Israel and Hamas have engaged in a new round of talks to end the war in Gaza, after Israel’s military launched a major new offensive.

At least 300 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on the enclave since Thursday, including at least 50 people in bombardments overnight, rescuers in the territory say.

Taher al-Nounou, an adviser to the head of Hamas, told the BBC fresh negotiations were under way in Doha on Saturday that were being brokered by Qatari and US mediators.

He said there were no preconditions from either side, and all issues were on the table for discussion. Israel’s defence minister said they had started talks without agreeing to a ceasefire or lifting its blockade.

A senior Palestinian official familiar with negotiations told the BBC that talks were centred around some of the remaining hostages being released from Gaza in exchange for a period of calm.

The proposal had been put forward by US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff in recent weeks, but both sides had previously indicated obstacles to the plan.

The new round of talks comes after a week of intensifying bombardments and airstrikes. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Saturday morning declared the start of a new offensive called “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised a major military escalation that would occupy and control swathes of Gaza, force the Palestinian population to the south of the territory and “destroy” Hamas.

The IDF said on Saturday it wouldn’t stop operating “until Hamas is no longer a threat and all our hostages are home”. It said it had “struck over 150 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in 24 hours.

The Times of Israel newspaper reported that “Gideon’s Chariots” – a reference to a biblical warrior – would also see the IDF prevent Hamas from taking control of aid supplies.

Thousands of Israeli troops, including soldiers and reservists, could enter Gaza as the operation ramps up in the coming days. Israeli tanks have also been seen at the border, Reuters news agency reported.

The intensified offensive has been condemned by the UN and some European leaders.

UN Secretary General António Guterres expressed alarm and said: “I reject the repeated displacement of the population – along with any question of forced displacement outside of Gaza.”

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk had also earlier said that Israel’s strikes, continued blockade of aid into Gaza and the forced relocation of people was “tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”

Following the new strikes, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani both called for a permanent ceasefire, while Germany’s Foreign Ministry said the new offensive risked “worsening the catastrophic humanitarian situation for Gaza’s population and the remaining hostages”.

The ramped-up military offensive comes as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, prompting warnings from aid agencies about famine among the population.

Israel has blocked food and other supplies into the Strip for more than 10 weeks, following the breakdown of a two-month ceasefire in March. US President Donald Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people were starving” in Gaza.

The Israeli government has repeatedly rejected claims there is a food shortage in Gaza.

• Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu’s plan risks dividing Israel, killing Palestinians and horrifying world
• ‘My children go to sleep hungry,’ Gazans tell the BBC

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 5 May said Israel was preparing an “intense entry into Gaza” to capture and hold territory, but that it would not commence until US President Donald Trump completed his tour of the Middle East. Trump left the region on Friday.

On Friday, residents in many parts of northern and central Gaza were told to leave their homes or places of shelter – an order aid workers say is almost impossible because many have already been repeatedly made homeless during the war.

Strikes on Saturday hit towns in the north of Gaza, including Beit Lahiya and the Jabalia refugee camp, as well as in the southern city of Khan Younis, the Hamas-run health ministry and civil defence forces said.

Strikes this week have also hit near hospitals in the Strip.

Victoria Rose, a British reconstructive surgeon working at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that her team were “exhausted” and staff had lost a “considerable amount of weight”.

“The children are really thin,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of youngsters whose teeth have fallen out.

“A lot of them have quite significant burn injuries and with this level of malnutrition they’re so much more prone to infection and they’ve got so much less capacity to heal.”

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. Hamas still holds 58 hostages.

At least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, including more than 3,000 people since March.

Donald Trump says he will be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Monday about ending the war in Ukraine, saying the call would be about “stopping the ‘bloodbath'”.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the call would take place at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT) and he would then speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the leaders of some Nato countries.

Russia and Ukraine were unable to reach any breakthrough when they held their first face-to-face talks in three years in Istanbul on Friday, although a prisoner swap was agreed.

Trump had offered to attend the talks in Turkey if Putin would also be there, but the Russian president declined to go.

Trump’s comments come after he suggested progress on ending the war would only happen if he and Putin held face-to-face talks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Russian news agencies that preparations were under way for a call between Putin and Trump on Monday. The two leaders have held a phone call before on the topic.

“The conversation is in the works,” Peskov told Tass news agency.

Trump had said on Truth Social: “Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end.”

European leaders have been calling for Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in the conflict.

The US and Russian leaders are expected to discuss a ceasefire, as well as the possible summit between themselves.

Moscow has moved slower than Trump would like, but it welcomed the American efforts at mediation, in a call on Saturday between the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Following the talks in Istanbul, Ukraine also reiterated its call for a full and unconditional ceasefire.

According to a Ukrainian official, the Kremlin had made “new and unacceptable demands including insisting Kyiv withdraw its troops from large parts of its own territory”, he said, in exchange for a ceasefire.

The head of the Russian delegation, Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, said they were satisfied with the talks and ready to continue contact.

Hours later, a Russian drone hit a passenger bus in the Sumy region, killing nine people – prompting Zelensky to demand stiffer sanctions on Moscow.

He said the attack on the bus was “a deliberate killing of civilians”. Russia has not commented, but state media reported that forces had hit a “military staging area” in Sumy province.

Officials in Palm Springs, California are investigating an explosion on Saturday morning that killed one person and damaged a fertility clinic.

The explosion happened just before 11:00 local time (19:00 BST) less than a mile from downtown Palm Springs, near several businesses including the American Reproductive Centres.

In a statement, the fertility clinic said no one from their facility was harmed but that one person was killed and several were injured.

California governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the state is coordinating with local and federal authorities to respond to the incident.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” So supposedly said the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The diplomatic whirlwind that has surrounded US President Donald Trump this week suggests the old Bolshevik might have been onto something.

For the protectionist president, who promises always to put America First, has in recent days instead been busy bestriding the world stage.

He and his team have done business deals in the Gulf; lifted sanctions on Syria; negotiated the release of a US citizen held by Hamas; ended military strikes on Houthi fighters in Yemen; slashed American tariffs on China; ordered Ukraine to hold talks with Russia in Turkey; continued quiet negotiations with Iran over a nuclear deal; and even claimed responsibility for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan…

The pace has been breathless, leaving allies and opponents alike struggling to catch up as the US diplomatic bandwagon hurtled from issue to issue.

“Just, wow!” remarked one London-based ambassador. “It is almost impossible to stay on top of everything that’s going on.”

So what going on? What have we learned in this frantic week about the US president’s emerging foreign policy? Is there something approaching a Trump doctrine – or is this just a coincidental confluence of global events?

A good place to start, perhaps, is the president’s visit to the Gulf where he set out – in word and deed – his vision for a world of interstate relations based on trade, not war. In a speech in Riyadh, Trump said he wanted “commerce not chaos” in the Middle East, a region that “exports technology not terrorism”.

His was a prospect of a breezy, pragmatic mercantilism where nations did business deals to their mutual benefit, a world where profit can bring peace.

As he enjoyed the flattery of his Saudi hosts and the obeisance of visiting dignitaries, the president signed – with his fat felt tip pen – deals that the White House claimed represented $600bn of investment in the US.

This was Trump in all his pomp; applauded and rewarded with immediate wins he could sell back home as good for American jobs.

Some diplomats privately questioned the value of the various memorandums of understanding. But the show, they said, was more important than the substance.

Absent from Trump’s speech was any mention of possible collective action by the US and other countries; no talk of multilateral cooperation against the threat of climate change, no concerns about challenges to democratic or human rights in the region. This was a discourse almost entirely without reference to ideology or values except to dismiss their significance.

Rather, he used his speech to Saudi leaders to make his clearest argument yet against Western interventionism of the past, attacking what he called “the so-called nation-builders and neo-cons” for “giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs”.

To the applause of his Arab audience, he said these “Western interventionists” had “wrecked more nations than they built”, adding: “Far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use US policy to dispense justice for their sins.

“I believe it’s God’s job to sit in judgement. My job is to defend America.”

That reluctance to intervene was on show in recent days when it came to the fighting between India and Pakistan. In the past, the US has often played a key role seeking to end military confrontations in the subcontinent. But the Trump White House was initially cautious about getting involved.

Vice-President JD Vance told Fox News the fighting was “fundamentally none of our business… We can’t control these countries”.

In the end, both he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio did make calls, putting pressure on both nuclear powers to de-escalate. So too did other countries.

When the ceasefire was agreed, Trump claimed US diplomacy had brokered the deal. But that was flatly dismissed by Indian diplomats who insisted it was a bilateral truce.

The centrality of Trump to US foreign policy has also become apparent this week. This is more than just a simple truism. On show was the lack of involvement of other parts of the US government that traditionally help shape US decision-making overseas.

Take the president’s extraordinary decision to meet Syria’s new president and former jihadist, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and lift sanctions on Syria. This showed the potential advantage of having foreign policy in one man’s hands: it was a decisive and bold step. And it was clearly the president’s personal decision, after heavy lobbying by both Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

It was seen by some diplomats as the quid pro quo for the diplomatic fawning and investment deals Trump received in Riyadh. Not only did the decision surprise many in the region but it also surprised many in the American government.

Diplomats said the State Department was reluctant to lift sanctions, wanting to keep some leverage over the new Syrian government, fearful it was not doing enough to protect minorities and tackle foreign fighters.

Diplomats say this pattern of impulsive decision-making without wider internal government discussion is common in the White House. The result, they say, is not always positive.

This is due, in part, to Trump’s lack of consistency (or put simply, changing his mind).

Take the decision this week to do a deal with China to cut tariffs on trade with the US. A few weeks ago Trump imposed 145% tariffs on Beijing, with blood thirsty warnings against retaliation. The Chinese retaliated, the markets plunged, American businesses warned of dire consequences.

So in Geneva, US officials climbed down and most tariffs against China were cut to 30%, supposedly in return for some increased US access to Chinese markets. This followed a now-familiar pattern: issue maximalist demands, threaten worse, negotiate, climb down and declare victory.

The problem is that this “art of a deal” strategy might work on easily reversible decisions such as tariffs. It is harder to apply to longer term diplomatic conundrums such as war.

Take Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On this, Trump’s policy has been fluid, to put it mildly. And this week was a case in point.

Last Saturday the leaders of the UK, France, Poland and Germany visited Kyiv to put on a show of support for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. And in a group call with Trump on French President Emmanuel Macron’s phone, they spelled out their strategy of demanding Russia agree an immediate 30-day ceasefire or face tougher sanctions.

This was Trump’s policy too. The day before he wrote on social media: “If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions.” But then on Sunday, President Vladimir Putin suggested instead there should be direct talks between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey on Thursday. Trump immediately went along with this, backtracking on the strategy he had agreed with European leaders a day earlier.

“Ukraine should agree to (these talks) immediately,” he wrote on social media. “I am starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin.”

Then on Thursday, Trump changed his position again, saying a deal could be done only if he and Putin were to meet in person.

This puzzles some diplomats. “Does he genuinely not know what he wants to do about the war in Ukraine?” one remarked to me. “Or does he just grasp at what might offer the quickest resolution possible?”

Into this puzzling mix fell two other decisions this week. First, Trump agreed a ceasefire after a campaign bombing Houthi fighters in Yemen for almost two months. There have been questions about the effectiveness of the hugely expensive air strikes, and the president’s appetite for a long military operation. He repeatedly told his Arab hosts how much he disliked war.

Second, Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, held his fourth round of talks with Iran over efforts to curb their nuclear ambitions. Both sides are hinting that a deal is possible, although sceptics fear it could be quite modest. Talk of joint US-Israeli military action against Iran seems to have dissipated.

What unites both issues is that the United States was acting directly against the wishes of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu may have been the first world leader invited to the Oval Office after Trump’s inauguration, but in recent days, he seems to have been snubbed. Trump toured the Middle East without visiting Israel; he lifted sanctions on Syria without Israel’s support. His Houthi ceasefire came only days after the group attacked Tel Aviv airport.

Diplomats fear Netanyahu’s reaction. Could the spurned prime minister respond with a more aggressive military operation in Gaza?

So after this week of diplomatic hurly burly, how much has changed? Perhaps less than might appear.

For all the glitz of Trump’s tour through the Middle East, the fighting and humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues unresolved. A fresh Israeli offensive seems imminent. One of Trump’s chief aims – the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia – remains distant.

For all the talks about ending the war in Ukraine, there is no greater likelihood of the guns falling silent. Putin’s ambitions seem unchanged. And for all the deals to cut US tariffs, either with the UK or China, there is still huge global market instability.

We do have a clearer idea of Trump’s global ideology, one that is not isolationist but mercantilist, hoping optimistically that capitalism can overcome conflict. We also have a clearer idea of his haste, his desire to clear his diplomatic decks – in the Middle East, Ukraine and the subcontinent – so he can focus on his primary concern, namely China.

But that may prove an elusive ambition. If there are weeks when decades happen, there are also weeks when nothing happens.

At least 21 people are reported to have died and dozens others injured after tornadoes tore through parts of two US states.

Officials in Kentucky said there had been 14 deaths due to severe weather while seven people were killed in Missouri, including five in the city of St Louis.

The Kentucky tornado struck in Laurel County, in the south-east of the state, in the early hours of Saturday. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise.

Missouri officials said 5,000 buildings were damaged, roofs destroyed and power lines knocked downed as a tornado struck on Friday.

About 140,000 properties in Missouri and Kentucky were left without power as of Saturday afternoon. Officials in St Louis said the fire department was conducting house-by-house searches in the worst-affected areas.

St Louis mayor Cara Spencer said in an update on Saturday that at least 38 people were reported injured in her area, largely from collapsed buildings and toppled trees.

Authorities in Kentucky said there were also severe injuries reported. “The search is continuing in the damaged area for survivors,” said Laurel County Sheriff John Root in a post on social media.

National Weather Service radar suggested the tornado touched down in Missouri shortly after 14:30 local time in the west of the city close to Forest Park – home to St Louis Zoo and the site of the 1904 Olympic Games.

