More than three years into Europe’s deadliest war since 1945, there was a small step forward for democracy on Friday.

Delegations from Ukraine and Russia came face-to-face for talks for the first time since March 2022 – one month after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour. The setting was an Ottoman- era palace on the shores of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

Pressure and encouragement from Turkey and the US helped get the warring parties there.

There were no handshakes, and half the Ukrainian delegation wore camouflage military fatigues – a reminder that their nation is under attack.

The room was decked with Ukrainian, Turkish and Russian flags – two of each – and a large flower arrangement – a world away from the shattered cities and swollen graveyards of Ukraine.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, told the delegations there were two paths ahead – one road leading to peace, and the other leading to more death and destruction.

The talks lasted less than two hours and sharp divisions soon emerged. The Kremlin made “new and unacceptable demands,” according to a Ukrainian official. That included insisting Kyiv withdraw its troops from large parts of its own territory, he said, in exchange for a ceasefire.

While there was no breakthrough on the crucial issue of a truce – as expected – there is news of one tangible result.

Each side will return 1,000 prisoners of war to the other.

“This was the very good end to a very difficult day,” said Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Serhiy Kyslytsya, and “potentially excellent news for 1,000 Ukrainian families.”

The swap will take place soon, said Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who led his country’s delegation. “We know the date,” he said, “we’re not announcing it just yet.”

He said “the next step” should be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin.

That request was “noted” according to the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky – a presidential aide. He said the Russian delegation was satisfied with the talks, and ready to continue contacts.

He said the Russian delegation was satisfied with the talks, and ready to continue contacts.

That was a change from Thursday when Russia’s Foreign Ministry called President Zelensky “a clown and a loser.”

But there are fears – among Ukraine and some of its allies – that Russia is engaging in diplomacy simply to buy time, to distract from international pressure for a ceasefire, and to try to stave off the 18th round of European sanctions. The EU says they are already in the works.

And while the two sides have now sat around the table, President Trump has said the only talks that count will be those between him and President Putin.

He announced on Thursday, mid-flight on Air Force One, that “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together.”

It’s unclear when that meeting will be. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says top-level talks are “certainly needed,” but preparing a summit will take time.

Whenever those talks happen, President Zelensky is unlikely to be invited.

A budget bill, long touted by Donald Trump as the “big, beautiful bill” hit a roadblock on Friday when lawmakers from the president’s own party voted against it in congress.

Five Republicans joined all Democrats in delivering a stunning setback to President Trump’s domestic agenda, demanding deeper budget cuts.

Trump, who has muscled through close votes several times this year, urged lawmakers to unite behind the legislation. “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!,” he posted on Truth Social.

The bill’s chances of success are not hopeless, but its failure gives the Trump administration its first legislative bruise of the year.

Support for the bill among Republicans varies. Some hard-liners want to see the budget cuts go further, while other Republicans have expressed concern about cuts to programmes like Medicaid, which their constituents are dependent on.

The five Republicans who voted against the measure in the procedural vote said they would continue to withhold support unless Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to further cut Medicaid, a healthcare programme for lower-income Americans.

They also want Johnson to include a full repeal of green energy tax cuts, implemented by Democrats, in the bill.

“This bill falls profoundly short,” said Texas Republican Chip Roy, who voted against the measure. “It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits.”

The proposed legislation would extend tax cuts implemented during Trump’s first administration.

While Trump touts the bill’s inclusion of a no tax on tips policy, some critics argue the bill benefits wealthy Americans.

Democrats, who overwhelmingly oppose the bill, have been urging the reconsideration of Medicaid cuts and spending cuts to the Affordable care Act which offers millions of Americans subsidised health insurance.

“No other previous bill, no other previous law, no other previous event caused so many millions of Americans to lose their healthcare. Not even the Great Depression,” Pennsylvania Democrat Brendan Boyle said.

If passed, the tax cuts would cost $3.72 trillion (£2.8t) over ten years, according to congress’s bipartisan Joint Tax Committee.

A 1,000 year-old human skeleton which was buried sitting cross-legged in India has been moved to a museum six years after it was excavated.

The BBC had reported earlier this month that the skeleton had been left inside an unprotected tarpaulin shelter close to the excavation site in western Gujarat state since 2019 because of bureaucratic wrangling.

On Thursday, the skeleton was shifted to a local museum, just a few miles away from where it was unearthed.

Authorities say that it will be placed on display for the public after administrative procedures are completed.

Mahendra Surela, curator of the Archaeological Experiential Museum in Vadnagar where the skeleton has now been shifted, told the BBC that the skeleton was transported with “utmost care” and under the supervision of several experts.

He added that officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) – the agency responsible for preservation of archaeological research – will examine the skeleton before taking a decision on where and how the skeleton should be displayed in the museum.

It is currently placed next to the reception and is fenced in by a protective barrier.

“It is likely that we may shift it to the second floor, where a photograph of the skeleton is already placed,” Mr Surela said.

Archaeologist Abhijit Ambekar, who discovered the skeleton, said that he was happy that the significant find was getting the attention it deserved.

Ambekar had earlier told the BBC that the skeleton was a rare discovery as similar remains had been found at only three other sites in India.

But as officials argued over who should take charge of the skeleton, it remained in a make-shift tent close to the excavation site, unprotected by security guards and exposed to natural elements.

Experts say that the skeleton likely belongs to the Solanki period. The Solanki dynasty, also known as the Chaulukya dynasty, ruled over parts of modern-day Gujarat between 940 to 1300 CE.

The skeleton had managed to survive the passage of time because the soil around it had remained undisturbed and displayed characteristics that aided preservation.

Mr Ambekar said that the remains could shed light on the phenomenon of “samadhi burials” – an ancient burial practice among Hindus where revered figures were buried rather than cremated.

Nearly 100 people, including children, have been killed in a large-scale Israeli ground, air and sea attack launched early Friday in north Gaza, the Hamas-run civil defence and residents have said.

The civil defence said at least nine homes and tents housing civilians had been bombed overnight and it had received dozens of calls from people trapped.

Witnesses also reported smoke bombs, artillery shelling and tanks in Beit Lahia.

Israel’s military said it was “operating to locate and dismantle terrorist infrastructure sites” in north Gaza and had “eliminated several terrorists” over the past day.

This marks the largest ground assault on north Gaza since Israel resumed its offensive in March.

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Basheer al-Ghandour, who fled Beit Lahia for Jabalia after the attack, told the BBC people were sleeping when suddenly “intense bombing” hit overnight.

“It came from all sides – air strikes and warships. My brother’s house collapsed. There were 25 people inside,” he said.

He said 11 people were injured and five killed, including his nieces, aged five and 18, and a 15-year-old nephew. He and others tried to free relatives from the rubble.

“My brother’s wife is still under the rubble – we didn’t manage to rescue her. Because of how intense the bombing was, we had to flee,” he said.

“We didn’t take anything with us – no furniture, no food, no flour. We even left in bare feet.”

Another survivor, Yousif Salem, told reporters he and his three children had “just escaped death”.

“An air strike hit our neighbours’ home – none of them survived,” he said.

He said artillery shells began hitting near their house as they were trapped inside. When he tried to leave, a quadcopter drone opened fire, he said.

He made a second attempt under heavy shelling, he said. All roads were blocked, but they managed to find a side road.

“We escaped only minutes before Israeli tanks encircled the area,” he said.

According to local residents, the attack began with smoke bomb barrages followed by intense artillery shelling from nearby Israeli positions.

Tanks then began advancing toward Al-Salateen neighbourhood in western Beit Lahia.

Witnesses reported that Israeli armoured vehicles surrounded a school sheltering hundreds of displaced civilians.

Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets early Friday over several areas in north Gaza calling on residents to evacuate the areas immediately, raising fears the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was expanding its military operation in one of Gaza’s most densely populated regions.

The evacuation orders sparked panic among families who have been displaced multiple times since the war began. Many have nowhere else to go.

“I swear I don’t know where we’re going,” said Sana Marouf, who was fleeing with her family on a donkey cart in Gaza City.

“We don’t have mattresses, blankets, food or water.”

She said she had seen people “torn to pieces” overnight. “It was a black night. They were relentlessly bombing us.”

The attack in north Gaza comes after Israeli air strikes killed more than 120 people, mostly in the south, on Thursday.

The IDF said on Friday it had struck more than 150 “terror targets” throughout Gaza over the past day, including anti-tank missile posts, military structures, and centres where groups were planning to “carry out terrorist attacks against IDF troops”.

In south Gaza, the IDF said it had dismantled Hamas structures and shafts and killed “several terrorists” who Israel said had planned to plant an explosive device.

While Friday’s powerful overnight strikes and reported advance by ground troops west of Beit Lahia are significant, this does not yet look like Israel’s threatened major military offensive.

Israel’s government has pledged to intensify operations in Gaza and indefinitely reoccupy the Strip if Hamas did not accept a proposal for a temporary ceasefire and the return of remaining hostages by the end of President Donald Trump’s regional trip, which concluded on Friday.

While there has been no sign of a breakthrough with negotiating teams still in Doha, local media say that Arab mediators have been pushing for more time to give talks a chance.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas agreed in January broke down when Israel relaunched air strikes on Gaza in March.

Israel also implemented a total blockade on humanitarian aid, including food, that has been widely condemned by the UN as well as European and Arab countries.

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz last month said the blockade was a “main pressure lever” to secure victory over Hamas and get all the hostages out.

There is growing evidence that Israel’s 10-week blockade is having an increasingly detrimental humanitarian impact. Aid organisations and residents say people in Gaza are now starving.

A recent UN-backed report said Gaza’s whole population – some 2.1 million people – is at critical risk of famine.

The Israeli government has insisted there is no shortage of food in Gaza and that the “real crisis is Hamas looting and selling aid”.

Israel and the US have proposed allowing in and distributing aid through private companies – a plan rejected by the UN.

The deteriorating situation in Gaza has drawn concern from the US this week.

Boarding his flight home from the Middle East, Trump said the US needs to “help out the Palestinians” and acknowledges “a lot of people are starving”.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration was “troubled” by the humanitarian situation.

Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Fifty-eight hostages are still being held in Gaza, up to 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

An Australian man who was captured by Russian forces while fighting alongside Ukraine has been sentenced to 13 years in a maximum security prison, Russian-installed prosecutors have said.

Oscar Jenkins, 33, was convicted in a Russian-controlled court in occupied eastern Ukraine on Friday of fighting in an armed conflict as a mercenary.

Mr Jenkins, a teacher from Melbourne, was captured last December in the Luhansk region.

Prosecutors said he arrived in Ukraine in February 2024, alleging he was paid between 600,000 and 800,000 rubles (£5,504 and £7,339) a month to take part in military operations against Russian troops.

A video surfaced in December last year showing Mr Jenkins with his hands tied, being hit in the face and questioned by Russian forces. They ask him if he is being paid to fight in Ukraine.

In January, Australia summoned the Russian ambassador over false reports that Mr Jenkins had been killed following his capture.

Since then, the Australian government has repeatedly called for his release.

“We’ll continue to make representations to the reprehensible regime of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin on behalf of Mr Jenkins,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told 9News in April.

In March, a British man James Scott Rhys Anderson was jailed for 19 years by a Russian military court after being charged with terrorism and mercenary activity, becoming the first British national convicted by Russia during the war.

The 22-year-old was captured last November in Russia’s Kursk region – where Ukrainian forces began a surprise incursion last August before retreating in recent months.

Just before launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised all of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent of Ukraine. Russian proxy forces began an insurgency there in 2014.

As crowds gathered at a food distribution point in northern Gaza, six-year-old Ismail Abu Odeh fought his way to the front.

“Give me some,” he called out.

His bowl was filled with lentils, but as he made his way back, it was knocked out of his hands. He returned to his family’s tent crying.

An uncle who had managed to get some food later shared some with Ismail.

The following day, no deliveries of water or food arrived at the displacement camp where he lives, located in a school in Gaza City, and the people gathered there were left with empty bottles and bowls. Ismail cried again.

The BBC has spent the past two days speaking to people across Gaza, as Israel ramps up its military action and continues a more than 10-week total blockade on food, medical supplies and other aid.

There are mounting warnings from the United Nations and others that the enclave is on the brink of famine.

The Israeli government insists there is “no shortage” of food in Gaza and that the “real crisis is Hamas looting and selling aid”.

Government ministers have described the stoppage of aid as a “main pressure lever” to secure victory over Hamas and get all the hostages out. There are still 58 hostages in Gaza, up to 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israel does not allow international journalists free access to Gaza, so our communication has been over phone calls and WhatsApp messages, and through trusted Palestinian freelancers who live in the territory.

Those who spoke to the BBC described their struggle to find even one meal a day, with food kitchens shutting down because of the shortages and few items in the markets. Items that are still available are at highly inflated prices that they cannot afford, they said.

A man running one of the remaining food kitchens in Gaza said he was operating “day by day” to find food and oil. Another man we spoke to said the kitchen he volunteered at had closed 10 days ago when supplies ran out, describing it as a “disastrous feeling”.

One 23-year-old woman living in north Gaza said “dizziness has become a constant feeling” as well as “general weakness and fatigue from the lack of food and medicine”.

Adham al-Batrawi, 31, who used to live in the affluent city of al-Zahra but is now displaced in central Gaza, said hunger was “one of the most difficult parts of daily life”.

