US President Donald Trump has said the US has “no stronger partner” than Saudi Arabia during his first major foreign trip – a whirlwind visit of Gulf countries mainly focused on shoring up investment.

Day one of the tour saw the two sides announce a $142bn (£107bn) arms deal, as well as other investments that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said could eventually be worth $1tn.

Trump also made Saudi Arabia the first foreign stop during his first term, in 2017. The rest of his trip will include stops in Qatar and the UAE.

Speaking for nearly an hour in Riyadh, Trump also announced that the US would be lifting sanctions on Syria in order to give the country “a chance at greatness”.

Trump’s arrival in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday was met with a grand reception, including a lavish lavender-coloured carpet rolled out to greet him. He had even chosen a purple tie to match it.

Riyadh swapped red carpets for lavender in 2021, saying that it was a symbol of the kingdom’s desert wildflowers and generosity.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Trump on the tarmac and provided an honour guard of Arabian horses to accompany his presidential limo.

In a speech later, Trump said: “I like him a lot.”

The pomp and ceremony was a drastic change from the muted reception for former US President Joe Biden, who declared Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state after the murder of a dissident journalist, before he travelled to the oil-rich kingdom to seek their help in lowering petrol prices, fist-bumping the crown prince.

Trump flew to the Gulf to strike financial deals and argued in his speech that it is through this kind of commerce and economic development that the Middle East would transcend violence and division.

In his remarks at a US-Saudi investment forum, Trump lauded the US-Saudi relationship as “more powerful than ever before”.

“From the moment we started we’ve seen wealth that has poured – and is pouring – into America,” he said.

The visit comes as Trump continues to try woo foreign investors to the US to boost the US economy, a key focus of his administration in the nearly four months of his second term.

“I like him too much,” Trump said of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de-facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. “That’s why we give so much.”

Underscoring his commitment to deal-making, Trump was joined by billionaire ally Elon Musk and other business leaders at a lavish lunch.

During his address, Trump said it was his “dream” to have Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, a deal brokered in his first administration that saw relations between Israel and some Gulf countries normalised for the first time.

But his good friend, Mohammed bin Salman, has made it clear that will not happen until there is a permanent end to the war and Gaza and a clear path to Palestinian statehood.

There is a limit to what this friendship can deliver.

Trump only briefly addressed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

He told those in attendance that people in Gaza deserved a “better future”, which had been held back by Hamas choosing “to kidnap, torture and target” for “political ends” – a reference to the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Trump also announced he was lifting sanctions on Syria to improve the country’s new government, a move he suggested was requested by Mohammed bin Salman.

“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” the US leader said.

American sanctions on Syria had been in place for over a decade, meant to apply pressure and economic pain against the dictatorship of former President Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in December.

Syria has since elected a new transitional president, creating an opening for renewed US diplomacy efforts.

Trump was expected to meet Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday in Saudia Arabia.

From Saudi Arabia, Trump will head to both Qatar and the UAE, which has already committed to investing $1.4tn in the US over the next decade.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will travel to Turkey’s capital Ankara to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and will be available for direct talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Istanbul on Thursday.

“We will do everything to ensure that this meeting takes place,” he told reporters in a hastily-arranged briefing in Kyiv.

Russia has not yet said who will fly to Istanbul, only that it would be announced “as soon as [Putin] deems it necessary”. Putin and Zelensky have not themselves met since December 2019.

Direct talks between the two countries last took place in Istanbul, in March 2022, in the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Putin had initially called for direct talks in Turkey’s largest city “without pre-conditions”, before Zelensky announced that he would go in person and expected the Russian president to travel as well.

The US is also expected to send a high-level delegation.

By confirming his visit to Turkey at Tuesday’s briefing, Zelensky clearly sought to intensify pressure on Russia to respond. The Kremlin has already warned that exerting pressure on Moscow is “useless” and it does not respond to ultimatums.

Russia has instead sought to focus on a long-term settlement that tackles what Moscow sees as the “root causes” of the war – a set of tough pre-conditions announced before the 2022 invasion and repeatedly rejected by Kyiv.

The Ukrainian leader said while he was prepared to meet Putin in Istanbul his priority was to secure a 30-day ceasefire, which he said all Ukraine’s allies – including the US – were agreed on.

Zelensky said he believed Putin’s late night offer on Sunday for direct talks in Turkey was designed to catch Kyiv out, so that he would “not react” or “react in a negative way for Ukraine”.

US President Donald Trump, who is on a visit to the Gulf, has hinted that he could fly to to Istanbul himself “if I think things can happen”.

That seems unlikely for now, and unconfirmed reports suggest two senior US envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, are planning to be in Istanbul on the day.

The Kremlin has sought to dampen speculation that Putin himself might himself go.

“Russia continues preparations for the negotiations due on Thursday. That’s all that can be said right now,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that Moscow was prepared to hold talks “responsibly” taking into account “realities on the ground” – in a veiled reference to Ukraine’s four south-eastern regions partially seized by Russia since 2022.

He also repeated Moscow’s initial pre-invasion demands for a settlement to be achieved – Ukraine and its Western allies see this as an ultimatum tantamount to Kyiv’s de facto capitulation.

Ryabkov also cast doubt on Ukraine’s ability to stick to agreements.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it would be a good move for Zelensky and Putin to sit down and talk, but added: “I don’t think he dares, Putin.”

Zelensky also accused Putin of “being scared” to meet him. His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said if the Russian leader refused to go to Istanbul it would the “final signal” that he did not want to end the war.

The leaders of Ukraine’s main allies – the UK, Germany, Poland and France – travelled to Kyiv at the weekend to warn of immediate further sanctions if Russia did not accept a 30-day ceasefire.

The European Union is currently working on a 17th package of measures.

More than 200 marine species off the coast of South Australia (SA) have been killed by a weeks-long toxic algae explosion, in what conservationists have described as “a horror movie for fish”.

The algal bloom – a rapid increase in the population of algae in water systems – has been spreading since March, growing to about 4,500 sq km (3,400 sq miles), or roughly the size of nearby Kangaroo Island.

“It’s an unprecedented event, because the bloom has continued to build and build,” said Vanessa Pirotta, a wildlife scientist.

Other scientists say the algae produces poisons which “act like a toxic blanket that suffocates” a wide range of marine life, including fish, rays and sharks.

Brad Martin, SA project manager for OzFish, a non-profit organisation that protects fishing habitats, said that while algal blooms are not uncommon, the “massive” scale of the current event has had a dramatic impact on marine life.

Toxins produced by the algae can cause “gill and tissue damage” by attacking the red blood cells, Mr Martin told the BBC.

The large density of the bloom also means that oxygen is being taken out of the water, “so we know that the fish are suffocating”.

“It is like a horror movie for fish,” he said.

The event has been widely documented by people sending in pictures of dead wildlife washed up on beaches.

The effect on sharks and rays has been particularly graphic, with large numbers washing up on beaches “bright red”, showing indications of haemorrhaging.

A three-metre great white shark was among those found dead in recent weeks.

Among the more than 200 species that have been killed, which range from the smallest of baby fish to great whites, some are more vulnerable than others.

Reef species like crabs and pufferfishes have been the worst hit, as they are less mobile and can’t swim away from the toxic algae.

While the algae isn’t harmful to humans, those exposed to high doses can experience skin irritation and respiratory symptoms such as coughing or breathing issues.

The SA government has advised people to avoid swimming at beaches where there is discoloured water and foam.

Algal blooms occur during sunny and warm conditions, and SA has had a marine heatwave since last September, with temperatures about 2.5 degrees warmer than average.

Australia has also been experiencing unseasonably warm conditions since March, which has further driven the size and duration of the current algal bloom.

The last time SA recorded a large event of this type of toxic algae was in 2014, according to the state’s environment and water department.

The spread has also affected some commercial fisheries, which have pre-emptively closed harvest areas.

Local coastal businesses have also seen a dip in visitors due to the sheer number of dead marine life washing up on shore.

Meanwhile, researchers and the SA government are continuing to monitor the bloom as it moves west.

An Israeli air strike has killed 28 people and injured dozens at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, a spokesman for the Hamas-run civil defence agency has said.

Israeli warplanes dropped six bombs simultaneously on the Gaza hospital, hitting both its inner courtyard and surrounding area, according to local sources.

The Israeli military said it had conducted a “precise strike” on “Hamas terrorists in a command and control centre” which it claimed was beneath the hospital.

A freelance journalist working for the BBC in Gaza was among those injured in the air strike, and is now in a stable condition after receiving medical attention.

• Gaza journalist Hassan Aslih killed in Israeli strike on hospital

The strike at European Hospital resulted in several deep craters inside the hospital compound, which buried several vehicles including part of a large bus.

Eyewitnesses said Israeli drones maintained a tight aerial siege over the building, preventing rescue teams from reaching the site.

A quadcopter drone reportedly wounded two civil defence officers as they attempted to approach the European Hospital.

The dead and wounded have been transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, local sources said, where medical teams are reportedly struggling to deal with the casualties.

The emergency department of Nasser Hospital was hit by another strike earlier on Tuesday, according to medical sources and eyewitnesses.

They said a well-known Palestinian photojournalist was among two people killed.

Hassan Aslih, who was being treated for injuries from a previous Israeli strike, was targeted in what witnesses described as a drone attack on the hospital’s surgical wing.

A doctor there confirmed that Aslih had been at the hospital for nearly a month after surviving an air strike on the same facility in April.

The Israeli military had previously accused him of involvement in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel. The strike in April killed Aslih’s colleague Helmi al-Faqawi and wounded several other journalists.

In a joint statement the IDF and the Israeli Securities Authority (ISA) said Hamas “continues” to use hospitals in Gaza for its activities – a long-standing Israeli allegation which the group denies.

Israeli media reported the target of the strike was senior Hamas figure Mohammed Sinwar – the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.

Hamas has not commented on these reports.

Mohammed Sinwar is believed to have taken command of the group’s military wing, following the death of Mohammed Deif in an Israeli strike last summer.

Separately on Tuesday evening, the Israel army said it intercepted “two projectiles” launched from Gaza. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility and said it shot rocket fire from Gaza at Israel.

Kim Kardashian has given emotional testimony to a Paris court, telling judges she thought she was going to die at the hands of masked gunmen who stole millions of dollars of jewellery from her in a luxury hotel suite in 2016.

The reality TV star and businesswoman – who was bound and had a gun held to her head during the ordeal – faced her alleged attackers for the first time while giving evidence in the case.

Nine men and one woman are on trial for the armed burglary of £10m (£7.55m) worth of jewellery, including a diamond engagement ring from her ex-husband Kanye West.

Kardashian, who gave testimony in a seat in front of the BBC, spoke for more than three hours in court on Tuesday.

Her evidence was at times interrupted by apologies from two defendants.

After one of the defendants, Aomar Ait Khedache, 71, sitting metres from Kardashian in the courtroom expressed his regret, she turned to him and said she forgave him.

Referencing her activism in the US to improve the justice system and her dreams of becoming a lawyer, she thanked Khedache for his apology letter.

“I do appreciate it, I forgive you,” she said to him in the stand, while crying.

“But it doesn’t change the emotion, the feelings and the trauma and the way my life has changed.”

“I just want to thank everyone, especially the French authorities, for allowing me to testify today and tell my truth,” the TV star told the court on Tuesday which was packed with media.

The trial for the crime committed more than nine years ago has been long-anticipated and closely followed by press.

Wearing a tailored black suit and diamond jewellery, Kardashian was supported in the courtroom by her mother, Kris Jenner, several friends, and a bevy of bodyguards.

She faltered at times in her first hour of giving testimony, fidgeting with her long nails, and pausing when overwhelmed by emotion and fighting back tears. However she appeared to relax and gather strength the longer she went on, her voice becoming steadier.

She also expressed forgiveness for one of the defendants, who issued an apology to her during her testimony.

Tuesday’s session in court was the first time Kardashian had relayed to a criminal court her account of the armed burglary, and the extent of her fears during and after the attack.

She recounted how she had been in town for Paris Fashion Week on 2 October, and had retired for the night at around 03:00 when two masked gunmen wearing police uniforms burst into her room, dragging with them the hotel’s receptionist who had been bound and gagged.

She managed to call her bodyguard before one of the men then took her phone off her. They snatched her engagement ring, which had been lying on the bedside table, and then “picked me up off the bed and grabbed me and took me down the hallway” to look for more jewellery,” she said.

One of the men held a gun to her back at this point, and “that was the first moment I thought, should I run for it? But it wasn’t an option so I just stayed,” she said, adding that she realised she should just “do whatever they say” for her safety.

Kardashian said she was then thrown onto the bed and her hands bound with zip ties. At this point, she told the concierge: “Please translate to them that I have babies, I have to make it home.”

One of the men then pulled her towards him, which opened her robe, under which she wasn’t wearing anything.

She told the court she was afraid she was going to be raped, saying she said a prayer to mentally prepare herself.

But then her legs were tied together and a gun pointed at her. She said at that point, “I was sure that’s when they were going to shoot me.”

She thought of her family at that point, offering them a “prayer” that they would not have to experience her killing.

She expressed fear for her sister, Kourtney, having to walk into the hotel room to find that “I would be shot dead on the bed and she would see that and have that memory forever.”

When asked by the judge David de Pas if she thought she was going to die she replied in a small voice: “I absolutely did think I was gonna die.”

Kardashian said she looked in the eyes of the man who tied her up to try to remember details – and that he told her if she remained quiet, she would be ok.

After the robbers took the jewellery, they dashed out of the suite, leaving Kardashian in the bathroom. She said she then managed to free her hands from the cable ties and hopped down the staircase to the first floor of the suite, where her stylist and friend Simone Harouche helped release the other ties.

The two then ran out onto the balcony where they called for help while hiding in the bushes. Kardashian said she was worried the men would return, and that when Parisian police turned up, she couldn’t trust them because the robbers had also been wearing police uniforms.

During the testimony in the packed courtroom, Kardashian also answered several questions from the judge about why her security were not present at the time.

Her usual team had been sent to accompany her sister Kourtney to the club, while Kim had stayed in.

She told the court she did not have a bodyguard with her because up until the robbery, she and her family had not believed they needed that level of security. She said she had previously always felt safe to go out on the streets of Paris on her own, and they had been comfortable with their security team staying at a different hotel.

“Everything changed” after Paris, she said, noting that she employs up to six people to guard her house at night now, and that she started to get a “phobia of going out” because she thought people would “see me out and know my home was empty”.

“I can’t even sleep at night if I know there’s not multiple security” guards, she said, noting her concern about copycat attacks, and that her Los Angeles house was robbed even before the family returned from the Paris trip.

Kardashian’s testimony on Tuesday was interrupted at several points by offers of apology from two of the defendants in the court room, who have pleaded guilty to the charge. While she accepted Khedache’s apology, she did not acknowledge the presence of the other defendants who are contesting the charges.

She ignored her former driver Gary Madar who is accused of having tipped off the burglary ring about her whereabouts. He has denied the charges.

She also expressed anger over one of the defendants who has pleaded guilty, Yunice Abbas, who published a memoir in 2021 prior to the trial titled ‘”I Held Up Kim Kardashian”.

Kardashian told the court on Tuesday she was “really shocked when I saw there was a book”.

“Not only did he do this, but now [he’s] making money off that – my jewellery, my memories, the watch my dad who passed away gave me when I graduated high school. I can’t get that back.”

She also told the court she wanted closure from the trial’s proceedings.

“I wanted to be a part of today because I am a victim in this case and it’s the first time I’m able to really hear from everyone and follow along,” she said.

“This is what I do. I want to become a lawyer and I do believe everyone has the opportunity to speak their truth, and this is my closure and my opportunity to put this to rest after everything I’ve been through.”

Kardashian added that her job is “to tell my truth and hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else”.

“It was terrifying and life-changing and I don’t wish that kind of terror on anyone – to think you could be killed or raped – I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has unveiled a new team, promising “decisive action” on his ambitious economic agenda – amid a trade war with the US and President Donald Trump’s repeated remarks undermining Canada’s sovereignty.

The new cabinet of 28 ministers and 10 secretaries of state marks some significant changes, including a new foreignminister to handle the currently fraught US-Canada relationship.

The reshuffle, two weeks after the election, brings some familiar names as well as political newcomers – a team “purpose-built for this hinge moment”, Carney told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.

“Canada’s new ministry is built to deliver the change Canadians want and deserve,” he said.

Carney has made a number of changes to the core team of ministers handling the strained relationship with its southern neighbour.

It comes after Carney’s recently meeting with Trump at the White House, after which he said Trump was willing to negotiate a new trade deal.

Veteran member of parliament (MP), Dominic LeBlanc, who has overseen a number of cabinet positions, most recently international trade, will now focus on Canada-US trade and breaking down internal trade barriers within the country – a key campaign pledge.

Toronto-area MP Maninder Sidhu, takes over as minister of international trade.

Carney has also named a new foreign minister, Anita Anand, who held a number of top roles in former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, including defence.

Melanie Joly was shuffled out of foreign affairs and given the industry portfolio.

Former justice minister Gary Anandasangaree now takes on the role of public safety, a department that will oversee border security, which Trump has cited as a key reason for imposing tariffs on Canada as well as Mexico.

David McGuinty, who previously held that position, now oversees defence.

Two prominent names have been pushed out of the cabinet – Bill Blair, who oversaw defence, and Jonathan Wilkinson, natural resources minister.