St Louis Fire Department said three people had to be rescued after part of the nearby Centennial Christian Church collapsed. One of those people died.

A curfew was imposed from 21:00 to 06:00 local time in the two areas where most of the damage took place, to prevent injuries from debris and reduce the potential for looting.

St Louis mayor Spencer said: “The loss of life and the destruction is truly, truly horrendous.

“We’re going to have a lot of work to do in the coming days. There is no doubt there, but tonight we are focused on saving lives and keeping people safe and allowing our community to grieve.”

The US National Weather Service said tornadoes also hit neighbouring Illinois, with more severe weather conditions stretching eastwards to the Atlantic coast. On Saturday, it warned of few tornadoes that could hit northern Texas over the weekend as a result of strong to severe storms in the area.

The tornadoes struck an area of the US that is generally referred to as “Tornado Alley”, where tornadoes are most frequent. They typically occur in the months of May and June, though they could strike during other times of the year.

Kentucky has seen an average of five tornadoes each May since the year 2000, while Missouri has seen an average of 16.

With a pair of bright pink tweezers in hand, Emma Teni is delicately wrestling a large and leggy spider in a small plastic pot.

“He’s posing,” the spider-keeper jests as it rears up on its back legs. It is exactly what she’s trying to achieve – that way she can suck the venom from its fangs using a small pipette.

Emma works from a tiny office known as the spider milking room. On a typical day, she milks – or extracts the venom from – 80 of these Sydney funnel-web spiders.

On three of the four walls there are floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked full of the arachnids, with a black curtain pulled across to keep them calm.

The remaining wall is actually a window. Through it, a small child stares, both fascinated and horrified, as Ms Teni works. Little do they know that the palm-sized spider she’s handling could kill them in a matter of minutes.

“Sydney funnel-webs are arguably the most deadly spider in the world,” Emma says matter-of-factly.

Australia is famously full of such deadly animals – and this room at the Australian Reptile Park plays a critical part in a government antivenom programme, which saves lives on a continent where it’s often joked that everything wants to kill you.

While the quickest recorded death from a Sydney funnel-web spider was a toddler at 13 minutes, the average is closer to 76 minutes – and first aid gives you an even better chance of surviving.

So successful is the antivenom programme here at the Australian Reptile Park that nobody has been killed by one since it started in 1981.

The scheme relies, however, on members of the public either catching the spiders or collecting their egg sacs.

In a van plastered with a giant crocodile sticker, each week Ms Teni’s team drives all over Australia’s most famous city, picking up Sydney funnel-webs that have been handed in at drop-off points such as local veterinary practices.

There are two reasons why these spiders are so dangerous, she explains: not only is their venom extremely potent, but they also live exclusively in a densely populated region where they’re more likely to encounter humans.

Handyman Charlie Simpson is one such person. He moved into his first home with his girlfriend a few months ago, and the keen gardener has already found two Sydney funnel-webs. He took the second spider to the vet, where Ms Teni picked it up shortly after.

“I had gloves on at the time, but realistically I should have had leather gloves on because their fangs are so big and strong,” the 26-year-old says.

“I [just thought] I had better catch it because I kept getting told you’re meant to take them back to be milked, because it’s so critical.”

“This is curing my fear of spiders,” he jokes.

As Ms Teni offloads one arachnid that was delivered to her in a Vegemite jar, she stresses her team isn’t telling Australians to go looking for the spiders and “throw themselves into danger”.

Rather, they’re asking that if someone comes across one, they safely capture it rather than kill it.

“Saying that this is the world’s most deadly spider and then [asking the public to] catch it and bring it to us does sound counter-intuitive,” she says.

“[But] that spider there now, thanks to Charlie, will… effectively save someone’s life.”

All of the spiders her team collects get brought back to the Australian Reptile Park where they are catalogued, sorted by sex and stored.

Any females that get dropped off are considered for a breeding programme, which helps supplement the number of spiders donated by the public.

Meanwhile, the males, which are six to seven times more toxic than the females, are used for the antivenom programme and milked every two weeks, Emma explains.

The pipette she uses to remove the venom from the fangs is attached to a suction hose – crucial for collecting as much venom as possible, since each spider provides only small amounts.

While a few drops is enough to kill, scientists need to milk 200 of these spiders to have enough to fill one vial of antivenom.

A marine biologist by training, Emma never expected to spend her days milking spiders. In fact, she started off working with seals.

But now she wouldn’t have it any other way. Emma loves all things arachnid, and goes under various nicknames – spider girl, spider mama, even “weirdo”, as her daughter calls her.

Friends, family and neighbours rely on her for her knowledge of Australia’s creepy crawlies.

“Some girls arrive home to flowers on their doorstep,” jokes Emma. “For me it’s not unusual to arrive home to a spider in a jar.”

Spiders represent just one small part of what the Australian Reptile Park does. It’s also been providing snake venom to the government since the 1950s.

According to the World Health Organisation, as many as 140,000 people die across the world from snake bites every year, and three times that many are left disabled.

In Australia though, those numbers are far lower: between one and four people each year, thanks to its successful antivenom programme.

Removing a King Brown snake from its storage locker, Billy Collett, the park’s operations manager, brings it to the table in front of him.

With his bare hands, he secures its head and puts its jaws over a shot glass covered in cling film.

“They are very uninclined to bite but once they go, you just see it pouring out of the fangs,” Mr Collett says, as yellow venom drips to the bottom.

“That is enough to kill all of us in the room five times over – maybe more.”

Then he switches to a more reassuring tone: “They’re not looking for people to bite. We’re too big for them to eat; they don’t want to waste their venom on us. They just want to be left alone.”

“To get bitten by a venomous snake, you’ve got to really annoy it, provoke it,” he adds, noting that bites often occur when someone is trying to kill one of the reptiles.

There’s a fridge in the corner of the room where the raw venom Mr Collett is collecting is stored. It’s full of vials labelled “Death Adder”, “Taipan”, “Tiger Snake” and “Eastern Brown”.

The last of these is the second-most venomous snake in the world, and the one that’s most likely to bite you here, in Australia.

This venom gets freeze-dried and sent to CSL Seqirus, a lab in Melbourne, where it’s turned into an antidote in a process that can take up to 18 months.

The first step is to produce what’s known as hyper-immune plasma. In the case of snakes, controlled doses of the venom are injected into horses, because they are larger animals with a strong immune system.

The venom of Sydney funnel-web spiders goes into rabbits, which are immune to the toxins. The animals are injected with increasing doses to build up their antibodies. In some cases, that step alone can take almost a year.

The animal’s supercharged plasma is removed from the blood, and then the antibodies are isolated from the plasma before they’re bottled, ready to be administered.

CSL Seqirus makes 7,000 vials a year – including snake, spider, stonefish and box jellyfish antivenoms – and they are valid for 36 months. The challenge then is to ensure everyone who needs it has supplies.

“It’s an enormous undertaking,” says Dr Jules Bayliss, who leads the antivenom development team at CSL Seqirus.

“First and foremost we want to see them in major rural and remote areas that these creatures are likely to be in.”

Vials are distributed depending on the species in each area. Taipans, for example, are in northern parts of Australia, so there’s no need for their antivenom in Tasmania.

Antivenom is also given to the Royal Flying Doctors, who access some of the nation’s most remote communities, as well as Australian navy and cargo ships for sailors at risk of sea snake bites.

Papua New Guinea also receives about 600 vials a year. The country was once connected to Australia by a land bridge, and shares many of the same snake species, so the Australian government gives the antivenom for free – snake diplomacy, if you like.

“To be honest, we probably have the most impact in Papua New Guinea, more so than Australia, because of the number of snake bites and deaths they have,” says CSL Seqirus executive Chris Larkin. To date, they reckon they’ve saved 2,000 lives.

Back at the park, Mr Collett jokes about the nickname of “danger noodles” that is sometimes given to his serpentine colleagues – a classic Australian trait of making light of something that gives so many visitors nightmares.

Mr Collett, though, is clear: these animals should not put people off from visiting.

“Snakes aren’t just cruising down the streets attacking Brits – it doesn’t work like that,” he jokes.

“If you’re going to get bitten by a snake, Australia’s the best place – we’ve got the best antivenom. It’s free. The treatment is unreal.”

Tucked away in a lane in the southern end of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is a museum dedicated to the followers of one of the world’s oldest religions, Zoroastrianism.

The Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum documents the history and legacy of the ancient Parsi community – a small ethnic group that’s fast dwindling and resides largely in India.

Now estimated at just 50,000 to 60,000, the Parsis are believed to be descendants of Persians who fled religious persecution by Islamic rulers centuries ago.

Despite their significant contributions to India’s economic and cultural fabric, much about the Parsi community remains little known to the mainstream population and the wider world.

“The newly-renovated museum hopes to shake off some of this obscurity by inviting people to explore the history, culture and traditions of the Parsi community through the rare historical artefacts on display,” says Kerman Fatakia, curator of the museum.

Some of these include cuneiform bricks, terracotta pots, coins and other objects sourced from places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Susa and Iran and are dated to 4000-5000 BCE.

These are places where Zoroastrian Iranian kings once ruled, like the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties.

There are also artefacts from Yazd, a city in central Iran which was once a barren desert and the place where many Zoroastrians settled after fleeing other regions of Iran after the Arab invasion in 7th Century BCE.

One of the notable artefacts on display is a replica of a clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, a Persian king who was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

Fatakia says the clay cylinder – also known as the “Edict of Cyrus” or the “Cyrus Cylinder” – is one of the most important discoveries of the ancient world. Inscribed in cuneiform script, it outlines the rights granted by Cyrus to his subjects in Babylon. Widely seen as the first human rights charter, a replica is also displayed at the United Nations.

Then there are maps that trace the migration routes of thousands of Iranian Zoroastrians who fled their home country fearing persecution and travelled to India in the 8th to10th centuries, and again in the 19th century.

The collection also features furniture, manuscripts, paintings, and portraits of prominent Parsis – among them Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the iconic Tata Group, which owns brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley tea.

Another striking section showcases artefacts collected by Parsis who grew wealthy in the early 19th century trading tea, silk, cotton – and notably, opium – with China. The exhibits include traditional Parsi sarees influenced by designs from China, France, and other regions shaped by these global trade ties.

Two of the museum’s most compelling exhibits are replicas of a Tower of Silence and a Parsi fire temple.

The Tower of Silence, or dakhma, is where Parsis leave their dead to be returned to nature – neither buried nor cremated. “The replica shows exactly what happens to the body once it’s placed there,” says Fatakia, noting that entry to actual towers is restricted to a select few.

The life-size replica of the fire temple is equally fascinating, offering a rare glimpse into a sacred space typically off-limits to non-Parsis. Modelled on a prominent Mumbai temple, it features sacred motifs inspired by ancient Persian architecture in Iran.

The Alpaiwala Museum, originally founded in 1952 in what was then Bombay, is one of the city’s older institutions. Recently renovated, it now features modern displays with well-captioned exhibits in glass cases. Every visitor is offered a guided tour.

“It’s a small museum but it is packed with history,” Fatakia says.

“And it’s a great place for not just the residents of Mumbai or India to learn more about the Parsi community but for people from all over the world.”

Former US President Joe Biden struggled to recall key milestones from his own life during an interview two years ago with a justice department investigator, according to audio.

A recording obtained by political outlet Axios shows the Democrat appeared to have trouble remembering the year he left office as vice-president, or the date of his son Beau’s death.

White House aides at the time denied the president had such memory lapses. Biden was questioned by Special Counsel Robert Hur’s team about why he had kept classified documents at his home and former office.

The prosecutor ultimately decided not to charge the president despite finding he had retained classified material.

In a February 2024 report that provoked the ire of the White House and Democrats, Hur had described Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

The audio is an excerpt from interviews on two days in October 2023. The Biden justice department previously made available the transcripts following the release of the special counsel’s report in February 2024.

It is not clear how Axios obtained the recording, but President Donald Trump’s administration has been planning to release the full interview.

The Biden administration refused to release the tape last year, calling it “constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials” and arguing that Republicans wanted to “manipulate” it for “potential political gain”.

The Hur report’s release was a difficult moment for Biden at the beginning of his re-election campaign, and highlighted one of his biggest political weaknesses – voter concerns about his age and lucidity.

The then-president hit back at the time, insisting: “My memory is fine”.

A new book alleges the White House covered up Biden’s condition, which was said to be so poor last year that aides discussed putting him in a wheelchair.

He was also unable to recognise Hollywood actor George Clooney or recall the names of key aides, according to Original Sin, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.

Two British men accused of robbing a luxury jewellery store in Tokyo can be sent to Japan following a landmark ruling.

For almost a decade, Japanese authorities have pursued the extradition of Kaine Wright, 28, Joe Chappell, 38, and a third man over allegations they posed as customers to steal items worth £679,000 (¥106m) from a Harry Winston store.

On Friday, chief magistrate Judge Goldspring rejected Wright and Chappell’s challenges against extradition. Their case now passes to the home secretary to decide whether they should be sent to Japan.

No extradition treaty exists between the UK and Japan, meaning it would be the first time Japan have successfully received fugitives.

Japan’s initial request was rejected, but the High Court overturned the original decision following an appeal lodged by the Japanese government.

In Friday’s judgement – seen by the BBC – Wright, of Plumstead, and Chappell, of Belvedere, both in London, had raised concerns over prison conditions in Japan which they argued were “arbitrary, excessive and breach international standards”.

The Japanese government said the submissions were “fundamentally flawed both legally and factually”.

District Judge Goldspring, chief magistrate of England and Wales, found there was a “prima facie case” – enough evidence to support a charge at first glance – against Chappell and that extradition would be “compatible” with his and Wright’s human rights.

Friday’s ruling follows a recent High Court judgement that the Japanese government had a case to extradite Wright, Chappell and a third man named in papers as Daniel Kelly – who is Wright’s father.

Japan’s case against Kelly will be heard at the end of this month. He has not appeared in previous extradition hearings due to a conspiracy to murder case against him taking precedence.

