South Korea will elect a new president on 3 June to replace Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office for placing the country under martial law for six hours in December.

The winner will be tasked with managing the political and economic fallout of Yoon’s move, which plunged the country in deep turmoil and divided opinions.

The snap election is also being held as South Korea faces an unpredictable ally in US President Donald Trump – and that will shape long-running challenges such as the threat from North Korea, and Seoul’s frosty relationship with China.

Here is what you need to know as the nation of about 52 million people chooses a new president who will lead it for the next five years.

Yoon was supposed to serve as president until 2027, but his term ended in disgrace.

He shocked the nation by declaring martial law on 3 December, citing threats from “anti-state forces” and North Korea – but it soon became clear that he was spurred by his own political troubles.

A week later, he was impeached by parliament. On 4 April, a constitutional court upheld his impeachment and removed him from office permanently, setting the stage for a snap presidential election within 60 days, as required by law.

In the six turbulent months since Yoon’s martial law attempt, the country has had three acting presidents, the most recent being Lee Ju-ho, the labour minister who assumed the role one month before the election.

Lee replaced Prime Minister Han Duck Soo, who himself was impeached just weeks after taking over from Yoon as acting president. Finance minister Choi Sang-mok was acting president before Han was reinstated in March.

Yoon’s martial law laid bare the deep political divisions in the country, as those who supported his decision to impose martial law and those who opposed it took to the streets in protest.

The following months of uncertainty shook public confidence in South Korea’s economy. And this was at a time when US President Donald Trump unleashed his tariffs on America’s trading partners, with South Korean goods facing a 25% levy.

Closer to home, relations with North Korea are a persistent challenge. While 2025 has been relatively uneventful, the year before saw heightened tensions as Kim Jong Un escalated the rhetoric, and both sides spent months sending balloons and drones carrying propaganda materials across the border.

South Korea’s new leader must also balance Seoul’s relations between its biggest trading partner, Beijing, and its most important security ally, Washington.

Then there is the task of arresting the country’s declining birth rate, which is among the lowest in the world – 0.75.

Polls have placed Lee Jae-myung of the main opposition Democratic Party as the frontrunner among six candidates, followed by Kim Moon-soo from the ruling PPP.

Lee, who lost to Yoon by a razor-thin margin in 2022, is hailed by his supporters as a working class hero. He worked in a factory before he became a human rights lawyer and politician. He has promised to establish a “real Republic of Korea” with jobs and a fair society.

Kim, a former labour minister, has positioned himself as a president for the economy, promising to create a business-friendly environment.

The other candidates are Lee Jun-seok of the New Reform Party, Kwon Young-guk of the Democratic Labor Party and two independents – Hwang Kyo-ahn and Song Jin- ho.

For the first time in 18 years, there is no woman running for president. The first woman to run for president was Hong Suk-Ja in 1987, but she withdrew before the vote. The election in 2012 saw four female candidates contest for the top job.

The election is scheduled on 3 June and voting precincts will be open from 06:00 local time (22:00 GMT) to 20:00. South Koreans overseas were allowed to vote early from 20 to 25 May.

Results are expected to come in after polls close and the winner will likely be known in the early hours of the following day.

When Yoon defeated Lee in 2022, he was proclaimed the winner nine hours after the close of voting, or at 04:40 the morning after election day.

That was the closest presidential contest in the country’s history, which saw Yoon win by a 0.73% difference in votes.

The new president will take office immediately and unlike many of his predecessors, will not have the advantage of a formal transition from Yoon.

Yoon faces trial for an insurrection charge as a result of his attempt to impose martial law.

In January this year he became South Korea’s first sitting president to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut through barbed wire to take him into custody. He was relased from detention weeks later on a technicality.

He was also recently indicted for abuse of power, a separate charge to insurrection.

Before the election, Yoon quit his party in what analysts said was an attempt to shore up the chances of PPP’s presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo.

Sweden-based car maker Volvo Cars says it will cut around 3,000 jobs as part of its cost-cutting measures.

The firm says the layoffs will mainly impact office-based positions in Sweden, representing about 15% of its white collar workforce.

Last month, Volvo Cars, which is owned by Chinese group Geely Holding, announced an 18 billion Swedish kronor ($1.9bn; £1.4bn) “action plan” shake-up of the business.

The global motor industry is facing a number of major challenges including US President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported cars, higher cost of materials and slower sales in Europe.

The chief executive of Volvo Cars, Håkan Samuelsson, pointed to the “challenging period” faced by the industry as a reason for the layoffs.

“The actions announced today have been difficult decisions, but they are important steps as we build a stronger and even more resilient Volvo Cars,” he said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the firm said its global sales for April fell by 11% compared to the same period last year.

Volvo Cars has its main headquarters and development offices in Gothenburg, Sweden. It has major production plants in Sweden, Belgium, China and the US.

The company was sold by US motor industry giant Ford to China’s Geely in 2010.

In 2021, Volvo said all of its cars would go electric by 2030. Last year it scaled back that ambition due to a number of issues including “additional uncertainties created by recent tariffs on EVs in various markets”.

Japanese car maker Nissan said earlier this month that it will cut another 11,000 jobs globally and shut seven factories as it shakes up the business in the face of weak sales.

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

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

In an example of the cutthroat rivalry between carmakers, Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD announced at the weekend that it would cut the prices of more than 20 of its models.

The move brings the price of its cheapest car, the Seagull EV, to as low as 55,800 yuan ($7,745; £5,700).

In response Chinese government-owned Changan and Leapmotor, which is backed by Chrysler owner Stellantis, announced their own price cuts.

In April, BYD outsold Elon Musk’s Tesla in Europe for the first time, according to car industry research firm Jato Dynamics.

A naval court in Greece has charged 17 coastguards over the deadliest migrant boat disaster in the Mediterranean Sea for a decade.

Up to 650 people were feared to have drowned when the overcrowded Adriana fishing vessel sank near Pylos, off the Greek coast, in the early hours of 14 June 2023.

Survivors later told the BBC that Greek coastguards had caused their boat to capsize in a botched attempt to tow it and then silenced witnesses.

“It has taken us two years just for these charges to come, even though so many people witnessed what happened,” one of the survivors, a Syrian man we called Ahmad, said on Monday.

The Greek authorities have always denied the claims against them.

The Deputy Prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court has found that 17 members of the Hellenic Coast Guard should face criminal charges.

Among them is the captain of the coastguard ship, the LS-920, who is charged with “causing a shipwreck”, leading to the deaths of “at least 82 people”.

This corresponds to the number of bodies recovered, although it is thought as many as an additional 500 people drowned, including women and children who were all below deck.

The disaster occurred in international waters – but within Greece’s rescue zone.

The then-Chief of the Coast Guard and the Supervisor of the National Search and Rescue Coordination Centre in Piraeus are among four officials charged with “exposing others to danger”.

The captain of the LS-920 is also charged with “dangerous interference of maritime transport” as well as a “failure to provide assistance” to the migrant boat.

The crew of the ship are charged for “simple complicity” in all the acts allegedly committed by the captain.

A coastguard ship had been monitoring the Adriana for 15 hours before it sank.

It had left Libya for Italy with an estimated 750 people on board. Only 104 of them are known to have survived.

We’ve been investigating since the day of the disaster and our series of findings has cast serious doubt on the official Greek version of events.

Within a week, we obtained shipping data which challenged the claim the migrant boat had not been in trouble and so did not need to be rescued.

A month later, survivors told us the coastguard had caused their boat to sink in a disastrous effort to tow it and then forced witnessed to stay silent.

Last year, a case against nine Egyptians was thrown out, amid claims they had been scapegoated by the Greek authorities.

Earlier this year, audio recordings emerged which further challenged the official Greek version of events.

We first met Syrian refugees, who we called Ahmad and Musaab to protect their identities, a month after the disaster.

They said they each paid $4,500 (£3,480) for a spot on the boat.

Ahmad’s younger brother was also on board and did not survive.

Musaab described to us the moment when – he alleged – the Greek coastguards caused their boat to sink.

“They attached a rope from the left,” he said. “Everyone moved to the right side of our boat to balance it. The Greek vessel moved off quickly causing our boat to flip. They kept dragging it for quite a distance.”

The men claimed that once on land, in the port of Kalamata, the coastguard told survivors to “shut up” when they started to talk about how the Greek authorities had caused the disaster.

“When people replied by saying the Greek coastguard was the cause, the official in charge of the questioning asked the interpreter to tell the interviewee to stop talking,” Ahmad said.

He said officials shouted: “You have survived death. Stop talking about the incident Don’t ask more questions about it.”

Today Ahmad – who is now living in Germany – said he felt vindicated by the charges that had been brought.

“I’m very happy they are eventually being held accountable for all that they have committed, but until I see them in prison nothing has been done yet,” he said.

“To be honest, the Greek legal system is very unreliable.”

The joint legal team representing survivors and victims of the disaster said the decision to pursue a case against the 17 coastguards was a big step forward towards justice being done.

In a statement it said: “Almost two years after the Pylos shipwreck, the prosecution and referral to main investigation for felonies of 17 members of the Coast Guard, including senior officers of its leadership, constitutes a substantial and self-evident development in the course of vindication of the victims and the delivery of justice.”

It is understood the 17 men who have now been charged will be questioned in the coming weeks by the Deputy Prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court.

The court will then decide whether to send them to full trial or dismiss the charges.

It is not immediately clear what punishment the coastguards could receive if found guilty.

Greece has previously told the BBC its Coast Guard fully respects human rights and has rescued more than 250,000 people at sea in the past decade.

The Kremlin claimed Donald Trump was showing signs of “emotional overload” after he called Vladimir Putin “absolutely crazy” following Moscow’s largest aerial assault on Ukraine.

The US president said on Truth Social on Sunday that “something has happened” to Putin, after Russia killed 13 in Ukraine with 367 drones and missiles. “He has gone absolutely crazy,” Trump said. “Needlessly killing a lot of people.”

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said the comments were “connected to an emotional overload of everyone involved”.

Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, meanwhile said that Ukraine’s allies had removed all range limits on supplied arms, amid reports he would give Kyiv Taurus missiles.

Trump’s comments followed Russia’s largest combined aerial attack since its full-scale invasion of February 2022. At least 13 people were killed and dozens injured in Ukraine during the night between Saturday and Sunday after Russia fired 367 drones and missiles.

Between Sunday evening and Monday morning, Russia launched 355 drones against Ukraine, killing 10. The Ukrainian air force said it was the largest attack yet conducted with drones alone.

Peskov said the latest aerial assaults were a response to Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s “social infrastructure”.

The Russian defence ministry said that air defence systems destroyed 20 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said on Sunday there was no “military sense” to Russia’s aerial attacks – rather they were “an obvious political choice… by Putin, a choice by Russia… to continue the war and destroy lives.”

In an apparent response to the Russian attacks over the weekend, German chancellor Merz said there were “no longer” range restrictions on arms supplied to Ukraine.

“This means that Ukraine can now defend itself, for example, by attacking military positions in Russia… with very few exceptions, it didn’t do that until recently. It can now do that,” Merz said.

Reuters reported that Zelensky was due to travel to Berlin on Wednesday, although this has not been confirmed.

The BBC approached the Chancellery for comment on whether Merz’s statement suggested an announcement was imminent on the supply of Taurus missiles – something that the previous German government refused to do.

Last year, the UK said that Ukraine had the right to decide how to use British supplied weapons in its defence. In November, then-US president Joe Biden gave Ukraine permission to use long-range missiles supplied by the US to strike Russia, albeit with limitations.

The Taurus missile has a range of about 500km – a far greater distance than other systems supplied by Ukraine’s allies. Russia said supply of the weapon would be “a dangerous move”.

Speaking in New Jersey late on Sunday, Trump said of Putin: “I’ve known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.”

He also said he was considering increasing US sanctions on Russia – something he has repeatedly threatened to do before.

Trump posted his “crazy” remark shortly afterwards, adding on Truth Social: “I’ve always said that he wants all of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”

But the US president also had strong words for Zelensky, saying that he was “doing his country no favours by talking the way he does”.

“Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop,” Trump wrote of Zelensky.

Despite Kyiv’s European allies preparing further sanctions for Russia, the US has said it will either continue trying to broker these peace talks, or “walk away” if progress does not follow.

Peskov said on Monday that Russia was “truly grateful” to the Americans and “personally to President Trump” for their help in organising and launching this negotiation process.