He said people had to get “creative just to survive”, describing through WhatsApp messages how he would over-cook pasta and knead it into a dough before cooking it over a fire to create an imitation of bread – a staple in the Palestinian diet.

“We’ve invented ways to cook and eat that we never imagined we’d need,” he said.

He added that the one meal a day he had been eating recently was “just enough to get us through the day, but it’s far from enough to meet our energy needs”.

Elsewhere in central Gaza, in the city of Deir al-Balah, nurse Rewaa Mohsen said it was a struggle to provide for her two young daughters, aged three and 19 months.

She said she had stockpiled nappies during the ceasefire earlier this year but that these would run out in a month.

Speaking over WhatsApp on Thursday, she said her daughters had grown used to the sounds of bombing that would ring through the apartment. “Sometimes I feel more afraid than them,” she wrote, adding that she would distract her children with colouring books and toys.

The next day, over voice note she said evacuation orders had been issued for her area before an Israeli strike hit a nearby building.

When she returned to her home to “clean the mess”, she found that the doors and windows had been blown off.

“Thank God that I am still alive with my girls,” she said.

When asked if she would stay in the apartment, she responded: “Where else will I go?”

Across Gaza, medics described the impact of the blockade on medical supplies and said they no longer felt safe at work following Israeli strikes targeting hospitals.

Nurse Randa Saied said she was working at the European Hospital in Khan Younis when it was hit in an Israeli strike this week, describing it as a moment of “pure terror and helplessness”.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using hospitals as covert bases and for weapons storage, which the group denies.

The European Hospital is no longer operating, but Randa said staff and patients had moved to the nearby Nasser Hospital.

“Our patients are mothers, sons, daughters and siblings – just like us. We know deep in our hearts that our duty must not end, especially now when they need us the most,” she said.

Staff at Nasser and other hospitals in Gaza told the BBC the blockade meant they were running short on basic supplies like painkillers and gauze, and had to shut down some services.

The US has confirmed that a new system for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza through private companies is being prepared, with Israeli forces set to secure the centres’ perimeters. The United Nations has criticised the plan, saying it appears to “weaponise” aid.

Back in Gaza City, Ismail’s father said he struggled with no longer being able to provide for his six children.

“My children go to sleep hungry,” he said. “Sometimes I sit and cry like a little kid if I don’t manage to provide food for them.”

To live along the Line of Control (LoC) – the volatile de facto border that separates India and Pakistan – is to exist perpetually on the razor’s edge between fragile peace and open conflict.

The recent escalation after the Pahalgam attack brought India and Pakistan to the brink once again. Shells rained down on both sides of the LoC, turning homes to rubble and lives into statistics. At least 16 people were reportedly killed on the Indian side, while Pakistan claims 40 civilian deaths, though it remains unclear how many were directly caused by the shelling.

“Families on the LoC are subjected to Indian and Pakistani whims and face the brunt of heated tensions,” Anam Zakaria, a Pakistani writer based in Canada, told the BBC.

“Each time firing resumes many are thrust into bunkers, livestock and livelihood is lost, infrastructure – homes, hospitals, schools – is damaged. The vulnerability and volatility experienced has grave repercussions for their everyday lived reality,” Ms Zakaria, author of a book on Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said.

India and Pakistan share a 3,323km (2,064-mile) border, including the 740km-long LoC; and the International Border (IB), spanning roughly 2,400km. The LoC began as the Ceasefire Line in 1949 after the first India-Pakistan war, and was renamed under the 1972 Simla Agreement.

The LoC cutting through Kashmir – claimed in full and administered in parts by both India and Pakistan – remains one of the most militarised borders in the world. Conflict is never far behind and ceasefires are only as durable as the next provocation.

Ceasefire violations here can range from “low-level firing to major land grabbing to surgical strikes“, says Happymon Jacob, a foreign policy expert at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). (A land grab could involve seizing key positions such as hilltops, outposts, or buffer zones by force.)

The LoC, many experts say, is a classic example of a “border drawn in blood, forged through conflict”. It is also a line, as Ms Zakaria says, “carved by India and Pakistan, and militarised and weaponised, without taking Kashmiris into account”.

Such wartime borders aren’t unique to South Asia. Sumantra Bose, professor of international and comparative politics at Krea University in India and author of Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict, says the most well-known is the ‘Green Line’ – the ceasefire line of 1949 – which is the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank.

Not surprisingly, the tentative calm along the LoC that had endured since the 2021 ceasefire agreement between the two nuclear-armed neighbours crumbled easily after the latest hostilities.

“The current escalation on the LoC and International Border (IB) is significant as it follows a four-year period of relative peace on the border,” Surya Valliappan Krishna of Carnegie India told the BBC.

Violence along the India-Pakistan border is not new – prior to the 2003 ceasefire, India reported 4,134 violations in 2001 and 5,767 in 2002.

The 2003 ceasefire initially held, with negligible violations from 2004 to 2007, but tensions resurfaced in 2008 and escalated sharply by 2013.

Between 2013 and early 2021, the LoC and the IB witnessed sustained high levels of conflict. A renewed ceasefire in February 2021 led to an immediate and sustained drop in violations through to March 2025.

“During periods of intense cross-border firing we’ve seen border populations in the many thousands be displaced for months on end,” says Mr Krishna. Between late September and early December 2016, more than 27,000 people were displaced from border areas due to ceasefire violations and cross-border firing.

It’s looking increasingly hairy and uncertain now.

Tensions flared after the Pahalgam attack, with India suspending the key water-sharing treaty between India and Pakistan, known as the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). Pakistan responded by threatening to exit the 1972 Simla Agreement, which formalised the LoC – though it hasn’t followed through yet.

“This is significant because the Simla Agreement is the basis of the current LoC, which both sides agreed to not alter unilaterally in spite of their political differences,” says Mr Krishna.

Mr Jacob says for some “curious reason”, ceasefire violations along the LoC have been absent from discussions and debates about escalation of conflict between the two countries.

“It is itself puzzling how the regular use of high-calibre weapons such as 105mm mortars, 130 and 155mm artillery guns and anti-tank guided missiles by two nuclear-capable countries, which has led to civilian and military casualties, has escaped scholarly scrutiny and policy attention,” Mr Jacob writes in his book, Line On Fire: Ceasefire Violations and India-Pakistan Escalation Dynamics.

Mr Jacob identifies two main triggers for the violations: Pakistan often uses cover fire to facilitate militant infiltration into Indian-administered Kashmir, which has witnessed an armed insurgency against Indian rule for over three decades. Pakistan, in turn, accuses India of unprovoked firing on civilian areas.

He argues that ceasefire violations along the India-Pakistan border are less the product of high-level political strategy and more the result of local military dynamics.

The hostilities are often initiated by field commanders – sometimes with, but often without, central approval. He also challenges the notion that the Pakistan Army alone drives the violations, pointing instead to a complex mix of local military imperatives and autonomy granted to border forces on both sides.

Some experts believe It’s time to revisit an idea shelved nearly two decades ago: turning the LoC into a formal, internationally recognised border. Others insist that possibility was never realistic – and still isn’t.

“The idea is completely infeasible, a dead end. For decades, Indian maps have shown the entire territory of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of India,” Sumantra Bose told the BBC.

“For Pakistan, making the LoC part of the International Border would mean settling the Kashmir dispute – which is Pakistan’s equivalent of the Holy Grail – on India’s preferred terms. Every Pakistani government and leader, civilian or military, over the past seven decades has rejected this.”

In his 2003 book, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace, Prof Bose writes: “A Kashmir settlement necessitates that the LoC be transformed – from an iron curtain of barbed wire, bunkers, trenches and hostile militaries to a linen curtain. Realpolitik dictates that the border will be permanent (albeit probably under a different name), but it must be transcended without being abolished.”

“I stressed, though, that such a transformation of the LoC must be embedded in a broader Kashmir settlement, as one pillar of a multi-pillared settlement,” he told the BBC.

Between 2004 and 2007, turning the LoC into a soft border was central to a fledgling India-Pakistan peace process on Kashmir – a process that ultimately fell apart.

Today, the border has reignited, bringing back the cycle of violence and uncertainty for those who live in its shadow.

“You never know what will happen next. No one wants to sleep facing the Line of Control tonight,” an employee of a hotel in Pakistan-administered Kashmir told BBC Urdu during the recent hostilities.

It was a quiet reminder of how fragile peace is when your window opens to a battlefield.

“Melania” appeared on the banks of the River Sava in July 2020, four months before her human inspiration left the White House.

Now, four months after the erstwhile Melanija Knavs resumed residence at Washington’s most famous address, her larger-than-life-size avatar has apparently made an undignified exit from her Slovenian hometown, Sevnica.

All that remains of the massive bronze statue are the feet – and the two-metre-tall tree stump they were standing on.

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The symmetry would probably appeal to the whimsical US director Wes Anderson – who often features bizarre heists in his films. But even in his back catalogue, there has never been anything quite like the case of the cursed First Lady statue.

Because this is not the first time a Melania Trump tribute has met a sticky end in Sevnica.

The first iteration was unveiled in July 2019. Carved from a single piece of wood by a chainsaw-wielding local artisan called Ales “Maxi” Zupevc, it lasted a year before an unidentified perpetrator decided to turn it into a Fourth of July bonfire.

Luckily, US artist Brad Downey – who commissioned Maxi to create the wooden original – had already made a cast of the statue. It duly made a comeback in bronze, at the same site.

At its unveiling, Mr Downey said the new version had been designed to be “as solid as possible, out of a durable material which cannot be wantonly destroyed”.

But, as it turns out, it can be chopped off at the ankles and taken away.

Local police say they are treating “Melania’s” disappearance as “theft” and have launched an investigation.

Brad Downey has always insisted that his work was political. He chose Maxi as a collaborator because his upbringing had been similar to that of the First Lady.

And he argued that Melania Trump benefitted from a fast-tracked US citizenship process, while other immigrants suffered under her husband’s “xenophobic” policies.

Now he suspects the statue’s disappearance “has something to do with Trump getting re-elected”.

Meanwhile, in Sevnica, the local authorities have mixed feelings. They condemned “any form of interference with private or public property”.

But, they added, “the image of the US First Lady was not something anyone was proud of”.

Australia’s most-decorated living soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, has lost an appeal against a landmark defamation judgement which found he committed war crimes.

A judge in 2023 ruled that news articles alleging the Victoria Cross recipient had murdered four unarmed Afghans were true, but Mr Roberts-Smith had argued the judge made legal errors.

The civil trial was the first time in history any court has assessed claims of war crimes by Australian forces.

A panel of three Federal Court judges on Friday unanimously upheld the original judgement, though Mr Roberts-Smith has said he will appeal the decision to the High Court of Australia “immediately”.

“I continue to maintain my innocence and deny these egregious spiteful allegations,” he said in a statement.

Mr Roberts-Smith, who left the defence force in 2013, has not been charged over any of the claims in a criminal court, where there is a higher burden of proof.

The former special forces corporal sued three Australian newspapers over a series of articles alleging serious misconduct while he was deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012 as part of a US-led military coalition.

At the time the articles were published in 2018, Mr Roberts-Smith was considered a national hero, having been awarded Australia’s highest military honour for single-handedly overpowering Taliban fighters attacking his Special Air Service (SAS) platoon.

The 46-year-old argued the alleged killings occurred legally during combat or did not happen at all, claiming the papers ruined his life with their reports.

His defamation case – which some have dubbed “the trial of the century” in Australia – lasted over 120 days and is now rumoured to have cost up to A$35m ($22.5m; £16.9m).

In June 2023 Federal Court Justice Antony Besanko threw out the case against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Canberra Times, ruling it was “substantially true” that Mr Roberts-Smith had murdered unarmed Afghan prisoners and civilians and bullied fellow soldiers.

He also found that Mr Roberts-Smith lied to cover up his misconduct and threatened witnesses.

Additional allegations that he had punched his lover, threatened a peer, and committed two other murders were not proven to the “balance of probabilities” standard required in civil cases.

The “heart” of the appeal case was that Justice Besanko didn’t given enough weight to Mr Roberts-Smith’s presumption of innocence, his barrister Bret Walker, SC said.

There is a legal principle requiring judges to proceed carefully when dealing with civil cases that involve serious allegations and in making findings which carry grave consequences.

Mr Walker argued that meant the evidence presented by the newspapers fell short of the standard required.

Months after the appeal case had closed, Mr Roberts-Smith’s legal team earlier this year sought to reopen it, alleging misconduct by one of the reporters at the centre of the case.

They argued there was a miscarriage of justice because Nick McKenzie, one of the journalists who wrote the articles at the centre of the case, allegedly unlawfully obtained details about Mr Roberts-Smith’s legal strategy.

The legal team pointed to a leaked phone call between Mr McKenzie and a witness – which The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Canberra Times said may have been recorded illegally.

But on Friday, the trio of judges rejected that argument too.

They said “the evidence was sufficiently cogent to support the findings that the appellant murdered four Afghan men”.

“To the extent that we have discerned error in the reasons of the primary judge, the errors were inconsequential,” they added.

They also ordered Mr Roberts-Smith to pay the newspapers’ legal costs.

In a statement, Mr McKenzie called the ruling an “emphatic win”.

