The Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse has 128 rooms. From 7 May, it will be filled with cardinals participating in the conclave to elect the next Pope. But one room in the guesthouse is still sealed with a red ribbon, as it has been since its occupant died there on Easter Monday.

That suite will only be reopened when the new pope is chosen. The ribbon remains a tangible reminder of the man whose shoes the cardinals are looking to fill – but Pope Francis’s presence looms large over this conclave in many profound ways.

He spent 12 years in the role and appointed around 80% of the cardinals who will select his successor. He also looked to radically shake up the workings of the Catholic Church, moving its centre of gravity away from its hierarchy at the Vatican in the direction of the rank-and-file faithful all over the world, and focused on the poor and marginalised.

My conversations with cardinals and those assessing the needs of the Church in the days leading to this papal election almost always end up looking at what is required through the prism of what Pope Francis did in the role.

While in recent days there appears to have been a growing coalescence around the idea that Francis’s work should be built on, some of his critics remain far from convinced. So might there be enough of them to sway the vote as the Church attempts to reconcile the different outlooks and realities it faces around the globe?

During the two weeks that followed the Pope’s death, the cardinals met almost daily at the Vatican for pre-conclave gatherings known as general congregations.

While the conclave in the Sistine Chapel is limited to cardinals who haven’t yet reached the age of 80 (133 will participate in this one), these preliminary meetings are open to all 252 cardinals. Each attendee was given up to five minutes to air their views, though we know that some took longer.

It was during such a meeting ahead of the last conclave of 2013, in a speech lasting less than four minutes, that Pope Francis – then known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina – made an impact, talking of a need to connect with those in the far reaches of the Catholic world.

As Pope, he made a conscious drive to appoint cardinals from such places. It is why this is the most diverse conclave there has ever been. For the first time Cape Verde, Haiti, South Sudan, Tonga, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda will be represented.

That diversity has already made its mark: the pre-conclave meetings are said to have brought to the fore just how different the needs of the Church appear to be depending on where in the world they are viewed.

In Europe, for example, a primary consideration for some might be finding ways to reinvigorate and make relevant the mission of the Church in the face of shrinking congregations, whereas elsewhere – in African or Asian countries – concerns may revolve around social issues, poverty and conflict resolution.

A prospective pope is likely to be one who has at least shown recognition of those very different realities.

The official titles that the new pope will inherit gives a sense of the breadth of the role: Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City among them.

While some relate to the deeply spiritual, the last of those titles suggests the need for a statesman too, given that the pope is leader of a country, albeit the world’s smallest.

“Unlike your average state, the agenda of the Vatican is driven to an extent by where the pope reigning at the time puts their emphasis,” says Chris Trott, British ambassador to the Holy See. “On the face of it a very tiny state, [but it is] one that punches many, many times above its weight.

“And Pope Francis had 50 million followers on Twitter, so [it is] a very, very small state and an incredible global influencer.”

Pope Francis chose to amplify this part of the role, becoming a powerful global spokesman on behalf of those on the margins, including the poor and victims of war.

He also tried to play the role of peacemaker, though not everyone thought he was successful in that regard, in relation to China and Russia in particular.

According to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the most senior Catholic figure in England and Wales, this expansion of the role is one reason so many even outside the faith are invested in the outcome of the conclave.

“There is a sense that the Pope in the person of Pope Francis became a figure who addressed everybody in the world… religious people and even those who do not have a religious affiliation,” he says.

“I’m more and more aware that it’s not just Catholics who are interested in this.”

For many voting cardinals, it is primarily issues within the Catholic Church that are under the spotlight, which brings about the question of the type of pope they want as a manager, and someone who runs the Church’s administrative body and its ministries.

While Pope Francis worked on improving the way the Church deals with the huge issues of sexual abuse and of financial corruption, it is his successor who will have to ensure that reforms are evenly applied across the Catholic world.

Even supporters of Pope Francis’s efforts to make changes to the way the Church relates to its rank-and-file believers, and the way he built bridges with those outside the faith, were sometimes left confused about how exactly he envisioned things should work.

Pope Francis changed the tone on social issues through comments he made, talking openly about subjects ranging from climate change to financial transparency within the Vatican. But throughout his papacy, some were unclear about what he meant or how it would be applied.

One mission he had was to take some of the power and decision-making away from the Vatican hierarchy and into the hands of rank-and-file Catholics.

Over nearly four years, at great effort, he commissioned what was, in effect, a poll of many of the world’s Catholics to find out what mattered to them. Lay people were invited to participate in the most recent bishop’s conference where the results of the survey were discussed.

The biggest issues raised related to greater roles for women in the running of the church and welcoming LGBT+ Catholics. But the meeting ended in some confusion, with little in the form of tangible steps forward and little clarity as to how lay people will help steer the future direction of the Church.

So, there is a general keenness for greater clarity from the new pope.

Throughout his pontificate, some vocal traditionalists opposed what they saw as Pope Francis straying from Church teaching and long-standing tradition.

In the pre-conclave meetings of cardinals, a number of those over the age of 80 (who because of their age would not be involved in voting) took the opportunity to play their part.

Most contributions remained secret, but one that was reported was that of 83-year-old Italian cardinal, Beniamino Stella. He criticised Pope Francis for “imposing his own ideas” by attempting to move Church governance away from the clergy.

And yet during the homily, or religious speech, at Pope Francis’s funeral, what appeared to resonate with the public in attendance – judging by the volume of the applause – was talk of the themes Francis chose to champion: the dignity of migrants, an end to war, and the environment.

This applause would have been heard loud and clear by the rows of cardinals.

In some senses, Pope Francis did have clarity in focusing on the Church being relevant to people in their daily lives and, indeed, their struggles. He was clear about connecting with the world outside the faith too.

“There is a sense that in the voice of the pope, there’s a voice of something that is needed,” says Cardinal Nichols. “For some people it’s a moral compass, for some people it’s the sense of being accepted, for some people it’s the insistence that we must look at things from the point of view of the poorest.

“That’s a voice that has fallen silent and our task is to find someone who can carry that forward.”

From the death of Pope Francis to the moment cardinals checked into the Santa Marta guesthouse and its overflow residences, there appeared to be a trend towards a desire for continuity of what Pope Francis had achieved.

Though perhaps that vision of continuity is one that could bring along more of his sceptics, in a way that was pragmatic. The word “unity” has been talked of a lot, after a period where the divides between supporters and detractors of the Pope’s vision could sometimes become ugly.

But in the end, when they step into the Sistine Chapel, the holiest of voting chambers, for all the pragmatism they may have taken into consideration before they cast their ballot, they will be urged to let God and the Holy Spirit guide them.

On Wednesday evening, under the domed ceiling of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, 133 cardinals will vote to elect the Catholic Church’s 267th pope.

The day will begin at 10:00 (09:00 BST) with a mass in St Peter’s Basilica. The service, which will be televised, will be presided over by Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old Cardinal Dean who was also the celebrant of Pope Francis’ funeral.

In the early afternoon, mobile signal within the territory of the Vatican will be deactivated to prevent anyone taking part in the conclave from contacting the outside world.

Around 16:15 (15:15 BST), the 133 cardinal electors will gather in the Pauline Chapel and form a procession to the Sistine Chapel.

All the while they will be singing a litany and the hymn Veni Creator – an invocation to the Holy Spirit, which is seen as the guiding hand that will help cardinals choose the new Pope.

Once in the Sistine Chapel, one hand resting on a copy of the Gospel, the cardinals will pronounce the prescribed oath of secrecy which precludes them from ever sharing details about how the new Pope was elected.

When the last of the electors has taken the oath, a meditation will be held. Then, the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations Diego Ravelli will announce “extra omnes” (“everybody out”).

He is one of three ecclesiastical staff allowed to stay in the Sistine Chapel despite not being a cardinal elector, even though they will have to leave the premises during the counting of the votes.

The moment “extra omnes” is pronounced marks the start of the cardinals’ isolation – and the start of the conclave.

The word, which comes from the Latin for “cum clave”, or “locked with key” is slightly misleading, as the cardinals are no longer locked inside; rather, on Tuesday Vatican officials closed the entrances to the Apostolic Palace – which includes the Sistine Chapel- with lead seals which will remain until the end of the proceedings. Swiss guards will also flank all the entrances to the chapel.

Diego Ravelli will distribute ballot papers, and the cardinals will proceed to the first vote soon after.

While nothing forbids the Pope from being elected with the first vote, it has not happened in centuries. Still, that first ballot is very important, says Austen Ivereigh, a Catholic writer and commentator.

“The cardinals who have more than 20 votes will be taken into consideration. In the first ballot the votes will be very scattered and the electors know they have to concentrate on the ones that have numbers,” says Ivereigh.

He adds that every other ballot thereafter will indicate which of the cardinals have the momentum. “It’s almost like a political campaign… but it’s not really a competition; it’s an effort by the body to find consensus.”

If the vote doesn’t yield the two-third majority needed to elect the new pope, the cardinals go back to guesthouse Casa Santa Marta for dinner. It is then, on the sidelines of the voting process, that important conversations among the cardinals take place and consensus begins to coalesce around different names.

According to Italian media, the menu options consist of light dishes which are usually served to guests of the residence, and includes wine – but no spirits. The waiters and kitchen staff are also sworn to secrecy and cannot leave the grounds for the duration of the conclave.

From Thursday morning, cardinals will be taking breakfast between 06:30 (05:30 BST) and 07:30 (06:30 BST) ahead of mass at 08:15 (07:15 BST). Two votes then take place in the morning, followed by lunch and rest. In his memoirs, Pope Francis said that was when he began to receive signals from the other cardinals that serious consensus was beginning to form around him; he was elected during the first afternoon vote. The last two conclaves have all concluded by the end of the second day.

There is no way of knowing at this stage whether this will be a long or a short conclave – but cardinals are aware that dragging the proceedings on could be interpreted as a sign of gaping disagreements.

As they discuss, pray and vote, outside the boarded-up windows of the Sistine Chapel thousands of faithful will be looking up to the chimney to the right of St Peter’s Basilica, waiting for the white plume of smoke to signal that the next pope has been elected.

Two weeks after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, India has launched a series of strikes on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The Indian defence ministry said the strikes – named “Operation Sindoor” – were part of a “commitment” to hold those responsible for the 22 April attack which left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead “accountable”.

But Pakistan, which has denied any involvement in last month’s attack, has described the strikes as “unprovoked”, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished”.

So what exactly has happened – and how did India and Pakistan get here?

Delhi said in the early hours of Wednesday morning that nine different locations had been targeted in both Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan.

It said these sites were “terrorist infrastructure” – places where attacks were “planned and directed”.

It emphasised that it had not hit any Pakistani military facilities, saying its “actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.

According to Pakistan, three different areas were hit: Muzaffarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Bahawalpur in the Pakistani province of Punjab.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told GeoTV that the strikes hit civilian areas, adding that India’s claim of “targeting terrorist camps” is false.

Ahmed Sharif, a spokesperson for the Pakistani military, later told the BBC that seven people, including two children, had been killed in the strikes.

The strikes come after weeks of rising tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours over the shootings in the picturesque resort town of Pahalgam.

The 22 April attack by a group of militants saw 26 people killed, with survivors saying the militants were singling out Hindu men.

It was the worst attack on civilians in the region in two decades, and sparked widespread anger in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country would hunt the suspects “till the ends of the Earth” and that those who planned and carried it out “will be punished beyond their imagination”.

However, India has not named any group it suspects carried out the attack in Pahalgam and it remains unclear who did it.

But Indian police have alleged two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, with Delhi accusing Pakistan of supporting militants – a charge Islamabad denies. It says it has nothing to do with the 22 April attacks.

In the two weeks since, both sides had taken tit-for-tat measures against each other – including expelling diplomats, suspending visas and closing border crossings.

But many expected it would escalate to some sort of cross-border strike – as seen after the Pulwama attacks which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead in 2019.

Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, but administered only in part by each since they were partitioned following independence from Britain in 1947.

The countries have fought two wars over it.

But more recently, it has been attacks by militants which have brought the two countries to the brink. Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, with militants targeting security forces and civilians alike.

This was the first major attack on civilians since India revoked Article 370 that gave Kashmir semi-autonomous status in 2019.

Following the decision, the region saw protests but also witnessed militancy wane and a huge increase in the number of tourists visiting the region.

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.

Neither spiralled, but the wider world remains alert to the danger of what could happen if it did. Attempts have been made by various countries and diplomats around the world to stop the current situation escalating.

Already, UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for “maximum restraint”, while US President Donald Trump said he hoped the fighting “ends very quickly”.

India has announced that it will stop its water from flowing over international borders.

“Now, India’s water will flow for India’s benefit, it will be conserved for India’s benefit, and it will be used for India’s progress”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.

While he did not mention Pakistan specifically, Modi’s comments come about two weeks after India suspended a 65-year-old water sharing treaty with its neighbour.

Relations between India and Pakistan have declined sharply following a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month. India accuses Pakistan of backing cross-border terrorism – a charge Islamabad flatly denies.

Several rivers flow from India into Pakistan, providing vital water supplies to about 80% of farms there. Pakistani leaders previously warned that any attempt to stop the flow of water “will be considered as an act of war”.

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which governs the water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between India and Pakistan, survived two wars between the nuclear rivals and was seen as an example of trans-boundary water management.

Modi’s suspension of the treaty was one of several steps he took against Pakistan after the attack, which killed 26 civilians.

The PM did not elaborate on how India plans to use the excess water, and experts say the country needs to build more dams, reservoirs and lakes to store it, which will take time to build.

The escalation prompted the US to repeat its calls for calm.

“We continue to urge Pakistan and India to work towards a responsible resolution that maintains long-term peace and regional stability in South Asia,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.

US and Chinese officials are set to start talks this week to try to deescalate a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will attend the talks in Switzerland from 9 to 12 May, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer will represent Washington at the meeting, their offices announced.

Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has imposed new import taxes on Chinese goods of up to 145%. Beijing has hit back with levies on some goods from the US of 125%.

But global trade experts have told the BBC that they expect negotiations to take several months.

It will be the first high-level interaction between the two countries since Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng attended Trump’s inauguration in January.

Mr Bessent said he looked forward to rebalancing the international economic system to better serve the interests of the US.

“My sense is that this will be about de-escalation, not about the big trade deal, but we’ve got to de-escalate before we can move forward,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

“If the United States wants to resolve the issue through negotiations, it must face up to the serious negative impact of unilateral tariff measures on itself and the world,” a Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday morning.

Chinese State Media reported that Beijing had decided to engage with the US after fully considering global expectations, the country’s interests and appeals from American businesses.

The report added that China’s is open to talks but reiterated that if the country decides to continue to fight this trade war – it will fight to the end.

The trade war has triggered turmoil in financial markets and sent shockwaves across global trade.

Two trade experts told the BBC that they were not particularly optimistic about the talks, at least in the initial phase.

“You have to start somewhere, so I’m not saying it isn’t worthwhile. Just unlikely to be the launch event people are hoping to see,” said Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation.

