The UN Human Rights Office has said it believes 47 people were injured in Gaza on Tuesday when crowds overwhelmed an aid distribution centre run by a controversial new group backed by the US and Israel.

A senior official said the UN was still gathering information but that most of the injuries were due to gunshots and that “it was shooting from the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]”.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said one person was killed and 48 others were wounded.

The IDF said it was checking the reports. A spokesman said troops fired “warning shots” into the air in the area outside the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s site in the southern city of Rafah but that they did not fire towards people.

The GHF’s aid distribution system uses US security contractors and bypasses the UN, which has rejected it as unethical and unworkable.

The US and Israeli governments have said it is preventing aid from being stolen by Hamas, which the armed group denies doing.

UN agencies have warned that Gaza’s 2.1 million population is facing catastrophic levels of hunger after an almost three-month Israeli blockade that was eased last week.

On Tuesday, thousands of Palestinians desperate for aid headed to the GHF distribution centre in Rafah, which is under full Israeli military control.

In the late afternoon, videos showing chaotic scenes as thousands of men, women and children streamed into the site, walking over torn-down fences and earth berms. In one clip, some people are seen running as what appear to be gunshots ring out.

On Wednesday, the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories said it had received information that about 47 people were injured during the incident.

“It is through gunshots,” Ajith Sunghay told reporters in Geneva. “We are trying to confirm what has happened to them in the sense of seriousness [of the injuries]. What we know is that it was shooting from the IDF.”

A spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry said one man, Salem Abu Moussa, died after being shot at the aid distribution centre. He was initially taken to the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah before being transferred to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where he succumbed to his wounds. Another 48 people were injured, he added.

“We are checking information from the UN. At the time we are speaking, we have no information on this matter,” IDF spokesman Colonel Olivier Rafowicz told AFP news agency.

Israeli troops “fired warning shots into the air, in the area outside” the GHF centre, he said, adding that “in no case [did they fire] towards the people”.

The GHF said on Tuesday that at one point its team “fell back to allow a small number of Gazans to take aid safely and dissipate”, adding that this was “in accordance with GHF protocol to avoid casualties”. It also said it could confirm that no shots were fired at the site.

“What we saw yesterday is a very clear example of the dangers of distributing aid in the way GHF is doing this,” said Mr Sunghay. “Exposing people to death and injury trying to get food.”

He added that many people in Gaza were fearful of traveling south to try access the aid, because of the security concerns during the long journey, and because they feared detention by Israeli forces when they got there. Many others, he said, were unable to travel: women with small children, the elderly, and those who are sick or injured.

Asked whether at least some food, as distributed by GHF, was better than no food at all, Mr Sunghay said: “There is a right to food, but also to distribution of food and humanitarian supplies in a safe and dignified manner.”

The UN and other established aid agencies have refused to co-operate with the GHF, arguing that its operation does not comply with the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality.

They have said they have tonnes of supplies ready to enter Gaza, and a detailed plan to distribute them that minimises looting.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office said Israel’s efforts to distribute aid had “failed miserably”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech on Tuesday that his government had “worked out a plan with our American friends to have controlled distribution sites” for aid where it would be “very hard for Hamas to steal it, especially because we guard these positions”.

He acknowledged that there had been “some loss of control momentarily” at the GHF site in Rafah, but added: “We brought it back under control. We’re going to put many more of these.”

“And the idea is basically to take away the humanitarian looting as a tool of war of Hamas to give it to the population. Eventually to have a sterile zone in the south of Gaza where the entire population can move for its own protection.”

A senior Trump administration official meanwhile said: “Aid is getting to the people in need, and through their secure distribution system, Israel is kept safe and Hamas empty handed.”

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 Netanyahu said would see troops “take control of all areas” of Gaza. The following day, he said Israel would also temporarily ease the blockade and allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza.

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 54,084 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,924 since Israel resumed its offensive, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Elon Musk has criticised one of the signature policies of Donald Trump, marking a break from the US president who he helped to win re-election in 2024.

Last week, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed what Trump calls his “big, beautiful” bill, which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending. It will now head to the Senate.

Tech titan Musk told the BBC’s US partner CBS News he was “disappointed” by the plan, which he felt “undermines” the work he did for the president on reducing spending.

Musk was enlisted as Trump’s cost-cutting tsar – ending funds for US foreign aid among other projects – before announcing he would step back.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly,” Musk said in the interview with CBS Sunday Morning, a clip of which was released by the broadcaster before transmission.

He went on to argue that Trump’s plan “increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it”.

It is thought that the legislation could increase the deficit – or the difference between what the US government spends and the revenue that it receives – by about $600bn (£444bn) in the next fiscal year.

Furthermore, the bill “undermines the work that the Doge team is doing”, Musk said, using the acronym of the cost-cutting advisory body the Department of Government Efficiency.

Referring to Trump’s moniker for the legislation, Musk told CBS: “I think a bill can be big or beautiful. I don’t know if it can be both.”

• US House passes Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tax and spending bill
• A look at the key items in the bill

Musk’s intervention highlights the ongoing tension within Trump’s Republican Party over the tax and spend plans, which faced an uneasy passage through the House due to opposition from different wings of the party.

Long a policy priority of Trump’s, the legislation pledges to extend soon-to-expire tax cuts passed during his first administration in 2017, as well as provide an influx of money for defence spending and to fund the president’s mass deportations.

The bill also proposes increasing to $4tn the debt ceiling – meaning the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow to pay its bills.

Musk’s comments on the issue imply a growing distance from Trump, who he helped to propel back to the White House last year with donations of more than $250m.