He thanked the SAS soldiers who “fought for the Australian public to learn the truth”, and paid tribute to the Afghan “victims of [Mr] Roberts-Smith”.

“It should not be left to journalists and brave soldiers to stand up to a war criminal,” he said. “Australian authorities must hold Ben Roberts-Smith accountable before our criminal justice system.”

A New Jersey man who stabbed and partially blinded novelist Sir Salman Rushdie on a New York lecture stage was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday.

Hadi Matar, 27, was convicted of attempted murder and assault earlier this year.

Sir Salman was on stage speaking before an audience in August 2022, when he was stabbed multiple times in the face and neck. The attack left him blind in one eye, with damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.

The attack came 35 years after Sir Salman’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses, which had long made him the target of death threats for its portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

Matar received the maximum 25-year sentence for the attempted murder of Sir Salman.

He was also found guilty of assault for wounding the person who was interviewing Sir Salman, Henry Reese, and sentenced to seven years plus three years post-release for that assault.

The sentences must run concurrently because both victims were injured in the same event, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said on Friday.

Before being sentenced, Matar stood and made a statement about freedom of speech in which he called Rushdie a hypocrite, according to the Associated Press.

“Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect other people,” said Matar, clad in white-striped jail clothing and wearing handcuffs. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully other people. I don’t agree with that.”

Sir Salman was not in the court for his assailant’s sentencing on Friday.

Matar was convicted of attempted murder and assault in February, 2025, following an intense trial during which Sir Salman detailed the moment when he felt certain that he was going to die.

During the two-week trial, he testified that he saw a man rushing towards him while on stage at the historic arts institute in Chautauqua, New York.

He said his assailant’s eyes “were dark and seemed very ferocious”.

Sir Salman told the court he initially did not realise he had been stabbed, thinking instead that he had been punched.

Matar stabbed Sir Salman 15 times in total including to his cheek, chest, eye, neck and thigh.

Prosecutors argued that the attack was targeted.

“There were a lot of people around that day but there was only one person who was targeted,” prosecuting lawyer Jason Schmidt then told the jury.

Defence lawyer Andrew Brautigan had argued that prosecutors failed to prove Matar intended to kill Sir Salman.

Matar, who pleaded not guilty, did not testify in his defence. His lawyers did not call any witnesses of their own.

“I don’t think he’s a very good person,” Matar said about the author in a 2022 New York Post story. “He’s someone who attacked Islam.”

Matar praised Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, for calling for Sir Salman’s execution.

The attack took place some 35 years after Sir Salman’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses was published.

The novel, inspired by the life of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, sparked outrage among some Muslims, who considered its content to be blasphemous.

Sir Salman faced countless death threats and was forced into hiding for nine years after Iran’s religious leader issued a fatwa – or decree – calling for the author’s death due to the book.

But in recent years, the author said he believed the threats against him had diminished.

Just before the attack Sir Salman told a German magazine he felt his life was “relatively normal”.

The British-Indian novelist later detailed his experience and long road to recovery in a memoir called Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.

The Eurovision Song Contest is back – this time in Basel, Switzerland.

The UK’s entry this year is Remember Monday – a country-pop trio who will perform their song What The Hell Just Happened.

The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual televised competition organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The theme for the 2025 edition is “Welcome Home”, as the first contest was held in Switzerland in 1956.

Songs must be original and no more than three minutes long. They cannot have been released or publicly performed before 1 September 2024.

Lead vocals must be live, with no lip-syncing or auto-tuning allowed and a maximum of six singers and dancers.

The grand final of the contest will take place in St Jakobshalle, an indoor arena in Basel, on Saturday 17 May.

It will be broadcast live on TV on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 20:00 BST, hosted by Graham Norton.

You can also listen on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Sounds, hosted by Scott Mills and Rylan Clark.

Inside the arena, the international Eurovision coverage will be hosted by presenters Hazel Brugger, Sandra Studer and Michelle Hunziker.

Singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor will present the UK’s jury result live on the night, after actor Ncuti Gatwa pulled out from the role.

A total of 37 countries are taking part in Eurovision 2025 – all but one took part in last year’s contest in Malmö, Sweden.

Montenegro returns to the competition this year for the first time since 2022, replacing Moldova – which withdrew because of financial and logistical challenges.

Most Eurovision countries are European, but Australia takes part every year, after being invited to join Eurovision’s 60th anniversary celebrations in 2015. Australia, however, cannot host if it ever wins.

Other non-European countries including Israel participate because they are members of the EBU.

Russia has been banned since 2022, following its invasion of Ukraine.

• Your guide to all 37 Eurovision songs

Switzerland is playing host to Eurovision 2025 after contestant Nemo won the 2024 contest with the song The Code.

Nemo is due to appear as a guest performer this year too, despite accusing the contest of not supporting artists enough in 2024.

This is the third time that Switzerland has hosted Eurovision. Its contestant this year is Zoë Më, with the song Voyage.

• Eurovision failed to support us amid rows, winner says

The “big five” nations who provide extra financial support to Eurovision get an automatic qualification for the final. These are the UK, Italy, Spain, France and Germany.

Switzerland also gets a golden ticket to honour last year’s victory.

In the first semi-final on 13 May, Céline Dion, who won the contest for Switzerland in 1988, delivered a pre-recorded message celebrating the “beautiful” return of the contest to Basel.

These countries qualified from the first semi-final:

• Albania: Shkodra Elektronike – Zjerm
• Estonia: Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato
• Iceland: VÆB – RÓA
• Netherlands: Claude – C’est La Vie
• Norway: Kyle Alessandro – Lighter
• Poland: Justyna Steczkowska – GAJA
• Portugal: NAPA – Deslocado
• San Marino: Gabry Ponte – Tutta L’Italia
• Sweden: KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu
• Ukraine: Ziferblat – Bird of Pray

The following countries qualified from the second semi-final:

• Armenia: PARG – SURVIVOR
• Austria: JJ – Wasted Love
• Denmark: Sissal – Hallucination
• Finland: Erika Vikman – ICH KOMME
• Greece: Klavdia – Asteromáta
• Israel: Yuval Raphael – New Day Will Rise
• Latvia: Tautumeitas – Bur Man Laimi
• Lithuania: Katarsis – Tavo Akys
• Luxembourg: Laura Thorn – La Poupée Monte Le Son (pictured above)
• Malta: Miriana Conte – SERVING

Girl band Remember Monday are made up of Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull and Charlotte Steele.

They will be performing a song titled What The Hell Just Happened, full of harmonies and pop melodies.

The band formed at school in Farnborough, Hampshire, and appeared on TV talent show The Voice, in 2019. Lauren and Holly-Anne have also appeared in West End shows like Phantom of the Opera and Six: The Musical.

They’ll be hoping to turn around the UK’s fortunes, after the last two contestants Olly Alexander and Mae Muller both finished at the bottom end of the table in 2024 and 2023 respectively.

• Remember Monday: ‘The closer we get, the hungrier we become’
• UK’s Eurovision Song Contest hopefuls revealed

More than 70 former Eurovision contestants, including Britain’s Mae Muller, have signed an open letter demanding that Israel’s public broadcaster KAN be banned from the contest, alleging that it was “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”.

Eurovision, which has always billed itself as non-political, has resisted calls for Israel to be excluded.

Yuval Raphael, Israel’s contestant this year, told BBC News she was “expecting” to be booed during her performance.

The inclusion of Israel sparked controversy last year, when its contestant Eden Golan also faced boos during a rehearsal and thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the venue.

Golan was also forced to change the lyrics of her entry, titled Hurricane, to remove references to the deadly attacks by Hamas on Israel, on 7 October 2023.

The last major music event Raphael attended was the Nova festival, in Israel, when it came under attack by Hamas gunmen during the 7 October attacks and more than 360 people were killed.

Around 1,200 people were killed in Israel by gunmen led by Hamas that day, and 251 were taken hostage. During Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza more than 53,000 people have been killed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

• ‘I’ve practised being booed’, Israel’s Eurovision entry says
• Ireland asks Eurovision organisers for discussion over Israel
• Chaotic build-up to Eurovision 2024 as thousands protest

In the final, every participating country is awarded two sets of scores – one from a jury of music experts and one from fans around Europe.

Fans get a maximum of 20 votes, cast via phone call, SMS or via the official Eurovision app. They can vote for as many different acts as they like, but votes for your home country are banned.

Once the lines close, each country will have chosen a “Top 10” of their favourite songs. The most popular song gets 12 points, the second choice gets 10, and the rest are scored from eight to one.

Viewers from countries that don’t participate in Eurovision also get a say. Their choices are bundled into a single bloc known as the “rest of the world vote”.

R&B singer Chris Brown has been remanded in custody after appearing in court charged over an alleged bottle attack at a London nightclub.

The American singer was arrested at Salford’s Lowry Hotel on Thursday and later charged over the alleged assault, which is said to have happened at the Tape club in London’s Mayfair in 2023.

Brown, 36, is alleged to have used a bottle to cause grievous bodily harm to music producer Abe Diaw.

The singer was in Manchester ahead of his planned tour of the UK in June and July, with dates at the city’s Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester and the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.

During the hearing, Brown, who was wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a plain t-shirt, spoke to confirm his full name as Christopher Maurice Brown and date of birth.

When asked to confirm his address he said The Lowry Hotel.

District Judge Joanne Hirst told Brown the case will be moved to Southwark Crown Court in London with the next hearing to be held on 13 June.

She said the nature of the offence of grievous bodily harm was too serious to to be dealt with by a magistrates’ court.

Brown was scheduled to perform in Amsterdam on 8 June, before heading to Germany then embarking on the UK dates.

Fans gathered outside Manchester Magistrates’ Court ahead of the hearing.

One fan, who lives in Manchester, told the BBC she had cancelled her plans so she could spend the day outside court.

Candy, 35, said she has followed the star since she was 14 and when she heard the news of his arrest she could not sleep.

“I’m just here to support him,” she said.

“I love his music, his voice. Even my children are fans now.”

Last week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $1bn (£756m) bailout to Pakistan – a move that drew sharp disapproval from India as military hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbours flared, before a US-led ceasefire was unexpectedly declared.

Despite India’s protests, the IMF board approved the second instalment of a $7bn loan, saying Islamabad had demonstrated strong programme implementation leading to a continuing economic recovery in Pakistan.

It also said the fund would continue to support Pakistan’s efforts in building economic resilience to “climate vulnerabilities and natural disasters”, providing further access of around $1.4bn in funding in the future.

In a strongly worded statement India raised concerns over the decision, citing two reasons.

Delhi questioned the “efficacy” of such bailouts or the lack thereof, given Pakistan’s “poor track record” in implementing reform measures. But more importantly it flagged the possibility of these funds being used for “state-sponsored cross-border terrorism” – a charge Islamabad has repeatedly denied – and said the IMF was exposing itself and its donors to “reputational risks” and making a “mockery of global values”.

The IMF did not respond to the BBC’s request for a comment on the Indian stance.

Even Pakistani experts argue that there’s some merit to Delhi’s first argument. Pakistan has been prone to persistently seeking the IMF’s help – getting bailed out 24 times since 1958 – without undertaking meaningful reforms to improve public governance.

“Going to the IMF is like going to the ICU [intensive care unit]. If a patient goes 24 or 25 times to the ICU then there are structural challenges and concerns that need to be dealt with,” Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the US, told the BBC.

But addressing Delhi’s other concerns – that the IMF was “rewarding continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism” thereby sending a “dangerous message to the global community” – is far more complex, and perhaps explains why India wasn’t able to exert pressure to stall the bailout.

India’s decision to try to prevent the next tranche of the bailout to Islamabad was more about optics then, rather than a desire for any tangible outcome, say experts. As per the country’s own observations, the fund had limited ability to do something about the loan, and was “circumscribed by procedural and technical formalities”.

As one of the 25 members of the IMF board, India’s influence at the fund is limited. It represents a four-country group including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Pakistan is part of the Central Asia group, represented by Iran.

Unlike the United Nations’ one-country-one-vote system, the voting rights of IMF board members are based on a country’s economic size and its contributions – a system which has increasingly faced criticism for favouring richer Western countries over developing economies.

For example, the US has the biggest voting share – at 16.49% – while India holds just 2.6%. Besides, IMF rules do not allow for a vote against a proposal – board members can either vote in favour or abstain – and the decisions are made by consensus on the board.

“This shows how vested interests of powerful countries can influence decisions,” an economist who didn’t want to speak on the record told the BBC.

Addressing this imbalance was a key proposal in the reforms mooted for the IMF and other multilateral lenders during India’s G20 presidency in 2023.

In their report, former Indian bureaucrat NK Singh and former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers recommended breaking the link between IMF voting rights and financial contributions to ensure fairer representation for both the “Global North” and the “Global South”. But there has been no progress so far on implementing these recommendations.

Furthermore, recent changes in the IMF’s own rules about funding countries in conflict add more complexity to the issue. A $15.6bn loan by the fund to Ukraine in 2023 was the first of its kind by the IMF to a country at war.

“It bent its own rules to give an enormous lending package to Ukraine – which means it cannot use that excuse to shut down an already-arranged loan to Pakistan,” Mihir Sharma of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank in Delhi told the BBC.

