US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered embassies to stop scheduling appointments for student visas as it prepares to expand social media vetting of such applicants.

In a copy of a memo sent to diplomatic posts, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the pause would last “until further guidance is issued”.

The message said social media vetting would be stepped up for student and foreign exchange visas, which would have “significant implications” for embassies and consulates.

It comes amid Trump’s feud with some of America’s most elite colleges, which he believes are too left-wing. He says some of them have enabled antisemitism on campus and uphold discriminatory admissions policies.

The state department memo, viewed by the BBC’s US partner CBS News, directed US embassies on Tuesday to remove any unfilled appointments from their calendars for students seeking visas, but said those with appointments already scheduled could go ahead.

The diplomatic cable also said the state department was preparing for an “expansion of required social media screening and vetting” applicable to all student visa applications. It does not spell out what the vetting would look for.

• Trump administration seeks to pull estimated $100m in Harvard funding
• Are you a student who has been affected by the issues in this story? Tell us here

Foreign students who want to study in the US are usually required to schedule interviews at an American embassy in their home country before approval.

Many institutions rely on foreign students for a significant chunk of their funding, as they often pay higher tuition fees.

When asked about student visas, state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday: “We take very seriously the process of vetting who it is that comes into the country, and we’re going to continue to do that.”

The Trump administration has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for universities and moved to deport students, while revoking thousands of visas for others. Many of these actions have been blocked by the courts.

The White House has accused some US universities of allowing pro-Palestinian activism on campus to be hijacked by antisemitism.

Colleges have accused the Trump administration of trying to infringe upon free speech rights.

Harvard University has been the focal point of President Donald Trump’s ire. Last week, the Trump administration revoked Harvard’s ability to enrol international students or host foreign researchers. A federal judge blocked the policy.

If the measure is allowed, it could deliver a devastating blow to the university, where more than a quarter of students are foreign.

Thousands of Palestinians have overrun an aid distribution site in Gaza set up by a controversial US and Israeli-backed group, a day after it began working there.

Videos showed crowds walking over torn-down fences and earth berms at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) compound in the southern city of Rafah.

The group said that at one point its team fell back because the numbers seeking aid were so great. The Israeli military said troops nearby fired warning shots.

The GHF, which uses armed American security contractors, aims to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid in Gaza, where experts have warned of a looming famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade that was recently eased.

The UN said the videos from Rafah were “heartbreaking” and that it had a detailed plan ready to get enough aid to the “desperate population” of 2.1 million.

The UN and many aid groups have refused to co-operate with GHF’s plans, which they say contradict humanitarian principles and appear to “weaponise aid”.

They have warned that the system will practically exclude those with mobility issues, force further displacement, expose thousands of people to harm, make aid conditional on political and military aims, and set an unacceptable precedent for aid delivery around the world.

Israel has said an alternative to the current aid system is needed to stop Hamas stealing aid, which the group denies doing.

The GHF said it had given out the equivalent of 462,000 meals through a partnership with local non-governmental organisations.

However, it added Palestinians had experienced several hours of delays in accessing one site “due to blockades imposed by Hamas”, without providing evidence.

US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio support “bold” and “out-of-the-box efforts” to make life better for the people of Gaza, said a senior Trump administration official.

On Tuesday afternoon, Israeli and Palestinian media shared videos showing thousands of men, women and children streaming into one of the distribution sites. In one clip, some people are seen running and ducking as what appear to be gunshots ring out.

Witnesses described a scene of chaos as people seized food parcels and other aid. They also said Israeli troops stationed nearby had opened fire.

“The situation was extremely difficult. They only allowed 50 people to cross at a time,” one man told BBC Arabic’s Middle East daily radio programme. “In the end, chaos broke out – people climbed over the gates, attacked others, and took all the [aid].”

“It was a humiliating experience,” he added.

A woman said “people are exhausted – willing to do anything, even risk their lives – just to find food and feed their children.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops had fired “warning shots in the area outside the compound”.

“Control over the situation was established, food distribution operations are expected to continue as planned, and the safety of IDF troops was not compromised,” it stated.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office said Israel’s efforts to distribute aid had “failed miserably”. It also denied that Hamas had tried to stop civilians reaching the GHF’s sites.

At a news conference in New York, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric called the footage “heartbreaking”.

“We and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound plan supported by member states to get aid to a desperate population. We continue to stress that a meaningful scale-up of humanitarian operations is essential to stave off famine and meet the needs of all civilians wherever they are,” he added.

The US state department’s spokeswoman called the UN’s criticism “the height of hypocrisy”.

“It is unfortunate, because the issue here is giving aid to Gaza, and then suddenly it moves into complaints about style or the nature of who’s doing it,” Tammy Bruce told reporters.

Challenged by the BBC about the independence and neutrality of the GHF, Bruce acknowledged there are “some disagreements” about how the distribution of food and aid into the region is “being implemented”.

But she added: “I think that most of us would agree that this is good news… the real story here is that there’s food aid going in.”

The GHF sites are meant to be secured by American contractors, with Israeli troops patrolling the perimeters. To access them, Palestinians are expected to have to undergo identity checks and screening for involvement with Hamas.

UN and other aid agencies have insisted they will not co-operate with any scheme that fails to respect fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.

On Sunday night, Jake Wood resigned as the GHF’s executive director, saying the group’s system could not work in a way that would be able to fulfil those principles.

The GHF’s board rejected the criticism and accused “those who benefit from the status quo” of being more focused on “tearing this apart than on getting aid in”.

The group also alleged on Monday that Hamas had made death threats to NGOs supporting its distribution sites and attempted to block civilians from accessing the aid.

Hamas has publicly warned Palestinians not to co-operate with GHF’s system.

Israel imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its military offensive two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. It said the steps were meant to put pressure on the armed group to release the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, up to 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

On 19 May, the Israeli military launched an expanded offensive that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would see troops “take control of all areas” of Gaza. The plan reportedly includes completely clearing the north of civilians and forcibly displacing them to the south.

Netanyahu also said Israel would temporarily ease the blockade and allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza to prevent a famine, following pressure from allies in the US.

Since then, Israeli authorities say they have allowed at least 665 lorry loads of humanitarian aid, including flour, baby food and medical supplies, into Gaza.

However, more than 400 loads were on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom crossing awaiting distribution by the UN as of Tuesday evening, according to the Israeli military body in charge of aid co-ordination, Cogat. It called on the UN to “do its job”.

There was no immediate comment from the UN, but it said last week that its teams faced significant challenges in collecting supplies due to insecurity, the risk of looting and co-ordination issues with Israeli forces.

Half a million people face starvation in the coming months, according to an assessment by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

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

At least 54,056 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,901 over the past 10 weeks, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Brazilian prosecutors are suing Chinese electric vehicle (EV) giant BYD and two of its contractors, saying they were responsible for human trafficking and conditions “analogous to slavery” at a factory construction site in the country.

The Public Labour Prosecutor’s Office (MPT) in the state of Bahia says 220 Chinese workers were rescued after it began an investigation in response to an anonymous complaint.

The MPT is seeking 257 million Brazilian reais ($45.5m; £33.7m) in damages from the three companies.

BYD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC but has previously said it has “zero tolerance for violations of human rights and labour laws.”

Authorities halted construction of the plant late last year after workers were found living in cramped accommodation with “minimum comfort and hygiene conditions”, the MPT said.

Some workers slept on beds without mattresses and one toilet was shared by 31 people, it said in a statement.

The MPT also alleged that construction site staff had their passports confiscated and were working under “employment contracts with illegal clauses, exhausting work hours and no weekly rest.”

Prosecutors said the workers had up to 70% of their salaries withheld and faced high costs to terminate their contracts.

“Slavery-like conditions”, as defined by Brazilian law, include debt bondage and work that violates human dignity.

The factory was being built in the city of Camacari in the north east of Brazil.

It was scheduled to be operational by March 2025 and was set to be BYD’s first EV plant outside of Asia.

BYD, short for Build Your Dreams, is one of the world’s largest EV makers. In April, it outsold Elon Musk’s Tesla in Europe for the first time, according to car industry research firm Jato Dynamics.

The firm has been looking to increase is presence in Brazil, which is its largest overseas market.

It first opened a factory in São Paulo in 2015, producing chassis for electric buses.

Could India’s decades-long jungle insurgency finally be approaching its end?

Last week, the country’s most-wanted Maoist, Nambala Keshava Rao – popularly known as Basavaraju – was killed along with 26 others in a major security operation in the central state of Chhattisgarh. Home Minister Amit Shah called it “the most decisive strike” against the insurgency in three decades. One police officer also died in the encounter.

Basavaraju’s death marks more than a tactical victory – it signals a breach in the Maoists’ last line of defence in Bastar, the forested heartland where the group carved out its fiercest stronghold since the 1980s.

Maoists, also known as “Naxalites” after the 1967 uprising in Naxalbari village in West Bengal, have regrouped over the decades to carve out a “red corridor” across central and eastern India – stretching from Jharkhand in the east to Maharashtra in the west and spanning more than a third of the country’s districts. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh had described the insurgency as India’s “greatest internal security threat”.

The armed struggle for Communist rule has claimed nearly 12,000 lives since 2000, according to the South Asian Terrorism Portal. The rebels say they fight for the rights of indigenous tribes and the rural poor, citing decades of state neglect and land dispossession.

The Maoist movement – officially known as Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) – took formal shape in 2004 with the merger of key Marxist-Leninist groups into the CPI (Maoist). This party traces its ideological roots to a 1946 peasant uprising in the southern state of Telangana.

Now, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government pledging to end Maoism by March 2026, the battle-hardened rebellion stands at a crossroads: could this truly be the end – or just another pause in its long, bloody arc?

“There will be a lull. But Marxist-Leninist movements have transcended such challenges when the top leadership of the Naxalites were killed in the 70s and yet we are talking about Naxalism,” said N Venugopal, a journalist, social scientist and long-time observer of the movement, who is both a critic and sympathiser of the Maoists.

One of the senior-most officials in India’s home ministry who oversaw anti-Maoist operations, MA Ganapathy, holds a different view.

“At its core, the Maoist movement was an ideological struggle – but that ideology has lost traction, especially among the younger generation. Educated youth aren’t interested anymore,” says Mr Ganapathy.

“With Basavaraju neutralised, morale is low. They’re on their last leg.”

The federal home ministry’s latest report notes a 48% drop in violent incidents in Maoist-related violence – from 1,136 in 2013 to 594 in 2023 – and a 65% decline in related deaths, from 397 to 138.

However, it acknowledges a slight rise in security force casualties in 2023 compared to 2022, attributed to intensified operations in core Maoist areas.

The report says Chhattisgarh remained the worst-affected state in 2023, accounting for 63% of all Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) incidents and 66% of the related deaths.

Jharkhand followed, with 27% of the violence and 23% of the deaths. The remaining incidents were reported from Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

The collapse of Maoism in Chhattisgarh, a stronghold of the insurgency, offers key clues to the movement’s broader decline.

A decade ago, the state’s police were seen as weak, according to Mr Ganapathy.

“Today, precise state-led strikes, backed by central paramilitary forces, have changed the game. While paramilitary held the ground, state forces gathered intelligence and launched targeted operations. It was clear role delineation and coordination,” he said.

Mr Ganapathy adds that access to mobile phones, social media, roads and connectivity have made people more aware and less inclined to support an armed underground movement.

“People have become aspirational, mobile phones and social media have become widespread and people are exposed to the outside world. Maoists also cannot operate in hiding in remote jungles while being out of sync with new social realities.

“Without mass support, no insurgency can survive,” he says.

A former Maoist sympathiser, who did not want to be named, pointed to a deeper flaw behind the movement’s collapse: a political disconnect.

“They delivered real change – social justice in Telangana, uniting tribespeople in Chhattisgarh – but failed to forge it into a cohesive political force,” he said.

At the heart of the failure, he argued, was a dated revolutionary vision: building isolated “liberated zones” beyond the state’s reach and “a theory to strike the state through a protracted people’s war”.

“These pockets work only until the state pushes back. Then the zones collapse, and thousands die. It’s time to ask – can a revolution really be led from cut-off forestlands in today’s India?”

The CPI (Maoist)’s 2007 political document clings to a Mao-era strategy: of creating a “liberated zone” and “encircling the cities from the countryside.” But the sympathiser was blunt: “That doesn’t work anymore.”

The party still retains some popular support in a few isolated pockets, primarily in the tribal regions of eastern Maharashtra, southern Chhattisgarh and parts of Odisha and Jharkhand – but without a strong military base.

Ongoing operations by state forces have significantly weakened the Maoist military infrastructure in their strongholds in southern Chhattisgarh. Cadres and leaders are now being killed regularly, reflecting the rebels’ growing inability to defend themselves.

Mr Venugopal believes the strategy needs rethinking – not abandonment.

The underground struggle has its place, he said, but “the real challenge is blending it with electoral politics”.

In contrast, Mr Ganapathy sees little hope for the Maoists to mount a meaningful fightback in the near future and argues that the time has come for a different approach – dialogue.

“It would be wise for them to go for talks now and perhaps unconditionally or even lay down the conditions and let the government consider them. This is the time to approach the government instead of unnecessarily sacrificing their own cadres, without a purpose,” he said.

Maoists enjoy support in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana from mainstream political parties. In Telangana, both the ruling Congress and the main opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) have backed calls for a ceasefire, along with 10 smaller Left parties – an effort widely seen as aimed at protecting the group’s remaining leaders and cadres.

The Maoist movement, rooted in past struggles against caste oppression, still carries social legitimacy in parts of these states. Civil society activists have also joined the push for a truce.

“We, along with other civil rights groups, demanded a two-step process – an immediate ceasefire followed by peace talks,” said Ranjit Sur, general secretary of the Kolkata-based group Association for Protection of Democratic Rights.

Maoist-affected states remain resilient strongholds in part because they are rich in minerals – making them sites of intense resource battles. Mr Venugopal believes this is key to the CPI (Maoist’s) enduring presence.

Chhattisgarh, for instance, is India’s sole producer of tin concentrates and moulding sand, and a leading source of coal, dolomite, bauxite and high-grade iron ore, according to the ministry of mines.

It accounts for 36% of the country’s tin, 20% iron ore, 18% coal, 11% dolomite and 4% of diamond and marble reserves. Yet, despite strong interest, mining companies – both global and national – have long struggled to access these resources.

“Multinational companies couldn’t enter because the Maoist movement, built on the slogan ‘Jal, Jangal, Jameen (Water, Forest, Land),’ asserted that forests belong to tribespeople – not corporations,” Mr Venugopal said.

But with the Maoists now weakened, at least four Chhattisgarh mines are set to go to “preferred bidders” after successful auctions in May, according to an official notification.

Mr Venugopal believes that the resistance won’t die with the death of Maoist leaders.

“Leaders may fall, but the anger remains. Wherever injustice exists, there will be movements. We may not call them Maoism anymore – but they’ll be there.”

“My nerves are shattered,” says Noura, a 26-year-old Palestinian woman, explaining that she has been “left with nothing”.

After years of IVF treatment, she became pregnant in July 2023. “I was overjoyed,” she remembers, describing the moment she saw the positive pregnancy test.

She and her husband Mohamed decided to store two more embryos at Al-Basma Fertility Centre in Gaza City, which had helped them conceive, in the hope of having more children in the future.

“I thought my dream had finally come true,” she says. “But the day the Israelis came in, something in me said it was all over.”

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.

Since then at least 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Like thousands of Gazans, Noura and Mohamed had to repeatedly flee, and were unable to get the food, vitamins and medication she needed for a healthy pregnancy.

“We used to walk for long hours and move constantly from one place to another, amid terrifying random bombings,” says Mohamed.

Seven months into her pregnancy, Noura suffered a severe haemorrhage.

