An acrid smell hangs over the town of Rodynske. A couple of minutes after we drive into the city we see where it’s coming from.

A 250kg glide bomb has ripped through the town’s main administrative building, and taken down three residential blocks. We’re visiting a day after the bomb struck, but parts of the wreckage are still smoking. From the edges of the town we hear the sound of artillery fire, and of gunshots – Ukrainian soldiers shooting down drones.

Rodynske is about 15km (9 miles) north of the embattled city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been trying to capture it from the south since the autumn of last year, but Ukrainian forces have so far managed to stop Russian soldiers from marching in.

So Russia has changed tactics, moving instead to encircle the city, cutting off supply routes.

In the past two weeks, as hectic diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Ukraine have failed, Russia has intensified its push, making its most significant advances since January.

We find proof of that in Rodynske.

Within minutes of us arriving in town, we hear a Russian drone above us. Our team runs to the closest cover available – a tree.

We press up against it so the drone won’t see us. Then there’s the sound of a loud explosion – it’s a second drone making impact nearby. The drone above us is still hovering. For a few more minutes, we hear the terrifying whirring sound of what’s become the deadliest weapon of this war.

When we can’t hear it any more we take the chance to run to hard cover in an abandoned building 100ft away.

From the shelter, we hear the drone again. It’s possible it returned after seeing our movement.

That Rodynske is being swarmed by Russian drones is evidence that the attacks are coming from positions much closer than known Russian positions to the south of Pokrovsk. They were most likely coming from newly captured territory on a key road running from the east of Pokrovsk to Kostyantynivka.

After half an hour of waiting in the shelter, when we can’t hear the drone anymore, we move quickly to our car parked under tree cover, and speed out of Rodynske. By the side of the highway we see smoke billowing and something burning – it’s most likely a downed drone.

We drive to Bilytske, further away from the frontline. We see a row of houses destroyed by a missile strike overnight. One of them was Svitlana’s home.

“It’s getting worse and worse. Earlier, we could hear distant explosions, they were far away. But now our town is getting targeted – we’re experiencing it ourselves,” says the 61-year-old, as she picks up a few belongings from the wreckage of her home. Luckily Svitlana wasn’t at home when the attack occurred.

“Go into the centre of the town, you’ll see so much that is destroyed there. And the bakery and zoo have been destroyed too,” she says.

At a safehouse just out of reach of drones, we meet soldiers of the artillery unit of the 5th Assault Brigade.

“You can feel the intensity of Russian assaults increasing. Rockets, mortars, drones, they’re using everything they have to cut off supply routes going into the city,” says Serhii.

His unit has been waiting for three days to deploy to their positions, waiting for cloud cover or high-speed winds to give them protection from drones.

In an ever-evolving conflict, soldiers have had to rapidly adapt to new threats posed by changing technology. And the latest threat comes from fibre optic drones. A spool of tens of kilometres of cable is fitted to the bottom of a drone and the physical fibre optic cord is attached to the controller held by the pilot.

“The video and control signal is transmitted to and from the drone through the cable, not through radio frequencies. This means it can’t be jammed by electronic interceptors,” says a soldier with the call sign Moderator, a drone engineer with the 68th Jaeger Brigade.

When drones began to be used in this war in a big way, both militaries fitted their vehicles with electronic warfare systems, which could neutralise drones. That protection has evaporated with the arrival of fibre optic drones, and in the deployment of these devices, Russia currently has the edge. Ukraine is trying to ramp up production.

“Russia started using fibre optic drones much before us, while we were still testing them. These drones can be used in places where we have to go lower than usual drones. We can even enter houses and look for targets inside,” says Venia, a drone pilot with the 68th Jaeger Brigade.

“We’ve started joking that maybe we should carry scissors to cut the cord,” says Serhii, the artillery man.

Fibre optic drones do have drawbacks – they are slower and the cable could get entangled in trees. But at the moment, their widespread use by Russia means that transporting soldiers to and from their positions can often be deadlier than the battlefield itself.

“When you enter a position, you don’t know whether you’ve been spotted or not. And if you have been spotted, then you may already be living the last hours of your life,” says Oles, Chief Sergeant of the reconnaissance unit of the 5th Assault Brigade.

This threat means that soldiers are spending longer and longer in their positions.

Oles and his men are in the infantry, serving in the trenches right at the very front of Ukraine’s defence. It’s rare for journalists these days to speak to infantrymen, as it’s become too risky to go to these trenches. We meet Oles and Maksym in a rural home converted into a makeshift base, where the soldiers come to rest when they’re not on deployment.