Last week, Trump and Putin had a two-hour phone call to discuss a US-proposed ceasefire deal to halt the fighting.

The US president said he believed the call had gone “very well”, adding that Russia and Ukraine would “immediately start” negotiations toward a ceasefire and “an end to the war”.

Ukraine has publicly agreed to a 30-day ceasefire but Putin has only said Russia will work with Ukraine to craft a “memorandum” on a “possible future peace” – a move described by Kyiv and its European allies as delaying tactics.

The first direct Ukrainian-Russian talks since 2022 were held on 16 May in Istanbul, Turkey.

Aside from a major prisoner of war swap last week, there was little or no progress on bringing a pause in fighting closer.

Russia currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory. This includes Crimea – Ukraine’s southern peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

At least 54 Palestinians have been killed – most of them in a school building sheltering displaced families – during Israeli air strikes on Gaza overnight, hospital directors have told the BBC.

Fahmi Al-Jargawi School in Gaza City was housing hundreds of people from Beit Lahia, currently under intense Israeli military assault. At least 35 were reported to have been killed when the school was hit.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence said multiple bodies, including those of children, were recovered – many severely burned, after fires engulfed two classrooms serving as living quarters.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted “a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre” there.

The IDF said the area was being used “by the terrorists to plan… attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops”, and accused Hamas of using “the Gazan population as human shields”.

Video footage shared online showed large fires consuming parts of the school, with graphic images of severely burned victims, including children, and survivors suffering critical injuries.

Faris Afana, Northern Gaza ambulance service manager, said he arrived at the scene with crews to find three classrooms ablaze.

“There were sleeping children and women in those classrooms,” he said. “Some of them were screaming but we couldn’t rescue them due to the fires.

“I cannot describe what we saw due to how horrific it was.”

Local reports said the head of investigations for the Hamas police in northern Gaza, Mohammad Al-Kasih, was among the dead, along with his wife and children.

Separately, a strike on a house in Jabalia in northern Gaza killed 19 people, according to the director of al-Ahli hospital Dr Fadel el-Naim. The Israeli military has not yet commented on what was being targeted.

The twin attacks are part of a broader Israeli offensive that has escalated in the northern part of the enclave over the past week.

The IDF said it hit 200 targets across Gaza in 48 hours as it continued its operations against what it called “terrorist organisations”.

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official told the BBC on Monday that the group had agreed to the latest ceasefire proposal offered by US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

However, Witkoff told Reuters that what he had seen was “completely unacceptable” and that the proposal being discussed was not the same as his.

A Palestinian official familiar with the talks said the plan agreed to by Hamas includes the release of 10 Israeli hostages held by the group in two phases.

In exchange, there would be a 70-day truce, a gradual partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the release of an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners, including several hundred serving long or life sentences.

The BBC has approached the Israeli government for comment on the proposal. Israeli media quoted anonymous Israeli officials as saying the plan would be rejected.

As mediation efforts continued, an Israeli strike on the home of a Palestinian doctor in Gaza killed nine of her 10 children on Friday. Dr Alaa al-Najjar’s 11-year-old son was injured, along with her husband, Hamdi al-Najjar, who is in critical condition.

The nine children – Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra – were aged between just a few months old and 12. The Israeli military has said the incident is under review.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said two of its staff were killed in a strike on their home in Khan Younis the following day.

The killing of Ibrahim Eid, a weapon contamination officer, and Ahmad Abu Hilal, a security guard at the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah “points to the intolerable civilian death toll in Gaza”, the ICRC said, repeating its call for a ceasefire.

On Sunday, the head of a controversial US and Israeli-approved organisation planning to use private firms to deliver aid to Gaza resigned.

In a statement by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), executive director Jake Wood said it had become apparent that plans to set up distribution hubs would not meet the “humanitarian principles” of independence and neutrality.

The UN and various humanitarian organisations have said they will not co-operate with the GHF, accusing it of being discriminatory over who will receive food.

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March that lasted 11 weeks before it allowed limited aid to enter the territory in the face of warnings of famine and mounting international outrage.

The Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, Cogat, said 107 lorries carrying aid were allowed into Gaza on Sunday. The UN says much more aid – between 500 to 600 lorries a day – is needed.

Meanwhile, 20 countries and organisations met in Madrid on Sunday to discuss ending the war in Gaza. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called for an arms embargo on Israel if it did not stop its attacks.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Fifty-seven are still being held, about 20 of whom are assumed to be alive.

At least 53,939 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Nearly three weeks after Rohit Sharma’s sudden retirement from Test cricket, the Indian cricket board has ended speculation of his successor by naming Shubman Gill as India’s new captain for the upcoming five-Test series against England in June.

At 25, Gill becomes India’s 37th Test captain – and one of its youngest, after Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil Dev and Ravi Shastri.

His appointment marks a turning point for Indian cricket. The squad he leads is without batting greats Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, spin stalwart R Ashwin who retired six months ago, and pace spearhead Mohammed Shami, who was sidelined due to fitness concerns.

The team is rich in young batting talent but will miss the experience of Kohli and Sharma. Despite Jaspreet Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, and Mohammad Siraj, the bowling attack still feels a touch raw.

Adding to Gill’s challenge: India haven’t won a Test series in England since 2007.

His appointment followed intense deliberations between chief selector Ajit Agarkar, coach Gautam Gambhir, and backchannel talks with other contenders.

Though Bumrah seemed the natural choice after serving as vice-captain in Australia, concerns over his ability to shoulder the workload of a five-Test series tipped the scales in Gill’s favour.

A prodigy from Punjab state, Gill has long carried the weight of expectation with elegance.

He burst into the spotlight in 2014, not yet 15, hammering 351 in a world-record opening stand of 587 with Nirmal Singh in the Punjab Inter-District ML Markan Trophy. It was a knock that vindicated his family’s bold move from the border village of Chak Kherewala to Mohali, seeking better training and greater exposure for the young talent.

Consistent run-getting as a junior, fast-tracked him into the under-19 ranks which is where Gill really made his first big impact.

Vice-captain of the team that played the 2017-18 U-19 World Cup, he emerged as the top run aggregator for India, highlighted by a skilful, unbeaten 102 against arch rivals Pakistan in the semi-final. In the final where India beat Australia, Gill scored a handy 31.

At the time, all eyes were on Prithvi Shaw – the U-19 captain whose Mumbai schoolboy feats drew comparisons with Tendulkar. His rise was meteoric: a Test debut century, another soon after. But by 2020, his career had begun to unravel.

Temporarily sidelined, Gill made an immediate impact on his Ranji Trophy debut with a half-century, followed by a century. Under Yuvraj Singh’s mentorship, he sharpened both his batting and game awareness.

Prolific runs pushed selectors to consider Gill as Shaw’s replacement. He debuted in Tests in Melbourne, December 2020, during India’s memorable comeback series win.

Tall and graceful, Gill’s technical precision and elegant stroke play – especially front of the wicket – set him apart as a promising young talent. Nicknamed the ‘Prince’ by his family, the title soon became his cricketing identity. Hailed as the Next Big Thing, he’s widely tipped to succeed Virat Kohli as the next generation’s leading batsman.

That promise remains unproven. Like Kohli, Gill is an all-format player, but unlike Kohli’s early dominance, Gill has yet to display the same ambition and match-winning impact – especially in Tests, where his 1,893 runs in 32 matches are solid but not outstanding.

Gill’s first captaincy, less than five years after his Test debut, comes at a crucial point in his career.

With enough international experience to elevate his batting from good to great, he now faces a stern test against England’s Bazball style of play in challenging conditions. Success here would be a major boost to his standing as a top Test player.

But it is as captain that Gill probably faces tougher challenges.

The England series kicked off India’s new World Test Championship cycle, following two finals appearances but a disappointing early exit in the last one. India’s recent Test form has been poor, with back-to-back series losses to New Zealand and Australia.

To pull India out of the current rut, Gill will have to lead the way as batter as well as captain in charge of a new-look team, whose dressing-room and dynamics he will have to understand and, perhaps, reshape.

“Gill is a young man we are investing in not just for one series, but for the next five-six years to take Indian cricket ahead,” said chief selector Ajit Agarkar.

That should be a tremendous reassurance for the new captain. While his appointment brings its share of pressure, it also carries immense hope – and an opportunity to carve his own legacy in Indian cricket history.

King Charles III will deliver a significant speech in Canada’s parliament later on Tuesday that is expected to offer his support in the country’s dispute with US President Donald Trump.

The King and Queen Camilla received a warm welcome when they arrived in Ottawa, on the royal couple’s first trip to Canada since the start of their reign.

Soon after arriving, the King, who is Canada’s head of state, held a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney, recently elected on a wave of anti-Trump public opinion.

Carney has praised the “historic ties” that make up Canada’s independent identity, including the “vitality of our constitutional monarchy”, which he said “crises only fortify”.

Carney invited the King to deliver the speech at the opening of parliament after his recent general election victory, in a campaign dominated by the threats to Canada’s sovereignty from Trump.

It will be the first time in almost 50 years that a monarch gives the “Speech from the throne”, with the King’s decision to come to parliament in Ottawa seen as a symbolic show of support for Canada.

The King’s speech will be written on the advice of the Canadian government, with the expectation that it will send a clear, if diplomatic, message that the country is “not for sale” to the US.

Carney said in advance that the speech, to be delivered in French and English, would match “the weight of our times”.

On Monday afternoon, the King and Carney held a meeting at Rideau Hall, the residence of Canada’s governor-general, with both men sitting in front of Canadian flags.

There were also meetings with leaders of Canada’s indigenous and First Nations groups, including Cindy Woodhouse, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

Looking relaxed in the Ottawa sunshine, the King took part in a tree-planting ceremony, receiving an enthusiastic reception from onlookers, who cheered and crowded round to shake hands with him.

“Canada feels threatened and scared. It is very important he is here,” said Theresa McKnight, from Mississauga, Ontario.

Her sister Dianne St Louis from near Toronto agreed: “It’s critical. It means a great deal to have the King standing side by side with Canadians.”

There had been a warm welcome at Ottawa airport, for what will be a visit of about 24 hours on the ground in Canada.

Carney was on the runway to meet the royal visitors, with a welcoming party that included schoolchildren from English- and French-speaking schools and representatives of First Nations communities.

A community event had also been a checklist of Canadian moments, such as the King dropping a puck to start a game of street hockey and getting jars of maple syrup.

But the main focus of this trip will be the historic speech on Tuesday, with the prospect of the King delivering the Canadian government’s message of rejecting calls to become the US 51st state.

It is also a diplomatic balancing act because in his role as head of state of the UK, the King has been part of an effort to keep good relations with Trump, including inviting him for a second state visit.

But in Canada, the King will have to speak on behalf of Canada. As another bystander said at Rideau Hall: “Sovereignty is important and he is the epitome of that.”

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A Canadian man has been sentenced to almost two years in prison for stealing a famous photograph of Sir Winston Churchill known as “The Roaring Lion”.

Jeffrey Wood had pleaded guilty to stealing the original print from Ottawa’s Château Laurier hotel between Christmas 2021 and early January 2022. He also admitted committing forgery.

The photo of Britain’s war-time prime minister, taken by Yousuf Karsh in 1941, features on the UK £5 note.

Ottawa Police said it was found last year in Genoa, Italy in the possession of a private buyer, who was unaware it was stolen.

The image depicts a frowning Churchill, who was 67 at the time, shortly after he delivered a speech to the Canadian parliament.

It wasn’t until August 2022 that a hotel staff member realised the original photo had been replaced with a fake.

According to Canadian media, Wood said he took the photo to find money for his brother, who was suffering from mental health problems.

During sentencing, Justice Robert Wadden said: “It is a point of national pride that a portrait taken by a Canadian photographer would have achieved such fame.”

“There is an element of trust in our society that allows such properties to be displayed, to be enjoyed by all Canadians. To steal, damage and traffic in such property is to breach that trust,” he added.

“We’re very happy to see that Canadian history is recognised,” said Geneviève Dumas, the general manager of the Château Laurier hotel, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Wood was sentenced to “two years less a day”, a distinction which means he will serve his sentence in a provincial institution instead of a federal prison.

The lawyer representing Wood said the sentence was “unnecessarily harsh” given that he was a first-time offender.

Crowds of far-right Israelis chanted insults and assaulted Palestinians during an annual parade for Jerusalem Day on Monday.