“We should expect to see a lot of back and forth, just like what happened last time in 2018,” Henry Gao, Professor of Law at Singapore Management University and a former Chinese lawyer on the World Trade Organization secretariat said.

“I would expect the talks to drag on for several months or even more than a year”.

Financial markets in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed after the announcements, while US stock futures rose.

Stock futures are contracts to buy or sell an underlying asset at a future date and are an indication of how markets will trade when they open.

Investors are also waiting for the US central bank to make its latest announcement on interest rates on Wednesday afternoon.

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.

The UK and India have agreed a trade deal that will make it easier for UK firms to export whisky, cars and other products to India, and cut taxes on India’s clothing and footwear exports.

The British government said the “landmark” agreement, which took three years to reach, did not include any change in immigration policy, including towards Indian students studying in the UK.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the deal would boost the economy and “deliver for British people and business”.

Last year, trade between the UK and India totalled £42.6bn and was already forecast to grow, but the government said the deal would boost that trade by an additional £25.5bn a year by 2040.

• India trade deal could undercut UK business, opposition parties say

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, described the agreement as an historic milestone that was “ambitious and mutually beneficial”.

The pact would help “catalyse trade, investment, growth, job creation, and innovation in both our economies”, he said in a post on social media platform X.

Once it comes into force, which could take up to a year, UK consumers are likely to benefit from the reduction in tariffs on goods coming into the country from India, the Department for Business and Trade said.

That includes lower tariffs on:

• clothing and footwear
• cars
• foodstuffs including frozen prawns
• jewellery and gems

The government also emphasised the benefit to economic growth and job creation from UK firms expanding exports to India.

UK exports that will see levies fall include:

• gin and whisky
• aerospace, electricals and medical devices
• cosmetics
• lamb, salmon, chocolates and biscuits
• higher value cars

The British government said the deal was the “biggest and most economically significant” bilateral trade agreement the UK had signed since leaving the European Union in 2020.

UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the benefits for UK businesses and consumers were “massive”.

Tariffs on gin and whisky, a key sticking point in negotiations previously, will be halved to 75%, with further reductions taking effect in later years.

Tariffs of 100% on more expensive UK-made cars exported to India will fall to 10%, subject to a quota limiting the total number.

The deal also includes provisions on the services sector and procurement allowing British firms to compete for more contracts.

Under the terms of the deal, some Indian and British workers will also gain from a three-year exemption from social security payments, which the Indian government called “an unprecedented achievement”.

The exemption applies to the staff of Indian companies temporarily transferred to the UK, and to UK firms’ workers transferred to India. Social security contributions will be paid by employers and employees in their home country only, rather than in both places.

The UK already has similar reciprocal “double contribution convention” agreements with 17 other countries including the EU, the US and South Korea, the government said.

However, leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch described the agreement as “two-tier taxes from two-tier Keir”, with Labour’s increase in employer NI contributions from the Budget coming into force last month.

Shadow trade secretary Andrew Griffith said: “Every time Labour negotiates, Britain loses”.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said it was “very worrying to hear concerns that Indian workers coming over here, companies may not have to pay taxes on those workers” and called for MPs to be allowed to vote on the deal.

The government said the National Insurance exemption would not affect NHS funding, since Indians working in the UK would still be required to pay the immigration health surcharge.

India, currently the fifth largest economy in the world, is forecast to become the third-largest within in a few years, making it a desirable trading partner for the UK, currently the world’s sixth largest economy.

The UK is also a high priority trading partner for Prime Minister Modi’s government, which has an ambitious target to increase exports by $1 trillion by 2030.

The deal is a win for free trade at a time when US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff campaign has put the idea on the defensive and raised fears of tit-for-tat trade wars.

It appears to have increased the impetus to strike this trade deal.

Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of business lobby group, the CBI, welcomed the deal saying it provided a “beacon of hope amidst the spectre of protectionism” following Trump’s wave of tariffs.

UK businesses saw “myriad” opportunities in the Indian market, she added.

Allie Renison, from communications firm SEC Newgate, and a former government trade adviser, said the deal was potentially “transformational” due to India’s size, growth rate and relatively high existing barriers to accessing its market.

Mark Carney has told Donald Trump that Canada “is not for sale” as the president raised the prospect of the country becoming the 51st US state while welcoming the prime minister to the White House.

Carney won election last month promising to “stand up” to Trump, who has imposed tariffs on some Canadian products and sometimes talks about annexing the country.

The former central banker responded with a firm but measured tone after the president proposed a “wonderful marriage” of incorporating Canada into the US.

Despite a strained relationship recently between the once-close neighbours, the two men also lavished praise on each other in what was a largely cordial Oval Office meeting.

Trump has imposed general tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico and sector-specific import taxes on cars, some of which have been suspended pending negotiations.

The US president, who accuses Canada of not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl south, has levied similar duties on steel and aluminium.

Tuesday’s meeting was the first time the two had met since Carney won Canada’s general election on 28 April, a victory many have credited to concerns in that country about Trump.

• Live updates from Carney-Trump meeting

But the two leaders began with warm words, with Trump describing Carney as “a very talented person”.

He also hailed his guest’s election win as “one of the greatest comebacks in the history of politics, maybe even greater than mine”.

Carney said Trump was a “transformational president”, with “a relentless focus on the American worker, securing your border, and securing the world” and said he had “revitalised” Nato.

But friction arose when Trump again argued that Canada would be better off as part of the US.

Carney came prepared with a carefully worded response.

“As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale,” he told property magnate Trump, likening Canada to the Oval Office itself and to Britain’s Buckingham Palace.

“Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign in the last several months, it’s not for sale. Won’t be for sale, ever.”

Trump replied: “Never say never.”

The US leader traced his own red line when a journalist in the Oval Office asked if Carney could say anything to persuade him to lift tariffs.

“No,” he replied. “It’s just the way it is.”

“This was a very friendly conversation,” he added. “But we want to make our own cars.”

Trump once again argued that the US was subsidising Canada’s military and did not need Canadian goods such as aluminium and steel.

He said he and Carney would discuss “tough points” at their meeting, but “regardless of anything, we’re going to be friends with Canada”.

Trump also criticised his visitor’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, with whom he had an adversarial relationship.

Still, he said the meeting with Carney was in stark contrast to another recent Oval Office “blow-up” – a reference to a disastrous visit from Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky in February.

Notably, Trump also downplayed the prospect of trade deals, even though his administration has repeatedly pointed to the over 80 countries the White House says are hoping to negotiate as a sign of progress.

“Everyone says, ‘When, when, when are you going to sign deals?,” Trump said. “We don’t have to sign deals, they have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don’t want a piece of their market.”

Carney said that he “pressed the case” to Trump on lifting tariffs, and found him to be “willing to have that negotiation”.

“I think that’s the main thing. That doesn’t presuppose the outcome of the negotiation,” Carney added at a news conference at the Canadian embassy in Washington DC. “There’ll be zigs and zags. Difficult aspects to it. But the prospect is there.”

Carney did not speculate on timing, saying only that both leaders and their teams would speak again in the coming weeks.

Additionally, Carney said he again asked that Trump stopped calling for Canada to become a US state. He added that he believed it important to distinguish between “wish and reality”.

“He’s the president. He’s his own person,” Carney said. “He understands that we’re having a negotiation between sovereign nations.”

During Canada’s election campaign, Carney argued he was the leader who could fight Trump’s “betrayal”, as well as push back against US threats to Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

In his victory speech, the Liberal leader went as far as to say that the formerly tight US-Canadian relationship was “over” and that Canadians must “fundamentally re-imagine our economy” in the Trump era.

More than $760bn (£570bn) in goods flowed between Canada and the US last year. Canada is the US’ second-largest individual trading partner after Mexico, and the largest export market for US goods.

Donald Trump said the US would stop attacking the Houthis in Yemen because the group had “capitulated”, as Oman confirmed a “ceasefire” had been reached with the Iran-backed group for it to stop targeting shipping in the Red Sea.

“[The Houthis] just don’t want to fight, and we will honour that and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated,” he said, speaking alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the White House.

Shortly afterwards the Omani foreign minister posted that the deal meant neither side would target the other, “ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping”.

The Houthis have yet to comment.

The US stepped up air strikes on the Houthis in March and the US military says it has struck 1,000 targets in Yemen since then.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said the Houthis would “not be blowing up ships anymore”.

“The Houthis have announced that they are not, or they announced to us at least, that they don’t want to fight anymore… but, more importantly, we will take their word.

“They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore and that’s what the purpose of what we were doing… so that’s just news we just found out about that.”

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi said his country had mediated efforts to achieve de-escalation.

“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping” he said.

The Houthis began attacking shipping passing through the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, who have been under bombardment by the Israeli military since the Palestinian armed group Hamas attacked Israeli communities in October 2023.

They have launched dozens of missile and drone attacks on commercial ships, sinking two vessels, seizing a third and killing four crew members. The attacks forced even major shipping companies to stop using the Red Sea – through which almost 15% of global seaborne trade usually passes – and to take a much longer route around southern Africa instead.

US-led naval forces thwarted many Houthi attacks on shipping and former US president Joe Biden began US air strikes against the Houthis, which have intensified under Trump.

Last month, the Houthis said at least 68 African migrants were killed in a US air strike on a detention centre in north-western Yemen.

The Houthis have continued firing missiles towards Israel, with one missile landing near Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Sunday.

On Tuesday Israel responded with a large-scale attack on Yemen’s main international airport in the capital Sanaa, which left it “completely destroyed” according to an airport official quoted by AFP.

Other Israeli strikes hit power facilities and a cement factory. On Monday Israel bombed port facilities in Hudaydah and another cement factory in the city.

Conservative leader Friedrich Merz has won a parliament vote to become Germany’s next chancellor at the second attempt.

Merz had initially fallen six votes short of the absolute majority he needed on Tuesday morning – a significant blow to his prestige and an unprecedented failure in post-war German history.

As it was a secret ballot in the 630-seat Bundestag, there was no indication who had refused to back him – whether MPs from his centre-left coalition partner or his own conservatives.

After hours of uncertainty in the Bundestag, the parties and the president of the Bundestag agreed to hold a second vote, which Merz then won with 325 votes, a majority of nine.

His coalition with the Social Democrats should have had enough seats in parliament from the start, with 328 MPs in total, but it is thought 18 of them dissented during the first vote.

No chancellor candidate has lost a Bundestag vote in the 76 years since democracy was restored in Germany in 1949, and there was a prevailing mood of confusion in parliament in the hours after the vote.

Under Germany’s constitution, there is no limit to how many votes can be held but in practice another defeat for Merz would have meant a headache for his Christian Democrats, its sister party the Christian Social Union and their partner the Social Democrats.

The result meant a total debacle had been averted, declared one German news website.

Merz, 69, was then sworn in as chancellor by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and his team of 17 ministers were due to take office.

Bundestag President Julia Klöckner had originally been planning a follow-up vote on Wednesday, but Christian Democrat General Secretary Carsten Linnemann said it was important to press ahead.

“Europe needs a strong Germany, that’s why we can’t wait for days,” he told German TV.

Parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn appealed to his colleagues’ sense of responsibility: “All of Europe, perhaps the whole world, is watching this ballot.”

Merz’s defeat had been seen by political commentators as a humiliation, possibly inflicted by a handful of disaffected members of the Social Democrat SPD, which signed a coalition deal with his conservatives on Monday.

The Bundestag president told MPs that nine of the 630 MPs had been absent for the first vote while three had abstained and another ballot paper had been declared invalid.

Germany’s new Europe Minister, Gunther Krichbaum, told the BBC that some MPs may have hoped for a ministerial or state secretary role and had their hopes dashed. He also pointed out that some young Social Democrats had publicly said they were not convinced by Merz.

However, SPD officials were adamant their party was fully committed to the coalition deal.

“It was a secret vote so nobody knows,” senior Social Democrat MP Ralf Stegner told the BBC, “but I can tell you I don’t have the slightest impression that our parliamentary group wouldn’t have known our responsibility.”

Krichbaum, a conservative, said the clear message was that “now we are today in the situation to create a stable government” to tackle Germany’s big issues, including migration and the economy.

Far-right party Alternative for Germany, which came second in the February election with 20.8% of the vote, seized on Merz’s initial failure and called for fresh elections.

Joint leader Alice Weidel wrote on X that the vote showed “the weak foundation on which the small coalition has been built between the [conservatives] and SPD, which was rejected by voters”.

Merz’s choice for foreign minister, Christian Democrat colleague Johann Wadephul, told the BBC the initial vote was “an obstacle but not a catastrophe”.

Germany’s handover of government is carefully choreographed. On the eve of Tuesday’s vote, outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz was treated to a traditional Grand Tattoo by an armed forces orchestra.

Merz had then been expected to sail through the initial vote on Tuesday morning, fulfilling a long-held ambition to become German chancellor.

His rival and former chancellor Angela Merkel had come to the Bundestag to watch the vote take place. She was not present for the second vote.

Among the first international leaders to congratulate Germany’s conservative leader was Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, who hoped that Germany would “grow even stronger and that we’ll see more German leadership in European and transatlantic affairs”.

Political correspondents in the Bundestag said Merz’s initial shock result indicated he had a potential problem lurking within his coalition ranks.

AfD MP Bernd Baumann said the CDU had promised a string of policies similar to his own party’s, such as limiting migration, and had then gone into an alliance with the centre left: “That doesn’t work. That’s not how democracy works.”

“This isn’t good,” warned Green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt. “Even though I don’t want this chancellor or support him, I can only warn everyone not to rejoice in chaos.”

Barely 24 hours earlier, the messaging from Merz had been very different, of a new, stable government bringing six months of political paralysis to an end.

“It’s our historical duty to make this government a success,” he had said as he signed the coalition document on Monday.

Despite having a narrow majority of 12 seats, the agreement between the conservatives and centre left was seen as far more secure than the so-called traffic-light coalition of three parties that fell apart last November in a row over debt spending.

The SPD, which had been the biggest party in the old coalition slumped to its worst post-war election result in third place, but Merz had promised that Germany was back and that he would boost its voice on the world stage and revive a flagging economy.

After two years of recession, Europe’s largest economy grew in the first three months of 2025. However economists have warned of potential risks to German exports because of US-imposed tariffs.

Germany’s services sector contracted last month because of weaker demand and lower consumer spending.

As the sun set over Lake Turkana, a mother sobbed and threw flowers into the greenish-blue water to remember her teenage daughter who had drowned trying to reach Kenya via a new route being used by people smugglers.

Senait Mebrehtu, a Pentecostal Christian Eritrean who had sought asylum in Kenya three years ago, made the pilgrimage to north-western Kenya to see for herself where 14-year-old Hiyab had lost her life last year.

The girl had been travelling with her sister, who survived the late-night crossing over the vast lake, where winds can be powerful.

“If the smugglers told me there was such a big and dangerous lake in Kenya, I wouldn’t have let my daughters come this far,” Ms Senait told the BBC as she sat on the western shoreline.