If India really wants to address its grievances, the right forum to present them would be the United Nations FATF (Financial Action Task Force), says Mr Haqqani.

The FATF looks at issues of combating terror finance and decides whether countries need to be placed on grey or black lists that prevent them from accessing funds from bodies like the IMF or the World Bank.

“Grandstanding at the IMF cannot and did not work,” said Mr Haqqani. “If a country is on that [FATF] list it will then face challenges in getting a loan from the IMF – as has happened with Pakistan earlier.”

As things stand though, Pakistan was officially removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in 2022.

Separately, experts also caution that India’s calls to overhaul the IMF’s funding processes and veto powers could be a double-edged sword.

Such reforms “would inevitably give Beijing [rather than Delhi] more power”, said Mr Sharma.

Mr Haqqani agrees. India should be wary of using “bilateral disputes at multilateral fora”, he said, adding that India has historically been at the receiving end of being vetoed out by China in such places.

He points to instances of Beijing blocking ADB (Asian Development Bank) loans sought by India for the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, citing border disputes between the two countries in the region.

A court in Thailand has issued 17 arrest warrants for people connected to the building of a skyscraper that collapsed during an earthquake in March.

The 30-storey tower, being built to house the State Audit Office, was felled when Bangkok felt tremors of a 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck neighbouring Myanmar.

Authorities said they had recovered 89 bodies from the rubble of the tower, while seven remain unaccounted for.

Police investigating the cause of the collapse said the warrants were issued to people involved in the design, construction and building supervision of the tower, local media reported.

Police named only one of the individuals as businessman Premchai Karnasuta, a former president of Italian-Thai Development PLC., one of Thailand’s largest construction firms.

Thai media reported on Thursday that investigators had found structural flaws in a lift shaft in the building. Thai authorities are yet to release their findings into the cause of the building’s collapse.

Footage showed high-rise buildings in Bangkok swaying and water falling from rooftop pools onto the streets below resulting from the strong tremors.

Buildings in the Thai capital emerged from the quake largely unscathed except for the State Audit Office – a tower made of blue glass and steel that was situated opposite the Chatuchak market, a popular tourist attraction.

It had been under construction for three years at a cost of more than two billion Thai baht ($59m; £45m) before it was reduced to rubble.

More than 400 workers were at the site when it collapsed and drones, sniffer dogs, cranes, and excavators were brought in to help with the rescue effort.

The earthquake that hit Myanmar on 28 March caused the deaths of more than 3,000 people and injured more than 4,500, with tremors felt elsewhere, including in Thailand and south-west China.

This week saw US President Donald Trump take a tour of the Middle East, Kim Kardashian give evidence in a Paris courtroom, and the world’s most glamorous film festival kick off in Cannes.

But how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world?

Quiz collated by Ben Fell.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week’s quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

When a 23-year-old Mexican influencer was shot dead while live streaming on TikTok, rumours began to swirl. Was it a cartel hit? Or another tragic example of violence against women?

On Tuesday, Valeria Marquez was shot dead at Blossom The Beauty Lounge, a beauty salon owned by the victim in Zapopan, a town in the central-eastern state of Jalisco.

The state prosecutor’s office said it is investigating the crime as a femicide, meaning that it believes the crime was motivated by the fact the victim was a woman.

The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said an investigation is under way: “We’re working to catch those responsible and find out why this happened.”

But the fact that the crime took place in Jalisco, the state where the feared Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) emerged, led to speculation by some that the cartel may somehow be involved.

Ms Marquez was a Mexican model who began to make a name for herself in 2021 after winning the Miss Rostro (Miss Face) beauty pageant, according to Mexican media reports.

Shortly thereafter, she began creating content on social media. She would share makeup tips and personal care routines, talk about fashion and show off her travels.

Photos of her on private jets and yachts can be seen on her Instagram account, which had more than 223,000 followers at the time of her death.

Ms Marquez also had another 100,000 followers on TikTok.

Although it is unclear exactly what happened, during her final livestream, Ms Marquez said she was waiting for a courier she knew to deliver a gift.

She added that she was a bit worried, because her friend could not see the courier’s face when he arrived.

“Why didn’t he just drop it off (the gift)? Were they going to pick me up (kidnap me) or what?” she wondered aloud to her followers.

While holding a pink stuffed animal, Ms Marquez looked away from the camera and immediately grabbed her chest and belly before collapsing into her chair.

Another woman then took the phone and ended the livestream.

Police arrived at the scene around 18:30 local time (12:30 GMT) and confirmed Ms Marquez’s death, according to the state prosecutor.

Authorities say that at least two men on motorcycles arrived at the salon and one of them asked the victim if she was Valeria. When she replied “yes,” he pulled out a gun and shot her at least twice before fleeing.

Investigators say they are checking CCTV footage and tracking Ms Marquez’s social media accounts for clues as to who the attackers might be.

• Mexican beauty influencer shot dead during TikTok livestream

But the salon’s location in the wealthy Zapopan area of Guadalajara has raised questions about the motive for the crime. While the presence of private security and the tidyness of its streets give the impression that Zapopan is a safe area, in reality it is one of the most violent municipalities in Jalisco. In fact, shootings regularly occur in the area’s luxurious shopping centres.

More than half of the real estate and commercial development in the area is connected to the laundering of drug trafficking money, according to the US Department of Justice.

Jalisco ranks sixth among Mexico’s 32 states, including Mexico City, in terms of homicides, with 906 murders registered since the beginning of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s term in October 2024, according to data consulting firm TResearch.

It is also one of the Mexican states most affected by the cartels. It was here, 50 kilometres from Zapopan, that a cartel training centre was found in March, and it is here that 15,000 people have disappeared since 2018.

The same day that Márquez was killed, a former congressman named Luis Armando Córdoba Díaz was murdered just two kilometres away, according to the newspaper .

According to the state of Jalisco, as many as 90% of crimes are never reported or investigated. The state attorney’s office has also long been accused of having links to cartels, which it denies.

The prosecutor’s office said that so far they have no reason to suspect that Ms Marquez’s murder was ordered or carried out by any of the organised criminal groups operating in the area.

Instead, the office suggested the murderer may have been motivated to kill her because of her gender.

Mexican media outlets had previously published messages in which Ms Marquez blamed her ex-partner if anything happened to her.

Mayor of Zapopan Juan José Frangie said his office had no record of Ms Marquez requesting help from the authorities due to threats against her, adding “a femicide is the worst thing”, according to news agency AFP.

“In response to claims pointing to alleged perpetrators of the femicide in Zapopan, we clarify that there are no direct accusations against any individual in the investigation file,” the Jalisco prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“All statements and clues, including videos and social media posts, are being analysed. The investigation is being conducted under the femicide protocol, with a gender perspective, without revictimisation and in accordance with the principles of legality, impartiality and respect for human rights,” it added.

Gender-based violence is a serious problem in Mexico, a country that ranks fourth in Latin America and the Caribbean for rates of femicide, behind Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia.

According to the latest data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), there were 1.3 deaths per every 100,000 women in Mexico in 2023, Reuters reported.

Less than 48 hours before Ms Marquez’s murder, Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez, a mayoral candidate for Morena (the ruling party) in the city of Texistepec, Veracruz, was killed while participating in a political motorcade. Like the influencer’s case, the politician’s murder was recorded by cameras because the event was being live-streamed on Facebook.

Listen to Damian read this article

On a warm morning earlier this month, a group of Metropolitan Police diplomatic protection officers sat in an anteroom off the ornate entrance hall in London’s Lancaster House, sipping tea and nibbling chocolate biscuits, while upstairs a core group of European politicians discussed the future of European cooperation.

It was an apt setting: everywhere you look in Lancaster House, there is evidence of the long, entangled histories of the UK and Europe. The double sweep of its grand staircase deliberately echoes the Palace of Versailles. Queen Victoria sat in these rooms listening to Frederic Chopin play the piano in 1848. Tony Blair hosted Russian President Putin here for an energy summit in 2003.

The important issues on the agenda at the Lancaster House meeting, which was hosted by the Foreign Secretary David Lammy, included the latest developments in the war in Ukraine, Europe’s response to ensure the continent’s security, and – for the first time since Brexit – a summit between the UK and the European Union, which will take place on 19 May.

The British government believes it’s a significant moment.

Before Brexit, British prime ministers would travel to Brussels four times a year or more for summits with the heads of the EU’s institutions and its 27 member states. The haggling would go on late into the night. After Brexit those large summits stopped.

Now, the Labour government, elected last year on a manifesto that promised “an improved and ambitious relationship with our European partners”, envisages new and regular interactions with the EU. Monday’s marks the first.

Sir Keir Starmer will host the most senior EU leaders to launch a new “partnership”.

Pedro Serrano, the EU ambassador to London, has described it as the “culmination of enhanced contacts at the highest levels since the July 2024 [UK] elections”. But what will it amount to?

Is what’s coming a “surrender summit” as the Conservatives warn; “the great British sellout” undoing bits of Brexit that Reform UK fear; or “a huge opportunity” the UK may be about to squander, as Liberal Democrats say? Or could it be an example of how, in Sir Keir Starmer’s words, “serious pragmatism defeats performative politics” by delivering practical things that will improve people’s lives?

In those long, drama-filled nights of 2020, when the then-prime minister Boris Johnson was negotiating Brexit, the possibility of a Security and Defence Partnership was discussed. But the UK’s main priority was diverging from Brussels. So nothing was agreed – a notable omission, some think.

Now a new UK-EU security pact has been worked on for months, the plan is for it to be the centrepiece of what’s agreed.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, who is overseeing negotiations, was at the early talks at Lancaster House. “Our relationship has had some difficulties,” she told me, but “considering what is going on in the world […] we need to move forward with this partnership.”

Yet some think the UK should not seize this outstretched hand.

“The cornerstone of our defence is Nato,” Alex Burghart, a Conservative frontbencher, told the Commons this week. “We know of no reason why Nato is insufficient.”

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice has his own view. “There’s no value at all,” he argues. “We do not want to be constrained by a bungling top-down bureaucratic military structure. Our defence is guaranteed by Nato.”

The government fires back on that point, arguing that a partnership will in no way undermine Nato; rather it will complement it, they say, because it will stretch to areas beyond defence, like the security of our economies, infrastructure, energy supplies, even migration and transnational crime.

Some industry experts also believe that a security pact could boost the UK economy. Kevin Craven, chief executive of ADS Group, a UK trade association that represents aerospace, defence and security firms, is among them.

Take, for example, the SAFE (Security Action For Europe) programme that is being set up by the EU, aiming to provide up to €150bn (£126bn) in loans for new projects. If the UK strikes a security partnership with the EU, then British weapons manufacturers could potentially access some of that cash.

“There is a huge amount of interest from European partners,” says Mr Craven. “One of the challenges for defence companies in the last couple of years, since the advent of Ukraine, is being able to scale up their own capacity to meet demand.” He estimates the UK could boost the EU’s defence output by a fifth.

The Liberal Democrat’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Calum Miller, similarly believes that a security pact is a huge opportunity for the British defence industry – but, he adds, “as importantly, it’s a new strategic opportunity for the UK to be part of that ongoing conversation about how we arm as a continent”.

Others point out that the UK has already been working with the EU on defence ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – at Nato, and most recently via the so-called Coalition of the Willing.

So, in practice, does it make huge amounts of difference to the UK’s place in Europe?

No, argues Jill Rutter, a former senior civil servant who is now a senior fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe think tank. “Because relations [on defence] have already been improving quite a long way.”

Some of those working on the partnership, however, argue that it will set in train new ways for the UK to engage and cooperate with its neighbours.

More contentious is the UK’s desire to sign what’s called a ‘veterinary’ deal to remove some border checks on food and drink. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister leading these negotiations, told the Commons this week that the objective to lower food and drink costs is in the manifesto, so there is a mandate for it.

Inside the food industry, calls for reform have been growing. Julianne Ponan, whose firm Creative Nature makes vegan snack bars, exports to 18 countries but only a small proportion goes to the EU. She says this is because of the paperwork and inspections since Brexit.

One of her employees had to carry samples in her luggage on a passenger flight to Spain for a meeting to make sure the food wasn’t held up at the border, she says.

“I think this will open up huge opportunities for businesses like mine.”

It would also make a big difference for Northern Ireland. After Brexit, special arrangements were put in place to keep the land border it shares with the Republic of Ireland free of new impediments. But at the same time, new paperwork and inspections were put in place on food, drink, animals and plants being transported from mainland Britain across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland. They’re bitterly opposed by Unionist politicians and complicate life for many businesses.

But a veterinary deal may carry political danger. It would require the UK to align some of its rules on food and drink with EU ones, and move in-step with Brussels over time. And those rules are subject to oversight by EU courts.

“I call it the surrender summit,” says Andrew Griffith, the Conservative Shadow Business and Trade Secretary. Under this deal the UK would lose “our freedom to set our own rules”, he adds.

The Conservatives say they “fought long and hard” to “take back control of our laws, our borders, our money” – and that this should not now be reversed.

Reform UK has not held back in its language: “We think prepare for the Great British sell out. That’s the bottom line, and it will be dressed up as a reset,” Richard Tice says.

“Why would you want to reset and get closer to a patently failing economic model? The EU is struggling even more than we are. We should be diverging as fast as we can away from that.”