Rookie MP Tim Hodgson, first elected in April, is taking over at natural resources. Carney worked with him at the Bank of Canada, where Hodgson served as a special adviser.

• Along the Canada border, small-town America feels sting of Trump’s trade war
• How Canada voted – in charts
• Canada has been ‘over reliant on the US for too long’, says Joly

The cabinet will include ten secretaries of state, who assist the senior ministers on key files.

Some notable names remaining in their roles include Francois-Philippe Champagne, who stays on as finance minister, a position he has held since March.

Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister under Trudeau and a former foreign affairs and finance minister in his government, stays in transport.

Steven Guilbeault will continue to oversee Canadian culture and official languages.

Federal cabinets in Canada by tradition balance representation of the country’s regional, linguistic and ethnic diversity.

The new cabinet includes representation from Canada’s prairie provinces – a minister and secretary of state – where there are growing musings about separation amid a broader sense of western alienation from the power centre in Ottawa.

Carney is also continuing Trudeau’s policy of maintaining gender parity in his cabinet.

Some of the new faces include former broadcaster Evan Solomon, who will be minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation.

Toronto MP Julie Dabrusin joins cabinet for the first time as environment minister after having served as parliamentary secretary for the file since 2021.

Halifax MP Lena Metlege Diab is also new to cabinet in the role of minister for immigration.

Vancouver’s former mayor, Gregor Robertson, takes on a significant role overseeing housing. Carney has pledged to significantly ramp up construction amid a housing affordability crisis in Canada.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre criticised Carney for keeping so many ministers who served in Trudeau’s cabinet.

“That isn’t the change that Mr Carney promised,” he said.

As the noise and colour of a two-month election campaign subsides, a game of thrones between the two most powerful families in the Philippines resumes.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, and his Vice-President, Sara Duterte, are embroiled in a bitter feud, and a battle for power.

As allies they won a landslide victory in the last presidential election in 2022.

But as their relationship has fractured – he accusing her of threatening to assassinate him, she accusing him of incompetence and saying she dreamed of decapitating him – this mid-term election has become a critical barometer of the strength of these two political dynasties.

And the results were not great news for the Marcos camp. Typically incumbent presidents in the Philippines get most of their picks for the senate elected in the mid-term election. The power of presidential patronage is a significant advantage, at least it has been in the past.

But not this time.

Only six of the 12 winning senators are from the Marcos alliance, and of those one, Camille Villar, is only half in his camp, as she also accepted endorsement from Sara Duterte.

Four of the senators are in the Duterte camp, including the president’s sister Imee Marcos. Two were in the top three vote-winners, ahead of any Marcos candidate.

For a sitting president, this is a poor result.

Senators are elected on a simple, nationwide vote, which is a good indication of national opinion. The result could weaken the authority of the Marcos administration in the last three years of his term, and it casts doubt on the plan to incapacitate Sara Duterte by impeaching her.

The Marcos-Duterte relationship has been deteriorating almost since the start of their administration three years ago. But it was only this year that it ruptured completely.

The decision by the president’s allies in Congress to start impeaching the vice-president was the first irreparable breach.

Then in March President Marcos sent Sara’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity over his brutal war on drugs. The police have also now filed criminal charges against her.

The gloves were off. Impeachment would result in Sara Duterte being barred from public office, ending her ambition to replace President Marcos at the next election.

Right now she is the frontrunner, and few doubt that, if successful, she would use the power of the presidency to seek vengeance against the Marcos’s.

But impeachment requires two thirds of the 24-seat senate to vote for it, which is why this mid-term election mattered so much to both camps.

Politics in the Philippines is a family business. Once a family achieves political power, it holds onto it, and passes it around the various generations.

While there are around 200 influential families, the Dutertes and Marcoses sit at the top of the pyramid.

The Marcoses have been in politics for 80 years. The current president’s father ruled from 1965 to 1986, imposing martial law, and plundering billions of dollars from the national purse.

Bongbong Marcos’ mother, Imelda, who at the age of 95 cast her vote in this election from a wheelchair, is an even more notorious figure, and not just for her shoe collection.

His sister Imee has been re-elected to the senate, thanks to her decision to defect to the Duterte camp.

His eldest son Sandro is a congressman, and his cousin Martin Romualdez is speaker of the lower house and a likely presidential candidate in 2028 – probably the reason why Bongbong Marcos was so keen to drive through the impeachment of Sara Duterte.

In the president’s home province of Ilocos Norte, his wife’s cousin has been elected governor, his nephew elected vice-governor, and two other cousins elected as city councillors. Up there, Marcoses always win.

Much the same is true of the Dutertes in their stronghold in Davao at the other end of the country.

Even from his prison cell in The Hague, former President Duterte ran for mayor of Davao, and won easily, even though all voters got to see of him was a life-size cardboard cutout.

His absence will not matter though, because the previous mayor was his son Sebastian, who now takes over the vice-mayor’s job. Dutertes have been mayors of Davao for 34 out of the last 37 years.

The problem confronting both camps is that the senators also typically come from big political families, or are celebrities in their own right – many candidates come from a media or showbiz background.

They have interests and ambitions of their own. Even if officially allied with one camp or the other, there is no guarantee they will stay loyal, especially on the issue of impeachment.

“Senators in the Philippines are very sensitive to national public opinion, because they imagine themselves as vice presidents or presidents in-waiting,” says Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist who runs WR Numero Research, which monitors public opinion.

“So, they are always trying to read the public mind, and side with public opinion because of their future political ambitions.”

In recent months public sentiment has not been on the president’s side.

Bongbong Marcos has never been a good public speaker, and his stage appearances in the campaign did little to lift his flagging popularity.

His management of the economy, which is struggling, gets low marks in opinion polls, and his decision to detain former President Duterte and send him to the International Criminal Court is being portrayed by the Duterte family as a national betrayal.

At an impromptu rally in Tondo, a low-income neighbourhood in Manila’s port area, Sara Duterte played an emotionally-charged video of the moment her father was taken into custody at Manila’s international airport and put on a private jet to The Hague. She portrayed this as unforgivable treatment of a still popular former president.

“They didn’t just kidnap my dad, they stole him from us,” she told the cheering crowd.

Also on stage was President Marcos’s elder sister Imee, who disagreed with the extradition and jumped ship to the Duterte camp – though most observers view this as a cynical move to capitalise on Duterte popular support, so she could lift her own flagging campaign to retain her senate seat.

It worked. From polling low through much of the campaign, Imee Marcos managed to scrape into the “magic twelve”, as they call the winning senators.

What happens now is difficult to predict, but the Marcos camp certainly faces an uphill battle to get Sara Duterte impeached.

Of the 24 senators, only a handful are automatically loyal to the president. The rest will have to be persuaded to go along with it, , and that won’t be easy.

This election has shown that the Dutertes still have very strong public support in some areas, and some in the Marcos election alliance are already on record as saying they oppose impeaching the vice-president. The same goes for the 12 senators who were not up for election this year.

One bright spot for the president could be the surprise election of senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, both from the liberal wing of politics.

Few polls had predicted their wins, which suggest a public desire for politicians outside the Marcos-Duterte feud.

Neither is a friend of the Marcos clan – liberals were the main opposition to the Marcos-Duterte team in the 2022 election.

But they were strongly opposed to the strongman style of former President Duterte, and may fear his pugnacious daughter becoming president in 2028. That may be enough to get them to vote for impeachment.

The impeachment trial is expected to start in July. The Dutertes can be expected to continue chipping away at the president’s battered authority in public, and both camps will be lobbying furiously behind the scenes to get senators onto their side.

No president or vice-president has ever been successfully impeached in the Philippines. Nor have any president and vice president ever fallen out so badly.

It is going to be a turbulent year.

President Donald Trump has slashed the tariff on small parcels sent from mainland China and Hong Kong to the US, just hours after the world’s two biggest economies said they would cut levies on each other’s goods for 90 days.

The new tariffs on small packages worth up to $800 (£606) have been cut from 120% to 54%, according to a White House statement.

The flat fee per parcel will remain at $100, while a $200 charge due to apply from 1 June has been cancelled.

Chinese online retail giants Shein and Temu had previously relied on the so-called “de minimis” exemption to ship low-value items directly to customers in the US without having to pay duties or import taxes.

Neither Shein or Temu immediately responded to BBC requests for comment.

The duty-free rule was closed by the Trump administration earlier this month.

Some shoppers told the BBC that they rushed through purchases ahead of that deadline.

The latest rates came after the US and China released a joint statement announcing they would temporarily reduce their tit-for-tat tariffs and start a new round of trade negotiations.

Share markets jumped on Monday after Trump said weekend talks had resulted in a “total reset” in trade terms between the two countries, a move that went some way to ease concerns about a trade war between the two countries.

Under the agreement, the US will lower those tariffs from 145% to 30%, while China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods will drop to 10% from 125%.

Trump told reporters, that, as some of the levies have been suspended rather than cancelled altogether, they might rise again in three months time, if no further progress was made.

But the president said he did not expect them to return to the previous 145% peak.

“We’re not looking to hurt China,” Trump said after the agreement was announced, adding that China was “being hurt very badly”.

Trump added that he expected to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping “maybe at the end of the week”.

A masked gang have tried to abduct the daughter and young grandson of a cryptocurrency chief in Paris, but after a violent struggle they drove off empty-handed.

The botched kidnap bid was captured on video by an onlooker in Paris’s 11th district, in the east of the French capital.

Police sources said the woman was the daughter of a cryptocurrency company boss. She and her husband fought off three attackers until passers-by rushed to their aid and the men fled in a van.

A Paris police brigade that tackles armed robbery is expected to investigate the attack, which is the latest in a series of abductions targeting French cryptocurrency figures or their relatives.

The attack unfolded at about 08:20 local time on Tuesday, according to local media, when three men leapt from a white van and tried to kidnap the mother and her child.

The pair are described as relatives of the co-founder of French Bitcoin exchange platform Paymium, the AFP news agency said.

The woman’s husband who was with his family at the time tried to protect them and was beaten repeatedly over the head. The couple shouted for help as the masked men tried to pull them apart.

At one point she was seen to grab a firearm off the attacker and throw it into the street. The weapon was later described as a replica air gun.

The street was relatively busy at the time and a group of children were on their way to a local primary school.

Initially, passers-by appeared too afraid to intervene, but as locals began to react the three attackers eventually gave up and jumped into the van as a fourth gang member drove them away. One man hurled a fire extinguisher at the van as it sped off.

The family were treated for minor injuries in hospital.

The botched kidnapping in the Rue Pache came little more than a week after French police rescued the father of a cryptocurrency millionaire who had been kidnapped in another area of the capital while walking his dog and held for ransom.

In an indication of the brutality of the gangs involved, the victim was freed three days later after his kidnappers had cut off one of his fingers.

Several people were arrested.

Last January, David Balland, co-founder of cryptocurrency wallet firm Ledger, was abducted with his wife at their home in central France.

French media say the victim had one finger missing when he was rescued from a house in Palaiseau, south of Paris.

Dominated by a fiery feud between two political dynasties, the Philippine mid-term elections have thrown up unexpected results that may shake President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr’s hold on the senate.

According to the latest count of 80% of the votes, Marcos allies appear to have captured fewer senate seats than expected.

Meanwhile his rival, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte who is detained in The Hague over his drug war that killed thousands, has been elected mayor of his family’s stronghold.

The fate of his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing an impeachment trial, remains in the balance.

The mid-terms held on Monday saw 18,000 seats contested, from local officials to governors and senators. It served as a proxy war between Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte, who were one-time allies.

The senate race, where 12 seats were up for grabs, was closely watched as it affects Sara Duterte’s trial, which she has called “political persecution”.

The popular vice-president, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028, is facing the prospect of a ban from politics, should a jury made up of senators vote to impeach her.

Many people had expected Marcos Jr’s picks to win most of the 12 seats. But according to the latest count of 80% of the votes, only six from his camp appear to have won seats, and one of them has also been endorsed by the Dutertes.

In the top five ranking – a barometer of public popularity – only one Marcos-backed candidate, broadcaster Erwin Tulfo, made it.

Meanwhile, at the very top of the list is a Duterte loyalist – long-time aide Christopher “Bong” Go – while at number three is another Duterte ally, former police chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

The Duterte camp appears to have won at least four seats. They include Marcos Jr’s older sister Imee, who recently bolted from her brother’s alliance to side with the Dutertes.

What complicates things is that it is still unclear how Marcos’ allies in the senate will move on Sara Duterte’s impeachment. Their loyalty can shift, as senators also balance their own interests and ambitions with their political allegiances.

Meanwhile, two people who are not affiliated with either camp appear to have also won senate seats.

They are Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino, and an Aquino ally, Francis Pangilinan.

Bam Aquino, the cousin of a former president, has in fact clinched second place in the rankings, in what he called a “very, very surprising” result.

It marks the first time in years that voters had chosen outside the Marcos and Duterte dynasties.

The Aquino family was the Marcoses’ main political nemesis in the 1980s and early 1990s before the rise of the Dutertes.

It was the assassination of opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr in 1983 that galvanised protests against Ferdinand Marcos Sr – the current president’s father – culminating in the Marcos family’s ouster and exile in 1986.

Monday’s result signals their comeback after being wiped out of national politics in recent years.

Results so far also show the Dutertes have managed to retain their power base in the south of the country, just two months after the 80-year-old populist leader Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at Manila Airport and flown to the Netherlands on the same day to face the International Criminal Court.

It was his arrest – approved by Marcos Jr – which pushed the rivalry between his daughter and the current president to boiling point, a few weeks after the president’s allies in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Vice-President Duterte.

Rodrigo Duterte was always expected to win as mayor, given the family has held the post since the mid-1980s.

Duterte himself led Davao, a sprawling southern metropolis, for two decades before he was elected president in 2016. There, he showcased his drug war that he credited for the city’s success, and won him the support of millions far beyond its borders.

His youngest son, Sebastian, the incumbent mayor, was elected vice-mayor, meaning he can discharge his father’s duties in his absence. Another Duterte son, Paolo, was re-elected as congressman. His grandchildren won local posts.

Duterte’s name remained on the ballot as he has not been convicted of any crime. He beat the scion of a smaller rival political family.

Maintaining a political base in Davao city in the south is crucial for the Dutertes – it is where they get the most voter support.

The election was not just a battle between the two families, however.

Monday’s vote saw long queues under temperatures of 33C (91F) and sporadic reports of violence and vote machines malfunctioning.

Like past elections, song-and-dance, showbusiness-style campaigns played out on stage and on social media, underscoring the country’s personality and celebrity politics that sometimes overshadow more pressing issues such as corruption, high cost of living and creaking infrastructure.

A man who has served almost 38 years in prison for the murder of a woman has had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal after new DNA evidence emerged.

Peter Sullivan was jailed over the 1986 killing of 21-year-old barmaid Diane Sindall, who was subjected to a frenzied sexual attack in Birkenhead, Merseyside, as she walked home from a shift.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – the statutory body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice – had referred Mr Sullivan’s case back to the appeal court last year after fresh testing found a DNA profile pointing to an unknown attacker in semen samples preserved from the crime scene.

Mr Sullivan, appearing on video-link from HMP Wakefield, sobbed and held his hand over his mouth as he was told he would be released.

• Who is Peter Sullivan and why was he jailed?
• Why was Peter Sullivan not freed earlier?

Now aged 68, he is believed to be the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner in British legal history.

In a statement read by his solicitor, Mr Sullivan said he was “not angry, I’m not bitter”.

The statement read: “What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract that what happened was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.

“The truth shall set you free.”

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Sullivan’s sister Kim Smith said “no-one had won” and expressed sympathy for Miss Sindall’s family.

“They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back. We’ve got Peter back, and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again,” she said.

“It’s such a shame this has had to happen in the first place.”

Both Merseyside Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the technology to test the semen samples did not exist at the time of the murder.

Duncan Atkinson KC, representing the CPS, had said the service agreed the DNA evidence undermined Mr Sullivan’s conviction and there would be no application to seek a retrial.

Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Bryan at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, quashed the conviction and said they had “no doubt that it is both necessary and expedient in the interests of justice” to admit the new DNA evidence.

He said: “In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe.”

Lord Holroyde said injuries to the victim “plainly did point to a sexual aspect of the attack on Miss Sindall” and the “inference was very strong” that the semen had been left by the real killer.

He continued: “There is no evidence to suggest more than one man was involved in the murder, and no evidence to suggest semen may have deposited in the process of consensual sexual activity.”

The BBC understands Mr Sullivan left HMP Wakefield in a prison van shortly after 14:15 BST.

His release came 38 years, seven months and 21 days after his arrest, a total of 14,113 days in custody.

About a year of that time was spent in custody on remand as he awaited trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

The court heard technology had only very recently been developed to the point where the semen sample, recovered from Miss Sindall’s abdomen, could be tested for DNA.

The DNA profile was not a match for Miss Sindall’s fiancé at the time, the court heard, while cross-contamination from the forensic investigator who collected the semen samples had been ruled out.

Merseyside Police has since re-opened its investigation into Miss Sindall’s murder but the force said “unfortunately” searches of the national DNA database had not come up with any matches.

The force said it “did not underestimate” the impact of the conviction on Mr Sullivan.

Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023.

“We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway,” she said.

“We can confirm that the DNA does not belong to any member of Diane’s family, nor Diane’s fiancé at the time, and we believe it could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene.”