Ms Senait had arrived by plane in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on a tourist visa with her two younger children, fleeing religious persecution. But she was not to allowed to travel with her two other daughters at the time as they were older and nearer the age of conscription.

Eritrea is a highly militarised, one-party country – and often national service can go on for years and can include forced labour.

The teenagers begged to join her in Kenya, so she consulted relatives who told her they would pay smugglers to get the girls out of Eritrea.

The fate of the two girls was put into the hands of traffickers who took them on a weeks-long trip by road and foot from Eritrea into neighbouring northern Ethiopia – then to the south into Kenya to the north-eastern shores of Lake Turkana, the world’s largest permanent desert lake.

A female smuggler in Kenya confirmed to the BBC that Lake Turkana was increasingly being used as an illegal crossing for the migrants.

“We call it the digital route because it is very new,” she said.

The trafficker, who earns around $1,500 (£1,130) for each migrant she traffics into or through Kenya (four times the average monthly salary of a Kenyan worker), spoke to us about her work at a secret location and on condition of anonymity.

For the last 15 years she has been part of a huge smuggling network that operates across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa – mainly moving those fleeing from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.

With Kenya having stepped up patrols on its roads, smugglers are now turning to Lake Turkana to get migrants into the country.

“Agents” on the new route, she said, received the migrants in the Kenyan fishing village of Lomekwi where road transport was organised to take them to Nairobi – a journey of about 15 hours.

Warning of the dangers of travelling on the rickety wooden boats, she appealed to parents not to allow their children to make the crossing alone.

“I won’t say I love the money I make – because as a mother I can’t be happy when I see bad things happening to other women’s children,” she told the BBC.

“I’d like to advise migrants if they’ll listen to me. I’d like to beg them to stay in their countries,” she said, further cautioning of the callous attitudes of many traffickers.

Osman, an Eritrean migrant who did not want to give his real name for security reasons, made the crossing at the same time as Hiyab and her sister.

He recalled how Hiyab’s boat capsized in front of his eyes not long after leaving the fishing village of Ileret as it was heading south-west to Lomekwi.

“Hiyab was in the boat in front of us – its motor wasn’t working and it was being propelled by a strong wind,” he said.

“They were about 300m [984ft] into the water when their boat overturned, resulting in the deaths of seven people.”

Hiyab’s sister survived by clinging to the sinking boat until another vessel – also operated by the smugglers – came to the rescue.

Ms Senait blamed the smugglers for the deaths, saying they overloaded the boat with more than 20 migrants.

“The cause of deaths was plain negligence. They put too many people in a small boat that couldn’t even carry five people,” she said.

During the BBC’s visit to Lomewki, two fishermen said they saw the bodies of migrants – believed to be Eritreans – floating in the lake, which is around 300km (186 miles) long and 50km wide, in July 2024.

“There were about four bodies on the shores. Then, a few days later other bodies appeared,” Brighton Lokaala said.

Another fisherman, Joseph Lomuria, said he saw the bodies of two men and two women – one of whom appeared to be a teenager.

In June 2024, the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, recorded 345,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in East Africa, out of 580,000 globally.

Like Ms Senait’s family, many flee to avoid military conscription in a country that has been embroiled in numerous wars in the region, and where free political and religious activity is not tolerated as the government tries to keep a tight grip on power.

Uganda-based Eritrean lawyer, Mula Berhan, told the BBC that Kenya and Uganda were increasingly becoming the preferred destination of these migrants because of conflict in Ethiopia and Sudan, which both neighbour Eritrea.

The female smuggler said in her experience some of the migrants did settle in Kenya, but others used as the country as a transit point to reach Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa, believing it easier to get refugee status there.

The smuggling network operates in all these countries, handing over migrants to different “agents” until they reach their final destination, which – in some cases – can also be Europe or North America.

Her job is to hand over those migrants who are in transit in Nairobi to agents who keep them in “holding houses” until the next leg of their trip is arranged and paid for.

By this stage each migrant has probably paid around $5,000 for the journey up to that point.

The BBC saw a room in a block of flats that was being used as a holding house. Five Eritrean men were locked inside the room, which had one mattress.

In the holding houses, migrants are expected to pay rent and also pay for their food – and the smuggler said she knew of three men and a young woman who had died of hunger as they had run out of cash.

She said the agents simply disposed of the bodies and called their deaths bad luck.

“Smugglers keep lying to the families saying their people are alive, and they keep on sending money,” she acknowledged.

Women migrants, she said, were often sexually abused or forced to get married to male smugglers.

She said she herself had no intention of giving up the lucrative trade but felt others should be aware of what could be ahead of them.

It is little comfort for Ms Senait, who still mourns the death of her 14-year-old while expressing relief that her elder daughter survived and was unharmed by the smugglers.

“We have gone through what every Eritrean family is going through,” she said.

“May God heal our land and deliver us from all this.”

• East Africa hit by drought, yet Kenya’s Lake Turkana is flooding
• I recognised my sister in video of refugees captured in Sudan war
• ‘They threw her body into the ocean’ – woman dies on boat headed for French island
• ‘Try or die’ – one man’s determination to get to the Canary Islands

Sometimes in war it is the smallest sound that can make the loudest statement.

In Gaza’s Nasser hospital, a five-month-old girl struggles to cry.

Siwar Ashour is hoarse. Her voice has been robbed of the energy to fully communicate her distress. She cannot absorb regular formula milk and doctors say the Israeli blockade now in its third month means supplies of the food she needs are scarce.

Siwar sounds as if the weight of the war is pressing down on her lungs.

Her mother Najwa, 23, is changing Siwar’s nappy. She weighs just over 2kg (4lb 6oz). A baby girl of five months should be around or over 6kg.

“There was no food when I gave birth to her,” says Najwa.

“If I wanted to feed myself so I could breastfeed her, I had no nutrients to make my health better… She now only drinks formula milk, and we don’t know how we’ll be able to provide it for her.”

Israel has banned international journalists from entering Gaza to report independently.

A local BBC colleague filmed the unmistakable signs of advanced malnutrition on Siwar’s body. The head that seems far too big for her frame. The stick-like arms and legs. The ribs pressing against her skin when she tries to cry. The large brown eyes that follow her mother’s every small movement.

Najwa worries about what will happen when she must leave the hospital.

“The hospital provided with great difficulty some milk for her, they searched all of the hospitals but they could only find it in one. They told me that they will give me one bottle when we leave, but it is barely enough for four days. Her father is blind and he can’t provide a bottle of milk for her, and even if we found it, it would be expensive, and he doesn’t work.”

According to Siwar’s doctor, Ziad al-Majaida, it was her second stay in the hospital. She was back because of the shortage of milk formula.

“Nothing enters through the borders, no milk, food or anything. This leads to big problems here for the kids. This baby needs a specific type of milk. It was available before, but because of the border closure, the stocks have run out for a while now.”

The hospital is trying to find more supplies but Siwar is weak and suffering from constant diarrhoea.

“If she stays like this, her life will be in danger, but if her milk or treatment were provided, then her state would improve,” says Dr Majaida.

Since the beginning of the year, according to the UN, about 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified. Food prices have rocketed by as much as 1,400%.

Charity kitchens, which have helped hundreds of thousands of Gazans, are shutting as food supplies run out. Twenty-five bakeries supported by the World Food Programme have been forced to close.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, where Nasser hospital is located, our journalist visited a kitchen run by Shabab Gaza (Gaza Youth), which delivers food directly to families. Enough for a meal a day per family.

The head of the charity, Mohammad Abu Rjileh, 29, said three of their four kitchens had closed due to lack of supplies. Looting by criminal gangs, and by desperate civilians has deepened the supply crisis.

“Many of the organisations that support us had their warehouses looted. Instead of having enough ingredients to cook 10,000 meals daily – ingredients that were expected to last us an additional week or 10 days – we now have enough for only one or two days. If no immediate solution is implemented and the borders are not opened as soon as possible, we will be forced to stop cooking.”

Israel cut off all humanitarian aid and other supplies from entering Gaza on 2 March, and resumed its military offensive two weeks later, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release the 59 hostages the group is still holding in Gaza, up to 24 of whom are still thought to be alive.

The United Nations has said the Israeli blockade constitutes “a cruel collective punishment” on civilians.

The UN’s humanitarian director, former British diplomat Tom Fletcher, said that international law was unequivocal.

“As the occupying power, Israel must allow humanitarian support in… Aid, and the civilian lives it saves, should never be a bargaining chip,” he warned.

I put this point to Boaz Bismuth, a leading member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. He denies there is an aid crisis caused by the blockade.

“There is food in Gaza… Israel wouldn’t do such a restriction if the population didn’t have food. I mean, I know my country perfectly well,” he said.

I put it to Bismuth that he was denying the evidence of people’s eyes, that children were starving.

“There are not starving children. I repeat again.” He said that there had been allegations months ago of famine, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza “which was crap”.

“Nothing has really changed because we’re Israel, and we obey not only international law, but also humanitarian law.”

“What we want is our hostages back and Hamas out of Gaza. The war can be over in exactly 30 seconds.”

Israel has long accused Hamas of hijacking aid, which Hamas denies.

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, based in the occupied West Bank, recently claimed most of the looting was being done by gangs associated with Hamas.

He also called the movement “sons of dogs” and demanded the release of Israeli hostages. Hamas responded by saying Abbas “repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation [Israel] and its ongoing aggression on our people”.

Without being able to enter Gaza and report independently, it is difficult to investigate the unfolding events.

Violent criminal gangs have been heavily implicated in stealing aid. Hamas is threatening violence against groups and individuals it accuses of theft.

Two people were shot outside an Unrwa warehouse but it is not clear who killed them. A local activist who was present blamed Hamas. 

“Hamas is hoarding food, depriving the hungry population of food, and selling food at very high prices. The population protested and demanded that the food be distributed or they would take it by force. Hamas fired live ammunition at the hungry,” said Moumen al-Natour, a lawyer and protest leader.

All of this is happening in the context of a growing hunger and the breakdown in order that has accompanied the war and blockade.

The Israeli cabinet has approved an escalation of the military offensive in Gaza. It says it aims to destroy Hamas – a goal that has proved elusive for the last 19 months of war.

There are also reports that Israel plans to use private security companies to oversee the distribution of aid in Gaza, although no date for this has been made public.

The United Nations and major aid agencies have described this as a politicisation of aid with which they will refuse to co-operate.

The day Germany’s new leader entered office will now forever be remembered for a very public failure.

Friedrich Merz’s initial, shock defeat – in his bid to become chancellor – sparked hours of chaotic uncertainty.

A man who’d been working to project strength and purpose instead became mired in political intrigue and division.

Merz may have won on the second try, but today’s messy path to power raises serious questions about the future government.

If he couldn’t muster the votes amongst coalition colleagues – at such a key moment – how will he fare when trying to push through any contentious legislation?

It comes as Germany faces a prolonged recession, fractious arguments on immigration, potentially seismic decisions on defence spending and a surging far-right political force.

But Merz’s allies insist the situation can quickly be recovered and reject the idea that Merz emerges irreparably damaged.

“Now we are looking in front and forward,” says Gunther Krichbaum, a veteran of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and Germany’s new Europe Minister.

“So I think we will have a very, very good and also stable government,” he told the BBC.

“This is not only necessary for Germany but also Europe.”

Berlin’s allies have been impatient to see an effective administration, after the bickering that characterised the last, collapsed coalition government.

But Merz now heads off for his planned trips to Warsaw and Paris on Wednesday in the shadow of a tumultuous Tuesday.

There’s speculation aplenty as to which MPs, in the secret ballot, didn’t back Merz on the first round – and why.

Disgruntled people, passed over for government jobs, is one theory.

Did members within the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) decide that they had to protest at the political compromises struck with Merz’s centre-right party?

Or did the forthright Merz – and ambitious SPD Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil – struggle to rally their own ranks?

Figures from both sides were quickly keen to suggest that the other was chiefly to blame.

Whichever MPs did the deed they were, it seems, willing to risk making Merz and his acolytes sweat.

Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), who are suing Germany’s domestic intelligence service for classing the party as extremist, had a ringside seat for the whole show.

Following February’s election, the AfD is the main opposition party and pounced on events as evidence of the fundamental weaknesses within a coalition made up of the centre-right CDU/CSU parties and centre-left SPD.

“It is very clear that this government… will be a very, very unstable one,” says Beatrix von Storch, the AfD’s deputy group leader.

She also echoed claims that it was all further proof that the so-called “firewall” of non-cooperation with her party will not last.

“This has shown that this firewall has to fall if you want to have a shift in politics in Germany,” von Storch told the BBC.

Also watching on from the Reichstag’s visitors’ gallery was Merz’s old political rival from within the CDU, former chancellor Angela Merkel.

He once lost out to her in a power struggle but returned later to politics – to try and realise his long-held dream of taking the top job.

This can’t have been the way in which Merz envisioned entering office.

But, more importantly, the spectacle leaves his claims of being ready to provide firm government, significantly undermined on day one.

I ran from the White House briefing room, past the portico entrance of the West Wing to our camera position on the lawn, and flung on an ear piece connecting me to the studio.

A moment later the presenter asked me about the comments we had just heard live from US President Donald Trump.

I said we were seeing a fundamental shift in a United States’ policy position after decades of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It was February this year, and Trump had just held talks with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – the first foreign leader since Trump’s inauguration to be invited to the White House. The US president vowed that his country would take control of the Gaza Strip, having earlier pledged the territory would also be “cleaned out” and emptied of its Palestinian population.

Trump was grabbing the world’s attention with a proposal that hardened his administration’s support for Israel and also upended international norms, flying in the face of international law. It marked an apex of the current Republican Party’s relationship with Israel – sometimes described as support “at all costs”.

The alliance between the two countries had been thrust into the international spotlight after the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s offensive in Gaza that followed.

During that war, the administration of President Joe Biden sent some $18bn (£13.5bn) worth of weapons to Israel, maintaining unprecedented levels of US backing. The period was marked by intensifying protests in the US, with many of those protesting being traditional Democrat leaning voters. The fallout became the focus of a bitter culture war centring on American attitudes towards Israel and the Palestinians. I covered demonstrations in which protesters repeatedly labelled Biden “Genocide Joe” – an accusation he always rejected.

At the time Donald Trump branded the protesters “radical-left lunatics” and the Trump administration is now targeting for deportation hundreds of foreign students who it accuses of antisemitism or support for Hamas, a move being vigorously challenged in the courts.

But as a Democrat who could otherwise have expected the vote of many of those upset over his support for Israel that support was politically costly for Biden in a way not experienced by previous presidents or, indeed, Trump.

One of Biden’s key decision makers over relations with Israel still wrestles with the decisions they took.

“My first reaction is just, I understand that this has evoked incredibly passionate feelings for Arab Americans, for non-Arab Americans, Jewish Americans,” says Jake Sullivan, Biden’s former national security adviser.