They come after the billionaire recently pledged to step back from Doge. Musk had stated that he wanted to help the government cut $1tn in spending by cancelling contracts and reducing the government workforce.

As of April, Doge’s website claims around $175bn has already been saved, but a BBC analysis of this figure shows it lacks some evidence.

Musk also said last week that he planned to do “a lot less” political spending in the future, and that he was committed to leading electric car company Tesla for another five years.

Tesla faced protests, boycotts and a drop in sales over Musk’s work as the Doge chief, including his controversial efforts to lay off thousands of federal workers and curb foreign aid.

Musk defended his actions in his comments last week, saying: “I did what needed to be done.” He and Trump previously justified the cuts as a matter of weeding out what they saw as fraud and abuse within federal spending.

The meat of brown bears, a protected species in the EU, could soon be available to eat in Slovakia after the populist government approved plans for sale.

Last month, the cabinet authorised a plan to shoot about a quarter of the country’s 1,300 brown bears in response to some recent fatal encounters.

The state-authorised slaughter has been criticised by conservationists and opposition politicians, including in the European Parliament. The brown bear is listed as a “near threatenend” species in the EU by the World Conservation Union.

However, Slovakia’s government is forging ahead with the plan and this week announced that meat from culled bears would be sold to the public to prevent waste.

From next week, organisations under the environment ministry can offer the meat for sale, provided all legal and hygiene conditions are met.

State Minister Filip Kuffa said it was wasteful that the animals had previously been sent to carcass disposal facilities.

“We will release every shot animal that meets certain conditions for consumption. Why? Because bear meat is edible,” he said.

Bears have become a political issue in Slovakia after a rising number of encounters with humans, including fatal attacks.

Slovakia ranks second in Europe, behind Romania which is estimated to have about 13,000 brown bears, for the number of attacks.

The country reported a total of 54 bear attacks from 2000-2020. The average number of attacks has also risen to 10 per year, rough figures suggest.

In April, a man was mauled to death while walking in a forest in Central Slovakia.

Shortly after, Prime Minister Robert Fico announced the cull, saying: “We can’t live in a country where people are afraid to go into the woods.”

He said his government would shoot up to 350 brown bears – a figure equivalent to the species’ entire population in Spain.

His government argues that a bear overpopulation problem has led to the attacks.

However environmental groups and critics say the focus should be on prevention.

Michal Wiezik, an ecologist and MEP for the opposition party Progressive Slovakia, told the BBC last month the government’s plan was “absurd” and it had already failed to limit the number of attacks “by the unprecedented culling of this protected species.”

Wiezik argued that thousands of encounters a year passed without incident and he hoped the European Commission would intervene.

Miroslava Abelova of Greenpeace Slovakia called the culling plan “completely reckless,” accusing the government of ignoring conservation laws and scientific advice.

Brown bears are strictly protected under EU directives, and may only be killed in exceptional cases – such as threats to public safety – when no other alternatives exist.

Bear meat is not commonly eaten in Europe and is considered a delicacy only in a few regions, such as parts of Eastern Europe and the Nordic countries.

In most EU member states, strict hunting rules and the protected status of the bears mean the meat is rarely available. When it is, it is usually from controlled culls or licensed hunting and not commonly found in restaurants or shops.

Where bear meat is consumed, health officials warn of the risk of Trichinella – a parasite that can cause serious illness in humans.

The European Union Food Safety regulation requires all bear meat to be tested for Trichinella larvae before it can be sold and the US’ Centre for Disease Control Prevention stipulates an internally cooked temperature of at least 70 degrees centigrade to kill the parasite. Freezing, smoking or drying the meat does not make it safe.

A former college principal in the eastern Indian state of Odisha has been sentenced to life in prison for sending a parcel bomb that killed a newlywed man and his great aunt in 2018.

A court found Punjilal Meher, 56, guilty of murder, attempted murder, and use of explosives in what became known as the “wedding bomb” case that stunned India.

The bomb, disguised as a wedding gift, was delivered to the home of Soumya Sekhar Sahu, a 26-year-old software engineer, just days after his wedding.

When the couple opened the package, it exploded – killing Sahu and his great aunt, and leaving his wife, Reema, who opened the package, critically wounded.

While acknowledging the prosecution’s argument that it was a “heinous” crime, the court declined to classify it as a “rarest of the rare” case deserving the death penalty.

The BBC covered the incident in a detailed two-part investigative series.

• Who sent the wedding gift bomb that killed this newlywed?
• A wedding bomb, a letter and an unlikely suspect

The February 2018 explosion took place in Patnagarh, a quiet town in Odisha’s Bolangir district.

The victims had been married just five days and were preparing lunch when a parcel arrived at their home. It was addressed to Soumya and appeared to be a wedding gift, allegedly sent from Raipur in Chattisgarh state, over 230km (142 miles) away.

As Soumya pulled a thread on the parcel to open it, a powerful blast tore through the kitchen, killing him and his 85-year-old great-aunt Jemamani Sahu. Reema, then 22, survived with serious burns, a punctured eardrum, and trauma.

After a prolonged investigation, police arrested Meher, then 49, a teacher and former principal of a local college where Soumya’s mother worked.

Investigators had told me then that Meher harboured a grudge over professional rivalry and meticulously planned the attack. He used a false name and address to mail the bomb from Raipur, choosing a courier service without CCTV or parcel scanning.

The bomb travelled over 650km by bus, passing through multiple hands before being delivered. Investigators said it was a crude but deadly device wrapped in jute thread, rigged to detonate on opening.