Nick Price, director of legal services at the CPS, said: ”We recognise the enormous impact this conviction has had on Peter Sullivan’s life and the profound implications of the Court’s decision in respect of this conviction.

“The prosecution case was brought on the basis of all the evidence available to us at the time.”

He said after the new DNA evidence was presented to the service it concluded it “could not oppose” the appeal.

Miss Sindall, who worked as a florist but was also doing part-time bar work to save up for her wedding, was believed to have run out of petrol while driving home from her shift at the Wellington pub in Bebington, Wirral, shortly after midnight on 2 August 1986.

Detectives believed she was walking to an all-night garage or a bus-stop on Borough Road in Birkenhead when she was attacked and dragged into an alley.

She suffered repeated blows to the head which caused her death, and also had injuries including bite marks and lacerations.

The day after her killing her clothes were found burning on Bidston Hill.

Mr Sullivan became a suspect after witnesses reported seeing a man who they recognised as “Pete” running out of some bushes near the site of the fire.

During the course of the investigation Mr Sullivan gave conflicting accounts of his whereabouts and offered “confessions”, the court heard.

However, his defence said he had learning difficulties and was “highly suggestible”.

He had also been interviewed without a solicitor or an appropriate adult.

At his original trial, the prosecution also relied on evidence matching bite marks on Miss Sindall’s body to Mr Sullivan’s dental impressions.

But the court heard forensic scientists now have expressed serious doubt as to the quality of bite mark evidence.

Mr Sullivan first applied for his case to be reviewed by the CCRC in 2008, but at the time the body concluded there was little chance any new DNA profile would be recoverable.

He also applied directly to the court for permission to appeal in 2019 but that too was rejected.

Another application to the CCRC was lodged in 2021, but this time the body concluded that thanks to technological advances it was worth testing the semen samples preserved from 1986.

Mr Sullivan’s defence team, led in court by Jason Pitter KC, said he acknowledged that attempting to test the sample any earlier could have destroyed it permanently without yielding any results.

US President Donald Trump has said his administration wants to accept a plane worth an estimated $400m (£303m) as a gift from Qatar, calling it “a great gesture” that he would be “stupid” to turn down.

The potential move has been labelled “wildly illegal” by some members of the rival Democratic Party – something the White House denies – and it has attracted criticism from some of Trump’s supporters.

Qatar itself earlier said the reports about the plane were “inaccurate”, and that negotiations were continuing.

The news comes as Trump visits several countries in the Middle East, including Qatar.

BBC Verify has been looking into the legality of presidents accepting gifts.

On Sunday, US media reported that the Trump administration was preparing to accept a Boeing jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family – saying that the plane would be refitted and used temporarily as Air Force One, the name for the plane used by presidents.

Trump later posted on Truth Social: “The Defense Department is getting a gift, free of charge, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40-year-old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction.”

When questioned by reporters, Trump said: “It’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.”

In February, Trump said he was “not happy with Boeing” about delays to two new Air Force One jets that he is expecting to receive directly from the firm. He added that the White House could instead “buy a plane or get a plane, or something”.

The Qatari plane was pictured in Palm Beach, Florida, in February where Trump inspected it. It is currently fitted with three bedrooms, a private lounge and an office, according to its specification summary document from 2015.

A Qatari official has told CNN the plane is being given from the Qatari defence ministry to the Pentagon, and that it will be modified to meet Air Force One’s safety and security standards.

Experts say this is likely to take years, which means the plane may not be ready for use until near the end of Trump’s term.

Trump has said the plane will go directly to his presidential library after he leaves office, and that he “wouldn’t be using it” after his presidency.

Nonetheless, the move has led to criticism from Democrats as well as some long-time Trump supporters, including Laura Loomer who said: “This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true.”

Several senior Democrats have claimed that accepting the gift would be illegal.

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff quoted a section of the US Constitution that said no elected official could accept “any present… of any kind whatever” from the leader of a foreign state without congressional approval.

Frank Cogliano, a professor of American history at the University of Edinburgh, says this clause “was intended to prevent bribery to influence the government”.

“It is certainly stretching the Constitution and we have not seen a gift on this scale, or of this nature”, says Professor Andrew Moran, a constitutional law expert at London Metropolitan University.

There have been a number of other laws passed by Congress relating to the acceptance of foreign gifts, such as the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1966, which means that congressional consent is required for the acceptance of foreign gifts above a certain value.

Currently US officials can accept gifts valued at less than $480 (£363).

Although Trump has referred to the plane ultimately going to his “library”, experts have suggested he really means his museum foundation.

Ex-presidents typically have a library housing their archive of documents, and a museum – typically funded by private donations – full of memorabilia and open to the public.

Experts who BBC Verify spoke to said the fact that the plane could be given to the administration – and not to the president directly – before being transferred to his museum, may not get around the potential violation of the constitution.

Jordan Libowitz – from the organisation Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington – said any use of the plane by Trump after leaving office would cross a line: “Reagan’s Air Force One ended up in his presidential library, but there’s a difference there. The plane was decommissioned, Reagan never flew on it again, and it sits inside as a museum piece.”

The US Justice Department has reportedly drafted a memo explaining why it thinks accepting the jet would be permissible, although this has not been made public.

When the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt was asked about the legality of the deal, she said: “The legal details of that are still being worked out, but of course, any donation to this government is always done in full compliance with the law.”

President Trump is on a four-day trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, hoping to drum up investment for the US.

His visit follows a series of business deals announced by the Trump Organization, which is run by the president’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr.

These include plans to build golf courses and luxury villas in Qatar and the UAE.

President Trump is not currently affiliated with the Trump Organization, having handed over management responsibilities to his children after entering the White House on 20 January.

A deal was announced by the Trump Organization at the beginning of May to develop a Trump-branded luxury 18-hole golf course and a collection of luxury villas north of Qatar’s capital, Doha.

At the time, Eric Trump said: “We are incredibly proud to expand the Trump brand into Qatar through this exceptional collaboration with Qatari Diar and Dar Global.”

Dar Global is a publicly owned Saudi construction company; Qatari Diar is a Qatari state-owned company.

Separately, on 30 April, the Trump Organization announced it would build “the region’s first Trump International Hotel & Tower” in the “heart of Dubai” consisting of 80 floors of “luxury living and world-class hospitality”.

Eric Trump also visited the UAE recently, speaking at Token 2049, a cryptocurrency conference, on 1 May.

Asked if Trump was likely to meet anyone involved in the family business during his trip, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “ridiculous” to suggest the president was doing anything for his own benefit.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

As the noise and colour of a two-month election campaign subsides, a game of thrones between the two most powerful families in the Philippines resumes.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, and his Vice-President, Sara Duterte, are embroiled in a bitter feud, and a battle for power.

As allies they won a landslide victory in the last presidential election in 2022.

But as their relationship has fractured – he accusing her of threatening to assassinate him, she accusing him of incompetence and saying she dreamed of decapitating him – this mid-term election has become a critical barometer of the strength of these two political dynasties.

And the results were not great news for the Marcos camp. Typically incumbent presidents in the Philippines get most of their picks for the senate elected in the mid-term election. The power of presidential patronage is a significant advantage, at least it has been in the past.

But not this time.

Only six of the 12 winning senators are from the Marcos alliance, and of those one, Camille Villar, is only half in his camp, as she also accepted endorsement from Sara Duterte.

Four of the senators are in the Duterte camp, including the president’s sister Imee Marcos. Two were in the top three vote-winners, ahead of any Marcos candidate.

For a sitting president, this is a poor result.

Senators are elected on a simple, nationwide vote, which is a good indication of national opinion. The result could weaken the authority of the Marcos administration in the last three years of his term, and it casts doubt on the plan to incapacitate Sara Duterte by impeaching her.

The Marcos-Duterte relationship has been deteriorating almost since the start of their administration three years ago. But it was only this year that it ruptured completely.

The decision by the president’s allies in Congress to start impeaching the vice-president was the first irreparable breach.

Then in March President Marcos sent Sara’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity over his brutal war on drugs. The police have also now filed criminal charges against her.

The gloves were off. Impeachment would result in Sara Duterte being barred from public office, ending her ambition to replace President Marcos at the next election.

Right now she is the frontrunner, and few doubt that, if successful, she would use the power of the presidency to seek vengeance against the Marcos’s.

But impeachment requires two thirds of the 24-seat senate to vote for it, which is why this mid-term election mattered so much to both camps.

Politics in the Philippines is a family business. Once a family achieves political power, it holds onto it, and passes it around the various generations.

While there are around 200 influential families, the Dutertes and Marcoses sit at the top of the pyramid.

The Marcoses have been in politics for 80 years. The current president’s father ruled from 1965 to 1986, imposing martial law, and plundering billions of dollars from the national purse.

Bongbong Marcos’ mother, Imelda, who at the age of 95 cast her vote in this election from a wheelchair, is an even more notorious figure, and not just for her shoe collection.

His sister Imee has been re-elected to the senate, thanks to her decision to defect to the Duterte camp.

His eldest son Sandro is a congressman, and his cousin Martin Romualdez is speaker of the lower house and a likely presidential candidate in 2028 – probably the reason why Bongbong Marcos was so keen to drive through the impeachment of Sara Duterte.

In the president’s home province of Ilocos Norte, his wife’s cousin has been elected governor, his nephew elected vice-governor, and two other cousins elected as city councillors. Up there, Marcoses always win.

Much the same is true of the Dutertes in their stronghold in Davao at the other end of the country.

Even from his prison cell in The Hague, former President Duterte ran for mayor of Davao, and won easily, even though all voters got to see of him was a life-size cardboard cutout.

His absence will not matter though, because the previous mayor was his son Sebastian, who now takes over the vice-mayor’s job. Dutertes have been mayors of Davao for 34 out of the last 37 years.

The problem confronting both camps is that the senators also typically come from big political families, or are celebrities in their own right – many candidates come from a media or showbiz background.

They have interests and ambitions of their own. Even if officially allied with one camp or the other, there is no guarantee they will stay loyal, especially on the issue of impeachment.

“Senators in the Philippines are very sensitive to national public opinion, because they imagine themselves as vice presidents or presidents in-waiting,” says Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist who runs WR Numero Research, which monitors public opinion.

“So, they are always trying to read the public mind, and side with public opinion because of their future political ambitions.”

In recent months public sentiment has not been on the president’s side.

Bongbong Marcos has never been a good public speaker, and his stage appearances in the campaign did little to lift his flagging popularity.

His management of the economy, which is struggling, gets low marks in opinion polls, and his decision to detain former President Duterte and send him to the International Criminal Court is being portrayed by the Duterte family as a national betrayal.

At an impromptu rally in Tondo, a low-income neighbourhood in Manila’s port area, Sara Duterte played an emotionally-charged video of the moment her father was taken into custody at Manila’s international airport and put on a private jet to The Hague. She portrayed this as unforgivable treatment of a still popular former president.

“They didn’t just kidnap my dad, they stole him from us,” she told the cheering crowd.

Also on stage was President Marcos’s elder sister Imee, who disagreed with the extradition and jumped ship to the Duterte camp – though most observers view this as a cynical move to capitalise on Duterte popular support, so she could lift her own flagging campaign to retain her senate seat.

It worked. From polling low through much of the campaign, Imee Marcos managed to scrape into the “magic twelve”, as they call the winning senators.

What happens now is difficult to predict, but the Marcos camp certainly faces an uphill battle to get Sara Duterte impeached.

Of the 24 senators, only a handful are automatically loyal to the president. The rest will have to be persuaded to go along with it, , and that won’t be easy.

This election has shown that the Dutertes still have very strong public support in some areas, and some in the Marcos election alliance are already on record as saying they oppose impeaching the vice-president. The same goes for the 12 senators who were not up for election this year.

One bright spot for the president could be the surprise election of senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, both from the liberal wing of politics.

Few polls had predicted their wins, which suggest a public desire for politicians outside the Marcos-Duterte feud.

Neither is a friend of the Marcos clan – liberals were the main opposition to the Marcos-Duterte team in the 2022 election.

But they were strongly opposed to the strongman style of former President Duterte, and may fear his pugnacious daughter becoming president in 2028. That may be enough to get them to vote for impeachment.

The impeachment trial is expected to start in July. The Dutertes can be expected to continue chipping away at the president’s battered authority in public, and both camps will be lobbying furiously behind the scenes to get senators onto their side.

No president or vice-president has ever been successfully impeached in the Philippines. Nor have any president and vice president ever fallen out so badly.

It is going to be a turbulent year.

Days after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire, questions remain over what lies ahead for the two South Asian neighbours.

Early on 7 May, India launched air strikes into Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in response to a deadly militant attack on tourists in India-administered Kashmir (Islamabad has denied involvement in the attack).

What followed were four days of intense shelling and aerial incursions between the two nuclear-armed countries, until the surprise ceasefire announcement on Saturday.

But – even accounting for the usually tense relationship between India and Pakistan – things are nowhere close to normal yet.

The fragile ceasefire, now in its fourth day, is still holding as life slowly begins to return to normal in towns along the de facto border between India and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, days before launching the military operation, India had announced a flurry of diplomatic measures against Pakistan, including suspending a key water-sharing treaty, halting most visas and stopping all trade.

In response, Islamabad announced its own set of tit-for-tat actions, including the suspension of visas for Indians, a trade ban and the closure of its airspace to Indian flights.

None of these punitive measures have been reversed by both countries so far. Here’s where things currently stand between the two neighbours in terms of the measures announced since the Pahalgam attack:

On Monday, in his first public comments on the strike, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “India’s stand is absolutely clear – terror and talks cannot go hand in hand.”

“Water and blood cannot flow together,” he added.

His comments align with media reports citing sources that say that the key water-sharing treaty between India and Pakistan, known as the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), remains suspended.

The 1960 treaty, brokered by the World Bank, governs water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries.

The IWT has survived two wars between the countries and was held up as an example of trans-boundary water management, until the suspension late last month.

• READ: Can India really stop river water from flowing into Pakistan?

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had earlier said that he believed the water issue with India would be resolved through peaceful negotiations.

India’s decision to suspend the treaty marks a significant diplomatic shift. Pakistan depends heavily on these rivers for agriculture and civilian water supply.

“Water cannot be weaponised,” Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told Reuters news agency on Monday, adding that “unilateral withdrawal has no legal basis”.

But experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes. However, if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season.

Soon after India suspended the IWT, Pakistan threatened to suspend a 1972 peace treaty called the Simla Agreement, which established the Line of Control, or de facto border between the countries. It hasn’t suspended this so far.

India scaled down its diplomatic relations with Pakistan as part of its retaliatory measures.

It expelled all Pakistani defence attachés, declaring them “persona non grata” (unwelcome) and announced it would withdraw its own defence advisers from its high commission in Islamabad.

Pakistan responded with similar steps. Both countries reduced the staff at their respective high commissions.

Both India and Pakistan also suspended almost all visas given to people from the other country.

As part of their retaliatory measures, both India and Pakistan shut down the Attari-Wagah border, the only land crossing between the two countries.

The border, which is heavily guarded and requires special permits to cross, has long been used by people visiting family members, attending weddings or reconnecting with loved ones across the border.

Both countries initially gave their citizens nearly a week to return, but the deadline was later extended.

For days, emotional scenes unfolded at the border, as families were separated, with some people staying behind.

• ‘What is our fault?’: Families separated at India-Pakistan border

After the 7 May strikes, India also announced that it would be closing entry from its side to the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, which allows Indian pilgrims to visit one of Sikhism’s holiest shrines in Pakistan without a visa.

Almost 200,000 Indians visited the Kartarpur shrine between 2021 and 2023, Indian officials said last year. The latest figures have not yet been released.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters last week that the suspension would remain in place until further notice.

As part of its retaliatory measures, Pakistan also announced the closure of its airspace to all Indian flights.

In the following days, India responded with similar restrictions, closing its airspace to all Pakistani flights, both military and commercial.

International flights are now being forced to take longer, costlier detours, increasing both travel time and fuel expenses.

The two countries have also suspended all direct and indirect trade.

Experts say the impact on India would be minimal because it does not import much from Pakistan. However, it creates bigger problems for Pakistan.

Already struggling with high inflation and a weak economy, Pakistan could face more pressure as it loses access to trade routes and crucial goods from India, such as raw materials and medicines.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has been dealt an unexpected blow in the midterms, with his Senate candidates set to pick up fewer seats than expected, according to early results.

The election was a showdown between Marcos and his Vice-President Sara Duterte, daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The pair, who represent the country’s most powerful families, won the 2022 election together – but their alliance has since collapsed.

Monday’s election, which included multiple races from the council to the Congress, was an important test for 67-year-old Marcos, the son of an ousted dictator who rebranded his father’s reign to make a comeback in the 2022 election.

Born in 1957 to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, Bongbong was just eight years old when his father became president. He was the second of three children, and the only son. The couple later adopted another girl.

Bongbong’s father, a former lawyer, served in the Congress and Senate, while his mother was a singer and former beauty pageant winner. Both would achieve notoriety – as the family amassed enormous wealth under a brutal regime, they became synonymous with excess and corruption.

During his first term between 1965 and 1969, Ferdinand Marcos Sr was fairly popular, and was re-elected by a landslide. But in 1972, a year before his second term was due to end, he declared martial law.