“The longest I spent at the position was 31 days, but I do know guys who have spent 90 and even 120 days there. Back before the drones arrived, the rotations could have been between 3 or 7 days at the position,” says Maksym.

“War is blood, death, wet mud and a chill that spreads from head to toe. And this is how you spend every day. I remember one instance when we didn’t sleep for three days, alert every minute. The Russians kept coming at us wave after wave. Even a minor lapse would have meant we were dead.”

Oles says Russia’s infantry has changed its tactics. “Earlier they attacked in groups. Now they only send one or two people at times. They also use motorcycles and in a few instances, quad bikes. Sometimes they slip through.”

What this means is that the front lines in some parts are no longer conventional lines with the Ukrainians on one side and the Russians on the other, but more like pieces on a chessboard during play, where positions can be intertwined.

This also makes it harder to see advances made by either side.

Despite Russia’s recent gains, it will not be quick or easy for it to take the whole of the Donetsk region, where Pokrovsk lies.

Ukraine has pushed back hard, but it needs a steady supply of weapons and ammunition to sustain the fight.

And as the war enters a fourth summer, Ukraine’s manpower issues against a much bigger Russian army are also evident. Most of the soldiers we meet joined the military after the war began. They’ve had a few months of training, but have had to learn a lot on the job in the middle of a raging war.

Maksym worked for a drinks company before he joined the military. I asked how his family copes with his job.

“It’s hard, it’s really hard. My family really supports me. But I have a two-year-old son, and I don’t get to see him much. I do video call him though, so everything is as fine as it could be under the circumstances,” he trails off, eyes welling up with tears.

Maksym is a soldier fighting for his country, but he’s also just a father missing his two-year-old boy.

Joel Le Scouarnec, the former surgeon who has admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients, mostly children, between 1989 and 2014 has been sentenced to a maximum term of 20 years in jail.

Le Scouarnec was dressed in black as he stood emotionless in court listening to judge Aude Burési deliver the verdict. In March, he admitted sexually abusing all 299 victims.

Judge Burési said the court had taken into account the fact that the former surgeon had especially sought out unwell, vulnerable and sedated victims.

The sentence has a mandatory minimum term of two-thirds – and because Le Scouarnec has already served seven years, he may be eligible for parole by 2030.

Amélie Lévêque, one of Le Scouarnec’s victims, said: “To think one day he could walk down the street, see people – that upsets me. We [the victims] no longer have a normal life while they’re giving him back that life, and that disgusts me.”

“Twenty years is little compared to the number of victims in this trial,” said Francesca Satta, a lawyer for some of the victims. “It is time for the law to change so we can have more appropriate sentences.”

His lawyer Maxime Tessier said Le Scouarnec had no intention of appealing.

Le Scouarnec, 74, has been dubbed France’s most prolific paedophile. He is already in jail after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.

The former doctor has been on trial in Brittany since late February.

During that time dozens of his victims have testified, telling the court how the abuse they sustained as children shaped their lives.

In March, Le Scouarnec admitted sexually abusing all of his victims, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations.

He kept diaries in which he described the assaults in graphic detail, which allowed police to track down his victims – many of whom had no memory of the abuse they suffered while in Le Scouarnec’s care.

Earlier this month he also said he was “responsible” for the deaths of two victims whose relatives say died by suicide, following the trauma of being sexually assaulted by Le Scouarnec when they were children.

The grandparents of one of them, Mathis Vinet, who died four years ago, told the BBC about the “descent into hell” experienced by his grandson when police revealed to him that his name appeared in one of the diaries.

“I can no longer look at myself the same way because I am a paedophile and a child rapist,” Le Scouarnec said during his last statements to the court last week.

“Many things have been said. I don’t necessarily remember everything now. It will no doubt come back to me when I’m in my cell, but what I’ve witnessed [in court] is the suffering for which I am responsible,” he said.

He added he neither wanted or expected to be given any leniency.

The trial has sparked fury that Le Scouarnec got away with the abuse for over fifteen years, and that he was allowed to continue to treat children despite a conviction in 2005 for downloading paedophile images.

The Victims of Joel Le Scouarnec Collective group lamented that the trial had failed to capture the attention of politicians and society at large.

“No lesson has been drawn from this, neither from the medical world nor from politicians,” the group said in a statement. Several victims held a protest in front of the courthouse ahead of the verdict being delivered on Wednesday afternoon.

Catherine, the mother of a victim, said on the day of the verdict that it was the first time she had seen so many journalists covering the trial and added that she felt the victims had been forgotten.

“It’s a pity but my hope is that now our message can be passed on. Not for the generation that has been hurt but for my grandchildren,” she said, adding that she hoped institutions would “react”.