The parcel carrying the explosive bore a fake name – SK Sharma from Raipur. Weeks passed with no clear suspects. Investigators scoured thousands of phone records and interrogated over 100 people, including one man who had made a threatening call after Reema’s engagement – but nothing stuck.

Then, in April, an anonymous letter reached the local police chief.

It claimed the bomb had been sent under the name “SK Sinha,” not Sharma, and cryptically mentioned motives of “betrayal” and money.

The letter claimed three men had “undertaken the project” and were now “beyond police reach”. It cited the groom’s “betrayal” and money – hinting at a scorned lover or property dispute – as motives. It also asked police to stop harassing innocents.

The letter turned the investigation.

Arun Bothra, a police officer who then headed Odisha’s crime branch, noticed that the handwriting on the parcel’s receipt had been misread: it did resemble “Sinha” more than “Sharma.”

Crucially, the letter writer seemed to know this – something only the sender could have known.

The police now believed the suspect had sent the letter himself.

“It was clear that the sender knew more about the crime than we did. By writing that it was being sent by a messenger, he wanted to tell us that the crime was not the work of a local man. He wanted to tell us that the plot was executed by three people. He wanted to be taken seriously, so he was kind of blowing his fake cover by pointing out a mistake we had made,” Mr Bothra told me in 2018.

The victim’s mother, a college teacher, recognised the letter’s writing style and phraseology as that of a colleague, Meher, a former principal she had replaced.

Police had previously dismissed Meher’s workplace rivalry as routine academic politics. Now he became the prime suspect.

Under questioning, Meher initially offered an implausible story about being forced to deliver the letter under threat.

Police allege he later confessed: he had hoarded firecrackers during Diwali, extracted gunpowder, built the bomb, and mailed it from Raipur using a courier.

He allegedly left his phone at home to create an alibi and avoided CCTV by not buying a train ticket. Meher had even attended both the victim’s wedding and funeral.

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

An official memo 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 during a wide-ranging Trump crackdown on some of America’s most elite universities. He sees these institutions as too left-wing – accusing them of failing to combat antisemitism when pro-Palestinian protests have unfolded on campuses.

Responding to the move, China called on the US to protect international students.

“We urge the US side to earnestly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of international students, including those from China,” an official was quoted as saying. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students attend US universities.

The universities themselves are likely to be disquieted as well. Many of them rely on foreign students for a significant chunk of their funding – as those scholars often pay higher tuition fees.

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

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.”

• Are you a student who has been affected by the issues in this story? Tell us here

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

The pause would last “until further guidance is issued”, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote.

The memo also said the state department was preparing for an “expansion of required social media screening and vetting” applicable to all student visa applications.

It did not spell out what the vetting would look for.

The Trump administration had already enhanced its vetting of student social media, according to a report by the Guardian in March, which linked the move to a broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses.

In April, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that it would consider “antisemitic activity on social media and the physical harassment of Jewish individuals as grounds for denying immigration benefit requests”.

As part of the broader crackdown, Trump’s team 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.

Universities have accused the Trump administration of trying to infringe on free speech. Critics say the new policy on social media vetting represents a further violation of the rights that are supposed to be enshrined by the First Amendment in the US Constitution.

Trump has throughout his presidency countered that he is working to defend free speech.

Harvard University has been the focal point of the president’s ire; he has frozen $2.65bn (£1.96bn) in federal grants to the institution and has sought to put other federal funding worth $100m under review.

The university’s president has said the cuts will “hurt” the country, not just Harvard, because academics were conducting research deemed “high-priority” by the government.

Last week, Trump also revoked Harvard’s ability to enrol international students or host foreign researchers. A federal judge blocked the policy.

If the measure is ultimately allowed, it could deliver a devastating blow to the university, where more than a quarter of students are from overseas. Students protested against the move at the university’s campus near Boston on Tuesday.

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

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.”

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.

Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world’s top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.

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 (£29,000) 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-ready 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.

One of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ former employees has testified the hip-hop mogul kidnapped her at gunpoint, then broke into rapper Kid Cudi’s home in a plot to kill his love rival.

Capricorn Clark, who worked on-and-off for Mr Combs for more than a decade, told his trial that the defendant and a security guard had shown up to her apartment in 2011 and forced her to drive with them to Kid Cudi’s home.

“Get dressed,” she recalled Mr Combs saying. “We’re going to go kill this [expletive].” She also told the court Diddy had threatened to kill her on her very first day working for him.

Mr Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

The Kid Cudi incident was first discussed in the trial last week when that rapper, whose legal name is Scott Mescudi, took the stand to testify against Mr Combs.

He detailed his relationship with Mr Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, an alleged break-in at his Los Angeles home and an incident in which his Porsche was damaged by a Molotov cocktail, which he believed Mr Combs orchestrated.

Mr Combs is facing possible life in prison if convicted on federal charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

• Kid Cudi testifies at Diddy trial about Molotov cocktail attack
• Diddy a ‘mastermind’? How Cassie’s testimony builds the case against him
• What is Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs charged with and how long will his trial last?

The rapper has separately denied accusations in a barrage of civil lawsuits that echo some of the claims made in his criminal case.

In her testimony on Tuesday, Ms Clark – who was global brand director for Mr Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment – said the hip-hop mogul had arrived at her home in 2011 after he discovered Ms Ventura was in a relationship with Mr Mescudi.

Mr Combs was holding a gun in his hand when he arrived, she said, and appeared “livid” and told her “we’re going to kill” Mr Mescudi.

She told the court he forced her to get into a car and go with them against her will, the BBC’s US partner CBS News reported.