Chants of “death to Arabs” and nationalistic slogans were repeated during the event, which commemorates Israeli forces taking Palestinian-majority East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Violence broke out as ultranationalist Jews streamed into Palestinian areas of Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said the event had become a festival of “hatred and racism”, adding it was “a disgrace and an insult to Judaism”.

Israeli police were deployed as violence broke out in the walled Old City of Occupied East Jerusalem shortly after midday.

Thousands of nationalist Israelis descended to Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances. Right-wing activists held banners that read “67 – Jerusalem in our hands; 2025 – Gaza in our hands”.

Arab traders in the Muslim Quarter who had yet to close their shops were harassed by young Israeli men, witnesses said.

Chants of “May your village burn” and “Your home will be ours” were heard throughout the march.

Aggressive marchers were detained and removed from the Old City by Israeli police.

National security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, of the Jewish Power party, called for the death penalty for “terrorists” in an address to the crowds.

Gvir also visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam and known by Jews as the Temple Mount. Jews revere it as the location of two Biblical Temples and it is the holiest site in Judaism.

The compound is administered by a Jordanian Islamic trust. Jews are allowed to visit but not pray there.

A spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, based in the West Bank, condemned the march and Ben Gvir’s visit to Al-Aqsa.

Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, “repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and provocative acts such as raising the Israeli flag in occupied Jerusalem threaten the stability of the entire region,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement.

In a cabinet meeting on Monday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep Jerusalem “united, whole, and under Israeli sovereignty”.

Left-wing opposition leader Yair Golan described images of violence in the Old City as “shocking”.

“This is what hatred, racism and bullying look like,” he said in a statement on X.

“We will fight for Jerusalem for all of us, Jews, Christians and Muslims, secular and religious.

“Jerusalem belongs to all those who love her. We will fight for her and restore her as a city for us all.”

Lapid, another opposition leader, added: “There is nothing Jewish about this violence. The government ministers who remain silent in the face of these events are complicit in this disgrace.”

Every year thousands of Israelis march a route through Jerusalem and the annexed Old City, ending at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray in Jerusalem. On Sunday, a large Israeli flag was unfurled at the Western Wall plaza.

The parade mark Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and the “unification” of a city that the Israeli government says is their eternal capital.

Palestinians also want Jerusalem as their future capital and much of the international community regards East Jerusalem as Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

This year’s Flag March again coincided with the war in Gaza and escalating Israeli military operations against Palestinian militants in the West Bank.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Fifty-seven are still being held, about 20 of whom are assumed to be alive.

At least 53,939 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Authorities in India’s southern Kerala state have issued an alert after a ship carrying oil and hazardous cargo leaked and sank off the state’s coast in the Arabian Sea.

The spill occurred in a Liberian-flagged vessel that capsized near Kochi city on Sunday. The coastal stretch is rich in biodiversity and is also an important tourist destination.

All 24 crew members on board the ship have been rescued but some of the ship’s 640 containers have reportedly been drifting towards the shore, prompting evacuations in the area.

Authorities fear that oil, fuel and other harmful substances that have leaked from the ship and its cargo could endanger the health of residents and marine life.

“As the oil slick can reach anywhere along the Kerala coast, an alert has been sounded across the coastal belt,” a statement from the chief minister’s office said.

Authorities have advised residents living near the sea to not touch any containers or the oil that might wash up to the shore, while fishermen have been asked to avoid venturing too close to the sunken ship.

On Monday, officials said they had intensified pollution control measures to contain the spill.

The Indian Coast Guard has deployed a ship carrying pollution control equipment to the site.

It has also sent one of its aircraft which has an oil spill detection system to survey the area.

The vessel – MSC ELSA 3 – which was travelling from Vizhinjam port to Kochi, began to tilt dangerously when it was about 38 nautical miles from the coast of Kochi.

It capsized into the Arabian Sea in the early hours of Sunday due to flooding in one of its compartments.

The Indian Coast Guard said that the ship was carrying 13 containers of hazardous cargo and 12 with calcium carbide – a chemical that reacts with seawater to release a flammable gas.

“Additionally, [the] ship had 84.44 metric tonnes of diesel and 367.1 metric tonnes of furnace oil in its tanks,” it said.

The crew members were rescued by Indian navy personnel after an hours-long operation.

There is no excitement as the camera passes. The children barely glance. What can surprise a child who lives among the dead, the dying, the waiting to die? Hunger has worn them down.

They wait in queues for scant rations or for none at all. They have grown used to my colleague and his camera, filming for the BBC. He witnesses their hunger, their dying, and to the gentle wrapping of their bodies – or fragments of their bodies – in white shrouds upon which their names, if known, are written.

For 19 months of war, and now under a renewed Israeli offensive, this local cameraman – who I do not name, for his safety - has listened to the anguished cries of the survivors in hospital courtyards.

His physical distance is respectful, but they are on his mind, day and night. He is one of them, trapped in the same claustrophobic hell.

This morning he is setting out to find Siwar Ashour, a five-month-old girl whose emaciated frame and exhausted cry at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis affected him so much, when he was filming there earlier this month, that he wrote to tell me something had broken inside him.

She weighed just over 2kg (4lb 6oz). A baby girl of five months should be about 6kg or over.

Siwar has since been discharged and is now at home,  my colleague has heard. That is what brings him to the street of pulverised houses and makeshift shelters of canvas and corrugated iron.

He conducts his search in difficult circumstances. A few days ago I messaged to ask how he was doing. “I am not okay,” he replied. “Just a short while ago, the Israeli army announced the evacuation of most areas of Khan Younis… We don’t know what to do – there is no safe place to go.

“Al-Mawasi is extremely overcrowded with displaced people. We are lost and have no idea what the right decision is at this moment.”

He finds a one-bedroom shack, the entrance formed of a floral patterned, grey and black curtain. Inside there are three mattresses, part of a chest of drawers, and a mirror which reflects sunlight across the floor in front of Siwar, her mother Najwa and her grandmother, Reem.

Siwar is quiet, held secure by the protective presence of the two women. The baby cannot absorb regular milk formula because of a severe allergic reaction. Under the conditions of war and an Israeli blockade on aid arrivals, there is a severe shortage of the formula she needs.

Najwa, 23, explains that her condition stabilised when she was in Nasser hospital, so doctors discharged her with a can of baby formula several days ago.

Now at home, she says the baby’s weight has started to slip again. “The doctors told me that Siwar improved and is better than before, but I think that she is still skinny and hasn’t improved much. They found her only one can of milk, and it [has] started running out.”

Flies dance in front of Siwar’s face. “The situation is very dire,” says Najwa, “the insects come at her, I have to cover her with a scarf so nothing touches her”.

Siwar has lived with the sound of war since last November when she was born. The artillery, the rockets, falling bombs – distant and near. The gunfire, the blades of Israeli drones whirring overhead. Najwa explains: “She understands these things. The sound of the tanks, warplanes, and rockets are so loud and they are close to us. When Siwar hears these sounds, she gets startled and cries. If she is sleeping, she wakes up startled and crying.”

Doctors in Gaza say many young mothers report being unable to breastfeed their babies due to lack of nutrition. The pressing problem is food and clean water.

Najwa was malnourished herself when Siwar was born. She and her mother Reem still find it difficult to get anything to eat themselves. It is the struggle of every waking hour. “In our case, we can’t provide milk or diapers because of the prices and the border closure.”

On 22 May, Israeli military body Cogat said there was no food shortage in Gaza. It said “significant quantities of baby food and flour for bakeries” had been brought into the enclave in recent days.

The agency has repeatedly insisted that Hamas steals aid, while the Israeli government says the war will continue until Hamas is destroyed and the Israeli hostages held in Gaza are released. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 20 hostages seized by Hamas in the 7 October 2023 attacks are believed to be alive and up to 30 others dead.

Aid agencies, the United Nations and many foreign governments, including Britain, reject Cogat’s comment that there is no food shortage. US President Donald Trump has also spoken of people “starving” in Gaza.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the amount of aid Israel has allowed into Gaza as “a teaspoon”. He said Palestinians were “enduring what may be the cruellest phase of this cruel conflict” with restricted supplies of fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification supplies.

According to the UN, 80% of Gaza is now either designated as an Israeli militarised zone or a place where people have been ordered to leave.

The denials, the expressions of concern, the condemnations and the moments which seemed like turning points have come and gone throughout this war. The sole constant is the suffering of Gaza’s 2.1 million people, like Najwa and her daughter Siwar.

“One does not think about the future or the past,” Najwa says.

There is only the present moment and how to survive it.

Farooq Ahmed still bristles with anger when he talks about his brother’s death.

Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Poonch city in Indian-administered Kashmir, died in cross-border shelling on 7 May, the morning after India launched a series of air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in retaliation to a militant attack in the town of Pahalgam that killed 26 people. Pakistan has denied having any role in the attack.

Mr Ahmed says that Iqbal died where he had worked for more than two decades – Zia-ul-Uloom, a madrassa, or a religious centre focused on Islamic teachings, in Poonch.

But his death, it turned out, was just the beginning of the family’s troubles.

As the news spread, several media channels falsely accused Iqbal of being a terrorist, following which the police put out a statement refuting the claim.

“My brother was a teacher but they saw his beard and skullcap and branded him a terrorist,” Mr Ahmed says.

“It was like having salt rubbed into our wounds. We had lost Iqbal and then the media defamed him. The dead can’t defend themselves.”

Indian officials say that a total of 16 people, including Iqbal, were killed in the cross-border shelling during the four-day military conflict that broke out between India and Pakistan following the airstrikes.

Pakistan has claimed 40 civilian deaths, though, it remains unclear how many of these were directly caused by the shelling.

The two nuclear-armed countries have shared a tense relationship for decades, as both administer the Himalayan region of Kashmir in part, but claim it in full.

They have fought three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947 and came back from the brink of another one earlier this month.

But as the military conflict escalated, another battle played out on social media – a disinformation war of claims and counterclaims that circulated online and on TV.

Just like rumours about Iqbal’s identity, other misleading and inaccurate information also found its way into some mainstream news channels and websites.

This included claims such as India having destroyed Pakistan’s Karachi port, which was later debunked by the Indian government.

Some of the other fabrications were harder to spot, like an AI-generated video of a Pakistan army general claiming that his country had lost two aircraft in combat.

“The scale of misinformation and fact-free assertions being broadcast by the media was shocking,” says Manisha Pande, managing editor at Newslaundry, an independent news platform.

She notes that while a degree of sensationalism is expected as channels compete for viewership, “the jingoistic and irresponsible coverage” of the conflict was unprecedented in its intensity — and unlike anything she had witnessed before.

No one knows this better than Mr Ahmed.

“I don’t know where news channels got the information about my brother from,” Mr Ahmed says.

“Who did they speak to? What kind of evidence did they have that my brother was a terrorist?” he asks.

Weeks later, the family is still reeling from the tragedy.

Mr Ahmed says that on 7 May, his brother left home for the madrassa in the morning as usual, but it was his body that returned home. By noon, they had buried him in a nearby cemetery.

For some time, the family had no idea about the misinformation that was being shared by some news outlets. They were busy performing Iqbal’s last rites.

It was only hours later that a relative received a WhatsApp forward – a video clip of a prominent news channel claiming that the Indian army had killed a terrorist, with Iqbal’s photo flashing on the screen.

“We were shocked. Soon, we began getting more calls from people asking us what was going on and why was the media calling Iqbal a terrorist,” Mr Ahmed says.

The claim was shared by some prominent channels, including Zee News, ABP and News18. The BBC has reached out to the channels for comment.

One channel claimed that Iqbal was killed in an “Indian strike on a terrorist camp” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and that he was a terrorist with Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“Our family members have been staying in Poonch for generations. How can they say my brother was living in Pakistan? They [the media] should be ashamed,” Mr Ahmed says.

The accusation against Iqbal was circulated so widely and swiftly that on 8 May, the Poonch police put out a statement, clarifying that Iqbal had died in cross-border shelling in the madrasa.

“Poonch Police strongly refutes such false narratives. The deceased, Maulana Mohd Iqbal, was a respected religious figure in the local community and had no affiliation with any terror outfit,” the statement said, adding that legal action would be taken against any media outlet or individual who circulated the fake news.

But for Mr Ahmed, the statement was too little too late.

“By then, the false claim would’ve already reached millions of people in India,” he says.

He adds that except for one channel, News18, no one else had publicly apologised to him or their viewers for the mistake.