Details from January’s High Court judgement state that the Japanese “relied upon a range of evidence” which demonstrated that Kelly, Wright and Chappell travelled to Tokyo around the time of the jewellery raid in November 2015.

CCTV captured all three arriving at Narita International Airport on 18 November 2015 and staying at “the Elm Share House”, Japanese authorities said.

Ch Insp Suzuki set out a record of the investigation to the High Court which indicated the trio “took taxis” to Harry Winston’s branch in Omotesando Hills.

In their efforts to escape, the trio left a number of items behind including an Armani jacket, he said.

Ch Insp Suzuki added: “Goggles were left at the shop and a jacket was left on the route the robbers took to flee from the scene.”

A professor at the Tokyo Dental College compared ePassport images taken at Narita Airport and compared it to CCTV stills of three men taken at the Harry Winston store.

“The possibility that two (or three) persons in the relevant comparison are the same is extremely high,” Ch Insp Suzuki said in his report, citing the professor’s “expert” findings.

As well as other DNA matches, Ch Insp Suzuki’s report referred to “expert evidence that glass shards found at the property where the three stayed that matched the glass in the display case at the jewellery shop”.

Findings in the reports were challenged at the High Court by lawyers representing Wright and Chappell.

The Japanese government said it would ensure that the three men would have the right to consult with a lawyer in private, have any interviews recorded and have the right not to answer any questions.

Wright, once a promising footballer on the books of West Ham United and Brentford, served time in prison after being convicted in 2023 of trying to sell a Ming vase which was stolen from a museum in Switzerland.

Subject to any further appeals, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper now has 28 days to decide whether to extradite Chappell and Wright or reject Japan’s request.

Five people have died after two civilian helicopters collided mid-air in Finland, local police said.

The helicopters crashed near Eura Airport at around 12:00 local time (10:00 GMT), after having taken off together from the Estonian capital of Tallinn.

Authorities found the wreckage of the helicopters in a wooded area. Police say there were two people in one helicopter and three in the other.

They were on their way to an aviation event at the Piikajärvi Flight Center in Kokemäki, local media reported.

The aircraft were foreign-registered civilian helicopters. The crash is being investigated by police.

Finnish and Estonian officials said they were working with each other into the probe.

Former FBI director James Comey has been interviewed by the US Secret Service after he shared then deleted a social media post that Republicans alleged was an incitement to violence against US President Donald Trump.

Comey voluntarily participated in the questioning for about an hour at the law enforcement agency’s Washington DC headquarters and was not held in custody.

It comes a day after he posted on Instagram a photo of seashells that spelled the numbers “8647”.

The number 86 is a slang term whose definitions include “to reject” or “to get rid of”, however, it has more recently been used as a term to mean “kill”. Trump is the 47th US president.

Trump said earlier in the day during an interview with Fox News that Comey, whom he fired as FBI director in 2017, was calling for him to be killed.

• What does ’86’ mean?

“He knew exactly what that meant,” said Trump, who survived two attempts on his life last year. “A child knows what that meant.

“If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”

Trump said any decision on whether charges should be filed against Comey would be up to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Comey posted the seashell photo on Thursday then deleted it amid conservative uproar.

He wrote in a follow-up message on Instagram that he had seen the shells during a walk on the beach, “which I assumed were a political message”.

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

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X on Friday evening that the Secret Service had “interviewed disgraced former FBI Director Comey regarding a social media post calling for the assassination of President Trump”.

“I will continue to take all measures necessary to ensure the protection of @POTUS Trump,” she added. “This is an ongoing investigation.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the highest-ranking spymaster in the US, called earlier for Comey to be jailed for “issuing a hit” on Trump while he was travelling in the Middle East.

In a trial that is undoing the legacy of one of music’s biggest moguls of the 2000s, the focus of the opening week of proceedings was not Sean “Diddy” Combs himself – but his ex-girlfriend.

R&B singer Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura took the witness stand for four days, describing in emotional details the years of beatings and drug-fuelled sex encounters with prostitutes that she alleges she endured at the hands of the rap superstar, who she dated for more than a decade.

But while her story clearly left an impression on those in the courtroom, which one onlooker described as an “aura of sadness”, it is just one piece in the puzzle that prosecutors must present to prove that Mr Combs was not just an abuser, but a mastermind of a criminal, sexual enterprise.

On Tuesday, gasps erupted in a Manhattan overflow courtroom when prosecutors called Ms Ventura – their star witness – to the stand. All eyes were fixed on the eight-months pregnant singer, as she strolled past her ex-boyfriend, whom she had not seen in six years.

Ms Ventura was there to testify in the federal sex trafficking, racketeering and prostitution case against Mr Combs, whom she accuses of abusing her and coercing her into unwanted sex acts – so-called “freak-offs” – during their 11-and-a-half year relationship.

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Mr Combs is charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution – all of which he has vehemently denied.

Surrounded by his children and dozens of family and friends, Mr Combs has watched Ms Ventura from his chair at the defence table just a few dozen feet away.

All the while, US District Judge Arun Subramanian has pushed attorneys to stay on schedule, as prosecutors have expressed worry their star witness could go into labour with her third child as soon as this weekend.

On her first day on the stand, Ms Ventura began by taking prosecutors through the start of her tumultuous relationship with Mr Combs, whom she met when she was a 19-year-old aspiring musician. Mr Combs, 17 years her senior, signed her onto his record label.

Their romantic relationship began soon after, when Ms Ventura fell in love with the “larger-than-life” musician and entrepreneur, she said. But it was not long before she noticed a “different” side to him, Ms Ventura testified, at times wiping the tears from her eyes.

Mr Combs, she said, wanted to control every aspect of her life. He paid for her rent, her car, and her phone, sometimes taking the items away to “punish” her when he was upset, she said.

Eventually, the relationship turned violent. She testified about the time when he attacked her because she was sleeping, slashing her eyebrow as he threw her onto the corner of her bed as her two friends tried to stop him. The court was shown a photo of the gash that Ms Ventura said Mr Combs hired a plastic surgeon to fix secretly. There was another time at a party where he kicked her head as she cowered behind a toilet in a bathroom stall, she said.

While jurors remained concentrated on her testimony and the evidence, betraying little emotion, some in the courtroom wiped away tears or looked away from the graphic photos and videos – including the viral video of Mr Combs beating and dragging Ms Ventura in the hallway of the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016.

Published by CNN last year, the video has been viewed by millions – including many of the jurors before they were seated in the trial – and Ms Ventura, who was forced to rewatch the incident of abuse several times this week.

Ms Ventura testified that the hotel incident took place after she tried to leave a “freak-off”, a sexual encounter in which the couple would hire male escorts to have sex with Ms Ventura while Mr Combs watched and recorded from the corner.

Ms Ventura said the rapper introduced her to freak-offs around a year into their relationship, and at first, she did it to make him happy.

But over time, the encounters humiliated her, she said. They would sometimes last as long as four days, and require Ms Ventura to take countless drugs to stay awake, she said. She endured injuries like painful urinary tract infections – and once even blacked out, waking up in the shower, she said.

“It made me feel worthless,” she told the court. “Freak-offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again.”

The couple would go on to have “hundreds” of freak-offs, Ms Ventura estimated.

After years of temporary break-ups – some fuelled by Mr Combs’ affairs – Ms Ventura ended her relationship with Mr Combs for good in 2018, the same year she alleges the rapper raped her in her home as she cried.

Ms Ventura went on to date and marry her personal trainer, Alex Fine, with whom she has two children, but the trauma of her relationship has stayed with her.

Through tears, Ms Ventura told the court of a time two years ago when she considered taking her own life, when traumatic flashbacks of her time with Mr Combs became too much to handle. Her husband helped her seek therapy to recover, she said.

Get all the latest trial updates on the BBC Sounds ‘Diddy on Trial’ podcast available wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Throughout Ms Ventura’s harrowing story of domestic violence, prosecutors have tried to thread in elements of their larger sex trafficking and racketeering case against Mr Combs.

Mr Combs’s attorneys have already conceded that the rapper was abusive – and have argued they would not have fought a domestic violence case against him. But, “domestic violence is not sex trafficking”, Mr Combs’ attorney Teny Geragos argued this week.

The federal government has charged Mr Combs with transportation to engage in prostitution and sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.

He is also charged with leading a racketeering conspiracy, or directing an illegal enterprise under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The statute was created to take on mob bosses, but has since been used in other cases, including sex trafficking, such as the case against disgraced R&B singer R Kelly.

Assistant US Attorney Emily Johnson used parts of Ms Ventura’s story to boost this case, asking her about the guns the rapper had access to and the ways he allegedly blackmailed her.

Ms Ventura told the court of a time when she said Mr Combs pulled up videos he recorded of their freak-offs on his laptop, in view of others on a commercial flight. She said he told her he would release them if she didn’t behave.

“I felt trapped,” Ms Ventura said.

Arick Fudali, a lawyer who represents an unnamed victim in the government’s case against Mr Combs, said “the fear of what would happen if they didn’t comply” is a crucial element of the government’s case.

“Someone can consent to a sexual act of course,” Mr Fudali told the BBC. “But someone can also be coerced into being compliant, and that’s different.”

The government has also used Ms Ventura’s testimony to try to build up their racketeering argument – the allegation that Mr Combs used his loyal network of associates to run a criminal enterprise and cover up his alleged crimes.

Prosecutors have asked Ms Ventura about security guards who she said stood by while Mr Combs abused her. Ms Ventura has testified about Mr Combs’ employees’ involvement in setting up freak-offs with supplies like baby oil, and booking travel for the male escorts they hired.

After a day and a half on the stand, it was Mr Combs’ attorneys turn to question Ms Ventura.

The rapper’s lawyer, Anna Estevao, relied on hundreds of pages of text messages between Mr Combs and Ms Ventura to help push her team’s broader arguments: that Ms Ventura was a willing participant in freak-offs in a toxic relationship fuelled by drugs and jealousy.

Mr Combs’ legal team showed messages from Ms Ventura to Mr Combs in which she said she was “always ready” for a freak-off, and another time when she said she wished they could have had one.

Ms Ventura acknowledged writing the messages while adding that those were “just words at that point”.

Ms Estevao also kept bringing Ms Ventura back to the couple’s moments of infidelity, like when Mr Combs would spend holidays with his family and former girlfriend Kim Porter, or when Ms Ventura began dating rapper Kid Cudi while she and Mr Combs were on a break.

She repeatedly asked Ms Ventura about her drug use and how both she and Mr Combs struggled with opioid addiction at times.

In these moments, the defence was trying to show jurors that it was a toxic, violent and complicated relationship – but not a case of racketeering or sex trafficking, former federal prosecutor Sarah Krissoff told the BBC.

The defence also made efforts to try to chip away at the government’s racketeering case, asking Ms Ventura whether Mr Combs’ employees had actually witnessed the freak-offs, to which Ms Ventura said she did not think so.

Ultimately, Mr Fudali said, the prosecution’s case will hinge on this question of compliance versus consent – whether Mr Combs’ girlfriends were willing participants in his sexual fantasies or acted out of fear.

“Did Ms Ventura consent or was she coerced into complying?” Mr Fudali said. “That seems to be the question for the jury.”

Few names are as synonymous with video games as Doom.

First launched in 1993, the first-person shooter (FPS) remains one of the most influential – and popular – series in the industry.

But even it and its superhuman protagonist, The Doom Slayer, have to contend with the pressures of the games industry in 2025.

Attracting new players, competing with the new titans on the scene and the rising cost of making – and selling – blockbuster titles.

BBC Newsbeat spoke to the project leaders of the latest instalment, Doom: The Dark Ages, about navigating some of these challenges.

While the Doom series is famous for pitting players against colossal enemies, there are other behemoths it has to face.

“There’s so much stuff competing for our attention these days, whether it’s games, movies, or whatever,” says executive producer Marty Stratton.

Free-to-play (F2P) games, such as Fortnite and Roblox, and annually updated series such as Call of Duty and EA FC regularly dominate most-played charts.

There’s evidence to suggest players, particularly younger ones, are spending most of their time on these titles – sometimes referred to as “forever games”.

In the latest Online Nation report by UK regulator Ofcom, five of the top ten games among UK players were F2P.

Fortnite recorded about 2.65m active UK users in May 2024, and Roblox 1.22m, according to the report, and global figures are much higher.

Drawing those players to premium titles can be a challenge but Marty argues games such as Doom, which can be completed in under 20 hours, can “fit into those habits”.

“It doesn’t have to become your obsession for the next two years,” he says.

The Doom series – developed by Dallas-based ID Software – has an advantage over others because it’s so well-known and has a large, loyal fanbase.

But, as industry expert Rhys Elliot, from Alinea Analytics, tells Newsbeat, it’s getting harder to rely solely on your hardcore players.

Overall, he says, the number of people playing premium titles isn’t increasing, but the cost of making them is.

“The people who make games – they still need to make revenues each year because, you know, capitalism,” he says.

One way of doing this is by attracting new players.

Doom’s director Hugo Martin says the response to Doom: The Dark Age’s previews were encouraging – something he puts down in part to its new “Medieval sci-fi” setting and altered gameplay style.

“We see it in the comments – a lot of people are saying ‘I think this is going to be my first Doom’, and that’s exciting for us,” he says.

The games industry has also leaned into customisation in recent years, giving players the power to finely tweak different elements and aspects of difficulty – something that’s been incorporated into The Dark Ages.

“In that regard I think it’s going to be a great first-time experience for a lot of fans,” says Hugo.

But there’s still the small matter of the cost of entry.

The debate over prices has been a feature of gaming discourse for years.

In 2010, a new game cost roughly £40 in the UK – and players had plenty to say about it at the time.

If you take into account inflation (using this Bank of England tool), that would be about £60 in today’s money.

Doom: The Dark Ages itself costs £69.99 for a standard edition or almost £100 for a limited Premium Edition with extras included.

“When you look at the history of game pricing… it really hasn’t skyrocketed,” says Marty.

The issue has been thrown back into the spotlight thanks to worries over Donald Trump’s tariff plans and price announcements from the three major console makers.