Under cross-examination by Mr Combs’ lawyer, Ms Clark denied that she went with him voluntarily.

Once they arrived at Mr Mescudi’s home, Mr Combs and a security guard went inside while she called Ms Ventura from the car and told her what was unfolding.

When Mr Combs returned and caught her on the phone he became more angry, Ms Clark said, adding that they sped off as Mr Mescudi arrived back at his home.

Afterwards, the court heard that the defendant had told Ms Clark he would not let her go until she and Ms Ventura persuaded Mr Mescudi that Mr Combs was not involved in the break-in at his LA home.

“If you don’t convince him of that I’ll kill all you,” Mr Combs told Ms Clark, she testified.

Ms Clark also described the difficult working relationship she had with Mr Combs over the years.

On her very first day in the job, she testified, Mr Combs threatened to kill her as he warned that her past work for other rappers had better not become a problem for him.

But, she told the court, despite the tumult she also felt like his protector and wanted to remain in his circle.

“He broke the ceiling of what we were allowed to do as black people in the business world.”

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.

A judge in Argentina has stood down from the trial of Diego Maradona’s medical staff after being criticised for taking part in a documentary about the case.

Seven members of the legendary footballer’s medical team have been charged with negligent homicide relating to his death in 2020. They deny the allegations.

Prosecutor Patricio Ferrari accused Judge Julieta Makintach of behaving “like an actress and not a judge”.

She was one of three judges in the case which has been adjourned. A decision about whether a new trial will be ordered will be made on Thursday.

Maradona had been recovering at his home in Buenos Aires from surgery on a brain blood clot in November 2020 when he died of a heart attack, aged 60.

Prosecutors allege his death could have been avoided and describe the care given as “reckless, deficient and unprecedented”.

The medical team on trial includes a neurosurgeon, a doctor and a night nurse. They claim the football star refused further treatment and should have stayed at home for longer after his operation.

If convicted, they face between eight and 25 years in prison.

The long-awaited trial began on 11 March and was expected to last until July however its future has been thrown into doubt.

Judge Makintach said she had “no choice” but to excuse herself from the case.

It is a violation of court rules for unauthorised filming to take place.

As a trailer for the documentary series Divine Justice was played in court, defence lawyer Rodolfo Baque shouted “trash!” at Judge Makintach.

Maradona’s daughter Gianinna and his former partner Veronica Ojeda both cried after seeing the footage.

Ms Ojeda’s lawyer Mario Baudry said there was a feeling that the case had now been “compromised” and it was “healthiest to start over from scratch”.

The court will decide whether the trial can continue with a new judge or whether it will have to start again from the beginning.

In July, an eighth member of Maradona’s medical team will face a separate trial by jury.

“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.

A record number of puffins have been recorded on a small island off the Pembrokeshire coast, despite global populations declining rapidly.

According to the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales (WTSWW), 43,626 puffins were counted on Skomer Island this year – a record high.

The WTSWW said the increased number of puffins on the nature reserve was a “conservation success story”, but warned that the birds were still a species under threat which should continue to be protected.

Skomer Island, a 1.13 sq mile (2.92 sq km) internationally important seabird island managed by the WTSWW, is located less than a mile from the Pembrokeshire coast.

The island’s isolation means that it is protected from predators such as rats, cats, dogs and foxes, and also from the human impact on the mainland.

As well as a growing population of puffins, Skomer is also home to 350,000 breeding pairs of manx shearwaters and thousands of guillemots and razorbills.

Every year, the WTSWW undertakes its annual seabird count on the island to monitor the population of birds that return every spring to breed.

The puffins are counted during the evening and early in the season by six members of staff.

Skomer Island’s visitor officer, Rob Knott, said counting the birds was “quite a job”.

“We split the island into sections and we go round about two hours before sunset when there’s the most on the land,” he said.

“We get our clickers out and we count all the ones on the land, then the sea and the ones in the air as well.”

The last record was set in 2023, when 42,513 puffins were recorded on and around the island.

“We think [the counting accuracy] is probably within a few hundred or perhaps a thousand birds,” said Rob.

“Of course, that number is not going to be dead on the right number of puffins that are here, but because we do it in the same way every year and record those birds in the same way, it’s always been reported as the final number of that count that we do every year.”

Although the puffins seem to be thriving in Pembrokeshire, there is a rapid decline elsewhere.

Like many seabird species, puffins are listed as vulnerable to extinction on the global International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list, as they face pollution, food shortages and climate change.

According to the WTSWW, the growth in Skomer Island’s puffin population is “likely linked to the abundance of food in the wider area, meaning there is plenty of fish for chicks resulting in high breeding success”.

They said the absence of rats and other predators on the island had also contributed to the seabirds’ success.

Rob said the island’s 25,000 visitors each year were often “mind-blown” by the number of puffins.

He warned, however, that there were novel threats facing seabirds – including bird flu and the recent marine heatwave conditions experienced around parts of the UK coastline.

“I think the monitoring work is absolutely vital, it informs how these seabirds are doing, particularly in this part of Wales but also on a wider scale in terms of how puffin numbers are doing throughout the UK,” he said.

“It helps us look towards policy on how these numbers can increase in the future.

“They’re doing well here, but we can point to this as a good example, there’s other places where these numbers are really going down quite rapidly.

“We’re quite cautiously optimistic about the numbers that we’re seeing.

“They’re absolutely iconic birds and the fact that they’re on the red list is wrong for so many reasons, not least, because they used to be absolutely thriving, so we’re doing what we can to try and improve those numbers.”

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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.

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 horse 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.