Le Scouarnec, who was present in court every day of the 14-week trial, repeatedly apologised for his “revolting” acts.

Many of his victims were left unimpressed with his demeanour. “His words are always the same, in the same tone, I don’t see any sincerity in them,” Louis-Marie, 35, told the BBC. “The only thing I hope is that he doesn’t do any more harm to society… that he stays locked up.”

“I never saw tears running down his cheeks,” said another victim named Manon Lemoine.

But Maxime Tessier, Le Scouarnec’s lawyer, said he believed his client had been sincere. “He was very moved during this trial… It was very important for him to confess as he did. It was a moment of truth and justice.”

Mr Tessier also pointed the finger at the medical establishment, which civil parties have accused of not doing more to stop Le Scouarnec’s from practicing medicine even when rumours of his paedophilia were circulating widely.

“No one acknowledged responsibility, whereas all the victims said it’s not only a man who did that – but also the system which let him do it,” he told the BBC.

The National Order of Doctors (Cnom), which has also filed a lawsuit against Le Scouranec, said in March that it “expressed its deep regrets” as the former surgeon should have been “prevented from practicing”.

“This situation has highlighted poor communication between the different entities of the Order of Doctors, and we deeply regret this,” they said in a statement.

The Swiss village of Blatten has been partially destroyed after a huge chunk of glacier crashed down into the valley.

Although the village had been evacuated some days ago because of fears the Birch glacier was disintegrating, one person has been reported missing, and many homes have been completely flattened.

Blatten’s mayor, Matthias Bellwald, said “the unimaginable has happened” but promised the village still had a future.

Local authorities have requested support from the Swiss army’s disaster relief unit and members of the Swiss government are on their way to the scene.

The disaster that has befallen Blatten is the worst nightmare for communities across the Alps.

The village’s 300 inhabitants had to leave their homes on 19 May after geologists monitoring the area warned that the glacier appeared unstable. Now many of them may never be able to return.

Appearing to fight back tears, Bellwald said: “We have lost our village, but not our heart. We will support each other and console each other. After a long night, it will be morning again.”

The Swiss government has already promised funding to make sure residents can stay, if not in the village itself, at least in the locality.

However, Raphaël Mayoraz, head of the regional office for Natural Hazards, warned that further evacuations in the areas close to Blatten might be necessary.

Climate change is causing the glaciers – frozen rivers of ice – to melt faster and faster, and the permafrost, often described as the glue that holds the high mountains together, is also thawing.

Drone footage showed a large section of the Birch glacier collapsing at about 15:30 (14:30 BST) on Wednesday. The avalanche of mud that swept over Blatten sounded like a deafening roar, as it swept down into the valley leaving an enormous cloud of dust.

Glaciologists monitoring the thaw have warned for years that some alpine towns and villages could be at risk, and Blatten is not even the first to be evacuated.

In eastern Switzerland, residents of the village of Brienz were evacuated two years ago because the mountainside above them was crumbling.

Since then, they have only been permitted to return for short periods.

In 2017, eight hikers were killed, and many homes destroyed, when the biggest landslide in over a century came down close to the village of Bondo.

The most recent report into the condition of Switzerland’s glaciers suggested they could all be gone within a century, if global temperatures could not be kept within a rise of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, agreed ten years ago by almost 200 countries under the Paris climate accord.

Many climate scientists suggest that target has already been missed, meaning the glacier thaw will continue to accelerate, increasing the risk of flooding and landslides, and threatening more communities like Blatten.

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.

Prosecutors have confirmed for the first time the full list of 21 charges Andrew and Tristan Tate will face when they are returned to the UK, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.

The Crown Prosecution Service said that it had authorised the charges against the brothers in 2024, before an extradition warrant was issued to bring them back from Romania.

The two British-Americans are under investigation in Romania, facing a number of charges, which they deny – and the CPS said “the domestic criminal matters in Romania must be settled first”.

The CPS’s charging decision came after it received a file of evidence from Bedfordshire Police about allegations made in the UK.

The CPS said Andrew Tate, a 38-year-old influencer and former kickboxer, faces 10 charges connected to three alleged victims, including rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain.

Tristan Tate, 36, faces 11 charges connected to one alleged victim, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.

The pair were both born in the US but moved to Luton in the UK with their mother after their parents divorced.

In recent years, Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist, has built a massive online presence, including more than 10 million followers on X, sharing his lifestyle of fast cars, private jets, and yachts.

He and his brother were first arrested in Romania in December 2022, with Andrew accused of rape and human trafficking and Tristan suspected of human trafficking.

They both denied the charges and spent several months under house arrest. A year and a half later, in August 2024, they faced new allegations in Romania including sex with a minor and trafficking underage persons, all of which they deny.