That could make competitors such as Fortnite – which don’t require new, specialised hardware to run – even more appealing for cash-strapped players.

But Doom producer Marty argues that “free” games can end up costing players more in the long run, while there are “no unknown expenses” with a one-off purchase such as Doom.

“You’re not going to be asked to pay anything else, two hours in,” he says.

F2P games generate cash with in-game purchases, ranging from “microtransactions” equivalent to a handful of change or, in some cases, hundreds of pounds.

Those costs can mount up, and a recent poll of 2,001 gamers by British bank TSB suggested dedicated players can spend about £22 a month on those transactions.

That’s still less than a tentpole new release, but Doom’s director Hugo also believes people are happy to pay more for a “curated experience” with “replay value”.

“Typically, if you just make a really good game then people will want to play it again,” he says.

Analyst Rhys believes we’re going to see more “fiddling with prices” and surcharges “to see what customers are willing to pay” and a wider range of RRPs for new releases.

“Hopefully there’ll be more competition there. It’s good for consumers,” he says.

Doom is also available on PC and Xbox via Game Pass – Microsoft’s Netflix-style subscription priced at £14.99 a month.

There’s evidence more people are turning to this, as well as Sony’s PlayStation Plus – raising questions over whether they put players off paying full price.

Game Pass players could pay a £34.99/$34.99 upgrade fee to access the game two days early and receive bonus content.

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Rhys says we are likely to see more of these sorts of offers are aimed at “superfans” who want to keep up with the latest releases.

For everyone else, waiting is an option.

“You can pick up the first 2016 Doom game for like £4 right now,” says Rhys.

Doom’s makers, perhaps unsurprisingly, believe their latest is worth jumping into.

“We think about price when we’re developing it – we obviously want the value to be there for players,” says Marty.

“Ultimately, it’s a market. Players will determine what they want to spend.”

“I think it’s there’s obviously still a place for a good, premium, highly polished, fun single-player game,” adds Hugo.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Tucked away in a lane in the southern end of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is a museum dedicated to the followers of one of the world’s oldest religions, Zoroastrianism.

The Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum documents the history and legacy of the ancient Parsi community – a small ethnic group that’s fast dwindling and resides largely in India.

Now estimated at just 50,000 to 60,000, the Parsis are believed to be descendants of Persians who fled religious persecution by Islamic rulers centuries ago.

Despite their significant contributions to India’s economic and cultural fabric, much about the Parsi community remains little known to the mainstream population and the wider world.

“The newly-renovated museum hopes to shake off some of this obscurity by inviting people to explore the history, culture and traditions of the Parsi community through the rare historical artefacts on display,” says Kerman Fatakia, curator of the museum.

Some of these include cuneiform bricks, terracotta pots, coins and other objects sourced from places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Susa and Iran and are dated to 4000-5000 BCE.

These are places where Zoroastrian Iranian kings once ruled, like the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties.

There are also artefacts from Yazd, a city in central Iran which was once a barren desert and the place where many Zoroastrians settled after fleeing other regions of Iran after the Arab invasion in 7th Century BCE.

One of the notable artefacts on display is a replica of a clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, a Persian king who was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

Fatakia says the clay cylinder – also known as the “Edict of Cyrus” or the “Cyrus Cylinder” – is one of the most important discoveries of the ancient world. Inscribed in cuneiform script, it outlines the rights granted by Cyrus to his subjects in Babylon. Widely seen as the first human rights charter, a replica is also displayed at the United Nations.

Then there are maps that trace the migration routes of thousands of Iranian Zoroastrians who fled their home country fearing persecution and travelled to India in the 8th to10th centuries, and again in the 19th century.

The collection also features furniture, manuscripts, paintings, and portraits of prominent Parsis – among them Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the iconic Tata Group, which owns brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley tea.

Another striking section showcases artefacts collected by Parsis who grew wealthy in the early 19th century trading tea, silk, cotton – and notably, opium – with China. The exhibits include traditional Parsi sarees influenced by designs from China, France, and other regions shaped by these global trade ties.

Two of the museum’s most compelling exhibits are replicas of a Tower of Silence and a Parsi fire temple.

The Tower of Silence, or dakhma, is where Parsis leave their dead to be returned to nature – neither buried nor cremated. “The replica shows exactly what happens to the body once it’s placed there,” says Fatakia, noting that entry to actual towers is restricted to a select few.

The life-size replica of the fire temple is equally fascinating, offering a rare glimpse into a sacred space typically off-limits to non-Parsis. Modelled on a prominent Mumbai temple, it features sacred motifs inspired by ancient Persian architecture in Iran.

The Alpaiwala Museum, originally founded in 1952 in what was then Bombay, is one of the city’s older institutions. Recently renovated, it now features modern displays with well-captioned exhibits in glass cases. Every visitor is offered a guided tour.

“It’s a small museum but it is packed with history,” Fatakia says.

“And it’s a great place for not just the residents of Mumbai or India to learn more about the Parsi community but for people from all over the world.”

Ozwald Boateng, celebrating four decades of making his indelible mark on the fashion industry, got his chance to stamp his style on the Met Gala in New York earlier this month.

The esteemed British-Ghanaian designer for the first time dressed celebrities – including three of Africa’s biggest musicians, Tems, Burna Boy and Arya Starr, as well as actors Ncuti Gatwa and Jaden Smith – at what is seen as his industry’s biggest night of the year.

The theme – Superfine: Tailoring Black Style – was “completely in my wheelhouse”, he says, as it looked at the way that style formed black identities.

Given that he already has a robust legacy in the design world, the 58-year-old saw the opportunity to find fresh adherents to the Boateng look.

“I think it’s, in a way, communicating to a new audience,” he tells the BBC a few days after the showcase.

Throughout his 40 years in fashion, the designer has built a reputation for challenging the norms of men’s tailoring. His eponymous brand sells form-fitting, stylish suits, often accented with bold colours and West African-inspired patterns.

The son of Ghanaian immigrants, Boateng reimagined the country’s iconic kente cloth to produce his signature “tribal” pattern.

“It’s all about having a strong concept, having a thorough idea of what you want to achieve from the textiles,” he says.

The Met Gala perfectly matched his outlook. “Being a theme about black culture and black cultural influence, I mean, how can you do that without Africa?” he asks.

Considering the link to Ghana, Boateng explains: “When we were colonised by the Europeans or the Brits, we kept our traditional dress, but tailoring was a big part of how we dressed to look more… effectively more European.

“My father always wore tailored suits. You had to be smart at all times, that was something I was taught.”

As if producing outfits for 16 celebrities for fashion’s premier event was not stressful enough, Boateng switched up Burna Boy’s outfit less than 24 hours before the event.

“We did his fitting quite literally the night before the Met Gala,” Boateng says, adding that everyone in the room got “really excited” when they saw the Grammy-award winning musician in the finished product.

The look – a red suit paired with a buttercup yellow shirt and eel-skin cape – was partly inspired by Burna Boy’s Nigerian roots.

The musician told Vogue: “As a waterside pikin [Pidgin for “child”] from the Niger Delta, the eel and fish in general are the lifeblood of my people – they symbolise survival, spirit and the flow of tradition through generations.”

The Met Gala was “not unusual”, Boateng says, explaining that Africa has been part of his “message” throughout his career.

Back in 1995, Boateng was the first black designer to open a shop on Savile Row, a London street famed for fine tailoring.

“When I first started as a designer, Savile as a street was a dying street,” Boateng recalls.

“The concept, it was dying. I effectively moved there in the early 90s and breathed new life into it.”

Boateng was dubbed the “peacock of Savile Row” – with his flamboyance, 6ft-something frame and modelesque facial features, he stood out among his neighbours.

Colour and flair had long been part of Boateng’s psyche. At five years old his favourite outfit was a purple, mohair suit made by his mother, who was a seamstress.

Young Boateng commandeered his mother’s sewing machine and although he initially chose to study computing at college, he switched to fashion after realising menswear was his future.

As a teenager, Boateng was greatly inspired by tailoring titan Giorgio Armani – and decades later, Armani would praise the London designer for his “elegance” and “cutting edge” designs.

Boateng opened his first studio in his early 20s, dressing the likes of Mick Jagger, Jimmy Paige and Spike Lee.

He then opened his Savile Row store – at the age of 28 he was the youngest to ever do so.

The burgeoning designer captivated London’s fashion scene initially, but in 1998 he went bankrupt when an economic downturn in east Asia scuppered a major order.

Both his professional and personal life descended into disarray – in just 12 months an entire collection was stolen from his studio and his marriage broke down.

But the peacock strutted his way back. Boateng gradually rebuilt his business and in 2002 moved into bigger premises on Savile Row.

Since then, he has served as Givency’s creative director for menswear, been awarded an OBE, designed staff uniforms for British Airways and branched out into womenswear.

While racking up professional and charitable commitments, Boateng was raising two children.

Now adults, Oscar and Emilia Boateng accompanied their father to the Met Gala, dressed in the suits that made their surname one of the most famous in contemporary British tailoring.

They are not, however, keen to follow their father into fashion design.

“I’m trying to slowly but surely seduce them into the fashion business,” Boateng jokes.

“It is ultimately their decision to decide what they want from their life. If they find something they’re passionate about in a way I have, I am happy.”

And what is next for his own passion? Boateng might have a brain brimming with concepts, but he has a clear vision of where he wants his brand to go next.

“The future is expansion,” he says, “raising capital to really, really push the brand globally”.

“I think it’s the moment in time – and it’s the right moment.”

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With a pair of bright pink tweezers in hand, Emma Teni is delicately wrestling a large and leggy spider in a small plastic pot.

“He’s posing,” the spider-keeper jests as it rears up on its back legs. It is exactly what she’s trying to achieve – that way she can suck the venom from its fangs using a small pipette.

Emma works from a tiny office known as the spider milking room. On a typical day, she milks – or extracts the venom from – 80 of these Sydney funnel-web spiders.

On three of the four walls there are floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked full of the arachnids, with a black curtain pulled across to keep them calm.

The remaining wall is actually a window. Through it, a small child stares, both fascinated and horrified, as Ms Teni works. Little do they know that the palm-sized spider she’s handling could kill them in a matter of minutes.

“Sydney funnel-webs are arguably the most deadly spider in the world,” Emma says matter-of-factly.

Australia is famously full of such deadly animals – and this room at the Australian Reptile Park plays a critical part in a government antivenom programme, which saves lives on a continent where it’s often joked that everything wants to kill you.

While the quickest recorded death from a Sydney funnel-web spider was a toddler at 13 minutes, the average is closer to 76 minutes – and first aid gives you an even better chance of surviving.

So successful is the antivenom programme here at the Australian Reptile Park that nobody has been killed by one since it started in 1981.

The scheme relies, however, on members of the public either catching the spiders or collecting their egg sacs.

In a van plastered with a giant crocodile sticker, each week Ms Teni’s team drives all over Australia’s most famous city, picking up Sydney funnel-webs that have been handed in at drop-off points such as local veterinary practices.

There are two reasons why these spiders are so dangerous, she explains: not only is their venom extremely potent, but they also live exclusively in a densely populated region where they’re more likely to encounter humans.

Handyman Charlie Simpson is one such person. He moved into his first home with his girlfriend a few months ago, and the keen gardener has already found two Sydney funnel-webs. He took the second spider to the vet, where Ms Teni picked it up shortly after.

“I had gloves on at the time, but realistically I should have had leather gloves on because their fangs are so big and strong,” the 26-year-old says.

“I [just thought] I had better catch it because I kept getting told you’re meant to take them back to be milked, because it’s so critical.”

“This is curing my fear of spiders,” he jokes.

As Ms Teni offloads one arachnid that was delivered to her in a Vegemite jar, she stresses her team isn’t telling Australians to go looking for the spiders and “throw themselves into danger”.

Rather, they’re asking that if someone comes across one, they safely capture it rather than kill it.

“Saying that this is the world’s most deadly spider and then [asking the public to] catch it and bring it to us does sound counter-intuitive,” she says.

“[But] that spider there now, thanks to Charlie, will… effectively save someone’s life.”

All of the spiders her team collects get brought back to the Australian Reptile Park where they are catalogued, sorted by sex and stored.

Any females that get dropped off are considered for a breeding programme, which helps supplement the number of spiders donated by the public.

Meanwhile, the males, which are six to seven times more toxic than the females, are used for the antivenom programme and milked every two weeks, Emma explains.

The pipette she uses to remove the venom from the fangs is attached to a suction hose – crucial for collecting as much venom as possible, since each spider provides only small amounts.

While a few drops is enough to kill, scientists need to milk 200 of these spiders to have enough to fill one vial of antivenom.

A marine biologist by training, Emma never expected to spend her days milking spiders. In fact, she started off working with seals.

But now she wouldn’t have it any other way. Emma loves all things arachnid, and goes under various nicknames – spider girl, spider mama, even “weirdo”, as her daughter calls her.

Friends, family and neighbours rely on her for her knowledge of Australia’s creepy crawlies.

“Some girls arrive home to flowers on their doorstep,” jokes Emma. “For me it’s not unusual to arrive home to a spider in a jar.”

Spiders represent just one small part of what the Australian Reptile Park does. It’s also been providing snake venom to the government since the 1950s.

According to the World Health Organisation, as many as 140,000 people die across the world from snake bites every year, and three times that many are left disabled.

In Australia though, those numbers are far lower: between one and four people each year, thanks to its successful antivenom programme.

Removing a King Brown snake from its storage locker, Billy Collett, the park’s operations manager, brings it to the table in front of him.

With his bare hands, he secures its head and puts its jaws over a shot glass covered in cling film.

“They are very uninclined to bite but once they go, you just see it pouring out of the fangs,” Mr Collett says, as yellow venom drips to the bottom.

“That is enough to kill all of us in the room five times over – maybe more.”

Then he switches to a more reassuring tone: “They’re not looking for people to bite. We’re too big for them to eat; they don’t want to waste their venom on us. They just want to be left alone.”

“To get bitten by a venomous snake, you’ve got to really annoy it, provoke it,” he adds, noting that bites often occur when someone is trying to kill one of the reptiles.