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 the 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 has 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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Writers including Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan and Russell T Davies have put their names to an open letter – signed by 380 authors and organisations – calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The letter, also signed by Jeanette Winterson, Irvine Welsh, Kate Mosse and Elif Shafak, describes Israel’s military campaign in the territory as “genocidal”.

The writers urge people to join them in “ending our collective silence and inaction in the face of horror”.

Israel says it is working to destroy the Palestinian armed group Hamas and get back hostages the group has taken. It has strongly denied allegations of genocide, claims which are also being examined by the International Court of Justice.

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.

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

Responding to the accusation of genocide made by rights group Amnesty International in December, Israel’s foreign ministry described the group’s 295-page report as “entirely false and based on lies”, while the Israeli military said the claims were “entirely baseless and fail to account for the operational realities” it faces.

The authors’ letter is entitled Writers Demand Immediate Gaza Ceasefire and organised by writers Horatio Clare, Kapka Kassabova and Monique Roffey.

It notes that Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, as well as independent experts appointed by the United Nations human rights council, have, it says, “clearly identified genocide or acts of genocide in Gaza, enacted by the Israel Defence Force and directed by the government of Israel”.

The authors call for the “immediate unrestricted distribution of food and medical aid in Gaza by the UN”, and a ceasefire “which guarantees safety and justice for all Palestinians, the release of all Israeli hostages, and the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily held in Israeli jails”.

Sanctions should be imposed, the letter argues, if the Israeli government does not take action.

While taking this stand, the authors also used the letter to “assert without reservation our absolute opposition to and loathing of antisemitism, of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli prejudice”.

The letter continued: “We reject and abhor attacks, hate and violence – in writing, speech and action – against Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish people in all and any form. We stand in solidarity with the resistance of Palestinian, Jewish, and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government.”

The authors’ letter begins by quoting the poem A Star Said Yesterday by the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2023.

It goes on to say that Palestinians “are not the abstract victims of an abstract war”.

It continues: “Too often, words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible. Too often, too, the right words – the ones that mattered – have been eradicated, along with those who might have written them.”

The term genocide “is not a slogan”, it states. “It carries legal, political, and moral responsibilities.”

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted following the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

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 did not say which stores or how many stores it was in, but 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.

One Tesco worker, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the BBC they were grateful for the addition of the new tech.

“I work on self-service for Tesco and feel like I double up as a security guard,” they said.

“You’re not paid very well anyway and then you have tills to look after.

“I quite often have to monitor 10 self-checkouts, on my own, whilst two staff cover manual checkouts,” they said, adding that there were many customers who steal and try to “con the system”.

Gaming developer John O’Reilly, 28, noticed the systems in their local Tesco in Woolwich in south-east London, and wonders how anyone can consent to “such deeply invasive technology”.

John says that everyone needs groceries so the number of people whose shopping can be tracked is huge.

“Are there even any rules informing customers before they enter? How on earth can the average person understand the extent of the tracking?

“Are children even kept out of the dataset? Who can access this data? Is it shared with police? Is my data being sold? We need answers to these questions!”

Heather, 30, from Nottingham says the tech makes her feel uncomfortable and punishes shoppers who are honest and use the self-scan as intended.

“Yes, you have cameras following you everywhere in the store, but this is simply too invasive,” she told the BBC.

“If stores are so paranoid about shoppers stealing goods, then they should go back to staffed tills instead of wasting money on this invasive technology.”

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.

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.”

The Giant’s Causeway became a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1986.

The World Heritage list includes 1,223 properties across the world and recognises the sites for their cultural or natural importance.

Norway’s Princess Ingrid Alexandra is moving to Australia for her university studies, enrolling in a degree programme at the University of Sydney.

Alexandra, who is second in line to Norway’s throne, will join her classmates from August and will study “international relations and political economy,” Norway’s royal household said.

The 21-year-old will study full-time and live in a student residence on campus, a university spokesperson said.

Norway’s King Harald is Alexandra’s grandfather and her father is Crown Prince Haakon.

“Her Royal Highness looks forward to dedicating herself to her studies in the years to come,” Norway’s royal household said in a statement.

The princess’s mother, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, spent a year during her senior school studies at Wangaratta High School in Victoria.

The University of Sydney is looking forward to welcoming the princess, said its vice-president, Kirsten Andrews.

“We know how valuable the campus experience is and we hope the Princess makes the most of our beautiful grounds and surrounds, clubs and societies, as well as our proximity to the best Sydney has to offer,” Ms Andrews said in a statement.

Born and raised in Oslo, the princess recently completed her military service, spending 15 months as an engineer soldier and rifleman.

Her biography on the royal family’s website lists environmental protection and climate change as key interests.

South Africans are paying tribute to actor Presley Chweneyagae, who has died at the age of 40.

Speaking on Wednesday, his family said he had died from natural causes after experiencing breathing problems.

Family spokesperson Mzwakhe Sigudla said that paramedics had attended to him, but he “couldn’t make it”.

Chweneyagae, who was born in 1984 in South Africa’s North-West Province, got his big international break after starring in the 2005 film Tsotsi, which earned the country its first Oscar for best foreign language film.

Tsotsi, a powerful crime film in which Chweneyagae plays the lead role, explores gang life in a South Africa.

Speaking to the BBC, South African film critic Stephen Aspeling said Tsotsi was a “landmark film” which came at a “critical juncture for South Africa’s film industry but also for South Africa on the international platform”.

“It’s taking a look at post-apartheid South Africa, the social inequalities, conveying poverty [and] crime in townships,” Mr Aspeling said, outlining that before Tsotsi, South Africa hadn’t featured much at the Oscars.