Mr Ahmed says he wants to take legal action against the channels, but the process would have to wait as the family is struggling to make ends meet.

Iqbal is survived by his two wives and eight children. He was the only earning member in his family.

Mr Ahmed says that the compensation given by the government, which amounts to a few million rupees, will last only for a year or two and they must start planning for the future now.

“The whole family depended on my brother. He was a quiet and gentle man who loved teaching children,” Mr Ahmed says.

“But who’s going to tell this to the world? For many people, my brother is still a terrorist whose killing is justified. How will they understand our pain?”

Listen to this article.

I step into the booth with some trepidation. I am about to be subjected to strobe lighting while music plays – as part of a research project trying to understand what makes us truly human.

It’s an experience that brings to mind the test in the science fiction film Bladerunner, designed to distinguish humans from artificially created beings posing as humans.

Could I be a robot from the future and not know it? Would I pass the test?

The researchers assure me that this is not actually what this experiment is about. The device that they call the “Dreamachine”, after the public programme of the same name, is designed to study how the human brain generates our conscious experiences of the world.

As the strobing begins, and even though my eyes are closed, I see swirling two-dimensional geometric patterns. It’s like jumping into a kaleidoscope, with constantly shifting triangles, pentagons and octagons. The colours are vivid, intense and ever-changing: pinks, magentas and turquoise hues, glowing like neon lights.

The “Dreamachine” brings the brain’s inner activity to the surface with flashing lights, aiming to explore how our thought processes work.

The images I’m seeing are unique to my own inner world and unique to myself, according to the researchers. They believe these patterns can shed light on consciousness itself.

They hear me whisper: “It’s lovely, absolutely lovely. It’s like flying through my own mind!”

The “Dreamachine”, at Sussex University’s Centre for Consciousness Science, is just one of many new research projects across the world investigating human consciousness: the part of our minds that enables us to be self-aware, to think and feel and make independent decisions about the world.

By learning the nature of consciousness, researchers hope to better understand what’s happening within the silicon brains of artificial intelligence. Some believe that AI systems will soon become independently conscious, if they haven’t already.

But what really is consciousness, and how close is AI to gaining it? And could the belief that AI might be conscious itself fundamentally change humans in the next few decades?

The idea of machines with their own minds has long been explored in science fiction. Worries about AI stretch back nearly a hundred years to the film Metropolis, in which a robot impersonates a real woman.

A fear of machines becoming conscious and posing a threat to humans is explored in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the HAL 9000 computer attacks astronauts onboard its spaceship. And in the final Mission Impossible film, which has just been released, the world is threatened by a powerful rogue AI, described by one character as a “self-aware, self-learning, truth-eating digital parasite”.

But quite recently, in the real world there has been a rapid tipping point in thinking on machine consciousness, where credible voices have become concerned that this is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

The sudden shift has been prompted by the success of so-called large language models (LLMs), which can be accessed through apps on our phones such as Gemini and Chat GPT. The ability of the latest generation of LLMs to have plausible, free-flowing conversations has surprised even their designers and some of the leading experts in the field.

There is a growing view among some thinkers that as AI becomes even more intelligent, the lights will suddenly turn on inside the machines and they will become conscious.

Others, such as Prof Anil Seth who leads the Sussex University team, disagree, describing the view as “blindly optimistic and driven by human exceptionalism”.

“We associate consciousness with intelligence and language because they go together in humans. But just because they go together in us, it doesn’t mean they go together in general, for example in animals.”

So what actually is consciousness?

The short answer is that no-one knows. That’s clear from the good-natured but robust arguments among Prof Seth’s own team of young AI specialists, computing experts, neuroscientists and philosophers, who are trying to answer one of the biggest questions in science and philosophy.

While there are many differing views at the consciousness research centre, the scientists are unified in their method: to break this big problem down into lots of smaller ones in a series of research projects, which includes the Dreamachine.

Just as the search to find the “spark of life” that made inanimate objects come alive was abandoned in the 19th Century in favour of identifying how individual parts of living systems worked, the Sussex team is now adopting the same approach to consciousness.

They hope to identify patterns of brain activity that explain various properties of conscious experiences, such as changes in electrical signals or blood flow to different regions. The goal is to go beyond looking for mere correlations between brain activity and consciousness, and try to come up with explanations for its individual components.

Prof Seth, the author of a book on consciousness, Being You, worries that we may be rushing headlong into a society that is being rapidly reshaped by the sheer pace of technological change without sufficient knowledge about the science, or thought about the consequences.

“We take it as if the future has already been written; that there is an inevitable march to a superhuman replacement,” he says.

“We did not have these conversations enough with the rise of social media, much to our collective detriment. But with AI, it is not too late. We can decide what we want.”

But there are some in the tech sector who believe that the AI in our computers and phones may already be conscious, and we should treat them as such.

Google suspended software engineer Blake Lemoine in 2022, after he argued that AI chatbots could feel things and potentially suffer.

In November 2024, an AI welfare officer for Anthropic, Kyle Fish, co-authored a report suggesting that AI consciousness was a realistic possibility in the near future. He recently told The New York Times that he also believed that there was a small (15%) chance that chatbots are already conscious.

One reason he thinks it possible is that no-one, not even the people who developed these systems, knows exactly how they work. That’s worrying, says Prof Murray Shanahan, principal scientist at Google DeepMind and emeritus professor in AI at Imperial College, London.

“We don’t actually understand very well the way in which LLMs work internally, and that is some cause for concern,” he tells the BBC.

According to Prof Shanahan, it’s important for tech firms to get a proper understanding of the systems they’re building – and researchers are looking at that as a matter of urgency.

“We are in a strange position of building these extremely complex things, where we don’t have a good theory of exactly how they achieve the remarkable things they are achieving,” he says. “So having a better understanding of how they work will enable us to steer them in the direction we want and to ensure that they are safe.”

The prevailing view in the tech sector is that LLMs are not currently conscious in the way we experience the world, and probably not in any way at all. But that is something that the married couple Profs Lenore and Manuel Blum, both emeritus professors at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, believe will change, possibly quite soon.

According to the Blums, that could happen as AI and LLMs have more live sensory inputs from the real world, such as vision and touch, by connecting cameras and haptic sensors (related to touch) to AI systems. They are developing a computer model that constructs its own internal language called Brainish to enable this additional sensory data to be processed, attempting to replicate the processes that go on in the brain.

“We think Brainish can solve the problem of consciousness as we know it,” Lenore tells the BBC. “AI consciousness is inevitable.”

Manuel chips in enthusiastically with an impish grin, saying that the new systems that he too firmly believes will emerge will be the “next stage in humanity’s evolution”.

Conscious robots, he believes, “are our progeny. Down the road, machines like these will be entities that will be on Earth and maybe on other planets when we are no longer around”.

David Chalmers – Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University – defined the distinction between real and apparent consciousness at a conference in Tucson, Arizona in 1994. He laid out the “hard problem” of working out how and why any of the complex operations of brains give rise to conscious experience, such as our emotional response when we hear a nightingale sing.

Prof Chalmers says that he is open to the possibility of the hard problem being solved.

“The ideal outcome would be one where humanity shares in this new intelligence bonanza,” he tells the BBC. “Maybe our brains are augmented by AI systems.”

On the sci-fi implications of that, he wryly observes: “In my profession, there is a fine line between science fiction and philosophy”.

Prof Seth, however, is exploring the idea that true consciousness can only be realised by living systems.

“A strong case can be made that it isn’t computation that is sufficient for consciousness but being alive,” he says.

“In brains, unlike computers, it’s hard to separate what they do from what they are.” Without this separation, he argues, it’s difficult to believe that brains “are simply meat-based computers”.

And if Prof Seth’s intuition about life being important is on the right track, the most likely technology will not be made of silicon run on computer code, but will rather consist of tiny collections of nerve cells the size of lentil grains that are currently being grown in labs.

Called “mini-brains” in media reports, they are referred to as “cerebral organoids” by the scientific community, which uses them to research how the brain works, and for drug testing.

One Australian firm, Cortical Labs, in Melbourne, has even developed a system of nerve cells in a dish that can play the 1972 sports video game Pong. Although it is a far cry from a conscious system, the so-called “brain in a dish” is spooky as it moves a paddle up and down a screen to bat back a pixelated ball.

Some experts feel that if consciousness is to emerge, it is most likely to be from larger, more advanced versions of these living tissue systems.

Cortical Labs monitors their electrical activity for any signals that could conceivably be anything like the emergence of consciousness.

The firm’s chief scientific and operating officer, Dr Brett Kagan is mindful that any emerging uncontrollable intelligence might have priorities that “are not aligned with ours”. In which case, he says, half-jokingly, that possible organoid overlords would be easier to defeat because “there is always bleach” to pour over the fragile neurons.

Returning to a more solemn tone, he says the small but significant threat of artificial consciousness is something he’d like the big players in the field to focus on more as part of serious attempts to advance our scientific understanding – but says that “unfortunately, we don’t see any earnest efforts in this space”.

The more immediate problem, though, could be how the illusion of machines being conscious affects us.

In just a few years, we may well be living in a world populated by humanoid robots and deepfakes that seem conscious, according to Prof Seth. He worries that we won’t be able to resist believing that the AI has feelings and empathy, which could lead to new dangers.

“It will mean that we trust these things more, share more data with them and be more open to persuasion.”

But the greater risk from the illusion of consciousness is a “moral corrosion”, he says.

“It will distort our moral priorities by making us devote more of our resources to caring for these systems at the expense of the real things in our lives” – meaning that we might have compassion for robots, but care less for other humans.

And that could fundamentally alter us, according to Prof Shanahan.

“Increasingly human relationships are going to be replicated in AI relationships, they will be used as teachers, friends, adversaries in computer games and even romantic partners. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I don’t know, but it is going to happen, and we are not going to be able to prevent it”.

Author Sir Salman Rushdie has said he is “pleased” the man who tried to kill him in a knife attack in 2022 has received the maximum possible prison sentence.

Hadi Matar, 27, was jailed for 25 years earlier this month for attempted murder after repeatedly stabbing Sir Salman on a New York lecture stage.

“I was pleased that he got the maximum available, and I hope he uses it to reflect upon his deeds,” Sir Salman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The attack left the award-winning writer blind in one eye, with damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.

Last year, Sir Salman published a book titled Knife reflcting on the attack, which he has described as “my way of fighting back”.

It includes an imagined conversation with Matar. “I thought if I was to really meet him, to ask him questions, I wouldn’t get very much out of him,” Sir Salman told Radio 4.

“I doubt that he would open his heart to me. And so I thought, well, I could open it by myself. I’d probably do it better than a real conversation would.”

The fictional conversation was brought to life by BBC film-maker Alan Yentob in an artificial intelligence animation created for a documentary last year.

The results were “very startling”, Sir Salman said on Monday. “I have to say it certainly made a point.”

The author was speaking on Radio 4 to pay tribute to Yentob, the BBC’s former creative director, who died on Saturday.

“Apart from everything that everybody’s been saying about him – that he was an unbelievable champion of the arts and so on – he also had a real gift for friendship,” he said. “He was a very strong ally in bad times.”

Sir Salman added: “He was a great programme maker, and I hope that’s how he will be primarily remembered.”

Yentob leaves a “colossal” legacy, he said. “He’s one of the giants of British media in the last generation, and I think he will be remembered as a maker of great programmes, as an enabler of great programmes.”

The pair’s personal and professional relationship extended to Yentob famously enlisting Sir Salman to take part in a spoof arm wrestle for a scene in BBC mockumentary W1A.

“People keep asking me who won,” Sir Salman said. “And of course nobody won because it was complete fraud.”

In November, the author will publish a short story collection, The Eleventh Hour, his first work of fiction to be written since the stabbing.

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

A college in Beijing has found itself at the centre of public fury after it allegedly asked a student to prove she was on her period to qualify for sick leave.

A viral video, filmed inside what appears to be a clinic and posted to social media this month, shows a young woman asking an older woman: “Does every menstruating girl have to take off their trousers and show you before they can get a sick note?”

“Basically yes,” the older woman replies. “This is a school rule.”

Local media identified the video’s location as a clinic at the Gengdan Institute university college, which later said in a statement that its staff had “followed protocol”. But social media users have decried the encounter as a serious invasion of privacy.

Neither the student nor Gengdan Institute immediately responded to BBC News’ requests for comment.

Both the student’s video and the school’s statement appear to have been taken down, though screenshots and snippets have been recirculated online, including by state media.