What followed was more than a decade of dictatorship, during which the country’s foreign debt grew, prices soared and ordinary Filipinos struggled to make ends meet. It was also a period of repression as opposition figures and critics were jailed, disappeared or killed.

Through it all, Marcos Sr was grooming his son for leadership.

Bongbong’s childhood bedroom in llocos Norte, the family’s stronghold in the north, which is now a museum, has a portrait of him wearing a golden crown and riding a white stallion.

But the elder Marcos was also worried about whether his son would step up to the role. A diary entry from 1972 read: “Bongbong is our principal worry. He is too carefree and lazy”.

Marcos enrolled in Oxford University to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics, but it was later revealed that he did not graduate with a bachelor’s degree as he claimed.

Oxford said in 2021 that he was awarded a special diploma in social studies in 1978. That too, local media reports alleged, was the result of lobbying by Philippine diplomats in the UK after Marcos Jr failed his exams.

He returned home and joined politics, becoming the vice-governor and then governor of Ilocos Norte.

But the political career his parents had envisioned for him would be cut short by a revolution in 1986.

An economic crisis had already triggered unrest – but the assassination of a prominent opposition leader brought tens of thousands onto the streets.

A sustained campaign eventually convinced a significant faction of the army to withdraw its support for the Marcos regime, and hastened its downfall.

The family fled to Hawaii with whatever valuables they could bring, but left behind enough proof of the lavish lives they had led.

Protesters who stormed the presidential palace found fanciful oil portraits of the family, a jacuzzi with gold-plated fixtures and the now-infamous 3,000 pairs of designer shoes owned by Imelda Marcos.

The family is accused of plundering an estimated $10bn of public money while in power. By the time Marcos Sr died in exile in 1989, his was a tarnished name.

And yet, some three decades later, his son was able to whitewash that past enough to win the presidential election.

After they returned to the Philippines in the 1990s, Marcos became a provincial governor, congressman and senator, before running – and winning – the presidential race in 2022.

Social media was a big part of this rebranding, winning Marcos new supporters – especially among the younger generation in a country where the median age is around 25.

On Facebook, the Marcos family legacy has been rewritten, with propaganda posts claiming that Marcos Sr’s regime was actually a “golden period” for the country.

On TikTok, a martial law anthem from the Marcos Sr era became the soundtrack to a cute challenge for Gen Z users, who would record older family members marching to the beat.

As his popularity grew, Marcos launched his presidential bid with Sara Duterte running for vice-president. She vowed to work with Bongbong to unify the country and make it “rise again”.

They called themselves the “uniTeam”, and combined the two families’ powerful bases: the Dutertes in the south, and the Marcos’s in the north.

It paid off. Marcos won with a thumping 31 million votes, more than double the total of his closest rival.

“Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,” Marcos said as victory became apparent, vowing to “be a president for all Filipinos”.

Three years into his presidency, Marcos has brought Manila closer to the US and increasingly confronted an assertive China in the South China Sea – a key departure from Duterte’s presidency.

That wasn’t the only thing that caused a crack in his alliance with Sara Duterte, which eventually descended into a public spat.

He gave her the Education portfolio, when she had openly sought the more powerful Defence portfolio. His allies in Congress then initiated impeachment proceedings against her over alleged misuse of state funds.

And Marcos cleared the way for her father to be arrested and taken to the Hague for his role in a deadly war on drugs that killed thousands.

Marcos, experts say, took a big risk by picking a fight with the Dutertes – for it to pay off, control of the senate was crucial.

But the midterm results complicate his chances – and his political future.

China’s defiance as it faced down US President Donald Trump’s tariffs has been a defining image of this trade war.

It has prompted viral memes of Trump waiting for the Chinese leader to call.

“We will not back down,” has been an almost daily message from Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As the tariffs and the rhetoric from Washington escalated, China dug its heels in.

Even as Chinese officials headed to Switzerland for talks, a state-run social media account published a cartoon of the US Treasury secretary pushing an empty shopping trolley.

There were even conflicting versions of who initiated the talks in Geneva.

But after two days of “robust” talks, the situation appears to have changed.

So, is this a major turning point for Washington and Beijing? The answer is yes and no.

• Faisal Islam: US and China step back from beyond brink
• ‘We don’t care’: A defiant China looks beyond Trump’s America

“The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling,” said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a press conference in Geneva.

“And what had occurred with these very high tariffs… was the equivalent of an embargo, and neither side wants that. We do want trade.”

Economists admit that this agreement is better than expected.

“I thought tariffs would be cut to somewhere around 50%,” Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management in Hong Kong, told Reuters news agency.

But in fact, US tariffs on Chinese imports will now fall to 30%, while Chinese tariffs on US goods will drop to 10%.

“Obviously, this is very positive news for economies in both countries and for the global economy, and makes investors much less concerned about the damage to global supply chains in the short term,” he added.

Trump hailed the progress on Sunday on his Truth Social site: “Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner.”

Beijing has also softened its tone considerably– and perhaps for good reason.

China can take the pain of an economic war with America – to an extent. It is the lead trade partner for more than 100 other countries.

But officials have become increasingly concerned about the impact the tariffs could have on an economy that is already struggling to deal with a property crisis, stubbornly high youth unemployment and low consumer confidence.

Factory output has slowed and there are reports that some companies are having to lay off workers as production lines of US-bound goods grind to a halt, bringing trade to a standstill.

Data on Saturday showed China’s consumer price index dropped 0.1 percent in April, the third month in a row of decline as consumers hold back from spending and businesses drop prices to compete for customers.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Monday that the agreement reached with the US was an important step to “resolve differences” and “lay the foundation to bridge differences and deepen cooperation”.

Such a positive statement from Beijing would have seemed inconceivable just a month ago.

The two sides have also agreed to more talks, or an “economic and trade consultation mechanism”, as Beijing puts it.

But Trump’s characterisation of a “total reset” in relations may be overly optimistic as there is a slight sting in the tail in Beijing’s statement.

The Commerce Ministry ended with a reminder of who it sees as being in the wrong.

“We hope that the US will continue to work with China to meet each other halfway based on this meeting, thoroughly correct the wrong practice of unilateral tariff increases,” said the spokesperson.

Chinese state media also had a warning for Washington. Xinhua News Agency’s commentary claimed China’s “goodwill and patience has its limits, and it will never be used on those who repress and blackmail us without pause or have no qualms about going back on their word”.

Leaders in Beijing will want to portray an image of strength both to its own people and to the international community. They will want to appear as if they have not budged an inch. The message from China is that it is being responsible and rational and doing what it can to avoid a global recession.

• Xi’s real test is not Trump’s trade war

“This is a victory for conscience and rationality,” said Zhang Yun from the School of International Relations at Nanjing University.

“The talks also established the necessary framework for continued dialogue and negotiations in the future.”

This “victory” is only for 90 days. The tariffs are only paused temporarily to allow for negotiations.

It will allow some trade to flow, and it will soothe worried markets.

But the root of the problem still exists. China still sells far more to the United States than it buys. And there are other, far thornier differences to unpick, from Chinese government subsidies, to key industries, to geopolitical tensions in the Taiwan Strait and beyond.

The fight for a more balanced trade relationship is far from over – it has simply moved.

The frontline has shifted from China’s factory floors and American supermarkets to negotiating tables in both Beijing and Washington.

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“What you have there is about £250,000 worth of gold,” Emma Siebenborn says as she shows me a faded plastic tub filled with old, shabby jewellery – rings, charm bracelets, necklaces and orphaned earrings.

Emma is the strategies director of Hatton Garden Metals, a family-run gold dealership in London’s Hatton Garden jewellery district, and this unprepossessing tub of bric-a-brac is a small sample of what they buy over the counter each day. It is, in effect, gold scrap, which will be melted down and recycled.

Also on the table, rather more elegantly presented in a suede-lined tray, is a selection of gold coins and bars. The largest bar is about the size and thickness of a mobile phone. It weighs a hefty 1kg, and it’s worth about £80,000.

The coins include biscuit-sized Britannias, each containing precisely one ounce of 24 carat bullion, as well as smaller Sovereigns. These are all available to buy – and the recent surge in gold prices has led to a surge in demand.

Zoe Lyons, who is Emma’s sister and the managing director, has never seen anything like it – often she finds would-be sellers queuing in the street. “There’s excitement and buzz in the market but also nervousness and trepidation,” she tells me.

“There’s anxiety about which way the market is going to go next, and when you get those emotions, ultimately it creates quite big trades.”

At MNR jewellers a couple of streets away, a salesman agrees: “Demand for gold has increased, definitely,” he says.

Gold is certainly on a roll. Its price has increased by more than 40% over the past year. In late April it rose above $3,500 (£2,630) per troy ounce (a measurement for precious metals). This marked an all-time record, even allowing for inflation, exceeding the previous peak reached in January 1980. Back then the dollar price was $850, or $3,493 in today’s money.

Economists have attributed this to a variety of factors. Principal among them has been the unpredictable changes in US trade policy, introduced by the Trump administration, the effects of which have shaken the markets. Gold, by contrast, is seen by many as a solid investment. Fears about geopolitical uncertainty have only added to its allure. Many investors have come to appreciate the relative stability offered by a commodity once dismissed by the billionaire Warren Buffett as “lifeless” and “neither of much use nor procreative”.

“It’s the kind of conditions that we consider a bit of a perfect storm for gold,” explains Louise Street, senior markets analyst at the World Gold Council, a trade association funded by the mining industry.

“It’s the focus on potential inflationary pressures. Recessionary risks are rising, you’ve seen the IMF [International Monetary Fund] downgrading economic forecasts very recently…”

But what goes up can also come down. While gold has a reputation as a stable asset, it is not immune to price fluctuations. In fact, in the past, major surges in the price have been followed by significant falls.

So what is the risk this could happen again, leaving many of today’s eager investors nursing big losses?

Helped by its relative rarity, gold has been seen as an intrinsic store of value for centuries. The global supply is limited. Only around 216,265 tonnes have ever been mined, according to the World Gold Council, (the total is currently increasing by about 3,500 tonnes per year). This means that it is widely perceived as a “safe haven” asset that will retain its value.

As an investment, however, it has both advantages and disadvantages.

Unlike shares, it will never pay a dividend. Unlike bonds, it will not provide a steady, predictable income, and its industrial applications are relatively limited.

The draw, however, is that it is a physical product that exists outside of the banking system. It is also used as an insurance policy against inflation: while currencies tend to lose value over time, gold does not.

“Gold can’t be printed by central banks, and it can’t be conjured out of thin air,” says Russ Mould, investment director at stockbroker AJ Bell. “In recent times, a big policy response from authorities when there’s been a crisis has been: slash interest rates, boost money supply, quantitative easing, print money. Gold is seen as a haven from that, and therefore a store of value.”

There has recently been a significant rise in demand for gold from so-called Exchange Traded Funds, investment vehicles that hold an asset such as gold themselves, while investors can buy and sell shares in the fund.

They are popular with large institutional investors – and their actions have helped to push up the price.

When gold hit its previous record in January 1980, the Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan. Oil prices were surging, driving up inflation in developed economies, and investors were looking to protect their wealth. The price also rose sharply in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, leading to another peak in 2011.

The recent increases appear to owe a great deal to the way markets have responded to the confusion triggered by the Trump administration.

The most recent surge came after US President Donald Trump launched an online attack on Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve. Calling for immediate interest rate cuts, he described Mr Powell as a “major loser” for failing to reduce the cost of borrowing quickly enough.

His comments were interpreted by some as an attack on the independence of the US central bank. Share markets fell, as did the value of the dollar compared to other major currencies – and gold hit its most recent record.

But gold’s recent strength is not wholly explained by the Trump factor.

The price has been on a steep upward curve since late 2022, partly, according to Louise Street, because of central banks. “[They] have been net buyers of gold, to add to their official reserves, for the past 15 years,” she explains. “But we saw that really accelerate in the past three years.”

Central banks have collectively bought more than 1,000 tonnes of gold each year since 2022, up from an average of 481 tonnes a year between 2010 and 2021. Poland, Turkey, India, Azerbaijan and China were among the leading buyers last year.

Analysts say central banks may themselves have been trying to build up buffers at a time of growing economic and geopolitical uncertainty.

According to Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs: “In 2022 the reserves of the Russian Central Bank got frozen in the context of the invasion of Ukraine, and reserve managers of global central banks around the world realised, ‘Maybe my reserves aren’t safe either, what if I buy gold and hold it in my own vaults?’

“And so we have seen this big structural fivefold increase in demand for gold from central banks”.

Simon French, chief economist and head of research at investment firm Panmure Liberum also believes that independence from dollar-based banking systems has been a major driver for central banks. “I would look at China, but also Russia, their central bank is a big buyer of gold, also Turkey.

“There are a number of countries who fear weaponisation of the dollar system and potentially the Euro system,” he says.

“If they are not aligning themselves with the US or the Western view, on diplomatic grounds, on military grounds… having an asset in their central bank that is not controlled by their military or political foes is quite an attractive feature.”

Another factor may now be helping to drive the gold market upwards: FOMO, or fear of missing out. With new all-time records being set, it has filtered through into everyday conversation in some quarters.

Zoe Lyons believes that this is the case in Hatton Garden. “[People] want a piece of the golden pie,” she says, “and they’re willing to do that through buying physical gold.”

The big question, though, is what happens next. Some experts believe the upward trend will continue, fuelled by unpredictable US policy, inflationary pressures and central bank buying. Indeed Goldman Sachs has forecast gold will reach $3,700/oz (£2,800/oz) by the end of 2025 and $4,000 (£3,000) by mid 2026.

But it adds that in the event of a recession in the US or an escalation of the trade war it could even hit $4,500 (£3,400) later this year.

“The US stock market is 200 times bigger than the gold market, so even a small move out of the big stock market or the big bond market would mean a big percent increase in the much smaller gold market,” explains Daan Struyven.

In other words, it wouldn’t take a huge amount of turbulence in major investment markets to drive gold upwards.

Yet others are concerned that the price of gold has risen so far, so fast that a market bubble is forming – and bubbles can burst.

Back in 1980, for example, the dramatic spike in the gold price was followed by an equally remarkable correction, dropping from $850 (£640) in late January to just $485 (£365) in early April. By mid-June the following year, it stood at just $297 (£224) – a decline of 65% from its peak.

The peak in 2011, meanwhile, was followed by a sharp dip, then a period of volatility. Within four months it had dropped by 18%. After plateauing for a while, it continued to fall, reaching a low point in mid-2013 that was 35% down from its highest.

The question that remains is, could something similar happen now?

Some analysts do think prices will ultimately fall significantly. Jon Mills, an industry expert at Morningstar, made headlines in March when he suggested the cost of an ounce of gold could drop to just $1,820 over the next few years.

His view was that as mining firms increased their production and more recycled gold entered the market, the supply would increase. At the same time central banks would ease off their buying spree, while other short-term pressures stimulating demand would subside, bringing prices down.

Those forecasts have since been revised upwards slightly, largely because of increased mining costs.

Daan Struyven disagrees. He believes there could be a short-term dip, but prices will generally continue to rise. “If we were to get a Ukraine peace deal, or a rapid trade de-escalation, I think hedge funds would be willing to take some of their money out of gold and put it into risky assets, such as the stock market…

“So you could see temporary dips. But we are quite confident that in this highly uncertain geopolitical setup, where central banks want safer reserve holdings, that they will continue to push demand higher over the medium term.”

Russ Mould believes there will, at the very least, be a lull in the upwards trend. “Given that it has had such a stunning run, it would be logical to expect it to have a pause for breath at some stage,” he says.

But he believes that if there is a sharp economic slowdown and interest rates are slashed, the gold price could go higher in the long run.

One problem for investors is working out whether the recent record price for gold was simply a staging point in a continued upward climb – to more than $4,000 for example – or the peak.

Simon French at Panmure Liberum believes the peak may now be very close, and people piling into the market now in the hope of making big money are likely to be disappointed. Others have warned that those recently lured into buying gold by hype and headlines could lose out if the market goes into reverse.

“Short-term speculating can backfire, even though there will be a temptation to hang on to the coat-tails of the record run upwards,” is how Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, has put it.

“Investors considering investing in gold should do so as part of a diversified portfolio – they shouldn’t put all their eggs in a golden basket.”

How do you measure misery? For journalists the usual way is to see it, to feel it, to smell it.

Beleaguered Palestinian colleagues in Gaza are doing that, still doing invaluable reporting at great risk to themselves. More than 200 have been killed doing their jobs.

Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza.

Denied the chance of eyewitness reporting – one of the best tools of the job – we can study, from a distance, the assessments of aid organisations operating in Gaza.

• Gaza parents desperate as children face starvation under Israeli blockade

Pascal Hundt, deputy director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross said last week that civilians in Gaza faced “an overwhelming daily struggle to survive the dangers of hostilities, cope with relentless displacement, and endure the consequences of being deprived of urgent humanitarian assistance.”

He added: “This situation must not—and cannot—be allowed to escalate further.”

But it might, if Israel continues the plunge deeper into war that resumed on 18 March when it broke a two-month ceasefire with a massive series of air strikes.

Israel had already sealed the gates of Gaza. Since the beginning of March, it has blocked all shipments of humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies.

The return to war ended any chance of moving on to the ceasefire’s proposed second phase, which Israel and Hamas had agreed would end with the release of all the remaining hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

That was unacceptable to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the ultra-nationalist religious extremists who keep him in power.