Separately, the pair were detained in Bucharest in March 2024 after Bedfordshire Police said it had obtained an arrest warrant in relation to allegations of rape and trafficking.

According to the brothers’ legal representatives, the UK allegations dated back to between 2012 and 2015. At the time of the arrest warrant, the Tates said they “categorically reject all charges” and were “very innocent men”.

A Romanian court ruled that they could be extradited to the UK only once the separate proceedings against them in Romania concluded.

They were then released from custody. Prosecutors unexpectedly lifted a two-year travel ban earlier this year, after which the brothers travelled from Romania to the US state of Florida by private jet in February 2025.

They returned to Romania in March 2025, telling reporters that “innocent men don’t run from anything”.

The brothers say they registered with Bucharest authorities in a legal formality to demonstrate their compliance with an ongoing criminal investigation. Andrew did not say whether he would remain in Romania, but vowed to clear his name there and in the UK.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has said that “Israeli strikes in Gaza go beyond what is necessary to fight Hamas” as the death toll there continues to mount.

Kallas also said that the EU did not support a new aid distribution model backed by the US and Israel which bypasses the UN and other humanitarian organisations.

“We don’t support the privatisation of the distribution of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid can not be weaponised”, she said.

Israeli air strikes and other military actions since it resumed the war in March following a ceasefire have killed 3,924 people, the Hamas-run health ministry says. Israel says it is acting to destroy Hamas and get back hostages the group holds.

Recent Israel bombardments have killed large numbers of civilians. Last Friday an air strike in Khan Younis killed nine of a Palestinian doctor’s 10 children. At least 35 people were killed in a school building sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza overnight into Monday.

Kallas’ remarks follows an intervention by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who declared he “no longer understands” Israel’s objectives in the besieged enclave.

“The way in which the civilian population has been affected… can no longer be justified by a fight against Hamas terrorism,” he said.

The EU is one of the largest donors of humanitarian aid to Gaza, yet Kallas said most of it was currently unable to get to Palestinians who need it. Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza in March and only began allowing a trickle of aid in after 11 weeks.

“The majority of the aid to Gaza is provided by the EU but it’s not reaching the people as it is blocked by Israel,” Kallas said.

“The suffering of the people is untenable.”

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen meanwhile described recent Israeli attacks on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure as “abhorrent” and “disproportionate”.

It also follows the strongest criticism yet by the UK, France and Canada, who demanded Israel end its military offensive in Gaza. The UK later said it was suspending trade talks with Israel.

The EU has launched a formal review of its own trade agreement with Israel and Kallas said she would present “options” at the upcoming EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on 23 June.

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.

Israel and the US are backing a new aid distribution system run by a controversial new group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

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.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Tuesday plans to relocate Gaza’s entire population to a “sterile zone” in the south of the territory while Israeli troops continue fighting Hamas elsewhere. He also vowed to facilitate what he described as the “voluntary emigration” of much of Gaza’s population to other countries – a plan many view as forcible expulsion.

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, 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.”

Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has told Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky that Berlin will help Kyiv produce long-range missiles to defend itself from Russian attack.

“We want to talk about production and we will not publicly discuss details,” he said, when asked by reporters in Berlin if Germany would supply Kyiv with its Taurus missiles.

Merz took office earlier this month, promising to beef up German support for Ukraine, and said this week that there were “no longer” any range restrictions on weapons supplied by Kyiv’s Western allies.

The Taurus has a range of 500km (310 miles) and could reach deeper into Russian territory than other far-range missiles.

Although Merz did not refer to the Taurus by name during his press conference with the Ukrainian leader, he did say a “memorandum of understanding” on long-range missiles would be signed by the German and Ukrainian defence ministers later on Wednesday.

The Kremlin has warned that any decision to end range restrictions on the missiles that Ukraine can use would be a quite dangerous change in policy that would harm efforts to reach a political deal.

However, Merz has since emphasised that a decision on lifting range restrictions was taken by Western allies months ago.

The new chancellor is seeking to cut a far more assertive figure on support for Ukraine than his predecessor, Olaf Scholz.

So far, he is succeeding.

There may be many questions about the detail of Merz’s missile co-operation plan but his willingness to make big announcements that might antagonise the Kremlin stands in stark contrast to the cautious tone of the last government.

During his press conference with Zelensky, Merz promised Ukraine continued support for as long as necessary, warning Moscow that its refusal to take part in further peace talks would have “real consequences”.

Zelensky has called for talks aimed at reaching a settlement on the war to involve three leaders – “Trump-Putin-me” – although he added he was ready for any format.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not dismiss the idea out of hand but said such a meeting could only take place after “concrete agreements” had been reached between “the two delegations.”