There’s a fridge in the corner of the room where the raw venom Mr Collett is collecting is stored. It’s full of vials labelled “Death Adder”, “Taipan”, “Tiger Snake” and “Eastern Brown”.

The last of these is the second-most venomous snake in the world, and the one that’s most likely to bite you here, in Australia.

This venom gets freeze-dried and sent to CSL Seqirus, a lab in Melbourne, where it’s turned into an antidote in a process that can take up to 18 months.

The first step is to produce what’s known as hyper-immune plasma. In the case of snakes, controlled doses of the venom are injected into horses, because they are larger animals with a strong immune system.

The venom of Sydney funnel-web spiders goes into rabbits, which are immune to the toxins. The animals are injected with increasing doses to build up their antibodies. In some cases, that step alone can take almost a year.

The animal’s supercharged plasma is removed from the blood, and then the antibodies are isolated from the plasma before they’re bottled, ready to be administered.

CSL Seqirus makes 7,000 vials a year – including snake, spider, stonefish and box jellyfish antivenoms – and they are valid for 36 months. The challenge then is to ensure everyone who needs it has supplies.

“It’s an enormous undertaking,” says Dr Jules Bayliss, who leads the antivenom development team at CSL Seqirus.

“First and foremost we want to see them in major rural and remote areas that these creatures are likely to be in.”

Vials are distributed depending on the species in each area. Taipans, for example, are in northern parts of Australia, so there’s no need for their antivenom in Tasmania.

Antivenom is also given to the Royal Flying Doctors, who access some of the nation’s most remote communities, as well as Australian navy and cargo ships for sailors at risk of sea snake bites.

Papua New Guinea also receives about 600 vials a year. The country was once connected to Australia by a land bridge, and shares many of the same snake species, so the Australian government gives the antivenom for free – snake diplomacy, if you like.

“To be honest, we probably have the most impact in Papua New Guinea, more so than Australia, because of the number of snake bites and deaths they have,” says CSL Seqirus executive Chris Larkin. To date, they reckon they’ve saved 2,000 lives.

Back at the park, Mr Collett jokes about the nickname of “danger noodles” that is sometimes given to his serpentine colleagues – a classic Australian trait of making light of something that gives so many visitors nightmares.

Mr Collett, though, is clear: these animals should not put people off from visiting.

“Snakes aren’t just cruising down the streets attacking Brits – it doesn’t work like that,” he jokes.

“If you’re going to get bitten by a snake, Australia’s the best place – we’ve got the best antivenom. It’s free. The treatment is unreal.”

The hackers behind a cyber-attack on Marks & Spencer (M&S) managed to gain entry through a third party who had access to its systems, the BBC understands.

The cyber-attack, which happened in April, has caused millions of pounds of lost sales for M&S and left it struggling to get services back to normal, with online orders paused for more than three weeks.

The supermarket declined to comment on the nature of the breach or these new details, saying “availability is now in a much more normal place with stores well stocked this weekend”.

DragonForce – the name the criminals are using – previously told the BBC it was behind the attack and was also responsible for hacking the Co-op and an attempted hack on Harrods.

M&S will announce its annual results on Wednesday, but the focus will all be on the devastating attack and its financial impact.

Bank of America analysts believe M&S has lost more than £40m of sales every week since the incident began over the Easter bank holiday weekend.

It announced on 25 April it had stopped taking online orders. Some stores were left with empty food shelves after the firm had to take some food-related systems offline.

On a precautionary basis, M&S decided to close down many of its IT operations following the attack, effectively locking itself out its core systems as it grappled to deal with the attack.

The biggest challenge is getting its online system fully operational again, which accounts for around a third of its clothing and homeware sales.

M&S told the BBC: “Our stores have remained open and availability is now in a much more normal place with stores well stocked this weekend.”

The retailer said on 13 May that some personal customer data was stolen in the cyber attack, which could include names, date of birth, phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, household information, and online order histories.

It added that any card information taken would not be useable as it does not hold full card payment details on its systems.

The Co-op, which the hackers previously told the BBC they had targeted, said on 30 April that it had shut down parts of its IT systems in response to the attack. The hack caused payment problems and widespread shortages of goods in shops, and customer and staff data was compromised.

It said on Wednesday that customers should see stocks return to more normal levels on Saturday and Sunday.

Ten prisoners, several of them facing murder charges, have escaped from a New Orleans jail and may have had help from staff inside the facility, authorities say.

The inmates are thought to have fled around midnight, and were discovered missing during a headcount at 08:30 local time (13:30 GMT) at the Orleans Parish Jail on Friday morning. One of the 10 has been recaptured.

“There’s no way for anyone to get out of this facility without help,” Sheriff Susan Huston said during a news conference.

The sheriff’s office posted photos showing how the inmates escaped, which included taunting messages apparently left by the escapees. “To Easy LoL,” one message read.

One inmate was apprehended in New Orleans’ French Quarter, police said. The other nine are considered “armed and dangerous”, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said, adding that a manhunt was continuing.

Louisiana State Police identified one escapee as Kendall Myles in central New Orleans through facial recognition technology after he was filmed on a surveillance camera.

He tried to flee on foot before being apprehended hiding underneath a car in a parking garage, police said.

He was transported back to the Orleans Parish Jail, and “is being rebooked at the facility for a new charge of Simple Escape”, it said in a statement.

The New Orleans Police Department has released the names and photographs of the other escapees in a post on X.

The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office initially said 11 prisoners had escaped from the facility, but the number was revised to 10 later on Friday.

Sheriff Hutson said the inmates yanked the sliding door from their jail cell off its tracks at 00:23 in the early hours of Friday morning (05:23 GMT).

They exited the jail about half an hour later after ripping a toilet from the wall and breaking metal bars around a hole in the wall that was used for piping.

They then climbed down a wall and ran across a highway, the sheriff said.

The sheriff’s office released images of the hole in the wall, which shows what the piping fixture looked like before the toilet was ripped out. The photos note that “there are clean cuts” on the metal bars, which facilitated their escape.

The photos also show messages on the wall apparently left behind by the inmates.

The photos show messages scrawled in pen, including “To Easy LoL” with an arrow pointing to the hole. It also shows a smiley face with its tongue out and another message, partially smudged, that appears to tell officers to catch the inmates when they can.

New Orleans police chief Anne Kirkpatrick said the prisoner escape was an “urgent and serious situation” and encouraged the public to report any suspicious activity.

Victims of some of the escapees have been notified, she said, adding that several are facing murder and other violent charges.

The inmates probably had help, Supt Kirkpatrick said, and are unlikely to still be wearing prison uniforms, warning that anyone who helped the inmates would be charged.

The FBI and US Marshals have also joined local police in the search, she added.

The Orleans Parish Jail is located near the centre of the city, around 3 km (2 miles) from the city’s famous French Quarter.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has given his strongest signal yet that a youth mobility scheme could form part of a new deal with the EU.

Speaking to the Times ahead of a summit on Monday between the bloc and the UK, he insisted such a scheme would not amount to a return to pre-Brexit freedom of movement.

While Sir Keir said it would be a “reciprocal” arrangement in which young people would be able to move abroad for up to two years, no specific details about the ages of those who could be eligible and whether there would be a cap on numbers were given.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has described the possible scheme as “free movement through the back door”.

“We’re not against youth mobility schemes. We’re against uncapped migration schemes,” she wrote on X.

Reform UK has echoed these sentiments. Its deputy leader, Richard Tice, said earlier this week such a scheme would be “the thin end” to EU free movement.

Sir Keir has denied these accusations, saying that Labour has a “red line in our manifesto about freedom of movement” and that “youth mobility is not freedom of movement”.

An agreement is expected to be announced at Monday’s summit, which is being held at London’s Lancaster House.

The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has been told that it will only be an agreement in principle, not the final deal.

She understands that the EU has been pushing for stays as long as four years, while the UK is not contemplating more than one or two.

Prior to Brexit, young people in the UK had the right to travel and study freely, without a visa, in the rest of Europe and vice versa. A new deal could see a return to a similar state of affairs.

The prime minister has pointed to reciprocal youth mobility schemes (YMS) that the UK already has with the likes of Australia – where people between the ages of 18 and 35 are allowed to work in each other’s countries.

The UK currently offers visas allowing young people from 12 non-EU countries including Japan, South Korea and Uruguay to study or work in the UK for up to two years. Those from Australia, Canada or New Zealand can extend by a further year.

These visas are subject to annual quotas, ranging from 100 visas for Andorra to 42,000 for Australia, with ballots held where they are oversubscribed.

The former Tory government last year rejected an EU offer that would have made it easier for people aged between 18 and 30 to study and work abroad in the wake of Brexit.

Labour at the time said it had “no plans for a youth mobility scheme” if it won the general election.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan told the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Friday that the current government was giving “mixed messages” and that he wanted to hear it “speaking in one voice and say they would like a youth mobility scheme”.

He said such a scheme would “put rocket boosters up businesses in London”, where there are gaps in sectors including hospitality, creative industries, health and social care.

The Liberal Democrats have also welcomed the idea of a new form of youth mobility scheme, with Europe spokesperson James MacCleary calling it a “welcome step in the right direction”.

He added: “This news is a glimmer of hope for young people who have been so badly let down by Brexit. The government now need to follow through.”

The UK’s European relations minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, publicly confirmed last week that the government was considering setting up a youth mobility scheme as part of a new partnership agreement with the EU.

He told the Financial Times that “a smart, controlled youth mobility scheme would of course have benefits for our young people” – provided the government’s red lines are respected.

Asked whether the UK might in the future consider re-joining the Erasmus student scheme, Thomas-Symonds said there were not currently plans to do so but added the government was “always open to listening to sensible proposals from the EU”.

Universities and students the BBC has spoken to recently say Brexit has made studying in the UK less attractive.

For example, since August 2021, new students from the EU generally have had to pay international fees and do not qualify for tuition fee loans.

As well as youth mobility, issues such as fishing rights are also expected to be discussed during Monday’s meeting – the first since Brexit.

Sir Keir described the upcoming talks as a “really significant moment”, saying they would help to create greater wealth for British people.

“Nobody wants to relitigate the last nine years and I think [the things] they will be most concerned about — am I going to be better off, is this going to help my living standards, is it going to make sure my job’s preserved, are there jobs in the future, is my community going to benefit from that? — that’ll be test number one,” he said.

Two British men accused of robbing a luxury jewellery store in Tokyo can be sent to Japan following a landmark ruling.

For almost a decade, Japanese authorities have pursued the extradition of Kaine Wright, 28, Joe Chappell, 38, and a third man over allegations they posed as customers to steal items worth £679,000 (¥106m) from a Harry Winston store.

On Friday, chief magistrate Judge Goldspring rejected Wright and Chappell’s challenges against extradition. Their case now passes to the home secretary to decide whether they should be sent to Japan.

No extradition treaty exists between the UK and Japan, meaning it would be the first time Japan have successfully received fugitives.

Japan’s initial request was rejected, but the High Court overturned the original decision following an appeal lodged by the Japanese government.

In Friday’s judgement – seen by the BBC – Wright, of Plumstead, and Chappell, of Belvedere, both in London, had raised concerns over prison conditions in Japan which they argued were “arbitrary, excessive and breach international standards”.

The Japanese government said the submissions were “fundamentally flawed both legally and factually”.

District Judge Goldspring, chief magistrate of England and Wales, found there was a “prima facie case” – enough evidence to support a charge at first glance – against Chappell and that extradition would be “compatible” with his and Wright’s human rights.

Friday’s ruling follows a recent High Court judgement that the Japanese government had a case to extradite Wright, Chappell and a third man named in papers as Daniel Kelly – who is Wright’s father.

Japan’s case against Kelly will be heard at the end of this month. He has not appeared in previous extradition hearings due to a conspiracy to murder case against him taking precedence.

Details from January’s High Court judgement state that the Japanese “relied upon a range of evidence” which demonstrated that Kelly, Wright and Chappell travelled to Tokyo around the time of the jewellery raid in November 2015.

CCTV captured all three arriving at Narita International Airport on 18 November 2015 and staying at “the Elm Share House”, Japanese authorities said.

Ch Insp Suzuki set out a record of the investigation to the High Court which indicated the trio “took taxis” to Harry Winston’s branch in Omotesando Hills.

In their efforts to escape, the trio left a number of items behind including an Armani jacket, he said.

Ch Insp Suzuki added: “Goggles were left at the shop and a jacket was left on the route the robbers took to flee from the scene.”

A professor at the Tokyo Dental College compared ePassport images taken at Narita Airport and compared it to CCTV stills of three men taken at the Harry Winston store.

“The possibility that two (or three) persons in the relevant comparison are the same is extremely high,” Ch Insp Suzuki said in his report, citing the professor’s “expert” findings.

As well as other DNA matches, Ch Insp Suzuki’s report referred to “expert evidence that glass shards found at the property where the three stayed that matched the glass in the display case at the jewellery shop”.

Findings in the reports were challenged at the High Court by lawyers representing Wright and Chappell.

The Japanese government said it would ensure that the three men would have the right to consult with a lawyer in private, have any interviews recorded and have the right not to answer any questions.

Wright, once a promising footballer on the books of West Ham United and Brentford, served time in prison after being convicted in 2023 of trying to sell a Ming vase which was stolen from a museum in Switzerland.

Subject to any further appeals, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper now has 28 days to decide whether to extradite Chappell and Wright or reject Japan’s request.

Three alleged Iranian spies have appeared in court charged with targeting UK-based journalists so that “serious violence” could be inflicted on them.

Mostafa Sepahvand, 39, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 55, all from London, appeared in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

They are accused of targeting individual journalists working for Iran International, an independent media organisation based in London.

The three defendants were granted temporary leave to remain in the UK after claiming asylum. They arrived in the UK between 2016 and 2022. Mr Sepahvand arrived in 2016 concealed in a lorry. The other two arrived in small boats.

The three men are charged with committing offences under the National Security Act between 2024 and this year. They were arrested two weeks ago.