They want Gaza’s Palestinians to be replaced by Jewish settlers. They threatened to topple Netanyahu’s government if he did not go back to war, and the end of Netanyahu’s political career would bring the day of reckoning for his part in Israel’s failure to prevent the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. It might also force a conclusion in his long trial on corruption charges.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is now promising a new “intense” offensive into Gaza in the days after President Donald Trump finishes his swing through the wealthy Arab oil monarchies in the Gulf later this week.

The offensive includes a plan to displace massive numbers of Palestinian civilians on top of waves of artillery, air strikes and death. “To displace” is a cold verb. It means families having only handfuls of minutes to flee for their lives, from an area that might be hit immediately to one that might be hit later. Hundreds of thousands have done so repeatedly since the war began.

Gaza was one of the most overcrowded places on earth before the war. Israel’s plan is to force as many Gazans as possible into a tiny area in the south, near the ruins of the town of Rafah, which has been almost entirely destroyed.

Before that happens, the UN humanitarian office estimates that 70% of Gaza is already effectively off limits to Palestinians. Israel’s plan is to leave them in an even smaller area. The UN and leading aid groups reject Israeli claims that Hamas steals and controls food that comes into Gaza. They have refused to cooperate with a scheme proposed by Israel and the US that would use private security firms, protected by Israeli troops, to distribute basic rations.

Far from Gaza, in London, I talked to Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of Unrwa, the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees. He told me that he was running out of words “to describe the misery and the tragedy affecting the people in Gaza. They have been now more than two months without any aid”.

“Starvation is spreading, people are exhausted, people are hungry… we can expect that in the coming weeks if no aid is coming in, that people will not die because of the bombardment, but they will die because of the lack of food. This is the weaponisation of humanitarian aid.”

If words are not enough, look at the most authoritative data-driven assessment of famine and food emergencies in the regular reports issued by Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC. It is a joint venture by UN agencies, aid groups and governments that measures whether a famine is happening.

The latest IPC update says Gaza is close to famine. But it says that the entire population, more than two million people, almost half of whom are children, is experiencing acute food insecurity. In plain English, that means they are being starved by Israel’s blockade.

The IPC says that 470,000 Gazans, 22% of the population, are in a classification it calls “Phase 5 – catastrophe.” The IPC defines it as a condition in which “at least one in five households experience an extreme lack of food and face starvation resulting in destitution, extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death.”

In practical terms, the phase five classification, the most acute used by the IPC, estimates that “71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers will need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition”.

Thousands of tons of the food, medical aid and humanitarian supplies that they need are sitting only a few miles away, on the other side of the border in Egypt.

In London I asked Mr Lazzarini whether he agreed with those who have accused Israel of denying food and humanitarian aid to civilians as a weapon of war.

“I have absolutely no doubt,” he said, “that this is what we have witnessed during this last 19 months, especially during this last two months. That’s a war crime. The quantification will come from the ICJ [International Court of Justice] not from me, but what I can say, what we see, what we observe, food and humanitarian assistance is indeed being used to meet the political or military objective in the context of Gaza.”

I asked Mr Lazzarini whether the blockade, on top of a year and half of war and destruction, might amount to genocide. That is the accusation against Israel levelled by South Africa and other states at the ICJ in The Hague.

“Listen, by any account, the destruction is massive. The number of people who have been killed is huge and certainly underestimated. We have seen the systematic destruction also of a school, of a health centre. People have been constant pinballs within Gaza, moving all the time. So there is absolutely no doubt that we are talking about massive atrocities. Genocide? It could end up to genocide. There are many elements which could go in this direction.”

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz has made no secret of Israel’s tactics. Last month Katz said that the blockade was a “main pressure lever” to secure victory over Hamas and to get the all the hostages out. The National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir agreed. He wrote that: “The cessation of humanitarian aid is one of the main levers of pressure on Hamas. The return of aid to Gaza before Hamas gets on its knees and releases all of our hostages would be a historic mistake.”

Netanyahu’s plans for another offensive, and the remarks made by Katz, Ben-Gvir and others, horrified Israeli families with hostages still inside Gaza. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum which represents many of them, said minister Katz was pushing an “illusion… Israel is choosing to seize territory before the hostages.”

Dissident Israeli military reservists also protested, saying that they were being forced to fight again not for Israeli security but for the political survival of the Israeli government. In the air force reserve, 1,200 pilots signed an open letter saying that prolonging the war served mainly “political and personal interests and not security ones”. Netanyahu blamed a small group of “bad apples” for the open letter.

For many months Netanyahu and his government have also accused Mr Lazzarini of lying. One official report posted online in January of this year was headed “Dismantling Unrwa Chief Lazzarini’s Falsehoods”. It claimed that he had “consistently made false statements which have profoundly misinformed the public debate on this issue”. Unrwa, Israel says, has been infiltrated and exploited by Hamas to an unprecedented degree. It says some Unrwa employees took part in the attacks of 7 October.

Mr Lazzarini denies the personal accusations directed at him by Israel and the broader ones aimed at Unrwa. He says Unrwa investigated 19 staff named by Israel and concluded nine of them may have a case to answer. All 19 were suspended. Mr Lazzarini said that since then Unrwa had received “hundreds of allegations from the State of Israel. Each time, as a rule-based organisation, we keep asking for substantiated information”. He said they had never received it.

All wars are political, and none more than the ones between Israel and the Palestinians. The war engages and enrages the outside world as well the belligerents.

Israel argues that self-defence justifies its actions since 7 October 2023 when Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others attacked Israel, killed around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Any other government, it says, would have done the same.

Palestinians and an increasingly concerned and outraged chorus of states, including some of Israel’s key European allies, say that does not justify the continuation of the most devastating assault on Palestinians since the war of 1948, when Israel gained its independence, which Palestinians call “the catastrophe”.

Even President Trump shows signs of distancing himself from Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that the people of Gaza must be fed.

The allegation that the total denial of food to Gazan civilians is more evidence of an Israeli genocide against Palestinians has outraged Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and many Israeli citizens. It produced rare political unity in Israel. The leader of the opposition Yair Lapid, normally a stern critic of Netanyahu, condemned “a moral collapse and a moral disaster” at the ICJ.

Genocide is defined as the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate body, has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister on war crimes charges, which they reject. The three Hamas leaders who were also the subject of ICC warrants have all been killed by Israel.

It is not too soon to think about the longer-term impact of this devastating war, even though its end is not in sight. Mr Lazzarini told me that “in the coming years we will realise how wrong we have been… on the wrong side of the history. We have under our watch let a massive atrocity unfold.”

It started, he said, with the Hamas attacks on Israel on the 7 October: “The largest killing of Israeli and Jewish in the region since World War II” had been followed by a “massive” military response by Israel.

It was, he said, “disproportionate, basically almost leading to the annihilation of an entire population in their homeland… I think there is a collective responsibility from the international community, the level, the passivity, the indifference being shown until now, the lack of political, diplomatic, economic action. I mean, it’s absolutely monstrous, especially in our countries where we have said ‘never again’.”

Ahead may be an attempt to realise Donald Trump’s dangerous fantasy of Gaza as the Dubai of the Mediterranean, rebuilt and owned by America and without Palestinians. It has given shape to cherished dreams of Israeli extremists who threaten of the removal of Palestinians from the land between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean.

Whatever lies ahead, it will not be peace.

Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence and Tom Cruise are among the Hollywood stars who are expected to hit the red carpet at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which starts on Tuesday.

Cannes is one of the most prestigious festivals in the film calendar, and gives premieres to productions that often go on to earn awards and acclaim.

Here are five things to keep a critical eye out for on the French Riviera.

In recent years, Cannes has re-established itself as the main launchpad for award contenders.

Anora won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last May before going on to win best picture at the this year’s Oscars. Four of the last five Palme d’Or winners have been nominated for best picture.

This year’s jury is led by French screen star Juliette Binoche and includes fellow actors Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong.

Contenders for the Palme d’Or this year include Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel Die My Love, which stars Lawrence and Robert Pattinson.

English actor Josh O’Connor – known for portraying a tennis player in Challengers and Prince Charles in The Crown – stars in two films in competition, including The History of Sound opposite Paul Mescal, and The Mastermind, playing an amateur art thief.

Wes Anderson’s new film The Phoenician Scheme has the most star-studded line-up at Cannes this year, with Johansson, Benicio Del Toro, Tom Hanks and Benedict Cumberbatch all featuring, as well as Riz Ahmed, Bryan Cranston and Richard Ayoade.

Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone appear in Eddington, a pandemic-era dark comedy Western from Ari Aster.

Director Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague is described as telling the story of the making of Jean Luc Godard’s 1960 classic Breathless, in the same style and spirit as the original.

Black Widow star Johansson has stepped behind the camera and will premiere her directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, about a 94-year-woman who is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight.

Fellow US actress Kristin Stewart will also bring a film she has directed – The Chronology of Water, adapted from writer Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir of the same name.

Meanwhile, British star Harris Dickinson is another actor moving behind the camera, with Urchin telling the story of a rough sleeper in London who struggles to turn his life around.

Their films will all compete in the festival’s secondary Un Certain Regard strand.

Elsewhere, Hollywood legend Robert De Niro will collect the honorary Palme d’Or.

Spike Lee’s fifth film with Denzel Washington, Highest 2 Lowest, will get its premiere out of competition. It’s a reinterpretation of Japanese film-maker Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller High and Low, “played out on the mean streets of modern day New York City”.

Jodie Foster plays a psychiatrist who investigates the apparent murder of one of her patients in Vie Privée (A Private Life), a French-language comedy that is also being screened out of competition.

And Cruise will attend the premiere of the final instalment of Mission: Impossible… should he choose to accept the invitation.

Notable documentaries this year include Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk, about Palestinian war photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who was killed along with her family in an Israeli strike on her home in Gaza last month – on the day after the festival announced its line-up.

The anger over her death has increased interest in the feature.

Another film, Once Upon a Time In Gaza, by Palestinian twins Tarzan and Arab Nasser, will be shown in the Un Certain Regard section.

Other documentaries in the line-up include a hotly-awaited film about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, The Six-Billion-Dollar Man, which was pulled from the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Meanwhile, a documentary about U2 frontman Bono is also on the festival bill, alongside one about 1984 novelist George Orwell.

The opening day could be overshadowed by the arrival of the verdict in Gerard Depardieu’s sexual assault trial.

The international star of French cinema, 76, was found guilty of assaulting two women on a film set in 2021.

The issue of sexual violence in the film industry is a hot topic – a French parliamentary inquiry criticised “endemic” abuse last month, while on Monday screen legend Brigitte Bardot defended two accused actors, including Depardieu, saying they should be allowed to “get on with their lives”.

Those aren’t the only external events that will make their presence felt on La Croisette.

Film stars and industry deal-makers may also have a word or two to say on the red carpet about US President Donald Trump’s plan to impose 100% tariffs on foreign-made films.

French Culture Minister Rachida Dati recently said the imposition of any such tariffs would lead to “the American industry being penalised, not ours”.

When the Philippines voted on Monday, Sara Duterte’s name was not on the ballot.

But the results of the election, which includes 12 senate races, impacts her political future.

It affects both her role as the Philippines’ current vice-president and any hopes she might have of running for the country’s presidency one day, as she faces the prospect of a ban from politics – decided by lawmakers in the Senate.

The 46-year-old is the eldest daughter of the Philippines’ former President Rodrigo Duterte. She trained as a lawyer before entering politics in 2007, when she was elected as her father’s vice-mayor in their family’s hometown Davao.

Rodrigo Duterte has described her as the “alpha” character of the family, who always gets her way.

The younger Duterte was filmed in 2011 punching a court official in the face after he refused her request, leading one local news outlet to bestow the nickname of “the slugger” upon her.

She and her father are known to share similar traits, as well as a passion for riding big motorbikes. Sara is said to be her father’s favourite child, though she has also said they share a “love-hate relationship”.

One cable from the US embassy in Manila in 2009, leaked by Wikileaks, described her as “a tough-minded individual who, like her father, is difficult to engage”.

• Follow live updates: Millions vote in Philippines midterms as Marcos-Duterte feud heats up

Born in 1978, Sara is Rodrigo Duterte’s second child with his first wife, flight attendant Elizabeth Zimmerman.

In 1999 she graduated with a major in BS Respiratory Therapy. During her inauguration as vice-president in 2022, she said that in her youth she was “consumed by a dream to become a doctor” but was “directed toward another way”.

In 2005 she graduated with a law degree and passed the Philippine Bar Examination. But it wasn’t long before her father expressed his wish for her to enter politics as his running mate in mayoral elections – hoping that if and when he ran for president, Sara would help protect his mayoral legacy.

Rodrigo would only go ahead with his presidential bid once Sara had agreed to succeed him as mayor of Davao – and in 2010, at 32, she succeeded her father to become the city’s first female mayor.

In response to many people’s apparent confusion as to how they should address her, Sara Duterte ended her inaugural address with a specific appeal: “call me Inday Sara”.

“Inday”, an honorific in the south, means a respected elder woman. It also played into the Duterte’s optics: of a family from the regional south facing off against imperial Manila.

In Manila, “inday” was previously used to refer to house help from the south – but Sara reclaimed the term. Now even her father calls her by that name.

It was in 2021 that Sara decided to make her way to national politics.

The next year she ran on a joint ticket with the scion of another political dynasty – Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He was going for the top job, with Duterte as his deputy.

The assumption was that she would then be in a prime position to contest the next presidential election in 2028, as presidents are limited only to one six-year term in the Philippines.

The strategy proved effective and the duo won by a landslide. But then it quickly started to unravel.

Cracks started to emerge in their alliance even before the euphoria of their election win faded. Duterte publicly expressed her preference to be defence secretary but she was instead handed the education portfolio.

The House of Representatives soon after scrutinised Duterte’s request for confidential funds – millions of pesos that she could spend without stringent documentation.

Then, Rodrigo Duterte spoke at a late night rally, accusing President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos of being a junkie and a weak leader.

Soon after, First Lady Liza Marcos snubbed Sara Duterte at an event, in full view of news cameras. She admitted that it was intentional, saying Duterte should not have stayed silent in the background while her father accused the president of drug use.

After Duterte resigned from the cabinet in July last year, her language became increasingly inflammatory.

She said she had “talked to someone” to “go kill” Marcos, his wife and his cousin, who is also the speaker of the House. She also told reporters her relationship with Marcos had become toxic and she dreamed of cutting off his head.

Such remarks are shocking for someone who is not acquainted with Philippine politics. But Duterte’s strong personality has only endeared her to the public and she remains popular in the south, as well as among the millions of overseas Filipino workers.

But in February this year, lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voted to impeach Duterte, accusing her of misusing public funds and threatening to have President Marcos assassinated.

She will be tried by the Senate and, if found guilty, removed from office and banned from running in future elections.

Duterte has denied the charges and alleges she is the victim of a political vendetta.

Another blow came in March when her father was arrested and extradited to the Hague over the thousands of killings during his war on drugs. She then flew to the Netherlands to meet him while he was in custody.

He is still in jail, awaiting trial, but has been elected mayor of Davao in one of several local races that also took place on Monday.

Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest was a big part of his daughter’s campaign for her senate picks, with Sara and the candidates often chanting “bring him home”.

Those candidates included two key family loyalists who look set to win their seats, according to early, partial results.

This would be an important victory for Sara, because the composition of the house determines whether or not she will be impeached.

For her to be impeached, two-thirds of the Senate would need to vote for it.

But Monday’s results, which include some surprise wins, make it harder to predict the outcome of the trial.

For now, Sara Duterte’s fate hangs in the balance.

An Israeli air strike on the emergency department of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza has killed a well-known Palestinian photojournalist, medical sources and eyewitnesses say.

Hassan Aslih, who was being treated for injuries from a previous Israeli strike, was targeted in what witnesses described as a drone attack on the hospital’s surgical wing.

A doctor there confirmed that Aslih had been at the hospital for nearly a month after surviving an air strike on the same facility in April.

The Israeli military had previously accused Aslih of involvement in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel. The strike in April killed Aslih’s colleague Helmi al-Faqawi and wounded several other journalists.

At the time, Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, said Israel’s accusations against Aslih were “false” and that Aslih had no political affiliation.

“The occupation’s claim that Aslih crossed into the occupied land and took part in the 7 October incidents is part of a policy to discredit and fabricate that the occupation adopts to justify attacks on journalists and media personnel,” Thawabta told Reuters agency on 7 April.

Aslih had published dozens of photos and videos documenting the 7 October Hamas assault from inside Israeli territory.

Aslih worked for years as a freelance photojournalist with both international and local news agencies. He was widely respected in Gaza for his extensive coverage of the conflict, often documenting events from the front lines. He has more than half a million followers on Instagram, where he documents the war.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had attacked Nasser Hospital in a “a targeted attack on key terrorists”, but did not name Aslih.

It said the hospital was being used by Hamas to “carry out terrorist plots against Israeli forces and citizens”.

The Israeli military has repeatedly attacked what it claims are Hamas command-and-control centres based in hospitals or gunmen sheltering there. Hamas denies using hospitals in this way.

The UN’s human rights office has condemned what it calls Israel’s “pattern of deadly attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza”, saying they could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

The Israel-Gaza war is the deadliest conflict for journalists in history, according to Brown University’s Watson Institute for Public Affairs, with more than 232 journalists killed in Gaza since the 7 October attacks.

The aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières said on X that the strike on Nasser hospital killed one other person and injured a further 12, and called for a halt to the targeting of medical facilities.

The attack was “horrific”, said emergency coordinator Clare Manera, adding that it came at a time when healthcare workers in the strip were “struggling to treat patients with little to no supplies”.

Japanese carmaker Nissan has said it will cut another 11,000 jobs globally and shut seven factories as it shakes up the business in the face of weak sales.

Falling sales in China and heavy discounting in the US, its two biggest markets, have taken a heavy toll on earnings, while a proposed merger with Honda and Mitsubishi collapsed in February.

The latest cutbacks bring the total number of layoffs announced by the company in the past year to about 20,000, or 15% of its workforce.

It was not immediately clear where the job cuts will be made, or whether Nissan’s plant in Sunderland will be affected.

The government said the plant was of “vital importance” to the north east of England, and that it would “engage closely” with Nissan over its restructuring plans.

Nissan employs about 133,500 people globally, with about 6,000 workers in Sunderland.

Two-thirds of the latest job cuts will come from manufacturing, with the rest from sales, administration jobs, research and contract staff, said the company’s chief executive, Ivan Espinosa.

The latest layoffs come on top of 9,000 job cuts Nissan announced in November as part of a cost saving effort that it said would reduce its global production by a fifth.

In February, talks between Nissan and its larger rival Honda collapsed after the firms failed to agree on a multi-billion-dollar tie-up.

The plan had been to combine their businesses to fight back against competition from rival firms, especially in China.

The merger would have created a $60bn (£46bn) motor industry giant, the fourth largest in the world by vehicle sales after Toyota, Volkswagen and Hyundai.

After the failure of the negotiations, then-chief executive Makoto Uchida was replaced by Mr Espinosa, who was the company’s chief planning officer and head of its motorsports division.

Nissan also reported an annual loss of 670 billion yen ($4.5bn; £3.4bn), with US President Donald Trump’s tariffs putting further pressure on the struggling firm.

Mr Espinosa said that the previous financial year had been “challenging”, with rising costs and an “uncertain environment”, adding that the results were a “wake-up call”.

The car giant did not give a forecast for income in the coming year due to the “uncertain nature of US tariff measures”.

It said it expected flat profit this year even without accounting for the impact of tariffs.

Last week, Nissan announced it had scrapped plans to build a battery and electric vehicle factory in Japan as it cuts back on investment.

The firm has been in trouble in key markets, including China where growing competition has led to falling prices.

In China, many foreign carmakers have struggled to compete with homegrown firms such as BYD.

China has become the world’s biggest producer of electric vehicles, with some established car-making nations having failed to anticipate demand for the new technology.

In the US, another major market for Nissan, inflation and higher interest rates have hit new vehicle sales, although Nissan retail sales rose slightly last year.

But sales fell 12% in China, and also dropped in Japan and Europe.

A UN-backed assessment has said that Gaza’s population of around 2.1 million Palestinians is at “critical risk” of famine and faces “extreme levels of food insecurity” as an Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid continues.

The latest report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said there had been a “major deterioration” since October 2024, but concluded famine was not currently occurring.

The two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas “led to a temporary reprieve” in Gaza, the report said, but renewed hostilities and an Israeli blockade on aid – ongoing since early March – had “reversed” any improvements.

Some 244,000 people were currently experiencing the most severe, or “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, it said, and called for urgent action to prevent the “increasingly likely” risk of famine.

Israel renewed its military operations in Gaza in mid-March and has prevented food, medication and other aid from entering Gaza for 70 days, saying it is putting pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages.

• Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu’s plan for Gaza risks dividing Israel, killing Palestinians and horrifying the world
• Malnutrition rises in Gaza as Israeli blockade enters third month

There has been international condemnation of the blockade, including from the UN which has said it has supplies at Gaza’s border crossings, ready to enter if Israel allows. Aid agencies have said the blockade could be a war crime and amounts to a policy of starvation.

The IPC assessment, released on Monday, found half a million people – or one in five – were facing starvation in Gaza. It said nearly 71,000 children under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished over the next 11 months to April 2026.

It added: “Many households are resorting to extreme measures to find food, including begging, and collecting garbage to sell to buy something to eat.”

The report said the current situation, compared to its October 2024 analysis, represented “a major deterioration in one of the world’s most severe food and nutrition crises driven by conflict and characterised by untold human suffering”.

Its analysis found that 1.95 million people, or 93% of Gaza’s population, were living through high levels of acute food insecurity, including 244,000 experiencing “catastrophic” levels.

The IPC – a global initiative by UN agencies, aid groups and governments – is the primary mechanism the international community uses to conclude whether a famine is happening.

Israeli officials have denied there is a hunger crisis in Gaza because of the quantity of aid that entered during the ceasefire.

It comes as Hamas said it would release Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander as part of efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement. The group said it was also intended to facilitate a deal for the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The Israeli PM’s office said it had not committed to any ceasefire but only to a “safe corridor” for Mr Alexander’s release.

US President Donald Trump arrives in the Middle East on Tuesday, and Israel has vowed to expand its military offensive against Hamas if no deal is reached by the end of his visit.

Israeli officials have said the plans for their expanded offensive include seizing all of the territory indefinitely, forcibly displacing Palestinians to the south, and taking over aid distribution with private companies despite opposition from the UN and its humanitarian partners, who say they will not co-operate because it appears to “weaponise” aid.

In its report, the IPC said the aid distribution plans were estimated to be “highly insufficient” and it was expected that large parts of the population would “face significant issues in accessing the proposed distribution sites”.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which saw about 1,200 people killed and more than 250 taken hostage. Some 59 hostages remain in Gaza, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israel’s military campaign has killed 52,862 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A new treatment approach can significantly improve survival rates for patients with aggressive, inherited breast cancer, a study suggests.

The trial, led by Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, and published in Nature Communications, involved women with early-stage breast cancer who have inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations.

Giving them the targeted drug olaparib before surgery greatly reduced the chances of the cancer coming back.

More than 1,200 patients a year in the UK could benefit from the change in practice if a larger clinical trial can confirm the findings.

The Hollywood star Angelina Jolie raised awareness of inherited breast cancer genes in 2013 when she had a double mastectomy to cut her risk of getting the disease.

Jackie Van Bochoven, 59, from Cambridgeshire, has a family history of breast cancer and carries a faulty copy of the BRCA1 gene, which significantly raises her risk of the disease during her lifetime.

She was diagnosed with an aggressive breast tumour in 2019 and took part in the trial.

“When I had the diagnosis I was completely shocked,” she told BBC News.

“Six years on, I’m well and cancer free. It’s amazing.”

Jackie’s mother and sister both had breast cancer. She has three daughters and the eldest, Danielle, also carries the inherited BRCA gene mutation.

“For my future generations, if they have got the BRCA gene, it is a new hope,” Jackie said.

Around one in 400 people carry mutations in either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.

Cancer Research UK estimates about seven in 10 women with changes in these genes will develop breast cancer, compared to about one in seven women without these mutations.

For men with BRCA mutations, the risks of developing breast cancer are much lower.

Olaparib is the first targeted drug treatment for cancers with mutations in the BRCA genes and is given as a tablet. It works by stopping cancer cells from being able to repair their DNA by blocking a protein called PARP, which causes the cancerous cells to die.

The trial, named Partner, took place at 23 sites in England, Scotland and Wales. Before surgery, 39 women with early stage breast cancer were given olaparib, also known as Lynparza, together with chemotherapy.

They started olaparib tablets 48 hours after each chemotherapy infusion. After three years, all had survived.

By contrast there were six deaths among 45 women in the study who received chemotherapy before surgery but did not get olaparib.

Prof, Jean Abraham, a consultant at Addenbrooke’s and professor of precision breast cancer medicine at the University of Cambridge, who led the trial, described the results as were “really exciting”.

“It is rare that you see 100% survival at 36 months for this subtype of breast cancer. We’re incredibly excited about the potential of this new approach.”

The findings have the potential to be applied to other BRCA-related cancers, such as ovarian, prostate and pancreatic.”

Prof Abraham said a larger, multinational trial is planned next year, involving some 600 patients. She predicted that if the findings are repeated, it will lead to a major change in clinical practice for more than 1,200 patients a year in the UK.

Currently patients are given olaparib for a year after surgery, whereas on the trial patients took the tablets over 12 weeks pre-surgery, and at half the dose.

Prof Abraham said: “From a cost perspective, it would save the NHS a considerable amount of money because it’s a fraction of the time and dose of the drug.”

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “While this research is still in its infancy, it is an exciting discovery that adding olaparib at a carefully-timed stage of treatment can potentially give patients with this specific type of breast cancer more time with their loved ones.”

Although the trial involved only women, Prof Abraham said the olaparib results would also apply to the much smaller number of men with the BRCA mutation who get breast cancer.

The trial was funded by Cancer Research UK and AstraZeneca, and was supported by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre and Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT).

Yuval Raphael never dreamt she’d be at Eurovision.

The last major music event she attended was the Nova festival, in Israel, where she was nearly killed. On 7 October 2023, the singer fled the festival when Hamas gunmen started shooting.

Now she’s preparing to go on stage at the world’s largest music event.

“It’s something I deal with every day,” she told the BBC. “It feels like a personal win, just to be having this experience and representing my country and doing it with such pride.”

On that day – one and a half years ago – Ms Raphael was attending her first outdoor rave. As rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, and Hamas gunmen started shooting at revellers, she attempted to flee the carnage.

She and her friends took refuge in a concrete bomb shelter at the side of a road. Around 50 people were crammed in, lying on top of each other.

But there was no escape as the gunmen shot repeatedly into the mass of bodies in the shelter and then threw in hand grenades.

Ms Raphael managed to call her father in tears, as heard in a recording played in an Israeli documentary. “Dad, lots of people are dead. Send the police here. Please dad, send the police, it’s urgent.. they’re crushing me,” she said.

“Be quiet,” he replied. “Yuvali my daughter. Yuvali, breathe deep. Hide. Play dead.”

“Bye,” she said, thinking that was the end.

Ms Raphael was one of only 11 people in the shelter to survive. She hid under a pile of dead bodies for eight hours until they were rescued.

That day, around 1,200 people were killed by gunmen led by Hamas, and 251 were taken hostage.

Ms Raphael’s professional singing career started after the attack. “I wished for myself to be happy and to really understand the gift that I had been given, and that’s to live,” she says. “To have more experiences, to be happy and to live fully.”

On Thursday, the 24-year-old will sing her song, New Day Will Rise, at the Eurovision semi-final with shrapnel still in her leg.

The rules of the European Broadcasting Union – which is in charge of Eurovision – means no political statements can be made. The singer won’t describe what happened to her at Nova during the run-up to the competition. She previously gave testimony about her experience to the United Nations.

The Israeli entrant has had to contend with protests about her country’s participation in the song contest.

Irish national broadcaster RTÉ asked the EBU for a discussion on Israel’s inclusion. Its director general, Kevin Bakhurst, said he was “appalled by the ongoing events in the Middle East and by the horrific impact on civilians in Gaza, and the fate of Israeli hostages”. Spain and Slovenia’s broadcasters also asked for a discussion.

Last week, more than 70 former Eurovision contestants signed a letter calling on the organisers to ban Israel from the competition.

More than 52,800 people have been killed in Gaza since the 7 October attacks, including 2,700 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory’s health ministry.

In previous years, other countries have been banned from the contest. Belarus was suspended in 2021 after submitting an overtly political entry and a year later Russia was barred over the war in Ukraine.

Ms Raphael said she was trying not to deal with those who say her country shouldn’t be competing. “Everybody has opinions,” she said. “I’m really putting everything aside and just concentrating on the most important thing. The slogan this year is ‘united by music’ and that’s what we are here for.”

Eurovision said it understood the concerns and views about the current situation in the Middle East, but insisted members should ensure Eurovision remained a “universal event that promotes connections, diversity and inclusion through music”.

Nevertheless, Israeli fans have been warned by their country’s National Security Council not to wear Jewish or Israeli symbols while attending Eurovision.

On Sunday, during the Eurovision opening parade in the Swiss host city of Basel, the Israeli broadcasting delegation made a complaint to the police and the EBU after accusing a pro-Palestinian demonstrator of making a throat-slitting gesture and spitting at the delegation.

“It was scary at times, even uncomfortable, but it makes me keep reminding myself why I’m here and my agenda, which is spreading as much love as I can and bringing pride to my country,” Ms Raphael said.

Last year, the Israeli singer Eden Golan, who said she received death threats, was booed as she sang. “I think I’m expecting it,” admitted Ms Raphael, when she was asked if she too anticipated booing. “But we are here to sing and I’m going to sing my heart out for everyone.”

She said they had done a few rehearsals with sounds in the background so she could practise with distractions. Asked if that was upsetting, she told the BBC she had a lot of emotions she was putting aside to stay focused.

“I really think I have a lot of weight on my shoulders, I have a very big responsibility. I have a lot of people at home that are expecting something.”

A long-awaited resentencing hearing on Tuesday is set to determine whether two brothers who killed their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills mansion could be freed from prison after three decades.

After months of delays, a judge began hearing two days of arguments both for and against Erik and Lyle Menendez’s bid to receive a lesser sentence – which could ultimately lead to their paroled release.

Prosecutors have argued the brothers meticulously planned the 1989 killings to access their parents’ fortune, still have not taken accountability and should not be released. The brothers have said they acted out of self-defence after years of abuse.

The notorious case, which has prompted books, documentaries and dramas, still divides America.

The brothers appeared virtually for the hearing, both wearing bright blue shirts and sitting in the same room. At the start of the hearing, they appeared upbeat and smiled, even waving to their legal team.

The court heard relatives detail how the case impacted their family, and pleading for the judge to allow Erik and Lyle’s release from prison.

The district attorney’s office is set to oppose the resentencing application, which will continue being heard on Wednesday.

The brothers’ cousin, Anamaria Baralt, who has been close with them since they were children, told the judge they deserved a “second chance at life”.

“It’s been a nightmare,” she said of the decades-long saga. “I am desperate for this process to be over.”

She speaks with Erik and Lyle frequently, she told the court, and testified about their growth, submitting that they’ve taken “ownership of their actions”. She said they admitted they tried to steer their previous trial – with Lyle telling her he’d asked a witness to lie when testifying.

“They are very different men from the boys they were,” she said.

Ms Baralt told the court that some family members were in bad health and wanted to be reunited with the brothers.

“We’re on borrowed time,” she said, turning to the judge with tears in her eyes. “I pray that you will help us.”

Ms Baralt noted how nearly every member of their family is in support of their release. The lone family member who publicly opposed their resentencing bid – the brothers’ uncle Milton Andersen – recently passed away.

Mr Andersen previously called Erik and Lyle “cold-blooded” and said their “actions shattered their family and left a trail of grief that has persisted for decades.”

In a statement released by his lawyer months before his passing, Mr Andersen said his nephews should stay in prison for their “heinous act”.

Outside the courthouse, television crews blocked sidewalks, symbolic of the immense interest in the case.

Before proceedings started, more than a dozen members of the public gathered hoping to secure yellow badges get inside the courtroom – a highly sought after ticket given the hearing is not being streamed or televised.

Elena Gordon, who nabbed a ticket, remembers watching the divisive case as a girl on television. She travelled from Orange County, California, multiple times to attend hearings as the brothers’ resentencing bid was delayed again and again.

“I feel like this is just a historical moment – both for our area and for such a big case,” Ms Gordon said, wearing her golden ticket in an elevator on her way to the courtroom. “It’s a big day.”

At the end of the hearing, the judge is expected to determine whether the brothers, who were sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, should receive a lesser sentence.

Instead of testifying as part of the hearing, the brothers plan to address the court with a statement read aloud, their attorney told the court. This might prevent them from being questioned by prosecutors as part of cross examination. The BBC has asked who else might testify.

“I know right now that I’m going to put family members on the stand,” Mr Geragos said on his podcast of his plans for the hearing. “I know right now, I’ll put correctional officers on the stand. I know right now I may put behavioural scientists on the stand.”

The district attorney’s office has not said who it plans to call to testify.

• Three possible paths to freedom: What’s next for the Menendez brothers?
• What to know about the Menendez brothers resentencing hearing

The hearing will not be a re-trial and the brothers’ guilt will not be questioned.

Instead, much of the focus is likely to be on what they have done during their 30 years in prison and whether they have been rehabilitated.

During their trials, prosecutors painted them as entitled and eager to access their parents’ $14m (£10.7m) fortune.

They argued that the duo methodically planned the killings, buying shotguns and opening fire on their parents 13 times as the couple watched TV – before going gambling, to parties and on shopping sprees.

The brothers ultimately admitted to the killings, but argued they acted out of self-defence after years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse by their father Jose, a high-powered film and record label executive.

The brothers’ trial in 1993 was one of the first high-profile murder cases to be shown live on television, gripping audiences in the US and globally.

• Los Angeles DA opposes move to resentence Menendez brothers
• Family of Menendez brothers call for their release in killing of parents

Their first trial ended in a deadlock, but in 1996, the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder in a retrial. Many of their claims of sexual abuse were not allowed as part of the proceedings.

The hearing comes after a Netflix drama thrust the case back into the spotlight, and support for resentencing them has notably come from the previous Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón.

His replacement, Nathan Hochman, has vehemently opposed the brothers’ efforts to be freed and argued they have not “demonstrated true accountability” and instead have clung to a litany of “lies” about the case.