Although Ukraine and Russia held their first direct talks for more than three years in Istanbul earlier this month, the meeting involved low-level officials and they were only able to agree on a prisoner exchange, which took place last weekend.

On Wednesday, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow is indeed ready to hold a second round of peace talks with Kyiv.

According to a statement posted on state news agency Tass, he said the next round of talks could take place on 2 June in Istanbul.

“We hope that all those who are sincerely, and not just in words, interested in the success of the peace process will support holding a new round of direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov had also previously made clear that Moscow was looking to guarantee Ukraine’s “neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status”.

US President Donald Trump indicated this week that his patience was wearing thin with Russia’s failure to move forward with further talks.

He accused Vladimir Putin of “playing with fire”, after a deadly Russian missile strike that killed 13 Ukrainians, including children. However, Russian officials suggested that Trump was not sufficiently informed on the context of the conflict.

Ukraine’s president has urged Washington to impose sanctions on Russia’s banking and energy sectors. He said he had discussed the issue with Trump, adding that the US president had “confirmed that if Russia does not stop, sanctions will be imposed”.

Despite the continued diplomatic manoeuvres, Ukraine’s military reported one of its largest drone barrages on Russian targets to date overnight in to Wednesday, while Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 900 drones over a three-day period ending early on Monday morning.

On the ground, Ukraine’s defences have come under increased Russian attack in the northeast.

Zelensky said Moscow was “amassing” over 50,000 troops along the Sumy front, where Russian forces have seized several villages across the Ukrainian border in an effort to create what Putin calls “security buffer zones”.

Sumy governor Oleh Hryhorov said Russian forces had seized four villages and that fighting was continuing near other settlements in the area.

The war, now into its fourth year, has claimed tens of thousands of lives and left much of Ukraine’s east and south in ruins. Moscow controls roughly one-fifth of the country’s territory, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Zelensky has accused Moscow of delaying the peace process and said they are yet to deliver a promised memorandum of peace terms following talks in Istanbul. Peskov insisted the document was in its “final stages.”

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.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that he is “not happy about certain aspects” of the bill while at the same time being “thrilled” about some aspects, such as tax cuts.

“It’s the big, beautiful bill,” he said. “And it’s beautiful because of all the things we have.”

When asked, Trump did not directly comment on Musk’s remarks.

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.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he wants his country to join a major European plan to bolster defences by 1 July.

Speaking to CBC on Tuesday, Carney said he hoped Canada would sign on to ReArm Europe – a plan to dramatically increase defence spending on the continent to in the next five years – in a bid to reduce reliance on the US.

“Seventy-five cents of every (Canadian) dollar of capital spending for defence goes to the United States. That’s not smart,” Carney told the public broadcaster.

His remarks come amid tension with the US after threats from President Donald Trump – though Carney has also previously said he is open to joining a missile defence project proposed by Trump.

A day after Carney’s remarks, Canada’s defence minister told a military trade show that his country wanted to quickly boost defence capacity in the face of growing global threats.

“The global security environment is today volatile and uncertain,” said defence minister David McGuinty on Wednesday, citing Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as a more assertive China.

McGuinty said there would be a future focus on the Arctic, where competing nations were challenging Canada’s sovereignty.

Defence also featured on Tuesday in the Speech from the Throne – an event that opened the new parliament and outlined the sitting government’s agenda.

The address was read in person by King Charles III, Canada’s monarch, as part of a royal visit that was designed to highlight Canada’s identity and sovereignty.

The speech contained commitments to “rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting” in Canada’s military.

It also outlined the government’s goal of strengthening defence relationships with European allies, and made mention of joining the ReArm Europe plan.

• Canada ‘strong and free’ and other takeaways from King’s throne speech
• King’s Canadian speech doesn’t mention you-know-who

The remarks by Canadian officials come after Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said he expected members of his Western defence alliance – including Canada – to grow their annual defence spending to a level equivalent to 5% of each nation’s GDP.

The Nato target was previously 2% of GDP, but Rutte said members must prepare to defend themselves from increasingly powerful adversaries like Russia and China.

“Russia has teamed up with China, North Korea and Iran,” Rutte told a Nato forum in the US on Monday. “They are expanding their militaries and their capabilities. They are preparing for long-term confrontation.”

The plan to increase Nato’s spending target still has to be approved by member-country leaders, who are set to meet in the Netherlands in late June.

Canada has long faced pressure for failing to meet Nato targets, and was accused last year by US House Speaker Mike Johnson of “riding on America’s coattails”.

Canadian business leaders have also called on their government to majorly boost spending in the defence industry, touting this as a way to boost the economy.