They are charged with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service, namely that of Iran, in carrying out UK-related activities and knew or ought to have reasonably known their conduct was likely to assist a foreign intelligence service.

“Iran must be held to account for its actions,” Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement following Saturday’s charges.

She added: “We must also strengthen our powers to protect our national security as we will not tolerate growing state threats on our soil.”

Mr Sepahvand, of St John’s Wood, London is also charged with engaging in surveillance, reconnaissance and open-source research with the intention of committing serious violence against a person in the UK.

Mr Manesh, of Kensal Rise, London and Mr Noori, of Ealing, London are also charged with engaging in surveillance and reconnaissance with the intention that serious violence against a person in the UK would be committed by others.

A fourth man, 31, was arrested on 9 May as part of the investigation but was released without charge on Thursday, police said.

It is alleged the three men carried out surveillance with a view to locating journalists associated with Iran International.

Iran International produces coverage that is critical of the current regime in Iran and has been proscribed in Iran as a terrorist organisation.

The three defendants appeared in the dock wearing grey tracksuits flanked by eight guards. Mr Sepahvand was in a wheelchair.

No pleas were indicated by the men. District Judge Annabel Pilling remanded them in custody to appear the Old Bailey on 6 June.

Cdr Dominic Murphy, from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said the “extremely serious” charges made on Saturday come follow “a very complex and fast-moving investigation”.

He said detectives had been “working around the clock” since the men were arrested, and added that officers had been “in contact with the individuals directly affected”.

Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS special crime and counter terrorism division, said: “It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

The arrest of the three men on 3 May came on the same day that five other Iranian men were detained in London, Stockport, Rochdale and Manchester by police as part of a separate counter-terrorism investigation.

One of those men was later released on bail until an unspecified date in May, while police obtained further detention orders for the four others until Saturday.

The other four Iranian nationals were released from custody on Saturday, with Cdr Murphy saying “our investigation remains active and ongoing”.

The police have stressed that they were not treating the two investigations as linked.

Swiss authorities say they have rescued everyone who was buried in a “severe” avalanche that occurred on the Eiger mountain on Saturday, and that there are no missing people.

The avalanche at the Swiss Alps took place shortly after midday on Saturday, prompting police to launch a large-scale rescue operation.

“All people have been flown out,” Bern Cantonal police said on Saturday evening, without specifying the number. Authorities had deployed several teams.

The Eiger is a 3,967m (13,000 ft) peak near the tourist resorts of Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, and Wengen.

The north face of the Eiger is famous among mountaineers and it has a reputation as one of the world’s most challenging climbs.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” So supposedly said the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The diplomatic whirlwind that has surrounded US President Donald Trump this week suggests the old Bolshevik might have been onto something.

For the protectionist president, who promises always to put America First, has in recent days instead been busy bestriding the world stage.

He and his team have done business deals in the Gulf; lifted sanctions on Syria; negotiated the release of a US citizen held by Hamas; ended military strikes on Houthi fighters in Yemen; slashed American tariffs on China; ordered Ukraine to hold talks with Russia in Turkey; continued quiet negotiations with Iran over a nuclear deal; and even claimed responsibility for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan…

The pace has been breathless, leaving allies and opponents alike struggling to catch up as the US diplomatic bandwagon hurtled from issue to issue.

“Just, wow!” remarked one London-based ambassador. “It is almost impossible to stay on top of everything that’s going on.”

So what going on? What have we learned in this frantic week about the US president’s emerging foreign policy? Is there something approaching a Trump doctrine – or is this just a coincidental confluence of global events?

A good place to start, perhaps, is the president’s visit to the Gulf where he set out – in word and deed – his vision for a world of interstate relations based on trade, not war. In a speech in Riyadh, Trump said he wanted “commerce not chaos” in the Middle East, a region that “exports technology not terrorism”.

His was a prospect of a breezy, pragmatic mercantilism where nations did business deals to their mutual benefit, a world where profit can bring peace.

As he enjoyed the flattery of his Saudi hosts and the obeisance of visiting dignitaries, the president signed – with his fat felt tip pen – deals that the White House claimed represented $600bn of investment in the US.

This was Trump in all his pomp; applauded and rewarded with immediate wins he could sell back home as good for American jobs.

Some diplomats privately questioned the value of the various memorandums of understanding. But the show, they said, was more important than the substance.

Absent from Trump’s speech was any mention of possible collective action by the US and other countries; no talk of multilateral cooperation against the threat of climate change, no concerns about challenges to democratic or human rights in the region. This was a discourse almost entirely without reference to ideology or values except to dismiss their significance.

Rather, he used his speech to Saudi leaders to make his clearest argument yet against Western interventionism of the past, attacking what he called “the so-called nation-builders and neo-cons” for “giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs”.

To the applause of his Arab audience, he said these “Western interventionists” had “wrecked more nations than they built”, adding: “Far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use US policy to dispense justice for their sins.

“I believe it’s God’s job to sit in judgement. My job is to defend America.”

That reluctance to intervene was on show in recent days when it came to the fighting between India and Pakistan. In the past, the US has often played a key role seeking to end military confrontations in the subcontinent. But the Trump White House was initially cautious about getting involved.

Vice-President JD Vance told Fox News the fighting was “fundamentally none of our business… We can’t control these countries”.

In the end, both he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio did make calls, putting pressure on both nuclear powers to de-escalate. So too did other countries.

When the ceasefire was agreed, Trump claimed US diplomacy had brokered the deal. But that was flatly dismissed by Indian diplomats who insisted it was a bilateral truce.

The centrality of Trump to US foreign policy has also become apparent this week. This is more than just a simple truism. On show was the lack of involvement of other parts of the US government that traditionally help shape US decision-making overseas.

Take the president’s extraordinary decision to meet Syria’s new president and former jihadist, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and lift sanctions on Syria. This showed the potential advantage of having foreign policy in one man’s hands: it was a decisive and bold step. And it was clearly the president’s personal decision, after heavy lobbying by both Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

It was seen by some diplomats as the quid pro quo for the diplomatic fawning and investment deals Trump received in Riyadh. Not only did the decision surprise many in the region but it also surprised many in the American government.

Diplomats said the State Department was reluctant to lift sanctions, wanting to keep some leverage over the new Syrian government, fearful it was not doing enough to protect minorities and tackle foreign fighters.

Diplomats say this pattern of impulsive decision-making without wider internal government discussion is common in the White House. The result, they say, is not always positive.

This is due, in part, to Trump’s lack of consistency (or put simply, changing his mind).

Take the decision this week to do a deal with China to cut tariffs on trade with the US. A few weeks ago Trump imposed 145% tariffs on Beijing, with blood thirsty warnings against retaliation. The Chinese retaliated, the markets plunged, American businesses warned of dire consequences.

So in Geneva, US officials climbed down and most tariffs against China were cut to 30%, supposedly in return for some increased US access to Chinese markets. This followed a now-familiar pattern: issue maximalist demands, threaten worse, negotiate, climb down and declare victory.

The problem is that this “art of a deal” strategy might work on easily reversible decisions such as tariffs. It is harder to apply to longer term diplomatic conundrums such as war.

Take Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On this, Trump’s policy has been fluid, to put it mildly. And this week was a case in point.

Last Saturday the leaders of the UK, France, Poland and Germany visited Kyiv to put on a show of support for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. And in a group call with Trump on French President Emmanuel Macron’s phone, they spelled out their strategy of demanding Russia agree an immediate 30-day ceasefire or face tougher sanctions.

This was Trump’s policy too. The day before he wrote on social media: “If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions.” But then on Sunday, President Vladimir Putin suggested instead there should be direct talks between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey on Thursday. Trump immediately went along with this, backtracking on the strategy he had agreed with European leaders a day earlier.

“Ukraine should agree to (these talks) immediately,” he wrote on social media. “I am starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin.”

Then on Thursday, Trump changed his position again, saying a deal could be done only if he and Putin were to meet in person.

This puzzles some diplomats. “Does he genuinely not know what he wants to do about the war in Ukraine?” one remarked to me. “Or does he just grasp at what might offer the quickest resolution possible?”

Into this puzzling mix fell two other decisions this week. First, Trump agreed a ceasefire after a campaign bombing Houthi fighters in Yemen for almost two months. There have been questions about the effectiveness of the hugely expensive air strikes, and the president’s appetite for a long military operation. He repeatedly told his Arab hosts how much he disliked war.

Second, Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, held his fourth round of talks with Iran over efforts to curb their nuclear ambitions. Both sides are hinting that a deal is possible, although sceptics fear it could be quite modest. Talk of joint US-Israeli military action against Iran seems to have dissipated.

What unites both issues is that the United States was acting directly against the wishes of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu may have been the first world leader invited to the Oval Office after Trump’s inauguration, but in recent days, he seems to have been snubbed. Trump toured the Middle East without visiting Israel; he lifted sanctions on Syria without Israel’s support. His Houthi ceasefire came only days after the group attacked Tel Aviv airport.

Diplomats fear Netanyahu’s reaction. Could the spurned prime minister respond with a more aggressive military operation in Gaza?

So after this week of diplomatic hurly burly, how much has changed? Perhaps less than might appear.

For all the glitz of Trump’s tour through the Middle East, the fighting and humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues unresolved. A fresh Israeli offensive seems imminent. One of Trump’s chief aims – the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia – remains distant.

For all the talks about ending the war in Ukraine, there is no greater likelihood of the guns falling silent. Putin’s ambitions seem unchanged. And for all the deals to cut US tariffs, either with the UK or China, there is still huge global market instability.

We do have a clearer idea of Trump’s global ideology, one that is not isolationist but mercantilist, hoping optimistically that capitalism can overcome conflict. We also have a clearer idea of his haste, his desire to clear his diplomatic decks – in the Middle East, Ukraine and the subcontinent – so he can focus on his primary concern, namely China.

But that may prove an elusive ambition. If there are weeks when decades happen, there are also weeks when nothing happens.

Donald Trump says he will be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Monday about ending the war in Ukraine, saying the call would be about “stopping the ‘bloodbath'”.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the call would take place at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT) and he would then speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the leaders of some Nato countries.

Russia and Ukraine were unable to reach any breakthrough when they held their first face-to-face talks in three years in Istanbul on Friday, although a prisoner swap was agreed.

Trump had offered to attend the talks in Turkey if Putin would also be there, but the Russian president declined to go.

Trump’s comments come after he suggested progress on ending the war would only happen if he and Putin held face-to-face talks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Russian news agencies that preparations were under way for a call between Putin and Trump on Monday. The two leaders have held a phone call before on the topic.

“The conversation is in the works,” Peskov told Tass news agency.

Trump had said on Truth Social: “Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end.”

European leaders have been calling for Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in the conflict.

The US and Russian leaders are expected to discuss a ceasefire, as well as the possible summit between themselves.

Moscow has moved slower than Trump would like, but it welcomed the American efforts at mediation, in a call on Saturday between the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Following the talks in Istanbul, Ukraine also reiterated its call for a full and unconditional ceasefire.

According to a Ukrainian official, the Kremlin had made “new and unacceptable demands including insisting Kyiv withdraw its troops from large parts of its own territory”, he said, in exchange for a ceasefire.

The head of the Russian delegation, Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, said they were satisfied with the talks and ready to continue contact.

Hours later, a Russian drone hit a passenger bus in the Sumy region, killing nine people – prompting Zelensky to demand stiffer sanctions on Moscow.

He said the attack on the bus was “a deliberate killing of civilians”. Russia has not commented, but state media reported that forces had hit a “military staging area” in Sumy province.

Hamas has proposed releasing more hostages under a new Gaza ceasefire deal in a fresh round of negotiations with Israel, which comes after Israel’s military launched a major new offensive.

Hamas has agreed to release nine hostages in exchange for a 60-day truce and Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners, an official told the BBC.

Israel is yet to respond to the proposal, but said prior to the talks in Qatar on Saturday that it would not withdraw troops from Gaza or commit to an end to the war.

Israel’s military announced the launch of a new operation on Saturday amid the deadliest wave of strikes in the territory in months, where hundreds have died.

At least 300 people have been killed in air strikes across Gaza since Thursday, say rescuers, including more than 200 people in Gaza’s north in the past 48 hours, said the Hamas-run civil defence force.

Thousands have died since Israel resumed strikes into Gaza on 18 March, following the collapse of a fragile ceasefire which lasted two months. The humanitarian crisis in the territory has also worsened, say aid agencies, as Israel has blocked supplies of food and other aid from entering the territory for 10 weeks.

Strikes this week have hit hospitals and refugee camps in the north and south of the territory. Hamas and Israel began a new round of talks through Qatari and US mediators in Doha on Saturday afternoon local time.

A senior Palestinian official familiar with negotiations said the new proposed deal reinstates the previous humanitarian protocol, including the entry of 400 aid trucks daily and the evacuation of medical patients from Gaza.

Israel, in turn, has demanded proof of life and detailed information about all remaining hostages.

The new deal will also not include an explicit end to the war, nor any commitment by Israel to withdraw from Gaza, the BBC understands.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month promised a major military escalation in the war to occupy and control swathes of Gaza, force the Palestinian population to the south of the territory and “destroy” Hamas.

• Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu’s plan risks dividing Israel, killing Palestinians and horrifying world
• ‘My children go to sleep hungry,’ Gazans tell the BBC

On Saturday morning,the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) then declared the start of a new offensive called “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”.

A journalist in the territory, Ghada Al Qurd, told the BBC Newshour programme there had been lots of “airstrikes, shellings, drones, shooting and even exploding, in the north and east.

“It’s terrifying and horrible,” she said of Israel’s new operation.

She said her family had only been having one meal a day, because it is limited and expensive.

“They are using food as a weapon,” she said.

The IDF on Saturday said it wouldn’t stop operating “until Hamas is no longer a threat and all our hostages are home” and that it had “struck over 150 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in 24 hours.

Thousands of Israeli troops, including soldiers and reservists, could enter Gaza as the operation ramps up in the coming days. Israeli tanks have also been seen at the border, Reuters news agency reported.

The intensified offensive has been condemned by the UN and some European leaders.

