show that he has made Beijing capitulate. And on the People’s Republic of China side, Xi probably wants to show his own people and the world that he’s been able to make Trump become more reasonable and moderate and accommodating,” Mr Chong says.

On the domestic front, both leaders are facing tariff-induced headwinds. Trump this week struggled to quell fears of a recession as fresh data indicated the US economy contracted in its first quarter for the first time since 2022.

Meanwhile, Xi – who before the tariffs was already battling persistently low consumption, a property crisis and unemployment – must reassure China’s population that he can weather the trade war and protect an economy which has struggled to rebound post-pandemic.

“Both [Trump and Xi] recognise that at this point of the trade war, it’s not going to be a winner-takes-all outcome for either side anymore,” Mr Sung says.

“Trump recognises he’s not going to get anywhere near 100% of what he wants, so he’s trying to find a concession point where China can let him have just enough winning, especially for domestic purposes.”

While China is not unwilling, he adds, “they are very much stuck on what’s the right price point”.

For Xi, Mr Sung described the situation as a “two-level game”.

“The China side needs to manage US-China bilateral negotiations, while domestically Beijing needs to save enough face so that the Chinese leadership can hold on to this narrative of ‘the East is rising and the West is declining’,” he says.

“A kowtowing of the East towards the West is not a rising East.”

At the time of writing, the US has not denied China’s claims that it has been attempting to initiate talks. But the fact that both sides have now made that assertion indicates there is “some sort of contact”, according to Mr Chong.

“The two sides are talking,” he says. “And that is a sign that there is some possibility that some accommodation could be reached.”

But the start of negotiations does not mean that the US-China relationship – which was rocky even before Trump kicked off a trade war – is close to being steadied.

Mr Chong isn’t holding his breath. For one, he believes the “posturing” suggests the two sides have not reached the point “where they are both trying to seek a way out”.

“[Each party] may hope that there are concessions from the other side, so they’re going to have this standoff until they see which side blinks first.”

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A 25% import tax on engines, transmissions and other key car parts has come into force in the US, raising pressure on an industry finding its way through a thicket of policy changes.

The new tariff comes days after Donald Trump eased the measure in response to business worries, but did not eliminate it.

The US president has said the new tariff, along with a 25% import tax on cars that went into effect last month, is intended to push carmakers to do more manufacturing in the US.

But analysts said any immediate expansions in the US were likely to come at the expense of production elsewhere, while also leading to higher costs for the businesses – and ultimately higher prices for customers.

For now, companies have been shielded from pain, as concerns about price hikes have prompted a sales surge.

General Motors and Ford this week reported double digit sales growth continuing in April.

But GM also warned it expected as much as $5bn (£3.7bn) in new costs this year as a result of the tariffs, including roughly $2bn in charges on cars it makes in South Korea and exports to the US.

Executives said they now expected prices to rise roughly 1%, instead of falling as previously forecast.

In a sign of the turmoil, other car companies, including Stellantis, maker of Jeep, Fiat and Chrysler, withdrew financial guidance for the year ahead, citing the fluidity of the situation.

“We remain subject to extreme uncertainties,” Stellantis chief financial officer Doug Ostermann told analysts this week.

Nearly half of vehicles sold in the US last year were imported from outside the country.

When Trump announced plans in March to hit cars and certain car parts with 25% tariffs, an announcement that came amid a bevy of other tariffs, it sent shockwaves through the industry, drawing warnings of higher prices and risks to production and sales.

The president has since softened his policies, especially regarding Mexico and Canada – key parts of the industry’s supply chain, due to decades of free trade between the three countries.

As it stands currently, parts made in Mexico and Canada in compliance with that free trade agreement will be spared the duties. Officials had initially described that exemption as temporary, but after customs instructions issued this week analysts said it now appeared likely to stick.

Trump this week also signed measures to shield firms from facing multiple tariffs on the same item, while setting up a two-year system carmakers can use to reduce the duties they have to pay on parts imported from other countries and used in US-assembled cars.

The administration had also already said firms importing cars made in Canada and Mexico would not be charged tariffs on US-made content.

“The changes that have come in the last couple of days are going to make it easier … but even so it’s still a dramatic change to the market,” said Stephanie Brinley, principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “It’s still a big tariff.”

Executives at some firms have said they are exploring ways to increase production in the US to mitigate the new costs.

General Motors said it had expanded truck production at its factory in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by about 50,000 as a result of the tariffs. This week it also said it would cut back output in Canada.

Mercedes also said it had flexibility to expand at its factory in Alabama.

Art Wheaton, director of Labor Studies at Cornell University, said the US might see more such announcements in the months ahead, but he did not expect to see new factories getting built anytime soon, given the significance of that investment and how fast the situation is changing.

“If I’m going to make a multi-billion dollar decision… I wouldn’t do it in a market that is this unstable,” he said.

The administration has said it is working on trade deals with key countries for the industry, including South Korea and Japan.

Trump might also modify his policies if signs of economic damage start to emerge, Mr Wheaton said.

“Everything is pretty good now,” he said. “I don’t think the full impact of those tariffs has hit yet.”

You might have seen the social media videos: the “five signs you’re autistic”. You may have heard about long waiting lists for autism diagnosis. You might know, or sense, that the numbers of people deemed autistic are going up, fast.

There’s a lot at stake. These numbers mean fiercely different things to different people. To some, autism is a fear (what if this happens to my child?); to others it’s an identity, maybe even a superpower.

So what’s the truth about the number of autistic people – and what does it mean?

To count something, you first need to say what it is you’re counting.

For someone to be diagnosed with autism, they need to have “persistent difficulties in social life and in social communication,” says Ginny Russell, an associate professor in psychiatry at University College London (UCL) and the author of The Rise of Autism. She’s using the criteria for autism from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as the DSM.

She says examples of this behaviour can range from a lack of turn-taking in conversation to being completely non-verbal.

Restricted interests and repetitive behaviours are part of a second group of traits required to meet the criteria, she says. So things like “hand flapping or rocking or skin picking, but also sticking to repeated routines, like eating the same food every day.”

But what evidence is there that the number of people meeting those criteria has risen?

Ms Russell led a study that looked at changes in rates of autism diagnosis in the UK over 20 years. It drew on a big sample of data from about nine million patients who were registered at GP surgeries.

They found eight times as many new autism diagnoses in 2018 as in 1998. “It was an enormous increase,” she says, “best described as exponential.”

And it’s not just happening in the UK. Though data is lacking in much of the world, Ms Russell says that “in the Anglophone and European countries where we do have data, there is compelling evidence to suggest that other countries have seen a similar sort of rise in diagnosis as in the UK”.

But – and this is a crucial point – a rise in the number of people is not the same thing as a rise in the number of people who .

Ms Russell’s study and others like it show there has been a huge rise in the number of people diagnosed with autism, so in that sense there is more autism around than there used to be. But could that rise in diagnosis be explained by changes to who we count as autistic rather than an increase in the number of autistic people?

The definition of autism has not been static. The first studies to describe autism appeared in the 1930s and 1940s, says Francesca Happé, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at King’s College London, who’s been researching autism since 1988.

“The original descriptions of autism are of children who have pretty high support needs, typically are very late to talk,” she says. “Some don’t talk at all. And the focus really was on children, of course, and largely on males.”

But the definition was broadened, Professor Happé says, when in the 1990s Asperger’s syndrome was added to diagnostic manuals. People with Asperger’s were seen as on the autistic spectrum because of social difficulties and repetitive behaviour, but had fluent language and good intelligence, she says.

The eightfold increase in new diagnoses that Ginny Russell found included Asperger’s syndrome, which was seen as a particular type of autism.

Another subset of autism added to the manuals was a “safety net diagnosis” called “pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified” (PDD-NOS) and that increased the numbers too.

Today, diagnostic manuals refer simply to autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, which includes people previously diagnosed with Asperger’s or PDD-NOS.

The autism net has been cast wider.

One group of people now falling under this net more often is women and girls.

Studies looking at the huge rise in autism diagnoses show that the rise has been considerably faster for females than for males.

It’s something Sarah Hendrickx has seen in her job as part of a team that diagnoses autism.

“I’ve been doing this maybe 15, 20 years or so,” she says. “In the early days, they were virtually all males that were coming forward for diagnosis. And now they’re nearly all females who I see.”

Ms Hendrickx was herself diagnosed with autism as an adult and is also the author of a book called Women and Girls on the Autism Spectrum.

She says the big growth in the number of people diagnosed with autism is because we’re ”playing catch-up for decades and decades of people like myself”.

Because autism was originally seen as something that affected mainly boys, she says autistic girls would instead be diagnosed with mental health conditions like social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Now we have a better understanding of how autism can present in girls and women, thanks to an increase in research and books like Ms Hendrickx’s, which was first published in 2014.

She says that one important gender difference is that girls may be better at masking, which means hiding their autistic traits so that they fit in socially, perhaps by copying others’ behaviour.

The rise in diagnosis has also been much faster among adults than children. Ms Hendrickx says this shows another way the autism net has been cast wider: it now includes more people with lower support needs.

“We are talking, I think, more about individuals with no intellectual disability,” she says. “I think people with delays in their development, in their speech, are much more likely to have been diagnosed much, much earlier because the signs were much clearer at a very young age.”

There’s data to back this up. One study shows that between 2000 and 2018, new autism diagnoses of those with intellectual disability rose about 20%, while autism diagnoses in those without intellectual disability rose 700%. Autism’s centre of gravity has shifted.

For Ellie Middleton, an autistic and ADHD content creator and author, that’s a good thing.

The 27-year-old says that sceptics questioning the increase in diagnoses should instead be asking: “how did all of these people spend so much of their life undiagnosed, unsupported and let down?”

She says she became very mentally unwell before being diagnosed with autism. “I was on the maximum dose of antidepressants that any fully grown adult could be on at the age of 17,” she says. “I couldn’t be left alone, I couldn’t go out.”

Her autism diagnosis three years ago helped her to change the way she lives her life and to keep her mental health in a better place.