In Wednesday’s remarks, McGuinty told defence industry representatives that Carney’s government would prioritise procuring military technology and equipment from Canadian companies.

Last week, Carney said that “high-level” talks were also taking place with the US about joining Trump’s Golden Dome missile defence system. The King’s throne speech noted that Canada wanted to continue talks with the US on security on trade.

The US president posted on his Truth Social network later on Tuesday evening that the Golden Dome project would cost Canada US$61bn “if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation.”

“But will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State,” he added, repeating his often-repeated view that Canada should be absorbed by the US. “They are considering the offer!” he claimed.

In response, Carney’s office said in a statement that the prime minister “has been clear at every opportunity, including in his conversations with President Trump, that Canada is an independent, sovereign nation, and it will remain one”.

Meanwhile, Canada’s UN ambassador reposted the US president’s comment on X with the response: “In another context this would called a ‘protection racket’.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says its military has “eliminated” Hamas’s Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar, one of its most wanted men and the brother of the group’s late leader Yahya Sinwar.

Mohammed Sinwar was reportedly the target of a massive Israeli strike on the courtyard and surrounding area of the European hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis on 13 May, which the Israeli military said destroyed Hamas “underground infrastructure”.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said that 28 people were killed. Hamas itself has neither confirmed nor denied Sinwar’s death.

Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, was killed by Israeli troops last October.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response the unprecedented cross-border attack 600 days ago, 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, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Mohammed Sinwar, 49, joined Hamas shortly after it was founded in the late 1980s and become a member of the group’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

He rose through the ranks and by 2005 he was commander of the Khan Younis Brigade.

He was believed to have been one of the masterminds of a 2006 cross-border attack in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was seized. Sgt Shalit was released after five years in captivity in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including Yahya Sinwar.

Mohammed Sinwar was also reported to have been close to Hamas’s late military chief Mohammed Deif and been involved in the planning of the 7 October 2023 attack.

Netanyahu announced that he was dead during a special debate in the Israeli parliament on Tuesday called by the opposition to address what it called “the government’s complete failure to achieve the war’s goals: the return of all the hostages and defeating Hamas”.

In response to the criticism, the prime minister listed Israel’s achievements.

“In 600 days of the ‘War of Revival’, we have indeed changed the face of the Middle East,” he said. “We drove the terrorists out of our territory, entered the Gaza Strip with force, eliminated tens of thousands of terrorists, eliminated Mohammed Deif, [political leader Ismail] Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar.”

Until now, Israeli officials have been cautious when speaking about Mohammed Sinwar’s fate.

The Israeli military’s statement about the 13 May air strike did not mention him, saying only that it targeted “Hamas terrorists who were operating in a command-and-control centre that was embedded in an underground terrorist infrastructure site underneath the European hospital”. However, Israeli media reported at the time that he was the intended target.

Five days later, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz told parliament that, while there was no official confirmation, “all indications” from Israeli intelligence were that Sinwar was killed.

The European hospital has been out of service since the attack two weeks ago.

CCTV footage shows children, women and men walking around the hospital’s courtyard just before it is engulfed by an explosion. As the smoke clears, a large crater begins to form.

Medics said they received no warning from Israeli authorities. The hospital was also not covered by any Israeli evacuation orders issued since the military resumed its offensive against Hamas on 18 March, following the collapse of a two-month ceasefire.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk said the killing of civilians was “as tragic as it is abhorrent”, and that Israel was bound by international law to ensure to spare their lives even if it believed that destroying the underground structures offered a definite military advantage.

Netanyahu also addressed on Tuesday the issue of the 58 hostages still being held by Hamas.

“I am fully focused on the mission of bringing back all our hostages – both the living and the fallen,” he said. “According to the information we currently have, there are 20 hostages who are confirmed to be alive. This is undisputed. In addition, there are up to 38 other hostages who are believed to be deceased.”

Earlier this month, the prime minister said there was “uncertainty” about the condition of three of the 24 hostages previously believed to be alive in captivity.

Days later, one of the living hostages, Israeli-American Edan Alexander, was freed by Hamas in what the group said was a goodwill gesture to US President Donald Trump, who is attempting to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Netanyahu also declared that Israel had made “a dramatic shift toward the complete defeat of Hamas” over the past two days by “taking control of food distribution in the Gaza Strip”.

He was referring to the controversial new aid distribution system run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The system uses US security contractors and bypasses the UN, which says it goes against fundamental humanitarian principles.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents many hostages’ families, welcomed the prime minister’s announcement about Mohammed Sinwar but told him: “The time has come to achieve true national victory – one that includes bringing home all the hostages and beginning the restoration of Israeli society.”