On Douyin, China’s TikTok, a user claiming to be the student said her original account was suspended for 30 days for “pornographic content” after she posted the video.

In its statement dated 16 May, Gengdan Institute reportedly said the videos of the incident circulating online had been “distorted” – and that the institution had the right to pursue legal action against those who “maliciously spread untrue videos”.

The statement also said that the staff had followed the proper procedure during the encounter, such as “initiating clinical work after getting the student’s permission”, and did not use tools or conduct a physical examination.

In the video, the staff member did not reply when the student asked for written proof of the school regulation to check students’ menstrual status. She subsequently asked the student to go to a hospital instead.

On social media, the incident has triggered an outpouring of anger and sarcasm towards the school’s rules.

“My head hurts, should I open my skull and call it a day?” wrote one social media user.

“Let’s just take the sanitary pad out and paste it on the sick note,” another Weibo said.

A staff member at Gengdan Institute told local outlet Dute News that the school may have created the rule about proving menstruation in order to deter students from faking periods to get sick notes.

But that argument has rung hollow among social media users.

“If they’re worried about students using their periods as an excuse several times a month, why not simply make a record of it? It’s not that complicated,” one person wrote on Weibo.

State media has also waded into the debate.

“Menstruation is already an intimate topic for women. Rules like this will make students feel very uncomfortable, and even negatively impact students’ psychological wellbeing,” reads an opinion piece from China National Radio.

Gengdan Institute now joins a list of tertiary institutions across the country that have come under fire for what many see as overbearing and ham-fisted attempts at controlling their students.

Last year, some universities were criticised for banning the use of bed curtains in their dormitories. The curtains are often used by students for privacy in shared rooms, but school authorities said they were a fire and safety hazard.

Additionally, during the popular May Day holiday season last year, some universities issued strict guidelines for students who had planned to travel. These included avoiding solo trips, road trips, or cycling trips for safety – which many saw as the institutions overstepping their authority in students’ private lives.

On social media site Xiaohongshu, a user claiming to be a student at Gengdan Institute said “the school’s clinic deserves all the criticism it’s getting”.

“I heard from some older students that this kind of thing has been going on for a while. Some girls spoke up before, but nothing was done,” the user wrote.

“I’m glad it made the trending topics this time. People didn’t stay silent.”

Nearly three weeks after Rohit Sharma’s sudden retirement from Test cricket, the Indian cricket board has ended speculation of his successor by naming Shubman Gill as India’s new captain for the upcoming five-Test series against England in June.

At 25, Gill becomes India’s 37th Test captain – and one of its youngest, after Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil Dev and Ravi Shastri.

His appointment marks a turning point for Indian cricket. The squad he leads is without batting greats Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, spin stalwart R Ashwin who retired six months ago, and pace spearhead Mohammed Shami, who was sidelined due to fitness concerns.

The team is rich in young batting talent but will miss the experience of Kohli and Sharma. Despite Jaspreet Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, and Mohammad Siraj, the bowling attack still feels a touch raw.

Adding to Gill’s challenge: India haven’t won a Test series in England since 2007.

His appointment followed intense deliberations between chief selector Ajit Agarkar, coach Gautam Gambhir, and backchannel talks with other contenders.

Though Bumrah seemed the natural choice after serving as vice-captain in Australia, concerns over his ability to shoulder the workload of a five-Test series tipped the scales in Gill’s favour.

A prodigy from Punjab state, Gill has long carried the weight of expectation with elegance.

He burst into the spotlight in 2014, not yet 15, hammering 351 in a world-record opening stand of 587 with Nirmal Singh in the Punjab Inter-District ML Markan Trophy. It was a knock that vindicated his family’s bold move from the border village of Chak Kherewala to Mohali, seeking better training and greater exposure for the young talent.

Consistent run-getting as a junior, fast-tracked him into the under-19 ranks which is where Gill really made his first big impact.

Vice-captain of the team that played the 2017-18 U-19 World Cup, he emerged as the top run aggregator for India, highlighted by a skilful, unbeaten 102 against arch rivals Pakistan in the semi-final. In the final where India beat Australia, Gill scored a handy 31.

At the time, all eyes were on Prithvi Shaw – the U-19 captain whose Mumbai schoolboy feats drew comparisons with Tendulkar. His rise was meteoric: a Test debut century, another soon after. But by 2020, his career had begun to unravel.

Temporarily sidelined, Gill made an immediate impact on his Ranji Trophy debut with a half-century, followed by a century. Under Yuvraj Singh’s mentorship, he sharpened both his batting and game awareness.

Prolific runs pushed selectors to consider Gill as Shaw’s replacement. He debuted in Tests in Melbourne, December 2020, during India’s memorable comeback series win.

Tall and graceful, Gill’s technical precision and elegant stroke play – especially front of the wicket – set him apart as a promising young talent. Nicknamed the ‘Prince’ by his family, the title soon became his cricketing identity. Hailed as the Next Big Thing, he’s widely tipped to succeed Virat Kohli as the next generation’s leading batsman.

That promise remains unproven. Like Kohli, Gill is an all-format player, but unlike Kohli’s early dominance, Gill has yet to display the same ambition and match-winning impact – especially in Tests, where his 1,893 runs in 32 matches are solid but not outstanding.

Gill’s first captaincy, less than five years after his Test debut, comes at a crucial point in his career.

With enough international experience to elevate his batting from good to great, he now faces a stern test against England’s Bazball style of play in challenging conditions. Success here would be a major boost to his standing as a top Test player.

But it is as captain that Gill probably faces tougher challenges.

The England series kicked off India’s new World Test Championship cycle, following two finals appearances but a disappointing early exit in the last one. India’s recent Test form has been poor, with back-to-back series losses to New Zealand and Australia.

To pull India out of the current rut, Gill will have to lead the way as batter as well as captain in charge of a new-look team, whose dressing-room and dynamics he will have to understand and, perhaps, reshape.

“Gill is a young man we are investing in not just for one series, but for the next five-six years to take Indian cricket ahead,” said chief selector Ajit Agarkar.

That should be a tremendous reassurance for the new captain. While his appointment brings its share of pressure, it also carries immense hope – and an opportunity to carve his own legacy in Indian cricket history.

North Korea has arrested a fourth official over the failed launch of a new warship that has enraged the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Ri Hyong-son, deputy director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Munitions Industry Department, was “largely responsible for the serious accident” last week, state-run news agency KCNA said on Monday.

The 5,000-ton destroyer had tipped over and damaged its hull, in what Kim described as a “criminal act” that “severely damaged the [country’s] dignity and pride”.

The vessel is being repaired under the guidance of an expert group, KCNA said.

Mr Ri, who is part of the party’s Central Military Commission, is the highest level official arrested over the incident so far.

The commission commands the Korean People’s Army and is responsible for developing and implementing North Korea’s military policies.

Over the weekend, Pyongyang also detained three officials at the northern Chongjin shipyard, where the destroyer was built and where its launch failed.

The officials were the chief engineer, its construction head and an administrative manager.

Kim earlier said Wednesday’s incident was caused by “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism”.

It is not clear what punishment they might face, but the authoritarian state has been known to sentence officials it finds guilty of wrongdoing to forced labour and even death.

It is uncommon for North Korea to publicly disclose local accidents, though it has done this a handful of times in the past after failed satellite launches.

Some analysts believe Kim’s swift and severe response was meant as a signal that Pyongyang will continue to advance its military capabilities.

While such criticism is “not surprising” for a dictatorship, it is unusual that state media is openly reporting it, says Chun In-bum, a former commander of South Korea’s special forces.

“I fear this might be a sign of confidence and a show of resilience,” he says.

“With this new line of ships, North Korea seems to intend on challenging the sovereignty of the South in earnest.”

Michael Madden, a North Korea expert from the Stimson Center in Washington, sees Kim’s response as a sign of the “high priority” his regime is putting into developing warships.

The mishap may have resulted from officials “trying to do too much at once”, he notes, saying that “there seems to have been an unusual amount of internal pressure on the personnel and production units to get this all done”.

Last week’s shipyard accident comes weeks after North Korea unveiled a similar warship in another part of the country.

Kim had called that warship a “breakthrough” in modernising North Korea’s navy and said it would be deployed early next year.

Ngabi Dora Tue, consumed by grief, was barely able to stand on her own.

The coffin of her husband, Johnson Mabia, sat amid a crowd of stricken mourners in Limbe in Cameroon’s South-West region – an area that had witnessed scenes like this many times before.

While on a work trip, Johnson – an English-speaking civil servant – and five colleagues were captured by armed separatists.

The militants were – and still are – fighting for the independence of Cameroon’s two anglophone regions in what is a predominantly francophone country. A near-decade-long conflict that has led to thousands of deaths and stunted life in the area.

When he was abducted four years ago, Dora struggled to reach Johnson. When she eventually heard from separatist militants, they asked for a ransom of over $55,000 (£41,500) to be paid within 24 hours in order to secure his release. Dora then received another call from one of Johnson’s relatives.

“He said… that I should take care of the children. That my husband is no more. I didn’t even know what to do. Tuesday he was travelling, and he was kidnapped. Friday he was killed,” says Dora.

The separatists responsible had not just murdered but decapitated Johnson, and left his body on the road.

The roots of the separatist struggle lie in long-standing grievances that stretch back to full independence in 1961, and the formation of a single Cameroonian state in 1972 from former British and French territories.

Since then the English-speaking minority have felt aggrieved at the perceived erosion of rights by the central government. Johnson was just an innocent by-stander, caught up in an increasingly brutal fight for self-determination and the government’s desperate attempts to stamp out the uprising.

The current wave of violence began almost a decade ago.

In late 2016, peaceful protests started against what was perceived to be the creeping use of the francophone legal system in the region’s courtrooms. The French- and English-speaking parts of Cameroon use different judicial systems.

The protests rapidly spread, and led to a call for the closing of shops and institutions.

The response of the security forces was immediate and severe – people were beaten, intimidated and there were mass arrests. The African Union called it “a deadly and disproportionate use of violence”.

Cameroon’s defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment on this or other issues in this article.

Armed groups were set up. And, in late 2017 as tensions escalated, anglophone separatist leaders declared independence for what they called the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

To date, five million anglophone Cameroonians have been dragged into the conflict – equivalent to one-fifth of the total population. At least 6,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes.

“We used to wake up in the morning to dead bodies on the streets,” says Blaise Eyong, a journalist from Kumba in the English-speaking South-West region of Cameroon, who has produced and presented a documentary on the crisis for BBC Africa Eye, and was forced from his hometown with his family in 2019.

“Or you hear that a house has been set ablaze. Or you hear that someone was kidnapped. People’s body parts chopped off. How do you live in a city where every single morning you’re worried if your relatives are safe?”

There have been a number of national and international attempts to resolve the crisis, including what the government called “a major national dialogue” in 2019.

Although the talks established a special status for the country’s two anglophone regions which acknowledged their unique history, very little was resolved in practical terms.

Felix Agbor Nkongho – a barrister who was one of the leaders of the 2016 protests and was later arrested – says that with both sides now seeming to act with impunity, the moral high ground has disappeared.

“There was a time… where most people felt that, if they needed security, they would go to the separatists,” he tells BBC Africa Eye.

“But over the last two years, I don’t think any reasonable person would think that the separatists would be the ones to protect them. So everybody should die for us to have independence and I ask the question: who are you going to govern?”

But it is not just the separatists who are accused of abuses.

Organisations such as Human Rights Watch have recorded the brutal response of the security forces to the anglophone independence movement. They have documented the burning of villages and the torture, unlawful arrests and extrajudicial killings of people in a war largely unseen by the outside world.

Examples of state-sponsored brutality are not difficult to find.

John (not his real name) and a close friend were taken into custody by Cameroonian military forces, accused of buying weapons for a separatist group.

John recalls that after being incarcerated, they were given a document which they were told to sign without being given the chance to read its contents. When they refused, the torture began.

“That is when they separated us into different rooms,” says John. “They tortured [my friend]. You could just hear them flogging everywhere. I could feel it on my own body [too]. They beat me everywhere. Later they told me he accepted and signed and they allowed him to go.”

But that was not the truth.

A month after his arrest, another man arrived in John’s cell. He told him that his friend had, in fact, died in the room he had been held and tortured in. Months later John’s case was dropped and he was released without charge.

“I just live in fear because I don’t really know where to start from or where it is safe to start from or how,” says John.