But others worry that the version of autism people now see in the media and in their social media feeds is distorting public perceptions.

A focus on celebrities can “glamorise” autism, says Venessa Swaby, who is also autistic and runs support groups for autistic children and their parents through her organisation A2ndvoice. Meanwhile, she says, families with non-speaking autistic children feel they are “written off”.

As the number of people diagnosed with autism has risen, so then has the diversity of autistic people, which, in turn, has brought tensions over who owns the word – and what it means.

There’s also been a looping effect: as more people are diagnosed with autism, more people become aware of it and that fuels the rise in numbers further.

The internet and social media have played a big part in that – as well as speculation about the reasons behind the rapid rise in diagnoses.

Disproven theories linking the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination to autism linger. Others say there must be something in what we eat, drink, or breathe that’s causing more autism.

But, as we’ve seen, the data suggest the rise in diagnoses can be explained by a broadening autism definition rather than an increase in the amount of underlying autism. And there’s solid research showing that autism is largely a product of the genes you inherit from your parents.

Is there any evidence that environmental causes could be playing some part in the rise, even if a small one?

Ginny Russell looked at research into different potential environmental factors and found only a few that were plausible to explain some of the rise.

“There is definitely a quite well established link between autism and the age of the parent,” she says. “If the parent is older you’re more likely to have an autistic child, but it’s not a huge effect.”

She also says that there’s some evidence around “preterm birth and infection during pregnancy and also some birth complications”.

But Ms Russell says it’s important to put those possible factors into perspective.

“I honestly believe that the vast majority of the increase is due to what I would call a diagnostic culture,” she says. “Our conception of the condition has changed, and that’s meant that there’s been an increase.”

Shabir Ahmad Dar, a resident of Indian-administered Kashmir, has been selling pashmina shawls for more than 20 years.

The intricately embroidered featherweight scarves are a favourite with his customers in Mussoorie, a hill town in the northern state of Uttarakhand, where he works.

For his buyers, the shawls are a sign of luxury. For Dar, they are a metaphor for home; its traditional patterns layered with history and a mark of his Kashmiri identity.

But lately, the same identity feels like a curse.

On Sunday, Dar, along with another salesman, was publicly harassed and assaulted by members of a Hindu right-wing group, who were reportedly incensed by the killing of 26 people at a popular tourist spot in Kashmir last week. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack – a charge Islamabad denies.

A video of the assault shows the men thrashing and hurling abuses at Dar and his friend as they ransack their stall, located on a busy boulevard.

“They blamed us for the attack, told us to leave town and never show our faces again,” said Dar.

He says his goods, worth thousands of dollars, are still lying there. “But we are too scared to go back.”

As outrage over the assault spread, police on Wednesday arrested the three men but released them a few hours later after charging a fine and asking them to “apologise” to Dar and his colleague.

But Dar had already left by then, along with dozens of other Kashmiri shawl sellers, who, after living in Mussoorie for decades, say they no longer feel safe there.

Many survivors of the Pahalgam attack – the deadliest targeting civilians in recent years – said the militants specifically targeted Hindu men, sparking an outpouring of anger and grief in India, with politicians across party lines demanding strict action.

Since then, there have been more than a dozen reports of Kashmiri vendors and students in Indian cities facing harassment, vilification and threats from right-wing groups – but also from their own classmates, customers and neighbours. Videos showing students being chased out of campus and beaten up on the streets have been cascading online.

On Thursday, one of the survivors, whose naval officer husband was killed in the militant attack, appealed to people to not go after Muslims and Kashmiris. “We want peace and only peace,” she said.

But safety concerns have forced many Kashmiris like Dar to return home.

Ummat Shabir, a nursing student at a university in Punjab state, said some women in her neighbourhood accused her of being a “terrorist who should be thrown out” last week.

“The same day, my classmate was forced out of a taxi by her driver after he found out she was a Kashmiri,” she said. “It took us three days to travel back to Kashmir but we had no option. We had to go.”

Ms Shabir is back in her hometown but for many others, even home does not feel safe anymore.

As the search for the perpetrators of last week’s attack continues, security forces in Kashmir have detained thousands of people, shut off more than 50 tourist destinations, sent in additional army and paramilitary troops, and blown up several homes belonging to families of suspected militants who they accuse of having “terrorist affiliations”.

The crackdown has sparked fear and unease among civilians, many of whom have called the actions a form of “collective punishment” against them.

Without mentioning the demolitions, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the guilty must be punished without mercy, “but don’t let innocent people become collateral damage”. Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti also criticised the demolitions, cautioning the government to distinguish between “terrorists and civilians”.

“Whenever tensions escalate, we are the first ones to bear the brunt of it. But we are still treated as suspects and expected to put our lives on hold,” another student, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the BBC.

Yet the backlash feels a lot worse this time, says Shafi Subhan, a shawl seller from the region’s Kupwara district, who also worked in Mussoorie.

In his 20 years of doing business there, Subhan said he had never faced any public threat – not even after the 2019 terror attack in Pulwama district, which killed 40 paramilitary police troopers.

To him, Mussoorie felt like home, a place where he found peace – despite being hundreds of kilometres away. He said he shared an emotional bond with his customers, who came from all parts of the country

“People were always kind to us, they wore our garments with so much joy,” Subhan recalled. “But on that day when our colleagues were attacked, no one came to help. The public just stood and watched. It hurt them physically – but emotionally, a lot more.”

Back home in Kashmir, peace has long been fragile. Both India and Pakistan claim the territory in full but administer separate parts, and an armed insurgency has simmered in the Indian-administered region for more than three decades, claiming thousands of lives.

Caught in between, are civilians who say they feel stuck in an endless limbo that feels especially suffocating, whenever ties between India and Pakistan come under strain.

Many allege that in the past, military confrontations between the nations have been followed by waves of harassment and violence against Kashmiris, along with a significant security and communication clampdown in the region.

In recent years, violence has declined, and officials point to improved infrastructure, tourism, and investment as signs of greater stability, particularly since 2019, when the region’s special constitutional status was revoked under Article 370.

But arrests and security operations continue, and critics argue that calm has come at the cost of civil liberties and political freedoms.

“The needle of suspicion is always on locals, even as militancy has declined in the last one-and-a-half decades,” says Anuradha Bhasin, the managing editor of the Kashmir Times newspapers. “They always have to prove their innocence.”

As the news of the killings spread last week, Kashmiris poured onto the streets, holding candlelight vigils and protest marches. A complete shutdown was observed a day after the attack and newspapers printed black front pages. Omar Abdullah publicly apologised, saying he had “failed his guests”.

Ms Bhasin says Kashmiri backlash against such attacks is not new; there has been similar condemnation in the past as well, although at a smaller scale. “No one there condones civilian killings – they know the pain of losing loved ones too well.”

But she adds that it’s unfair to place the burden of proving innocence on Kashmiris, when they have themselves become targets of hate and violence. “This would just instil more fear and further alienate people, many of whom already feel isolated from the rest of the country.”

Mirza Waheed, a Kashmiri novelist, believes Kashmiris are “particularly vulnerable as they are seen through a different lens”, being part of India’s Muslim population.

“The saddest part is many of them will suffer the indignity and humiliation, lay low for some time, and wait for this to tide over because they have a life to live.”

No one knows this better Mohammad Shafi Dar, a daily wage worker in Kashmir’s Shopian, whose house was blown up by security forces last week.

Five days on, he is still picking the up the pieces.

“We lost everything,” said Dar, who is now living under the open sky with his wife, three daughters and son. “We don’t even have utensils to cook food.”

He says his family has no idea where their other 20-year-old son is, whether he joined militancy, or is even dead or alive. His parents say the college student left home last October and never returned. They haven’t spoken since.

“Yet, we have been punished for his alleged crimes. Why?”

While most 13-year-olds were spending their Monday evening stressing over homework, awkward school crushes and what to post on TikTok, Blue Ivy Carter was performing in front of a crowd of 70,000 people alongside her mother Beyoncé on the opening night of her Cowboy Carter tour.

Her numerous cameos throughout the show – particularly her solo dance during Déjà Vu – were highly praised.

“She must be one of the most self-disciplined 13-year-olds in America,” Variety’s Chris Willman wrote. On social media, fans said the child prodigy was the “greatest nepo baby of all time” as they marvelled at her flawless dance routines.

Being a nepo baby – shorthand for the children of celebrities who often find themselves fast-tracked into industries such as film, fashion, and music – may have been scorned at in the past, but Blue Ivy’s performance may have complicated the narrative.

The teen had access to a stage that most could only dream of, but she also delivered a performance that fans and critics agreed was very impressive, which raises the question: Is this just another example of a celebrity child given an unearned spotlight, or could Blue Ivy be a genuine star in her own right?

This is also not the first time Blue Ivy has performed in public – she joined her mother on stage two years ago on the Renaissance tour and last year voiced the character of Kiara in The Lion King prequel Mufasa: The Lion King.

But music journalist Caroline Sullivan says Blue Ivy’s trajectory to stardom “has very little to do with her and everything to do with the parent”.

“It’s about how much we like or dislike the parent – Beyoncé is well liked so fans will praise Blue Ivy,” she explains. “Of course, it helps that she’s good at what she does but even if she wasn’t, she’d be given an easier ride.”

Sullivan also says that the authenticity of Blue Ivy wanting to perform instead of being forced to do it by her mother adds to how we perceive her.

Speaking to the BBC last month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, said Blue Ivy and her siblings were being nurtured to do “anything that they want for themselves… but definitely not pushed into show business”.

She added that her granddaughter had had to “work for” her role in The Lion King prequel and she “worries about the fame” impacting her grandchildren.

Blue Ivy is hardly the first child to have performed on stage with a famous parent. Madonna’s 17-year-old daughter played the piano on her mother’s Celebration tour in 2023, Dave Grohl’s 19-year-old daughter has often sung with him on stage and Phil Collins’ son was the drummer on his 2019 tour.