“She was bleeding heavily, and we couldn’t even find a vehicle to take her to the hospital. We finally managed to transport her in a garbage truck,” Mohamed explains.

“When we arrived, the miscarriage had already started.”

One of their twins was stillborn and the other died a few hours after birth. Mohamed says there were no incubators for premature babies available.

“Everything was gone in a minute,” says Noura.

As well as losing the twins, they have also lost their frozen embryos.

The director of Al-Basma Fertility Centre, Dr Baha Ghalayini, speaks with sorrow and disbelief as he explains that it was shelled in early December 2023.

He is unable to provide an exact date or time and bases this estimate on the last time a member of staff saw the fertility centre operational.

Dr Ghalayini says the most important part of the clinic housed two tanks that held nearly 4,000 frozen embryos and more than 1,000 samples of sperm and eggs.

“The two destroyed incubators – which cost over $10,000 – were filled with liquid nitrogen that preserved the samples,” he says.

They needed to be topped up regularly and “about two weeks before the shelling, the nitrogen began to run low and evaporate”.

The laboratory director, Dr Mohamed Ajjour, who had been displaced to southern Gaza, says he “made it to the nitrogen warehouse in Al-Nuseirat, and got two tanks”.

But he says the intensity of the shelling prevented him from delivering them to the clinic, about 12km away: “The centre was shelled and the nitrogen became useless.”

Dr Ghalayini says the centre stored embryos for patients being treated at other clinics as well as their own. “I’m talking about 4,000 frozen embryos. These are not just numbers, they’re people’s dreams. People who waited years, went through painful treatments, and pinned their hopes on these tanks that were ultimately destroyed.”

He estimates that between 100 and 150 women lost what may have been their only chance at having children, as many cannot undergo the procedure again. “Some are getting older, some are cancer patients, others suffer chronic illnesses. Many received strong fertility medications that they can receive just once. Starting again is not easy.”

When approached for comment, the Israel Defense Forces told the BBC they would be better able to respond if the “specific time of the strike” was provided.

They added that they “operate according to international law and take precautions to minimize civilian harm”.

In March this year, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory made the accusation that Israel “intentionally attacked and destroyed the Basma IVF clinic” in a measure “intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza”.

It also alleged that Israel prevented aid, including medicines necessary to ensure safe pregnancy, childbirth, and neonatal care from reaching women.

The commission went on to claim that Israeli authorities “destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group… one of the categories of genocidal acts”.

At the time of the report, Israel’s permanent mission to the UN issued a statement saying it “categorically rejects these baseless accusations”.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded angrily, calling the Human Rights Council – which commissioned the report – “an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting and irrelevant body”.

Instead of focusing on war crimes committed by Hamas, he said, it was attacking Israel with “false accusations”.

A spokesperson for the IDF told BBC Arabic it “does not deliberately target fertility clinics, nor does it seek to prevent the birthrate of Gaza’s civilian population.

“The claim that the IDF intentionally strikes such sites is baseless and demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of IDF operations in Gaza.”

Dr Ghalayini says all of Gaza’s nine fertility clinics have either been destroyed or are no longer able to operate.

Noura explains that leaves her and many others with little chance of ever having a child. People like Sara Khudari, who began her fertility treatment in 2020. She was preparing for an embryo to be implanted when the war began in October 2023. The procedure never happened. “I watched everything collapse,” she says.

And Islam Lubbad, who Al-Basma clinic helped to conceive in 2023, a few months before the war broke out. But a month after the fighting started, she lost her baby, like Noura. “There was no stability. We kept relocating. My body was exhausted,” she says, recalling how she miscarried.

Islam did have more frozen embryos stored at Al-Basma Fertility Centre, but they have now been lost and there are no IVF clinics operating left for her to try to get pregnant again.

The driver of a car that ploughed into football fans during Liverpool’s Premier League victory parade is being held on suspicion of attempted murder, police have said.

Merseyside Police say a Ford Galaxy avoided a roadblock by tailgating an ambulance responding to reports of a member of the public having suffered a heart attack.

The force say the man, 53 and from the city’s West Derby area, was also being detained on suspicion of dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drugs.

Fifty people, including children, were treated in hospital following the incident in Water Street, which happened shortly after 18:00 on Bank Holiday Monday.

Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill said there were 65 confirmed casualties following the incident.

Of the injured, police say, 11 remained in hospital.

All are said to be in a “stable” condition.

Merseyside’s Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims said: “It is believed the driver of the Ford Galaxy car involved in this incident was able to follow an ambulance on to Water Street, after the roadblock was temporarily lifted so that the ambulance crew could attend to a member of the public who was having a suspected heart attack.”

She added: “There was no intelligence to suggest an incident of this nature would take place and, as we previously stated, the incident is not being treated as terrorism.”

The senior officer defended the policing operation during the parade, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the city.

She told reporters that the force had planned for “all contingencies”, including road closures and an armed police presence.

Assistant Chief Constable Sims said an “extensive investigation into the precise circumstances of the incident” was continuing, and she once again urged people not to speculate about what had happened.

The force has asked anyone with information about the incident to refrain from sharing it online and instead pass it on to police.

Earlier, Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram suggested the suspect’s car should not have been on Water Street and said questions about how it could have been driven there were “legitimate”.

Water Street remains closed while investigations continue into the incident.

A police cordon remains in place, while members of the public have begun to lay flowers, cards and toys near the crash scene.

Huge numbers of joyful Liverpool fans packed the city centre on Monday and lined the 10-mile (16km) parade route as the Reds celebrated winning their second Premier League crown and 20th top-flight league title.

Witnesses graphically described the terror of what happened after the Ford Galaxy smashed into a tightly packed section of the crowd that had gathered on the pavement outside a bar.

Some feared it was a terrorist attack.

Robbie Potter, who was severely injured in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, was on Water Street.

“I thought it was happening again,” he told the BBC. “How did a car get through?

“From the videos, they’ve been very lucky.”

Daniel Eveson’s partner was dragged under the car’s wheels and his baby son’s pram was tossed down the street.

For a moment, he said he did not know if they had survived.

Mr Eveson, from Telford, told BBC Radio Shropshire he had seen “people going flying and people screaming and just terror, pure terror”, adding: “I thought I’d lost everything.”

The car struck Mr Eveson in the chest before his partner went under the wheels and was dragged down the road.

The impact spun their son’s pram about 15ft (4.5m) down the street.

Mr Eveson was able to locate his son, who was unharmed, and leave him in a restaurant with helpers as he went back to search for his partner.

Jack Trotter and his girlfriend Abbie Gallagher, from Newtownards in County Down, were hit by the car after it surged towards them.

“The first thought that I got was: ‘Where’s Abbie? I need to find Abbie’,” the Liverpool fan from Northern Ireland told the BBC.

“Where’s Abbie? You know she could be anywhere at this rate and lucky enough she was screaming my name and I found her.”

Mr Trotter was taken to hospital by ambulance and kept in overnight.

He sustained injuries to his back and leg and is now walking with crutches.

Messages of support have been sent to the people of Liverpool, including from King Charles III who said: “I know that the strength of community spirit for which your city is renowned will be a comfort and support to those in need.”

The Prince and Princess of Wales also said they were “deeply saddened” by the incident, adding: “What should have been a joyful celebration ended with tragedy.”

The Princess Royal visited the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, where medical staff spoke of how they were “very, very fortunate” that more people had not been injured.

Reds legend and former captain Steven Gerrard posted on Instagram that he was “shocked, sickened and saddened” over the incident.

Meanwhile former Liverpool FC manager Jürgen Klopp wrote that his “thoughts and prayers are with all those who are injured and affected”.

“You’ll never walk alone,” the statement concluded, referencing the club’s famous terrace anthem.

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Before the events of 3 December 2024, Lee Jae–myung’s path to South Korea’s presidency was littered with obstacles.

Ongoing legal cases, investigations for corruption and allegations of abusing power all looked set to derail the former opposition leader’s second presidential bid.

Then a constitutional crisis changed everything.

On that night, former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s abortive attempt to invoke martial law set in motion a series of events that appears to have cleared the path for Lee.

Now, as the Democratic Party candidate, he is the frontrunner to win South Korea’s election on 3 June.

It’s a dramatic reversal of fortunes for the 61-year-old, who at the time of Yoon’s martial law declaration stood convicted of making false statements during his last presidential campaign in 2022.

Those charges still cast a long shadow over Lee, and could yet threaten his years-long pursuit of the top job. But they are also just the latest in a string of controversies that have dogged him throughout his political career.

A rags-to-riches origin story combined with a bullish political style has made Lee into a divisive figure in South Korea.

“Lee Jae-myung’s life has been full of ups and downs, and he often takes actions that stir controversy,” Dr Lee Jun-han, professor of political science and international studies at Incheon National University, tells the BBC.

These actions typically include attempts at progressive reform – such as a pledge, made during his 2022 presidential campaign, to implement universal basic income scheme – which challenge the existing power structure and status quo in South Korea.

“Because of this, some people strongly support him, while others distrust or dislike him,” Dr Lee says. “He is a highly controversial and unconventional figure – very much an outsider who has made a name for himself in a way that doesn’t fit traditional Democratic Party norms.”

In a recent memoir, Lee described his childhood as “miserable”. Born in 1963 in a mountain village in Andong, Gyeongbuk Province, he was the fifth of five sons and two daughters, and – due to his family’s difficult circumstances – skipped middle school to illegally enter the workforce.

As a young factory worker, Lee suffered an industrial accident where his fingers got caught in a factory power belt, and at the age of 13 suffered a permanent injury to his arm after his wrist was crushed by a press machine.

Lee later applied for and was allowed to sit entrance exams for high school and university, passing in 1978 and 1980 respectively. He went on to study law with a full scholarship, and passed the Bar Examination in 1986.

In 1992, he married his wife Kim Hye-kyung, with whom he has two children.

He worked as a human rights lawyer for almost two decades before entering politics in 2005, joining the social-liberal Uri Party, a predecessor of the Democratic Party of Korea and the ruling party at the time.

While his poor upbringing has drawn scorn from members of South Korea’s upper class, Lee’s success in building his political career from the ground up has earned him support from working-class voters and those who feel disenfranchised by the political elite.

He was elected mayor of Seongnam in 2010, rolling out a series of free welfare policies during his tenure, and in 2018 became governor of the broader Gyeonggi Province.

Lee would go on to receive acclaim for his response to the Covid-19 pandemic, during which he clashed with the central government due to his insistence on providing universal relief grants for all residents of the province.

It was also during this time that Lee became the Democratic Party’s final presidential candidate for the first time in October 2021 – losing by 0.76 percentage points. Less than a year later, in August 2022, he was elected as the party’s leader.

From that point on, Dr Lee says, Lee dialled back on the controversial, fire-and-brimstone approach for which he had become notorious – opting instead to play it safe and keep a low profile.

“After [Lee’s] term as a governor, his reformist image faded somewhat as he focused more on his presidential ambitions,” he says. “Still, on certain issues – like addressing past wrongs [during the Japanese colonial era], welfare and corruption – he has built a loyal and passionate support base by taking a firm and uncompromising stance.”

This uncompromising attitude has its detractors, with many members and supporters of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) viewing Lee as aggressive and abrasive in his approach.

Lee’s political career has also been marred by a series of scandals – including a drink driving incident in 2004, disputes with relatives in the late 2010s and allegations of an extramarital affair that emerged in 2018.

While in other parts of the world voters have shown forgiveness and even support for controversial politicians, in South Korea – a country that is still relatively conservative in what it expects of public figures – such scandals have not typically played well.

In recent years, Lee’s political ambitions have been saddled with even more pressing controversies – including the ongoing legal cases that continue to hang over him, threatening to hamstring if not scuttle his chances at election.

One of these concerns a string of high-profile charges, including corruption, bribery and breach of trust, associated with a land development project in 2023.

Another, perhaps more critical legal battle concerns allegations that Lee made a knowingly false statement during a debate in the last presidential campaign.

During the debate, which aired on South Korean television in December 2021, Lee had denied personally knowing Kim Moon-ki, a key figure in a corruption-ridden land development scandal who had taken his own life just days earlier.

Prosecutors allege that claim was false, thus violating the Public Official Election Act, and in November 2024 Lee was convicted of the false statements charge and given a one-year suspended prison sentence.

Then, in March, an appeals court cleared him of the charges – only for that ruling to be overturned by South Korea’s Supreme Court. At the time of writing, the case is still awaiting a verdict.

Other threats against Lee’s future political ambitions posed a more fatal danger.

In January 2024, while answering questions from reporters outside the construction site of a planned airport in Busan, Lee was stabbed in the neck by a man who had approached him asking for an autograph.

The injury to Lee’s jugular vein, though requiring extensive surgery, was not critical – but he now campaigns behind bulletproof glass, wearing a bulletproof vest, surrounded by agents carrying ballistic briefcases.

The assailant, who had written an eight-page manifesto and wanted to ensure that Lee never became president, was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The attack raised concerns about deepening political polarisation in South Korea – embodied perhaps most publicly in the bitter rivalry between Lee and Yoon, and more privately in the country’s increasingly extreme online discourse.

In December 2023, just weeks before Lee was attacked, a survey sponsored by the newspaper Hankyoreh found that more than 50% of respondents said they felt South Korea’s political divide worsening.

Some claim that, as Democratic Party leader, Lee played a major role in fuelling the problem, frequently blocking motions by Yoon’s government and effectively rendering him a lame duck president.

Such constant stonewalling by the Democratic Party only exacerbated Yoon’s leadership struggles – which also included repeated impeachment attempts against administration officials and constant opposition to his budget.

Finally, as the pressure against him mounted, the former president took the drastic step of declaring martial law.

Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 December – made in a self-proclaimed bid to eliminate “anti-state forces” and North Korea sympathisers – served as the catalyst for Lee to emerge as a leading presidential candidate.

Within hours of the declaration, Lee appealed to the public via a livestream broadcast and urged them to assemble in protest outside the National Assembly building in central Seoul.

Thousands responded, clashing with police and blocking military units as opposition lawmakers rushed into the assembly building, clambering over fences and walls in a desperate attempt to block Yoon’s order.

Lee was among them, climbing over the fence to enter the National Assembly and helping to pass the resolution to lift martial law.

The Democratic Party later decided to impeach President Yoon – a decision that was unanimously upheld by South Korea’s Constitutional Court on 4 April, 2025.

It was then that Lee began the path to a full-fledged election bid, announcing his resignation as leader of the Democratic Party on 9 April ahead of his presidential run. In the Democratic Party presidential primary held on April 27, he was selected as the general candidate with overwhelming support.

The result of Yoon’s abortive martial law attempt was a political maelstrom from which South Korea is still reeling: a constitutional crisis that ended the former president’s career and left his PPP in tatters.

But of the small few who have managed to leverage that chaos to their advantage, none have benefitted more than Lee.

Now the controversial presidential candidate awaits the verdict on his political future – not only from the South Korean people, but also the courts.

If his guilty ruling is ultimately confirmed, Lee will likely lose his seat in the National Assembly. As a candidate, that would prevent him from running for president for a period of five years.

But with the courts having now approved Lee’s request to postpone his legal hearings until after the election, another possibility has emerged: that Lee, who remains the electoral favourite, could be convicted after winning the presidency.

And that could mean that South Korea, having just endured a months-long period of political turmoil, may not be done with its leadership dramas just yet.

Australia’s main opposition political party – a coalition of the Liberals and Nationals – has been revived after the two party leaders agreed to reunite.

The latest development comes a week after the break-up of the long-standing coalition of the two conservative parties.

Liberal leader Sussan Ley thanked the Nationals leader David Littleproud for the “respectful and productive way” the two parties had negotiated their reunification – the pair also announced its new shadow cabinet made up of members from both parties.