US President Donald Trump has said the US has “no stronger partner” than Saudi Arabia during his first major foreign trip – a whirlwind visit of Gulf countries mainly focused on shoring up investment.

Day one of the tour saw the two sides announce a $142bn (£107bn) arms deal, as well as other investments that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said could eventually be worth $1tn.

Trump also made Saudi Arabia the first foreign stop during his first term, in 2017. The rest of his trip will include stops in Qatar and the UAE.

Speaking for nearly an hour in Riyadh, Trump also announced that the US would be lifting sanctions on Syria in order to give the country “a chance at greatness”.

Trump’s arrival in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday was met with a grand reception, including a lavish lavender-coloured carpet rolled out to greet him. He had even chosen a purple tie to match it.

Riyadh swapped red carpets for lavender in 2021, saying that it was a symbol of the kingdom’s desert wildflowers and generosity.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Trump on the tarmac and provided an honour guard of Arabian horses to accompany his presidential limo.

In a speech later, Trump said: “I like him a lot.”

The pomp and ceremony was a drastic change from the muted reception for former US President Joe Biden, who declared Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state after the murder of a dissident journalist, before he travelled to the oil-rich kingdom to seek their help in lowering petrol prices, fist-bumping the crown prince.

Trump flew to the Gulf to strike financial deals and argued in his speech that it is through this kind of commerce and economic development that the Middle East would transcend violence and division.

In his remarks at an investment forum, Trump lauded the US-Saudi relationship as “more powerful than ever before”.

“From the moment we started we’ve seen wealth that has poured – and is pouring – into America,” he said.

Trump is trying to woo foreign investors to the US to boost the American economy, a key focus of his administration in the nearly four months of his second term.

“I like him too much,” Trump said of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de-facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. “That’s why we give so much.”

Underscoring his commitment to deal-making, Trump was joined by billionaire ally Elon Musk and other business leaders at a lavish lunch.

During his address, Trump said it was his “dream” to have Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, a deal brokered in his first administration that saw relations between Israel and some Gulf countries normalised for the first time.

But his good friend, Mohammed bin Salman, has made it clear that will not happen until there is a permanent end to the war and Gaza and a clear path to Palestinian statehood.

There is a limit to what this friendship can deliver.

Trump only briefly addressed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

He told those in attendance that people in Gaza deserved a “better future”, which had been held back by Hamas choosing “to kidnap, torture and target” for “political ends” – a reference to the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Trump also announced he was lifting sanctions on Syria to improve the country’s new government, a move he suggested was requested by Mohammed bin Salman.

“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” the US leader said.

American sanctions on Syria had been in place for over a decade, meant to apply pressure and economic pain against the dictatorship of former President Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in December.

Syria has since elected a new transitional president, creating an opening for renewed US diplomacy efforts.

Trump was expected to meet Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday in Saudia Arabia.

From Saudi Arabia, Trump will head to both Qatar and the UAE, which has already committed to investing $1.4tn in the US over the next decade.

A man who has served almost 38 years in prison for the murder of a woman has had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal after new DNA evidence emerged.

Peter Sullivan was jailed over the 1986 killing of 21-year-old barmaid Diane Sindall, who was subjected to a frenzied sexual attack in Birkenhead, Merseyside, as she walked home from a shift.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – the statutory body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice – had referred Mr Sullivan’s case back to the appeal court last year after fresh testing found a DNA profile pointing to an unknown attacker in semen samples preserved from the crime scene.

Mr Sullivan, appearing on video-link from HMP Wakefield, sobbed and held his hand over his mouth as he was told he would be released.

• Who is Peter Sullivan and why was he jailed?
• Why was Peter Sullivan not freed earlier?

Now aged 68, he is believed to be the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner in British legal history.

In a statement read by his solicitor, Mr Sullivan said he was “not angry, I’m not bitter”.

The statement read: “What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract that what happened was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.

“The truth shall set you free.”

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Sullivan’s sister Kim Smith said “no-one had won” and expressed sympathy for Miss Sindall’s family.

“They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back. We’ve got Peter back, and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again,” she said.

“It’s such a shame this has had to happen in the first place.”

Both Merseyside Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the technology to test the semen samples did not exist at the time of the murder.

Duncan Atkinson KC, representing the CPS, had said the service agreed the DNA evidence undermined Mr Sullivan’s conviction and there would be no application to seek a retrial.

Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Bryan at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, quashed the conviction and said they had “no doubt that it is both necessary and expedient in the interests of justice” to admit the new DNA evidence.

He said: “In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe.”

Lord Holroyde said injuries to the victim “plainly did point to a sexual aspect of the attack on Miss Sindall” and the “inference was very strong” that the semen had been left by the real killer.

He continued: “There is no evidence to suggest more than one man was involved in the murder, and no evidence to suggest semen may have deposited in the process of consensual sexual activity.”

The BBC understands Mr Sullivan left HMP Wakefield in a prison van shortly after 14:15 BST.

His release came 38 years, seven months and 21 days after his arrest, a total of 14,113 days in custody.

About a year of that time was spent in custody on remand as he awaited trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

The court heard technology had only very recently been developed to the point where the semen sample, recovered from Miss Sindall’s abdomen, could be tested for DNA.

The DNA profile was not a match for Miss Sindall’s fiancé at the time, the court heard, while cross-contamination from the forensic investigator who collected the semen samples had been ruled out.

Merseyside Police has since re-opened its investigation into Miss Sindall’s murder but the force said “unfortunately” searches of the national DNA database had not come up with any matches.

The force said it “did not underestimate” the impact of the conviction on Mr Sullivan.

Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023.

“We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway,” she said.

“We can confirm that the DNA does not belong to any member of Diane’s family, nor Diane’s fiancé at the time, and we believe it could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene.”

Nick Price, director of legal services at the CPS, said: ”We recognise the enormous impact this conviction has had on Peter Sullivan’s life and the profound implications of the Court’s decision in respect of this conviction.

“The prosecution case was brought on the basis of all the evidence available to us at the time.”

He said after the new DNA evidence was presented to the service it concluded it “could not oppose” the appeal.

Miss Sindall, who worked as a florist but was also doing part-time bar work to save up for her wedding, was believed to have run out of petrol while driving home from her shift at the Wellington pub in Bebington, Wirral, shortly after midnight on 2 August 1986.

Detectives believed she was walking to an all-night garage or a bus-stop on Borough Road in Birkenhead when she was attacked and dragged into an alley.

She suffered repeated blows to the head which caused her death, and also had injuries including bite marks and lacerations.

The day after her killing her clothes were found burning on Bidston Hill.

Mr Sullivan became a suspect after witnesses reported seeing a man who they recognised as “Pete” running out of some bushes near the site of the fire.

During the course of the investigation Mr Sullivan gave conflicting accounts of his whereabouts and offered “confessions”, the court heard.

However, his defence said he had learning difficulties and was “highly suggestible”.

He had also been interviewed without a solicitor or an appropriate adult.

At his original trial, the prosecution also relied on evidence matching bite marks on Miss Sindall’s body to Mr Sullivan’s dental impressions.

But the court heard forensic scientists now have expressed serious doubt as to the quality of bite mark evidence.

Mr Sullivan first applied for his case to be reviewed by the CCRC in 2008, but at the time the body concluded there was little chance any new DNA profile would be recoverable.

He also applied directly to the court for permission to appeal in 2019 but that too was rejected.

Another application to the CCRC was lodged in 2021, but this time the body concluded that thanks to technological advances it was worth testing the semen samples preserved from 1986.

Mr Sullivan’s defence team, led in court by Jason Pitter KC, said he acknowledged that attempting to test the sample any earlier could have destroyed it permanently without yielding any results.

As the noise and colour of a two-month election campaign subsides, a game of thrones between the two most powerful families in the Philippines resumes.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, and his Vice-President, Sara Duterte, are embroiled in a bitter feud, and a battle for power.

As allies they won a landslide victory in the last presidential election in 2022.

But as their relationship has fractured – he accusing her of threatening to assassinate him, she accusing him of incompetence and saying she dreamed of decapitating him – this mid-term election has become a critical barometer of the strength of these two political dynasties.

And the results were not great news for the Marcos camp. Typically incumbent presidents in the Philippines get most of their picks for the senate elected in the mid-term election. The power of presidential patronage is a significant advantage, at least it has been in the past.

But not this time.

Only six of the 12 winning senators are from the Marcos alliance, and of those one, Camille Villar, is only half in his camp, as she also accepted endorsement from Sara Duterte.

Four of the senators are in the Duterte camp, including the president’s sister Imee Marcos. Two were in the top three vote-winners, ahead of any Marcos candidate.

For a sitting president, this is a poor result.

Senators are elected on a simple, nationwide vote, which is a good indication of national opinion. The result could weaken the authority of the Marcos administration in the last three years of his term, and it casts doubt on the plan to incapacitate Sara Duterte by impeaching her.

The Marcos-Duterte relationship has been deteriorating almost since the start of their administration three years ago. But it was only this year that it ruptured completely.

The decision by the president’s allies in Congress to start impeaching the vice-president was the first irreparable breach.

Then in March President Marcos sent Sara’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity over his brutal war on drugs. The police have also now filed criminal charges against her.

The gloves were off. Impeachment would result in Sara Duterte being barred from public office, ending her ambition to replace President Marcos at the next election.

Right now she is the frontrunner, and few doubt that, if successful, she would use the power of the presidency to seek vengeance against the Marcos’s.

But impeachment requires two thirds of the 24-seat senate to vote for it, which is why this mid-term election mattered so much to both camps.

Politics in the Philippines is a family business. Once a family achieves political power, it holds onto it, and passes it around the various generations.

While there are around 200 influential families, the Dutertes and Marcoses sit at the top of the pyramid.

The Marcoses have been in politics for 80 years. The current president’s father ruled from 1965 to 1986, imposing martial law, and plundering billions of dollars from the national purse.

Bongbong Marcos’ mother, Imelda, who at the age of 95 cast her vote in this election from a wheelchair, is an even more notorious figure, and not just for her shoe collection.

His sister Imee has been re-elected to the senate, thanks to her decision to defect to the Duterte camp.

His eldest son Sandro is a congressman, and his cousin Martin Romualdez is speaker of the lower house and a likely presidential candidate in 2028 – probably the reason why Bongbong Marcos was so keen to drive through the impeachment of Sara Duterte.

In the president’s home province of Ilocos Norte, his wife’s cousin has been elected governor, his nephew elected vice-governor, and two other cousins elected as city councillors. Up there, Marcoses always win.

Much the same is true of the Dutertes in their stronghold in Davao at the other end of the country.

Even from his prison cell in The Hague, former President Duterte ran for mayor of Davao, and won easily, even though all voters got to see of him was a life-size cardboard cutout.

His absence will not matter though, because the previous mayor was his son Sebastian, who now takes over the vice-mayor’s job. Dutertes have been mayors of Davao for 34 out of the last 37 years.

The problem confronting both camps is that the senators also typically come from big political families, or are celebrities in their own right – many candidates come from a media or showbiz background.

They have interests and ambitions of their own. Even if officially allied with one camp or the other, there is no guarantee they will stay loyal, especially on the issue of impeachment.

“Senators in the Philippines are very sensitive to national public opinion, because they imagine themselves as vice presidents or presidents in-waiting,” says Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist who runs WR Numero Research, which monitors public opinion.

“So, they are always trying to read the public mind, and side with public opinion because of their future political ambitions.”

In recent months public sentiment has not been on the president’s side.

Bongbong Marcos has never been a good public speaker, and his stage appearances in the campaign did little to lift his flagging popularity.

His management of the economy, which is struggling, gets low marks in opinion polls, and his decision to detain former President Duterte and send him to the International Criminal Court is being portrayed by the Duterte family as a national betrayal.

At an impromptu rally in Tondo, a low-income neighbourhood in Manila’s port area, Sara Duterte played an emotionally-charged video of the moment her father was taken into custody at Manila’s international airport and put on a private jet to The Hague. She portrayed this as unforgivable treatment of a still popular former president.

“They didn’t just kidnap my dad, they stole him from us,” she told the cheering crowd.

Also on stage was President Marcos’s elder sister Imee, who disagreed with the extradition and jumped ship to the Duterte camp – though most observers view this as a cynical move to capitalise on Duterte popular support, so she could lift her own flagging campaign to retain her senate seat.

It worked. From polling low through much of the campaign, Imee Marcos managed to scrape into the “magic twelve”, as they call the winning senators.

What happens now is difficult to predict, but the Marcos camp certainly faces an uphill battle to get Sara Duterte impeached.

Of the 24 senators, only a handful are automatically loyal to the president. The rest will have to be persuaded to go along with it, , and that won’t be easy.

This election has shown that the Dutertes still have very strong public support in some areas, and some in the Marcos election alliance are already on record as saying they oppose impeaching the vice-president. The same goes for the 12 senators who were not up for election this year.

One bright spot for the president could be the surprise election of senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, both from the liberal wing of politics.

Few polls had predicted their wins, which suggest a public desire for politicians outside the Marcos-Duterte feud.

Neither is a friend of the Marcos clan – liberals were the main opposition to the Marcos-Duterte team in the 2022 election.

But they were strongly opposed to the strongman style of former President Duterte, and may fear his pugnacious daughter becoming president in 2028. That may be enough to get them to vote for impeachment.

The impeachment trial is expected to start in July. The Dutertes can be expected to continue chipping away at the president’s battered authority in public, and both camps will be lobbying furiously behind the scenes to get senators onto their side.

No president or vice-president has ever been successfully impeached in the Philippines. Nor have any president and vice president ever fallen out so badly.

It is going to be a turbulent year.

US President Donald Trump has said his administration wants to accept a plane worth an estimated $400m (£303m) as a gift from Qatar, calling it “a great gesture” that he would be “stupid” to turn down.

The potential move has been labelled “wildly illegal” by some members of the rival Democratic Party – something the White House denies – and it has attracted criticism from some of Trump’s supporters.

Qatar itself earlier said the reports about the plane were “inaccurate”, and that negotiations were continuing.

The news comes as Trump visits several countries in the Middle East, including Qatar.

BBC Verify has been looking into the legality of presidents accepting gifts.

On Sunday, US media reported that the Trump administration was preparing to accept a Boeing jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family – saying that the plane would be refitted and used temporarily as Air Force One, the name for the plane used by presidents.

Trump later posted on Truth Social: “The Defense Department is getting a gift, free of charge, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40-year-old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction.”

When questioned by reporters, Trump said: “It’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.”

In February, Trump said he was “not happy with Boeing” about delays to two new Air Force One jets that he is expecting to receive directly from the firm. He added that the White House could instead “buy a plane or get a plane, or something”.

The Qatari plane was pictured in Palm Beach, Florida, in February where Trump inspected it. It is currently fitted with three bedrooms, a private lounge and an office, according to its specification summary document from 2015.

A Qatari official has told CNN the plane is being given from the Qatari defence ministry to the Pentagon, and that it will be modified to meet Air Force One’s safety and security standards.

Experts say this is likely to take years, which means the plane may not be ready for use until near the end of Trump’s term.

Trump has said the plane will go directly to his presidential library after he leaves office, and that he “wouldn’t be using it” after his presidency.

Nonetheless, the move has led to criticism from Democrats as well as some long-time Trump supporters, including Laura Loomer who said: “This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true.”

Several senior Democrats have claimed that accepting the gift would be illegal.

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff quoted a section of the US Constitution that said no elected official could accept “any present… of any kind whatever” from the leader of a foreign state without congressional approval.

Frank Cogliano, a professor of American history at the University of Edinburgh, says this clause “was intended to prevent bribery to influence the government”.

“It is certainly stretching the Constitution and we have not seen a gift on this scale, or of this nature”, says Professor Andrew Moran, a constitutional law expert at London Metropolitan University.

There have been a number of other laws passed by Congress relating to the acceptance of foreign gifts, such as the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1966, which means that congressional consent is required for the acceptance of foreign gifts above a certain value.

Currently US officials can accept gifts valued at less than $480 (£363).

Although Trump has referred to the plane ultimately going to his “library”, experts have suggested he really means his museum foundation.

Ex-presidents typically have a library housing their archive of documents, and a museum – typically funded by private donations – full of memorabilia and open to the public.

Experts who BBC Verify spoke to said the fact that the plane could be given to the administration – and not to the president directly – before being transferred to his museum, may not get around the potential violation of the constitution.

Jordan Libowitz – from the organisation Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington – said any use of the plane by Trump after leaving office would cross a line: “Reagan’s Air Force One ended up in his presidential library, but there’s a difference there. The plane was decommissioned, Reagan never flew on it again, and it sits inside as a museum piece.”

The US Justice Department has reportedly drafted a memo explaining why it thinks accepting the jet would be permissible, although this has not been made public.

When the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt was asked about the legality of the deal, she said: “The legal details of that are still being worked out, but of course, any donation to this government is always done in full compliance with the law.”

President Trump is on a four-day trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, hoping to drum up investment for the US.

His visit follows a series of business deals announced by the Trump Organization, which is run by the president’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr.

These include plans to build golf courses and luxury villas in Qatar and the UAE.

President Trump is not currently affiliated with the Trump Organization, having handed over management responsibilities to his children after entering the White House on 20 January.

A deal was announced by the Trump Organization at the beginning of May to develop a Trump-branded luxury 18-hole golf course and a collection of luxury villas north of Qatar’s capital, Doha.