“It’s not because he’s the boss’s son that he’s playing the drums, it’s because he’s good enough,” the former Genesis drummer said in 2019 as he defended his decision to take his 17-year-old son on his world tour.

Sullivan says it can often be “naff and cringy” if a musician brings their child on stage “just for the sake of it”, but if done right, it can be “incredibly sweet and show a lot of love”.

Many critics, including Tomas Mier from Rolling Stone, said Beyoncé’s youngest daughter Rumi joining her on stage for Protector was “one of the most heartwarming moments of the evening”.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s 11-year-old daughter, North West, has also forged the beginnings of a music career, recently delivering a rap verse in Japanese on FKA Twigs’ single Childlike Things.

Twigs said she chose to collaborate with North West because her “energy is so inspiring” and she was “so confident”.

“I wasn’t that confident when I was a kid. I was so shy, I was scared of the dark, I was very different to the other kids at my school. It suddenly occurred to me that I would have loved to have a friend like North, who could speak up for themselves.”

North West also appeared as Young Simba in the Hollywood Bowl’s The Lion King 30th anniversary concert last year but her singing was criticised on social media.

“Given how controversial her parents are, I think North West will struggle to break away from the nepo baby claims because unless she is unbelievably talented, she will be slated,” Sullivan says.

In December 2022, New York magazine’s cover story on nepo babies caused a stir in the showbusiness industry.

The cover featured the faces of famous actors including Dakota Johnson, Jack Quaid, Zoë Kravitz and Lily Rose-Depp edited onto the bodies of babies, with the headline: “She has her mother’s eyes. And agent.”

The story claimed that “a nepo baby is physical proof that meritocracy is a lie” and that “today, they’re not only abundant – they’re thriving”.

It was met with backlash by many stars who claimed the label was unfair and diminished their hard work.

Gwyneth Paltrow, a nepo baby herself as the daughter of actress Blythe Danner and film director Bruce Paltrow, said the term was an “ugly moniker” and that children of famous people should not be judged negatively because “there’s nothing wrong with doing or wanting to do what your parents do”.

Similarly, Zoe Kravitz told GQ that it was “completely normal for people to be in the family business”, while Stranger Things actress Maya Hawke said a famous family name “definitely gives you massive advantages in this life but the chances will not be infinite; so you have to keep working and do a good job. If you do a bad job, the chances will stop”.

Almost Famous star Kate Hudson, daughter of actors Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, said in a 2022 interview with the Independent that “people call it whatever they want”, but the idea that children will follow in the footsteps of their parents is “not going to change”.

Hudson was right that, in the three years since New York magazine’s cover story caused so much controversy, nepo babies haven’t slunk off into the background. In fact, they continue to thrive, particularly those with real talent.

Pam Lyddon, a PR executive in the entertainment industry says that there’s “no denying that being well-connected can absolutely help you succeed in the industry” but “while connections might get you noticed, you do still need genuine talent, hard work, and resilience to stay in the game – results speak for themselves and reputations are everything.”

She explains that for the new wave of nepo babies, talent is even more important as the “scrutiny is more intense and people are more media savvy” so you can’t get away with mediocrity.

As fans and critics continue to praise Blue Ivy, it seems that the credibility of nepo babies hasn’t been damaged by the nepo baby backlash, and if you have the star factor, your parents being Beyonce and Jay-Z is only going to help you fly.

The White House has confirmed a military parade will be held to mark the US Army’s 250th anniversary on 14 June, which falls on the same day as President Donald Trump’s birthday.

A “day-long festival” will be held on the National Mall in Washington DC, an army spokesperson said, adding that the event would feature 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles and 50 aircraft.

Trump first floated a military parade during his first term, but he scrapped the idea after reports it would have cost about $90 million (£71m).

Earlier on Friday, Trump announced plans to rename Veterans Day – known as Remembrance Day in the UK – as “Victory Day for World War I” to celebrate American contributions to the conflict.

The army said planning for the military parade was “actively underway”, and it was exploring “options to make the celebration even bigger, with more capability demonstrations, additional displays of equipment, and more engagement with the community.” Trump turns 79 that day.

He first proposed a military parade for Veterans Day in 2018.

He said he wanted the US to “top” France’s Bastille Day parade, which he attended on a visit to Paris in 2017.

Local politicians asked for a “ridiculously high” price, he said, and the idea was abandoned.

Meanwhile, in addition to renaming Veterans Day, Trump has said he wants to name VE Day on 8 May as “Victory Day for World War II”.

The announcement was not accompanied by an executive order, and it is unclear whether he intends for 8 May to become a federal holiday – a power that rests with the US Congress.

The days mark the end of World War I in 1918 and Germany’s surrender to the allies in 1945, respectively.

In his late-night post, Trump said that “many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other country, by far, in producing a victorious result” in the Second World War.

“We won both wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything,” he added. “That’s because we don’t have leaders anymore, that know how to do so! So we are going to start celebrating our victories again!”

Later on Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to deny reports the name of Veterans Day would be changing, writing on X: “We will always honor Veterans Day AND we should commemorate the end of WWI and WWII as VICTORY DAYS!”

VE Day celebrations being held in the UK, France, Canada and other parts of the world this year mark 80 years since World War Two formally ended in Europe with Germany’s unconditional surrender shortly after Berlin fell to Soviet forces.

Russia commemorates the occasion as the end of what it calls the “Great Patriotic War”. It is one of the most important holidays in the country and is marked by a massive parade.

About 27 million Soviet citizens died during the war, which started in 1939 when Germany, alongside the Soviets, invaded Poland.

According to statistics published online by the US National WWII Museum in New Orleans, about 418,500 Americans were killed in both the European and Pacific theatres of the conflict. Of the total, about 416,000 were military casualties.

The US has not historically recognised VE Day. The country was still at war with Japan on the Pacific front for several more months after conflict ended in Europe.

Veterans Day, known as Remembrance Day in the UK, was formerly known as Armistice Day in the US to mark the end of fighting in Europe on 11 November 1918.

After World War Two and the Korean War, it was renamed to honour all US military veterans. Memorial Day, which always falls on the last Monday in May, honours Americans who were killed in battle.

The tree at Sycamore Gap took well over a century to grow and just minutes to cut down.

It was globally renowned, standing as it did at the edge of the Roman frontier in northern England, and had been depicted countless times in photographs, paintings and films.

Overnight on 27 September 2023, under the cover of darkness, someone chopped it down, sparking international outrage and condemnation.

Over the last week, Newcastle Crown Court has been hearing the trial of the two men who deny felling the tree.

Here’s some of what jurors have been told so far.

• For a blow-by-blow account of what’s been heard in court over the last few days, click here

Prosecutors allege Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, carried out the “moronic mission”.

The prosecution say that while one felled the tree with a chainsaw, the other filmed it on Mr Graham’s phone – something they both deny.

Police discovered a two minute and 41 second-long video a month later when they arrested Mr Graham and seized his phone.

The original video is dark, just the sounds of a chainsaw followed by the crashing fall of a tree and then silence, broken only by the wind blowing at the remote spot.

An enhanced version was shown to jurors, with the video’s metadata showing it was filmed at about 00:30 BST at the exact coordinates of the much-loved tree.

When quizzed by police about how the video got on his phone, Mr Graham repeatedly answered “no comment”.

The tree was felled using a “hinge-and-wedge” technique, the court heard.

A forestry expert said it would have been “unequivocally obvious” it would topple northwards, with the bottom of its severed trunk falling on the Roman wall and causing £1,144 worth of damage.

To facilitate the fall, a large wedge had to be cut out of the trunk, which prosecutors say the defendants took away with them as a “trophy”.

A picture was taken a couple of hours later on Mr Graham’s phone, showing a large chunk of wood and chainsaw in the back of his Range Rover.

A forensic botanist said there was “very strong evidence” the wedge had come from the Sycamore Gap tree.

Neither the wedge nor the chainsaw have been found by police.

Cell site analysis, which tracks the movements of a mobile phone, and automatic number plate recognition cameras, which follow the progress of a car, have been repeatedly referred to.

In short, Mr Graham’s phone and car were both monitored travelling towards Sycamore Gap from his home in Carlisle before the felling, then returning westward afterwards, the court heard.

A pair of headlights were also captured on CCTV from the nearby Twice Brewed Inn heading towards Steel Rigg, the closest public car park to the tree, just before midnight, returning about an hour later.

Prosecutors say Mr Graham and his good friend Mr Carruthers, from Wigton in Cumbria, had been in regular phone contact during the day but that stopped at 22:23, strongly suggesting they were together from then on.

Messages exchanged between Mr Carruthers and his partner also showed he was not at home that night, the court heard.

On 28 September 2023, the world awoke to find the tree had been felled.

Initial speculation was that it had come down in Storm Agnes, which had blown through that night, but it quickly became apparent the tree had been deliberately and illegally felled, jurors heard.

The two defendants rapidly began swapping screenshots of social media posts and press reports on their phones, the court heard.

“Here we go,” Mr Graham wrote to his co-accused.

One person had commented on Facebook that there were “some weak people that walk this earth, disgusting behaviour”.

Mr Graham sent a voice note to Mr Carruthers saying: “Weak? Does he realise how heavy [stuff] is?”

Mr Carruthers replied: “I’d like to see [the man] launch an operation like we did last night, I don’t think he’s got the minerals.”

He said it was being reported on multiple news channels, adding: “It’s going to go wild.”

Mr Graham replied: “It’s gone viral, it is worldwide.”

Prosecutors said the men were “revelling in” the outrage, but their close friendship would unravel as the “public revulsion became clear to them”.

So far, the jury has only heard from Daniel Graham.

He spent more than three hours in the witness box, during which he said his once “best pal” Carruthers had felled the tree.

Mr Graham claimed he had been asleep in his caravan the whole night while Mr Carruthers and an associate took his Range Rover, which also contained his phone, over to Sycamore Gap and back, without his knowledge.

He said Mr Carruthers was fascinated with the tree and had previously mentioned felling it, with Mr Graham claiming he had in fact never heard of the world famous tree until his co-accused told him about it.