The Coalition split last Tuesday after Littleproud said both parties were not able to agree on key policy matters but it appears those issues have now been resolved.

“The focus now is on [Australia’s Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese and the Labor government and holding them to account ’cause that’s important for our democracy,” he told media on Wednesday afternoon.

Ley added that the Coalition will be “stronger together, better together and we can’t wait to do this on behalf of the Australian people”.

In announcing the split last week, Littleproud said the Coalition had broken up and reunited in the past, adding that he would work with Ley to “rebuild the relationship to the point we can re-enter a coalition before the next election”.

Ley replaced former Liberal leader Peter Dutton following the Coalition’s poor election results earlier this month, with Labor winning its second term in a landslide victory. She has vowed to bring the Liberals back to the centre-right.

The relationship between the Liberals and Nationals – which mainly represents regional communities and often leans more conservative than the Liberals – had become strained in recent times, with climate and energy being key points of contention.

According to local broadcaster ABC, the two parties have agreed to ditch an earlier commitment to build seven nuclear power plants but will push to lift the national ban on nuclear power.

Other policy positions which have been negotiated as part of the Coalition coming back together include regional infrastructure spending, internet speeds and mobile coverage in regional and rural areas, and improving supermarket competition, the ABC reported.

At Wednesday’s press conference, both leaders refused to be drawn on the issue of net zero commitments – a sticking point within the Coalition – with Ley saying those discussions will happen” inside the policy development process”.

The Coalition reuniting was a “major win” for Ley, according to Mark Kenny, director of the Australian Studies Institute, who told the BBC that the initial break-up was a “dramatic negotiating manoeuvre aimed at gaining greater representation for [Littleproud’s] party”.

Many political observers had expected the Coalition would reunite, Pandanus Petter from the Australian National University’s School of Politics and International Relations told the BBC.

“Neither party can hope to govern without the other,” Mr Petter said, “so maybe [the Nationals] feel they’ve made their point and were able to get some concessions from the Liberals in renegotiation”.

The Liberal-National partnership, which in its current form dates back to the 1940s, has broken down and been re-established several times over the decades.

The last time the Coalition split was almost four decades ago, in 1987.

PDD Holdings, the Chinese owner of online shopping platform Temu, has reported a near 50% drop in profit as US President Donald Trump’s trade policies added to its struggles in its home country.

US-listed shares of the e-commerce giant fell by more than 13% on Tuesday, after the firm said its profits for the first three months of the year fell to 14.74bn yuan ($2.05bn , £1.5bn).

Earlier this month, the Trump administration ended the so-called “de minimis” exemption that allowed parcels worth less than $800 (£593) enter the US without being hit with import duties.

In China, PDD has been locked in a long-running price war with rivals like Alibaba and JD.com in the face of weak consumer spending.

PDD Holdings reported a 47% drop in profit for the first quarter of the year. Its chairman, Chen Lei, said this was due to a “radical change in external policy environments such as tariffs”.

Mr Chen said the US-China trade war had also “created significant pressure for our merchants”.

Temu and rival Shein had previously relied on a duty-free treatment which allowed them to sell and ship low-value items directly to the US without having to pay import taxes.

This ended in early May, leaving Chinese e-commerce giants facing hefty US tariffs of 120%.

In response, Temu said it would stop selling goods from China directly to US customers.

But following a thaw in trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, the tariff rate on the small packages was slashed by over half for 90 days.

Temu and its rivals are also facing issues in Europe and the UK.

The EU proposed a two-euro flat fee on billions of small parcels sent directly to people’s homes. Online marketplaces would be expected to pay the new fee.

Last month, UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the government planned to review the customs treatment of low-value products entering the country following complaints from retailers.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed an online child safety bill that requires Apple and Google to ensure that their app stores verify the age of users in the nation’s second most populous state.

Under the new law, minors will need parental approval before they can download apps or make in-app purchases. The bill was opposed by Google and Apple.

“We believe there are better proposals that help keep kids safe without requiring millions of people to turn over their personal information,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.

Texas follows Utah, another conservative state, which adopted a similar law earlier this year.

At the federal level, US lawmakers have spearheaded the Kids Online Safety Act, known as KOSA, which would require social media companies to make design choices that prevent and mitigate harms to young users.

KOSA was passed by the US Senate last year but stalled in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the US Congress.

The proposed bipartisan legislation, which Apple supports, was reintroduced in Congress earlier this month.

In the absence of a federal law, the states have chosen to come up with their own legislation.

Laws that call for age-verification has long pitted app store providers like Apple and Google against social media companies.

Meta, which owns the social media network Facebook and photo sharing app Instagram, has lobbied for Apple and Google to be responsible for verifying the age of users.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple chief executive Tim Cook called Governor Abbott earlier this month in a bid to stop the passage of the state’s bill.

An Apple spokesperson said the tech giant shares “the goal of strengthening kids’ online safety” but added it was “deeply concerned” by the threat it believes the law poses to the privacy of all users.

“[I]t requires app marketplaces to collect and keep sensitive personal identifying information for every Texan who wants to download an app, even if it’s an app that simply provides weather updates or sports scores,” the company spokesperson said.

In February, Apple announced a slew of new child safety measures, including a requirement that users select an age range on a new device.

For users under 13, a parent or guardian must provide consent for a child to use the ‌App Store‌ and other features that require the use of its Face ID.

The law is set to take effect on1 January.

Texas has pressured Silicon Valley through legislation before.

In 2021, the state made it illegal for social media platforms to ban users based on their “political viewpoints” after Republican politicians accused Facebook and the company then known as Twitter of censoring their opinions.

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A spate of arrests, diplomatic expulsions and public humiliations has plunged relations between war-torn Ukraine and its prickly Nato neighbour Hungary to a new low.

At the heart of the row are accusations that Viktor Orban’s Fidesz government in Hungary is using the spat to fight his main political rival, the opposition Tisza party, which leads in the polls ahead of 2026 elections.

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s SBU security service announced the arrest of two Ukrainian citizens accused of spying for Hungary.

According to the allegations, backed by video and audio evidence, the man and woman were in the pay of Hungarian military intelligence, preparing for Hungarian military action in Ukraine.

Hungary then expelled two Ukrainian diplomats and Ukraine followed suit in a tit-for-tat response that has further damaged already sour relations. Hungary also arrested a Ukrainian citizen and accused him of spying.

Orban is widely seen as Russia’s closest ally in the European Union, and his government has broken ranks with his European partners by maintaining trade and opposing sanctions on Russia, refusing to allow the transit of weapons, and comparing Ukraine to Afghanistan.

Now he has accused Kyiv of trying to “vilify” his country.

All eight million Hungarian households recently received a questionnaire from the government, dubbed “Vox 2025”, inviting them to reject Ukraine’s EU membership.

Under a year ago, Orban presented himself as the only person on the planet other than the Pope, who was trying to secure an unconditional ceasefire.

But his critics depicted his so-called peace mission to Kyiv, Moscow and other capitals as an attempt to reward Russian aggression.

The day after Orban met Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Russian missiles struck the Ohmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv.

Three days later, the leader of the Tisza Party in Hungary, Peter Magyar, brought $40,000 of Hungarian medical aid to the hospital. Opinion polls suggest Magyar could oust Orban from power next April.

The man who drove the Tisza leader to Kyiv, Roland Tseber, is now a target of Fidesz attempts to accuse the Hungarian opposition party of betraying Hungary.

Roland Tseber came across as a fresh-faced, hard-working politician when I met him at a Ukrainian refugee centre in Uzhorod in April.

He was helping distribute medical aid from Hungary, working with Hungarian doctors and psychologists who have supported internally displaced Ukrainians from the eastern war zone, since 2022.

His troubles began within weeks of Peter Magyar’s visit, he told me.

In August, he heard he was banned from Hungary and, at Hungary’s insistence, from the whole Schengen zone of the EU, without explanation.

Mr Tseber’s letter to the Hungarian embassy in Kyiv went unanswered.

The leader of the far-right Our Homeland party in the Hungarian Parliament, Laszlo Toroczkai, labelled him a “terrorist”. Mate Kocsis the leader of the Fidesz faction in the Hungarian parliament, has called him a “Ukrainian spy”, long in the sights of Hungarian counter-intelligence.

“I reject all such accusations which try to link me to intelligence activities of any kind. This is ridiculous. I’m a Transcarpathian politician who works honestly and openly for his homeland and for Hungarian interests,” Mr Tseber told me in a phone interview.

As an elected, independent councillor in the regional assembly of Transcarpathia, who sits in the political group of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, he meets politicians of all shades, he says, including the deputy Hungarian Foreign Minister, Levente Magyar.

“I’m a Ukrainian politician and I meet with everyone. This whole situation is ridiculous. They want to drag me into this spy story. But anyone with any common sense can understand that this is absurd.”

The weakest link in the Hungarian government’s narrative is that if he was really on the radar of Hungarian intelligence, government politicians and Peter Magyar as a Member of the European Parliament would have been warned to stay away from him.

The dwindling Hungarian community in Transcarpathia has become collateral damage in the Ukraine-Hungary row.

In Ukraine’s last census, in 2001, their population was 150,000, but latest estimates suggest their number has since halved to 70-80,000. Dozens have lost their lives, fighting for Ukraine against Russia.

Another twist in the story is that a former Hungarian chief-of-staff, Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, who’s now a prominent Tisza party politician, has come under attack from government-controlled media.

The government alleges that “a former senior figure in the defence sector” – an apparent reference to Ruszin-Szendi – was in contact with Ukrainian intelligence.

Ruszin-Szendi hit back, alleging a smear campaign. “I am a decent Hungarian citizen who has worn the uniform since the age of 14. I am shocked and saddened to know that what I and my comrades have done for our country is worth so much for you,” he addressed the government on Facebook.

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Viktor Orban has portrayed himself as a man of peace, and won the April 2022 election with a promise to keep Hungary out of the war in Ukraine.

However, a speech from 2023 that has only just been leaked by Peter Magyar tells a very different story.

Defence Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky was recorded saying a year after the war in Ukraine began that the government had decided to break with the peace mentality and move to “phase zero of the road to war”, with a combat-read Hungarian army.

This was the same year that many experienced Atlanticists such as Ruszin-Szendi were sacked as part of a “rejuvenation” of the military.

They were replaced by officers loyal to the government’s pro-Moscow stance.

Nitrous oxide – known colloquially as “laughing gas” – has many uses, from a painkiller during dental procedures to a whipping agent for canned whipped cream.

While its euphoric side effects have long been known, the rise of vaping has helped create a perfect delivery vehicle for the gas – and a perfect recipe for an addiction, experts warn.

Meg Caldwell’s death wasn’t inevitable.

The horseback rider from Florida had started using nitrous oxide recreationally in university eight years ago. But like many young people, she started to use more heavily during the pandemic.

The youngest of four sisters, she was was “the light of our lives,” her sister Kathleen Dial told the BBC.

But Ms Caldwell’s use continued to escalate, to the point that her addiction “started running her life”.

She temporarily lost use of her legs after an overdose, which also rendered her incontinent. Still, she continued to use, buying it in local smoke shops, inhaling it in the car park and then heading straight back into the shop to buy more. She sometimes spent hundreds of dollars a day.

She died last November, in one of those car parks just outside a vape shop.

“She didn’t think that it would hurt her because she was buying it in the smoke shop, so she thought she was using this substance legally,” Ms Dial said.

The progression of Ms Caldwell’s addiction – from youthful misuse to life-threatening compulsion – has become increasingly common. The Annual Report of America’s Poison Centers found there was a 58 % increase in reports of intentional exposure to nitrous oxide in the US between 2023-2024.

• What is nitrous oxide and how dangerous is it?
• ‘Daily use of laughing gas left me in a wheelchair’

In a worst-case scenario, inhalation of nitrous oxide can lead to hypoxia, where the brain does not get enough oxygen. This can result in death. Regular inhalation can also lead to a Vitamin B12 deficiency which can cause nerve damage, degradation of the spinal column and even paralysis. The number of deaths attributed to nitrous oxide poisonings rose by more than 110% between 2019 and 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Possession of nitrous oxide was criminalised in the UK in 2023 after misuse among young people increased during the pandemic. But while many states have also outlawed the recreational use of the product in the US, it is still legal to sell as a culinary product. Only Louisiana has totally banned the retail sale of the gas.

Galaxy Gas, a major manufacturer, even offers recipes for dishes, including Chicken Satay with Peanut Chili Foam and Watermelon Gazpacho on their website. With flavours like Blue Raspberry or Strawberries and Cream, experts warn this loophole – as well as major changes in packaging and retail – has contributed to the rise in misuse.

Until recently users would take single-use plain metal canisters weighing around 8g and inhale the gas using a balloon. But when usage spiked during the pandemic, nitrous oxide manufacturers began selling much larger canisters online – as large as 2kg – and, eventually, in shops selling electronic vapes and other smoking paraphernalia.

Companies also began to package the gas in bright colourful canisters with designs featuring characters from computer games and television series.

Pat Aussem, of the Partnership to End Addiction, believes these developments are behind increased misuse:

“Even being called Galaxy Gas or Miami Magic is marketing,” she said. “If you have large canisters, then it means that more people can try it and use it and that can lead to a lot of peer pressure.”

The BBC reached out for comment to both Galaxy Gas and Miami Magic but did not receive a response. Amazon, where the gas is sold online, has said they are aware of customers misusing nitrous oxide and that they are working to implement further safety measures. In a response to reporting from CBS News, the BBC’s news partner in the US, Galaxy Gas maintained that the gas was intended for culinary use and that they include a message on their sites warning against misuse.

Concern about nitrous oxide misuse increased last year, after several videos of people using the product went viral online.

On social media, videos of young people getting high on gas became a trend. A video uploaded in July 2024 by an Atlanta-based fast-food restaurant featured a young man inhaling Strawberries and Cream flavoured nitrous oxide saying “My name’s Lil T, man”, his voice made deeper by the gas. To date the clip has been viewed about 40 million times and spawned thousands of copies.

Misuse also featured heavily in rap music videos and Twitch streaming. Guests tried it on the Joe Rogan Show and rappers including Ye (formerly Kanye West) spoke about abusing the substance publicly. Ye has since sued his dentist for “recklessly” supplying Ye with “dangerous amounts of nitrous oxide”.

In response to the trend, TikTok blocked searches for “galaxy gas,” and redirected users to a message offering resources about substance use and addiction. Rapper SZA also alerted her social media followers about its harms and slammed it for “being MASS marketed to black children”.

In March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an official alert warning against inhaling the gas after it “observed an increase in reports of adverse events after inhalation of nitrous oxide products”.

The FDA told the BBC that it “continues to actively track adverse events related to nitrous oxide misuse and will take appropriate actions to protect the public health”.

But for some, these warnings came too late.

In 2023, the family of a 25-year-old woman, Marissa Politte successfully sued Nitrous Distributor United Brands for $745m in damages after the radiology technician was killed by a driver high on nitrous oxide. The jury found the company responsible for selling the product in the knowledge that it would be misused.

“Marissa Politte’s death shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but my God, it should be the last,” Johnny Simon, the Politte family’s lawyer, said at the time. In the years since there have been several fatal traffic accidents involving the gas both in the US and the UK.

Meanwhile, Ms Caldwell’s family have launched a class action lawsuit against manufacturers and distributors of nitrous oxide, hoping to remove the product from retail sales across the US for good.

“The people who administer nitrous oxide in a dentist office now have to go through hours and hours of training, she said. “It just is crazy to me that the drug can be purchased in a smoke shop to anyone who goes in.”

“Unfortunately, it’s become very obvious that the manufacturers and the owners of the smoke shops are not going to do the moral thing and take this off the shelves themselves,” Ms Dial said.