“There were two competing considerations: one was wanting to curb Israel’s excesses, both with respect to civilian casualties and the flow of humanitarian assistance. The other was […] wanting to make sure that we were not cutting Israel off from the capabilities it needed to confront its enemies on multiple different fronts.”

He added: “The United States stood behind Israel materially, morally, and in every other way in those days following October 7th.”

But opinion polls suggest support for Israel among the American public is dwindling.

A Gallup survey taken in March this year found only 46% of Americans expressed support for Israel (the lowest level in 25 years of Gallup’s annual tracking) while 33% now said they sympathised with the Palestinians – the highest ever reading of that measure. Other polls have found similar results.

Surveys – with all their limitations – suggest the swing is largely among Democrats and the young, although not exclusively. Between 2022 and 2025, the Pew Research Center found that the proportion of Republicans who said they had unfavourable views of Israel rose from 27% to 37% (younger Republicans, aged under 49, drove most of that change).

The US has long been Israel’s most powerful ally – ever since May 1948, when America was the first country to recognise the nascent State of Israel. But while US support for Israel is extremely likely to continue long-term, these swings in sentiment raise questions over the practical extent and policy limits of the US’s ironclad backing and whether the shifting sands of public opinion will eventually feed through to Washington, with real-world policy impacts.

To many, the close relationship between the US and Israel seems like a permanent, unshakeable part of the geopolitical infrastructure. But it wasn’t always guaranteed – and at the very beginning largely came down to one man.

In early 1948, US President Harry S Truman had to decide on his approach to Palestine. The country was in the grip of sectarian bloodshed between Jews and Arab Palestinians after three decades of colonial rule by Britain, which had announced its intention to pull out. Truman was deeply moved by the plight of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust stranded in displaced persons camps in Europe.

In New York City, a young Francine Klagsbrun, who would later become an academic and historian of Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, watched her parents praying for a Jewish homeland.

“I grew up in a very Jewish home and a very Zionist home also,” she explains. “So my older brother and I would go out and collect money to try to get England to open the doors. My brother would go on the subway trains, all the doors open on the train and he’d shout ‘open, open, open the doors to Palestine’,” she recalls.

Truman’s administration was deeply divided over whether to back a Jewish state. The CIA and the Department of State cautioned against recognising a Jewish state. They feared a bloody conflict with Arab countries that might draw in the US, risking Cold War escalation with the Soviets.

Two days before Britain was due to pull out of Palestine, an explosive row took place in the Oval Office. Truman’s domestic advisor Clark Clifford argued in favour of recognising a Jewish state. On the other side of the debate was Secretary of State George Marshall, a World War Two general whom Truman viewed as “the greatest living American”.

The man Truman admired so much was vigorously opposed to the president immediately recognising a Jewish state because of his fears about a regional war – and even went as far as telling Truman he would not vote for him in the coming presidential election if he backed recognition.

But despite the moment of extraordinary tension, Truman immediately recognised the State of Israel when it was declared two days later by David Ben-Gurion, the country’s first prime minister.

The historian Rashid Khalidi, a New York-born Palestinian whose family members were expelled from Jerusalem by the British in the 1930s, says the US and Israel were fused together in part by shared cultural connections. From 1948 onwards, he says, the Palestinians had a critical diplomatic disadvantage in the US, with their claim to national self-determination sidelined in an unequal contest.

“On the one side, you had the Zionist movement led by people whom are European and American by origin… The Arabs had nothing similar,” he says. “[The Arabs] weren’t familiar with the societies, the cultures, the political leaderships of the countries that decided the fate of Palestine. How could you speak to American public opinion if you had no idea what America is like?” says Khalidi.

Popular culture played its role too – notably the 1958 novel and subsequent blockbuster film Exodus by the author Leon Uris. It retold the story of Israel’s establishment to mass audiences of the 1960s, the movie version creating a heavily Americanised portrayal of pioneers in a new land.

Ehud Olmert, who at the time was a political activist but would later become Israeli prime minister, points to the war of 1967 as the moment when America’s support for Israel became the profound alliance that it is today.

That was the war in which Israel, after weeks of escalating fears of invasion by its neighbours, defeated the Arab countries in six days, effectively tripling the size of its territory, and launching its military occupation over (at that time) more than a million stateless Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

“For the first time, the United States understood the importance and the significance of Israel as a major military and political power in the Middle East, and since then everything has changed in the basic relations within our two countries,” he says.

Over the years, Israel became the biggest recipient of US foreign military aid on Earth. Strong American diplomatic support, particularly at the United Nations, has been a key element of the alliance; while successive US presidents have also sought to broker peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

But in recent years it has been far from a straightforward relationship.

When I spoke to Jake Sullivan, I put to him the issue of Arab Americans in the state of Michigan who boycotted Biden and his successor candidate Kamala Harris over the extent of their support for Israel during the Gaza conflict, voting instead for Trump. He rejected the idea that Biden lost the state because of this support.

But that backing still prompted a marked backlash within a section of the American public.

A Pew Research Center survey taken in March this year found that 53% of Americans expressed an unfavourable opinion of Israel, an 11 point increase since the last time the survey was taken in 2022.

Currently, these shifts in public opinion haven’t yet prompted a major change in US foreign policy. Whilst some ordinary US voters are turning away from Israel, on Capitol Hill elected politicians from both parties are still mostly keen to talk up the importance of a strong alliance with Israel.

Some think that a sustained, long-term shift in public opinion might eventually lead to reduced real-world support for the country – with weaker diplomatic ties and reduced military aid. This issue is felt particularly sharply by some inside Israel. Several months before 7 October, the former Israeli general and head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Tamir Hayman, warned of cracks forming between his country and the United States, in part because of what he described as the slow movement of American Jews away from Zionism.

Israel’s political shift in favour of the national-religious right has played a key part in this. From early 2023, Israel was gripped by an unprecedented wave of protests among Jewish Israelis against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, with many arguing he was moving the country towards theocracy – a claim he always rejected. Some in the US who had always felt a deep sense of connection with Israel were watching with growing concern.

In March this year, the Institute for National Security Studies, a leading Tel Aviv-based think tank led by Hayman, published a paper arguing that US public opinion had entered the “danger zone”, as far as support for Israel was concerned. “The dangers of diminished US support, particularly as it reflects long-term and deeply rooted trends, cannot be overstated,” wrote the paper’s author, Theodore Sasson. “Israel needs the support of the global superpower for the foreseeable future,”.

That support at the policy level has only strengthened over the decades, but it is important to note that historic American opinion polling shows public opinion has ebbed and flowed before.

Today, Dennis Ross, who helped negotiate the Oslo accords with President Bill Clinton, says American opinion on Israel has become increasingly tied to sharp political divisions in the US.

“Trump is viewed very negatively by most Democrats – the latest polls show over 90 percent,” Ross says. “There’s potential for Trumpian support for Israel to feed a dynamic here that, at least among Democrats, increases criticism of Israel.”

But he expects that Washington’s support for Israel – in the form of military aid and diplomatic ties – will continue. And he thinks if Israeli voters eject their prime minister and replace him with a more centrist government, one that may reverse some of the disquiet in the US. A general election must be held in Israel before late October next year.

Under such a new Israeli government, Ross argues, “there won’t be the same impulse towards creating de-facto annexation of the West Bank. There’ll be much more outreach to the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party officials.”

Those who see a fraying relationship are paying particularly close attention to the views of younger Americans – a group that has shown the most marked shift in opinion since 7 October. As the ‘TikTok generation’, many young Americans get their news about the war from social media and the high civilian death toll from Israel’s offensive in Gaza appears to have driven the declining support among young Democrats and liberals in America. Last year, 33 percent of Americans under 30 said their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with the Palestinian people, versus 14 percent who said the same about Israelis, according to a Pew Research poll published last month. Older Americans were more likely to sympathise with the Israelis.

Karin Von Hippel, chair of the Arden Defence and Security Practice and a former official in the US State Department, agrees there is a demographic divide among Americans on the topic of Israel – one that even extends to Congress.

“Younger Congress men and women are less knee jerk, reactively supporting Israel,” she says. “And I think younger Americans, including Jewish Americans, are less supportive of Israel than their parents were.”

But she is sceptical of the idea that this might lead to a serious change at the policy level. Despite changing opinions among the party’s base, she says, many of the most prominent Democrats who might run for President in 2028 are “classically supportive of Israel”. She names Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, and Pete Buttigieg, the former Transportation Secretary, as examples. And what about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Instagram-famous congresswoman who is a long-standing supporter of Palestinian rights? Hippel responds bluntly: “I don’t think an Ocasio-Cortez type can win right now.”

In the weeks after February’s Trump-Netanyahu press conference at the White House, I asked Jake Sullivan where he thought the US-Israel relationship was going. He argued that both countries were dealing with internal threats to their democratic institutions that would define their character and their relationship.

“I think it’s almost less of a foreign policy question than it is a domestic policy question in these two countries – whither America and whither Israel?” he says. “The answer to those two questions will tell you where does the US-Israel relationship go five, ten, fifteen years from now.”

It has long been the great prize for Britain’s post-EU trade freedom – a deal with what is now the world’s most populous country.

India has agreed its most generous free trade agreement with the UK, which is at the same time Britain’s biggest post-Brexit trade deal.

It means a big boost for key UK exports such as whisky and cars which will see very high tariffs or taxes on imports slashed.

This is not a normal deal taking two way trade down to zero tariffs. India is a highly protectionist economy. So, while 99% of tariffs on India’s exports to the UK will be eradicated, 85% of British exports will not be tariffed going to India.

But because British exports are so much higher value than Indian exports of clothing, footwear, and food, this should be worth £15bn extra for British exports and £10bn for India by 2040. This could change, though. For example, 88,000 cheaper Indian cars will now be able to be imported tariff free.

The UK government sees this as a win-win which helps exporters, creates jobs, and means lower prices for consumers. This is all part of, in Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds words, making the UK the “most connected market in the world” – with a Brexit reset, a deal with the US, “pragmatism” on China, and new deals with India, and soon the Gulf.

But there is also a much bigger picture here. This is the worlds fifth and sixth biggest economies doing a much closer deal to increase trade at a time when the top two – the US and China – are involved in a brutal trade war, and the Trump administration is tariffing everywhere.

This may be one of the reasons why this elusive deal, coveted by many previous governments, has finally got over the line. It also turns the page on decades of missed economic opportunities, given the strong historic connections between the two nations.

This must be the most secretive election in the world.

When 133 Catholic cardinals are shut into the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday to choose a successor to Pope Francis, each one will have sworn an oath on the gospels to keep the details under wraps for life.

The same goes for every person inside the Vatican during the conclave: from the two doctors on hand for any emergency, to the dining-room staff who feed the cardinals. All vow to observe “absolute and perpetual secrecy”.

Just to be sure, the chapel and the two guesthouses will be swept for microphones and bugs.

“There are electronic jammers to make sure that phone and wi-fi signals are not getting in or out,” said John Allen, the editor of Crux news site.

“The Vatican takes the idea of isolation extremely seriously.”

The famous lockdown is not only about keeping the voting process itself secret: stopping “nefarious forces” from attempting to hack it for information or to disrupt things.

The measures are also about ensuring the men in red total seclusion from the secular world and its influences as they prepare to vote.

Catholics will tell you the election is guided by God, not politics. But the hierarchy takes no chances.

On entering the conclave, everyone is obliged to surrender all electronic devices including phones, tablets and smart watches. The Vatican has its own police to enforce the rules.

“The logic is trust but verify,” John Allen said.

“There are no televisions, newspapers or radio at the guesthouse for the conclave – nothing,” said Monsignor Paolo de Nicolo, who was head of the Papal household for three decades.

“You can’t even open the windows because many rooms have windows to the exterior world.”

Everyone working behind the high Vatican walls for the conclave has been heavily vetted. Even so, they are barred from communicating with electors.

“The cardinals are completely incommunicado,” said Ines San Martin of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the US.

“There will just be walkie-talkies for some specific circumstances like, ‘we need a medic,’ or ‘Hey, the Pope has been elected, can someone let the bell-ringers in the Basilica know.'”

So what if someone breaks the rules?

“There is an oath, and those who do not observe it risk ex-communication,” Msgr De Nicolo says, meaning exclusion from the church. “No one dares to do this.”

It’s a different matter in the run-up to the conclave.

Officially, the cardinals are banned from commenting even now. But from the moment Pope Francis was buried, parts of the Italian press and many visitors turned cardinal-hunters, trying to suss out his most likely successor.

They have been scouring the tourist-filled restaurants and gelato joints around the Vatican, ready to speculate on any sightings and possible alliances.

“Wine and Rigatoni: the Cardinals’ Last Suppers”, was one headline in La Repubblica which described the “princes of the church” enjoying “good Roman lunches” before lockdown.

Reporters have then been grilling waiters on what they might have overheard.

“Nothing,” one of the servers at Roberto’s, a couple of streets back from St Peter’s, told me this week.

“They always go quiet whenever we get close.”

The other prime spot to catch a cardinal is beside the basilica itself, next to the curve of columns that embraces the main square. Each morning there’s a huddle of cameras and reporters on the lookout for the men in lace and scarlet robes.

There are now close to 250 cardinals in the city, called here from all over the world, although those aged 80 or over are not eligible to vote.

As they head into the Vatican for their daily congregations to discuss the election, each one is surrounded and bombarded with questions on progress.

They’ve given away little in response beyond the “need for unity” or assurances that the conclave will be short.

“The whole idea is for this to be a religious decision, not a political one,” Ines San Martin explains. “We say the Holy Spirit guides the conversation and the vote.”

But the Pope heads a huge, wealthy institution with significant moral authority and global sway on everything from conflict resolution to sexual politics.

So the man chosen – and his vision and priorities – matter far beyond the Vatican.

Certain Catholic monarchs had a veto on the election up until 1907. Today, voices from all quarters try to influence the debate – most obviously through the media.

At one point, Rome’s Il Messaggero chided a presumed front-runner, Italian Cardinal Parolin, for “a sort of self-candidacy”.

Then there was a video clip of Filipino Cardinal Tagle singing John Lennon’s Imagine, apparently released to dent his popularity. It went viral instead.

Meanwhile, a glossy book highlighting some potential contenders is doing the rounds, lauding conservatives like Cardinal Sarah of Guinea for condemning the “contemporary evils” of abortion and the “same-sex agenda”.

“There are groups in town who are trying to bang the drum on issues of interest to them,” John Allen says. “The cardinals are aware of this kind of thing, they read the papers. But they will do everything they can to block it out.”

“Are there lobbies going on? Yes, like in every election,” Ines San Martin agrees. “But it’s not as loud as I thought it would be.”

She argues that is partly because Pope Francis appointed so many new cardinals, including from new places.

“Fifty or sixty percent of them don’t even know one another. So even if you were an outside group, trying to have an agenda, it’s very hard even to pick your cardinals to begin with.”

By Wednesday morning, all the electors should be in place inside the Vatican – stripped of their phones and sealed off from the rest of the world.