In the aftermath, he claimed his friend asked him to “take the blame” as police would be more lenient on him because of his “mental health issue”, a claim which was labelled “not true” by Mr Carruthers’ barrister.

Mr Graham also admitted making an anonymous call to police to point the finger at Mr Carruthers, claiming he had to as detectives had not listened to him before.

Jurors have also heard the two men’s police interviews.

In his, Mr Graham said he was the victim of a smear campaign on Facebook, the accusations being the latest exchange in a feud with others in which he and Mr Carruthers were embroiled.

Mr Carruthers said he had used chainsaws but never been trained, adding they were “nasty things” and he could not recall ever felling a tree.

Both men deny causing criminal damage to the tree and Roman wall.

The trial continues.

The Duke of Sussex has told the BBC he “would love a reconciliation” with the Royal Family, in an emotional interview in which he said he was “devastated” at losing a legal challenge over his security in the UK.

Prince Harry said the King “won’t speak to me because of this security stuff”, but that he did not want to fight any more and did “not know how much longer my father has”.

The prince spoke to BBC News in California after losing an appeal over the levels of security he and his family are entitled to while in the UK.

Buckingham Palace said: “All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”

• Watch: Prince Harry’s exclusive interview in full

After Friday’s court ruling, the prince said: “I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point.”

“There have been so many disagreements between myself and some of my family,” he added, but had now “forgiven” them.

“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious,” said Prince Harry, who said the dispute over his security had “always been the sticking point”.

The prince had wanted to overturn changes to his security that were introduced in 2020 as he stepped down as a working royal and moved to the United States.

Saying that he felt “let down”, he described his court defeat as a “good old fashioned establishment stitch up” and blamed the Royal Household for influencing the decision to reduce his security.

Asked whether he had asked the King to intervene in the dispute over security, Prince Harry said: “I never asked him to intervene – I asked him to step out of the way and let the experts do their jobs.”

The prince said his treatment during the process of deciding his security had “uncovered my worst fears”.

He said of the decision: “I’m devastated – not so much as devastated with the loss that I am about the people behind the decision, feeling as though this is okay. Is it a win for them?”

He continued: “I’m sure there are some people out there, probably most likely the people that wish me harm, [who] consider this a huge win.”

Prince Harry said the decision to remove his automatic security entitlement impacts him “every single day”, and has left him in a position where he can only safely return to the UK if invited by the Royal Family – as he would get sufficient security in those circumstances.

The prince said changes to his security status in 2020 had impacted not just him, but his wife and, later, his children too.

He went on to say: “Everybody knew that they were putting us at risk in 2020 and they hoped that me knowing that risk would force us to come back.

“But then when you realise that didn’t work, do you not want to keep us safe?

“Whether you’re the government, the Royal Household, whether you’re my dad, my family – despite all of our differences, do you not want to just ensure our safety?”

Asked whether he missed the UK, he added: “I love my country, I always have done, despite what some people in that country have done… and I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland.”

Prince Harry said he would not be seeking a further legal challenge, saying Friday’s ruling had “proven that there was no way to win this through the courts”.

“I wish someone had told me that beforehand,” he said, adding that the ruling had been a “surprise”.

He continued: “This, at the heart of it, is a family dispute, and it makes me really, really sad that we’re sitting here today, five years later, where a decision that was made most likely, in fact I know, to keep us under the roof.”

Prince Harry spoke to the BBC shortly after losing his latest legal challenge against the UK government over the level of security he and his family are entitled to when visiting.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the prince’s case, which hinged on how an official committee made the decision to remove his eligibility for automatic, full-scale protection in line with what other senior royals receive.

On Friday, the court ruled that Prince Harry had made “powerful” arguments about the level of threat he and his family face, but said his “sense of grievance” did not “translate into a legal argument”.

His legal complaint centred around a committee called the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which authorises security for senior royals on behalf of the Home Office, and was chaired at the time by Sir Richard Mottram.

Under the committee’s regulations, Prince Harry argued, his case should have been put before Ravec’s Risk Management Board (RMB), which would have assessed the threats to his and family’s security – but that did not happen.

On Friday, senior judges said the committee had diverged from policy when making its 2020 decision over the prince’s security, but concluded it had been “sensible” to do so because of the complexity of his circumstances.

Prince Harry said his “jaw hit the floor” when he found out a representative of the Royal Household sat on the Ravec committee, and claimed Friday’s ruling had proved its decision-making process was more influenced by the Royal Household than by legal constraints.

He claimed there had been “interference” by the Royal Household in the 2020 decision, which he said resulted in his status as the most at-risk royal being downgraded to the least at risk “overnight”.

“So one does question how that is even possible and also the motive behind that at the time,” he added.

Prince Harry called on UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to intervene in his security case, and to overhaul how the Ravec committee operates.

In a statement released later on Friday, the prince said he would write to Cooper to “ask her to urgently examine the matter and review the Ravec process”.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said the department was “pleased” that the judgement had been in the government’s favour.

They added: “The UK government’s protective security system is rigorous and proportionate.

“It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals’ security.”

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Thai prosecutors have said they will not pursue charges against an American academic who was arrested last month under a strict law against defaming the monarchy.

Paul Chambers, a lecturer at Naresuan University, was arrested after the army filed a complaint against him.

On Thursday, prosecutors said they would request for charges against him to be dropped, though this has to be reviewed by the police. If they disagree, the decision will fall to the attorney-general.

Mr Chambers’ arrest marked a rare instance of a foreigner being charged under the lese-majeste law, which the government says is necessary to protect the monarchy but critics say is used to clamp down on free speech.

“The director-general had decided not to indict the suspect,” said the Office of the Attorney-General, adding that prosecutors would seek to dismiss the case in court and coordinate with police.

Mr Chambers first lived and worked in Thailand 30 years ago, and in recent years has been lecturing and researching at Naresuan University in northern Thailand. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Thai military.

The complaint against him centres on a notice for an academic webinar organised by a Singapore research institute about Thailand’s military and police reshuffles. Mr Chambers was one of the webinar’s speakers.

The army had accused Mr Chambers of “defamation, contempt or malice” towards the royal family, “importing false computer data” in a way “likely to damage national security or cause public panic”, and disseminating computer data “that may affect national security”, according to a letter from police that was received by the university’s social sciences faculty.

Mr Chambers stated that he did not write or publish the notice for the webinar. The army based its complaint on a Facebook post by a Thai royalist, who translated the webinar notice into Thai.

Thailand’s lese-majeste law has been in place since the creation of the country’s first criminal code in 1908, although the penalty was toughened in 1976.

Since late 2020, the legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) has seen more than 300 cases of lese-majeste involving more than 270 people, including 20 children under the age of 18, said Akarachai Chaimaneekarakate, the group’s advocacy lead.

Last year, a reformist political party was dissolved by court order after the court ruled the party’s campaign promise to change lese-majeste was unconstitutional.

The European Parliament called on Thailand last month to reform the law, which it said was “among the strictest in the world”, and grant amnesty to those prosecuted and imprisoned under it.

Police in Hong Kong have arrested the father and brother of US-based pro-democracy activist Anna Kwok for allegedly helping with her finances, according to media reports.

It is the first time the relatives of an “absconder” have been charged under the territory’s security law, Reuters news agency said.

The authorities accused Ms Kwok, 26, of breaching Hong Kong’s national security laws after participating in pro-democracy protests in 2019.

She fled the territory in 2020 and now serves as the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), an organisation based in Washington DC.

Police said they had arrested two men aged 35 and 68 on suspicion of handling “funds or other financial assets” belonging to Kwok, Reuters said.

Local media later identified the two men as relatives of Ms Kwok, citing police sources.

According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), police launched an investigation into the pair after observing they had met Ms Kwok overseas.

The 68-year-old, identified by local media as Ms Kwok’s father Kwok Yin-sang, is accused of helping his daughter handle her insurance policy upon his return to Hong Kong.

According to a charge sheet seen by Reuters, Kwok Yin-sang had been trying to access Ms Kwok’s life and personal accident insurance policy which could be used to obtain funds on her behalf.

He has been denied bail by national security judge Victor So at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts, Reuters reported.

The 35-year-old man, identified by local media as Ms Kwok’s brother, is accused of supporting their father’s attempts to retrieve the money, Reuters said.

He has reportedly been released on bail pending further investigation.

Under Hong Kong’s Safeguarding National Security Bill, it is illegal to “make available, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources to, or for the benefit of, a relevant absconder”.

In 2023, Hong Kong placed a bounty on the heads of several pro-democracy activists – including Ms Kwok – who had fled the territory.

The eight activists targeted were accused of colluding with foreign forces – a crime that can carry a sentence of life in prison.

At the time, Ms Kwok said the bounty was aimed at intimidating her and her fellow activists.

“That’s exactly the kind of thing the Hong Kong government and the Chinese Communist party would do – which is to intimidate people into not doing anything, silencing them,” she told BBC’s Newshour at the time.

The former British colony became a special administrative region of China in 1997, when Britain’s 99-year lease of the New Territories, north of Hong Kong island, expired.

Hong Kong still enjoys freedoms not seen in mainland China, but they are widely thought to be on the decline.

Israel says its fighter jets bombed an area next to the presidential palace in Syria’s capital Damascus on Friday morning, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to protect the Druze religious minority following days of deadly sectarian violence.

Netanyahu said the strike was a “clear message to the Syrian regime” that Israel would “not allow the deployment of forces south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community”.

Later on Friday, the Israeli military confirmed it had launched another wave of air strikes, attacking military targets. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, reported nearly 20, with Syrian state media saying one person had been killed.

The Syrian presidency has said it strongly condemns the strikes, calling them a “dangerous escalation” intended to destabilise Syria.

Israel also carried out strikes south of Damascus on Wednesday during clashes between Druze gunmen, security forces and allied Sunni Islamist fighters.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticised the recent Israeli bombing, calling it a “violation of Syria’s sovereignty”.