King Charles III has given a major speech at the opening of parliament in Canada in which he sought to define its place in an uncertain world and its relationship with the US.

The address in Ottawa set out the government’s priorities on behalf of new Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose Liberals won the country’s general election in April. The campaign was dominated by US President Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s independence.

The King, who is Canada’s head of state, said relationships with partners – including the US – were changing, and he stressed the sovereignty of both nations.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s address, which was the first time a monarch has delivered the throne speech opening parliament in almost 50 years.

Carney’s invitation to King Charles was in part a message to Trump, who has made repeated remarks undermining its sovereignty.

Tensions with Canada’s neighbour were a theme throughout, though the US president was never mentioned by name.

The speech opened with an appeal to patriotism as a trade war looms with the US, Canada’s largest economic partner. The King spoke of the “pleasure and pride” of being in the country at a time of renewed “national pride, unity, and hope”.

He expressed his “admiration for Canada’s unique identity” and its growth since the last time a sovereign opened parliament – Queen Elizabeth II in 1957. (She gave a second throne speech 20 years later). It has become “a bold, ambitious, innovative country,” he said.

“The Crown has for so long been a symbol of unity for Canada,” the King added. “It also represents stability and continuity from the past to the present. As it should, it stands proudly as a symbol of Canada today, in all her richness and dynamism.”

The speech concluded on a similar note: “As the anthem reminds us: The True North is indeed strong and free!”

• Analysis: King’s speech doesn’t mention you-know-who

The King’s decision to open parliament – a role traditionally left to the governor general, his top representative in Canada – has been seen as a symbolic show of support for the Commonwealth nation.

Later in the day, Trump again suggested that Canada should be annexed by the US – an idea that Ottawa has flatly rejected – as he touted his plan for a North American missile defence shield.

The US president posted on his Truth Social network that his so-called Golden Dome project would cost Canada $61bn “if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State”.

“They are considering the offer!” he claimed.

Another major theme of the speech was how Canada would face a world with “unprecedented challenges, generating uncertainties across the continents”.

Another nod to the US and tensions between the two countries followed: “The system of open global trade that, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for Canadians for decades, is changing. Canada’s relationships with partners are also changing,” the King said.

The speech underscored the need for the country to reinforce its established trading relationships, notably with European allies, while moving forward with economic and security relationship talks with the US.

During the recent election campaign, Carney repeatedly said the country was at a pivotal moment in its history. The King’s speech emphasised that “this moment is also an incredible opportunity”.

“An opportunity to think big and to act bigger. An opportunity for Canada to embark on the largest transformation of its economy since the Second World War.”

The King also focused directly on domestic policy and plans set out by Carney’s Liberals to address the country’s economic headwinds.

There was a commitment to speed up major national infrastructure projects and to double a loan programme that would enable more indigenous ownership of major projects.

The government also said it would introduce legislation by 1 July to remove federal barriers to internal trade within the country. According to the government, interprovincial trade and labour mobility barriers cost the country as much as C$200bn ($145bn; £107bn) each year.

Opposition parties reacted to the Liberal government’s domestic agenda laid out in the speech, with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre saying it lacked “specific plans” on implementing some of the big commitments, like energy projects.

Canada faces housing affordability crises as housing prices have skyrocketed across the country in the last decade.

Alongside the US-Canada relationship, it was one of the top issues on the campaign trail. Carney’s Liberals promised to double the rate of building to 500,000 new homes a year.

The King’s speech underlined the government’s other plans to address the issue, including investing in prefabricated and modular housing, and cutting municipal development charges in half for housing with multiple units.

There was a pledge to deliver on another campaign promise – to end a goods and services tax for first-time homebuyers on houses costing less than C$1m. The King highlighted other plans to drive down costs for Canadians, including a tax cut for the lower-middle class.

Another major issue during the campaign was crime. The speech contained promises to address tougher penalties for car thefts, home invasions, human trafficking and drug smuggling.

House Leader Alexandre Boulerice for the left-wing NDP said after the speech that there were “big holes” on issues like climate and women’s rights.

Canada has been under mounting pressure from the US and other Nato partners to increase its military spending, as it continues to fall short of the 2% of GDP on military spending target set out for alliance members.

Carney has committed to hitting that benchmark by 2030.

Tuesday’s speech contained commitments to “rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting” in its military; reinforcing defence relationships with European allies, including by joining Rearm Europe, a plan to dramatically increase defence spending on the continent; and to strengthen Canada’s Arctic presence.

Last week, Carney also said that “high-level” talks were taking place with the US about joining Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defence system.

Before the events of 3 December 2024, Lee Jae–myung’s path to South Korea’s presidency was littered with obstacles.

Ongoing legal cases, investigations for corruption and allegations of abusing power all looked set to derail the former opposition leader’s second presidential bid.

Then a constitutional crisis changed everything.

On that night, former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s abortive attempt to invoke martial law set in motion a series of events that appears to have cleared the path for Lee.

Now, as the Democratic Party candidate, he is the frontrunner to win South Korea’s election on 3 June.

It’s a dramatic reversal of fortunes for the 61-year-old, who at the time of Yoon’s martial law declaration stood convicted of making false statements during his last presidential campaign in 2022.

Those charges still cast a long shadow over Lee, and could yet threaten his years-long pursuit of the top job. But they are also just the latest in a string of controversies that have dogged him throughout his political career.

A rags-to-riches origin story combined with a bullish political style has made Lee into a divisive figure in South Korea.

“Lee Jae-myung’s life has been full of ups and downs, and he often takes actions that stir controversy,” Dr Lee Jun-han, professor of political science and international studies at Incheon National University, tells the BBC.

These actions typically include attempts at progressive reform – such as a pledge, made during his 2022 presidential campaign, to implement universal basic income scheme – which challenge the existing power structure and status quo in South Korea.

“Because of this, some people strongly support him, while others distrust or dislike him,” Dr Lee says. “He is a highly controversial and unconventional figure – very much an outsider who has made a name for himself in a way that doesn’t fit traditional Democratic Party norms.”

In a recent memoir, Lee described his childhood as “miserable”. Born in 1963 in a mountain village in Andong, Gyeongbuk Province, he was the fifth of five sons and two daughters, and – due to his family’s difficult circumstances – skipped middle school to illegally enter the workforce.

As a young factory worker, Lee suffered an industrial accident where his fingers got caught in a factory power belt, and at the age of 13 suffered a permanent injury to his arm after his wrist was crushed by a press machine.

Lee later applied for and was allowed to sit entrance exams for high school and university, passing in 1978 and 1980 respectively. He went on to study law with a full scholarship, and passed the Bar Examination in 1986.

In 1992, he married his wife Kim Hye-kyung, with whom he has two children.

He worked as a human rights lawyer for almost two decades before entering politics in 2005, joining the social-liberal Uri Party, a predecessor of the Democratic Party of Korea and the ruling party at the time.

While his poor upbringing has drawn scorn from members of South Korea’s upper class, Lee’s success in building his political career from the ground up has earned him support from working-class voters and those who feel disenfranchised by the political elite.

He was elected mayor of Seongnam in 2010, rolling out a series of free welfare policies during his tenure, and in 2018 became governor of the broader Gyeonggi Province.

Lee would go on to receive acclaim for his response to the Covid-19 pandemic, during which he clashed with the central government due to his insistence on providing universal relief grants for all residents of the province.

It was also during this time that Lee became the Democratic Party’s final presidential candidate for the first time in October 2021 – losing by 0.76 percentage points. Less than a year later, in August 2022, he was elected as the party’s leader.

From that point on, Dr Lee says, Lee dialled back on the controversial, fire-and-brimstone approach for which he had become notorious – opting instead to play it safe and keep a low profile.

“After [Lee’s] term as a governor, his reformist image faded somewhat as he focused more on his presidential ambitions,” he says. “Still, on certain issues – like addressing past wrongs [during the Japanese colonial era], welfare and corruption – he has built a loyal and passionate support base by taking a firm and uncompromising stance.”

This uncompromising attitude has its detractors, with many members and supporters of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) viewing Lee as aggressive and abrasive in his approach.

Lee’s political career has also been marred by a series of scandals – including a drink driving incident in 2004, disputes with relatives in the late 2010s and allegations of an extramarital affair that emerged in 2018.

While in other parts of the world voters have shown forgiveness and even support for controversial politicians, in South Korea – a country that is still relatively conservative in what it expects of public figures – such scandals have not typically played well.

In recent years, Lee’s political ambitions have been saddled with even more pressing controversies – including the ongoing legal cases that continue to hang over him, threatening to hamstring if not scuttle his chances at election.

One of these concerns a string of high-profile charges, including corruption, bribery and breach of trust, associated with a land development project in 2023.

Another, perhaps more critical legal battle concerns allegations that Lee made a knowingly false statement during a debate in the last presidential campaign.

During the debate, which aired on South Korean television in December 2021, Lee had denied personally knowing Kim Moon-ki, a key figure in a corruption-ridden land development scandal who had taken his own life just days earlier.

Prosecutors allege that claim was false, thus violating the Public Official Election Act, and in November 2024 Lee was convicted of the false statements charge and given a one-year suspended prison sentence.

Then, in March, an appeals court cleared him of the charges – only for that ruling to be overturned by South Korea’s Supreme Court. At the time of writing, the case is still awaiting a verdict.

Other threats against Lee’s future political ambitions posed a more fatal danger.

In January 2024, while answering questions from reporters outside the construction site of a planned airport in Busan, Lee was stabbed in the neck by a man who had approached him asking for an autograph.

The injury to Lee’s jugular vein, though requiring extensive surgery, was not critical – but he now campaigns behind bulletproof glass, wearing a bulletproof vest, surrounded by agents carrying ballistic briefcases.

The assailant, who had written an eight-page manifesto and wanted to ensure that Lee never became president, was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The attack raised concerns about deepening political polarisation in South Korea – embodied perhaps most publicly in the bitter rivalry between Lee and Yoon, and more privately in the country’s increasingly extreme online discourse.

In December 2023, just weeks before Lee was attacked, a survey sponsored by the newspaper Hankyoreh found that more than 50% of respondents said they felt South Korea’s political divide worsening.

Some claim that, as Democratic Party leader, Lee played a major role in fuelling the problem, frequently blocking motions by Yoon’s government and effectively rendering him a lame duck president.

Such constant stonewalling by the Democratic Party only exacerbated Yoon’s leadership struggles – which also included repeated impeachment attempts against administration officials and constant opposition to his budget.

Finally, as the pressure against him mounted, the former president took the drastic step of declaring martial law.

Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 December – made in a self-proclaimed bid to eliminate “anti-state forces” and North Korea sympathisers – served as the catalyst for Lee to emerge as a leading presidential candidate.

Within hours of the declaration, Lee appealed to the public via a livestream broadcast and urged them to assemble in protest outside the National Assembly building in central Seoul.

Thousands responded, clashing with police and blocking military units as opposition lawmakers rushed into the assembly building, clambering over fences and walls in a desperate attempt to block Yoon’s order.

Lee was among them, climbing over the fence to enter the National Assembly and helping to pass the resolution to lift martial law.

The Democratic Party later decided to impeach President Yoon – a decision that was unanimously upheld by South Korea’s Constitutional Court on 4 April, 2025.

It was then that Lee began the path to a full-fledged election bid, announcing his resignation as leader of the Democratic Party on 9 April ahead of his presidential run. In the Democratic Party presidential primary held on April 27, he was selected as the general candidate with overwhelming support.

The result of Yoon’s abortive martial law attempt was a political maelstrom from which South Korea is still reeling: a constitutional crisis that ended the former president’s career and left his PPP in tatters.

But of the small few who have managed to leverage that chaos to their advantage, none have benefitted more than Lee.

Now the controversial presidential candidate awaits the verdict on his political future – not only from the South Korean people, but also the courts.

If his guilty ruling is ultimately confirmed, Lee will likely lose his seat in the National Assembly. As a candidate, that would prevent him from running for president for a period of five years.

But with the courts having now approved Lee’s request to postpone his legal hearings until after the election, another possibility has emerged: that Lee, who remains the electoral favourite, could be convicted after winning the presidency.

And that could mean that South Korea, having just endured a months-long period of political turmoil, may not be done with its leadership dramas just yet.

Could India’s decades-long jungle insurgency finally be approaching its end?

Last week, the country’s most-wanted Maoist, Nambala Keshava Rao – popularly known as Basavaraju – was killed along with 26 others in a major security operation in the central state of Chhattisgarh. Home Minister Amit Shah called it “the most decisive strike” against the insurgency in three decades. One police officer also died in the encounter.

Basavaraju’s death marks more than a tactical victory – it signals a breach in the Maoists’ last line of defence in Bastar, the forested heartland where the group carved out its fiercest stronghold since the 1980s.

Maoists, also known as “Naxalites” after the 1967 uprising in Naxalbari village in West Bengal, have regrouped over the decades to carve out a “red corridor” across central and eastern India – stretching from Jharkhand in the east to Maharashtra in the west and spanning more than a third of the country’s districts. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh had described the insurgency as India’s “greatest internal security threat”.

The armed struggle for Communist rule has claimed nearly 12,000 lives since 2000, according to the South Asian Terrorism Portal. The rebels say they fight for the rights of indigenous tribes and the rural poor, citing decades of state neglect and land dispossession.

The Maoist movement – officially known as Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) – took formal shape in 2004 with the merger of key Marxist-Leninist groups into the CPI (Maoist). This party traces its ideological roots to a 1946 peasant uprising in the southern state of Telangana.

Now, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government pledging to end Maoism by March 2026, the battle-hardened rebellion stands at a crossroads: could this truly be the end – or just another pause in its long, bloody arc?

“There will be a lull. But Marxist-Leninist movements have transcended such challenges when the top leadership of the Naxalites were killed in the 70s and yet we are talking about Naxalism,” said N Venugopal, a journalist, social scientist and long-time observer of the movement, who is both a critic and sympathiser of the Maoists.

One of the senior-most officials in India’s home ministry who oversaw anti-Maoist operations, MA Ganapathy, holds a different view.

“At its core, the Maoist movement was an ideological struggle – but that ideology has lost traction, especially among the younger generation. Educated youth aren’t interested anymore,” says Mr Ganapathy.

“With Basavaraju neutralised, morale is low. They’re on their last leg.”

The federal home ministry’s latest report notes a 48% drop in violent incidents in Maoist-related violence – from 1,136 in 2013 to 594 in 2023 – and a 65% decline in related deaths, from 397 to 138.

However, it acknowledges a slight rise in security force casualties in 2023 compared to 2022, attributed to intensified operations in core Maoist areas.

The report says Chhattisgarh remained the worst-affected state in 2023, accounting for 63% of all Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) incidents and 66% of the related deaths.

Jharkhand followed, with 27% of the violence and 23% of the deaths. The remaining incidents were reported from Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

The collapse of Maoism in Chhattisgarh, a stronghold of the insurgency, offers key clues to the movement’s broader decline.

A decade ago, the state’s police were seen as weak, according to Mr Ganapathy.

“Today, precise state-led strikes, backed by central paramilitary forces, have changed the game. While paramilitary held the ground, state forces gathered intelligence and launched targeted operations. It was clear role delineation and coordination,” he said.

Mr Ganapathy adds that access to mobile phones, social media, roads and connectivity have made people more aware and less inclined to support an armed underground movement.

“People have become aspirational, mobile phones and social media have become widespread and people are exposed to the outside world. Maoists also cannot operate in hiding in remote jungles while being out of sync with new social realities.

“Without mass support, no insurgency can survive,” he says.

A former Maoist sympathiser, who did not want to be named, pointed to a deeper flaw behind the movement’s collapse: a political disconnect.

“They delivered real change – social justice in Telangana, uniting tribespeople in Chhattisgarh – but failed to forge it into a cohesive political force,” he said.