The year after the film’s release, its director, Gavin Hood, told an American student newspaper that Chweneyagae had “never done a film”, before he scouted him for the movie, highlighting that Chweneyagae himself came from a “a tough neighborhood”.

Mr Aspeling also highlighted Chweneyagae’s role in iNumber Number, a film where he played a police officer, demonstrating his “versatility”.

In a statement announcing his death, his agency described him as a “South African icon” and one of the country’s “most gifted and beloved actors”.

The South African government published a post on X describing him as “a gifted storyteller whose talent lit up our screens and hearts”.

Chweneyagae also starred in the Nelson Mandela biopic Long Walk to Freedom in 2013, as well as acting in various theatre productions.

The South African Film and Television Awards described him as a “true legend of South African cinema” and a “powerhouse performer”.

The Ministry of Sports, Art and Culture released a statement highlighting his role in the popular South African series River and Cobrizzi.

“The Department of Sports, Art and Culture, mourns the loss of a true trailblazer – a storyteller who held the soul of a nation in his craft,” Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie said in the statement.

• Trailblazing African film-maker and Cannes winner dies
• Idris Elba: Why I’m planning a move to Africa
• Teenage actress takes on child marriage in role mirroring real life

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.”

Elon Musk has criticised one of the signature policies of Donald Trump, marking a break from the US president who he helped to win re-election in 2024.

Last week, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed what Trump calls his “big, beautiful” bill, which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending. It will now head to the Senate.

Tech titan Musk told the BBC’s US partner CBS News he was “disappointed” by the plan, which he felt “undermines” the work he did for the president on reducing spending.

Musk was enlisted as Trump’s cost-cutting tsar – ending funds for US foreign aid among other projects – before announcing he would step back.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly,” Musk said in the interview with CBS Sunday Morning, a clip of which was released by the broadcaster before transmission.

He went on to argue that Trump’s plan “increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it”.

It is thought that the legislation could increase the deficit – or the difference between what the US government spends and the revenue that it receives – by about $600bn (£444bn) in the next fiscal year.

Furthermore, the bill “undermines the work that the Doge team is doing”, Musk said, using the acronym of the cost-cutting advisory body the Department of Government Efficiency.

Referring to Trump’s moniker for the legislation, Musk told CBS: “I think a bill can be big or beautiful. I don’t know if it can be both.”

• US House passes Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tax and spending bill
• A look at the key items in the bill

Musk’s intervention highlights the ongoing tension within Trump’s Republican Party over the tax and spend plans, which faced an uneasy passage through the House due to opposition from different wings of the party.

Long a policy priority of Trump’s, the legislation pledges to extend soon-to-expire tax cuts passed during his first administration in 2017, as well as provide an influx of money for defence spending and to fund the president’s mass deportations.

The bill also proposes increasing to $4tn the debt ceiling – meaning the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow to pay its bills.

Musk’s comments on the issue imply a growing distance from Trump, who he helped to propel back to the White House last year with donations of more than $250m.

They come after the billionaire recently pledged to step back from Doge. Musk had stated that he wanted to help the government cut $1tn in spending by cancelling contracts and reducing the government workforce.

As of April, Doge’s website claims around $175bn has already been saved, but a BBC analysis of this figure shows it lacks some evidence.

Musk also said last week that he planned to do “a lot less” political spending in the future, and that he was committed to leading electric car company Tesla for another five years.

Tesla faced protests, boycotts and a drop in sales over Musk’s work as the Doge chief, including his controversial efforts to lay off thousands of federal workers and curb foreign aid.

Musk defended his actions in his comments last week, saying: “I did what needed to be done.” He and Trump previously justified the cuts as a matter of weeding out what they saw as fraud and abuse within federal spending.

A former college principal in the eastern Indian state of Odisha has been sentenced to life in prison for sending a parcel bomb that killed a newlywed man and his great aunt in 2018.

A court found Punjilal Meher, 56, guilty of murder, attempted murder, and use of explosives in what became known as the “wedding bomb” case that stunned India.

The bomb, disguised as a wedding gift, was delivered to the home of Soumya Sekhar Sahu, a 26-year-old software engineer, just days after his wedding.

When the couple opened the package, it exploded – killing Sahu and his great aunt, and leaving his wife, Reema, who opened the package, critically wounded.

While acknowledging the prosecution’s argument that it was a “heinous” crime, the court declined to classify it as a “rarest of the rare” case deserving the death penalty.

The BBC covered the incident in a detailed two-part investigative series.

• Who sent the wedding gift bomb that killed this newlywed?
• A wedding bomb, a letter and an unlikely suspect

The February 2018 explosion took place in Patnagarh, a quiet town in Odisha’s Bolangir district.

The victims had been married just five days and were preparing lunch when a parcel arrived at their home. It was addressed to Soumya and appeared to be a wedding gift, allegedly sent from Raipur in Chattisgarh state, over 230km (142 miles) away.

As Soumya pulled a thread on the parcel to open it, a powerful blast tore through the kitchen, killing him and his 85-year-old great-aunt Jemamani Sahu. Reema, then 22, survived with serious burns, a punctured eardrum, and trauma.

After a prolonged investigation, police arrested Meher, then 49, a teacher and former principal of a local college where Soumya’s mother worked.

Investigators had told me then that Meher harboured a grudge over professional rivalry and meticulously planned the attack. He used a false name and address to mail the bomb from Raipur, choosing a courier service without CCTV or parcel scanning.