But Labour’s Thomas-Symonds dismisses these views as a “rehash of the arguments of the past”.

On the other end of the spectrum is the accusation that Sir Keir is far too cautious. Calum Miller of the Liberal Democrats says he knows of businesses “gnashing their teeth in frustration that they just can’t exploit opportunities to work with and trade with Europe”.

His party wants the UK to explore a Customs Union with the EU. It would make moving goods easier, but mean we couldn’t sign our own trade deals.

David Henig, a former senior trade negotiator, has been talking to both sides “hoping to help, to sort of navigate them in”.

“The summit is a step forward, not a step change,” he says, “A slight deepening of the trade ties, rather than something dramatically new.”

A deal on food and drink checks would deliver very little, he believes, because food and drink is such a limited part of trade. “If you were, for example, aligning UK and EU rules on industrial products, you’d get a much bigger economic impact”.

Jill Rutter thinks that a veterinary deal would not prove “economically earth shattering” – but if it goes well, she argues that it could provide “early proof of concept” for further UK-EU cooperation.

After Brexit, many British fishermen were disappointed when Boris Johnson’s government agreed to let EU boats continue much as before, taking significant catches from UK waters. Those arrangements expire next year. The EU wants them extended.

David Davis who, as Brexit minister, led some of the original negotiations for the UK, told me fishing was “totemic” for Brussels. London conceded too easily, he thinks.

“Europeans got what they wanted first, and then we had a haggle from a weak position.”

So he adds, “If I was giving advice to the government, I would say, tough it out” and use fishing as a lever to seek concessions.

But, as the UK found before, Brussels has cards to play. Much of the fish caught by British fishermen is sold to buyers on the Continent and the UK needs access to that market.

Some EU coastal states, like France and Denmark, are prepared to drive a hard bargain, demanding that London concedes on fishing rights in return for things it wants. Early on, even signing the Security Partnership was being linked to agreement on a fishing deal. The haggling will be tough.

And finally, there’s an idea that has prompted much interest in recent months: a youth mobility deal, through which under-30s from the UK and EU could live and work in each other’s countries.

For a long time the government said there were “no plans” for such a deal – but earlier this month they changed course, with Labour’s Thomas-Symonds saying that “A smart, controlled youth mobility scheme would of course have benefits for our young people”.

It’s likely that would mean very limited numbers allowed to enter the UK, and only with a visa, for a limited time.

Under those conditions, ministers hope it would not inflate net migration numbers. It’s far from what the EU would like.

The UK already has similar schemes with 13 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

“When we are comfortable having those relationships, why are we so averse to having it with our nearest neighbours?” Calum Miller asks, “It just doesn’t really make sense”.

Paula Surridge, a professor of political sociology at Bristol University, argues that public views on immigration are more nuanced than many people think. “Voters care most about what they perceive as illegal migration – small boat crossings and so on,” she says, “People coming here to study or to work, particularly young people, are not a particular cause for concern” for most.

“There will definitely be a group of voters that are upset [about potential deals], but they were never going to vote Labour.”

Of those who backed Labour in 2024, she adds, about three quarters previously voted Remain in the Brexit referendum. The political risk to the government of signing pacts with the EU is “smaller than it appears”, she adds.

Conservative pollster Lord Hayward is more cautious – and is concerned that a deal may pose a “bear trap” for the government if it’s seen as providing free movement to young Europeans. “It will provide serious difficulties for them to come to an agreement on something which could easily be portrayed as EU membership 2.0.”

Even before Sir Keir’s upcoming summit on Monday, his opponents are raising that spectre.

“All of his muscle memory has been to get closer to the European political union,” says Mr Griffith. “I am worried about our prime minister, with that baggage, with those preconceived ideas, […] trying to negotiate a better deal with the EU.”

Richard Tice says his party could simply undo any deals with the EU. “If I’m right about our fears, and we win the next general election, we will just reverse the lot. The whole lot.”

But Mr Thomas-Symonds is of the view that Monday will show the government is “not returning to the Customs Union, Single Market, or Freedom of Movement”, all red lines it has pledged not to cross.

Instead it will be about “making Brexit work in the interests of the British people”.

Back at Lancaster House, the politicians have moved on, heading to more meetings in Albania and Turkey to grapple with the issues facing the continent. But in a quiet hallway in the house is a painting from the 1850s of the Duke of Wellington inspecting troops in London’s Hyde Park.

In it, he sits on a black stallion, raising his white-feathered hat to salute the cavalry – a tribute to the prime minister and military hero who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.

The upcoming summit won’t be as momentous an event in the UK’s complicated history with Europe. But a modern British leader about to plunge into the fray of European politics might pause for thought here – perhaps, for just a moment.

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Last week, 46-year-old Charl Kleinhaus was living on his family farm in Mpumalanga province, South Africa. With its scenic beauty, wildlife and deep canyons, it’s known as “the place where the sun rises”.

His new home – for now – is a budget hotel near an American highway.

He and dozens of other white South Africans were moved to the US under President Donald Trump’s controversial policy to protect them from the discrimination he alleges they are facing – an accusation that South Africa rejects.

Mr Kleinhaus defends the US president, telling the BBC he left his homeland after receiving death threats in WhatsApp messages.

“I had to leave a five-bedroom house, which I will lose now,” Mr Kleinhaus tells the BBC, adding that he also left behind his car, his dogs and even his mother. “I didn’t come here for fun,” he adds.

The contrast in homes couldn’t be more stark. But for Mr Kleinhaus, his situation in Buffalo, New York, is already a better one. “My children are safe,” says Mr Kleinhaus, whose wife died in a road accident in 2006.

The status of white South African farmers has long been a rallying cry on the right and far-right of American politics.

Trump and his close ally, South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk, have even argued that there has been a “genocide” of white farmers in South Africa – a claim that has been widely discredited.

In February, Trump signed an executive order granting refugee status to Afrikaners, such as Mr Kleinhaus, who he said were being persecuted.

Mr Kleinhaus is one of a group of 59 who arrived on Tuesday at Dulles airport, near Washington DC, after Trump’s administration fast-tracked their applications.

He admits he was surprised at how quickly he got to the US, and that he is grateful to Trump. “I felt finally somebody in this world is seeing what’s going on,” he says.

As he and his family arrived with others at the airport they were greeted with red, white and blue balloons. He describes the pomp and ceremony as “overwhelming”.

• Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his refugee offer?
• Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?

Afrikaners are a white ethnic minority who ran South Africa during the apartheid era, implementing racist policies of segregation in the country until the regime was officially abolished in 1994.

But more than 30 years on, black farmers own only a small fraction of the country’s best farmland, with the majority still in white hands.

That has led to anger over the slow pace of change. Mr Kleinhaus acknowledges that black South Africans have suffered as well as him.

But he says: “I had nothing to do with apartheid. Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

In January, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a controversial law allowing the government to seize privately owned land without compensation – in certain circumstances, when it is deemed “equitable and in the public interest”.

The South African government says no land has yet been seized. But Mr Kleinhaus says once there is a government claim on your land – as he says is the case with his – it becomes impossible to function.

“Your land becomes worthless – the land expropriation has gone too far,” he says. “People are scared of that. Other Afrikaners who criticise us live in a bubble.”

Some fellow Afrikaners have described Mr Kleinhaus and the group as opportunists, and that being a victim of crime is not equivalent to the type of persecution that deserves refugee status.

Mr Kleinhaus acknowledges that the murder rate of farmers is low in South Africa, but says he does not want to be a victim. “There are people in my area who were shot and killed,” he says.

He says he received threats from members of the local community: “I’d regularly get messages on WhatsApp saying, ‘we’ll get rid of you, you’re on my land’.”

Mr Kleinhaus says he received one message before he left for the US which read: “We are coming for you, you better be awake.”

He also says his farming machinery was damaged, and that local police failed to act on his reports.

• Claims of white genocide ‘not real’, South African court rules
• White South Africans going to US are cowards, Ramaphosa says

Ramaphosa has called the group who travelled to the US “cowards”, saying they do not want to address the inequities of the apartheid era.

“As South Africans, we are resilient,” he said earlier this week. “We don’t run away from our problems. We must stay here and solve our problems.”

What makes the resettlement of the Afrikaners to the US particularly controversial is that other refugees have been banned, including Afghans who earlier this week had their Temporary Protected Status removed.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that move was justified because the security and economic situation in Afghanistan had improved – despite criticism from opposition lawmakers and rights groups.

Mr Kleinhaus says he is sympathetic: “I mean, I feel sorry for the Afghans that they can’t get here. But I know there’s a process there. And I know when and if you are approved for the process, they take care of you.”

Does he worry he’s being used as a political pawn by Trump? And that another president could potentially reverse this decision in four years’ time?

Mr Kleinhaus pauses, and says: “Yeah, it is scary, but I am a religious person. Just to be in this first group is an act of God, I believe, because there was a 0.0 something percent chance that you were selected for the first call.”

Mr Kleinhaus has come under scrutiny for antisemitic posts on social media, which have since been deleted.

Discussing one of these, he says he copied and pasted someone else’s thoughts, and that he was being administered morphine as part of medical treatment at the time – though he admits this was not an excuse.

The 2023 post was made in a moment of anger, he adds, after he saw a video – not verified by the BBC – which purported to show some Jews spitting at Christians in Israel.

Mr Kleinhaus insists the comments were specific to one moment, and not a wider comment about Jewish people. “Even now, if I see any person going against my religion, I will speak up against it,” he said.

The US government is facing questions about the vetting process for those being resettled. The UN’s refugee agency told the BBC it was not involved in the screening process for the Afrikaners as it normally would be for refugees heading to the US.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has previously stated it is screening immigrants’ social media activity for antisemitism, and using it as a reason for denying applicants.

The Trump administration has been citing allegations of antisemitism as its officials have in recent months arrested and tried to deport pro-Palestinian activists.

In a statement to the BBC, a senior DHS official said: “The Department of Homeland Security vets all refugee applicants. Any claims of misconduct are thoroughly investigated, and appropriate action will be taken as necessary. DHS does not comment on individual application status.”

Since returning to office, Trump has launched a crackdown to reduce immigration more broadly. So, is Mr Kleinhaus concerned about any backlash to his group being offered entry to the US?

“People must not think we are just taking advantage of this,” he says. “We come here to make a contribution to the country.

“I’m not worried it’ll fall apart because I believe this is God’s plan for me.

“My life is in his hands. And if if he didn’t want me to come, I wouldn’t be here.”

What began as public calls to boycott travel to Turkey has now escalated into a broader rupture, with India severing links with Turkish businesses and universities.

The diplomatic chill stems from Turkey’s recent vocal support for Pakistan during the recent India-Pakistan hostilities.

On Thursday India barred Turkish firm Celebi from operating at its airports, citing national security concerns – an allegation the company denies.

Several Indian universities – including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Maulana Azad National Urdu University- have also suspended academic ties with Turkish institutions.

Celebi, which handled ground services at major airports like Delhi and Mumbai, has been formally dropped, in line with the federal aviation ministry orders.

India’s minister of state for aviation has said in a post on X that in recent days the government had received requests from across the country to ban the company.

“Recognising the seriousness of the issue and the call to protect national interests, we have taken cognisance of these requests. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has revoked the security clearance of the said company,” the minister stated.

According to a Bloomberg report, Celebi has said it will pursue all “administrative and legal” remedies to “clarify” the allegations and seek a reversal of the order. The company also called the revocation of its security clearance “unjust”.

“Our company and subsidiaries bear no responsibility for any potential disruptions, delays or negative impacts on airport operations and civil aviation traffic in India,” Bloomberg quoted the company as saying.

Deadly fighting broke out between India and Pakistan last week after Delhi launched airstrikes on its neighbour, saying it was in response to the deadly Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the incident.

Turkey and Azerbaijan were quick to back Pakistan after India’s military action – Ankara warned of “all-out war”, while Baku condemned Delhi’s strikes.

The fallout sparked a wave of backlash, with boycott calls against Turkey – and Azerbaijan – gaining traction on social media and being echoed by senior political leaders. The boycott gained momentum after reports emerged of Turkish drones being used by Pakistan against India.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a former federal minister and a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said: “Every hardworking Indian who travels abroad as a tourist understands today that their hard-earned rupee should not be spent on those who help the enemies of our country.”

The social media boycott calls had an immediate impact, with Indian travel sites reporting a sharp spike in cancellations this week.

“Indian travellers have expressed strong sentiments over the past week, with bookings for Azerbaijan and Turkey decreasing by 60%, while cancellations have surged by 250%,” said a spokesperson for travel website MakeMyTrip.

Most travel sites still allow bookings, but some are discouraging travel, with promotions and flight discounts to Turkey and Azerbaijan quietly pulled.

Rohit Khattar, who runs a travel agency in Delhi, said he’s already seeing clear hesitation among clients about visiting Turkey.

“Many young travellers may avoid it, fearing backlash on social media or social retribution,” he said, adding that his firm won’t risk investing in trips that might not take off.

According to official data, 330,100 Indians visited Turkey in 2024, up from 274,000 in 2023. Azerbaijan also saw a rise, with nearly 244,000 Indian arrivals last year.

Despite rising numbers, Indians made up for less than 1% of Turkey’s foreign visitors in 2024 – a modest share with limited impact on overall tourism revenue. In contrast, they accounted for nearly 9% of foreign arrivals in Azerbaijan.