At the time, Eric Trump said: “We are incredibly proud to expand the Trump brand into Qatar through this exceptional collaboration with Qatari Diar and Dar Global.”

Dar Global is a publicly owned Saudi construction company; Qatari Diar is a Qatari state-owned company.

Separately, on 30 April, the Trump Organization announced it would build “the region’s first Trump International Hotel & Tower” in the “heart of Dubai” consisting of 80 floors of “luxury living and world-class hospitality”.

Eric Trump also visited the UAE recently, speaking at Token 2049, a cryptocurrency conference, on 1 May.

Asked if Trump was likely to meet anyone involved in the family business during his trip, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “ridiculous” to suggest the president was doing anything for his own benefit.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Kim Kardashian has given emotional testimony to a Paris court, telling judges she thought she was going to die at the hands of masked gunmen who stole millions of dollars of jewellery from her in a luxury hotel suite in 2016.

The reality TV star and businesswoman – who was bound and had a gun held to her head during the ordeal – faced her alleged attackers for the first time while giving evidence in the case.

Nine men and one woman are on trial for the armed burglary of £10m (£7.55m) worth of jewellery, including a diamond engagement ring from her ex-husband Kanye West.

Kardashian, who gave testimony in a seat in front of the BBC, spoke for more than three hours in court on Tuesday.

Her evidence was at times interrupted by apologies from two defendants.

After one of the defendants, Aomar Ait Khedache, 71, sitting metres from Kardashian in the courtroom expressed his regret, she turned to him and said she forgave him.

Referencing her activism in the US to improve the justice system and her dreams of becoming a lawyer, she thanked Khedache for his apology letter.

“I do appreciate it, I forgive you,” she said to him in the stand, while crying.

“But it doesn’t change the emotion, the feelings and the trauma and the way my life has changed.”

“I just want to thank everyone, especially the French authorities, for allowing me to testify today and tell my truth,” the TV star told the court on Tuesday which was packed with media.

The trial for the crime committed more than nine years ago has been long-anticipated and closely followed by press.

Wearing a tailored black suit and diamond jewellery, Kardashian was supported in the courtroom by her mother, Kris Jenner, several friends, and a bevy of bodyguards.

She faltered at times in her first hour of giving testimony, fidgeting with her long nails, and pausing when overwhelmed by emotion and fighting back tears. However she appeared to relax and gather strength the longer she went on, her voice becoming steadier.

She also expressed forgiveness for one of the defendants, who issued an apology to her during her testimony.

Tuesday’s session in court was the first time Kardashian had relayed to a criminal court her account of the armed burglary, and the extent of her fears during and after the attack.

She recounted how she had been in town for Paris Fashion Week on 2 October, and had retired for the night at around 03:00 when two masked gunmen wearing police uniforms burst into her room, dragging with them the hotel’s receptionist who had been bound and gagged.

She managed to call her bodyguard before one of the men then took her phone off her. They snatched her engagement ring, which had been lying on the bedside table, and then “picked me up off the bed and grabbed me and took me down the hallway” to look for more jewellery,” she said.

One of the men held a gun to her back at this point, and “that was the first moment I thought, should I run for it? But it wasn’t an option so I just stayed,” she said, adding that she realised she should just “do whatever they say” for her safety.

Kardashian said she was then thrown onto the bed and her hands bound with zip ties. At this point, she told the concierge: “Please translate to them that I have babies, I have to make it home.”

One of the men then pulled her towards him, which opened her robe, under which she wasn’t wearing anything.

She told the court she was afraid she was going to be raped, saying she said a prayer to mentally prepare herself.

But then her legs were tied together and a gun pointed at her. She said at that point, “I was sure that’s when they were going to shoot me.”

She thought of her family at that point, offering them a “prayer” that they would not have to experience her killing.

She expressed fear for her sister, Kourtney, having to walk into the hotel room to find that “I would be shot dead on the bed and she would see that and have that memory forever.”

When asked by the judge David de Pas if she thought she was going to die she replied in a small voice: “I absolutely did think I was gonna die.”

Kardashian said she looked in the eyes of the man who tied her up to try to remember details – and that he told her if she remained quiet, she would be ok.

After the robbers took the jewellery, they dashed out of the suite, leaving Kardashian in the bathroom. She said she then managed to free her hands from the cable ties and hopped down the staircase to the first floor of the suite, where her stylist and friend Simone Harouche helped release the other ties.

The two then ran out onto the balcony where they called for help while hiding in the bushes. Kardashian said she was worried the men would return, and that when Parisian police turned up, she couldn’t trust them because the robbers had also been wearing police uniforms.

During the testimony in the packed courtroom, Kardashian also answered several questions from the judge about why her security were not present at the time.

Her usual team had been sent to accompany her sister Kourtney to the club, while Kim had stayed in.

She told the court she did not have a bodyguard with her because up until the robbery, she and her family had not believed they needed that level of security. She said she had previously always felt safe to go out on the streets of Paris on her own, and they had been comfortable with their security team staying at a different hotel.

“Everything changed” after Paris, she said, noting that she employs up to six people to guard her house at night now, and that she started to get a “phobia of going out” because she thought people would “see me out and know my home was empty”.

“I can’t even sleep at night if I know there’s not multiple security” guards, she said, noting her concern about copycat attacks, and that her Los Angeles house was robbed even before the family returned from the Paris trip.

Kardashian’s testimony on Tuesday was interrupted at several points by offers of apology from two of the defendants in the court room, who have pleaded guilty to the charge. While she accepted Khedache’s apology, she did not acknowledge the presence of the other defendants who are contesting the charges.

She ignored her former driver Gary Madar who is accused of having tipped off the burglary ring about her whereabouts. He has denied the charges.

She also expressed anger over one of the defendants who has pleaded guilty, Yunice Abbas, who published a memoir in 2021 prior to the trial titled ‘”I Held Up Kim Kardashian”.

Kardashian told the court on Tuesday she was “really shocked when I saw there was a book”.

“Not only did he do this, but now [he’s] making money off that – my jewellery, my memories, the watch my dad who passed away gave me when I graduated high school. I can’t get that back.”

She also told the court she wanted closure from the trial’s proceedings.

“I wanted to be a part of today because I am a victim in this case and it’s the first time I’m able to really hear from everyone and follow along,” she said.

“This is what I do. I want to become a lawyer and I do believe everyone has the opportunity to speak their truth, and this is my closure and my opportunity to put this to rest after everything I’ve been through.”

Kardashian added that her job is “to tell my truth and hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else”.

“It was terrifying and life-changing and I don’t wish that kind of terror on anyone – to think you could be killed or raped – I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

More than 200 marine species off the coast of South Australia (SA) have been killed by a weeks-long toxic algae explosion, in what conservationists have described as “a horror movie for fish”.

The algal bloom – a rapid increase in the population of algae in water systems – has been spreading since March, growing to about 4,500 sq km (3,400 sq miles), or roughly the size of nearby Kangaroo Island.

“It’s an unprecedented event, because the bloom has continued to build and build,” said Vanessa Pirotta, a wildlife scientist.

Other scientists say the algae produces poisons which “act like a toxic blanket that suffocates” a wide range of marine life, including fish, rays and sharks.

Brad Martin, SA project manager for OzFish, a non-profit organisation that protects fishing habitats, said that while algal blooms are not uncommon, the “massive” scale of the current event has had a dramatic impact on marine life.

Toxins produced by the algae can cause “gill and tissue damage” by attacking the red blood cells, Mr Martin told the BBC.

The large density of the bloom also means that oxygen is being taken out of the water, “so we know that the fish are suffocating”.

“It is like a horror movie for fish,” he said.

The event has been widely documented by people sending in pictures of dead wildlife washed up on beaches.

The effect on sharks and rays has been particularly graphic, with large numbers washing up on beaches “bright red”, showing indications of haemorrhaging.

A three-metre great white shark was among those found dead in recent weeks.

Among the more than 200 species that have been killed, which range from the smallest of baby fish to great whites, some are more vulnerable than others.

Reef species like crabs and pufferfishes have been the worst hit, as they are less mobile and can’t swim away from the toxic algae.

While the algae isn’t harmful to humans, those exposed to high doses can experience skin irritation and respiratory symptoms such as coughing or breathing issues.

The SA government has advised people to avoid swimming at beaches where there is discoloured water and foam.

Algal blooms occur during sunny and warm conditions, and SA has had a marine heatwave since last September, with temperatures about 2.5 degrees warmer than average.

Australia has also been experiencing unseasonably warm conditions since March, which has further driven the size and duration of the current algal bloom.

The last time SA recorded a large event of this type of toxic algae was in 2014, according to the state’s environment and water department.

The spread has also affected some commercial fisheries, which have pre-emptively closed harvest areas.

Local coastal businesses have also seen a dip in visitors due to the sheer number of dead marine life washing up on shore.

Meanwhile, researchers and the SA government are continuing to monitor the bloom as it moves west.

Japanese carmaker Nissan has said it will cut another 11,000 jobs globally and shut seven factories as it shakes up the business in the face of weak sales.

Falling sales in China and heavy discounting in the US, its two biggest markets, have taken a heavy toll on earnings, while a proposed merger with Honda and Mitsubishi collapsed in February.

The latest cutbacks bring the total number of layoffs announced by the company in the past year to about 20,000, or 15% of its workforce.

It was not immediately clear where the job cuts will be made, or whether Nissan’s plant in Sunderland will be affected.

The government said the plant was of “vital importance” to the north east of England, and that it would “engage closely” with Nissan over its restructuring plans.

Nissan employs about 133,500 people globally, with about 6,000 workers in Sunderland.

Two-thirds of the latest job cuts will come from manufacturing, with the rest from sales, administration jobs, research and contract staff, said the company’s chief executive, Ivan Espinosa.

The latest layoffs come on top of 9,000 job cuts Nissan announced in November as part of a cost saving effort that it said would reduce its global production by a fifth.

In February, talks between Nissan and its larger rival Honda collapsed after the firms failed to agree on a multi-billion-dollar tie-up.

The plan had been to combine their businesses to fight back against competition from rival firms, especially in China.

The merger would have created a $60bn (£46bn) motor industry giant, the fourth largest in the world by vehicle sales after Toyota, Volkswagen and Hyundai.

After the failure of the negotiations, then-chief executive Makoto Uchida was replaced by Mr Espinosa, who was the company’s chief planning officer and head of its motorsports division.

Nissan also reported an annual loss of 670 billion yen ($4.5bn; £3.4bn), with US President Donald Trump’s tariffs putting further pressure on the struggling firm.

Mr Espinosa said that the previous financial year had been “challenging”, with rising costs and an “uncertain environment”, adding that the results were a “wake-up call”.

The car giant did not give a forecast for income in the coming year due to the “uncertain nature of US tariff measures”.

It said it expected flat profit this year even without accounting for the impact of tariffs.

Last week, Nissan announced it had scrapped plans to build a battery and electric vehicle factory in Japan as it cuts back on investment.

The firm has been in trouble in key markets, including China where growing competition has led to falling prices.

In China, many foreign carmakers have struggled to compete with homegrown firms such as BYD.

China has become the world’s biggest producer of electric vehicles, with some established car-making nations having failed to anticipate demand for the new technology.

In the US, another major market for Nissan, inflation and higher interest rates have hit new vehicle sales, although Nissan retail sales rose slightly last year.

But sales fell 12% in China, and also dropped in Japan and Europe.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will travel to Turkey’s capital Ankara to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and will be available for direct talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Istanbul on Thursday.

“We will do everything to ensure that this meeting takes place,” he told reporters in a hastily-arranged briefing in Kyiv.

Russia has not yet said who will fly to Istanbul, only that it would be announced “as soon as [Putin] deems it necessary”. Putin and Zelensky have not themselves met since December 2019.

Direct talks between the two countries last took place in Istanbul, in March 2022, in the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Putin had initially called for direct talks in Turkey’s largest city “without pre-conditions”, before Zelensky announced that he would go in person and expected the Russian president to travel as well.

The US is also expected to send a high-level delegation.

By confirming his visit to Turkey at Tuesday’s briefing, Zelensky clearly sought to intensify pressure on Russia to respond. The Kremlin has already warned that exerting pressure on Moscow is “useless” and it does not respond to ultimatums.

Russia has instead sought to focus on a long-term settlement that tackles what Moscow sees as the “root causes” of the war – a set of tough pre-conditions announced before the 2022 invasion and repeatedly rejected by Kyiv.

The Ukrainian leader said while he was prepared to meet Putin in Istanbul his priority was to secure a 30-day ceasefire, which he said all Ukraine’s allies – including the US – were agreed on.

Zelensky said he believed Putin’s late night offer on Sunday for direct talks in Turkey was designed to catch Kyiv out, so that he would “not react” or “react in a negative way for Ukraine”.

US President Donald Trump, who is on a visit to the Gulf, has hinted that he could fly to to Istanbul himself “if I think things can happen”.

That seems unlikely for now, and unconfirmed reports suggest two senior US envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, are planning to be in Istanbul on the day.

The Kremlin has sought to dampen speculation that Putin himself might himself go.

“Russia continues preparations for the negotiations due on Thursday. That’s all that can be said right now,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that Moscow was prepared to hold talks “responsibly” taking into account “realities on the ground” – in a veiled reference to Ukraine’s four south-eastern regions partially seized by Russia since 2022.

He also repeated Moscow’s initial pre-invasion demands for a settlement to be achieved – Ukraine and its Western allies see this as an ultimatum tantamount to Kyiv’s de facto capitulation.

Ryabkov also cast doubt on Ukraine’s ability to stick to agreements.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it would be a good move for Zelensky and Putin to sit down and talk, but added: “I don’t think he dares, Putin.”

Zelensky also accused Putin of “being scared” to meet him. His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said if the Russian leader refused to go to Istanbul it would the “final signal” that he did not want to end the war.

The leaders of Ukraine’s main allies – the UK, Germany, Poland and France – travelled to Kyiv at the weekend to warn of immediate further sanctions if Russia did not accept a 30-day ceasefire.

The European Union is currently working on a 17th package of measures.

A masked gang have tried to abduct the daughter and young grandson of a cryptocurrency chief in Paris, but after a violent struggle they drove off empty-handed.

The botched kidnap bid was captured on video by an onlooker in Paris’s 11th district, in the east of the French capital.

Police sources said the woman was the daughter of a cryptocurrency company boss. She and her husband fought off three attackers until passers-by rushed to their aid and the men fled in a van.

A Paris police brigade that tackles armed robbery is expected to investigate the attack, which is the latest in a series of abductions targeting French cryptocurrency figures or their relatives.

The attack unfolded at about 08:20 local time on Tuesday, according to local media, when three men leapt from a white van and tried to kidnap the mother and her child.

The pair are described as relatives of the co-founder of French Bitcoin exchange platform Paymium, the AFP news agency said.

The woman’s husband who was with his family at the time tried to protect them and was beaten repeatedly over the head. The couple shouted for help as the masked men tried to pull them apart.

At one point she was seen to grab a firearm off the attacker and throw it into the street. The weapon was later described as a replica air gun.

The street was relatively busy at the time and a group of children were on their way to a local primary school.

Initially, passers-by appeared too afraid to intervene, but as locals began to react the three attackers eventually gave up and jumped into the van as a fourth gang member drove them away. One man hurled a fire extinguisher at the van as it sped off.

The family were treated for minor injuries in hospital.

The botched kidnapping in the Rue Pache came little more than a week after French police rescued the father of a cryptocurrency millionaire who had been kidnapped in another area of the capital while walking his dog and held for ransom.

In an indication of the brutality of the gangs involved, the victim was freed three days later after his kidnappers had cut off one of his fingers.

Several people were arrested.

Last January, David Balland, co-founder of cryptocurrency wallet firm Ledger, was abducted with his wife at their home in central France.

French media say the victim had one finger missing when he was rescued from a house in Palaiseau, south of Paris.

President Donald Trump has slashed the tariff on small parcels sent from mainland China and Hong Kong to the US, just hours after the world’s two biggest economies said they would cut levies on each other’s goods for 90 days.

The new tariffs on small packages worth up to $800 (£606) have been cut from 120% to 54%, according to a White House statement.

The flat fee per parcel will remain at $100, while a $200 charge due to apply from 1 June has been cancelled.

Chinese online retail giants Shein and Temu had previously relied on the so-called “de minimis” exemption to ship low-value items directly to customers in the US without having to pay duties or import taxes.

Neither Shein or Temu immediately responded to BBC requests for comment.

The duty-free rule was closed by the Trump administration earlier this month.

Some shoppers told the BBC that they rushed through purchases ahead of that deadline.

The latest rates came after the US and China released a joint statement announcing they would temporarily reduce their tit-for-tat tariffs and start a new round of trade negotiations.

Share markets jumped on Monday after Trump said weekend talks had resulted in a “total reset” in trade terms between the two countries, a move that went some way to ease concerns about a trade war between the two countries.

Under the agreement, the US will lower those tariffs from 145% to 30%, while China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods will drop to 10% from 125%.

Trump told reporters, that, as some of the levies have been suspended rather than cancelled altogether, they might rise again in three months time, if no further progress was made.

But the president said he did not expect them to return to the previous 145% peak.

“We’re not looking to hurt China,” Trump said after the agreement was announced, adding that China was “being hurt very badly”.

Trump added that he expected to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping “maybe at the end of the week”.