From then on John Allen believes personal preference will dominate over politics, liberal or conservative factions or the “rattle and hum of public debate”.

“I really think the cardinals’ discussions among themselves right now is key,” Ines San Martin agrees. “A lot have been speaking up for the first time. You never know just how inspiring one of them might be.”

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Monday night marked one of the world’s biggest nights of fashion, as stars served up their most iconic looks for the annual Met Gala in New York City.

The theme for this year’s event was “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”, the first since 2003 to focus exclusively on menswear.

It was inspired by a newly unveiled exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s costume institute featuring the “black dandy”, which Vogue says “examines the importance of clothing and style to the formation of black identities in the Atlantic diaspora”.

A-list celebrities including Zendaya, Demi Moore and Diana Ross brought their own interpretation to the theme, stunning in tailored suits and dramatic gowns.

• Look back at our live coverage of the Met
• Rihanna reveals she is expecting third child

Here is a look at some of the highlights:

Actress Zendaya, known for her dazzling red carpet style, opted for a wide-brimmed hat and tailored Louis Vuitton cream suit at this year’s Met Gala.

But there was one slight pop of colour: her manicured red nails.

Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny wore a brown Prada suit, which he said he worked on with the Italian fashion house for a few months before the event.

He also stayed on theme by accessorising with embellished gloves, a brooch and a hat that paid homage to his Puerto Rican heritage.

“We did something special,” he said of his look. “I feel good, and I hope people think I’m looking good.”

US reality TV star Kim Kardashian wore an all-black ensemble by LA-based brand Chrome Hearts – a fitted leather top and skirt that she offset with diamond necklaces and two strings of pearls.

She is, of course, no stranger to the Met Gala – having made headlines with a dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in 2022, and a wet-look Thierry Mugler dress in 2019.

Black British designer Grace Wales Bonner dressed British Formula One star Sir Lewis Hamilton for the night. Sir Lewis was a co-chair of this year’s event.

The pair have worked together in the past with Wales Bonner dressing Hamilton for the 2023 British Fashion Awards.

Singer Chappell Roan brought a rare pop of colour to the Met’s blue carpet, in a patchwork hot pink ensemble sourced from eBay.

The singer worked with Wicked costume designer Paul Tazewell on her outfit, while make-up artist Pat McGrath was behind her disco-inspired look.

Demi Moore gave us another round of method dressing.

The American actress’s recent press tour for The Substance recalled the body horror themes of the film, while her awards campaign for the role of Elisabeth Sparkle saw her dressing for the glam statuettes.

Moore understood the assignment for the Met Gala, coming as a literal men’s tie in a sculptural black and white striped sequin gown from Thom Browne.

Rihanna, typically one of the most stylish attendees at the Gala, returned to the Met steps this year in Marc Jacobs, debuting her pregnancy with co-chair of the evening A$AP Rocky.

Legendary singer Diana Ross wore a show-stopping white ensemble, complete with feathers and a long train that required at least two assistants.

On the carpet, Ross said her son persuaded her to attend this year’s event. The last time she attended the Met Gala is 2003.

She added she had the names of her children and grandchildren embroidered on her dress train.

Actress Sydney Sweeney wore a custom Miu Miu gown – her third time wearing the designer at the Met Gala. This time, her dress was complete with beaded fringe shoulders and gold hardware detailing on the neck.

Speaking about her look, Sweeney said it paid homage to actress and painter Kim Novak. Sweeney is set to portray Novak in the upcoming film Scandalous.

A custom-made Chanel look was Dua Lipa’s choice this year.

The chiffon dress, sequin tweed jacket and organza cape – all adorned with pearls, feathers and crystals – took some 2,000 hours to make.

Sabrina Carpenter wore a burgundy Louis Vuitton bodysuit that featured all the tailoring of a regular suit.

The singer said she worked with recording artist Pharrell Williams – also the men’s creative director of Louis Vuitton – on the bottomless look.

“You’re quite short, so no pants for you,” Carpenter recalled Williams telling her.

Irish actor Barry Keoghan wore a custom-made Valentino fit, with florals embroidered on the cuffs and a silk red scarf wrapped around the waist.

New Zealand singer Lorde made a rare appearance at the Met Gala this year (she has not attended since 2021).

She wore a metallic silver floor-length skirt set, and a matching bandeau and blazer designed by Thom Browne.

Olympic gymnast and gold medalist Simone Biles brought a pop of colour to the Met Gala carpet with a striking blue minidress that featured a collared neckline, a long train and jewelled appliques.

The dress was designed by Harbison Studio.

Singer Coco Jones opted for a look designed by Indian brand Manish Malhotra.

She wore a tailored cream and white look that featured ornate embroidery and a dramatic long-sleeve coat. Jones also wore a large statement necklace and Jimmy Choo heels.

Actor and playwright Colman Domingo could have inspired this year’s Met Gala theme, as he’s been carrying the baton for well-dressed men on the red carpet for several years now.

He donned a royal blue Valentino cloak that paid homage to Andre Leon Talley, former editor-at-large on Vogue whom Anna Wintour called “a dandy among dandies.”

The cape later was removed to reveal a second look underneath: a tailored, patterned suit complete with a big fabric, polka-dotted flower brooch.

Actress and singer Teyana Taylor, who hosted Vogue’s live stream of the red carpet, arrived in custom Marc Jacobs on the arm of costume designer Ruth E. Carter. Ms Carter has worked with filmmaker Spike Lee and on the Black Panther movie franchise to create some modern pop cultural cues for the black dandy.

Taylor wore a burgundy cape embroidered with “Harlem Rose,” a nod to her 2018 song A Rose in Harlem.

Social media influencer Emma Chamberlain looked sharp and on theme with a backless tailored suit dress designed by French fashion house Courrèges.

She accessorised the look with a spiky beach blonde pixie cut and stylish eyeglasses.

Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, known for her on-theme style, wore a Givenchy ensemble featuring a bedazzled bodice and an extra-long black train with matching leather boots and nails.

Recording artist Doja Cat wore a custom Marc Jacobs look that featured giant shoulder pads and a leopard-print bustier panel.

“I just wanted to feel like a little gangsta,” she said.

“I feel like he brought that with the strong shape of the shoulders, and all of the exaggerated shapes,” Doja Cat said of Jacobs.

Actress Tracee Ellis Ross, the daughter of Diana Ross, was one of the few people who wore pink at this year’s Met Gala.

She donned a custom Marc Jacobs suit that was complete with a giant, hot pink bow at the back, a matching top hat and some unique bling.

In one of the more memorable looks of the evening, Andre 3000 showed up to the Met Gala carpet with a black and white piano strapped to his back and a trash bag as a purse.

The stylish OutKast rapper designed the look himself in collaboration with Burberry.

Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o wore a stunning powder blue Chanel suit, with a matching hat and transparent cape.

She accessorised the look with bedazzled, black rhinestone eyebrows.

Rapper Cardi B debuted a new hairstyle (and eye colour) in a green Burberry pantsuit, complete with matching nails and eye shadow.

Doechii took brand representation to new levels, stamping the famous Louis Vuitton logo on her face to go along with the motif of her suit.

The American rapper is often seen wearing looks from the French fashion house.

This outfit combined the designer’s two famous patterns – the LV monogram pattern on the waistcoat and jacket, as well as the damier checkerboard on the shorts.

When asked about her outfit on the carpet, Janelle Monáe responded simply – “free” – followed by an expletive.

“And when I’m in my suit, that is exactly how I feel,” she said.

She wore a Thom Brown suit, with whom she’s attended the Met Gala as a guest for the last several years. The look is styled by the Academy Award-winning costume designer for Wicked, Paul Tazewell.

Pop legend Madonna accessorised her cream-colored tuxedo with a cigar, creating an interplay between soft feminine materials and a distinct masculine energy.

It’s a dynamic that the superstar has played with throughout her career.

The Israeli military has said it “fully disabled” Yemen’s main airport in the capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the Houthis.

Tuesday’s strikes targeted three civilian planes, the departures hall, the runway and a military air base, airport sources told Reuters. An official told AFP that the airport had been “completely destroyed”.

The Houthis said at least three people had been killed and vowed to respond.

It comes two days after the Iran-backed Houthis fired a missile that landed near Israel’s main airport, forcing it to close briefly.

Israel began responding on Monday by striking the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah, then targeted Sanaa airport the next day.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that anyone targeting Israel would be held “accountable”.

In a video statement, Netanyahu said whoever attacks Israel “bears responsibility for his own blood”.

“Our choice of when to respond, how to respond and on which targets to respond is a consideration that we make every time,” he added.

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a member of the Houthis’ top political body, meanwhile told Houthi-linked TV that Israel’s attacks were “failed terrorism”.

“Support for Gaza continues, the response is coming, and Netanyahu must prepare his resignation,” he said.

The airport official said the three destroyed planes belonged to Yemenia Airlines.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had attacked runways, aircraft and “infrastructure” at Sanaa airport. It alleged the Houthis were using the airport to “transfer weapons and operatives”.

Israel’s military said it also struck power stations in Sanaa, which it described as “significant electricity supply infrastructure” for the Houthis – as well as the al-Imran cement factory in the north of the city.

Meanwhile on Tuesday President Donald Trump said the US would stop attacking the Houthis after the group “capitulated”.

“[The Houthis] just don’t want to fight, and we will honour that and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated,” he said, speaking alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the White House.

Shortly afterwards the Omani foreign minister posted that the US and the Houthis had agreed a ceasefire deal under which neither side would attack the other “ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping”.

The Israeli strikes on Tuesday followed its attack a day earlier on Hudaydah. The port is the second-largest in the Red Sea after Aden, and is the entry point for about 80% of Yemen’s food imports.

At least four people were killed and 35 others were wounded during Monday’s attack, the Houthis said.

The group blamed the US and Israel jointly for the attack, but a US defence official told the AFP news agency that their forces did not participate.

The Houthi missile fired towards Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, on Sunday landed next to an access road near the main terminal. Six people were injured, Israeli emergency services said.

Following the strike, the Houthis said they would impose “a comprehensive aerial blockade” on Israel by targeting airports in response to Israel’s plans to expand its military operations in Gaza.

Israel has launched several previous rounds of strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, including targeting a power plant and ports in January. It previously attacked Sanaa airport in December.

A senior Hamas official has said the armed group is not interested in further talks on a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal while Israel continues what he called its “starvation war”.

Israel cut off all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza nine weeks ago and later resumed its military offensive, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release hostages.

But Bassem Naim said there was “no point in any negotiations” while the blockade remained in place.

His comments came after Israel’s security cabinet approved an expanded offensive which could see the forced displacement of most of Gaza’s 2.1 million population and occupation of all of the Palestinian territory indefinitely.

Israel also intends to replace the current aid delivery and distribution system with one channelled through private companies and military hubs.

The UN’s humanitarian office has rejected that idea, saying it does not live up to fundamental humanitarian principles and “appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaponize the aid”.

On Monday, the Israeli military’s spokesman said its expanded ground offensive in Gaza would seek to bring home the remaining 59 hostages, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive, and achieve the “dismantling and decisive defeat of the Hamas regime”.

The operation would take place on a “wide scale” and involve “the movement of the majority of the Gaza Strip’s population – in order to protect them in a Hamas-free zone”, he added.

An Israeli official briefed the media that the offensive would also include “holding the territories, moving the Gazan population south for its defence, [and] denying Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian supplies”.

A second official said it would not be implemented until after US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region next week, providing what he called “a window of opportunity” to Hamas to agree a new ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Bassem Naim’s comments on Tuesday seemed to counter that.

“There is no point in any negotiations or engagement with new proposals while [Israel] continues its starvation war against our people in the Gaza Strip – a war that the international community, including UN institutions, has deemed a war crime in itself,” he said.

Hamas also put out a separate statement telling Israeli ministers that their approval of the expanded offensive represented “an explicit decision to sacrifice” Israeli hostages.

There was no immediate response from the Israeli government, but far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a conference that an Israeli victory in Gaza would see the territory “entirely destroyed” and its residents “concentrated” in the south, from where they would “start to leave in great numbers to third countries”.

UN Secretary General António Guterres warned that expanded Israeli ground operations and a prolonged military presence would “inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza”.

France’s Foreign Minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said Israel’s plans were “unacceptable” and that its government was “in violation of humanitarian law”.

In Washington, Trump said the US would help supply food to people in Gaza, without going into details.

“People are starving and we’re going to help them get some food,” he said. “Hamas is making it impossible because they’re taking everything that’s brought in.”

Israel cut off all deliveries of aid and other supplies on 2 March and resumed its offensive on 18 March after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that saw 33 Israeli hostages released in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israel has also accused Hamas of stealing and storing aid – an allegation the group has denied.

But aid agencies have warned that mass starvation is imminent unless the blockade ends.

The UN and its humanitarian partners have said Israeli authorities are seeking to shut down the existing aid distribution system run by them and are asking them to agree to deliver supplies “through Israeli hubs under conditions set by the Israeli military”.

Israeli Army Radio reported on Tuesday that Israel was proposing to distribute aid from three distribution centres in the southern governorate of Rafah, which is currently covered by an Israeli evacuation order and cut off from the rest of the territory by a new military corridor.

It said a representative from each family in Gaza would be allowed to go to the centres to receive a week’s supply of food – estimated to be about 70kg (154lb) on average – in order to prevent starvation. They would be screened to ensure Hamas members did not enter.

The report said the distribution would be managed by American organisations and private companies, rather than Israeli troops. It added that aid would not be distributed anywhere else in Gaza, which might hasten the movement of the population southwards.

A spokesman for the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Israeli plan “appears designed to further control and restrict supplies, which is the opposite of what is needed”, adding that aid should never be used as a way of forcing populations to move.

Jens Laerke told a news conference in Geneva that the UN would not co-operate with the plan because it would “not live up to the core fundamental humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independent delivery of aid”.

“Impartiality means aid is provided on needs alone, not based on trying to get people to go somewhere,” he said. “Then neutral and independent: it is extremely important that [those receiving aid] see a neutral provider that they have nothing to fear from.”

The UN has said Israel is obliged under international law to ensure food and medical supplies for Gaza’s population. Israel has said it is complying with international law and there is no aid shortage because thousands of lorry loads entered during the ceasefire.

One Palestinian man in Gaza said he believed Israel’s proposal was “camouflage” and that it “has no intention of allowing aid into” the territory.

“This is the basic principle Israel is working on – to prolong the blockade until Gaza reaches an aggravated stage of famine,” he told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme.

But another man said his “first and last concern” was receiving the supplies his family needed to survive, adding: “What really matters to us is that we want to live, eat, and go on with life.”

Israel’s resumed bombardment and ground operations over the past seven weeks have already resulted in hundreds of casualties and the displacement of an estimated 423,000 people, with about 70% of Gaza placed under Israeli evacuation orders, within an Israel-designated “no-go” zone, or both, according to the UN.

On Tuesday, health officials said Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 37 people.