After the pandemic, Turkey and Azerbaijan grew popular among Indian travellers for their affordability, proximity, and Europe-like experiences at lower costs. Budget airlines have boosted access with direct flights in recent years.

Some social media users are promoting alternatives like Greece, but travel sites report no major spike in interest.

Travel website Cleartrip told the BBC, “As this is a developing situation, we haven’t seen significant highs or lows in demand for these alternate destinations”.

Former FBI director James Comey is being investigated by the Secret Service after he shared then deleted a social media post, which Republicans alleged was an incitement to violence against US President Donald Trump.

Comey posted on Instagram a photo of seashells that spelled the numbers “8647”, which he captioned: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

The number 86 is a slang term whose definitions include “to reject” or “to get rid of”, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which also notes that it has more recently been used as a term meaning “to kill”. And Trump is the 47th US president.

Comey insisted he did not know what the numbers meant, but Trump has disputed that.

Comey deleted the Instagram post, saying in a follow-up that he “assumed [the sea shells] were a political message”.

“I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he added. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

But Trump argued that “a child knows what that meant”.

“That meant assassination, and it says it loud and clear,” Trump told Fox News in an interview, clips of which were released before broadcast on Friday. “Now, he wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant.”

In a post in X, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said: “We vigorously investigate anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees.

“We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI Director & we take rhetoric like this very seriously. Beyond that, we do not comment on protective intelligence matters.”

Trump survived two assassination attempts last year.

Current FBI Director Kash Patel responded on social media, saying that the bureau was “aware of the recent social media post by former FBI Director James Comey, directed at President Trump”.

“We are in communication with the Secret Service and Director Curran. Primary jurisdiction is with SS [Secret Service] on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support.”

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said on X: “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of Trump.”

She said her department and the Secret Service would investigate the matter.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino posted on X, accusing Comey of “a plea to bad actors/terrorists to assassinate the POTUS’ while traveling internationally”, referring to Trump’s current tour of the Middle East.

The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, also responded on X, commenting: “James Comey causally [sic] calling for my dad to be murdered.”

Comey served as the FBI’s director between 2013-17.

He had a tumultuous tenure that included overseeing the high-profile inquiry into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s email just weeks before the 2016 election that she ended up losing to Trump.

He was fired by Trump amid an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

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

The World Health Organisation has declared a polio outbreak in Papua New Guinea and called for an “immediate” vaccination campaign.

Samples of the highly infectious virus were found in two healthy children during a routine screening in Lae, a coastal city in the country’s north east.

Less than half of the country’s population are immunised against the potentially deadly disease, which is close to being wiped out but has recently resurfaced in some parts of the world.

“We have to do something about it and we have to do it immediately,” said Sevil Huseynova, WHO’s representative in Papua New Guinea, warning that the disease could spread beyond the country.

“We have to make maximum effort to get 100% [vaccination] coverage,” Dr Huseynova said at a media conference on Thursday.

“Polio knows no borders.”

The disease is caused by the poliovirus, which spreads through contact with an infected person’s faeces or droplets when they cough and sneeze.

It mostly affects children under five years old.

There is no cure for polio, although the majority of people with the infection – including the two recent cases in Papua New Guinea – have no symptoms. Those who do may get a flu-like illness.

A small number of people infected with polio – between one in a thousand and one in a hundred – develop more serious problems that can lead to paralysis. This is also when the disease becomes life-threatening, particularly when paralysis affects muscles used for breathing.

Papua New Guinea was said to be polio-free since 2000, until an outbreak in 2018, which was contained within the same year.

The latest cases were found to be carrying a virus strain genetically linked to one circulating in Indonesia. Papua New Guinea shares a border with Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province.

Health Minister Elias Kapavore has vowed to achieve 100% polio immunisation in the country by the end of this year.

“There is no excuse… Polio is a serious disease,” he said.

The ongoing campaign will target children aged 10 and below and is expected to reach around 3.5 million people.

“The battle on polio starts today,” the department wrote in a Facebook post yesterday.

The WHO, UN’s children agency Unicef and Australia’s government are supporting Papua New Guinea in its rollout of vaccines.

Unicef’s Papua New Guinea representative Veera Mendonca pointed out the disparity in vaccination coverage across the country – with coverage as low as 8% in some districts.

“That is not acceptable,” she said, adding that Unicef is working with churches and community leaders to encourage vaccination and to dispel any misinformation.

Polio has staged a comeback elsewhere in Asia in recent years. Pakistan saw 74 cases of the disease last year, while Afghanistan recorded 24 cases.

The WHO has also warned of an outbreak in war-torn Gaza after traces of the virus were found in wastewater.

Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa has been replaced as the Eurovision 2025 spokesperson due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

The 32-year-old actor was due to read out the UK jury votes at the grand final on Saturday but has now been replaced by singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

A BBC statement from Thursday evening said: “Due to unforeseen circumstances, unfortunately Ncuti Gatwa is no longer able to participate as Spokesperson during the Grand Final this weekend.”

It continued: “However, we are delighted to confirm that BBC Radio 2’s very own Friday night Kitchen Disco Diva Sophie Ellis-Bextor will be presenting the jury result live from the UK.”

The BBC has not given any more information on the reason for Gatwa’s withdrawal.

In previous years the UK spokesperson role has been taken on by Catherine Tate, Amanda Holden and AJ Odudu.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor said: “I love Eurovision and it’s a privilege to be part of 2025’s grand final.

“What an honour it is to announce the UK’s jury score on such a special show which always puts music front and centre. I am very much looking forward to delivering the iconic douze points from the United Kingdom!”

The announcement from the BBC about Gatwa came during the second Eurovision semi-final, in which UK entry Remember Monday performed.

Lauren Byrne, Charlotte Steele and Holly-Anne Hull performed What The Hell Just Happened, but were safe from elimination due to the UK’s automatic qualification in the competition.

The countries that qualified on Thursday for Saturday’s final include Israel, Luxembourg, Finland, Latvia, Malta, Lithuania, Armenia, Austria, Denmark and Greece.

They join the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Switzerland alongside the countries that qualified at Tuesday’s semi final – Norway, Albania, Sweden, Iceland, Netherlands, Poland, San Marino, Estonia, Portugal, and Ukraine.

Ireland, which is currently the joint-record holder with Sweden for the most Eurovision wins, after taking the trophy seven times, failed to qualify on Thursday evening.

Norwegian singer Emmy, who represented the country, did not get enough votes with Laika Party, about a Russian space dog.

She hoped to replicate the success of last year’s entrant, Bambie Thug, who became the first Irish competitor to reach the grand final since Ryan O’Shaughnessy in 2018.

Car maker Nissan says it is open to sharing factories around the world with its Chinese state-owned partner Dongfeng as it shakes up its business.

The Japanese firm, which employs thousands of people in the UK, told the BBC it could bring Dongfeng “into the Nissan production eco-system globally.”

This week, the struggling company said it would lay off 11,000 workers and shut seven factories but did not say where the cuts would be made.

Speaking about Nissan’s UK plant on Thursday at a conference organised by the Financial Times, its boss Ivan Espinosa said: “We have announced that we are launching new cars in Sunderland… In the very short term, there’s no intention to go around Sunderland.”

Nissan’s revelation it is willing to strengthen ties with the Chinese firm comes as the UK’s trade relationship with China is in the spotlight.

On Wednesday, the UK government moved to rebutt suggestions the tariff agreement it reached with the US last week could be damaging to China.

It said there was “no such thing as a veto on Chinese investment” in the deal.

The UK-US agreement rowed back on big hikes in tariffs on metals and cars imposed by US President Donald Trump, but it also included conditions requiring the UK to “promptly meet” US demands on the “security of the supply chains” of steel and aluminium products exported to America.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London said China had “made representations to the UK, asking for clarification”.

“China is firmly opposed to any party seeking a deal at the expense of China’s interests. Should that situation arise, China will respond as necessary.”

Nissan’s latest job cuts came on top of 9,000 layoffs announced in November as it faces weak sales in key markets such as the US and China.

The total cuts will hit 15% of its workforce as part of a cost saving effort that it said would reduce its global production by a fifth.

Nissan’s own brands have struggled to make in-roads in China, which is the world’s biggest car market, as stiff competition has led to falling prices.

It has partnered with Beijing-controlled Dongfeng for more than 20 years and they currently work together to build cars in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

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

The firm has also faced a number of leadership changes and failed merger talks with its larger rival Honda.

Negotiations between the two collapsed in February after the firms were unable to agree on a multi-billion-dollar tie-up.

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

This week, Nissan also reported an annual loss of 670bn yen ($4.6bn; £3.4bn), with US President Donald Trump’s tariffs putting further pressure on the struggling firm.

This month, Nissan’s battery partner AESC secured a £1bn ($1.3bn) funding package from the UK government for a new plant in Sunderland.

It will produce batteries for the Juke and Leaf electric models.

Visiting the site, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said the move would “deliver much-needed high-quality, well-paid jobs to the North East”.

Spectators could fly through the Los Angeles skies and escape the city’s notorious traffic during the 2028 Olympic Games if the organisers have their way.

LA28, the committee charged with planning the city’s third Summer Games, have announced a partnership with Archer Aviation to provide an air taxi service during both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The company says it plans to use a fleet of aircraft to ferry fans to and from venues, LA28 announced on Thursday.

Flying taxis have been a longstanding dream. They were planned to debut in the Paris Games in 2024, but were not certified by Europe’s air safety agency in time.

Similarly, Archer Aviation has not yet been certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration, meaning the aircraft are not ready yet for commercial use. It’s founder and CEO has said he hoped to have that key signoff – a Type Certification that says it meets design and safety standards – by the aviation regulator this year.

If they receive certification in time for the 2028 Games, the air taxis would offer 10-20 minute flights to residents and visitors and fly between select destinations, including several of the largest Olympic venues in the region.

It is unclear how much each trip would cost, but Archer Aviation’s founder and CEO Adam Goldstein said he wants to keep prices comparable to a high-end Uber, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Like the popular ride-hailing service, customers would be able to request an air taxi through an app. The aircraft can carry up to four people and operates similarly to a helicopter in its take-offs and landings.

• The Hollywood Olympics: All you need to know about Los Angeles 2028
• Olympic flag arrives in Los Angeles

The piloted Midnight aircraft is part of a family of vehicles called “eVTOLs” – which stands for electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft.

Archer is among several eVTOL makers seeking to change travel in congested urban cities by offering short-haul air travel.

The industry has seen many hurdles, including battery density, and none of the aircraft have yet been approved by the FAA.

Archer’s Midnight aircraft is built with 12 engines and propellers, and produces “less noise and emissions than a traditional helicopter”, according to LA28.

Archer Aviation hopes it will be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) “at similar levels of safety as commercial airliners”.

“We want to transform the way people get around Los Angeles and leave a legacy that shapes the future of transportation in America,” Mr Goldstein said in a statement. “There’s no better time to do that than during the LA28 Games.”

Safety, regulations and investment have proved a big hurdle for companies trying to introduce flying taxis. Despite the setbacks and delays, many still believe they could be the future of transportation.

Archer Aviation remains confident its aircraft can buck recent trends, and sees the 2028 Olympics as a way to introduce them to the world.

The UK government announced the Future of Flight action plan in 2024, predicting that the first flying taxi could take off in the UK by 2026 and become a regular sight in the skies.

Los Angeles has previously hosted the Olympics in 1984 and 1932, making this the third time the city has hosted the Summer Games. The city has announced the 2028 Games will not allow cars, a tall order after plans were nixed to expand the area’s transit system.

There are now more North Korean defectors working in the South’s public sector than ever before, Seoul has said.

By the end of 2024, 211 North Korean defectors held jobs in the public sector, 17 more than the previous year, the Ministry of Unification said in a statement on Wednesday.

That number is the highest since 2010, when North Korean defectors “began to enter the public service in earnest”, the ministry said.

Seoul has been widening its support for North Korean defectors who struggle with unemployment and social isolation as they adjust to their new lives in the South.

“There is a growing need to expand opportunities for North Korean defectors to enter public service so that they can directly participate in and contribute to the government’s policymaking,” the ministry said.

Authorities in Seoul have in recent years intensified social integration programmes. It has also offered financial support and tax incentives for companies who hire North Korean defectors.

At an event on Wednesday, Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho shared a meal with North Korean defectors in public service roles.

There are about 30,000 North Korean defectors residing in South Korea. But defections have waned since the pandemic, which saw countries shut their borders. Before 2020, more than 1,000 North Koreans fled to the South every year.

North Korean defectors are denounced by the regime, and rights groups say that those caught escaping to the South are punished with imprisonment and torture.

Last July, former North Korean diplomat Tae Yong-ho was named the new leader of South Korea’s presidential advisory council on unification – the first defector to be given such a high rank in South Korea’s government.

In 2020, Tae became the first defector to be elected to South Korea’s National Assembly.

Pyongyang had called him “human scum” and accused him of crimes including embezzlement.

The defectors offer a rare look into the highly secretive regime under leader Kim Jong Un. They have told stories of human rights abuses under the regime, including widespread starvation, forced labour and state-enforced disappearances.

But many of them face serious challenges as they settle into their new lives: difficulties finding and holding down jobs, social stigma and mental health issues stemming from traumatic experiences in the North.