In a statement delivered by his spokesman, Guterres called for Israel to stop such attacks and to respect Syria’s “unity, its territorial integrity and its independence”.

A spiritual leader of Syria’s Druze, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, condemned the violence on Thursday as an “unjustifiable genocidal campaign” against his community and called for intervention by “international forces to maintain peace”.

Other Druze religious leaders put out a statement early on Friday confirming what they said was the community’s “commitment to a country that includes all Syrians, a nation that is free of strife”, according to the Associated Press.

They also reportedly said the state should be activated in Suweida province, and that authorities should be in control of the Suweida-Damascus highway.

The Syrian government said it had deployed security forces to Druze areas to combat “outlaw groups” which it accused of instigating the clashes.

According to SOHR, at least 109 people have been killed this week in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, a town in the southern outskirts of Damascus, the mainly Druze suburb of Jaramana, and the southern province of Suweida, which has a Druze majority.

It says that includes 11 Druze civilians and 26 Druze fighters, as well as another 42 Druze men who were shot dead in an “ambush” by security forces while travelling from Suweida to Damascus on Wednesday. Thirty members of the General Security service and allied fighters have also been killed, it says.

Istanbul-based Syria TV reported that the Israeli air strike near the presidential palace appeared to have targeted an empty area, and that there were no reports of casualties or material damage.

Israel’s Defence Minister issued a statement saying that when the Syrian president woke up and saw the results he would “understand well that Israel is determined to prevent harm to the Druze in Syria”.

“It is [Sharaa’s] duty to protect the Druze in the suburbs of Damascus from jihadist assailants and to allow the hundreds of thousands of Druze in Suweida and Jabal al-Druze to defend themselves on their own, rather than sending jihadist forces into their communities,” he added.

In a statement released on Friday afternoon, the Syrian presidency said it “condemned in the strongest terms the bombing of the presidential palace yesterday by the Israeli occupation, which constitutes a dangerous escalation against state institutions and the sovereignty of the state”.

“This reprehensible attack reflects the continuation of reckless movements that seek to destabilize the country and exacerbate security crises,” it added.

The presidency also called on the international community to stand by Syria in confronting the attacks, which it said violated international law.

A Druze religious leader in Suweida, Sheikh Hamoud al-Hinawi, meanwhile told the BBC that the situation was “still tense” in the affected areas.

“What is happening right now is sectarian targeting by extremist elements [and] it is the duty of the state to protect civilians,” he said.

“We support the rule of law and national sovereignty of Syria, as long as the national government is protecting its citizens and adhering to its commitment to rebuilding a modern Syria.”

When asked whether he supported the Israeli intervention, Sheikh Hinawi said: “It’s not a matter of whether I am for or against Israel – it is a matter of life and death for us and if we are being attacked we have every right to defend ourselves.”

On Thursday, a member of the security forces deployed in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya told the BBC that they were “not targeting any sect, but rather dealing with an armed group acting outside the law, regardless of its religious affiliation”, adding: “Any such group will be held accountable.”

The sectarian violence erupted in Jaramana on Monday night after an audio clip of a man insulting the Prophet Muhammad circulated on social media and angered Sunni Muslims. It was attributed to a Druze cleric, but he denied any responsibility. The interior ministry also said a preliminary inquiry had cleared him.

The Druze faith is an offshoot of Shia Islam with its own unique identity and beliefs. Half its roughly one million followers live in Syria, where they make up about 3% of the population, while there are smaller communities in Lebanon, Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

Syria’s transitional President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has promised to protect the country’s many religious and ethnic minorities since his Sunni Islamist group led the rebel offensive that overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December after 13 years of devastating civil war.

However, the mass killings of hundreds of civilians from Assad’s minority Alawite sect in the western coastal region in March, during clashes between the new security forces and Assad loyalists, hardened fears among minority communities.

In February, Israel’s prime minister warned that he would not “tolerate any threat to the Druze community in southern Syria” from the country’s new security forces.

Netanyahu also demanded the complete demilitarisation of Suweida and two other southern provinces, saying Israel saw Sharaa’s Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as a threat. HTS is a former al-Qaeda affiliate that is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, the US, the EU and the UK.

The Israeli military has already carried out hundreds of strikes across Syria to destroy the country’s military assets over the past four months. It has also sent troops into the UN-monitored demilitarised buffer zone between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, as well as several adjoining areas and the summit of Mount Hermon.

This BBC interview with Prince Harry will become one of those famous moments when television collides with the world of the royals.

It was like an emotional avalanche. It began with some stones being kicked over with questions about security and then the interview turned into a spectacular release of what seemed to be a rolling mountain of pent-up frustration and a poignant sense of separation.

The starting point was Prince Harry’s defeat in the courts as he sought to overturn a downgrading of his security in the UK. He seemed wounded. Had he decided it was time to have his say? And then really say some more?

A conversation about security was suddenly becoming about a whole range of insecurities.

Prince Harry looked upset, it seemed a cry from the heart when he said that his father “won’t speak to me because of this security stuff”, even though he didn’t know “how much longer my father has”.

This was a first-hand confirmation of the scale of the rift in the Royal Family. There was also the lack of contact between his children and their wider family in the UK. He was “gutted” and “devastated” and tired of only coming home for funerals and court cases.

And like all family rows, there was a balancing act between wanting to air grievances, to throw emotional punches, and then still want to get back together and hug and make friends.

So Prince Harry talked of the downgrading in his security in terms of this family dispute, suggesting that the Royal Household had influenced the decision, using security as leverage to keep him within the Royal Family.

Then he talked with great frankness, sounding like a slightly homesick son stuck overseas, when he spoke about wanting reconciliation. “There’s no point continuing to fight any more. Life is precious,” he said, holding out an olive branch the size of a small palace.

The “sticking point” for reconciliation is security when he visits the UK, said Prince Harry. And as well as calling on his father the King to help resolve this, he also called on the prime minister and home secretary to intervene.

At that point, it’s worth stepping away from the drama and taking a cold draught of unemotive legal air, from the judge who ruled against Prince Harry on Friday afternoon.

Sir Geoffrey Vos told the court that Prince Harry’s “sense of grievance” did not add up to the same thing as a legal argument. He upheld the decision that security arrangements had been changed because Prince Harry’s circumstances had changed, he was no longer a working royal and no longer living in the UK.

It might have annoyed Prince Harry, but the courts had again rejected his claim about unfair treatment.

There was also a response from Buckingham Palace that sounded like a weary parent.

“All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”

It wouldn’t be right for the King to wade into issues being reviewed by the courts and considered by government departments, suggested the Palace.

The Home Office, meanwhile, said it was “pleased” that the judgement was in the government’s favour, adding the UK’s security system is “rigorous and proportionate”.

While Prince Harry wore his frustration on his sleeve in this interview, you have to wonder how the rest of his family will privately respond to this outburst, with this story ricocheting around the world, on billions of mobile phones and TV screens.

These clips are going to be seen again and again. Netflix would have spun it out into a mini-series.

VE Day 80 is coming up next week, with the Royal Family prominent at commemorations. But the public might still be thinking of Prince Harry’s accusations about them. How will that work alongside messages of togetherness and unity?

Like in all families, arguments can go back a long way. And Prince Harry’s testimony was disarmingly candid, restlessly baring his feelings, and suggesting that his departure from the UK was still unresolved.

He was looking back with some uncertainty at home, and the question now will be how people at home look back at him.

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The blood of a US man who deliberately injected himself with snake venom for nearly two decades has led to an “unparalleled” antivenom, say scientists.

Antibodies found in Tim Friede’s blood have been shown to protect against fatal doses from a wide range of species in animal tests.

Current therapies have to match the specific species of venomous snake anyone has been bitten by.

But Mr Friede’s 18-year mission could be a significant step in finding a universal antivenom against all snakebites – which kill up to 140,000 people a year and leave three times as many needing amputations or facing permanent disability.

In total, Mr Friede has endured more than 200 bites and more than 700 injections of venom he prepared from some of the world’s deadliest snakes, including multiple species of mambas, cobras, taipans and kraits.

He initially wanted to build up his immunity to protect himself when handling snakes, documenting his exploits on YouTube.

But the former truck mechanic said that he had “completely screwed up” early on when two cobra bites in quick succession left him in a coma.

“I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to lose a finger. I didn’t want to miss work,” he told the BBC.

Mr Friede’s motivation was to develop better therapies for the rest of the world, explaining: “It just became a lifestyle and I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing as hard as I could push – for the people who are 8,000 miles away from me who die from snakebite”.

Antivenom is currently made by injecting small doses of snake venom into animals, such as horses. Their immune system fights the venom by producing antibodies and these are harvested to be used as a therapy.

But venom and antivenom have to be closely matched because the toxins in a venomous bite vary from one species to another.

There is even wide variety within the same species – antivenom made from snakes in India is less effective against the same species in Sri Lanka.

A team of researchers began searching for a type of immune defence called broadly neutralising antibodies. Instead of targeting the part of a toxin that makes it unique, they target the parts that are common to entire classes of toxin.

That’s when Dr Jacob Glanville, chief executive of biotech company Centivax, came across Tim Friede.

“Immediately I was like ‘if anybody in the world has developed these broadly neutralising antibodies, it’s going to be him’ and so I reached out,” he said.

“The first call, I was like ‘this might be awkward, but I’d love to get my hands on some of your blood’.”

Mr Friede agreed and the work was given ethical approval because the study would only take blood, rather than giving him more venom.

The research focused on elapids – one of the two families of venomous snakes – such as coral snakes, mambas, cobras, taipans and kraits.

Elapids primarily use neurotoxins in their venom, which paralyses their victim and is fatal when it stops the muscles needed to breathe.

Researchers picked 19 elapids identified by the World Health Organization as being among the deadliest snakes on the planet. They then began scouring Mr Friede’s blood for protective defences.

Their work, detailed in the journal Cell, identified two broadly neutralising antibodies that could target two classes of neurotoxin. They added in a drug that targets a third to make their antivenom cocktail.