Women and children were reportedly among at least 22 people who died when a UN-run school in Bureij refugee camp that was being used as a shelter for displaced families was bombed.

The Israeli military said it “struck terrorists who were operating within a Hamas command-and-control centre” and planning attacks.

Hamas denounced the attack as a “horrific massacre”.

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

At least 52,615 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 2,507 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The US Supreme Court temporarily allowed President Donald Trump to enforce his ban on transgender people serving in the military while legal challenges to the policy move forward.

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump signed a pair of executive orders that enabled the Pentagon to implement the ban.

But a lower federal court blocked the policy in March, ruling that the administration had failed to provide evidence that transgender troops posed a threat to military effectiveness.

In an emergency application to the court, the Trump administration argued that the lower court should show deference to the military’s judgement in matters of national defence.

The court’s three liberal justices objected to the stay, which arrived via an unsigned order on Tuesday.

Trump’s executive order declared that identifying as transgender “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle” and would hamper military preparedness.

In February, the Department of Defense announced it would begin discharging currently serving transgender personnel.

Seven servicemembers, including Commander Emily Schilling, a Navy fighter pilot, swiftly challenged the ban, along with a transgender individual seeking to enlist.

The plaintiffs argued that the ban “undermines military readiness, endangers our safety, and violates the United States Constitution”.”

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation’s defense,” Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which are representing the plaintiffs, said in a joint statement.

“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice,” it said.

In March, a federal judge in Washington state ordered a nationwide halt on the administration’s ban, saying the government failed to show it would enhance “unit cohesion, good order or discipline”.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did not block the lower court’s ruling, keeping the injunction in place.

With the Supreme Court order, that pause will lift while the servicemembers’ lawsuit makes its way through lower courts.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called the order “another massive victory in the Supreme Court”.

Early in his second term, Trump took a series of actions that have significantly impacted transgender individuals, whose gender identity does not correspond to the sex assigned to them at birth.

He signed an executive order declaring the US would only recognise two sexes – male and female.

The order has had far reaching implications for transgender Americans, especially those seeking to obtain official documentation.

The State Department announced in February that it would no longer allow applicants to choose “X” for their gender on their US passport, but instead must choose “male” or “female” based on their sex assigned at birth.

The passport policy is the subject of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a group of transgender and nonbinary individuals. In mid-April, a federal judge issued an injunction on the passport policy while the case proceeds.

The administration has also pushed for policies to restrict certain kinds of healthcare for minors who identify as transgender, and to prevent transgender women from playing on women’s sports teams.

An 81-year-old hunter in France has been fined and handed a four-month suspended jail sentence for killing an endangered bear in the Pyrenees mountains.

The man said he had “no other option” but to open fire on the brown bear when it attacked him during a boar-hunt in 2021.

Fifteen other hunters were also fined and must collectively pay more than €60,000 (£51,000) in damages to environmental associations that had filed a civil suit against them.

The 150kg female bear, nicknamed Caramelles, has since been preserved by a taxidermist and is on display at the Toulouse Natural History Museum.

The Foix Criminal Court heard that the group were boar-hunting in the Pyrenees, the mountain range that separates southern France and Spain, when two bear cubs emerged.

Shortly afterwards their mother appeared, charging at the man and dragging him several metres, before he shot and killed the animal.

“She grabbed my left thigh, I panicked and fired a shot. She backed away growling, she went around me and bit my right calf, I fell, she was eating my leg,” he told the court.

“I reloaded my rifle and fired.”

The shooting happened in the Mont Valier nature reserve near the village of Seix, Ariège. Prosecutors said they should not have been there in the first place, because it was 1,300ft (396m) outside an authorised hunting area.

But the defence lawyer for 14 of the hunters, Fanny Campagne, criticised “the lack of signs indicating that hunting was prohibited”.

The shooter was fined €750, his rifle has been confiscated and his hunting licence revoked.

In a statement, bear-preservation association Pays de l’ours said the verdict “seems justified”.

“All the hunters were found guilty, which is the most important thing for us,” the association’s president, Sabine Matraire, was quoted as saying in Le Monde.

“We hope that this ruling will be followed by a raising of awareness among the hunting community,” she added.

Brown bear populations saw a sharp decline in the Pyrenees, with only about 70 left in 1954, according to the region’s tourism board.

But numbers have slowly climbed up since 1990s when three bears were brought over from Slovenia as part of a reintroduction programme.

In 2024, the French Office for Biodiversity estimated that the mountain range is now home to about 96 bears.

King Charles and Queen Camilla have unveiled their new state portraits at the National Gallery on the second anniversary of their Coronation day.

The paintings will be displayed in the gallery’s Central Hall before moving to Buckingham Palace in June.

The portrait of the King shows him wearing the Robe of State alongside his naval uniform with medals, and the Queen is portrayed wearing her coronation dress.

There was applause at the gallery on Tuesday as the couple pulled down coverings to reveal both portraits, before stepping back to admire the paintings.

The King was painted by Peter Kuhfeld, who has known him for more than 40 years, while the Queen was painted by Paul S. Benney.

The robe worn by the King is the one used during the first part of the coronation service. In keeping with tradition, alongside him is the Imperial State Crown.

Alongside the Queen in her portrait is her crown and the Robe of Estate she wore as she left Westminster Abbey on coronation day.

The King sat for Mr Kuhfeld at St James’s Palace five times over a year and a half. There were also two separate sittings with just the crown.

“I’ve spent quite a long time with him over the years so I’m used to being with him, ” the artist said.

“As a person he’s very interesting, he is very understanding of what a painter needs to do the job.”

Mr Benney had six official sittings with the Queen in the Garden Room at Clarence House. He was also allowed to set up a studio there allowing him to meet the Queen informally many times.

“The sittings were extremely pleasurable on my part,” he said. “I like to talk when I’m painting… and so we had a lot of chat and stories which we told each other.

“At times I would be holding my tummy from laughing so much. The Queen is very witty.”

Both the King and Queen reacted positively as they looked at the portraits after their unveiling.

“I suppose he thinks it’s okay,” Mr Kuhfeld said. “You never ask a sitter what they think of their own picture because I’m not sure that they know.”

The Queen could be heard telling Mr Benney about her portrait: “I think it’s really lovely”.

He also benefitted from some crucial family support: the Queen’s daughter, Laura Lopes, was at the National Gallery for the unveiling and complimented the painting.

Mr Benney said: “The Queen has said nothing but wonderful things about it – but more importantly Laura, her daughter, likes it.

“And you know when the kids like it that you’re probably on the right track.”

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Two weeks after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, India has launched a series of strikes on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The Indian defence ministry said the strikes – named “Operation Sindoor” – were part of a “commitment” to hold those responsible for the 22 April attack which left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead “accountable”.

But Pakistan, which has denied any involvement in last month’s attack, has described the strikes as “unprovoked”, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished”.

So what exactly has happened – and how did India and Pakistan get here?

Delhi said in the early hours of Wednesday morning that nine different locations had been targeted in both Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan.

It said these sites were “terrorist infrastructure” – places where attacks were “planned and directed”.

It emphasised that it had not hit any Pakistani military facilities, saying its “actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.

According to Pakistan, three different areas were hit: Muzaffarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Bahawalpur in the Pakistani province of Punjab.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told GeoTV that the strikes hit civilian areas, adding that India’s claim of “targeting terrorist camps” is false.

Ahmed Sharif, a spokesperson for the Pakistani military, later told the BBC that seven people, including two children, had been killed in the strikes.

The strikes come after weeks of rising tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours over the shootings in the picturesque resort town of Pahalgam.

The 22 April attack by a group of militants saw 26 people killed, with survivors saying the militants were singling out Hindu men.

It was the worst attack on civilians in the region in two decades, and sparked widespread anger in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country would hunt the suspects “till the ends of the Earth” and that those who planned and carried it out “will be punished beyond their imagination”.

However, India has not named any group it suspects carried out the attack in Pahalgam and it remains unclear who did it.

But Indian police have alleged two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, with Delhi accusing Pakistan of supporting militants – a charge Islamabad denies. It says it has nothing to do with the 22 April attacks.

In the two weeks since, both sides had taken tit-for-tat measures against each other – including expelling diplomats, suspending visas and closing border crossings.

But many expected it would escalate to some sort of cross-border strike – as seen after the Pulwama attacks which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead in 2019.

Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, but administered only in part by each since they were partitioned following independence from Britain in 1947.

The countries have fought two wars over it.

But more recently, it has been attacks by militants which have brought the two countries to the brink. Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, with militants targeting security forces and civilians alike.

This was the first major attack on civilians since India revoked Article 370 that gave Kashmir semi-autonomous status in 2019.

Following the decision, the region saw protests but also witnessed militancy wane and a huge increase in the number of tourists visiting the region.

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.

Neither spiralled, but the wider world remains alert to the danger of what could happen if it did. Attempts have been made by various countries and diplomats around the world to stop the current situation escalating.

Already, UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for “maximum restraint”, while US President Donald Trump said he hoped the fighting “ends very quickly”.

India has announced that it will stop its water from flowing over international borders.

“Now, India’s water will flow for India’s benefit, it will be conserved for India’s benefit, and it will be used for India’s progress”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.

While he did not mention Pakistan specifically, Modi’s comments come about two weeks after India suspended a 65-year-old water sharing treaty with its neighbour.

Relations between India and Pakistan have declined sharply following a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month. India accuses Pakistan of backing cross-border terrorism – a charge Islamabad flatly denies.

Several rivers flow from India into Pakistan, providing vital water supplies to about 80% of farms there. Pakistani leaders previously warned that any attempt to stop the flow of water “will be considered as an act of war”.

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which governs the water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between India and Pakistan, survived two wars between the nuclear rivals and was seen as an example of trans-boundary water management.

Modi’s suspension of the treaty was one of several steps he took against Pakistan after the attack, which killed 26 civilians.

The PM did not elaborate on how India plans to use the excess water, and experts say the country needs to build more dams, reservoirs and lakes to store it, which will take time to build.

The escalation prompted the US to repeat its calls for calm.

“We continue to urge Pakistan and India to work towards a responsible resolution that maintains long-term peace and regional stability in South Asia,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.

Mark Carney has told Donald Trump that Canada “is not for sale” as the president raised the prospect of the country becoming the 51st US state while welcoming the prime minister to the White House.

Carney won election last month promising to “stand up” to Trump, who has imposed tariffs on some Canadian products and sometimes talks about annexing the country.

The former central banker responded with a firm but measured tone after the president proposed a “wonderful marriage” of incorporating Canada into the US.

Despite a strained relationship recently between the once-close neighbours, the two men also lavished praise on each other in what was a largely cordial Oval Office meeting.

Trump has imposed general tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico and sector-specific import taxes on cars, some of which have been suspended pending negotiations.

The US president, who accuses Canada of not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl south, has levied similar duties on steel and aluminium.

Tuesday’s meeting was the first time the two had met since Carney won Canada’s general election on 28 April, a victory many have credited to concerns in that country about Trump.

• Live updates from Carney-Trump meeting

But the two leaders began with warm words, with Trump describing Carney as “a very talented person”.

He also hailed his guest’s election win as “one of the greatest comebacks in the history of politics, maybe even greater than mine”.

Carney said Trump was a “transformational president”, with “a relentless focus on the American worker, securing your border, and securing the world” and said he had “revitalised” Nato.

But friction arose when Trump again argued that Canada would be better off as part of the US.

Carney came prepared with a carefully worded response.

“As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale,” he told property magnate Trump, likening Canada to the Oval Office itself and to Britain’s Buckingham Palace.

“Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign in the last several months, it’s not for sale. Won’t be for sale, ever.”

Trump replied: “Never say never.”

The US leader traced his own red line when a journalist in the Oval Office asked if Carney could say anything to persuade him to lift tariffs.

“No,” he replied. “It’s just the way it is.”

“This was a very friendly conversation,” he added. “But we want to make our own cars.”

Trump once again argued that the US was subsidising Canada’s military and did not need Canadian goods such as aluminium and steel.

He said he and Carney would discuss “tough points” at their meeting, but “regardless of anything, we’re going to be friends with Canada”.

Trump also criticised his visitor’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, with whom he had an adversarial relationship.

Still, he said the meeting with Carney was in stark contrast to another recent Oval Office “blow-up” – a reference to a disastrous visit from Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky in February.

Notably, Trump also downplayed the prospect of trade deals, even though his administration has repeatedly pointed to the over 80 countries the White House says are hoping to negotiate as a sign of progress.

“Everyone says, ‘When, when, when are you going to sign deals?,” Trump said. “We don’t have to sign deals, they have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don’t want a piece of their market.”

Carney said that he “pressed the case” to Trump on lifting tariffs, and found him to be “willing to have that negotiation”.

“I think that’s the main thing. That doesn’t presuppose the outcome of the negotiation,” Carney added at a news conference at the Canadian embassy in Washington DC. “There’ll be zigs and zags. Difficult aspects to it. But the prospect is there.”

Carney did not speculate on timing, saying only that both leaders and their teams would speak again in the coming weeks.

Additionally, Carney said he again asked that Trump stopped calling for Canada to become a US state. He added that he believed it important to distinguish between “wish and reality”.

“He’s the president. He’s his own person,” Carney said. “He understands that we’re having a negotiation between sovereign nations.”

During Canada’s election campaign, Carney argued he was the leader who could fight Trump’s “betrayal”, as well as push back against US threats to Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

In his victory speech, the Liberal leader went as far as to say that the formerly tight US-Canadian relationship was “over” and that Canadians must “fundamentally re-imagine our economy” in the Trump era.

More than $760bn (£570bn) in goods flowed between Canada and the US last year. Canada is the US’ second-largest individual trading partner after Mexico, and the largest export market for US goods.

US and Chinese officials are set to start talks this week to try to deescalate a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will attend the talks in Switzerland from 9 to 12 May, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer will represent Washington at the meeting, their offices announced.

Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has imposed new import taxes on Chinese goods of up to 145%. Beijing has hit back with levies on some goods from the US of 125%.

But global trade experts have told the BBC that they expect negotiations to take several months.

It will be the first high-level interaction between the two countries since Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng attended Trump’s inauguration in January.

Mr Bessent said he looked forward to rebalancing the international economic system to better serve the interests of the US.

“My sense is that this will be about de-escalation, not about the big trade deal, but we’ve got to de-escalate before we can move forward,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

“If the United States wants to resolve the issue through negotiations, it must face up to the serious negative impact of unilateral tariff measures on itself and the world,” a Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday morning.

Chinese State Media reported that Beijing had decided to engage with the US after fully considering global expectations, the country’s interests and appeals from American businesses.

The report added that China’s is open to talks but reiterated that if the country decides to continue to fight this trade war – it will fight to the end.

The trade war has triggered turmoil in financial markets and sent shockwaves across global trade.

Two trade experts told the BBC that they were not particularly optimistic about the talks, at least in the initial phase.