The bomb travelled over 650km by bus, passing through multiple hands before being delivered. Investigators said it was a crude but deadly device wrapped in jute thread, rigged to detonate on opening.

The parcel carrying the explosive bore a fake name – SK Sharma from Raipur. Weeks passed with no clear suspects. Investigators scoured thousands of phone records and interrogated over 100 people, including one man who had made a threatening call after Reema’s engagement – but nothing stuck.

Then, in April, an anonymous letter reached the local police chief.

It claimed the bomb had been sent under the name “SK Sinha,” not Sharma, and cryptically mentioned motives of “betrayal” and money.

The letter claimed three men had “undertaken the project” and were now “beyond police reach”. It cited the groom’s “betrayal” and money – hinting at a scorned lover or property dispute – as motives. It also asked police to stop harassing innocents.

The letter turned the investigation.

Arun Bothra, a police officer who then headed Odisha’s crime branch, noticed that the handwriting on the parcel’s receipt had been misread: it did resemble “Sinha” more than “Sharma.”

Crucially, the letter writer seemed to know this – something only the sender could have known.

The police now believed the suspect had sent the letter himself.

“It was clear that the sender knew more about the crime than we did. By writing that it was being sent by a messenger, he wanted to tell us that the crime was not the work of a local man. He wanted to tell us that the plot was executed by three people. He wanted to be taken seriously, so he was kind of blowing his fake cover by pointing out a mistake we had made,” Mr Bothra told me in 2018.

The victim’s mother, a college teacher, recognised the letter’s writing style and phraseology as that of a colleague, Meher, a former principal she had replaced.

Police had previously dismissed Meher’s workplace rivalry as routine academic politics. Now he became the prime suspect.

Under questioning, Meher initially offered an implausible story about being forced to deliver the letter under threat.

Police allege he later confessed: he had hoarded firecrackers during Diwali, extracted gunpowder, built the bomb, and mailed it from Raipur using a courier.

He allegedly left his phone at home to create an alibi and avoided CCTV by not buying a train ticket. Meher had even attended both the victim’s wedding and funeral.

The UN Human Rights Office has said it believes 47 people were injured in Gaza on Tuesday when crowds overwhelmed an aid distribution centre run by a controversial new group backed by the US and Israel.

A senior official said the UN was still gathering information but that most of the injuries were due to gunshots and that “it was shooting from the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]”.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said one person was killed and 48 others were wounded.

The IDF said it was checking the reports. A spokesman said troops fired “warning shots” into the air in the area outside the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s site in the southern city of Rafah but that they did not fire towards people.

The GHF’s aid distribution system uses US security contractors and bypasses the UN, which has rejected it as unethical and unworkable.

The US and Israeli governments have said it is preventing aid from being stolen by Hamas, which the armed group denies doing.

UN agencies have warned that Gaza’s 2.1 million population is facing catastrophic levels of hunger after an almost three-month Israeli blockade that was eased last week.

On Tuesday, thousands of Palestinians desperate for aid headed to the GHF distribution centre in Rafah, which is under full Israeli military control.

In the late afternoon, videos showing chaotic scenes as thousands of men, women and children streamed into the site, walking over torn-down fences and earth berms. In one clip, some people are seen running as what appear to be gunshots ring out.

On Wednesday, the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories said it had received information that about 47 people were injured during the incident.

“It is through gunshots,” Ajith Sunghay told reporters in Geneva. “We are trying to confirm what has happened to them in the sense of seriousness [of the injuries]. What we know is that it was shooting from the IDF.”

A spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry said one man, Salem Abu Moussa, died after being shot at the aid distribution centre. He was initially taken to the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah before being transferred to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where he succumbed to his wounds. Another 48 people were injured, he added.

“We are checking information from the UN. At the time we are speaking, we have no information on this matter,” IDF spokesman Colonel Olivier Rafowicz told AFP news agency.

Israeli troops “fired warning shots into the air, in the area outside” the GHF centre, he said, adding that “in no case [did they fire] towards the people”.

The GHF said on Tuesday that at one point its team “fell back to allow a small number of Gazans to take aid safely and dissipate”, adding that this was “in accordance with GHF protocol to avoid casualties”. It also said it could confirm that no shots were fired at the site.

“What we saw yesterday is a very clear example of the dangers of distributing aid in the way GHF is doing this,” said Mr Sunghay. “Exposing people to death and injury trying to get food.”

He added that many people in Gaza were fearful of traveling south to try access the aid, because of the security concerns during the long journey, and because they feared detention by Israeli forces when they got there. Many others, he said, were unable to travel: women with small children, the elderly, and those who are sick or injured.

Asked whether at least some food, as distributed by GHF, was better than no food at all, Mr Sunghay said: “There is a right to food, but also to distribution of food and humanitarian supplies in a safe and dignified manner.”

The UN and other established aid agencies have refused to co-operate with the GHF, arguing that its operation does not comply with the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality.

They have said they have tonnes of supplies ready to enter Gaza, and a detailed plan to distribute them that minimises looting.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office said Israel’s efforts to distribute aid had “failed miserably”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech on Tuesday that his government had “worked out a plan with our American friends to have controlled distribution sites” for aid where it would be “very hard for Hamas to steal it, especially because we guard these positions”.

He acknowledged that there had been “some loss of control momentarily” at the GHF site in Rafah, but added: “We brought it back under control. We’re going to put many more of these.”

“And the idea is basically to take away the humanitarian looting as a tool of war of Hamas to give it to the population. Eventually to have a sterile zone in the south of Gaza where the entire population can move for its own protection.”