In experiments on mice, the cocktail meant the animals survived fatal doses from 13 of the 19 species of venomous snake. They had partial protection against the remaining six.

This is “unparalleled” breadth of protection, according to Dr Glanville, who said it “likely covers a whole bunch of elapids for which there is no current antivenom”.

The team is trying to refine the antibodies further and see if adding a fourth component could lead to total protection against elapid snake venom.

The other class of snake – the vipers – rely more on haemotoxins, which attack the blood, rather than neurotoxins. In total there are around a dozen broad classes of toxin in snake venom, which also includes cytotoxins that directly kill cells.

“I think in the next 10 or 15 years we’ll have something effective against each one of those toxin classes,” said Prof Peter Kwong, one of the researchers at Columbia University.

And the hunt continues inside Mr Friede’s blood samples.

“Tim’s antibodies are really quite extraordinary – he taught his immune system to get this very, very broad recognition,” said Prof Kwong.

The ultimate hope is to have either a single antivenom that can do everything, or one injection for elapids and one for vipers.

Prof Nick Casewell, who is the head of the centre for snakebite research and interventions at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said the breadth of protection reported was “certainly novel” and provided “a strong piece of evidence” that this was a feasible approach.

“There is no doubt that this work moves the field forwards in an exciting direction.”

But he cautioned there was “much work to do” and that the antivenom still needed extensive testing before it could be used in people.

But for Mr Friede, reaching this stage “makes me feel good”.

“I’m doing something good for humanity and that was very important to me. I’m proud of it. It’s pretty cool.”

Germany’s Foreign Office has defended a decision to classify the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as right-wing extremist, after sharp criticism from the White House.

US Vice-President JD Vance accused “bureaucrats” of rebuilding the Berlin Wall, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed the designation as “tyranny in disguise”.

In an unusual move, the foreign office directly replied to Rubio on X, writing: “We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped.”

The intelligence agency that made the classification found AfD’s “prevailing understanding of people based on ethnicity and descent” goes against Germany’s “free democratic order”.

The AfD came second in federal elections in February, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote.

The agency, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), had already classed the AfD as right-wing extremist in three eastern states where its popularity is highest. Now, that designation has been extended to the entire party.

The AfD “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society”, it said in a statement. The agency said specifically that the party did not consider citizens “from predominantly Muslim countries” as equal members of the German people.

Joint party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said the decision was “clearly politically motivated” and a “severe blow to German democracy”.

Beatrix von Storch, the party’s deputy parliamentary leader, told the BBC’s Newshour programme that the designation was “the way an authoritarian state, a dictatorship, would treat their parties”.

• AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

The new classification gives authorities greater powers to monitor the AfD using tactics like phone interception and undercover agents.

“That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise,” wrote Marco Rubio on X.

But the German Foreign Office hit back.

“This is democracy,” it wrote, directly replying to the politician’s X account.

The post said the decision had been made after a “thorough and independent investigation” and could be appealed.

“We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped,” the statement concluded – a reference to Hitler’s Nazi party and the Holocaust.

JD Vance, who met Weidel in Munich nine days before the election and used a speech to the Munich Security Conference to show support for the AfD, said that “bureaucrats” were trying to destroy the party.

“The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt – not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” he wrote on X.

The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, separated East and West Berlin for nearly 30 years during the Cold War.

The new designation has reignited calls to ban the AfD ahead of a vote next week in the parliament, or Bundestag, to confirm conservative leader Friedrich Merz as chancellor. He will be leading a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Lars Klingbeil, the SPD leader who is expected to become vice-chancellor and finance minister, said that while no hasty decision would be made, the government would consider banning the AfD.

“They want a different country, they want to destroy our democracy. And we must take that very seriously,” he told Bild newspaper.

Dawn in a beautiful, expensively landscaped home in Santa Barbara, Californa, is a strange time and place to meet a British prince.

However, the Duke of Sussex infamously stepped away from the usual business of being royal. It’s a decision he says he was forced to make.

The home wasn’t his, but rather a convenient meeting point a few miles from where he lives with his wife Meghan and their two children – Archie, five, and Lilibet, three.

As we set up our cameras in the living room, we pulled up the latest court updates and news lines being filed by our teams in London.

Meanwhile, we were warned to keep the doors closed so that the screaming peacocks on the porch wouldn’t come inside.

• Watch: Prince Harry’s exclusive interview in full
• Sean Coughlan: Harry’s emotional avalanche hits the Royal Family
• Six key moments from Prince Harry’s BBC interview

The court’s judgment wasn’t the outcome Prince Harry had hoped for and I expected that when he arrived for our interview, he would be disappointed. It had been a years-long, deeply personal battle.

I have interviewed my fair share of famous people during my career – from celebrities and fashion designers to diplomats and politicians. Before the cameras even start rolling, you get a sense of how it might play out based on your interviewee’s demeanour, mood and banter.

I found Prince Harry to be down-to-earth, softly spoken and easy to talk to. He didn’t arrive with an entourage and politely introduced himself to us, shaking each of our hands. I was surprised that he knew I had flown in from New York to do the interview.

We began with some very brief small talk, which always helps to break the ice before a formal sit down, but we didn’t touch the topic at hand until the cameras started rolling.

Prince Harry was eager to share his feelings, despite the critical scrutiny that follows him. As the interviewer, I was also keenly aware of that scrutiny.

Sitting there, close up, there was a lot to unpack. I felt it was important to ask why taxpayers should pay for his security, why a change of status wasn’t warranted given he wasn’t a working royal, and why protection on a case-by-case basis made him feel at greater risk.

He wasn’t defensive or combative, and he wanted to address each of those points.

Equally, it was important to give him space to share his perspective. Because whatever anyone feels about the duke, he raises interesting questions for the public to ponder.

He asked why some people were comfortable with him not having top level security, but okay with other public officials being granted lifetime protection upon leaving office, regardless of the risk against them.

Prince Harry also raised questions about duty of care, given he can’t escape who he is, and national security. If something happened to him – the King’s son, or his family – what then?

With his foot tapping frequently as he spoke, he was surprisingly candid and forthcoming. His security, or lack thereof, was the sticking point preventing a reconciliation with his family, he said. Whether the Royal Family agrees with him is another matter.

The central coast of California, with its stunning landscapes, is not a shabby place to call home. The problem is that Prince Harry has another home – one that he says he misses but doesn’t feel safe in.

Solving that problem has not been possible in the courts.

Friday’s ruling leaves the prince, in the glamour and comfort of California, hoping for a change of heart in the palaces of London.

Five people have been rescued after spending 36 hours atop a plane in an alligator-infested swamp in the Amazon after it was forced to make an emergency landing, local authorities said.

The small plane was found by local fishermen in Bolivia’s Amazonas region on Friday having been missing for 48 hours.

The survivors – three women, a child and the 29-year-old pilot – were rescued in “excellent condition”, Wilson Avila, director of the Beni Department’s emergency operations centre, said.

A search and rescue mission was launched on Thursday after the plane disappeared from the radar of the Beni Department in central Bolivia.

The pilot told local media that an engine failure had prompted an emergency landing near the Itanomas River during a flight from Baures in northern Bolivia to the city of Trinidad.

Andres Velarde said that the plane had suddenly started to lose altitude and he had been forced to land the craft in a swamp near a lagoon.

The five that had been on board stood on top of the plane and were “surrounded by alligators that came within three metres of us”.

Velarde added that he believed petrol leaking from the plane had kept the predators at bay. They also saw an anaconda in the water, he said.

While awaiting rescue, they ate local cassava flour one of the passengers had brought.

“We couldn’t drink water and we couldn’t go anywhere else because of the alligators,” Velarde said.

After fishermen discovered the craft, a helicopter was sent to transport the survivors to hospital.

Ruben Torres, Director of the Beni Region Health Department, said that there had been “a lot of speculation about the case” and “many theories” after the plane went missing.

“I am really happy because in the end all the institutions joined together to be able to find the missing people and save those lives,” he told Reuters.

At a military training ground near the city of Wroclaw, ordinary Poles are lining up, waiting to be handed guns and taught how to shoot. “Once the round is loaded, the weapon is ready to fire,” barks the instructor, a Polish soldier, his face smeared with camouflage paint.

Young and old, men and women, parents and children, they’ve all come here for one reason: to learn how to survive an armed attack.

As well as a turn on the shooting range, this Saturday morning programme, called “Train with the Army”, also teaches civilians hand-to-hand combat, first aid and how to put on a gas mask.

“The times are dangerous now, we need to be ready,” says the co-ordinator of the project, Captain Adam Sielicki. “We have a military threat from Russia, and we are preparing for this.”

Capt Sielicki says the programme is oversubscribed, and the Polish government now has plans to expand it so that every adult male in the country receives training. Poland, which shares borders with both Russia and Ukraine, says it will spend almost 5% of GDP on defence this year, the highest in Nato.

Last week, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland aims to build “the strongest army in the region”. Warsaw has been on a spending spree, buying planes, ships, artillery systems and missiles from the US, Sweden and South Korea, among others.

Dariusz is one of those attending the Saturday course in Wroclaw, and says he would be the “very first” to volunteer if Poland were attacked. “History has taught us that we must be prepared to defend ourselves on our own. We cannot rely on anyone else. Today alliances exist, and tomorrow they are broken.”

As he removes his gas mask, Bartek says he thinks most Poles “will take up arms” if attacked, “and be ready to defend the country.”

Agata is attending with a friend. She says the election of Donald Trump has made people more worried. “He wants to pull out [of Europe]. That’s why we feel even less safe. If we’re not prepared and Russia attacks us, we’ll simply become their prisoners.”

Statements by Donald Trump and members of his administration have caused deep concern among officials in Warsaw. During a visit to the Polish capital in February, the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said Europe mustn’t assume that the US troop presence on the continent “will last forever”.

The US currently has 10,000 troops stationed in Poland, but Washington announced last month it was pulling out of a key military base in the city of Rzeszow in the east of Poland. Officials say the troops will be redeployed within Poland, but the move has caused yet more unease in the country.