A budget bill, long touted by Donald Trump as the “big, beautiful bill” hit a roadblock on Friday when lawmakers from the president’s own party voted against it in congress.

Five Republicans joined all Democrats in delivering a stunning setback to President Trump’s domestic agenda, demanding deeper budget cuts.

Trump, who has muscled through close votes several times this year, urged lawmakers to unite behind the legislation. “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!,” he posted on Truth Social.

The bill’s chances of success are not hopeless, but its failure gives the Trump administration its first legislative bruise of the year.

Support for the bill among Republicans varies. Some hard-liners want to see the budget cuts go further, while other Republicans have expressed concern about cuts to programmes like Medicaid, which their constituents are dependent on.

The five Republicans who voted against the measure in the procedural vote said they would continue to withhold support unless Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to further cut Medicaid, a healthcare programme for lower-income Americans.

They also want Johnson to include a full repeal of green energy tax cuts, implemented by Democrats, in the bill.

“This bill falls profoundly short,” said Texas Republican Chip Roy, who voted against the measure. “It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits.”

The proposed legislation would extend tax cuts implemented during Trump’s first administration.

While Trump touts the bill’s inclusion of a no tax on tips policy, some critics argue the bill benefits wealthy Americans.

Democrats, who overwhelmingly oppose the bill, have been urging the reconsideration of Medicaid cuts and spending cuts to the Affordable care Act which offers millions of Americans subsidised health insurance.

“No other previous bill, no other previous law, no other previous event caused so many millions of Americans to lose their healthcare. Not even the Great Depression,” Pennsylvania Democrat Brendan Boyle said.

If passed, the tax cuts would cost $3.72 trillion (£2.8t) over ten years, according to congress’s bipartisan Joint Tax Committee.

More than three years into Europe’s deadliest war since 1945, there was a small step forward for democracy on Friday.

Delegations from Ukraine and Russia came face-to-face for talks for the first time since March 2022 – one month after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour. The setting was an Ottoman- era palace on the shores of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

Pressure and encouragement from Turkey and the US helped get the warring parties there.

There were no handshakes, and half the Ukrainian delegation wore camouflage military fatigues – a reminder that their nation is under attack.

The room was decked with Ukrainian, Turkish and Russian flags – two of each – and a large flower arrangement – a world away from the shattered cities and swollen graveyards of Ukraine.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, told the delegations there were two paths ahead – one road leading to peace, and the other leading to more death and destruction.

The talks lasted less than two hours and sharp divisions soon emerged. The Kremlin made “new and unacceptable demands,” according to a Ukrainian official. That included insisting Kyiv withdraw its troops from large parts of its own territory, he said, in exchange for a ceasefire.

While there was no breakthrough on the crucial issue of a truce – as expected – there is news of one tangible result.

Each side will return 1,000 prisoners of war to the other.

“This was the very good end to a very difficult day,” said Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Serhiy Kyslytsya, and “potentially excellent news for 1,000 Ukrainian families.”

The swap will take place soon, said Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who led his country’s delegation. “We know the date,” he said, “we’re not announcing it just yet.”

He said “the next step” should be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin.

That request was “noted” according to the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky – a presidential aide. He said the Russian delegation was satisfied with the talks, and ready to continue contacts.

He said the Russian delegation was satisfied with the talks, and ready to continue contacts.

That was a change from Thursday when Russia’s Foreign Ministry called President Zelensky “a clown and a loser.”

But there are fears – among Ukraine and some of its allies – that Russia is engaging in diplomacy simply to buy time, to distract from international pressure for a ceasefire, and to try to stave off the 18th round of European sanctions. The EU says they are already in the works.

And while the two sides have now sat around the table, President Trump has said the only talks that count will be those between him and President Putin.

He announced on Thursday, mid-flight on Air Force One, that “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together.”

It’s unclear when that meeting will be. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says top-level talks are “certainly needed,” but preparing a summit will take time.

Whenever those talks happen, President Zelensky is unlikely to be invited.

“Melania” appeared on the banks of the River Sava in July 2020, four months before her human inspiration left the White House.

Now, four months after the erstwhile Melanija Knavs resumed residence at Washington’s most famous address, her larger-than-life-size avatar has apparently made an undignified exit from her Slovenian hometown, Sevnica.

All that remains of the massive bronze statue are the feet – and the two-metre-tall tree stump they were standing on.

• Melania Trump sculpture in Slovenia set on fire on US Independence Day
• New Melania Trump metal statue unveiled in Slovenia

The symmetry would probably appeal to the whimsical US director Wes Anderson – who often features bizarre heists in his films. But even in his back catalogue, there has never been anything quite like the case of the cursed First Lady statue.

Because this is not the first time a Melania Trump tribute has met a sticky end in Sevnica.

The first iteration was unveiled in July 2019. Carved from a single piece of wood by a chainsaw-wielding local artisan called Ales “Maxi” Zupevc, it lasted a year before an unidentified perpetrator decided to turn it into a Fourth of July bonfire.

Luckily, US artist Brad Downey – who commissioned Maxi to create the wooden original – had already made a cast of the statue. It duly made a comeback in bronze, at the same site.

At its unveiling, Mr Downey said the new version had been designed to be “as solid as possible, out of a durable material which cannot be wantonly destroyed”.

But, as it turns out, it can be chopped off at the ankles and taken away.

Local police say they are treating “Melania’s” disappearance as “theft” and have launched an investigation.

Brad Downey has always insisted that his work was political. He chose Maxi as a collaborator because his upbringing had been similar to that of the First Lady.

And he argued that Melania Trump benefitted from a fast-tracked US citizenship process, while other immigrants suffered under her husband’s “xenophobic” policies.

Now he suspects the statue’s disappearance “has something to do with Trump getting re-elected”.

Meanwhile, in Sevnica, the local authorities have mixed feelings. They condemned “any form of interference with private or public property”.

But, they added, “the image of the US First Lady was not something anyone was proud of”.

Nearly 100 people, including children, have been killed in a large-scale Israeli ground, air and sea attack launched early Friday in north Gaza, the Hamas-run civil defence and residents have said.

The civil defence said at least nine homes and tents housing civilians had been bombed overnight and it had received dozens of calls from people trapped.

Witnesses also reported smoke bombs, artillery shelling and tanks in Beit Lahia.

Israel’s military said it was “operating to locate and dismantle terrorist infrastructure sites” in north Gaza and had “eliminated several terrorists” over the past day.

This marks the largest ground assault on north Gaza since Israel resumed its offensive in March.

• Follow live coverage

Basheer al-Ghandour, who fled Beit Lahia for Jabalia after the attack, told the BBC people were sleeping when suddenly “intense bombing” hit overnight.

“It came from all sides – air strikes and warships. My brother’s house collapsed. There were 25 people inside,” he said.

He said 11 people were injured and five killed, including his nieces, aged five and 18, and a 15-year-old nephew. He and others tried to free relatives from the rubble.

“My brother’s wife is still under the rubble – we didn’t manage to rescue her. Because of how intense the bombing was, we had to flee,” he said.

“We didn’t take anything with us – no furniture, no food, no flour. We even left in bare feet.”

Another survivor, Yousif Salem, told reporters he and his three children had “just escaped death”.

“An air strike hit our neighbours’ home – none of them survived,” he said.

He said artillery shells began hitting near their house as they were trapped inside. When he tried to leave, a quadcopter drone opened fire, he said.

He made a second attempt under heavy shelling, he said. All roads were blocked, but they managed to find a side road.

“We escaped only minutes before Israeli tanks encircled the area,” he said.

According to local residents, the attack began with smoke bomb barrages followed by intense artillery shelling from nearby Israeli positions.

Tanks then began advancing toward Al-Salateen neighbourhood in western Beit Lahia.

Witnesses reported that Israeli armoured vehicles surrounded a school sheltering hundreds of displaced civilians.

Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets early Friday over several areas in north Gaza calling on residents to evacuate the areas immediately, raising fears the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was expanding its military operation in one of Gaza’s most densely populated regions.

The evacuation orders sparked panic among families who have been displaced multiple times since the war began. Many have nowhere else to go.

“I swear I don’t know where we’re going,” said Sana Marouf, who was fleeing with her family on a donkey cart in Gaza City.

“We don’t have mattresses, blankets, food or water.”

She said she had seen people “torn to pieces” overnight. “It was a black night. They were relentlessly bombing us.”

The attack in north Gaza comes after Israeli air strikes killed more than 120 people, mostly in the south, on Thursday.

The IDF said on Friday it had struck more than 150 “terror targets” throughout Gaza over the past day, including anti-tank missile posts, military structures, and centres where groups were planning to “carry out terrorist attacks against IDF troops”.

In south Gaza, the IDF said it had dismantled Hamas structures and shafts and killed “several terrorists” who Israel said had planned to plant an explosive device.

While Friday’s powerful overnight strikes and reported advance by ground troops west of Beit Lahia are significant, this does not yet look like Israel’s threatened major military offensive.

Israel’s government has pledged to intensify operations in Gaza and indefinitely reoccupy the Strip if Hamas did not accept a proposal for a temporary ceasefire and the return of remaining hostages by the end of President Donald Trump’s regional trip, which concluded on Friday.

While there has been no sign of a breakthrough with negotiating teams still in Doha, local media say that Arab mediators have been pushing for more time to give talks a chance.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas agreed in January broke down when Israel relaunched air strikes on Gaza in March.

Israel also implemented a total blockade on humanitarian aid, including food, that has been widely condemned by the UN as well as European and Arab countries.

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz last month said the blockade was a “main pressure lever” to secure victory over Hamas and get all the hostages out.

There is growing evidence that Israel’s 10-week blockade is having an increasingly detrimental humanitarian impact. Aid organisations and residents say people in Gaza are now starving.

A recent UN-backed report said Gaza’s whole population – some 2.1 million people – is at critical risk of famine.

The Israeli government has insisted there is no shortage of food in Gaza and that the “real crisis is Hamas looting and selling aid”.

Israel and the US have proposed allowing in and distributing aid through private companies – a plan rejected by the UN.

The deteriorating situation in Gaza has drawn concern from the US this week.

Boarding his flight home from the Middle East, Trump said the US needs to “help out the Palestinians” and acknowledges “a lot of people are starving”.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration was “troubled” by the humanitarian situation.

Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Fifty-eight hostages are still being held in Gaza, up to 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

Former FBI director James Comey is being investigated by the Secret Service after he shared then deleted a social media post, which Republicans alleged was an incitement to violence against US President Donald Trump.

Comey posted on Instagram a photo of seashells that spelled the numbers “8647”, which he captioned: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

The number 86 is a slang term whose definitions include “to reject” or “to get rid of”, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which also notes that it has more recently been used as a term meaning “to kill”. And Trump is the 47th US president.

Comey insisted he did not know what the numbers meant, but Trump has disputed that.

Comey deleted the Instagram post, saying in a follow-up that he “assumed [the sea shells] were a political message”.

“I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he added. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

But Trump argued that “a child knows what that meant”.

“That meant assassination, and it says it loud and clear,” Trump told Fox News in an interview, clips of which were released before broadcast on Friday. “Now, he wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant.”

In a post in X, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said: “We vigorously investigate anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees.

“We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI Director & we take rhetoric like this very seriously. Beyond that, we do not comment on protective intelligence matters.”

Trump survived two assassination attempts last year.

Current FBI Director Kash Patel responded on social media, saying that the bureau was “aware of the recent social media post by former FBI Director James Comey, directed at President Trump”.

“We are in communication with the Secret Service and Director Curran. Primary jurisdiction is with SS [Secret Service] on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support.”

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said on X: “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of Trump.”

She said her department and the Secret Service would investigate the matter.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino posted on X, accusing Comey of “a plea to bad actors/terrorists to assassinate the POTUS’ while traveling internationally”, referring to Trump’s current tour of the Middle East.

The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, also responded on X, commenting: “James Comey causally [sic] calling for my dad to be murdered.”

Comey served as the FBI’s director between 2013-17.

He had a tumultuous tenure that included overseeing the high-profile inquiry into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s email just weeks before the 2016 election that she ended up losing to Trump.

He was fired by Trump amid an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

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

Ofcom has launched investigations into two pornographic websites it believes may be falling foul of the UK’s newly introduced child safety rules.

The regulator said Itai Tech Ltd – which operates a so-called “nudifying” site – and Score Internet Group LLC had failed to detail how they were preventing children from accessing their platforms.

Ofcom announced in January that, in order to comply with the Online Safety Act, all websites on which pornographic material could be found must introduce “robust” age-checking techniques from July.

It said the two services it was investigating did not appear to have any effective age checking mechanisms.

Firms found to be in breach of the Act face huge fines.

The regulator said on Friday that many services publishing their own porn content had, as required, provided details of “highly effective age assurance methods” they were planning to implement.

• What the Online Safety Act is – and how to keep children safe online

They added that this “reassuringly” included some of the largest services that fall under the rules.

It said a small number of services had also blocked UK users entirely to prevent children accessing them.

Itai Tech Ltd and Score Internet Group LLC did not respond to its request for information or show they had plans to introduce age checks, it added.

The “nudifying” technology that one of the company’s platforms features involves the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create the impression of having removed a person’s clothing in an image or video.