Part of the separatists’ strategy to weaken the state and its security forces is to push for a ban on education which they say is a tool of government propaganda.

In October 2020, a school in Kumba was attacked. No-one claimed responsibility for the atrocity but the government blamed separatists. Men armed with machetes and guns killed at least seven children.

The incident sparked, for a brief moment, international outrage and condemnation.

“Nearly half the schools in this region have been shut,” says journalist Eyong.

“A whole generation of kids is missing out on their education. Imagine the impact this will have for our communities and also for our country.”

As if the violence between the government forces and the various separatist groups was not enough, an additional front has opened up in the war. Militant groups in the separatist areas have emerged to fight the Ambazonians in an effort to keep Cameroon united.

A leader of one of these groups, John Ewome (known as Moja Moja), regularly led patrols in the town of Buea in search of separatists until he was arrested in May 2024.

He, too, has been accused of human rights violations, of public humiliation and torturing unarmed civilians thought to be separatist sympathisers. He denies the accusations. “I’ve never laid my hands on any civilian. Just the Ambazonians. And I believe the gods of this land are with me,” he told the BBC.

Meanwhile, the cycle of abductions and killings continue.

Joe (not his real name) was – like Johnson – taken hostage by a separatist group, keen to maintain control through fear – and to cash in.

“I walked into the house, and found my children and my wife on the floor while the commander was sitting in my kitchen with his gun very close. All around me, my neighbour had been taken, my landlord had been taken. So when I saw them, I knew it was my turn,” says Joe.

He was led into the forest with 15 other people where he witnessed the execution of two of his fellow captives. But he was eventually freed after the military discovered the camp.

Johnson was not as lucky and, about two years after his funeral took place, news arrived that neither were his five colleagues kidnapped with him. Their bodies had just been found.

More families will now have to try to come to terms with their enormous loss. For Ngabi Dora Tue, sitting with her young child in her lap, the future feels almost overwhelming.

“I have debts I have to settle I don’t even know how to settle,” she says.

“I thought of selling my body for money. And then I Iook at the shame that would come after, I just have to swallow the difficulty and then push forward. I was very young to become a widow.”

The BBC has asked for a response from the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF), which claims to be the largest separatist force.

It responded that there are a multiplicity of separatist fighters now operating in the anglophone region.

The ADF said it operates within international law and does not attack government workers, schools, journalists or civilians.

Instead it has blamed individuals and fringe entities acting on their own accord who are not members of the ADF for these attacks.

The group also accuses government infiltrators of committing atrocities while claiming to be Ambazonian fighters to turn the local populations against the liberation struggle.

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Burgundy is one of the most prestigious wine regions in France, and the US is its biggest export market. But now Donald Trump’s tariffs are threatening to price European wine out of the American marketplace.

Crouched in cold mud under a thin Spring rain, vineyard employee Élodie Bonet snaps off unwanted vine shoots with her fingers and pruning clippers.

“We want the vine to put all its energy into the shoots that have the flowers where the grapes are going to grow,” she explains.

I leave Élodie working her way down the rows of vines, and walk up to the house and winery in the Burgundy village of Morey-Saint-Denis, where I meet owner and winemaker Cécile Tremblay.

She takes me down to her cellar to taste some of her prized red wines, standing among the oak barrels and old bottles with labels weathered by mould and age.

They have names on them that make wine lovers go weak at the knees – Nuits-Saint-Georges, Echezeaux, Vosne-Romanée, Clos-Vougeot, and Chapelle-Chambertin.

Ms Tremblay sells over half of her wine abroad, under the name Domaine Cecile Tremblay.

“For the United States, it’s around 10% of the production; it’s a big production for me!” she says.

After threatening a 200% mark-up on alcohol from Europe, Donald Trump imposed a 20% tariff on practically all European Union products on 5 April.

Four days later, he lowered this to 10%, with the threat that he’d hike it back up again to 20% in July, depending on how trade negotiations pan out. And now Trump is threatening a future tariff of 50% on all goods from the EU.

I ask Ms Tremblay if she’s worried. “Yes, sure,” she says, “As everybody is.”

But that is all she will say on the matter. French winemakers are walking on eggshells at the moment, fearful of saying anything that might aggravate the situation.

Perhaps their representatives will be more forthcoming? I get in my car and drive over to one of her neighbours – François Labet. He is the president of the Burgundy Wine Board, which represents this region’s 3,500 winemakers.

“The US is the largest export market for the whole region. Definitely,” he tells me. “They are the biggest in volume and the biggest in value.”

And, until Donald Trump’s re-election, the US market was booming. While French wines and spirits global exports fell 4% last year overall, sales of Burgundy wines to the US rose sharply.

In volume terms, there were up 16% from 2024, to 20.9 million bottles. This was worth €370m ($415m; £312m) in revenues, 26.2% higher than in 2023.

Mr Labet says the US accounted for about a quarter of Burgundy’s wine exports last year.

Burgundy’s reputation abroad is mainly for its red wines, which are made from the celebrated pinot noir grape. Indeed, in the English-speaking world, burgundy is not so much a wine as a colour.

The French word for the same colour is bordeaux; showing they know more about their wine, because while Bordeaux wines are mostly red, two-thirds of Burgundy is actually white.

These are predominantly made from the chardonnay grape. Chablis, one of the best-known examples, is extremely popular in the US.

Burgundy also produces an increasingly successful sparkling wine, called Crémant de Bourgogne, and a small amount of rosé.

All of which is good for Burgundy because while general red wine consumption just keeps going down, white is holding firm, and sparkling is going up.

Also, the reds that come out of Burgundy are, according to Mr Labet, the kind consumers increasingly want, as they are typically lighter than New World reds.

“What is interesting to see is that there is a strong de-consumption of what we call the big reds, made in the US. Wines with a lot of alcohol, aged in new wood.”

Less sun and lower temperatures in Burgundy, even with climate change, means less sugar in the grapes and lower alcohol content.

Mr Labet remembers when, for 18 months of his first presidency, Donald Trump hit European wine with a 25% import tariff during a dispute over airlines.

“We were hostages of that situation, and it really did affect our sales to the US. We had a drop of about 50% of our exports to the US.”

Regarding the current 10% Trump tariff, he predicts that French wine producers and US merchants will split the cost of the new import duty between them in order to maintain sales.

But what will be the impact if in July Trump does decide to increase the tariff on all European Union exports to 20%, as he has threatened to do? “We will go back to the 2019 situation where the market was almost stopped,” says Mr Labet.

For French wines in general, things could be even worse.

“When President Trump raised import duties by 25% for one-and-a-half years of his first mandate, we lost about $600m [£450m] very quickly,” says Jerome Bauer, president of the French National Wines and Spirits Confederation.

“But back then Champagne wasn’t included, and neither were wines stronger than 14 degrees of alcohol. So you can see the scale of the threat today.”

The solution Mr Bauer is backing is free trade. No tariffs. But you’d expect him to say that, given that France and Europe run a big trade surplus with the US when it comes to wines and spirits.

More surprising, perhaps, is the opinion of his American competitors in California and Oregon who, you might think, would be cracking open something a bit special to celebrate.

“This looks horrible from our perspective. We don’t like it one bit,” says Rex Stoltz, vice-president of industry relations at Napa Valley Vintners, which represents 540 wineries in the sunny slopes of California’s most famous wine region.

“Wine is an international product. Even here in the Napa Valley, our wineries primarily get their corks from Portugal, and their oak barrels, a key component in winemaking, from France.

Mr Stoltz adds: “They’re already expensive and the potential is that they will get more expensive.”

Also, trade wars cut both ways. He says the tariffs announced against Canada are having a devastating impact on US wine exports.

“Canada is the most important export market for California wines, and one of the top export markets for Napa Valley wines. Right now, there are zero Napa Valley wines on the shelves of stores in Canada.

“They’ve removed all American alcohol beverage products from their store shelves!”

Mr Stoltz adds: “We just want to compete on an even playing field with our friends and neighbours all over the world. That’s our ask and that’s our hope.”

German Tom Kopke was victorious at the Gloucestershire cheese-rolling event for the second year in a row, saying he “risked his life” to win.

Mr Kopke, 23, who runs his own YouTube channel, was one of dozens of competitors who took part in the traditional annual event down the slopes of Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire.

Each race sees people chase 7lb (3kg) wheels of Double Gloucester down one of the UK’s steepest hills, with the winner claiming the cheese.

“Last year the hill was muddy and this year it was dry and dangerous and people got injured,” Mr Kopke said after his victory.

There were seven races in all, two of them in memory of former cheese rolling winners who have since died.

“It was crazy. This year was different,” said Mr Kopke, who publishes content to his 366,000 subscribers under the name Tooleko. “I shut off my brain and went for it.

“All the people at the top said they were going to steal my title, but this is mine.

“I worked for this. I risked my life for this. It’s my cheese – back to back.”

One spectator from Mr Kopke’s race was taken to hospital from the event, which the local authorities say is dangerous and puts a strain on the county’s ambulance service.

Thousands of people watched the races from the side, top and bottom of Cooper’s Hill.

The second men’s race was won by Luke Preece, from Gloucester, who flew down the hill race dressed in a Superman costume.

“I am absolutely buzzed, amazing… the adrenaline,” he said afterwards.

“My dad did it, I can’t believe it, it’s amazing.”

The women’s race was won by London university student Ava Sender Logan, 20.

“This is my first time,” she said.

“I thought it was such a tradition, and I will probably feel it tomorrow.

“It felt quite long coming down and then I hit my head. I’m down – that’s what matters.”

But what about Ava’s prize of a wheel of Double Gloucester? “I don’t like cheese,” she admitted.

• Cheese rolling as it happened

The final men’s downhill race was won by Byron Smith, 33, from New Zealand, who had to settle for second place last year.

“It feels great, yeah,” he said.

“I did it last year and came second in my heat and I thought I could do it this year and I did.

“I ran as fast as I could and tried to get back up, and this year I did.”

A fight involvingmachetes at a Melbourne shopping centre has prompted an Australian state to fast-track the country’s first-ever ban on the weapon’s sale.

The ban – to start in Victoria this Wednesday, instead of September – comes after two gangs attacked each other at Northland shopping centre in Preston on Sunday afternoon. A man, 20, remains in hospital in a serious condition.

Victoria’s premier said the ban will “choke the supply”, adding “the community shouldn’t have to deal with these weapons in their shopping centres – neither should our police”.

Two boys, aged 16 and 15, were on Sunday charged with affray, intentionally causing injury, and possession and use of a controlled weapon.

On Monday, police said two men, aged 20 and 18, had also been arrested and were being interviewed. All four people were known to police previously.

“This was a planned fight between two rival youth gangs with no innocent bystanders hurt,” said deputy commissioner David Clayton.

“Fortunately, these events are not very commonplace in Victoria,” he said, adding that youth knife crime is “rare” but “frightening”.

Clayton said one in 10 knife crimes in the state is committed by young people, and often happen in public places.

Emergency services were called to the shopping centre in Preston – about 11km (seven miles) north of Melbourne – just after 14:30 local time (05:30 BST) on Sunday after reports of up to 10 people fighting.

Police said the investigation “remains ongoing” and more arrests are expected. Three of the four machetes used during the attack have been seized, police said.

Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan described the attack as “appalling”.

“We must never let the places where we gather – where families come together, to meet, to shop, to enjoy the peace of their weekend – become the places we fear,” Allan said at a press conference.

“It took the United Kingdom 18 months to bring about a ban on machetes and we are moving to do it within six months,” she added.

In March, Victoria announced legislative changes to its Control of Weapons Act, making it illegal to sell or possess machetes, with the new law to start in September.

The ban covers machetes, which are broadly defined as “knives with a cutting blade longer than 20cm”. It does not include knives primarily used in kitchens.

A three-month amnesty from September means anyone with a machete can place them in specially designated boxes at police stations.

Police also thanked a man who held down one of the alleged offenders until police arrived, saying he “performed an outstanding job”, but added they don’t encourage the public to become involved in such incidents.

In England and Wales, a ban on “zombie-style” knives and machetes was introduced last September, making it illegal to own, make, transport or sell a wide range of “statement” knives favoured by criminal gangs.

Sweden-based car maker Volvo Cars says it will cut around 3,000 jobs as part of its cost-cutting measures.

The firm says the layoffs will mainly impact office-based positions in Sweden, representing about 15% of its white collar workforce.