Donald Trump’s apparent hostility towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and warm words for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have only added to the worry.

Poland is due to sign a defence agreement with France in the coming days, and another pact with the UK is in the pipeline – further moves by Warsaw to pivot away from its historically strong military ties with Washington. There is also talk of Poland being brought under the French military’s “nuclear umbrella”.

“I think [Trump] has certainly pressed us to think more creatively about our security,” says Tomasz Szatkowski, the permanent representative of Poland to Nato and presidential advisor on defence. “I think the US can’t afford to lose Poland, because that would be a sign… that you can’t rely on the US. However, we do have to think of other options and develop our own capabilities.”

“If the Russians continue their aggressive intentions towards Europe, we’re going to be the first one – the gatekeeper,” Mr Szatkowski says. He ascribes Poland’s rapid military build-up to “first of all, the geopolitical situation, but also, the experience of history.”

The painful legacy of Russian occupation can be felt everywhere here.

At a state-run care home in Warsaw, 98-year-old Wanda Traczyk-Stawska recalls the last time Russian forces invaded – in 1939, when a pact between Stalin and Hitler resulted in Poland being carved up between the USSR and Nazi Germany.

“In 1939 I was twelve years old. I remember my father was very concerned about [the Russians],” Wanda recalls, “We knew that Russia had attacked us, they took advantage of the fact that the Germans had exposed us.”

On a shelf is a photograph of Wanda as a fighter, brandishing a machine gun during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when the Polish underground fought the German Army amidst the ruins of the city. After pushing back the Germans in the dying days of World War Two, the Soviet Union installed a pro-Moscow regime in Poland, which ruled the country until 1989.

Currently, around 216,000 servicemen and women make up the Polish armed forces. The government says they intend to increase that to half a million, including reservists – which would give it the second-largest military in Nato after the United States.

I ask Wanda whether she thinks it’s a good thing that Poland is building up its military. “Of course, yes. Russia has this aggression written into its history. I’m not talking about people, but the authorities are always like that,” she sighs. “It is better to be a well-armed country than to wait for something to happen. Because I am a soldier who remembers that weapons are the most important thing.”

Eighty years since the end of World War Two, Poles are once again eyeing their neighbours nervously. In a warehouse in southern Poland, by popular demand, one company has constructed a mock-up of a bomb shelter.

“These shelters are designed primarily to protect against a nuclear bomb, but also against armed attacks,” says Janusz Janczy, the boss of ShelterPro, who shows me around the steel bunker, complete with bunk beds and a ventilation system. “People are building these shelters simply because they don’t know what to expect tomorrow.”

Janusz says demand for his shelters has soared since Donald Trump took office. “It used to be just a few phone calls a month. Now there are dozens a week,” he says, “My clients are most afraid of Russia. And they’re concerned that Nato wouldn’t come to defend Poland.”

But are Poles ready to defend the country if those fears become a reality? A recent poll found that only 10.7% of adults said they would join the army as volunteers in the event of war, and a third said they would flee.

On a sunny afternoon in Wroclaw, I ask Polish students whether they’d be ready to defend their country if attacked. Most say they wouldn’t. “The war is very close but feels quite far,” says medical student Marcel, “but if Russia attacked, I think I’d run.”

“I would probably be the first one trying to escape the country,” says another student, Szymon. “I just don’t really see anything worth dying for here.”

Last week’s deadly militant attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, which claimed 26 civilian lives, has reignited a grim sense of déjà vu for India’s security forces and diplomats.

This is familiar ground. In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan – targeting militant bases.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

And before that, the horrific 2008 Mumbai attacks – a 60-hour siege on hotels, a railway station, and a Jewish centre – claimed 166 lives.

Each time, India has held Pakistan-based militant groups responsible for the attacks, accusing Islamabad of tacitly supporting them – a charge Pakistan has consistently denied.

Since 2016, and especially after the 2019 airstrikes, the threshold for escalation has shifted dramatically. Cross-border and aerial strikes by India have become the new norm, provoking retaliation from Pakistan. This has further intensified an already volatile situation.

Once again, experts say, India finds itself walking the tightrope between escalation and restraint – a fragile balance of response and deterrence. One person who understands this recurring cycle is Ajay Bisaria, India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan during the Pulwama attack, who captured its aftermath in his memoir, Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship between India and Pakistan.

“There are striking parallels between the aftermath of the Pulwama bombing and the killings in Pahalgam,” Mr Bisaria told me on Thursday, 10 days after the latest attack.

Yet, he notes, Pahalgam marks a shift. Unlike Pulwama and Uri, which targeted security forces, this attack struck civilians – tourists from across India – evoking memories of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. “This attack carries elements of Pulwama, but much more of Mumbai,” he explains.

“We’re once again in a conflict situation, and the story is unfolding in much the same way,” Mr Bisaria says.

A week after the latest attack, Delhi moved quickly with retaliatory measures: closing the main border crossing, suspending a key water-sharing treaty, expelling diplomats, and halting most visas for Pakistani nationals – who were given days to leave. Troops on both sides have exchanged intermittent small-arms fire across the border in recent days.

Delhi also barred all Pakistani aircraft – commercial and military – from its airspace, mirroring Islamabad’s earlier move. Pakistan retaliated with its own visa suspensions and suspended a 1972 peace treaty with India. (Kashmir, claimed in full by both India and Pakistan but administered in parts by each, has been a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed nations since their partition in 1947.)

In his memoir, Mr Bisaria recounts India’s response after the Pulwama attack on 14 February 2019.

He was summoned to Delhi the morning after, as the government moved quickly to halt trade – revoking Pakistan’s most-favoured-nation status, granted in 1996. In the following days, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) imposed a 200% customs duty on Pakistani goods, effectively ending imports, and suspended trade at the land border at Wagah.

Mr Bisaria notes that a broader set of measures was also proposed to scale down engagement with Pakistan, most of which were subsequently implemented.

They included suspending a cross-border train known as the Samjhauta Express, and a bus service linking Delhi and Lahore; deferring talks between border guards on both sides and negotiations over the historic Kartarpur corridor to one of Sikhism’s holiest shrines, halting visa issuance, ceasing cross border, banning Indian travel to Pakistan, and suspending flights between the two countries.

“How hard it was to build trust, I thought. And how easy was it to break it,” Mr Bisaria writes.

“All the confidence-building measures planned, negotiated, and implemented over years in this difficult relationship, could be slashed off on a yellow notepad in minutes.”

The strength of the Indian high commission in Islamabad was reduced from 110 to 55 only in June 2020 after a separate diplomatic incident. (It now stands at 30 after the Pahalgam attack.) India also launched a diplomatic offensive.

A day after the attack, then foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale briefed envoys from 25 countries – including the US, UK, China, Russia, and France – on the role of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the Pakistan-based militant group behind the bombing, and accused Pakistan of using terrorism as state policy. JeM, designated a terrorist organisation by India, the UN, the UK, and the US, had claimed responsibility for the bombing.

India’s diplomatic offensive continued on 25 February, 10 days after the attack, pushing for JeM chief Masood Azhar‘s designation as a terrorist by the UN sanctions committee and inclusion on the EU’s “autonomous terror list”.

While there was pressure to abrogate the Indus Waters Treaty – a key river water sharing agreement – India opted instead to withhold any data beyond treaty obligations, Mr Bisaria writes. A total of 48 bilateral agreements were reviewed for possible suspension. An all-party meeting was convened in Delhi, resulting in a unanimous resolution.

At the same time, communication channels remained open – including the hotline between the two countries’ Directors General of Military Operations (DGMO), a key link for military-to-military contact, as well as both high commissions. In 2019, as now, Pakistan said the attack was a “false-flag operation”.

Much like this time a crackdown in Kashmir saw the arrest of over 80 “overground workers” – local supporters who may have provided logistical help, shelter, and intelligence to militants from the Pakistan-based group. Rajnath Singh, then Indian home minister, visited Jammu and Kashmir, and dossiers on the attack and suspected perpetrators were prepared.

In a meeting with the external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Mr Bisaria told her that “that India’s diplomatic options in dealing with a terrorist attack of this nature was limited”.

“She gave me the impression that some tough action was round the corner, after which, I should expect the role of diplomacy to expand,” Mr Bisaria writes.

On 26 February, Indian airstrikes – its first across the international border since 1971 – targeted JeM’s training camp in Balakot.

Six hours later, the Indian foreign secretary announced the strikes had killed “a very large number” of militants and commanders. Pakistan swiftly denied the claim. More high-level meetings followed in Delhi.

The crisis escalated dramatically the next morning, 27 February, when Pakistan launched retaliatory air raids.

In the ensuing dogfight, an Indian fighter jet was shot down, and its pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, ejected and landed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Captured by Pakistani forces, his detention in enemy territory triggered a wave of national concern and further heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Mr Bisaria writes India activated multiple diplomatic channels, with US and UK envoys pressing Islamabad. The Indian message was “any attempt by Pakistan to escalate situation further or to cause harm to the pilot would lead to escalation by India.”

Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan announced the pilot’s release on 28 February, with the handover occurring on 1 March under prisoner of war protocol. Pakistan presented the move as a “goodwill gesture” aimed at de-escalating tensions.

By 5 March, with the dust settling from Pulwama, Balakot, and the pilot’s return, India’s political temperature had cooled. The Cabinet Committee on Security decided to send India’s high commissioner back to Pakistan, signalling a shift towards diplomacy.

“I arrived in Islamabad on 10 March, 22 days after leaving in the wake of Pulwama. The most serious military exchange since Kargil had run its course in less than a month,” Mr Bisaria writes,

“India was willing to give old-fashioned diplomacy another chance…. This, with India having achieved a strategic and military objective and Pakistan having claimed a notion of victory for its domestic audience.”

Mr Bisaria described it as a “testing and fascinating time” to be a diplomat. This time, he notes, the key difference is that the targets were Indian civilians, and the attack occurred “ironically, when the situation in Kashmir had dramatically improved”.