At the heart of the failure, he argued, was a dated revolutionary vision: building isolated “liberated zones” beyond the state’s reach and “a theory to strike the state through a protracted people’s war”.

“These pockets work only until the state pushes back. Then the zones collapse, and thousands die. It’s time to ask – can a revolution really be led from cut-off forestlands in today’s India?”

The CPI (Maoist)’s 2007 political document clings to a Mao-era strategy: of creating a “liberated zone” and “encircling the cities from the countryside.” But the sympathiser was blunt: “That doesn’t work anymore.”

The party still retains some popular support in a few isolated pockets, primarily in the tribal regions of eastern Maharashtra, southern Chhattisgarh and parts of Odisha and Jharkhand – but without a strong military base.

Ongoing operations by state forces have significantly weakened the Maoist military infrastructure in their strongholds in southern Chhattisgarh. Cadres and leaders are now being killed regularly, reflecting the rebels’ growing inability to defend themselves.

Mr Venugopal believes the strategy needs rethinking – not abandonment.

The underground struggle has its place, he said, but “the real challenge is blending it with electoral politics”.

In contrast, Mr Ganapathy sees little hope for the Maoists to mount a meaningful fightback in the near future and argues that the time has come for a different approach – dialogue.

“It would be wise for them to go for talks now and perhaps unconditionally or even lay down the conditions and let the government consider them. This is the time to approach the government instead of unnecessarily sacrificing their own cadres, without a purpose,” he said.

Maoists enjoy support in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana from mainstream political parties. In Telangana, both the ruling Congress and the main opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) have backed calls for a ceasefire, along with 10 smaller Left parties – an effort widely seen as aimed at protecting the group’s remaining leaders and cadres.

The Maoist movement, rooted in past struggles against caste oppression, still carries social legitimacy in parts of these states. Civil society activists have also joined the push for a truce.

“We, along with other civil rights groups, demanded a two-step process – an immediate ceasefire followed by peace talks,” said Ranjit Sur, general secretary of the Kolkata-based group Association for Protection of Democratic Rights.

Maoist-affected states remain resilient strongholds in part because they are rich in minerals – making them sites of intense resource battles. Mr Venugopal believes this is key to the CPI (Maoist’s) enduring presence.

Chhattisgarh, for instance, is India’s sole producer of tin concentrates and moulding sand, and a leading source of coal, dolomite, bauxite and high-grade iron ore, according to the ministry of mines.

It accounts for 36% of the country’s tin, 20% iron ore, 18% coal, 11% dolomite and 4% of diamond and marble reserves. Yet, despite strong interest, mining companies – both global and national – have long struggled to access these resources.

“Multinational companies couldn’t enter because the Maoist movement, built on the slogan ‘Jal, Jangal, Jameen (Water, Forest, Land),’ asserted that forests belong to tribespeople – not corporations,” Mr Venugopal said.

But with the Maoists now weakened, at least four Chhattisgarh mines are set to go to “preferred bidders” after successful auctions in May, according to an official notification.

Mr Venugopal believes that the resistance won’t die with the death of Maoist leaders.

“Leaders may fall, but the anger remains. Wherever injustice exists, there will be movements. We may not call them Maoism anymore – but they’ll be there.”

Dubbed “Germany’s forgotten genocide”, and described by historians as the first genocide of the 20th Century, the systematic murder of more than 70,000 Africans is being marked with a national day of remembrance for the first time in Namibia.

Almost 40 years before their use in the Holocaust, concentration camps and pseudoscientific experiments were used by German officials to torture and kill people in what was then called South West Africa.

The victims, primarily from Ovaherero and Nama communities, were targeted because they refused to let the colonisers take their land and cattle.

Genocide Remembrance Day in Namibia on Wednesday follows years of pressure on Germany to pay reparations.

The new, national holiday will be marked each year as part of Namibia’s “journey of healing” including a minute’s silence and candlelight vigil outside parliament in Windhoek, according to the government.

It said it chose the date of 28 May, because it was on that day in 1907 that German officials announced the closure of the concentration camps following international criticism.

Control over South West Africa – along with what is now Cameroon, Togo and other colonial territories – was stripped from Germany by competing powers after World War One.

For many years Germany did not publicly acknowledge the mass slaughter that took place between 1904 and 1908.

But four years ago it formally recognised that German colonisers had committed the genocide, and offered €1.1bn (£940m; $1.34bn) in development aid to be paid out over 30 years – with no mention of “reparations” or “compensation” in the legal wording.

Namibia declined that offer, calling it “a first step in the right direction” that nonetheless had failed to include the formal apology and “reparations” it was seeking.

Many Namibians were not impressed by what they saw.

“That was the joke of the century,” Uahimisa Kaapehi told the BBC at the time. “We want our land. Money is nothing.”

He is an ethnic Ovaherero descendent and town councillor in Swakopmund, where many of the atrocities took place, and said “our wealth was taken, the farms, the cattle”.

A group representing genocide victims’ families was also scathing about the deal offered in 2021, calling it evidence of a “racist mindset on the part of Germany and neo-colonial subservience on the part of Namibia” in a joint statement.

Since then a draft deal has been reached between the two nations that would include a formal apology given by Germany, and which would reportedly increase the overall sum by an extra €50m.

But many Ovaherero and Nama campaigners say the deal is an insult to their ancestors’ memory and that they were unfairly excluded from the negotiating table. News of a national day of remembrance been met with cynicism from some, with community activists saying restorative justice is still a long way off.

Many campaigners would like to see the German government buy back ancestral lands now in the hands of the German-speaking community, and return them to the Ovaherero and Nama descendants.

Historians point out the irony of Germany hitherto refusing to pay reparations, because prior to the genocide, Germany itself extracted its own so-called reparations from Ovaherero and Nama people who had fought back against the colonisers.

This was paid in the form of livestock and amounted to 12,000 cows – which is estimated by German-American historian Thomas Craemer to be somewhere between $1.2m and $8.8m in today’s money, and which he argues should be added to the reparations bill.

Those colonial lootings and battles were followed by the genocide, which began in 1904 with an extermination order from a German official named Lothar von Trotha.

“This extermination order indicated that they were no longer going to take on any prisoners – women, men, anyone with or without cattle – they were going to be executed,” Namibian historian Martha Akawa-Shikufa told the national broadcaster NBC.

This was followed by the introduction of concentration camps, she added.

“People got worked to death, a lot of people died in the concentration camps because of exhaustion. In fact there were pre-printed death certificates [saying] ‘death by exhaustion’, waiting for those people to die, because they knew they would die.”

The remains of some of those who were killed were then shipped to Germany for now-discredited research to prove the racial superiority of white Europeans. Many of the bones have now been repatriated.

Last year, Namibia criticised Germany after it offered to come to Israel’s defence to stop it answering a case for crimes of genocide in Gaza at the UN’s top court.

“The German government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed on Namibian soil,” said then-President Hage Geingob.

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• ‘End of era’ for Africa as Namibia buries founding father
• Why Germany’s deal fell flat for Namibians

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 education 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.

King Charles III was given a heartfelt standing ovation in Canada’s parliament in Ottawa after a historic speech in support of the country staying “strong and free”.

Outside the Senate building later, another voice from the crowd shouted: “Thanks for coming King Charles” in a voice full of emotion – as the King himself had sounded at the end of his speech.

But what was never mentioned was what the speech was really about: US President Donald Trump.

There was a promise to “protect Canadians and their sovereign rights”, but with diplomatic discretion, there was no mention of who might be threatening the country’s independence.

Claims by Trump that Canada would be the 51st US state hung over this speech, but his name was never uttered.

Not when the speech talked of the virtues of “open trade” (ie, not tariffs) or when it talked of a “critical moment” in which “democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination and freedom” must be protected.

And there was no one named as making it necessary to guard the country’s “fundamental rights and freedoms”.

There might even have been an olive branch, with a promise by the Canadian government to do more to stop fentanyl crossing the border, a drug that was the subject of accusations by the US administration. But there was no mention of Trump by name.

The opening of parliament followed a general election in which Mark Carney had been brought to power on a wave of anti-Trump sentiment.

The speech was written on the advice of the Canadian government, but there was a great deal of symbolism in the King reading it out. The King of Canada was in town.

Inviting King Charles seemed to have paid off for Carney, who afterwards said how well the speech had been delivered. “Our sovereignty is strong,” said Carney.

From the parliamentarians inside the packed chamber to the crowds pressed up against the railings outside, the King’s visit was seen as sticking up for Canada when it was under pressure from its bigger neighbour.

Compared with openings of Parliament in Westminster, this was a more dressed-down affair. No crowns or robes, with the King looking businesslike in a suit.

Showing this really is a relaxed country, the former PM, Justin Trudeau, was wearing a pair of green trainers.

A theme of this brief royal visit has been paying respects to the First Nations people and the King noted that parliament was meeting on the territory of the Algonquin people.

Among the parliamentarians were many representatives of First Nations communities, dressed in traditional outfits and spectacular headdresses. The speech, delivered in French and English, made a virtue of the country’s diverse roots.

Before the King’s arrival, there was an unmistakable sense of anticipation with the sober lawmakers taking a few quick selfies before the big royal moment. There was that nervous buzz ahead of something important.

There would be a long list of government plans and policies, but there was a bigger historic feel to events, with a huge media encampment outside and crowds lining the streets.

The opening of parliament took place in Canada’s Senate, which is currently using temporary accommodation while its own building is renovated.

The building being used by the Senate used to be Ottawa’s main railway station. You could still see how the floor of the chamber had once been the station concourse.

A different type of king, Elvis Presley, had come through here on a train journey in 1957. If there were suspicious minds here about whether King Charles would stand up for Canada, he was able to put that to rest.

In the warm Ottawa sunshine, there were crowds sending their own message by turning out to see the King. Even a fleeting visit here soon shows how deeply people have been upset by their near neighbours and allies in the US.

There seemed to be a genuine sense of relief that the King was there and showing support. The King also looked pleased, standing outside the Senate, holding a quick walkabout while a motorcade of oversized black cars was waiting to drive him away. He later spoke of the “warmest of welcomes”.

He waved before he left, having a last look around, towards the crowds and towards the cameras. Was there someone south of the border watching?

The US state department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce responded to the speech: “I’m a fan of King Charles. And of Prince William and Princess Kate. I think they’re a great family.”

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The Giant’s Causeway has faced many threats to its survival, from mythical fights between giants to coastal erosion and rising sea levels.

Now there’s a new problem.

At first, you don’t notice them but as soon as you see one, you start to see them everywhere – hundreds of them, in every fissure and crevice.

They are coins, inserted into the tiny gaps between one of Northern Ireland’s most famous and photographed natural resources, the basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway.

Like the padlocks left on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris, people often leave the coins behind for love or luck.

But, like that tradition, the coins are causing problems, and now visitors are being asked to keep their spare change in their pockets.

In Paris, it has been made illegal to attach a padlock after part of the bridge collapsed in 2014.

At the Giant’s Causeway, the practice started years ago – but the caretakers for the site, the National Trust, believe it has increased significantly in scale in the last decade or so.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists and locals visit each year and only a fraction leave behind this unwanted memento.

But the coins are having a direct impact on the rocks themselves. The worst affected are the basalt columns that make up The Loom – 10 ft high leaning towers of rock.

They are a slightly lighter colour than the iconic hexagonal black basalt at the point of the causeway.

It is easy to see at first glance the discolouration caused by the coins – a reddish-brown wash over the surface.

Dr Cliff Henry, nature engagement officer with the National Trust, said the rocks are affected on a number of levels.

“People see others put coins in, so they copycat, they take a coin out of their pocket and they might take a stone off the ground to hammer the coin in, but they might miss and chip the stone itself so that’s doing damage.”

He added: “Once the coin is in there it starts to rust and due to the atmosphere here it rusts at an accelerated level.

“The coin then expands and that’s putting pressure on the joint near the edge so we have seen on a number of places here that the corners have popped off.

“And the rusting metal in there is starting to leach. The iron and nickel and copper is leaching out over the rocks and it looks unsightly.”

He said they’re appealing to people to stop inserting the coins before more damage is done to these 60-million-year-old rocks.

“On a geological timescale, this is very rapid erosion.”

A report from the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland shed some light on the problem.

Dr Kirstin Lemon said: “The advice of the Geological Survey to the National Trust is to see if we can remove as many of those coins as we can.

“By removing them, it means we’re stopping any further physical impact on the site itself. We’re also stopping that chemical impact as well.”

She said she hoped that by removing coins, it would stop others adding more.

A specialist stonemason has started the work and has removed about 10% of them so far.

“He’s done some test sites already so we know we can take these coins out without doing damage to the stones themselves,” said Dr Henry.

“We want him to do it – we don’t want the general public to do that, we don’t want to cause any further damage.”

Signs will also be put up and visitors are already warned not to insert the coins by tour guides at the Giant’s Causeway, like Mark Adams.

“I think it’s a simple thing of wanting to leave something of themselves behind,” he said.

“But if you want to leave something behind, take a photo, put it online, it’ll be there forever.”

Last year, the Giant’s Causeway received about 684,000 visits.

The numbers are steadily climbing back to their pre-pandemic levels. There were nearly a million visits in 2019.

The National Trust said not only is it Northern Ireland’s most valuable natural phenomenon, it is important for the economy too.

“It’s an icon for Northern Ireland – if we can’t look after this, what’s the hope for the rest of the country?,” said Dr Henry.

“We really need to be looking after the causeway as best we can.”

Tesco’s introduction of AI technology to some self-checkouts has led to customers joking that it bears a striking resemblance to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology used in football.

The supermarket is aiming to reduce shoplifting by installing overhead cameras to identify when shoppers fail to scan an item properly, and then showing a live-action replay of the item not scanning.

While some shoppers mocked the tech, others complained it was a step too far, with some saying they would not use self-checkout again.

The move comes after shoplifting in the UK hit a record high in 2024.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales rose 20% last year to 516,971.

But the number of thefts recorded by retailers themselves is even higher. Figures from the British Retail Consortium suggest there were 20.4 million thefts in the year to last September, up 3.7 million on the year before, costing retailers £2bn.

Tesco said it had rolled out the technology across some of its stores in a bid to help customers using self-service checkouts to identify if an item hasn’t scanned properly.

The supermarket said it would make the checkout process “quicker and easier”.

If an item fails to scan, customers are shown a video on the self-service screen of their attempt, accompanied by a message saying “The last item wasn’t scanned properly. Remove from bagging area and try again.”

It follows a similar move by Sainsbury’s, which has rolled out AI recognition technology at self-service checkouts at some of its stores.

“We regularly review the security measures in our stores and our decisions to implement them are based on a range of factors, including offering our customers a smooth checkout experience,” said a Sainsbury’s spokesperson.

“VAR Decision – Tuna Disallowed,” joked one commenter on a video posted on Instagram showing the technology flagging an item that had failed to scan properly, which has had more than 3.5 million views.

“Clearly off side,” added another.

But on Bluesky, a user voiced fears that the technology could open the door to more surveillance measures. “What’s next? Drones to follow… you about the store?”

On Facebook, another user said he would “not use self-checkouts” after the technology was introduced.

The move marks the latest attempt by retailers to try to stem the rise in shoplifting.

Tesco has also introduced giant trolley scales at its Gateshead store, which prompted a similarly mixed response from shoppers earlier this year.

“Am I at border control or Tesco?” asked one Reddit user.

Last week Greggs announced that it will move its self-serve food and drinks behind the counter at sites where there are high levels of theft.

And in 2023, photos circulating on social media showed supermarkets had fitted products including steaks and cheese with security tags, while coffee was replaced with dummy jars.