Last month, Volvo Cars, which is owned by Chinese group Geely Holding, announced an 18 billion Swedish kronor ($1.9bn; £1.4bn) “action plan” shake-up of the business.

The global motor industry is facing a number of major challenges including US President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported cars, higher cost of materials and slower sales in Europe.

The chief executive of Volvo Cars, Håkan Samuelsson, pointed to the “challenging period” faced by the industry as a reason for the layoffs.

“The actions announced today have been difficult decisions, but they are important steps as we build a stronger and even more resilient Volvo Cars,” he said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the firm said its global sales for April fell by 11% compared to the same period last year.

Volvo Cars has its main headquarters and development offices in Gothenburg, Sweden. It has major production plants in Sweden, Belgium, China and the US.

The company was sold by US motor industry giant Ford to China’s Geely in 2010.

In 2021, Volvo said all of its cars would go electric by 2030. Last year it scaled back that ambition due to a number of issues including “additional uncertainties created by recent tariffs on EVs in various markets”.

Japanese car maker Nissan said earlier this month that it will cut another 11,000 jobs globally and shut seven factories as it shakes up the business in the face of weak sales.

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

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

In an example of the cutthroat rivalry between carmakers, Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD announced at the weekend that it would cut the prices of more than 20 of its models.

The move brings the price of its cheapest car, the Seagull EV, to as low as 55,800 yuan ($7,745; £5,700).

In response Chinese government-owned Changan and Leapmotor, which is backed by Chrysler owner Stellantis, announced their own price cuts.

In April, BYD outsold Elon Musk’s Tesla in Europe for the first time, according to car industry research firm Jato Dynamics.

Crowds of far-right Israelis chanted insults and assaulted Palestinians during an annual parade for Jerusalem Day on Monday.

Chants of “death to Arabs” and nationalistic slogans were repeated during the event, which commemorates Israeli forces taking Palestinian-majority East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Violence broke out as ultranationalist Jews streamed into Palestinian areas of Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said the event had become a festival of “hatred and racism”, adding it was “a disgrace and an insult to Judaism”.

Israeli police were deployed as violence broke out in the walled Old City of Occupied East Jerusalem shortly after midday.

Thousands of nationalist Israelis descended to Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances. Right-wing activists held banners that read “67 – Jerusalem in our hands; 2025 – Gaza in our hands”.

Arab traders in the Muslim Quarter who had yet to close their shops were harassed by young Israeli men, witnesses said.

Chants of “May your village burn” and “Your home will be ours” were heard throughout the march.

Aggressive marchers were detained and removed from the Old City by Israeli police.

National security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, of the Jewish Power party, called for the death penalty for “terrorists” in an address to the crowds.

Gvir also visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam and known by Jews as the Temple Mount. Jews revere it as the location of two Biblical Temples and it is the holiest site in Judaism.

The compound is administered by a Jordanian Islamic trust. Jews are allowed to visit but not pray there.

A spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, based in the West Bank, condemned the march and Ben Gvir’s visit to Al-Aqsa.

Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, “repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and provocative acts such as raising the Israeli flag in occupied Jerusalem threaten the stability of the entire region,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement.

In a cabinet meeting on Monday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep Jerusalem “united, whole, and under Israeli sovereignty”.

Left-wing opposition leader Yair Golan described images of violence in the Old City as “shocking”.

“This is what hatred, racism and bullying look like,” he said in a statement on X.

“We will fight for Jerusalem for all of us, Jews, Christians and Muslims, secular and religious.

“Jerusalem belongs to all those who love her. We will fight for her and restore her as a city for us all.”

Lapid, another opposition leader, added: “There is nothing Jewish about this violence. The government ministers who remain silent in the face of these events are complicit in this disgrace.”

Every year thousands of Israelis march a route through Jerusalem and the annexed Old City, ending at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray in Jerusalem. On Sunday, a large Israeli flag was unfurled at the Western Wall plaza.

The parade mark Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and the “unification” of a city that the Israeli government says is their eternal capital.

Palestinians also want Jerusalem as their future capital and much of the international community regards East Jerusalem as Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

This year’s Flag March again coincided with the war in Gaza and escalating Israeli military operations against Palestinian militants in the West Bank.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Fifty-seven are still being held, about 20 of whom are assumed to be alive.

At least 53,939 people, including at least 16,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla have arrived in Canada for a visit meant to underscore Canada’s sovereignty in the face of tensions with the US.

The two-day visit began on Monday with a whirlwind of pomp and pageantry that included a welcome ceremony for the King and Queen at the airport, a street hockey puck drop and a ceremonial tree planting.

It comes ahead of a big day on Tuesday, when the King will deliver the Speech of the Throne – which will lay out the government’s priorities and goals – to parliament.

A monarch has not delivered the throne speech in Canada since 1977, making this royal visit a rare occasion.

“The Royal Visit is a reminder of the bond between Canada and the Crown – one forged over generations, shaped by shared histories, and grounded in common values,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney in a statement on Monday.

Here is a look at King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s time in Ottawa so far.

The King and Queen touched down in Ottawa at around 13:15 local time (18:15 BST). They were welcomed by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Armed Forces.

Waiting for them on the runway were Prime Minister Carney, his wife Diana Fox Carney, Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon and other dignitaries.

They were also met by national indigenous leaders.

The King wore a dark red, patterned tie, while the Queen donned a light pink ensemble from a British designer.

She wore a diamond maple leaf brooch that was given by King George VI to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in 1939 ahead of their first royal tour to Canada.

That same brooch was passed down to Queen Elizabeth II, and has been loaned to other royals including Catherine, Princess of Wales.

• Why is King Charles in Canada, and what is the throne speech?
• King and Queen arrive in Canada for historic visit
• King’s invitation to Canada sends a message to Trump – and the world

Carney extended an invitation to the King earlier this year and announced the visit shortly after his Liberal party won Canada’s general election in April.

The visit comes amid a trade war with the country’s neighbour and close economic ally, the United States.

US President Donald Trump has also repeatedly said the country would be better off as a 51st US state.

At the airport, the Queen was given a bouquet of flowers and she and the King were greeted by school groups from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

Some of the children who attended the arrival are enrolled in the Duke of Edinburgh programme, a global youth development programme launched by the late Prince Phillip – the King’s father – in 1956.

After the airport greeting, the King and Queen travelled to Lansdowne Park in central Ottawa, where they met well-wishers, local community groups, farmers, and vendors.

The King took part in a ceremonial street hockey puck drop.

The King and Queen later partook in a tree planting ceremony at Rideau Hall, the official residence of Canada’s governor general.

Commemorative tree planting at Rideau Hall is a tradition that began in 1906, and is meant to symbolise friendship and cooperation between nations.

Monday’s ceremony marks the fifth tree planted by the King in Canada, and the second with Queen Camilla by his side.

They planted a Blue Beech, a small deciduous tree native to eastern North America and known for its bright autumn leaves.

Afterwards, the King held privates audiences with Gov Gen Simon and Prime Minister Carney.

The King and Queen later retired for the day, with no other public events on their agenda.

On Tuesday, they will head early in the morning to the Senate of Canada, where the King will deliver the Speech from the Throne.

Authorities in India’s southern Kerala state have issued an alert after a ship carrying oil and hazardous cargo leaked and sank off the state’s coast in the Arabian Sea.

The spill occurred in a Liberian-flagged vessel that capsized near Kochi city on Sunday. The coastal stretch is rich in biodiversity and is also an important tourist destination.

All 24 crew members on board the ship have been rescued but some of the ship’s 640 containers have reportedly been drifting towards the shore, prompting evacuations in the area.

Authorities fear that oil, fuel and other harmful substances that have leaked from the ship and its cargo could endanger the health of residents and marine life.

“As the oil slick can reach anywhere along the Kerala coast, an alert has been sounded across the coastal belt,” a statement from the chief minister’s office said.

Authorities have advised residents living near the sea to not touch any containers or the oil that might wash up to the shore, while fishermen have been asked to avoid venturing too close to the sunken ship.

On Monday, officials said they had intensified pollution control measures to contain the spill.

The Indian Coast Guard has deployed a ship carrying pollution control equipment to the site.

It has also sent one of its aircraft which has an oil spill detection system to survey the area.

The vessel – MSC ELSA 3 – which was travelling from Vizhinjam port to Kochi, began to tilt dangerously when it was about 38 nautical miles from the coast of Kochi.

It capsized into the Arabian Sea in the early hours of Sunday due to flooding in one of its compartments.

The Indian Coast Guard said that the ship was carrying 13 containers of hazardous cargo and 12 with calcium carbide – a chemical that reacts with seawater to release a flammable gas.

“Additionally, [the] ship had 84.44 metric tonnes of diesel and 367.1 metric tonnes of furnace oil in its tanks,” it said.

The crew members were rescued by Indian navy personnel after an hours-long operation.

South Korea will elect a new president on 3 June to replace Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office for placing the country under martial law for six hours in December.

The winner will be tasked with managing the political and economic fallout of Yoon’s move, which plunged the country in deep turmoil and divided opinions.

The snap election is also being held as South Korea faces an unpredictable ally in US President Donald Trump – and that will shape long-running challenges such as the threat from North Korea, and Seoul’s frosty relationship with China.

Here is what you need to know as the nation of about 52 million people chooses a new president who will lead it for the next five years.

Yoon was supposed to serve as president until 2027, but his term ended in disgrace.

He shocked the nation by declaring martial law on 3 December, citing threats from “anti-state forces” and North Korea – but it soon became clear that he was spurred by his own political troubles.

A week later, he was impeached by parliament. On 4 April, a constitutional court upheld his impeachment and removed him from office permanently, setting the stage for a snap presidential election within 60 days, as required by law.

In the six turbulent months since Yoon’s martial law attempt, the country has had three acting presidents, the most recent being Lee Ju-ho, the labour minister who assumed the role one month before the election.

Lee replaced Prime Minister Han Duck Soo, who himself was impeached just weeks after taking over from Yoon as acting president. Finance minister Choi Sang-mok was acting president before Han was reinstated in March.

Yoon’s martial law laid bare the deep political divisions in the country, as those who supported his decision to impose martial law and those who opposed it took to the streets in protest.

The following months of uncertainty shook public confidence in South Korea’s economy. And this was at a time when US President Donald Trump unleashed his tariffs on America’s trading partners, with South Korean goods facing a 25% levy.

Closer to home, relations with North Korea are a persistent challenge. While 2025 has been relatively uneventful, the year before saw heightened tensions as Kim Jong Un escalated the rhetoric, and both sides spent months sending balloons and drones carrying propaganda materials across the border.

South Korea’s new leader must also balance Seoul’s relations between its biggest trading partner, Beijing, and its most important security ally, Washington.

Then there is the task of arresting the country’s declining birth rate, which is among the lowest in the world – 0.75.

Polls have placed Lee Jae-myung of the main opposition Democratic Party as the frontrunner among six candidates, followed by Kim Moon-soo from the ruling PPP.

Lee, who lost to Yoon by a razor-thin margin in 2022, is hailed by his supporters as a working class hero. He worked in a factory before he became a human rights lawyer and politician. He has promised to establish a “real Republic of Korea” with jobs and a fair society.

Kim, a former labour minister, has positioned himself as a president for the economy, promising to create a business-friendly environment.

The other candidates are Lee Jun-seok of the New Reform Party, Kwon Young-guk of the Democratic Labor Party and two independents – Hwang Kyo-ahn and Song Jin- ho.

For the first time in 18 years, there is no woman running for president. The first woman to run for president was Hong Suk-Ja in 1987, but she withdrew before the vote. The election in 2012 saw four female candidates contest for the top job.

The election is scheduled on 3 June and voting precincts will be open from 06:00 local time (22:00 GMT) to 20:00. South Koreans overseas were allowed to vote early from 20 to 25 May.

Results are expected to come in after polls close and the winner will likely be known in the early hours of the following day.

When Yoon defeated Lee in 2022, he was proclaimed the winner nine hours after the close of voting, or at 04:40 the morning after election day.

That was the closest presidential contest in the country’s history, which saw Yoon win by a 0.73% difference in votes.

The new president will take office immediately and unlike many of his predecessors, will not have the advantage of a formal transition from Yoon.

Yoon faces trial for an insurrection charge as a result of his attempt to impose martial law.

In January this year he became South Korea’s first sitting president to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut through barbed wire to take him into custody. He was relased from detention weeks later on a technicality.