A senior Trump administration official meanwhile said: “Aid is getting to the people in need, and through their secure distribution system, Israel is kept safe and Hamas empty handed.”

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 Netanyahu said would see troops “take control of all areas” of Gaza. The following day, he said Israel would also temporarily ease the blockade and allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza.

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 54,084 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,924 since Israel resumed its offensive, according to the territory’s health ministry.

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.”

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 horse 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.

US President Donald Trump says he’ll be issuing a pardon for a couple who starred in a reality TV show before being jailed in a multi-million dollar fraud and tax evasion case.

Todd and Julie Chrisley were cast in the reality TV series Chrisley Knows Best, which followed the duo in their career as property tycoons in Nashville and Atlanta.

But in June 2022 a jury found them guilty of tax evasion and defrauding banks out of more than $36m (£26.6m) in loans.

Earlier this month the couple’s daughter, Savannah Chrisley, was interviewed by the president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, on Fox News.

Todd and Julie Chrisley were first indicted in 2019, then faced a three-week trial on fraud, tax evasion and obstruction of justice charges three years later.

Prosecutors said that they submitted fake documents to community banks, spending the money on luxury cars, designer clothes, real estate, and travel before using new fraudulent loans to pay off the old ones.

After spending the money, Todd Chrisley filed for bankruptcy. The couple then used a company to hide income from their TV show and avoid paying a $500,000 tax bill, prosecutors said in 2022.

The couple blamed a former employee, but were convicted after a three-week trial.

Todd Chrisley was sentenced to 12 years in prison and Julie Chrisley was sentenced to seven years. Their accountant, Peter Tarantino, was also convicted and received a three-year sentence.

In a video posted online by White House aide Margo Martin, Trump was shown speaking on the phone with the Chrisley children.

“Your parents are going to be free and clean and I hope we can do that by tomorrow,” the president said. “I don’t know them but give them my regards, and wish them a good life.”

Savannah Chrisley is a podcaster and social media influencer who also appeared on several other reality shows and campaigned for Trump, including a speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention, where she alleged that her parents had been persecuted by “rogue prosecutors” and that the US has a “two-faced justice system”.

On Lara Trump’s Fox News programme, My View, broadcast on 18 May, she was billed as a prison reform advocate and claimed that her parents had been prosecuted for their political beliefs and called their case “eerily similar” to the criminal charges that were lodged against President Trump.

“Both prosecutors were Democrats, they have donated to Democratic candidates,” Ms Chrisley told Lara Trump. “At trial, we knew it was game over.”

Chrisley Knows Best was broadcast on the station USA Network starting in 2014 and inspired a number of spinoffs including According to Chrisley and Growing Up Chrisley.

It’s the second pardon Trump has flagged in the space of two days. On Monday, he granted 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.

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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The meat of brown bears, a protected species in the EU, could soon be available to eat in Slovakia after the populist government approved plans for sale.

Last month, the cabinet authorised a plan to shoot about a quarter of the country’s 1,300 brown bears in response to some recent fatal encounters.

The state-authorised slaughter has been criticised by conservationists and opposition politicians, including in the European Parliament. The brown bear is listed as a “near threatenend” species in the EU by the World Conservation Union.

However, Slovakia’s government is forging ahead with the plan and this week announced that meat from culled bears would be sold to the public to prevent waste.

From next week, organisations under the environment ministry can offer the meat for sale, provided all legal and hygiene conditions are met.

State Minister Filip Kuffa said it was wasteful that the animals had previously been sent to carcass disposal facilities.

“We will release every shot animal that meets certain conditions for consumption. Why? Because bear meat is edible,” he said.

Bears have become a political issue in Slovakia after a rising number of encounters with humans, including fatal attacks.

Slovakia ranks second in Europe, behind Romania which is estimated to have about 13,000 brown bears, for the number of attacks.

The country reported a total of 54 bear attacks from 2000-2020. The average number of attacks has also risen to 10 per year, rough figures suggest.

In April, a man was mauled to death while walking in a forest in Central Slovakia.

Shortly after, Prime Minister Robert Fico announced the cull, saying: “We can’t live in a country where people are afraid to go into the woods.”

He said his government would shoot up to 350 brown bears – a figure equivalent to the species’ entire population in Spain.

His government argues that a bear overpopulation problem has led to the attacks.

However environmental groups and critics say the focus should be on prevention.

Michal Wiezik, an ecologist and MEP for the opposition party Progressive Slovakia, told the BBC last month the government’s plan was “absurd” and it had already failed to limit the number of attacks “by the unprecedented culling of this protected species.”

Wiezik argued that thousands of encounters a year passed without incident and he hoped the European Commission would intervene.

Miroslava Abelova of Greenpeace Slovakia called the culling plan “completely reckless,” accusing the government of ignoring conservation laws and scientific advice.

Brown bears are strictly protected under EU directives, and may only be killed in exceptional cases – such as threats to public safety – when no other alternatives exist.

Bear meat is not commonly eaten in Europe and is considered a delicacy only in a few regions, such as parts of Eastern Europe and the Nordic countries.

In most EU member states, strict hunting rules and the protected status of the bears mean the meat is rarely available. When it is, it is usually from controlled culls or licensed hunting and not commonly found in restaurants or shops.

Where bear meat is consumed, health officials warn of the risk of Trichinella – a parasite that can cause serious illness in humans.

The European Union Food Safety regulation requires all bear meat to be tested for Trichinella larvae before it can be sold and the US’ Centre for Disease Control Prevention stipulates an internally cooked temperature of at least 70 degrees centigrade to kill the parasite. Freezing, smoking or drying the meat does not make it safe.