Students around the world are anxious and in limbo, they say, as the Trump administration makes plans to temporarily halt US student visa appointments.

An official US memo seen by BBC’s US partner CBS News ordered a temporary pause in appointments as it prepares to increase social media vetting of applicants for student and foreign exchange visas.

It is part of a wide-ranging crackdown by US President Donald Trump on some of America’s most elite universities, which he sees as too left-leaning.

For students, the changes have brought widespread uncertainty, with visa appointments at US embassies now unavailable and delays that put their scholarships at risk.

Some students told the BBC that the confusion has even left them wishing they had applied to schools outside the US.

“I already regret it,” said a 22-year-old master’s student from Shanghai, who did not want to be named for fear of jeopardising their visa to study at the University of Pennsylvania.

The student said they feel lucky their application was approved, but that has not eased their uncertainty.

“Even if I study in the US, I may be chased back to China without getting my degree,” they said. “That’s so scary.”

Asked about the recent decision to pause all student visa appointments, 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.”

As part of his wider crackdown on higher education, Trump has moved to ban Harvard from enrolling international students, accusing the school of not doing enough to combat antisemitism on campus.

Harvard filed a lawsuit in response, and a judge has halted Trump’s ban for now, with a hearing on the matter scheduled for 29 May.

A student from Guangzhou City, who runs a consultancy group for Chinese students wanting to study in the US, said they are stumped on advising applicants as the rules keep changing.

The student, who also wished not to be named, added that they think there will be fewer students who see the US as a viable education destination.

More than 1.1 million international students from over 210 countries were enroled in US colleges in the 2023-2024 school year, according to Open Doors, an organisation that collects data on foreign students.

Universities often charge these international students higher tuition fees – a crucial part of their operating budgets.

For Ainul Hussein, 24, from India, the visa implications are both financial and personal.

Mr Hussein said he was excited to begin the next chapter of his life in New Jersey, enroled in a master’s of science programme in management.

He received a I-20 document from the university – a crucial piece of paper that allows him to apply for a US student visa. But recent processing delays left him “deeply worried,” he said, with appointments at consulates now either postponed or unavailable.

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

He said he may be forced to book flights to the US, still unsure of the situation. He also risks losing his scholarship if he has to defer his studies.

Students in the UK are being affected, too.

Oliver Cropley, a 27-year-old from Norwich, said he was due to study abroad for a year in Kansas, but now that plan is in jeopardy.

“Currently I’ve no student visa, despite forking out £300 ($404) on the application process,” Mr Cropley said.

News of the US pausing visa applications is “a huge disappointment”.

He, too, risks losing a scholarship if he is unable to complete his study abroad in the US, and may have to find last-minute accommodation and liaise with the university to make sure it does not delay him academically.

Alfred Williamson, from Wales, told Reuters that he was excited to travel after his first year at Harvard but couldn’t wait to get back. But now, he hasn’t heard about his visa.

It’s “dehumanising”, he told Reuters.

“We’re being used like pawns in the game that we have no control of, and we’re being caught in this crossfire between the White House and Harvard,” Mr Williamson told the outlet.

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 “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.

Domestic cats can tell the difference between the smell of their owner and that of a stranger, a new study suggests.

The study by Tokyo University of Agriculture found cats spent significantly longer sniffing tubes containing the odours of unknown people compared to tubes containing their owner’s smell.

This suggests cats can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar humans based on their odour, the researchers say, but that it is unclear whether they can identify specific people.

Cats are known to use their strong sense of smell to identify and communicate with other cats, but researchers had not yet studied whether they can also use it to distinguish between people.

Previous studies of human recognition by cats have shown they are able to distinguish between voices, interpret someone’s gaze to find food, and change their behaviour according to a person’s emotional state that is recognised via their odour.

In the study published on Wednesday, researchers presented 30 cats with plastic tubes containing either a swab containing the odour of their owner, a swab containing the odour of a person of the same sex as their owner who they had never met, or a clean swab.

The swabs containing odours had been rubbed under the armpit, behind the ear, and between the toes of the owner or stranger.

Cats spent significantly more time sniffing the odours of unknown people compared to those of their owner or the empty tube, suggesting they can discriminate between the smells of familiar and unfamiliar people, the researchers said.

The idea of sniffing an unknown stimulus for longer has been shown before in cats – weaned kittens sniff unknown female cats for longer compared to their mothers.

However, the researchers cautioned that it cannot be concluded the cats can identify specific people such as their owner.

“The odour stimuli used in this study were only those of known and unknown persons,” said one of the study’s authors, Hidehiko Uchiyama.