French MPs have voted to allow some people in the last stages of a terminal illness the right to assisted dying.

The National Assembly approved the bill, which is backed by President Emmanuel Macron, by 305 votes to 199. It will now go to the upper house, the Senate, before a second reading in the National Assembly. Supporters hope it will become law by 2027.

It would make France the eighth country in the European Union to allow a version of assisted dying.

As currently framed, the French version would be not as permissive as in the Netherlands or neighbouring Belgium, which were the first countries in Europe to legalise assisted dying.

A separate bill creating a right to palliative care went through unopposed. It is estimated that 48% of French patients who require palliative care do not get it.

Macron said the decision to approve both bills was “an important step” in a social media post on Tuesday.

“With respect for sensitivities, doubts and hopes, the path of fraternity that I hoped for is gradually opening up”, he wrote on X.

Much of the two-week debate in the Assembly had focused on the conditions under which a patient could qualify for assisted dying.

The approved formula is for “people struck by a serious and incurable disease” that is “life-threatening and in its advanced or terminal phases”, who are in “constant physical or psychological suffering”.

The patient would have to be able to “freely manifest his or her intention”. They would have to wait 48 hours and then confirm it.

Once authorised, the lethal dose would be self-administered by the patient; or by a medical assistant if the patient were incapable.

Authorisation would be provided by a doctor, but only after consultation with peers.

MPs were allowed a free vote on the bill – a reflection of how differences of opinion on the matter defy party lines. Broadly though, the measure was backed by the centre and left and opposed on the right and populist right.

Conservative critics – echoing views of the once-dominant Catholic Church – were concerned that definitions in the bill were too broad, opening the way for assisted dying for patients who might have years to live.

As in other countries where the ethical issues have been hotly debated, opponents fear that vulnerable elderly people could feel under pressure to die in order to remove a burden from their families.

In a demonstration against the bill outside the National Assembly on Saturday, one 44-year-old woman suffering from Parkinson’s disease said it would be like a “loaded pistol left on my bedside table”.

Some left-wingers wanted to toughen the government’s bill by widening access to assisted dying to minors, non-French nationals and patients who leave instructions before going into a coma.

Under the bill, medical staff who oppose assisted dying would not be obliged to carry it out. However, it would be a crime punishable by two years in jail to try to block an act of assisted dying.

Conservatives wanted to create another crime – of incitement to assisted dying. But this amendment was rejected by MPs.

Prime Minister François Bayrou, who is a practising Catholic, said that if he had a vote on the bill he would abstain. As he is not an MP, he did not have a vote.

Nepali sherpa Kami Rita, also known as “Everest Man”, has scaled Mount Everest for the 31st time, breaking his own record for the most climbs up the world’s tallest peak.

The 55-year-old, who was guiding a group of Indian army officials up the mountain, reached its 8,849m summit at 04:00 local time on Tuesday (23:15 GMT Monday).

“Kami Rita Sherpa needs no introduction. He is not just a national climbing hero, but a global symbol of Everest itself,” expedition organiser Seven Summit Treks said in a statement.

Kami Rita first summited Everest in 1994 guiding a commercial expedition and has made the peak almost ever year since.

He scaled it twice some years, like in 2023 and 2024.

His closest competitor for the Everest record is fellow Nepali sherpa Pasang Dawa, who scaled the peak 29 times – the latest attempt made last week.

Kami Rita has previously told media how his climbs are just work.

“I am glad for the record, but records are eventually broken,” he told AFP in May last year. “I am more happy that my climbs help Nepal be recognised in the world.”

Earlier this month, Kami Rita posted snippets of life on Everest, including one of the Puja ceremony, a Tibetan Buddhist ritual done before Everest expeditions to pray for a safe and successful climb.

Kami Rita’s feat comes one week after British mountaineer Kenton Cool summited Everest for the 19th time, also breaking his own record for the most climbs for a non-sherpa.

More than 500 people and their guides have climbed Everest successfully this climbing season, which is coming to an end.

Nepal issued more than 1,000 climbing permits this season – including for Everest and other peaks – according to its tourism department.

The number of Everest summit attempts has soared in recent years. However this has led to concerns around overcrowding and environmental impact.

Last year, authorities introduced a rule requiring climbers to clear up their own poo and bring it back to base camp to be disposed of.

Hundreds of lawyers have called on the UK government to use “all available means” to stop the fighting in Gaza, including reviewing trade ties with Israel and imposing sanctions and travel bans on Israeli ministers.

Some 828 UK-based or qualified legal experts, among them former Supreme Court justices, signed a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday.

They warned “genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza” from Israel’s blockade of food and aid and its new military offensive, which has killed hundreds of Palestinians there in the past fortnight.

Israel has strongly denied genocide allegations, claims which are also being examined by the International Court of Justice.

• Crowds overrun US-backed group’s new aid distribution site in Gaza
• Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu’s plan for Gaza risks dividing Israel, killing Palestinians and horrifying world
• ‘Situation is dire’ – BBC returns to Gaza baby left hungry by Israeli blockade
• As Israel faces diplomatic ‘tsunami’, Trump is staying quiet

The group of legal experts includes former Supreme Court Justices Lord Wilson and Lord Sumption, former chair of the Criminal Bar Association of England and Wales Andrew Hall KC, and several professors from Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Their letter comes amid a wave of increased criticism from Israel’s Western allies, condemning its latest military offensive, which began in mid-May, and the impact of its blockade. The blockade was in full effect for 11 weeks from 2 March.

Last week, the UK, France and Canada issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s “egregious” expansion of military operations in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the British, French and Canadian leaders of “siding with Hamas”, saying the offensive was aimed at freeing the remaining 58 hostages held by the group.

But UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the escalation “morally unjustifiable”. The UK last week suspended trade deal talks, summoned Israel’s ambassador and imposed fresh sanctions on West Bank settlers.

Netanyahu has declared Israel’s intention to take over the Gaza Strip and displace residents from the north to the south.

The operation has seen about a 100 Gazans killed per day in strikes in its first week, according to the territory’s Hamas-run rescue authorities and health ministry.

On Monday, the group of legal experts said in a detailed 36-page letter that Israel’s May offensive was “a grave violation” of international law, and also violated the Palestinian people’s legal right to self-determination.

The group of lawyers, legal experts and retired judges expressed their “deep concern over the worsening catastrophe” in Gaza and the occupied West Bank where violations of international law were “being committed and are further threatened” by Israel.

“First, genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza or, at a minimum, there is a serious risk of genocide occurring,” the legal experts wrote.

They said this had been caused by Israel’s blockade – and the trickle of aid now being allowed in was “gravely insufficient.”

They said the UK and all countries were legally obliged to “prevent and punish genocide”.

“The UK’s actions to date have failed to meet those standards”, they said, but they welcomed the “indication” of stronger action in last week’s statement.

The UK must immediately impose financial and immigration sanctions on Israeli ministers suspected of “unlawful conduct”, to help secure a ceasefire, the lawyers wrote.

The letter also called for the UK to review existing trade ties with Israel, impose trade sanctions on the country and also suspend the UK’s “2030 Roadmap” with Israel – an agreement between the UK and Israel on defence, technology and science, culture, the arts and other areas.

They called on the government to ensure it would adhere to its obligations as a member of the International Criminal Court to act on arrest warrants issued by the court. Netanyahu is currently wanted by the court for alleged war crimes in Gaza and breaches of international law, charges he emphatically denies.

The letter is the group’s latest since the war began in October 2023. Its first missive was issued weeks into the conflict, where it raised concerns about the UK government selling arms to Israel.

The legality of the UK’s decisions concerning arms sales is now being examined by the High Court of England and Wales.

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

At least 54,056 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,901 since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March following a two-month ceasefire, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

On Tuesday, Germany and Finland also spoke out, saying Israel must allow humanitarian aid into Gaza immediately.

“We must put pressure on Israel to ensure the aid truly reaches its target,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters alongside Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo in Finland.

“But it is also crucial that Hamas must not prevent humanitarian aid from arriving.”

Merz, who has strongly criticised Israel in recent days, said events in Gaza were “in no way acceptable”. He described the effect on Gazan civilians as “excessive” and called for an end to the killing and suffering.

“This is a terrible human catastrophe and we must be able to tackle it,” Orpo added.

Sweden on Tuesday also summoned the Israeli ambassador to its foreign ministry, and called on the country to “immediately ensure safe and unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza”.

The Swedish foreign ministry said in a statement that Israel had a right to defend itself but “the current way the war is waged is unacceptable”.

The Trump administration will direct US federal agencies to review Harvard University’s grants to potentially end or redistribute funding, as part of the White House’s escalating battle with America’s oldest university.

The Government Services Administration (GSA) plans to circulate a letter to agencies asking them to identify whether Harvard contracts could be “cancelled or redirected elsewhere”, a senior White House official said.

The administration estimates about 30 contracts, collectively worth $100m (£74m), could be reviewed. It already had frozen $2.65bn in federal grants and tried to revoke Harvard’s ability to enrol international students.

Harvard University did not immediately comment.

On its website, the university says that its “cutting-edge medical, scientific, and technological research” has historically been “supported by the federal government” and other entities.

Touting the institution’s research on cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases and obesity, the university website warns that “without federal funding, this work will come to a halt midstream”.

• US halts student visa appointments

The White House will not revoke the funds automatically, but rather kick off a review of money Harvard receives from the federal government to determine whether that funding is critical in the eyes of the administration.

GSA will recommend each agency “terminate for convenience each contract that it determines has failed to meet its standards”, and consider reallocating those funds elsewhere.

A draft of the letter accuses Harvard of engaging in discrimination and antisemitism as justification for the move.

Students and faculty at the university have criticised the Trump administration for its penalties against Harvard. On Tuesday evening, a few dozen gathered in protest.

“The administration’s excuse that these policies somehow address antisemitism are so absurd,” said Jacob Miller, a student and former head of Harvard Hillel, the Jewish social hub on campus.

An administration official told the BBC that potential cuts would not affect hospitals affiliated with Harvard University.

And if a federal grant was deemed critical to a particular agency’s functions, they said, that agency could make a case to preserve funding.

The White House and Harvard have been locked in a political, legal and financial battle – the stakes of which have dramatically escalated over the past two months.

This is not the first time the administration has attempted to block Harvard’s funding. In April, the White House threatened the university’s tax exempt status and froze $2.2bn in federal funding, prompting a lawsuit. A month later, it cut another $450 million in grants.

Last week, the Trump administration also tried to revoke Harvard’s ability to enrol international students or host foreign researchers, prompting mass confusion among thousands of impacted students and another lawsuit from Harvard. A judge later issued a temporary restraining order blocking the move.

Before news broke of the latest attempt at cuts, Harvard University president Alan Garber told NPR on Tuesday morning: “Why cut off research funding?

“Sure, it hurts Harvard, but it hurts the country because after all, the research funding is not a gift.

“The research funding is given to universities and other research institutions to carry out work – research work – that the federal government designates as high-priority work.

“It is work that they want done. They are paying to have that work conducted.”

One department hit by funding cuts is the Sinclair Lab at Harvard Medical School, which studies aging and seeks to find interventions for Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, cancer, infertility, immune disorders, and more.

“We aim to understand and reverse the underlying mechanisms of aging to develop treatments for a wide range of diseases and tissue injuries,” the lab’s founder, anti-aging geneticist David Sinclair, told the BBC via email.

Under the Trump administration, the laboratory lost a National Institutes of Health grant, and researcher Kelly Rich lost a career grant to study age reversal to combat motor diseases. The White House’s move to revoke Harvard’s ability to host international researchers had affected six people – half of the laboratory’s staff.

“The loss of funding not only halts ongoing experiments that cannot simply be restarted, but also jeopardizes the contributions of international scholars who are integral to the lab’s operations and the wealth of the US,” Mr Sinclair said.

Adam Nguyen, a Harvard alumnus and founder of the admissions consulting firm Ivy Link, said that the potentially “hugely negative” impact would fall on graduate and PhD students. Academics from both the US and abroad rely on outside funding for their research, he said.

“If you have the cuts, they’re out of a job,” Mr Nguyen said. “It’s as simple as that. There’s no money to fund their research. You’re talking about cuts, lay-offs and immediate stop-work orders for many graduate students.”

US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered embassies to stop scheduling appointments for student visas as it prepares to expand social media vetting of such applicants.

In a copy of a memo sent to diplomatic posts, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the pause would last “until further guidance is issued”.

The message said social media vetting would be stepped up for student and foreign exchange visas, which would have “significant implications” for embassies and consulates.

It comes amid Trump’s feud with some of America’s most elite colleges, which he believes are too left-wing. He says some of them have enabled antisemitism on campus and uphold discriminatory admissions policies.

The state department memo, viewed by the BBC’s US partner CBS News, directed US embassies on Tuesday to remove any unfilled appointments from their calendars for students seeking visas, but said those with appointments already scheduled could go ahead.

The diplomatic cable also said the state department was preparing for an “expansion of required social media screening and vetting” applicable to all student visa applications. It does not spell out what the vetting would look for.

• Trump administration seeks to pull estimated $100m in Harvard funding
• Are you a student who has been affected by the issues in this story? Tell us here

Foreign students who want to study in the US are usually required to schedule interviews at an American embassy in their home country before approval.

Many institutions rely on foreign students for a significant chunk of their funding, as they often pay higher tuition fees.

When asked about student visas, state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday: “We take very seriously the process of vetting who it is that comes into the country, and we’re going to continue to do that.”

The Trump administration has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for universities and moved to deport students, while revoking thousands of visas for others. Many of these actions have been blocked by the courts.

The White House has accused some US universities of allowing pro-Palestinian activism on campus to be hijacked by antisemitism.

Colleges have accused the Trump administration of trying to infringe upon free speech rights.

Harvard University has been the focal point of President Donald Trump’s ire. Last week, the Trump administration revoked Harvard’s ability to enrol international students or host foreign researchers. A federal judge blocked the policy.

If the measure is allowed, it could deliver a devastating blow to the university, where more than a quarter of students are foreign.

Could India’s decades-long jungle insurgency finally be approaching its end?

Last week, the country’s most-wanted Maoist, Nambala Keshava Rao – popularly known as Basavaraju – was killed along with 26 others in a major security operation in the central state of Chhattisgarh. Home Minister Amit Shah called it “the most decisive strike” against the insurgency in three decades. One police officer also died in the encounter.

Basavaraju’s death marks more than a tactical victory – it signals a breach in the Maoists’ last line of defence in Bastar, the forested heartland where the group carved out its fiercest stronghold since the 1980s.

Maoists, also known as “Naxalites” after the 1967 uprising in Naxalbari village in West Bengal, have regrouped over the decades to carve out a “red corridor” across central and eastern India – stretching from Jharkhand in the east to Maharashtra in the west and spanning more than a third of the country’s districts. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh had described the insurgency as India’s “greatest internal security threat”.

The armed struggle for Communist rule has claimed nearly 12,000 lives since 2000, according to the South Asian Terrorism Portal. The rebels say they fight for the rights of indigenous tribes and the rural poor, citing decades of state neglect and land dispossession.

The Maoist movement – officially known as Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) – took formal shape in 2004 with the merger of key Marxist-Leninist groups into the CPI (Maoist). This party traces its ideological roots to a 1946 peasant uprising in the southern state of Telangana.

Now, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government pledging to end Maoism by March 2026, the battle-hardened rebellion stands at a crossroads: could this truly be the end – or just another pause in its long, bloody arc?

“There will be a lull. But Marxist-Leninist movements have transcended such challenges when the top leadership of the Naxalites were killed in the 70s and yet we are talking about Naxalism,” said N Venugopal, a journalist, social scientist and long-time observer of the movement, who is both a critic and sympathiser of the Maoists.