He was also recently indicted for abuse of power, a separate charge to insurrection.

Before the election, Yoon quit his party in what analysts said was an attempt to shore up the chances of PPP’s presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo.

German Tom Kopke was victorious at the Gloucestershire cheese-rolling event for the second year in a row, saying he “risked his life” to win.

Mr Kopke, 23, who runs his own YouTube channel, was one of dozens of competitors who took part in the traditional annual event down the slopes of Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire.

Each race sees people chase 7lb (3kg) wheels of Double Gloucester down one of the UK’s steepest hills, with the winner claiming the cheese.

“Last year the hill was muddy and this year it was dry and dangerous and people got injured,” Mr Kopke said after his victory.

There were seven races in all, two of them in memory of former cheese rolling winners who have since died.

“It was crazy. This year was different,” said Mr Kopke, who publishes content to his 366,000 subscribers under the name Tooleko. “I shut off my brain and went for it.

“All the people at the top said they were going to steal my title, but this is mine.

“I worked for this. I risked my life for this. It’s my cheese – back to back.”

One spectator from Mr Kopke’s race was taken to hospital from the event, which the local authorities say is dangerous and puts a strain on the county’s ambulance service.

Thousands of people watched the races from the side, top and bottom of Cooper’s Hill.

The second men’s race was won by Luke Preece, from Gloucester, who flew down the hill race dressed in a Superman costume.

“I am absolutely buzzed, amazing… the adrenaline,” he said afterwards.

“My dad did it, I can’t believe it, it’s amazing.”

The women’s race was won by London university student Ava Sender Logan, 20.

“This is my first time,” she said.

“I thought it was such a tradition, and I will probably feel it tomorrow.

“It felt quite long coming down and then I hit my head. I’m down – that’s what matters.”

But what about Ava’s prize of a wheel of Double Gloucester? “I don’t like cheese,” she admitted.

• Cheese rolling as it happened

The final men’s downhill race was won by Byron Smith, 33, from New Zealand, who had to settle for second place last year.

“It feels great, yeah,” he said.

“I did it last year and came second in my heat and I thought I could do it this year and I did.

“I ran as fast as I could and tried to get back up, and this year I did.”

A naval court in Greece has charged 17 coastguards over the deadliest migrant boat disaster in the Mediterranean Sea for a decade.

Up to 650 people were feared to have drowned when the overcrowded Adriana fishing vessel sank near Pylos, off the Greek coast, in the early hours of 14 June 2023.

Survivors later told the BBC that Greek coastguards had caused their boat to capsize in a botched attempt to tow it and then silenced witnesses.

“It has taken us two years just for these charges to come, even though so many people witnessed what happened,” one of the survivors, a Syrian man we called Ahmad, said on Monday.

The Greek authorities have always denied the claims against them.

The Deputy Prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court has found that 17 members of the Hellenic Coast Guard should face criminal charges.

Among them is the captain of the coastguard ship, the LS-920, who is charged with “causing a shipwreck”, leading to the deaths of “at least 82 people”.

This corresponds to the number of bodies recovered, although it is thought as many as an additional 500 people drowned, including women and children who were all below deck.

The disaster occurred in international waters – but within Greece’s rescue zone.

The then-Chief of the Coast Guard and the Supervisor of the National Search and Rescue Coordination Centre in Piraeus are among four officials charged with “exposing others to danger”.

The captain of the LS-920 is also charged with “dangerous interference of maritime transport” as well as a “failure to provide assistance” to the migrant boat.

The crew of the ship are charged for “simple complicity” in all the acts allegedly committed by the captain.

A coastguard ship had been monitoring the Adriana for 15 hours before it sank.

It had left Libya for Italy with an estimated 750 people on board. Only 104 of them are known to have survived.

We’ve been investigating since the day of the disaster and our series of findings has cast serious doubt on the official Greek version of events.

Within a week, we obtained shipping data which challenged the claim the migrant boat had not been in trouble and so did not need to be rescued.

A month later, survivors told us the coastguard had caused their boat to sink in a disastrous effort to tow it and then forced witnessed to stay silent.

Last year, a case against nine Egyptians was thrown out, amid claims they had been scapegoated by the Greek authorities.

Earlier this year, audio recordings emerged which further challenged the official Greek version of events.

We first met Syrian refugees, who we called Ahmad and Musaab to protect their identities, a month after the disaster.

They said they each paid $4,500 (£3,480) for a spot on the boat.

Ahmad’s younger brother was also on board and did not survive.

Musaab described to us the moment when – he alleged – the Greek coastguards caused their boat to sink.

“They attached a rope from the left,” he said. “Everyone moved to the right side of our boat to balance it. The Greek vessel moved off quickly causing our boat to flip. They kept dragging it for quite a distance.”

The men claimed that once on land, in the port of Kalamata, the coastguard told survivors to “shut up” when they started to talk about how the Greek authorities had caused the disaster.

“When people replied by saying the Greek coastguard was the cause, the official in charge of the questioning asked the interpreter to tell the interviewee to stop talking,” Ahmad said.

He said officials shouted: “You have survived death. Stop talking about the incident Don’t ask more questions about it.”

Today Ahmad – who is now living in Germany – said he felt vindicated by the charges that had been brought.

“I’m very happy they are eventually being held accountable for all that they have committed, but until I see them in prison nothing has been done yet,” he said.

“To be honest, the Greek legal system is very unreliable.”

The joint legal team representing survivors and victims of the disaster said the decision to pursue a case against the 17 coastguards was a big step forward towards justice being done.

In a statement it said: “Almost two years after the Pylos shipwreck, the prosecution and referral to main investigation for felonies of 17 members of the Coast Guard, including senior officers of its leadership, constitutes a substantial and self-evident development in the course of vindication of the victims and the delivery of justice.”

It is understood the 17 men who have now been charged will be questioned in the coming weeks by the Deputy Prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court.

The court will then decide whether to send them to full trial or dismiss the charges.

It is not immediately clear what punishment the coastguards could receive if found guilty.

Greece has previously told the BBC its Coast Guard fully respects human rights and has rescued more than 250,000 people at sea in the past decade.

A college in Beijing has found itself at the centre of public fury after it allegedly asked a student to prove she was on her period to qualify for sick leave.

A viral video, filmed inside what appears to be a clinic and posted to social media this month, shows a young woman asking an older woman: “Does every menstruating girl have to take off their trousers and show you before they can get a sick note?”

“Basically yes,” the older woman replies. “This is a school rule.”

Local media identified the video’s location as a clinic at the Gengdan Institute university college, which later said in a statement that its staff had “followed protocol”. But social media users have decried the encounter as a serious invasion of privacy.

Neither the student nor Gengdan Institute immediately responded to BBC News’ requests for comment.

Both the student’s video and the school’s statement appear to have been taken down, though screenshots and snippets have been recirculated online, including by state media.

On Douyin, China’s TikTok, a user claiming to be the student said her original account was suspended for 30 days for “pornographic content” after she posted the video.

In its statement dated 16 May, Gengdan Institute reportedly said the videos of the incident circulating online had been “distorted” – and that the institution had the right to pursue legal action against those who “maliciously spread untrue videos”.

The statement also said that the staff had followed the proper procedure during the encounter, such as “initiating clinical work after getting the student’s permission”, and did not use tools or conduct a physical examination.

In the video, the staff member did not reply when the student asked for written proof of the school regulation to check students’ menstrual status. She subsequently asked the student to go to a hospital instead.

On social media, the incident has triggered an outpouring of anger and sarcasm towards the school’s rules.

“My head hurts, should I open my skull and call it a day?” wrote one social media user.

“Let’s just take the sanitary pad out and paste it on the sick note,” another Weibo said.

A staff member at Gengdan Institute told local outlet Dute News that the school may have created the rule about proving menstruation in order to deter students from faking periods to get sick notes.

But that argument has rung hollow among social media users.

“If they’re worried about students using their periods as an excuse several times a month, why not simply make a record of it? It’s not that complicated,” one person wrote on Weibo.

State media has also waded into the debate.

“Menstruation is already an intimate topic for women. Rules like this will make students feel very uncomfortable, and even negatively impact students’ psychological wellbeing,” reads an opinion piece from China National Radio.

Gengdan Institute now joins a list of tertiary institutions across the country that have come under fire for what many see as overbearing and ham-fisted attempts at controlling their students.

Last year, some universities were criticised for banning the use of bed curtains in their dormitories. The curtains are often used by students for privacy in shared rooms, but school authorities said they were a fire and safety hazard.

Additionally, during the popular May Day holiday season last year, some universities issued strict guidelines for students who had planned to travel. These included avoiding solo trips, road trips, or cycling trips for safety – which many saw as the institutions overstepping their authority in students’ private lives.

On social media site Xiaohongshu, a user claiming to be a student at Gengdan Institute said “the school’s clinic deserves all the criticism it’s getting”.

“I heard from some older students that this kind of thing has been going on for a while. Some girls spoke up before, but nothing was done,” the user wrote.

“I’m glad it made the trending topics this time. People didn’t stay silent.”

Witnesses have described the “horrendous” moment a car “rammed” into a crowd of people who were attending Liverpool FC’s victory parade following their Premier League win.

Merseyside Police said a number of pedestrians were hit by the vehicle in Water Street, Liverpool just after 18:00 BST. Dozens were injured, two of them seriously, with 27 treated in hospital.

A 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area was arrested, police said, adding that he is believed to have been the driver.

• Follow live: Man, 53, arrested after car hits pedestrians at Liverpool FC parade
• Watch: Scene after car hits pedestrians in Liverpool

One eyewitness, BBC reporter Matt Cole, said the car missed him and his family “by literally inches”.

“We had just moments before watched fireworks going off, the celebrations of the Liverpool bus passing us on the Strand,” he said.

He said an ambulance had just made its way through the “dense” crowd he was part of on Water Street, when “there were screams ahead of us and suddenly this dark blue car just came through the crowd”.

“It just wasn’t stopping – I managed to grab my daughter who was with me and jump out of the way.

“It missed myself and my family by literally inches.”

He said the ambulance acted like a “natural barrier… that slowed the car down”, but that it had “no intention – it appeared – of stopping”. He added that the car looked to be travelling at “more than 20 [mph]”, but that he could not be sure it was not 30mph.

“As it passed me, it was being chased by a group of men who were trying to bang on the side of it and throw things at it,” he explained, adding that the rear windshield had been “completely smashed in”.

Having moved to safety down a side street, he saw police “running from all over, ambulances, police vans… more and more ambulances, more and more police vans – at one point then an entire squad of armed police cars stopped and people jumped out with rifles and again big medical packs on and began running towards the scene of the incident.”

He said his initial assumption was that the driver just wanted to “barge through crowds because they didn’t want to wait”.

“But suddenly then, the speed registered and the shouts of the people and the screams of the people registered, and at that point, yeah, adrenaline very much just kicks in”.

Harry Rashid, 48, from Solihull, was at the parade with his wife and two young daughters when he witnessed the car pull up before it “just rammed into all the people at the side of us”.

He told PA news agency: “It was extremely fast. Initially, we just heard the pop, pop, pop of people just being knocked off the bonnet of a car…. I saw people on lying on the ground, people unconscious.

“It was horrendous. So horrendous.”

Off-duty BBC reporter Dan Ogunshakin, who was in the city for the parade, said “suddenly a lot of people started to surround” a car, which was front of an ambulance that was moving through the crowd.

He said he and his friend then noticed “people were hitting the car and shaking the car and we wondered why this was suddenly happening”.

The car then reversed and knocked people away from it, he explained, then “it suddenly accelerated forwards” straight towards the crowd of people. “People scattered like bowling pins.”

“What had once been an atmosphere of celebration and joy and happiness suddenly turned into fear and terror and disbelief,” he said, adding it become “hell on Earth”.

Matthew O’Carroll, 28, from Runcorn said he had approached the top of Water Street when the car “came past a parked police van at a decent speed”.

“People managed to get out of the way as he was beeping as he went through but as he went past, people were obviously very angry and so started running after the car.

“The back window of the car was already smashed.

“I thought that once it went past us, it was just someone that was trying to get away from something and would slow down when he got to more people.”

Another witness, Mike Maddra, was walking with a group of friends, when he saw a car “speeding up” and hitting pedestrians.

He said the “car turned left, mounted pavement, come towards us and runs towards the buildings”.

He added that he thought he saw two people being hit, and that “it looked deliberate”.

“It has just ruined the day really,” he said.