The Children’s Commissioner recently called on the government to introduce a total ban on such AI apps that could be used to create sexually explicit images of children.

Under the Online Safety Act, platforms that publish their own pornographic content were required to take steps to implement age checks from January.

These can include requiring UK users to provide photo ID or running credit card checks.

But all websites where a user might encounter pornographic material are also required to demonstrate the robustness of the measures they are taking to verify the age of users.

These could even apply to some social media platforms, Ofcom told the BBC in January.

The rules are expected to change the way many UK adults will use or encounter some digital services, such as porn sites.

“As age checks start to roll out in the coming months, adults will start to notice a difference in how they access certain online services,” said Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive, in January.

In April, Discord said it would start testing face-scanning as a way to verify some users’ ages in the UK and Australia.

Experts said it marked “the start of a bigger shift” for platforms as lawmakers worldwide look to impose strict internet safety rules.

Critics suggest such measures risk pushing young people to “darker corners” of the internet where there are smaller, less regulated sites hosting more violent or explicit material.

An Australian man who was captured by Russian forces while fighting alongside Ukraine has been sentenced to 13 years in a maximum security prison, Russian-installed prosecutors have said.

Oscar Jenkins, 33, was convicted in a Russian-controlled court in occupied eastern Ukraine on Friday of fighting in an armed conflict as a mercenary.

Mr Jenkins, a teacher from Melbourne, was captured last December in the Luhansk region.

Prosecutors said he arrived in Ukraine in February 2024, alleging he was paid between 600,000 and 800,000 rubles (£5,504 and £7,339) a month to take part in military operations against Russian troops.

A video surfaced in December last year showing Mr Jenkins with his hands tied, being hit in the face and questioned by Russian forces. They ask him if he is being paid to fight in Ukraine.

In January, Australia summoned the Russian ambassador over false reports that Mr Jenkins had been killed following his capture.

Since then, the Australian government has repeatedly called for his release.

“We’ll continue to make representations to the reprehensible regime of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin on behalf of Mr Jenkins,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told 9News in April.

In March, a British man James Scott Rhys Anderson was jailed for 19 years by a Russian military court after being charged with terrorism and mercenary activity, becoming the first British national convicted by Russia during the war.

The 22-year-old was captured last November in Russia’s Kursk region – where Ukrainian forces began a surprise incursion last August before retreating in recent months.

Just before launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised all of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent of Ukraine. Russian proxy forces began an insurgency there in 2014.

A prison governor who had a relationship with a drug-dealing gang boss has been jailed for nine years.

Kerri Pegg, 42, was seen as a “rising star” of the Prison Service, climbing the career ladder from graduate to governor at HMP Kirkham in Lancashire in six years.

But her trial heard she “didn’t play by the rules” and began a relationship with major Liverpool crime figure Anthony Saunderson, helping him secure day release.

Sentencing her at Preston Crown Court, Judge Graham Knowles KC told her: “You betrayed the public trust in you and you betrayed the Prison Service.”

He continued: “It was shocking and unconscionable that you should have had that relationship.

“You knew how you should and should not act. You had training and support. You were warned and you were challenged.

“The boundaries were clear and explicit and you knew you were crossing them.”

• How EncroChat crackdown uncovered Kerri Pegg’s affair

Pegg, from Up Holland in Lancashire, was convicted of misconduct in public office and possession of criminal property following a trial at the same court in April.

The jury heard how, when police raided Pegg’s home in Orrell, Wigan, they found a toothbrush with Saunderson’s DNA on it.

It also emerged Pegg, who was also found guilty of one count of possession of criminal property, had been given a £12,000 Mercedes C-class car by Saunderson, which was paid for from the proceeds of 34 kilos of amphetamines.

During his communications with other criminals, Saunderson – who is now spending 35 years behind bars – had used the name Jesse Pinkman after a meth dealer in the hit TV show Breaking Bad, the trial heard.

He also went under the name James Gandolfini, the actor who played Tony Soprano in the mafia TV series.

Jurors heard Pegg was known to spend a lot of time in her office with the inmate and, in October 2018, he put in a request to be released on temporary licence.

Though such requests are routine there are specific rules for how they should be dealt with – rules which the governor broke.

Detectives found Pegg, originally from Bramhall, Stockport, was living way beyond her means, buying designer jewellery and clothes including Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel necklaces.

They found that despite her £3,000 a month income, she was deeply in debt and had not declared three County Court judgments which amounted to misconduct, as debts make officials vulnerable to corruption.

Her four credit cards were “maxed out”, the court heard, and she had just 6p in her savings account.

Judge Knowles said the fact she had not declared the County Court Judgements left her “catastrophically compromised” and vulnerable to “corruption and blackmail”.

He added that Pegg was “impossibly vulnerable to Saunderson'” once she started in her “dereliction of duty” because she “knew he could destroy your career”.

In addition to the nine-year sentence for the first charge of misconduct in public office, Pegg was sentenced to two years’ prison for the second misconduct charge and four years for accepting criminal property – all to be served concurrently.

Pegg was arrested in late 2020 following a police investigation into Saunderson’s communications on the encrypted messaging system Encrochat.

Officers found messages from Saunderson which included references to “Kerri” and to buying a Mercedes for his girlfriend.

Saunderson also joked with associates about driving around with “Peggy” in her new car.

Pegg was arrested with the Mercedes parked outside her house, the court heard.

She also had a “burner” mobile phone she used solely to communicate with Saunderson.

Pegg joined the prison service in 2012 as a graduate entrant, working at prisons including Risley, Liverpool and Styal, and by April 2018 she was a governor at HMP Kirkham, where Saunderson was reaching the end of a 10-year sentence for drugs offences.

He had been one of Merseyside’s most wanted fugitives for his part in importing cocaine with a street value £19m in shipments of corned beef from Argentina.

Pegg’s trial heart Saunderson had developed and delivered a programme titled BADD (Beating Alcohol and Drug Dependency) for inmates at several jails while he was still actively involved in drug dealing, running an amphetamines factory.

Saunderson was released from Kirkham in May 2019 and within two months, while still on licence, was involved in another massive drug conspiracy.

Pegg’s trial heard he continued contact with prisons in the BADD programme and was also still close to Pegg, who was at the time the regional official co-ordinating drug strategy in six prisons in the North West.

Even members of his gang grumbled that their boss was spending too much time with Pegg, neglecting his wife and “work”, the court heard.

Tarryn McCaffrey, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Pegg’s actions in becoming involved with a prisoner who had committed serious drug offences portrayed a total lack of integrity or judgment.

“She displayed a shocking lack of professionalism in her role, overriding rules around Saunderson’s temporary release and ignoring her obligations to declare personal debts.”

Det Insp Brian Morley, from the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit’s Prison Intelligence Unit, said: “Kerri Pegg was a senior figure within the Prison Service, a public servant expected to behave to the highest standards but this was serious misconduct on her part and greatly undermines the trust given to prison staff and order in a prison.”

Pegg’s defence barrister Andrew Alty told the court his client had been taken advantage of by a “sophisticated criminal”.

He said she was a “caring, compassionate individual who tries to see the best in everyone”.

Phil Copple, chief executive of HM Prison and Probation Service, said: “The criminal misconduct in this case lets down the public we serve as well as the vast majority of honest and hardworking prison staff, but it also demonstrates our determination to take robust action against those who fail to achieve proper professional standards.”

Merseyside

What began as public calls to boycott travel to Turkey has now escalated into a broader rupture, with India severing links with Turkish businesses and universities.

The diplomatic chill stems from Turkey’s recent vocal support for Pakistan during the recent India-Pakistan hostilities.

On Thursday India barred Turkish firm Celebi from operating at its airports, citing national security concerns – an allegation the company denies.

Several Indian universities – including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Maulana Azad National Urdu University- have also suspended academic ties with Turkish institutions.

Celebi, which handled ground services at major airports like Delhi and Mumbai, has been formally dropped, in line with the federal aviation ministry orders.

India’s minister of state for aviation has said in a post on X that in recent days the government had received requests from across the country to ban the company.

“Recognising the seriousness of the issue and the call to protect national interests, we have taken cognisance of these requests. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has revoked the security clearance of the said company,” the minister stated.

According to a Bloomberg report, Celebi has said it will pursue all “administrative and legal” remedies to “clarify” the allegations and seek a reversal of the order. The company also called the revocation of its security clearance “unjust”.

“Our company and subsidiaries bear no responsibility for any potential disruptions, delays or negative impacts on airport operations and civil aviation traffic in India,” Bloomberg quoted the company as saying.

Deadly fighting broke out between India and Pakistan last week after Delhi launched airstrikes on its neighbour, saying it was in response to the deadly Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the incident.

Turkey and Azerbaijan were quick to back Pakistan after India’s military action – Ankara warned of “all-out war”, while Baku condemned Delhi’s strikes.

The fallout sparked a wave of backlash, with boycott calls against Turkey – and Azerbaijan – gaining traction on social media and being echoed by senior political leaders. The boycott gained momentum after reports emerged of Turkish drones being used by Pakistan against India.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a former federal minister and a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said: “Every hardworking Indian who travels abroad as a tourist understands today that their hard-earned rupee should not be spent on those who help the enemies of our country.”

The social media boycott calls had an immediate impact, with Indian travel sites reporting a sharp spike in cancellations this week.

“Indian travellers have expressed strong sentiments over the past week, with bookings for Azerbaijan and Turkey decreasing by 60%, while cancellations have surged by 250%,” said a spokesperson for travel website MakeMyTrip.

Most travel sites still allow bookings, but some are discouraging travel, with promotions and flight discounts to Turkey and Azerbaijan quietly pulled.

Rohit Khattar, who runs a travel agency in Delhi, said he’s already seeing clear hesitation among clients about visiting Turkey.

“Many young travellers may avoid it, fearing backlash on social media or social retribution,” he said, adding that his firm won’t risk investing in trips that might not take off.

According to official data, 330,100 Indians visited Turkey in 2024, up from 274,000 in 2023. Azerbaijan also saw a rise, with nearly 244,000 Indian arrivals last year.

Despite rising numbers, Indians made up for less than 1% of Turkey’s foreign visitors in 2024 – a modest share with limited impact on overall tourism revenue. In contrast, they accounted for nearly 9% of foreign arrivals in Azerbaijan.

After the pandemic, Turkey and Azerbaijan grew popular among Indian travellers for their affordability, proximity, and Europe-like experiences at lower costs. Budget airlines have boosted access with direct flights in recent years.

Some social media users are promoting alternatives like Greece, but travel sites report no major spike in interest.

Travel website Cleartrip told the BBC, “As this is a developing situation, we haven’t seen significant highs or lows in demand for these alternate destinations”.

A New Jersey man who stabbed and partially blinded novelist Sir Salman Rushdie on a New York lecture stage was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday.

Hadi Matar, 27, was convicted of attempted murder and assault earlier this year.

Sir Salman was on stage speaking before an audience in August 2022, when he was stabbed multiple times in the face and neck. The attack left him blind in one eye, with damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.

The attack came 35 years after Sir Salman’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses, which had long made him the target of death threats for its portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

Matar received the maximum 25-year sentence for the attempted murder of Sir Salman.

He was also found guilty of assault for wounding the person who was interviewing Sir Salman, Henry Reese, and sentenced to seven years plus three years post-release for that assault.

The sentences must run concurrently because both victims were injured in the same event, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said on Friday.

Before being sentenced, Matar stood and made a statement about freedom of speech in which he called Rushdie a hypocrite, according to the Associated Press.

“Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect other people,” said Matar, clad in white-striped jail clothing and wearing handcuffs. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully other people. I don’t agree with that.”

Sir Salman was not in the court for his assailant’s sentencing on Friday.

Matar was convicted of attempted murder and assault in February, 2025, following an intense trial during which Sir Salman detailed the moment when he felt certain that he was going to die.

During the two-week trial, he testified that he saw a man rushing towards him while on stage at the historic arts institute in Chautauqua, New York.

He said his assailant’s eyes “were dark and seemed very ferocious”.

Sir Salman told the court he initially did not realise he had been stabbed, thinking instead that he had been punched.

Matar stabbed Sir Salman 15 times in total including to his cheek, chest, eye, neck and thigh.

Prosecutors argued that the attack was targeted.

“There were a lot of people around that day but there was only one person who was targeted,” prosecuting lawyer Jason Schmidt then told the jury.

Defence lawyer Andrew Brautigan had argued that prosecutors failed to prove Matar intended to kill Sir Salman.

Matar, who pleaded not guilty, did not testify in his defence. His lawyers did not call any witnesses of their own.

“I don’t think he’s a very good person,” Matar said about the author in a 2022 New York Post story. “He’s someone who attacked Islam.”

Matar praised Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, for calling for Sir Salman’s execution.

The attack took place some 35 years after Sir Salman’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses was published.

The novel, inspired by the life of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, sparked outrage among some Muslims, who considered its content to be blasphemous.

Sir Salman faced countless death threats and was forced into hiding for nine years after Iran’s religious leader issued a fatwa – or decree – calling for the author’s death due to the book.

But in recent years, the author said he believed the threats against him had diminished.

Just before the attack Sir Salman told a German magazine he felt his life was “relatively normal”.

The British-Indian novelist later detailed his experience and long road to recovery in a memoir called Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.