One of the senior-most officials in India’s home ministry who oversaw anti-Maoist operations, MA Ganapathy, holds a different view.

“At its core, the Maoist movement was an ideological struggle – but that ideology has lost traction, especially among the younger generation. Educated youth aren’t interested anymore,” says Mr Ganapathy.

“With Basavaraju neutralised, morale is low. They’re on their last leg.”

The federal home ministry’s latest report notes a 48% drop in violent incidents in Maoist-related violence – from 1,136 in 2013 to 594 in 2023 – and a 65% decline in related deaths, from 397 to 138.

However, it acknowledges a slight rise in security force casualties in 2023 compared to 2022, attributed to intensified operations in core Maoist areas.

The report says Chhattisgarh remained the worst-affected state in 2023, accounting for 63% of all Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) incidents and 66% of the related deaths.

Jharkhand followed, with 27% of the violence and 23% of the deaths. The remaining incidents were reported from Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

The collapse of Maoism in Chhattisgarh, a stronghold of the insurgency, offers key clues to the movement’s broader decline.

A decade ago, the state’s police were seen as weak, according to Mr Ganapathy.

“Today, precise state-led strikes, backed by central paramilitary forces, have changed the game. While paramilitary held the ground, state forces gathered intelligence and launched targeted operations. It was clear role delineation and coordination,” he said.

Mr Ganapathy adds that access to mobile phones, social media, roads and connectivity have made people more aware and less inclined to support an armed underground movement.

“People have become aspirational, mobile phones and social media have become widespread and people are exposed to the outside world. Maoists also cannot operate in hiding in remote jungles while being out of sync with new social realities.

“Without mass support, no insurgency can survive,” he says.

A former Maoist sympathiser, who did not want to be named, pointed to a deeper flaw behind the movement’s collapse: a political disconnect.

“They delivered real change – social justice in Telangana, uniting tribespeople in Chhattisgarh – but failed to forge it into a cohesive political force,” he said.

At the heart of the failure, he argued, was a dated revolutionary vision: building isolated “liberated zones” beyond the state’s reach and “a theory to strike the state through a protracted people’s war”.

“These pockets work only until the state pushes back. Then the zones collapse, and thousands die. It’s time to ask – can a revolution really be led from cut-off forestlands in today’s India?”

The CPI (Maoist)’s 2007 political document clings to a Mao-era strategy: of creating a “liberated zone” and “encircling the cities from the countryside.” But the sympathiser was blunt: “That doesn’t work anymore.”

The party still retains some popular support in a few isolated pockets, primarily in the tribal regions of eastern Maharashtra, southern Chhattisgarh and parts of Odisha and Jharkhand – but without a strong military base.

Ongoing operations by state forces have significantly weakened the Maoist military infrastructure in their strongholds in southern Chhattisgarh. Cadres and leaders are now being killed regularly, reflecting the rebels’ growing inability to defend themselves.

Mr Venugopal believes the strategy needs rethinking – not abandonment.

The underground struggle has its place, he said, but “the real challenge is blending it with electoral politics”.

In contrast, Mr Ganapathy sees little hope for the Maoists to mount a meaningful fightback in the near future and argues that the time has come for a different approach – dialogue.

“It would be wise for them to go for talks now and perhaps unconditionally or even lay down the conditions and let the government consider them. This is the time to approach the government instead of unnecessarily sacrificing their own cadres, without a purpose,” he said.

Maoists enjoy support in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana from mainstream political parties. In Telangana, both the ruling Congress and the main opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) have backed calls for a ceasefire, along with 10 smaller Left parties – an effort widely seen as aimed at protecting the group’s remaining leaders and cadres.

The Maoist movement, rooted in past struggles against caste oppression, still carries social legitimacy in parts of these states. Civil society activists have also joined the push for a truce.

“We, along with other civil rights groups, demanded a two-step process – an immediate ceasefire followed by peace talks,” said Ranjit Sur, general secretary of the Kolkata-based group Association for Protection of Democratic Rights.

Maoist-affected states remain resilient strongholds in part because they are rich in minerals – making them sites of intense resource battles. Mr Venugopal believes this is key to the CPI (Maoist’s) enduring presence.

Chhattisgarh, for instance, is India’s sole producer of tin concentrates and moulding sand, and a leading source of coal, dolomite, bauxite and high-grade iron ore, according to the ministry of mines.

It accounts for 36% of the country’s tin, 20% iron ore, 18% coal, 11% dolomite and 4% of diamond and marble reserves. Yet, despite strong interest, mining companies – both global and national – have long struggled to access these resources.

“Multinational companies couldn’t enter because the Maoist movement, built on the slogan ‘Jal, Jangal, Jameen (Water, Forest, Land),’ asserted that forests belong to tribespeople – not corporations,” Mr Venugopal said.

But with the Maoists now weakened, at least four Chhattisgarh mines are set to go to “preferred bidders” after successful auctions in May, according to an official notification.

Mr Venugopal believes that the resistance won’t die with the death of Maoist leaders.

“Leaders may fall, but the anger remains. Wherever injustice exists, there will be movements. We may not call them Maoism anymore – but they’ll be there.”

The driver of a car that ploughed into football fans during Liverpool’s Premier League victory parade is being held on suspicion of attempted murder, police have said.

Merseyside Police say a Ford Galaxy avoided a roadblock by tailgating an ambulance responding to reports of a member of the public having suffered a heart attack.

The force say the man, 53 and from the city’s West Derby area, was also being detained on suspicion of dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drugs.

Fifty people, including children, were treated in hospital following the incident in Water Street, which happened shortly after 18:00 on Bank Holiday Monday.

Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill said there were 65 confirmed casualties following the incident.

Of the injured, police say, 11 remained in hospital.

All are said to be in a “stable” condition.

Merseyside’s Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims said: “It is believed the driver of the Ford Galaxy car involved in this incident was able to follow an ambulance on to Water Street, after the roadblock was temporarily lifted so that the ambulance crew could attend to a member of the public who was having a suspected heart attack.”

She added: “There was no intelligence to suggest an incident of this nature would take place and, as we previously stated, the incident is not being treated as terrorism.”

The senior officer defended the policing operation during the parade, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the city.

She told reporters that the force had planned for “all contingencies”, including road closures and an armed police presence.

Assistant Chief Constable Sims said an “extensive investigation into the precise circumstances of the incident” was continuing, and she once again urged people not to speculate about what had happened.

The force has asked anyone with information about the incident to refrain from sharing it online and instead pass it on to police.

Earlier, Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram suggested the suspect’s car should not have been on Water Street and said questions about how it could have been driven there were “legitimate”.

Water Street remains closed while investigations continue into the incident.

A police cordon remains in place, while members of the public have begun to lay flowers, cards and toys near the crash scene.

Huge numbers of joyful Liverpool fans packed the city centre on Monday and lined the 10-mile (16km) parade route as the Reds celebrated winning their second Premier League crown and 20th top-flight league title.

Witnesses graphically described the terror of what happened after the Ford Galaxy smashed into a tightly packed section of the crowd that had gathered on the pavement outside a bar.

Some feared it was a terrorist attack.

Robbie Potter, who was severely injured in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, was on Water Street.

“I thought it was happening again,” he told the BBC. “How did a car get through?

“From the videos, they’ve been very lucky.”

Daniel Eveson’s partner was dragged under the car’s wheels and his baby son’s pram was tossed down the street.

For a moment, he said he did not know if they had survived.

Mr Eveson, from Telford, told BBC Radio Shropshire he had seen “people going flying and people screaming and just terror, pure terror”, adding: “I thought I’d lost everything.”

The car struck Mr Eveson in the chest before his partner went under the wheels and was dragged down the road.

The impact spun their son’s pram about 15ft (4.5m) down the street.

Mr Eveson was able to locate his son, who was unharmed, and leave him in a restaurant with helpers as he went back to search for his partner.

Jack Trotter and his girlfriend Abbie Gallagher, from Newtownards in County Down, were hit by the car after it surged towards them.

“The first thought that I got was: ‘Where’s Abbie? I need to find Abbie’,” the Liverpool fan from Northern Ireland told the BBC.

“Where’s Abbie? You know she could be anywhere at this rate and lucky enough she was screaming my name and I found her.”

Mr Trotter was taken to hospital by ambulance and kept in overnight.

He sustained injuries to his back and leg and is now walking with crutches.

Messages of support have been sent to the people of Liverpool, including from King Charles III who said: “I know that the strength of community spirit for which your city is renowned will be a comfort and support to those in need.”

The Prince and Princess of Wales also said they were “deeply saddened” by the incident, adding: “What should have been a joyful celebration ended with tragedy.”

The Princess Royal visited the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, where medical staff spoke of how they were “very, very fortunate” that more people had not been injured.

Reds legend and former captain Steven Gerrard posted on Instagram that he was “shocked, sickened and saddened” over the incident.

Meanwhile former Liverpool FC manager Jürgen Klopp wrote that his “thoughts and prayers are with all those who are injured and affected”.

“You’ll never walk alone,” the statement concluded, referencing the club’s famous terrace anthem.

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Thousands of Palestinians have overrun an aid distribution site in Gaza set up by a controversial US and Israeli-backed group, a day after it began working there.

Videos showed crowds walking over torn-down fences and earth berms at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) compound in the southern city of Rafah.

The group said that at one point its team fell back because the numbers seeking aid were so great. The Israeli military said troops nearby fired warning shots.

The GHF, which uses armed American security contractors, aims to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid in Gaza, where experts have warned of a looming famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade that was recently eased.

The UN said the videos from Rafah were “heartbreaking” and that it had a detailed plan ready to get enough aid to the “desperate population” of 2.1 million.

The UN and many aid groups have refused to co-operate with GHF’s plans, which they say contradict humanitarian principles and appear to “weaponise aid”.

They have warned that the system will practically exclude those with mobility issues, force further displacement, expose thousands of people to harm, make aid conditional on political and military aims, and set an unacceptable precedent for aid delivery around the world.

Israel has said an alternative to the current aid system is needed to stop Hamas stealing aid, which the group denies doing.

The GHF said it had given out the equivalent of 462,000 meals through a partnership with local non-governmental organisations.

However, it added Palestinians had experienced several hours of delays in accessing one site “due to blockades imposed by Hamas”, without providing evidence.

US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio support “bold” and “out-of-the-box efforts” to make life better for the people of Gaza, said a senior Trump administration official.

On Tuesday afternoon, Israeli and Palestinian media shared videos showing thousands of men, women and children streaming into one of the distribution sites. In one clip, some people are seen running and ducking as what appear to be gunshots ring out.

Witnesses described a scene of chaos as people seized food parcels and other aid. They also said Israeli troops stationed nearby had opened fire.

“The situation was extremely difficult. They only allowed 50 people to cross at a time,” one man told BBC Arabic’s Middle East daily radio programme. “In the end, chaos broke out – people climbed over the gates, attacked others, and took all the [aid].”

“It was a humiliating experience,” he added.

A woman said “people are exhausted – willing to do anything, even risk their lives – just to find food and feed their children.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops had fired “warning shots in the area outside the compound”.

“Control over the situation was established, food distribution operations are expected to continue as planned, and the safety of IDF troops was not compromised,” it stated.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office said Israel’s efforts to distribute aid had “failed miserably”. It also denied that Hamas had tried to stop civilians reaching the GHF’s sites.

At a news conference in New York, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric called the footage “heartbreaking”.

“We and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound plan supported by member states to get aid to a desperate population. We continue to stress that a meaningful scale-up of humanitarian operations is essential to stave off famine and meet the needs of all civilians wherever they are,” he added.

The US state department’s spokeswoman called the UN’s criticism “the height of hypocrisy”.

“It is unfortunate, because the issue here is giving aid to Gaza, and then suddenly it moves into complaints about style or the nature of who’s doing it,” Tammy Bruce told reporters.

Challenged by the BBC about the independence and neutrality of the GHF, Bruce acknowledged there are “some disagreements” about how the distribution of food and aid into the region is “being implemented”.

But she added: “I think that most of us would agree that this is good news… the real story here is that there’s food aid going in.”

The GHF sites are meant to be secured by American contractors, with Israeli troops patrolling the perimeters. To access them, Palestinians are expected to have to undergo identity checks and screening for involvement with Hamas.

UN and other aid agencies have insisted they will not co-operate with any scheme that fails to respect fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.

On Sunday night, Jake Wood resigned as the GHF’s executive director, saying the group’s system could not work in a way that would be able to fulfil those principles.

The GHF’s board rejected the criticism and accused “those who benefit from the status quo” of being more focused on “tearing this apart than on getting aid in”.

The group also alleged on Monday that Hamas had made death threats to NGOs supporting its distribution sites and attempted to block civilians from accessing the aid.

Hamas has publicly warned Palestinians not to co-operate with GHF’s system.

Israel imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its military offensive two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. It said the steps were meant to put pressure on the armed group to release the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, up to 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

On 19 May, the Israeli military launched an expanded offensive that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would see troops “take control of all areas” of Gaza. The plan reportedly includes completely clearing the north of civilians and forcibly displacing them to the south.

Netanyahu also said Israel would temporarily ease the blockade and allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza to prevent a famine, following pressure from allies in the US.

Since then, Israeli authorities say they have allowed at least 665 lorry loads of humanitarian aid, including flour, baby food and medical supplies, into Gaza.

However, more than 400 loads were on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom crossing awaiting distribution by the UN as of Tuesday evening, according to the Israeli military body in charge of aid co-ordination, Cogat. It called on the UN to “do its job”.

There was no immediate comment from the UN, but it said last week that its teams faced significant challenges in collecting supplies due to insecurity, the risk of looting and co-ordination issues with Israeli forces.

Half a million people face starvation in the coming months, according to an assessment by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

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

At least 54,056 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,901 over the past 10 weeks, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Brazilian prosecutors are suing Chinese electric vehicle (EV) giant BYD and two of its contractors, saying they were responsible for human trafficking and conditions “analogous to slavery” at a factory construction site in the country.

The Public Labour Prosecutor’s Office (MPT) in the state of Bahia says 220 Chinese workers were rescued after it began an investigation in response to an anonymous complaint.

The MPT is seeking 257 million Brazilian reais ($45.5m; £33.7m) in damages from the three companies.

BYD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC but has previously said it has “zero tolerance for violations of human rights and labour laws.”

Authorities halted construction of the plant late last year after workers were found living in cramped accommodation with “minimum comfort and hygiene conditions”, the MPT said.

Some workers slept on beds without mattresses and one toilet was shared by 31 people, it said in a statement.

The MPT also alleged that construction site staff had their passports confiscated and were working under “employment contracts with illegal clauses, exhausting work hours and no weekly rest.”

Prosecutors said the workers had up to 70% of their salaries withheld and faced high costs to terminate their contracts.

“Slavery-like conditions”, as defined by Brazilian law, include debt bondage and work that violates human dignity.

The factory was being built in the city of Camacari in the north east of Brazil.

It was scheduled to be operational by March 2025 and was set to be BYD’s first EV plant outside of Asia.

BYD, short for Build Your Dreams, is one of the world’s largest EV makers. In April, it outsold Elon Musk’s Tesla in Europe for the first time, according to car industry research firm Jato Dynamics.

The firm has been looking to increase is presence in Brazil, which is its largest overseas market.

It first opened a factory in São Paulo in 2015, producing chassis for electric buses.

Tesco’s introduction of AI technology to some self-checkouts has led to customers joking that it bears a striking resemblance to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology used in football.

The supermarket is aiming to reduce shoplifting by installing overhead cameras to identify when shoppers fail to scan an item properly, and then showing a live-action replay of the item not scanning.

While some shoppers mocked the tech, others complained it was a step too far, with some saying they would not use self-checkout again.

The move comes after shoplifting in the UK hit a record high in 2024.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales rose 20% last year to 516,971.