“You have to start somewhere, so I’m not saying it isn’t worthwhile. Just unlikely to be the launch event people are hoping to see,” said Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation.

“We should expect to see a lot of back and forth, just like what happened last time in 2018,” Henry Gao, Professor of Law at Singapore Management University and a former Chinese lawyer on the World Trade Organization secretariat said.

“I would expect the talks to drag on for several months or even more than a year”.

Financial markets in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed after the announcements, while US stock futures rose.

Stock futures are contracts to buy or sell an underlying asset at a future date and are an indication of how markets will trade when they open.

Investors are also waiting for the US central bank to make its latest announcement on interest rates on Wednesday afternoon.

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.

The UK and India have agreed a trade deal that will make it easier for UK firms to export whisky, cars and other products to India, and cut taxes on India’s clothing and footwear exports.

The British government said the “landmark” agreement, which took three years to reach, did not include any change in immigration policy, including towards Indian students studying in the UK.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the deal would boost the economy and “deliver for British people and business”.

Last year, trade between the UK and India totalled £42.6bn and was already forecast to grow, but the government said the deal would boost that trade by an additional £25.5bn a year by 2040.

• India trade deal could undercut UK business, opposition parties say

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, described the agreement as an historic milestone that was “ambitious and mutually beneficial”.

The pact would help “catalyse trade, investment, growth, job creation, and innovation in both our economies”, he said in a post on social media platform X.

Once it comes into force, which could take up to a year, UK consumers are likely to benefit from the reduction in tariffs on goods coming into the country from India, the Department for Business and Trade said.

That includes lower tariffs on:

• clothing and footwear
• cars
• foodstuffs including frozen prawns
• jewellery and gems

The government also emphasised the benefit to economic growth and job creation from UK firms expanding exports to India.

UK exports that will see levies fall include:

• gin and whisky
• aerospace, electricals and medical devices
• cosmetics
• lamb, salmon, chocolates and biscuits
• higher value cars

The British government said the deal was the “biggest and most economically significant” bilateral trade agreement the UK had signed since leaving the European Union in 2020.

UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the benefits for UK businesses and consumers were “massive”.

Tariffs on gin and whisky, a key sticking point in negotiations previously, will be halved to 75%, with further reductions taking effect in later years.

Tariffs of 100% on more expensive UK-made cars exported to India will fall to 10%, subject to a quota limiting the total number.

The deal also includes provisions on the services sector and procurement allowing British firms to compete for more contracts.

Under the terms of the deal, some Indian and British workers will also gain from a three-year exemption from social security payments, which the Indian government called “an unprecedented achievement”.

The exemption applies to the staff of Indian companies temporarily transferred to the UK, and to UK firms’ workers transferred to India. Social security contributions will be paid by employers and employees in their home country only, rather than in both places.

The UK already has similar reciprocal “double contribution convention” agreements with 17 other countries including the EU, the US and South Korea, the government said.

However, leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch described the agreement as “two-tier taxes from two-tier Keir”, with Labour’s increase in employer NI contributions from the Budget coming into force last month.

Shadow trade secretary Andrew Griffith said: “Every time Labour negotiates, Britain loses”.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said it was “very worrying to hear concerns that Indian workers coming over here, companies may not have to pay taxes on those workers” and called for MPs to be allowed to vote on the deal.

The government said the National Insurance exemption would not affect NHS funding, since Indians working in the UK would still be required to pay the immigration health surcharge.

India, currently the fifth largest economy in the world, is forecast to become the third-largest within in a few years, making it a desirable trading partner for the UK, currently the world’s sixth largest economy.

The UK is also a high priority trading partner for Prime Minister Modi’s government, which has an ambitious target to increase exports by $1 trillion by 2030.

The deal is a win for free trade at a time when US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff campaign has put the idea on the defensive and raised fears of tit-for-tat trade wars.

It appears to have increased the impetus to strike this trade deal.

Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of business lobby group, the CBI, welcomed the deal saying it provided a “beacon of hope amidst the spectre of protectionism” following Trump’s wave of tariffs.

UK businesses saw “myriad” opportunities in the Indian market, she added.

Allie Renison, from communications firm SEC Newgate, and a former government trade adviser, said the deal was potentially “transformational” due to India’s size, growth rate and relatively high existing barriers to accessing its market.

Donald Trump said the US would stop attacking the Houthis in Yemen because the group had “capitulated”, as Oman confirmed a “ceasefire” had been reached with the Iran-backed group for it to stop targeting shipping in the Red Sea.

“[The Houthis] just don’t want to fight, and we will honour that and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated,” he said, speaking alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the White House.

Shortly afterwards the Omani foreign minister posted that the deal meant neither side would target the other, “ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping”.

The Houthis have yet to comment.

The US stepped up air strikes on the Houthis in March and the US military says it has struck 1,000 targets in Yemen since then.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said the Houthis would “not be blowing up ships anymore”.

“The Houthis have announced that they are not, or they announced to us at least, that they don’t want to fight anymore… but, more importantly, we will take their word.

“They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore and that’s what the purpose of what we were doing… so that’s just news we just found out about that.”

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi said his country had mediated efforts to achieve de-escalation.

“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping” he said.

The Houthis began attacking shipping passing through the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, who have been under bombardment by the Israeli military since the Palestinian armed group Hamas attacked Israeli communities in October 2023.

They have launched dozens of missile and drone attacks on commercial ships, sinking two vessels, seizing a third and killing four crew members. The attacks forced even major shipping companies to stop using the Red Sea – through which almost 15% of global seaborne trade usually passes – and to take a much longer route around southern Africa instead.

US-led naval forces thwarted many Houthi attacks on shipping and former US president Joe Biden began US air strikes against the Houthis, which have intensified under Trump.

Last month, the Houthis said at least 68 African migrants were killed in a US air strike on a detention centre in north-western Yemen.

The Houthis have continued firing missiles towards Israel, with one missile landing near Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Sunday.

On Tuesday Israel responded with a large-scale attack on Yemen’s main international airport in the capital Sanaa, which left it “completely destroyed” according to an airport official quoted by AFP.

Other Israeli strikes hit power facilities and a cement factory. On Monday Israel bombed port facilities in Hudaydah and another cement factory in the city.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Israelis that “we are on the eve of an intense entry into Gaza.” Israel would, he said, capture territory and hold it: “They will not enter and come out.”

The new offensive is calculated, according to the spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Brigadier-General Effie Defrin, to bring back the remaining hostages. After that, he told Israeli radio, “comes the collapse of the Hamas regime, its defeat, its submission”.

The offensive will not start, Israel says, until after Donald Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar next week. Assuming Trump does not dissuade Israel from going ahead, Israel will need a military and political miracle to pull off the results described by Brig-Gen Defrin.

It is more likely that the offensive will sharpen everything that makes the Gaza war so controversial. The war, starting with the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, has taken the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis to a point as dangerous as any in its long history. Prolonging the war divides Israelis, kills even more Palestinian civilians and horrifies millions around the world, including many who describe themselves as friends of Israel.

While the IDF attacks Hamas in Gaza, the government’s plan is that its soldiers will force some or all of the more than two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza into a small area in the ruins of the south. Humanitarian aid would be distributed, perhaps by contractors including American private security firms. The United Nations humanitarian agencies have said they will not cooperate, condemning the plan as a violation of the principles of humanitarian aid.

They have also warned of starvation in Gaza caused by Israel’s decision more than two months ago to block all humanitarian deliveries. Israel’s blockade, which continues, has been widely condemned, not just by the UN and Arab countries.

Now, Britain and the European Union both say they are against a new Israeli offensive. A fortnight ago, the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, all allies of Israel who regard Hamas as a terrorist group, warned that the “intolerable” blockade put Palestinian civilians, including one million children, at “an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death”.

The ministers also warned, implicitly, that their ally was violating international law.

“Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change”, they insisted. “Israel is bound under international law to allow the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid.”

Israel denies it violates international humanitarian law and the laws of war in Gaza. But at the same time its own ministers’ words suggest otherwise. One of many examples: the defence minister Israel Katz has described the blockade as a “main pressure lever” against Hamas. That sounds like an admission that the blockade is a weapon, even though it starves civilians, which amounts to a war crime.

Countries and organisations that believe Israel systematically violates its legal obligations, committing a series of war crimes, will scour any new offensive for more evidence. Extreme language used by ministers will have been noted by the South African lawyers arguing the case at the International Court of Justice alleging Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Much of it has come from ultra-nationalists who prop up the Netanyahu government. They see the new offensive as another step towards expelling Palestinians from Gaza and replacing them with Jewish settlers.

One of the most vocal extremists, Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister said that in six months Gaza would be “totally destroyed”. Palestinians in the territory would be “despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places”.

“Relocation”, the word used by Smotrich, will be seen both by his supporters and political enemies as another reference to “transfer”, an idea discussed since the earliest days of Zionism to force Arabs out of the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.

Netanyahu’s Israeli critics say prolonging the war with a new offensive instead of ending it with a ceasefire is about his own political survival, not Israel’s safety or the return of its hostages. In the days after the 7 October attacks there were lines of cars hurriedly parked outside military bases as Israelis rushed to volunteer for reserve duty to fight Hamas.

Now thousands of them (some estimates from the Israeli left are higher) are refusing to do any more reserve duty. They argue the prime minister is continuing the war because if he doesn’t his hard right will bring down the government and bring on the day of reckoning for mistakes and miscalculations Netanyahu made that gave Hamas an opportunity to attack.

Inside Israel, the sharpest criticism of the planned offensive has come from the families of the hostages who fear they have been abandoned by the government that claims to be rescuing them. Hamas still has 24 living hostages in the Gaza Strip, according to Israel, and is holding the bodies of another 35 of the 251 taken on 7 October. The Netanyahu government has claimed repeatedly that only as much military pressure as possible will get the survivors home and return the bodies of the dead to their families.

In reality, the biggest releases of hostages have come during ceasefires. The last ceasefire deal, which Trump insisted Israel sign in the final days of the Biden administration, included a planned second phase which was supposed to lead to the release of all the hostages and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Netanyahu’s extremist allies told him they would bring down his government if he agreed to a second phase of the ceasefire. First, Israel blocked humanitarian aid to put pressure, it said, on Hamas to agree to a renegotiated deal that would give Israel the option of going back to war even after the hostages were released. When Hamas refused, Israel went on the offensive again with a massive air attack on the night of 18 March.

Since then, Israel has put unrelenting pressure on Palestinians in Gaza. A new offensive will kill many more Palestinian civilians, deepen the misery of the survivors and bereaved inside Gaza and widen the toxic rifts within Israel. On its own, without a ceasefire deal, it is unlikely on past form to force Hamas to free the remaining hostages.

The carnage inflicted by Israel inside Gaza has been a recruiting sergeant for Hamas and other armed groups, according to President Joe Biden’s administration just before it left office in January of this year. It is worth repeating the words used by Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in a speech in Washington on 14 January.

“We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost,” Blinken said. “That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”

When he spoke, Israel was claiming that it had killed around 18,000 Palestinian fighters inside Gaza. More have been killed since then, and many more civilians.

Israel’s massive onslaught broke the back of Hamas as a structured military organisation more than a year ago. Now Israel faces an insurgency, which history shows can go for as long as recruits are prepared to fight and die to beat their enemy.

The Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse has 128 rooms. From 7 May, it will be filled with cardinals participating in the conclave to elect the next Pope. But one room in the guesthouse is still sealed with a red ribbon, as it has been since its occupant died there on Easter Monday.

That suite will only be reopened when the new pope is chosen. The ribbon remains a tangible reminder of the man whose shoes the cardinals are looking to fill – but Pope Francis’s presence looms large over this conclave in many profound ways.

He spent 12 years in the role and appointed around 80% of the cardinals who will select his successor. He also looked to radically shake up the workings of the Catholic Church, moving its centre of gravity away from its hierarchy at the Vatican in the direction of the rank-and-file faithful all over the world, and focused on the poor and marginalised.

My conversations with cardinals and those assessing the needs of the Church in the days leading to this papal election almost always end up looking at what is required through the prism of what Pope Francis did in the role.

While in recent days there appears to have been a growing coalescence around the idea that Francis’s work should be built on, some of his critics remain far from convinced. So might there be enough of them to sway the vote as the Church attempts to reconcile the different outlooks and realities it faces around the globe?

During the two weeks that followed the Pope’s death, the cardinals met almost daily at the Vatican for pre-conclave gatherings known as general congregations.

While the conclave in the Sistine Chapel is limited to cardinals who haven’t yet reached the age of 80 (133 will participate in this one), these preliminary meetings are open to all 252 cardinals. Each attendee was given up to five minutes to air their views, though we know that some took longer.

It was during such a meeting ahead of the last conclave of 2013, in a speech lasting less than four minutes, that Pope Francis – then known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina – made an impact, talking of a need to connect with those in the far reaches of the Catholic world.

As Pope, he made a conscious drive to appoint cardinals from such places. It is why this is the most diverse conclave there has ever been. For the first time Cape Verde, Haiti, South Sudan, Tonga, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda will be represented.

That diversity has already made its mark: the pre-conclave meetings are said to have brought to the fore just how different the needs of the Church appear to be depending on where in the world they are viewed.

In Europe, for example, a primary consideration for some might be finding ways to reinvigorate and make relevant the mission of the Church in the face of shrinking congregations, whereas elsewhere – in African or Asian countries – concerns may revolve around social issues, poverty and conflict resolution.

A prospective pope is likely to be one who has at least shown recognition of those very different realities.

The official titles that the new pope will inherit gives a sense of the breadth of the role: Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City among them.

While some relate to the deeply spiritual, the last of those titles suggests the need for a statesman too, given that the pope is leader of a country, albeit the world’s smallest.

“Unlike your average state, the agenda of the Vatican is driven to an extent by where the pope reigning at the time puts their emphasis,” says Chris Trott, British ambassador to the Holy See. “On the face of it a very tiny state, [but it is] one that punches many, many times above its weight.

“And Pope Francis had 50 million followers on Twitter, so [it is] a very, very small state and an incredible global influencer.”

Pope Francis chose to amplify this part of the role, becoming a powerful global spokesman on behalf of those on the margins, including the poor and victims of war.

He also tried to play the role of peacemaker, though not everyone thought he was successful in that regard, in relation to China and Russia in particular.

According to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the most senior Catholic figure in England and Wales, this expansion of the role is one reason so many even outside the faith are invested in the outcome of the conclave.

“There is a sense that the Pope in the person of Pope Francis became a figure who addressed everybody in the world… religious people and even those who do not have a religious affiliation,” he says.

“I’m more and more aware that it’s not just Catholics who are interested in this.”

For many voting cardinals, it is primarily issues within the Catholic Church that are under the spotlight, which brings about the question of the type of pope they want as a manager, and someone who runs the Church’s administrative body and its ministries.

While Pope Francis worked on improving the way the Church deals with the huge issues of sexual abuse and of financial corruption, it is his successor who will have to ensure that reforms are evenly applied across the Catholic world.