Commissioner-General of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) Philippe Lazzarini expressed shock at Israel’s military operation, saying: “How many more Palestinian lives will be wiped off from their homeland by bombardments, hunger or lack of medical care?”

“Atrocities are becoming a new norm, under our watch, making the unbearable bearable with indifference,” he said.

Following the new strikes, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani all called for a permanent ceasefire, while Germany’s Foreign Ministry said the new offensive risked “worsening the catastrophic humanitarian situation for Gaza’s population and the remaining hostages”.

Israel’s ramped-up military offensive has also come as aid agencies have warned about the risk of famine among Gaza’s 2.1 million population.

Israel has blocked food and other supplies from being delivered into the Strip following the breakdown of the ceasefire in March.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people were starving” in Gaza. The Israeli government has repeatedly rejected claims there is a food shortage in Gaza.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said on 5 May that Israel was preparing an “intense entry into Gaza” to capture and hold territory, but that it would not commence until US President Donald Trump completed his tour of the Middle East. Trump left the region on Friday.

That day, residents in across northern and central Gaza were told to leave their homes or places of shelter – an order aid workers say is almost impossible because many have already been repeatedly made homeless during the war.

Strikes on Saturday hit towns in the north of Gaza, including Beit Lahiya and the Jabalia refugee camp, as well as in the southern city of Khan Younis, the Hamas-run health ministry and civil defence forces said.

Strikes this week have also hit near hospitals in the Strip.

Victoria Rose, a British reconstructive surgeon working at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that her team were “exhausted” and staff had lost a “considerable amount of weight”.

“The children are really thin,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of youngsters whose teeth have fallen out.

“A lot of them have quite significant burn injuries and with this level of malnutrition they’re so much more prone to infection and they’ve got so much less capacity to heal.”

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. Hamas still holds 58 hostages.

At least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, including more than 3,000 people since March.

Tucked away in a lane in the southern end of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is a museum dedicated to the followers of one of the world’s oldest religions, Zoroastrianism.

The Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum documents the history and legacy of the ancient Parsi community – a small ethnic group that’s fast dwindling and resides largely in India.

Now estimated at just 50,000 to 60,000, the Parsis are believed to be descendants of Persians who fled religious persecution by Islamic rulers centuries ago.

Despite their significant contributions to India’s economic and cultural fabric, much about the Parsi community remains little known to the mainstream population and the wider world.

“The newly-renovated museum hopes to shake off some of this obscurity by inviting people to explore the history, culture and traditions of the Parsi community through the rare historical artefacts on display,” says Kerman Fatakia, curator of the museum.

Some of these include cuneiform bricks, terracotta pots, coins and other objects sourced from places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Susa and Iran and are dated to 4000-5000 BCE.

These are places where Zoroastrian Iranian kings once ruled, like the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties.

There are also artefacts from Yazd, a city in central Iran which was once a barren desert and the place where many Zoroastrians settled after fleeing other regions of Iran after the Arab invasion in 7th Century BCE.

One of the notable artefacts on display is a replica of a clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, a Persian king who was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

Fatakia says the clay cylinder – also known as the “Edict of Cyrus” or the “Cyrus Cylinder” – is one of the most important discoveries of the ancient world. Inscribed in cuneiform script, it outlines the rights granted by Cyrus to his subjects in Babylon. Widely seen as the first human rights charter, a replica is also displayed at the United Nations.

Then there are maps that trace the migration routes of thousands of Iranian Zoroastrians who fled their home country fearing persecution and travelled to India in the 8th to10th centuries, and again in the 19th century.

The collection also features furniture, manuscripts, paintings, and portraits of prominent Parsis – among them Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the iconic Tata Group, which owns brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley tea.

Another striking section showcases artefacts collected by Parsis who grew wealthy in the early 19th century trading tea, silk, cotton – and notably, opium – with China. The exhibits include traditional Parsi sarees influenced by designs from China, France, and other regions shaped by these global trade ties.

Two of the museum’s most compelling exhibits are replicas of a Tower of Silence and a Parsi fire temple.

The Tower of Silence, or dakhma, is where Parsis leave their dead to be returned to nature – neither buried nor cremated. “The replica shows exactly what happens to the body once it’s placed there,” says Fatakia, noting that entry to actual towers is restricted to a select few.

The life-size replica of the fire temple is equally fascinating, offering a rare glimpse into a sacred space typically off-limits to non-Parsis. Modelled on a prominent Mumbai temple, it features sacred motifs inspired by ancient Persian architecture in Iran.

The Alpaiwala Museum, originally founded in 1952 in what was then Bombay, is one of the city’s older institutions. Recently renovated, it now features modern displays with well-captioned exhibits in glass cases. Every visitor is offered a guided tour.

“It’s a small museum but it is packed with history,” Fatakia says.

“And it’s a great place for not just the residents of Mumbai or India to learn more about the Parsi community but for people from all over the world.”

Former US President Joe Biden struggled to recall key milestones from his own life during an interview two years ago with a justice department investigator, according to audio.

A recording obtained by political outlet Axios shows the Democrat appeared to have trouble remembering the year he left office as vice-president, or the date of his son Beau’s death.

White House aides at the time denied the president had such memory lapses. Biden was questioned by Special Counsel Robert Hur’s team about why he had kept classified documents at his home and former office.

The prosecutor ultimately decided not to charge the president despite finding he had retained classified material.

In a February 2024 report that provoked the ire of the White House and Democrats, Hur had described Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

The audio is an excerpt from interviews on two days in October 2023. The Biden justice department previously made available the transcripts following the release of the special counsel’s report in February 2024.

It is not clear how Axios obtained the recording, but President Donald Trump’s administration has been planning to release the full interview.

The Biden administration refused to release the tape last year, calling it “constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials” and arguing that Republicans wanted to “manipulate” it for “potential political gain”.

The Hur report’s release was a difficult moment for Biden at the beginning of his re-election campaign, and highlighted one of his biggest political weaknesses – voter concerns about his age and lucidity.

The then-president hit back at the time, insisting: “My memory is fine”.

A new book alleges the White House covered up Biden’s condition, which was said to be so poor last year that aides discussed putting him in a wheelchair.

He was also unable to recognise Hollywood actor George Clooney or recall the names of key aides, according to Original Sin, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.

In a trial that is undoing the legacy of one of music’s biggest moguls of the 2000s, the focus of the opening week of proceedings was not Sean “Diddy” Combs himself – but his ex-girlfriend.

R&B singer Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura took the witness stand for four days, describing in emotional details the years of beatings and drug-fuelled sex encounters with prostitutes that she alleges she endured at the hands of the rap superstar, who she dated for more than a decade.

But while her story clearly left an impression on those in the courtroom, which one onlooker described as an “aura of sadness”, it is just one piece in the puzzle that prosecutors must present to prove that Mr Combs was not just an abuser, but a mastermind of a criminal, sexual enterprise.

On Tuesday, gasps erupted in a Manhattan overflow courtroom when prosecutors called Ms Ventura – their star witness – to the stand. All eyes were fixed on the eight-months pregnant singer, as she strolled past her ex-boyfriend, whom she had not seen in six years.

Ms Ventura was there to testify in the federal sex trafficking, racketeering and prostitution case against Mr Combs, whom she accuses of abusing her and coercing her into unwanted sex acts – so-called “freak-offs” – during their 11-and-a-half year relationship.

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Mr Combs is charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution – all of which he has vehemently denied.

Surrounded by his children and dozens of family and friends, Mr Combs has watched Ms Ventura from his chair at the defence table just a few dozen feet away.

All the while, US District Judge Arun Subramanian has pushed attorneys to stay on schedule, as prosecutors have expressed worry their star witness could go into labour with her third child as soon as this weekend.

On her first day on the stand, Ms Ventura began by taking prosecutors through the start of her tumultuous relationship with Mr Combs, whom she met when she was a 19-year-old aspiring musician. Mr Combs, 17 years her senior, signed her onto his record label.

Their romantic relationship began soon after, when Ms Ventura fell in love with the “larger-than-life” musician and entrepreneur, she said. But it was not long before she noticed a “different” side to him, Ms Ventura testified, at times wiping the tears from her eyes.

Mr Combs, she said, wanted to control every aspect of her life. He paid for her rent, her car, and her phone, sometimes taking the items away to “punish” her when he was upset, she said.

Eventually, the relationship turned violent. She testified about the time when he attacked her because she was sleeping, slashing her eyebrow as he threw her onto the corner of her bed as her two friends tried to stop him. The court was shown a photo of the gash that Ms Ventura said Mr Combs hired a plastic surgeon to fix secretly. There was another time at a party where he kicked her head as she cowered behind a toilet in a bathroom stall, she said.

While jurors remained concentrated on her testimony and the evidence, betraying little emotion, some in the courtroom wiped away tears or looked away from the graphic photos and videos – including the viral video of Mr Combs beating and dragging Ms Ventura in the hallway of the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016.

Published by CNN last year, the video has been viewed by millions – including many of the jurors before they were seated in the trial – and Ms Ventura, who was forced to rewatch the incident of abuse several times this week.

Ms Ventura testified that the hotel incident took place after she tried to leave a “freak-off”, a sexual encounter in which the couple would hire male escorts to have sex with Ms Ventura while Mr Combs watched and recorded from the corner.

Ms Ventura said the rapper introduced her to freak-offs around a year into their relationship, and at first, she did it to make him happy.

But over time, the encounters humiliated her, she said. They would sometimes last as long as four days, and require Ms Ventura to take countless drugs to stay awake, she said. She endured injuries like painful urinary tract infections – and once even blacked out, waking up in the shower, she said.

“It made me feel worthless,” she told the court. “Freak-offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again.”

The couple would go on to have “hundreds” of freak-offs, Ms Ventura estimated.

After years of temporary break-ups – some fuelled by Mr Combs’ affairs – Ms Ventura ended her relationship with Mr Combs for good in 2018, the same year she alleges the rapper raped her in her home as she cried.

Ms Ventura went on to date and marry her personal trainer, Alex Fine, with whom she has two children, but the trauma of her relationship has stayed with her.

Through tears, Ms Ventura told the court of a time two years ago when she considered taking her own life, when traumatic flashbacks of her time with Mr Combs became too much to handle. Her husband helped her seek therapy to recover, she said.

Get all the latest trial updates on the BBC Sounds ‘Diddy on Trial’ podcast available wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Throughout Ms Ventura’s harrowing story of domestic violence, prosecutors have tried to thread in elements of their larger sex trafficking and racketeering case against Mr Combs.

Mr Combs’s attorneys have already conceded that the rapper was abusive – and have argued they would not have fought a domestic violence case against him. But, “domestic violence is not sex trafficking”, Mr Combs’ attorney Teny Geragos argued this week.

The federal government has charged Mr Combs with transportation to engage in prostitution and sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.

He is also charged with leading a racketeering conspiracy, or directing an illegal enterprise under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The statute was created to take on mob bosses, but has since been used in other cases, including sex trafficking, such as the case against disgraced R&B singer R Kelly.

Assistant US Attorney Emily Johnson used parts of Ms Ventura’s story to boost this case, asking her about the guns the rapper had access to and the ways he allegedly blackmailed her.

Ms Ventura told the court of a time when she said Mr Combs pulled up videos he recorded of their freak-offs on his laptop, in view of others on a commercial flight. She said he told her he would release them if she didn’t behave.

“I felt trapped,” Ms Ventura said.

Arick Fudali, a lawyer who represents an unnamed victim in the government’s case against Mr Combs, said “the fear of what would happen if they didn’t comply” is a crucial element of the government’s case.

“Someone can consent to a sexual act of course,” Mr Fudali told the BBC. “But someone can also be coerced into being compliant, and that’s different.”

The government has also used Ms Ventura’s testimony to try to build up their racketeering argument – the allegation that Mr Combs used his loyal network of associates to run a criminal enterprise and cover up his alleged crimes.

Prosecutors have asked Ms Ventura about security guards who she said stood by while Mr Combs abused her. Ms Ventura has testified about Mr Combs’ employees’ involvement in setting up freak-offs with supplies like baby oil, and booking travel for the male escorts they hired.

After a day and a half on the stand, it was Mr Combs’ attorneys turn to question Ms Ventura.

The rapper’s lawyer, Anna Estevao, relied on hundreds of pages of text messages between Mr Combs and Ms Ventura to help push her team’s broader arguments: that Ms Ventura was a willing participant in freak-offs in a toxic relationship fuelled by drugs and jealousy.

Mr Combs’ legal team showed messages from Ms Ventura to Mr Combs in which she said she was “always ready” for a freak-off, and another time when she said she wished they could have had one.

Ms Ventura acknowledged writing the messages while adding that those were “just words at that point”.

Ms Estevao also kept bringing Ms Ventura back to the couple’s moments of infidelity, like when Mr Combs would spend holidays with his family and former girlfriend Kim Porter, or when Ms Ventura began dating rapper Kid Cudi while she and Mr Combs were on a break.

She repeatedly asked Ms Ventura about her drug use and how both she and Mr Combs struggled with opioid addiction at times.

In these moments, the defence was trying to show jurors that it was a toxic, violent and complicated relationship – but not a case of racketeering or sex trafficking, former federal prosecutor Sarah Krissoff told the BBC.

The defence also made efforts to try to chip away at the government’s racketeering case, asking Ms Ventura whether Mr Combs’ employees had actually witnessed the freak-offs, to which Ms Ventura said she did not think so.

Ultimately, Mr Fudali said, the prosecution’s case will hinge on this question of compliance versus consent – whether Mr Combs’ girlfriends were willing participants in his sexual fantasies or acted out of fear.

“Did Ms Ventura consent or was she coerced into complying?” Mr Fudali said. “That seems to be the question for the jury.”

An extraordinary thing happened to me on a recent flight to Madrid: I unwittingly travelled under the wrong identity, becoming a potential security issue, and no-one realised.

I was packing for a short business trip to make a film for the BBC when I attempted to check-in online. It didn’t work, so I headed to London Heathrow Airport to do it in person.