But the number of thefts recorded by retailers themselves is even higher. Figures from the British Retail Consortium suggest there were 20.4 million thefts in the year to last September, up 3.7 million on the year before, costing retailers £2bn.

Tesco said it had rolled out the technology across some of its stores in a bid to help customers using self-service checkouts to identify if an item hasn’t scanned properly.

The supermarket said it would make the checkout process “quicker and easier”.

If an item fails to scan, customers are shown a video on the self-service screen of their attempt, accompanied by a message saying “The last item wasn’t scanned properly. Remove from bagging area and try again.”

It follows a similar move by Sainsbury’s, which has rolled out AI recognition technology at self-service checkouts at some of its stores.

“We regularly review the security measures in our stores and our decisions to implement them are based on a range of factors, including offering our customers a smooth checkout experience,” said a Sainsbury’s spokesperson.

“VAR Decision – Tuna Disallowed,” joked one commenter on a video posted on Instagram showing the technology flagging an item that had failed to scan properly, which has had more than 3.5 million views.

“Clearly off side,” added another.

But on Bluesky, a user voiced fears that the technology could open the door to more surveillance measures. “What’s next? Drones to follow… you about the store?”

On Facebook, another user said he would “not use self-checkouts” after the technology was introduced.

The move marks the latest attempt by retailers to try to stem the rise in shoplifting.

Tesco has also introduced giant trolley scales at its Gateshead store, which prompted a similarly mixed response from shoppers earlier this year.

“Am I at border control or Tesco?” asked one Reddit user.

Last week Greggs announced that it will move its self-serve food and drinks behind the counter at sites where there are high levels of theft.

And in 2023, photos circulating on social media showed supermarkets had fitted products including steaks and cheese with security tags, while coffee was replaced with dummy jars.

US President Donald Trump has issued a pardon to a former Virginia sheriff who was convicted on fraud and bribery charges.

A jury found former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins guilty of accepting more than $75,000 (£55,000) in bribes last December, in exchange for making several businessmen into law enforcement officers without them being trained.

Jenkins, a long-time supporter of Trump, was sentenced in March to 10 years in prison. He was set to report to jail on Tuesday, but due to Trump’s pardon, he will not spend a single day behind bars.

“Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network.

Trump said Jenkins was the “victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice”. The judge who presided over Jenkins’s case, Robert Ballou, was appointed by former President Joe Biden, but it was a jury trial.

Trump called Jenkins a “wonderful person” who was persecuted by “Radical Left monsters” and “left for dead”.

Jenkins was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services fraud and seven counts of bribery concerning programmes receiving federal funds.

Prosecutors said he accepted bribes from eight people, including two undercover FBI agents. These were in the form of cash and campaign contributions. Jenkins’s position was an elected one.

The men who bribed Jenkins paid for auxiliary deputy sheriff positions so they could avoid traffic tickets and carry concealed firearms without a permit, the prosecutors said.

Although auxiliary deputy sheriffs are volunteer positions, they can have law-enforcement powers equivalent to those of paid officers.

Trump said Jenkins tried to offer evidence in his defence, but Judge Ballou “refused to allow it, shut him down, and then went on a tirade”.

The acting US attorney for Virginia said at the time of Jenkins’s sentencing that the ex-sheriff violated his oath of office. He said the case proved that officials who used their positions for “unjust personal enrichment” would be held accountable.

But Jenkins appealed to Trump for help after his conviction.

“I believe if he heard the information, I know he would help if he knew my story,” he reportedly said in April on a webinar hosted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.

Jenkins was elected sheriff of Culpeper County in 2011 and took office in January 2012. He was re-elected in 2015 and 2019.

The former policeman is the latest in a long line of Trump supporters to receive a pardon.

In January, the president issued almost 1,600 pardons or commutations to people charged over the 2021 US Capitol riots.

The US Constitution says that a president has the “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

A pardon represents legal forgiveness, ends any further punishment and restores rights such as being able to vote or run for public office.

Nitrous oxide – known colloquially as “laughing gas” – has many uses, from a painkiller during dental procedures to a whipping agent for canned whipped cream.

While its euphoric side effects have long been known, the rise of vaping has helped create a perfect delivery vehicle for the gas – and a perfect recipe for an addiction, experts warn.

Meg Caldwell’s death wasn’t inevitable.

The horseback rider from Florida had started using nitrous oxide recreationally in university eight years ago. But like many young people, she started to use more heavily during the pandemic.

The youngest of four sisters, she was was “the light of our lives,” her sister Kathleen Dial told the BBC.

But Ms Caldwell’s use continued to escalate, to the point that her addiction “started running her life”.

She temporarily lost use of her legs after an overdose, which also rendered her incontinent. Still, she continued to use, buying it in local smoke shops, inhaling it in the car park and then heading straight back into the shop to buy more. She sometimes spent hundreds of dollars a day.

She died last November, in one of those car parks just outside a vape shop.

“She didn’t think that it would hurt her because she was buying it in the smoke shop, so she thought she was using this substance legally,” Ms Dial said.

The progression of Ms Caldwell’s addiction – from youthful misuse to life-threatening compulsion – has become increasingly common. The Annual Report of America’s Poison Centers found there was a 58 % increase in reports of intentional exposure to nitrous oxide in the US between 2023-2024.

• What is nitrous oxide and how dangerous is it?
• ‘Daily use of laughing gas left me in a wheelchair’

In a worst-case scenario, inhalation of nitrous oxide can lead to hypoxia, where the brain does not get enough oxygen. This can result in death. Regular inhalation can also lead to a Vitamin B12 deficiency which can cause nerve damage, degradation of the spinal column and even paralysis. The number of deaths attributed to nitrous oxide poisonings rose by more than 110% between 2019 and 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Possession of nitrous oxide was criminalised in the UK in 2023 after misuse among young people increased during the pandemic. But while many states have also outlawed the recreational use of the product in the US, it is still legal to sell as a culinary product. Only Louisiana has totally banned the retail sale of the gas.

Galaxy Gas, a major manufacturer, even offers recipes for dishes, including Chicken Satay with Peanut Chili Foam and Watermelon Gazpacho on their website. With flavours like Blue Raspberry or Strawberries and Cream, experts warn this loophole – as well as major changes in packaging and retail – has contributed to the rise in misuse.

Until recently users would take single-use plain metal canisters weighing around 8g and inhale the gas using a balloon. But when usage spiked during the pandemic, nitrous oxide manufacturers began selling much larger canisters online – as large as 2kg – and, eventually, in shops selling electronic vapes and other smoking paraphernalia.

Companies also began to package the gas in bright colourful canisters with designs featuring characters from computer games and television series.

Pat Aussem, of the Partnership to End Addiction, believes these developments are behind increased misuse:

“Even being called Galaxy Gas or Miami Magic is marketing,” she said. “If you have large canisters, then it means that more people can try it and use it and that can lead to a lot of peer pressure.”

The BBC reached out for comment to both Galaxy Gas and Miami Magic but did not receive a response. Amazon, where the gas is sold online, has said they are aware of customers misusing nitrous oxide and that they are working to implement further safety measures. In a response to reporting from CBS News, the BBC’s news partner in the US, Galaxy Gas maintained that the gas was intended for culinary use and that they include a message on their sites warning against misuse.

Concern about nitrous oxide misuse increased last year, after several videos of people using the product went viral online.

On social media, videos of young people getting high on gas became a trend. A video uploaded in July 2024 by an Atlanta-based fast-food restaurant featured a young man inhaling Strawberries and Cream flavoured nitrous oxide saying “My name’s Lil T, man”, his voice made deeper by the gas. To date the clip has been viewed about 40 million times and spawned thousands of copies.

Misuse also featured heavily in rap music videos and Twitch streaming. Guests tried it on the Joe Rogan Show and rappers including Ye (formerly Kanye West) spoke about abusing the substance publicly. Ye has since sued his dentist for “recklessly” supplying Ye with “dangerous amounts of nitrous oxide”.

In response to the trend, TikTok blocked searches for “galaxy gas,” and redirected users to a message offering resources about substance use and addiction. Rapper SZA also alerted her social media followers about its harms and slammed it for “being MASS marketed to black children”.

In March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an official alert warning against inhaling the gas after it “observed an increase in reports of adverse events after inhalation of nitrous oxide products”.

The FDA told the BBC that it “continues to actively track adverse events related to nitrous oxide misuse and will take appropriate actions to protect the public health”.

But for some, these warnings came too late.

In 2023, the family of a 25-year-old woman, Marissa Politte successfully sued Nitrous Distributor United Brands for $745m in damages after the radiology technician was killed by a driver high on nitrous oxide. The jury found the company responsible for selling the product in the knowledge that it would be misused.

“Marissa Politte’s death shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but my God, it should be the last,” Johnny Simon, the Politte family’s lawyer, said at the time. In the years since there have been several fatal traffic accidents involving the gas both in the US and the UK.

Meanwhile, Ms Caldwell’s family have launched a class action lawsuit against manufacturers and distributors of nitrous oxide, hoping to remove the product from retail sales across the US for good.

“The people who administer nitrous oxide in a dentist office now have to go through hours and hours of training, she said. “It just is crazy to me that the drug can be purchased in a smoke shop to anyone who goes in.”

“Unfortunately, it’s become very obvious that the manufacturers and the owners of the smoke shops are not going to do the moral thing and take this off the shelves themselves,” Ms Dial said.

“My nerves are shattered,” says Noura, a 26-year-old Palestinian woman, explaining that she has been “left with nothing”.

After years of IVF treatment, she became pregnant in July 2023. “I was overjoyed,” she remembers, describing the moment she saw the positive pregnancy test.

She and her husband Mohamed decided to store two more embryos at Al-Basma Fertility Centre in Gaza City, which had helped them conceive, in the hope of having more children in the future.

“I thought my dream had finally come true,” she says. “But the day the Israelis came in, something in me said it was all over.”

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.

Since then at least 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Like thousands of Gazans, Noura and Mohamed had to repeatedly flee, and were unable to get the food, vitamins and medication she needed for a healthy pregnancy.

“We used to walk for long hours and move constantly from one place to another, amid terrifying random bombings,” says Mohamed.

Seven months into her pregnancy, Noura suffered a severe haemorrhage.

“She was bleeding heavily, and we couldn’t even find a vehicle to take her to the hospital. We finally managed to transport her in a garbage truck,” Mohamed explains.

“When we arrived, the miscarriage had already started.”

One of their twins was stillborn and the other died a few hours after birth. Mohamed says there were no incubators for premature babies available.

“Everything was gone in a minute,” says Noura.

As well as losing the twins, they have also lost their frozen embryos.

The director of Al-Basma Fertility Centre, Dr Baha Ghalayini, speaks with sorrow and disbelief as he explains that it was shelled in early December 2023.

He is unable to provide an exact date or time and bases this estimate on the last time a member of staff saw the fertility centre operational.

Dr Ghalayini says the most important part of the clinic housed two tanks that held nearly 4,000 frozen embryos and more than 1,000 samples of sperm and eggs.

“The two destroyed incubators – which cost over $10,000 – were filled with liquid nitrogen that preserved the samples,” he says.

They needed to be topped up regularly and “about two weeks before the shelling, the nitrogen began to run low and evaporate”.

The laboratory director, Dr Mohamed Ajjour, who had been displaced to southern Gaza, says he “made it to the nitrogen warehouse in Al-Nuseirat, and got two tanks”.

But he says the intensity of the shelling prevented him from delivering them to the clinic, about 12km away: “The centre was shelled and the nitrogen became useless.”

Dr Ghalayini says the centre stored embryos for patients being treated at other clinics as well as their own. “I’m talking about 4,000 frozen embryos. These are not just numbers, they’re people’s dreams. People who waited years, went through painful treatments, and pinned their hopes on these tanks that were ultimately destroyed.”

He estimates that between 100 and 150 women lost what may have been their only chance at having children, as many cannot undergo the procedure again. “Some are getting older, some are cancer patients, others suffer chronic illnesses. Many received strong fertility medications that they can receive just once. Starting again is not easy.”

When approached for comment, the Israel Defense Forces told the BBC they would be better able to respond if the “specific time of the strike” was provided.

They added that they “operate according to international law and take precautions to minimize civilian harm”.

In March this year, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory made the accusation that Israel “intentionally attacked and destroyed the Basma IVF clinic” in a measure “intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza”.

It also alleged that Israel prevented aid, including medicines necessary to ensure safe pregnancy, childbirth, and neonatal care from reaching women.

The commission went on to claim that Israeli authorities “destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group… one of the categories of genocidal acts”.

At the time of the report, Israel’s permanent mission to the UN issued a statement saying it “categorically rejects these baseless accusations”.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded angrily, calling the Human Rights Council – which commissioned the report – “an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting and irrelevant body”.

Instead of focusing on war crimes committed by Hamas, he said, it was attacking Israel with “false accusations”.

A spokesperson for the IDF told BBC Arabic it “does not deliberately target fertility clinics, nor does it seek to prevent the birthrate of Gaza’s civilian population.

“The claim that the IDF intentionally strikes such sites is baseless and demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of IDF operations in Gaza.”

Dr Ghalayini says all of Gaza’s nine fertility clinics have either been destroyed or are no longer able to operate.

Noura explains that leaves her and many others with little chance of ever having a child. People like Sara Khudari, who began her fertility treatment in 2020. She was preparing for an embryo to be implanted when the war began in October 2023. The procedure never happened. “I watched everything collapse,” she says.

And Islam Lubbad, who Al-Basma clinic helped to conceive in 2023, a few months before the war broke out. But a month after the fighting started, she lost her baby, like Noura. “There was no stability. We kept relocating. My body was exhausted,” she says, recalling how she miscarried.

Islam did have more frozen embryos stored at Al-Basma Fertility Centre, but they have now been lost and there are no IVF clinics operating left for her to try to get pregnant again.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed an online child safety bill that requires Apple and Google to ensure that their app stores verify the age of users in the nation’s second most populous state.

Under the new law, minors will need parental approval before they can download apps or make in-app purchases. The bill was opposed by Google and Apple.

“We believe there are better proposals that help keep kids safe without requiring millions of people to turn over their personal information,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.

Texas follows Utah, another conservative state, which adopted a similar law earlier this year.

At the federal level, US lawmakers have spearheaded the Kids Online Safety Act, known as KOSA, which would require social media companies to make design choices that prevent and mitigate harms to young users.

KOSA was passed by the US Senate last year but stalled in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the US Congress.

The proposed bipartisan legislation, which Apple supports, was reintroduced in Congress earlier this month.

In the absence of a federal law, the states have chosen to come up with their own legislation.

Laws that call for age-verification has long pitted app store providers like Apple and Google against social media companies.

Meta, which owns the social media network Facebook and photo sharing app Instagram, has lobbied for Apple and Google to be responsible for verifying the age of users.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple chief executive Tim Cook called Governor Abbott earlier this month in a bid to stop the passage of the state’s bill.

An Apple spokesperson said the tech giant shares “the goal of strengthening kids’ online safety” but added it was “deeply concerned” by the threat it believes the law poses to the privacy of all users.

“[I]t requires app marketplaces to collect and keep sensitive personal identifying information for every Texan who wants to download an app, even if it’s an app that simply provides weather updates or sports scores,” the company spokesperson said.

In February, Apple announced a slew of new child safety measures, including a requirement that users select an age range on a new device.

For users under 13, a parent or guardian must provide consent for a child to use the ‌App Store‌ and other features that require the use of its Face ID.

The law is set to take effect on1 January.

Texas has pressured Silicon Valley through legislation before.

In 2021, the state made it illegal for social media platforms to ban users based on their “political viewpoints” after Republican politicians accused Facebook and the company then known as Twitter of censoring their opinions.

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