He views escalation as inevitable, but notes there’s also a “de-escalation instinct alongside the escalation instinct”. When the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meets during such conflicts, he says, their decisions weigh the conflict’s economic impact and seek measures that hurt Pakistan without triggering a backlash against India.

“The body language and optics are similar [this time],” he says, but highlights what he sees as the most significant move: India’s threat to annul the Indus Waters Treaty. “If India acts on this, it would have long-term, serious consequences for Pakistan.”

“Remember, we’re still in the middle of a crisis,” says Mr Bisaria. “We haven’t yet seen any kinetic [military] action.”

Australians will head to the polls tomorrow to elect a new government.

But the country’s 18 million eligible voters won’t just be going to pick their preferred candidate – they’ll also be fulfilling a legal obligation.

Since 1924, voting has been compulsory for all Australian citizens over the age of 18, with failure to vote carrying a fine of A$20 ($13; £10).

Today, while many countries are struggling to get people to the ballot box, Australia boasts one of the highest voter turnouts in the world.

The country’s last federal election in 2022 saw ballots counted from around 90% of eligible voters, according to official statistics.

For comparison, the voter turnout for the UK general election in 2024 was 60%, while the figure for the US presidential election in the same year was 64%.

Compulsory voting has broad popular support in Australia, and is seen as a way to capture representation from the majority of society – not just the majority of people who choose to vote.

Here’s what you need to know about compulsory voting in Australia.

You can be exempted from voting with a valid reason, but Australian authorities have put in place a variety of policies to reduce barriers to voting. For one, elections are held on Saturdays, when more workers will be free to go down to polling stations.

Employers are also required to give workers paid leave on election day to ensure that people have enough time to go vote.

An added incentive for people to perform their democratic duty are “democracy sausages”, grilled on barbeques near polling booths. These snacks have become icons of Australian elections, often making them the largest fundraising events of the year for local schools and community groups.

Voting became compulsory for federal elections when the Electoral Act was amended in 1924, and the effect was swift and stark: voter turnout surged from less than 60% in the 1922 election to more than 91% in 1925.

A big argument for compulsory voting in Australia is the legitimacy it grants the election winner.

“Proponents of compulsory voting argue that a parliament elected by a compulsory vote more accurately reflects the will of the electorate,” reads a guide published by the Australian Election Commission.

“Compulsory voting is claimed to encourage policies which collectively address the full spectrum of elector values,” said the commission. On the flipside, it notes, compulsory voting also runs the risk of “pork barrelling” – the use of government funds for projects that will curry favour with voters – as parties focus on winning over voters on the margins.

While there is no scientific consensus on how compulsory voting affects the policy issues championed by political parties, many believe it counters political polarisation by drawing out more moderate voters.

Conversely, places without compulsory voting may see parties appealing to more extreme voter bases.

“That means they can be tempted towards much more extreme political issues,” historian Judith Brett told the BBC in 2022, when the last Australian federal election was held. “Whereas because everybody has to vote, in a way it pulls politics towards the centre.”

Compulsory voting also helps ensure that marginalised people are better represented, said Ms Brett. Research shows that people who are less affluent are also less likely to vote.

“Now that means that politicians, when they’re touting for votes, know that all of the groups, including the poor, are going to have a vote,” Brett said. “And I think that makes for a more egalitarian public policy.”

Compulsory voting is fairly uncontroversial in Australia.

National surveys since 1967 show public support for the laws have consistently hovered around 70%.

Over the decades there have been individuals campaigning to end compulsory voting, arguing that citizens should have the right to choose whether to vote at all – but such calls have gained little traction among the wider population.

In 2022, 77% of Australians said they would have still voted if it was voluntary.

Conservatives in Canada are trading blame for Monday night’s election loss, showing that Pierre Poilievre will need to heal divisions within the movement as he fights to stay on as leader.

As a clear Liberal win was emerging on election night, Conservative candidates and their supporters had one question: What the heck just happened?

The party had lost a remarkable 27-point lead in opinion polls and failed to win an election for the fourth time in a row.

And while it gained seats and earned almost 42% of the popular vote – its highest share since the party was founded in 2003 – its leader Poilievre was voted out of the seat he had held for the past 20 years.

“Nobody’s happy about that,” Shakir Chambers, a Conservative strategist and vice-president of Ontario-based consultancy firm the Oyster Group, told the BBC.

The party is now trying to work out how it will move forward.

At the top of the agenda will be finding a way for the Conservatives to perform their duties as the Official Opposition – the second-place party in Canada’s parliament whose job is to hold the sitting government to account – without their leader in the House.

Ahead of a caucus meeting next Tuesday to discuss this, Poilievre announced on Friday his plan to run in an Alberta constituency special election to win back a seat.

That special election will be triggered by the resignation of Conservative MP-elect Damien Kurek, who said he will voluntarily step down to let Poilievre back in after what he called “a remarkable national campaign”.

“An unstoppable movement has grown under his leadership, and I know we need Pierre fighting in the House of Commons,” Kurek said in a statement.

Unlike the US, federal politicians in Canada do not have to live in the city or province they run in. Poilievre grew up in Alberta, however, and will likely win handily as the constituency he is running in is a Conservative stronghold.

A big question is whether Poilievre still has the backing of his own party to stay on as leader. Mr Chambers said the answer, so far, is a resounding yes.

“Pierre has a lot of support in the caucus,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anybody that wants him removed, or that has super high ambitions that wants to replace him as leader.”

A number of high-profile Conservatives have already rallied behind him. One of them is Andrew Scheer, a current MP and former leader of the party, who said Poilievre should stay on to “ensure we finish the job next time”.

Others are casting blame on where they went wrong.

Jamil Jivani, who won his own constituency in a suburb of Toronto handily, felt that Ontario leader Doug Ford had betrayed the conservative movement and cost the party the election.

The federal and provincial Conservative parties are legally different entities, though they belong to the same ideological tent, and Ford is leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party.

He frequently made headlines during the election campaign for his get-tough attitude with Donald Trump and the US president’s trade war.

“He couldn’t stay out of our business,” Jivani told a CBC reporter.

Jivani, who in a past life attended Yale University with US Vice-President JD Vance, where the two became good friends, accused Ford of distracting from the federal Conservatives’ campaign and of “positioning himself as some political genius that we need to be taking cues from”.

But Mr Chambers, the Conservative strategist, said that Poilievre will also need to confront where the party fell short.

Poilievre, who is known for his combative political style, has struggled with being unlikeable among the general Canadian public.

He has also failed to shore up the support of popular Conservative leaders in some provinces, like Ontario’s Ford, who did not campaign for Poilievre despite his recent landslide victory in a provincial election earlier this year. Ford did, however, post a photo of him and Liberal leader Mark Carney having a coffee.

“Last time I checked, Pierre Poilievre never came out in our election,” Ford told reporters earlier this week. “Matter of fact, he or one of his lieutenants told every one of his members, ‘don’t you dare go out and help'”.

“Isn’t that ironic?”

Another Conservative premier, Tim Houston of Nova Scotia – who also did not campaign for Poilievre – said the federal party needs to do some “soul-searching” after its loss.

“I think the Conservative Party of Canada was very good at pushing people away, not so good at pulling people in,” Houston said.

Not every premier stood on the sidelines. Poilievre was endorsed by Alberta’s Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe, both western Conservatives.

Kory Teneycke, Ford’s campaign manager, who publicly criticised Poilievre’s campaign during the election, angering federal Conservatives, rejected the notion that Ford’s failure to endorse Poilievre had cost him the election.

He told the BBC that, to him, the bigger problem was Poilievre’s failure to unite Conservative voters in Canada.

“What constitutes a Conservative in different parts of the country can look quite different,” he said, adding that Poilievre’s populist rhetoric and aggressive style appealed to Conservatives in the west, but alienated those in the east.

“There was a lot of Trump mimicry in terms of how they presented the campaign,” Mr Teneycke said.

“Donald Trump is public enemy number one to most in Canada, and I don’t think it was coming across very well.”

He added he believes some of the “soul-searching” by Poilievre’s Conservatives will need to include a plan of how to build a coalition of the right in a country “as big and diverse as Canada”.

Asked by reporters what it would take to heal the rift, Ford answered: “All they have to do is make a phone call.”

Coastal areas of Chile and Argentina were evacuated after Chilean authorities issued a tsunami warning following a 7.4 magnitude earthquake off the country’s southern coast.

Thousands of people made their way to higher ground after the earthquake struck in the Drake Passage between Cape Horn, on the southern tip of South America, and Antarctica on Friday at 09:58 local time (12:58 GMT).

The US Geological Survey said its epicentre was 219km (136 miles) from Ushuaia, Argentina – the world’s most southerly city.

The tsunami warning was issued for Chile’s remote Magallanes region and the Chilean Antarctic Territory, with precautionary measures also taken in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego region.

The earthquake struck at a shallow depth of 10km (6 miles), the US Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Residents in affected areas were advised to act calmly and follow the instructions of the authorities.

In a post on X, Chilean President Gabriel Boric said: “We call for evacuation of the coastline throughout the Magallanes region.”

More than 1,700 people moved to higher ground in the sparsely-populated area, including 1,000 from the town of Puerto Williams and 500 from Puerto Natales, , according to Chile’s disaster agency (Senapred).

Some 32 people also followed evacuation procedures in Chile’s Antarctic research bases, Senapred added. The agency has issued its highest level of alert for disasters, meaning all resources can be mobilised to respond.

Footage posted on social media showed people calmly heading for higher ground in the remote town of Puerto Williams, with sirens blaring in the background.

Chile’s police force also posted a video showing an officer pushing a person in a wheelchair up a hill in the town, home to around 2,800 people.

In Argentina, the earthquake was felt primarily in Ushuaia, with other towns affected “to a lesser extent”, the office for the governor of the region said.

An official from the region’s civil protection agency told local media that around 2,000 people had been evacuated away from the Argentine coastline.

Chile is often affected by earthquakes, with three tectonic plates converging within its territory.