Upon arrival there, I tried once again to check myself in, this time at a self-service booth. Again I was denied, the machine flashing up an error code: “Assistance required.”

I ended up at a check-in desk and after checking in my bag, a British Airways staff member handed me a boarding pass. Admittedly I didn’t read the pass in any detail, but headed off to get processed in the security area as normal.

At the gate, I was among the first passengers to board flight BA7055 departing at 10:50 on 23 April, operated by BA’s Spanish partner carrier Iberia, as I was in row six.

Dutifully, I handed my passport and boarding pass to a member of BA ground crew, who glanced at them both and waved me through.

Once on board I realised my seat was in business class. I assumed this must have been a free upgrade, because I would of course usually have been in economy; we had chosen this flight because it was the most cost-effective option with all our filming equipment.

No sooner were we off the tarmac and at cruising altitude than the delicious baked cod and chickpea stew lunch was served. Tiramisu for dessert, too. No complimentary alcohol for me though; it was a work trip.

It was on arrival in the Spanish capital when things started to go wrong.

As soon as I gained mobile signal on the ground, an email popped up: my return flight had been cancelled.

I asked the BBC’s travel provider what had happened and what the plan was for getting me home?

In response, the travel company said it had been cancelled because I was a no-show on the outbound flight.

I explained that I was in fact very much in Madrid and waiting – endlessly, it seemed – to collect my checked luggage from the baggage belt.

After some no doubt confusing conversations between our travel team and BA, I received a further message to say the airline was adamant I had not travelled and that the boarding pass in my possession did not display the correct details.

This was when I realised that the name on my boarding pass was not mine, it was a man called Huw H. The BBC is not using Huw H’s full name, which was printed on the pass.

His name was also printed on my luggage tags.

BA claimed there was no way I could have travelled using that document as security checks wouldn’t allow it – but I did. My colleague, who was seated a few rows behind me, can vouch for me being on that plane.

The airline was so sure that I was not in Madrid that the BBC had to book me another seat on the flight home I was originally booked onto, at great expense. BA has since offered a £500 goodwill voucher as well as refunding the cost of the extra ticket.

The security protocol for passengers boarding flights is relatively simple: ground crew must check the name on the boarding pass matches that on the passport presented.

This process appears to have broken down in my case – with no-one at check-in or the boarding gate identifying the discrepancy between the name on the boarding pass and my passport.

So what went wrong, and who is Huw H? I tried to find out.

Some internet sleuthing brought limited proof of Huw H’s existence. I made a few attempts to contact accounts using his full name via various social media channels, to no avail. It’s made me fear that he might not even exist.

I did manage to get in touch with someone with a similar name – Jonathan Huw H – who, it turns out, flew on a BA flight on 24 April, a day after mine, landing at Heathrow, so is it possible his name was somehow floating around in the BA system? “It’s really worrying,” Jonathan told me.

My married name, which was on my booking confirmation and passport, begins with the letter H – though is very different to Huw H’s surname. Could this have factored in?

It’s impossible to know, and BA cannot confirm anything for privacy reasons.

Simon Calder, travel correspondent at the Independent, said it was to be expected that mistakes will sometimes happen “in the high-pressure, deadline-strewn world of aviation”.

But he added: “This case is unusual in that the error wasn’t picked up at the departure gate, where it could have been easily rectified.

“The airline needs urgently to investigate and make amends.”

Aviation security and operations expert Julian Bray added: “There is a security issue here, in that the plane took off with an incorrect passenger manifest.

“It is wrong and shouldn’t have happened. The passenger manifest should be correct as it is an important document that shows who is travelling and where. That said, as the name on the baggage tag matched the one on the boarding pass and the correct number of people were on board when the plane took off, I can see how it happened.”

Others would argue that it was not a security risk, though, because both myself and my luggage went through all the usual security checks.

A spokesperson for BA, which managed my ticket as well as the Heathrow ground crew in my case, said: “We’ve contacted our customer to apologise for this genuine human error. While incidents like this are extremely rare, we’ve taken proactive steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority has told me it has launched an investigation into what happened.

Heathrow Airport said in response to a request for comment that it was not responsible for the ground crew or anything else in my case, and security screening went ahead as normal.

Iberia, whose only involvement in my journey was operating the outbound plane and cabin crew, has not responded to a request for comment. As is nothing out of the ordinary, my passport and boarding pass were not manually checked on the plane.

Apologies and investigations aside, the question remains how this was ever possible in this day and age of high security.

On social media there are threads about this type of thing happening around the world in the past, but the mistake was rectified before take-off as there were two people trying to sit in the same seat.

What happened to me appears to be different as my name was seemingly replaced with someone who seemingly wasn’t travelling to Spain that day.

I’m not sure I’ll ever really know what happened, but one thing is for sure – I won’t ever walk away from a check-in desk without reading every detail printed on my boarding pass in future.

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.

• What time does the Eurovision 2025 final start and who is in it?

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”.

With a pair of bright pink tweezers in hand, Emma Teni is delicately wrestling a large and leggy spider in a small plastic pot.

“He’s posing,” the spider-keeper jests as it rears up on its back legs. It is exactly what she’s trying to achieve – that way she can suck the venom from its fangs using a small pipette.

Emma works from a tiny office known as the spider milking room. On a typical day, she milks – or extracts the venom from – 80 of these Sydney funnel-web spiders.

On three of the four walls there are floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked full of the arachnids, with a black curtain pulled across to keep them calm.

The remaining wall is actually a window. Through it, a small child stares, both fascinated and horrified, as Ms Teni works. Little do they know that the palm-sized spider she’s handling could kill them in a matter of minutes.

“Sydney funnel-webs are arguably the most deadly spider in the world,” Emma says matter-of-factly.

Australia is famously full of such deadly animals – and this room at the Australian Reptile Park plays a critical part in a government antivenom programme, which saves lives on a continent where it’s often joked that everything wants to kill you.

While the quickest recorded death from a Sydney funnel-web spider was a toddler at 13 minutes, the average is closer to 76 minutes – and first aid gives you an even better chance of surviving.

So successful is the antivenom programme here at the Australian Reptile Park that nobody has been killed by one since it started in 1981.

The scheme relies, however, on members of the public either catching the spiders or collecting their egg sacs.

In a van plastered with a giant crocodile sticker, each week Ms Teni’s team drives all over Australia’s most famous city, picking up Sydney funnel-webs that have been handed in at drop-off points such as local veterinary practices.

There are two reasons why these spiders are so dangerous, she explains: not only is their venom extremely potent, but they also live exclusively in a densely populated region where they’re more likely to encounter humans.

Handyman Charlie Simpson is one such person. He moved into his first home with his girlfriend a few months ago, and the keen gardener has already found two Sydney funnel-webs. He took the second spider to the vet, where Ms Teni picked it up shortly after.

“I had gloves on at the time, but realistically I should have had leather gloves on because their fangs are so big and strong,” the 26-year-old says.

“I [just thought] I had better catch it because I kept getting told you’re meant to take them back to be milked, because it’s so critical.”

“This is curing my fear of spiders,” he jokes.

As Ms Teni offloads one arachnid that was delivered to her in a Vegemite jar, she stresses her team isn’t telling Australians to go looking for the spiders and “throw themselves into danger”.

Rather, they’re asking that if someone comes across one, they safely capture it rather than kill it.

“Saying that this is the world’s most deadly spider and then [asking the public to] catch it and bring it to us does sound counter-intuitive,” she says.

“[But] that spider there now, thanks to Charlie, will… effectively save someone’s life.”

All of the spiders her team collects get brought back to the Australian Reptile Park where they are catalogued, sorted by sex and stored.

Any females that get dropped off are considered for a breeding programme, which helps supplement the number of spiders donated by the public.

Meanwhile, the males, which are six to seven times more toxic than the females, are used for the antivenom programme and milked every two weeks, Emma explains.

The pipette she uses to remove the venom from the fangs is attached to a suction hose – crucial for collecting as much venom as possible, since each spider provides only small amounts.

While a few drops is enough to kill, scientists need to milk 200 of these spiders to have enough to fill one vial of antivenom.

A marine biologist by training, Emma never expected to spend her days milking spiders. In fact, she started off working with seals.

But now she wouldn’t have it any other way. Emma loves all things arachnid, and goes under various nicknames – spider girl, spider mama, even “weirdo”, as her daughter calls her.

Friends, family and neighbours rely on her for her knowledge of Australia’s creepy crawlies.

“Some girls arrive home to flowers on their doorstep,” jokes Emma. “For me it’s not unusual to arrive home to a spider in a jar.”

Spiders represent just one small part of what the Australian Reptile Park does. It’s also been providing snake venom to the government since the 1950s.

According to the World Health Organisation, as many as 140,000 people die across the world from snake bites every year, and three times that many are left disabled.

In Australia though, those numbers are far lower: between one and four people each year, thanks to its successful antivenom programme.

Removing a King Brown snake from its storage locker, Billy Collett, the park’s operations manager, brings it to the table in front of him.

With his bare hands, he secures its head and puts its jaws over a shot glass covered in cling film.

“They are very uninclined to bite but once they go, you just see it pouring out of the fangs,” Mr Collett says, as yellow venom drips to the bottom.

“That is enough to kill all of us in the room five times over – maybe more.”

Then he switches to a more reassuring tone: “They’re not looking for people to bite. We’re too big for them to eat; they don’t want to waste their venom on us. They just want to be left alone.”

“To get bitten by a venomous snake, you’ve got to really annoy it, provoke it,” he adds, noting that bites often occur when someone is trying to kill one of the reptiles.

There’s a fridge in the corner of the room where the raw venom Mr Collett is collecting is stored. It’s full of vials labelled “Death Adder”, “Taipan”, “Tiger Snake” and “Eastern Brown”.

The last of these is the second-most venomous snake in the world, and the one that’s most likely to bite you here, in Australia.

This venom gets freeze-dried and sent to CSL Seqirus, a lab in Melbourne, where it’s turned into an antidote in a process that can take up to 18 months.

The first step is to produce what’s known as hyper-immune plasma. In the case of snakes, controlled doses of the venom are injected into horses, because they are larger animals with a strong immune system.

The venom of Sydney funnel-web spiders goes into rabbits, which are immune to the toxins. The animals are injected with increasing doses to build up their antibodies. In some cases, that step alone can take almost a year.

The animal’s supercharged plasma is removed from the blood, and then the antibodies are isolated from the plasma before they’re bottled, ready to be administered.

CSL Seqirus makes 7,000 vials a year – including snake, spider, stonefish and box jellyfish antivenoms – and they are valid for 36 months. The challenge then is to ensure everyone who needs it has supplies.

“It’s an enormous undertaking,” says Dr Jules Bayliss, who leads the antivenom development team at CSL Seqirus.

“First and foremost we want to see them in major rural and remote areas that these creatures are likely to be in.”

Vials are distributed depending on the species in each area. Taipans, for example, are in northern parts of Australia, so there’s no need for their antivenom in Tasmania.

Antivenom is also given to the Royal Flying Doctors, who access some of the nation’s most remote communities, as well as Australian navy and cargo ships for sailors at risk of sea snake bites.

Papua New Guinea also receives about 600 vials a year. The country was once connected to Australia by a land bridge, and shares many of the same snake species, so the Australian government gives the antivenom for free – snake diplomacy, if you like.

“To be honest, we probably have the most impact in Papua New Guinea, more so than Australia, because of the number of snake bites and deaths they have,” says CSL Seqirus executive Chris Larkin. To date, they reckon they’ve saved 2,000 lives.

Back at the park, Mr Collett jokes about the nickname of “danger noodles” that is sometimes given to his serpentine colleagues – a classic Australian trait of making light of something that gives so many visitors nightmares.

Mr Collett, though, is clear: these animals should not put people off from visiting.

“Snakes aren’t just cruising down the streets attacking Brits – it doesn’t work like that,” he jokes.

“If you’re going to get bitten by a snake, Australia’s the best place – we’ve got the best antivenom. It’s free. The treatment is unreal.”

At least 21 people are reported to have died and dozens others injured after tornadoes tore through parts of two US states.

Officials in Kentucky said there had been 14 deaths due to severe weather while seven people were killed in Missouri, including five in the city of St Louis.

The Kentucky tornado struck in Laurel County, in the south-east of the state, in the early hours of Saturday. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise.

Missouri officials said 5,000 buildings were damaged, roofs destroyed and power lines knocked downed as a tornado struck on Friday.

About 140,000 properties in Missouri and Kentucky were left without power as of Saturday afternoon. Officials in St Louis said the fire department was conducting house-by-house searches in the worst-affected areas.

St Louis mayor Cara Spencer said in an update on Saturday that at least 38 people were reported injured in her area, largely from collapsed buildings and toppled trees.

Authorities in Kentucky said there were also severe injuries reported. “The search is continuing in the damaged area for survivors,” said Laurel County Sheriff John Root in a post on social media.

National Weather Service radar suggested the tornado touched down in Missouri shortly after 14:30 local time in the west of the city close to Forest Park – home to St Louis Zoo and the site of the 1904 Olympic Games.

St Louis Fire Department said three people had to be rescued after part of the nearby Centennial Christian Church collapsed. One of those people died.

A curfew was imposed from 21:00 to 06:00 local time in the two areas where most of the damage took place, to prevent injuries from debris and reduce the potential for looting.

St Louis mayor Spencer said: “The loss of life and the destruction is truly, truly horrendous.

“We’re going to have a lot of work to do in the coming days. There is no doubt there, but tonight we are focused on saving lives and keeping people safe and allowing our community to grieve.”

The US National Weather Service said tornadoes also hit neighbouring Illinois, with more severe weather conditions stretching eastwards to the Atlantic coast. On Saturday, it warned of few tornadoes that could hit northern Texas over the weekend as a result of strong to severe storms in the area.

The tornadoes struck an area of the US that is generally referred to as “Tornado Alley”, where tornadoes are most frequent. They typically occur in the months of May and June, though they could strike during other times of the year.

Kentucky has seen an average of five tornadoes each May since the year 2000, while Missouri has seen an average of 16.