Even supporters of Pope Francis’s efforts to make changes to the way the Church relates to its rank-and-file believers, and the way he built bridges with those outside the faith, were sometimes left confused about how exactly he envisioned things should work.

Pope Francis changed the tone on social issues through comments he made, talking openly about subjects ranging from climate change to financial transparency within the Vatican. But throughout his papacy, some were unclear about what he meant or how it would be applied.

One mission he had was to take some of the power and decision-making away from the Vatican hierarchy and into the hands of rank-and-file Catholics.

Over nearly four years, at great effort, he commissioned what was, in effect, a poll of many of the world’s Catholics to find out what mattered to them. Lay people were invited to participate in the most recent bishop’s conference where the results of the survey were discussed.

The biggest issues raised related to greater roles for women in the running of the church and welcoming LGBT+ Catholics. But the meeting ended in some confusion, with little in the form of tangible steps forward and little clarity as to how lay people will help steer the future direction of the Church.

So, there is a general keenness for greater clarity from the new pope.

Throughout his pontificate, some vocal traditionalists opposed what they saw as Pope Francis straying from Church teaching and long-standing tradition.

In the pre-conclave meetings of cardinals, a number of those over the age of 80 (who because of their age would not be involved in voting) took the opportunity to play their part.

Most contributions remained secret, but one that was reported was that of 83-year-old Italian cardinal, Beniamino Stella. He criticised Pope Francis for “imposing his own ideas” by attempting to move Church governance away from the clergy.

And yet during the homily, or religious speech, at Pope Francis’s funeral, what appeared to resonate with the public in attendance – judging by the volume of the applause – was talk of the themes Francis chose to champion: the dignity of migrants, an end to war, and the environment.

This applause would have been heard loud and clear by the rows of cardinals.

In some senses, Pope Francis did have clarity in focusing on the Church being relevant to people in their daily lives and, indeed, their struggles. He was clear about connecting with the world outside the faith too.

“There is a sense that in the voice of the pope, there’s a voice of something that is needed,” says Cardinal Nichols. “For some people it’s a moral compass, for some people it’s the sense of being accepted, for some people it’s the insistence that we must look at things from the point of view of the poorest.

“That’s a voice that has fallen silent and our task is to find someone who can carry that forward.”

From the death of Pope Francis to the moment cardinals checked into the Santa Marta guesthouse and its overflow residences, there appeared to be a trend towards a desire for continuity of what Pope Francis had achieved.

Though perhaps that vision of continuity is one that could bring along more of his sceptics, in a way that was pragmatic. The word “unity” has been talked of a lot, after a period where the divides between supporters and detractors of the Pope’s vision could sometimes become ugly.

But in the end, when they step into the Sistine Chapel, the holiest of voting chambers, for all the pragmatism they may have taken into consideration before they cast their ballot, they will be urged to let God and the Holy Spirit guide them.

Monday night marked one of the world’s biggest nights of fashion, as stars served up their most iconic looks for the annual Met Gala in New York City.

The theme for this year’s event was “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”, the first since 2003 to focus exclusively on menswear.

It was inspired by a newly unveiled exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s costume institute featuring the “black dandy”, which Vogue says “examines the importance of clothing and style to the formation of black identities in the Atlantic diaspora”.

A-list celebrities including Zendaya, Demi Moore and Diana Ross brought their own interpretation to the theme, stunning in tailored suits and dramatic gowns.

• Look back at our live coverage of the Met
• Rihanna reveals she is expecting third child

Here is a look at some of the highlights:

Actress Zendaya, known for her dazzling red carpet style, opted for a wide-brimmed hat and tailored Louis Vuitton cream suit at this year’s Met Gala.

But there was one slight pop of colour: her manicured red nails.

Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny wore a brown Prada suit, which he said he worked on with the Italian fashion house for a few months before the event.

He also stayed on theme by accessorising with embellished gloves, a brooch and a hat that paid homage to his Puerto Rican heritage.

“We did something special,” he said of his look. “I feel good, and I hope people think I’m looking good.”

US reality TV star Kim Kardashian wore an all-black ensemble by LA-based brand Chrome Hearts – a fitted leather top and skirt that she offset with diamond necklaces and two strings of pearls.

She is, of course, no stranger to the Met Gala – having made headlines with a dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in 2022, and a wet-look Thierry Mugler dress in 2019.

Black British designer Grace Wales Bonner dressed British Formula One star Sir Lewis Hamilton for the night. Sir Lewis was a co-chair of this year’s event.

The pair have worked together in the past with Wales Bonner dressing Hamilton for the 2023 British Fashion Awards.

Singer Chappell Roan brought a rare pop of colour to the Met’s blue carpet, in a patchwork hot pink ensemble sourced from eBay.

The singer worked with Wicked costume designer Paul Tazewell on her outfit, while make-up artist Pat McGrath was behind her disco-inspired look.

Demi Moore gave us another round of method dressing.

The American actress’s recent press tour for The Substance recalled the body horror themes of the film, while her awards campaign for the role of Elisabeth Sparkle saw her dressing for the glam statuettes.

Moore understood the assignment for the Met Gala, coming as a literal men’s tie in a sculptural black and white striped sequin gown from Thom Browne.

Rihanna, typically one of the most stylish attendees at the Gala, returned to the Met steps this year in Marc Jacobs, debuting her pregnancy with co-chair of the evening A$AP Rocky.

Legendary singer Diana Ross wore a show-stopping white ensemble, complete with feathers and a long train that required at least two assistants.

On the carpet, Ross said her son persuaded her to attend this year’s event. The last time she attended the Met Gala is 2003.

She added she had the names of her children and grandchildren embroidered on her dress train.

Actress Sydney Sweeney wore a custom Miu Miu gown – her third time wearing the designer at the Met Gala. This time, her dress was complete with beaded fringe shoulders and gold hardware detailing on the neck.

Speaking about her look, Sweeney said it paid homage to actress and painter Kim Novak. Sweeney is set to portray Novak in the upcoming film Scandalous.

A custom-made Chanel look was Dua Lipa’s choice this year.

The chiffon dress, sequin tweed jacket and organza cape – all adorned with pearls, feathers and crystals – took some 2,000 hours to make.

Sabrina Carpenter wore a burgundy Louis Vuitton bodysuit that featured all the tailoring of a regular suit.

The singer said she worked with recording artist Pharrell Williams – also the men’s creative director of Louis Vuitton – on the bottomless look.

“You’re quite short, so no pants for you,” Carpenter recalled Williams telling her.

Irish actor Barry Keoghan wore a custom-made Valentino fit, with florals embroidered on the cuffs and a silk red scarf wrapped around the waist.

New Zealand singer Lorde made a rare appearance at the Met Gala this year (she has not attended since 2021).

She wore a metallic silver floor-length skirt set, and a matching bandeau and blazer designed by Thom Browne.

Olympic gymnast and gold medalist Simone Biles brought a pop of colour to the Met Gala carpet with a striking blue minidress that featured a collared neckline, a long train and jewelled appliques.

The dress was designed by Harbison Studio.

Singer Coco Jones opted for a look designed by Indian brand Manish Malhotra.

She wore a tailored cream and white look that featured ornate embroidery and a dramatic long-sleeve coat. Jones also wore a large statement necklace and Jimmy Choo heels.

Actor and playwright Colman Domingo could have inspired this year’s Met Gala theme, as he’s been carrying the baton for well-dressed men on the red carpet for several years now.

He donned a royal blue Valentino cloak that paid homage to Andre Leon Talley, former editor-at-large on Vogue whom Anna Wintour called “a dandy among dandies.”

The cape later was removed to reveal a second look underneath: a tailored, patterned suit complete with a big fabric, polka-dotted flower brooch.

Actress and singer Teyana Taylor, who hosted Vogue’s live stream of the red carpet, arrived in custom Marc Jacobs on the arm of costume designer Ruth E. Carter. Ms Carter has worked with filmmaker Spike Lee and on the Black Panther movie franchise to create some modern pop cultural cues for the black dandy.

Taylor wore a burgundy cape embroidered with “Harlem Rose,” a nod to her 2018 song A Rose in Harlem.

Social media influencer Emma Chamberlain looked sharp and on theme with a backless tailored suit dress designed by French fashion house Courrèges.

She accessorised the look with a spiky beach blonde pixie cut and stylish eyeglasses.

Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, known for her on-theme style, wore a Givenchy ensemble featuring a bedazzled bodice and an extra-long black train with matching leather boots and nails.

Recording artist Doja Cat wore a custom Marc Jacobs look that featured giant shoulder pads and a leopard-print bustier panel.

“I just wanted to feel like a little gangsta,” she said.

“I feel like he brought that with the strong shape of the shoulders, and all of the exaggerated shapes,” Doja Cat said of Jacobs.

Actress Tracee Ellis Ross, the daughter of Diana Ross, was one of the few people who wore pink at this year’s Met Gala.

She donned a custom Marc Jacobs suit that was complete with a giant, hot pink bow at the back, a matching top hat and some unique bling.

In one of the more memorable looks of the evening, Andre 3000 showed up to the Met Gala carpet with a black and white piano strapped to his back and a trash bag as a purse.

The stylish OutKast rapper designed the look himself in collaboration with Burberry.

Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o wore a stunning powder blue Chanel suit, with a matching hat and transparent cape.

She accessorised the look with bedazzled, black rhinestone eyebrows.

Rapper Cardi B debuted a new hairstyle (and eye colour) in a green Burberry pantsuit, complete with matching nails and eye shadow.

Doechii took brand representation to new levels, stamping the famous Louis Vuitton logo on her face to go along with the motif of her suit.

The American rapper is often seen wearing looks from the French fashion house.

This outfit combined the designer’s two famous patterns – the LV monogram pattern on the waistcoat and jacket, as well as the damier checkerboard on the shorts.

When asked about her outfit on the carpet, Janelle Monáe responded simply – “free” – followed by an expletive.

“And when I’m in my suit, that is exactly how I feel,” she said.

She wore a Thom Brown suit, with whom she’s attended the Met Gala as a guest for the last several years. The look is styled by the Academy Award-winning costume designer for Wicked, Paul Tazewell.

Pop legend Madonna accessorised her cream-colored tuxedo with a cigar, creating an interplay between soft feminine materials and a distinct masculine energy.

It’s a dynamic that the superstar has played with throughout her career.

Conservative leader Friedrich Merz has won a parliament vote to become Germany’s next chancellor at the second attempt.

Merz had initially fallen six votes short of the absolute majority he needed on Tuesday morning – a significant blow to his prestige and an unprecedented failure in post-war German history.

As it was a secret ballot in the 630-seat Bundestag, there was no indication who had refused to back him – whether MPs from his centre-left coalition partner or his own conservatives.

After hours of uncertainty in the Bundestag, the parties and the president of the Bundestag agreed to hold a second vote, which Merz then won with 325 votes, a majority of nine.

His coalition with the Social Democrats should have had enough seats in parliament from the start, with 328 MPs in total, but it is thought 18 of them dissented during the first vote.

No chancellor candidate has lost a Bundestag vote in the 76 years since democracy was restored in Germany in 1949, and there was a prevailing mood of confusion in parliament in the hours after the vote.

Under Germany’s constitution, there is no limit to how many votes can be held but in practice another defeat for Merz would have meant a headache for his Christian Democrats, its sister party the Christian Social Union and their partner the Social Democrats.

The result meant a total debacle had been averted, declared one German news website.

Merz, 69, was then sworn in as chancellor by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and his team of 17 ministers were due to take office.

Bundestag President Julia Klöckner had originally been planning a follow-up vote on Wednesday, but Christian Democrat General Secretary Carsten Linnemann said it was important to press ahead.

“Europe needs a strong Germany, that’s why we can’t wait for days,” he told German TV.

Parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn appealed to his colleagues’ sense of responsibility: “All of Europe, perhaps the whole world, is watching this ballot.”

Merz’s defeat had been seen by political commentators as a humiliation, possibly inflicted by a handful of disaffected members of the Social Democrat SPD, which signed a coalition deal with his conservatives on Monday.

The Bundestag president told MPs that nine of the 630 MPs had been absent for the first vote while three had abstained and another ballot paper had been declared invalid.

Germany’s new Europe Minister, Gunther Krichbaum, told the BBC that some MPs may have hoped for a ministerial or state secretary role and had their hopes dashed. He also pointed out that some young Social Democrats had publicly said they were not convinced by Merz.

However, SPD officials were adamant their party was fully committed to the coalition deal.

“It was a secret vote so nobody knows,” senior Social Democrat MP Ralf Stegner told the BBC, “but I can tell you I don’t have the slightest impression that our parliamentary group wouldn’t have known our responsibility.”

Krichbaum, a conservative, said the clear message was that “now we are today in the situation to create a stable government” to tackle Germany’s big issues, including migration and the economy.

Far-right party Alternative for Germany, which came second in the February election with 20.8% of the vote, seized on Merz’s initial failure and called for fresh elections.

Joint leader Alice Weidel wrote on X that the vote showed “the weak foundation on which the small coalition has been built between the [conservatives] and SPD, which was rejected by voters”.

Merz’s choice for foreign minister, Christian Democrat colleague Johann Wadephul, told the BBC the initial vote was “an obstacle but not a catastrophe”.

Germany’s handover of government is carefully choreographed. On the eve of Tuesday’s vote, outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz was treated to a traditional Grand Tattoo by an armed forces orchestra.

Merz had then been expected to sail through the initial vote on Tuesday morning, fulfilling a long-held ambition to become German chancellor.

His rival and former chancellor Angela Merkel had come to the Bundestag to watch the vote take place. She was not present for the second vote.

Among the first international leaders to congratulate Germany’s conservative leader was Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, who hoped that Germany would “grow even stronger and that we’ll see more German leadership in European and transatlantic affairs”.

Political correspondents in the Bundestag said Merz’s initial shock result indicated he had a potential problem lurking within his coalition ranks.

AfD MP Bernd Baumann said the CDU had promised a string of policies similar to his own party’s, such as limiting migration, and had then gone into an alliance with the centre left: “That doesn’t work. That’s not how democracy works.”

“This isn’t good,” warned Green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt. “Even though I don’t want this chancellor or support him, I can only warn everyone not to rejoice in chaos.”

Barely 24 hours earlier, the messaging from Merz had been very different, of a new, stable government bringing six months of political paralysis to an end.

“It’s our historical duty to make this government a success,” he had said as he signed the coalition document on Monday.

Despite having a narrow majority of 12 seats, the agreement between the conservatives and centre left was seen as far more secure than the so-called traffic-light coalition of three parties that fell apart last November in a row over debt spending.

The SPD, which had been the biggest party in the old coalition slumped to its worst post-war election result in third place, but Merz had promised that Germany was back and that he would boost its voice on the world stage and revive a flagging economy.

After two years of recession, Europe’s largest economy grew in the first three months of 2025. However economists have warned of potential risks to German exports because of US-imposed tariffs.

Germany’s services sector contracted last month because of weaker demand and lower consumer spending.