“Behavioural experiments in which cats are presented with multiple known-person odour stimuli would be needed, and we would need to find specific behavioural patterns in cats that appear only in response to the owner’s odour.”

Serenella d’Ingeo, a researcher at the University of Bari who was not involved in this study but who has studied cat responses to human odours, also said the results demonstrated cats react differently to familiar and unfamiliar smells, but that conclusions couldn’t be drawn over their motivations.

“We don’t know how the animal felt during the sniffing… We don’t know for instance whether the animal was relaxed or tense,” she said.

Ms d’Ingeo added that the presentation of samples to cats by their own owners, who naturally added their own odour to the environment, could have increased the cats’ interest in the unfamiliar ones.

“In that situation, owners present not only their visual presence but also their odour,” she said.

“So of course if they present other odours that are different from their personal one, in a way they engage more the cat.”

The study’s authors concluded that “cats use their olfaction [smell] for the recognition of humans”.

They also noted cats rubbed their faces against the tubes after sniffing – which cats do to mark their scent on something – indicating that sniffing may be an exploratory behaviour that precedes odour marking.

The researchers cautioned that this relationship needs further investigation, along with the theory of whether cats can recognise a specific person from their smell.

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.

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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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.

This new, national holiday is “a symbol of unity and reflection” but the country will never forget its “emotional, psychological, economical and cultural scars”, said Namibia’s President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, joining community leaders in a candle-lighting ceremony in memory of genocide victims.

Members of the Ovaherero and Nama communities also performed a war cry – a rite that was historically performed by men before battle while women urged them to fight bravely.

Stern words accompanied Wednesday’s symbolism, with President Nandi-Ndaitwah urging a swift end to ongoing negotiations with Germany over Namibia’s demand for reparations.

“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” she said.

Her government 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.

• The Tanzanians searching for their grandfathers’ skulls in Germany
• UK museums willing to return skulls to Zimbabwe
• ‘Fees have fallen’ in Namibia as president announces free higher education
• ‘End of era’ for Africa as Namibia buries founding father
• Why Germany’s deal fell flat for Namibians

A court in Germany has rejected a lawsuit brought by a Peruvian farmer against German energy giant RWE in a long-awaited decision.

Saúl Luciano Lliuya had argued that the firm’s global emissions contributed to the melting of glaciers in Peru – threatening his hometown of Huaraz with flooding.

He was seeking €17,000 (£14,250) in compensation – money he said he would use to pay for a flood defence project to protect the city.

However, the higher regional court in the German city of Hamm on Wednesday blocked the case from proceeding further and ruled out any appeals, putting an end to Mr Lliuya’s 10-year legal battle.

RWE said it was not active in Peru and questioned why it was singled out.

It also pointed to its plans to phase out its coal-fired power plants and become carbon neutral by 2040.

In their ruling on Wednesday, judges deemed that the flood risk to the property of Mr Lliuya was not high enough for the case to proceed.

However, in what climate change groups have hailed as a win, they did say that energy companies could be held responsible for the costs caused by their carbon emissions.

While the sum demanded by Mr Lliuya was very low, the case has become a cause celebre for climate change activists, who hope that it will set a precedent for holding powerful firms to account.

The 44-year-old mountain guide and farmer said he had brought the case because he had seen first-hand how rising temperatures were causing glaciers near Huaraz to melt.

He said that as a result, Lake Palcacocha – which is located above the city – now has four times as much water than in 2003 and that residents like him were at risk of flooding, especially if blocks of ice were to break off from Palcacocha glacier and fall into the lake, causing it to overflow.

He alleged that emissions caused by RWE were contributing to the increase in temperature in Peru’s mountain region and demanded that the German firm pay towards building a flood defence.

Mr Lliuya also said that he chose the company because a 2013 database tracking historic emissions from major fossil fuel producers listed the German energy giant as one of the biggest polluters in Europe.

Mr Lliuya’s original case was rejected by a lower court in Germany in 2015, with judges arguing that a single firm could not be held responsible for climate change.

But in a surprise twist, Mr Lliuya in 2017 won his appeal with judges at the higher regional court, which accepted there was merit to his case and allowed it to proceed.

His lawyers previously argued that RWE was responsible for 0.5% of global CO2 emissions and demanded that the energy firm pay damages amounting to a proportional share of the cost of building a $3.5m-flood defence for Huaraz.

Germanwatch, an environmental NGO which backed Mr Lliuya’s case, celebrated the court’s ruling saying it had “made legal history”.

“Although the court dismissed the specific claim – finding flood risk to Luciano Lliuya’s home was not sufficiently high – it confirmed for the first time that major emitters can be held liable under German civil law for risks resulting from climate change,” it said in a statement.

The group said it was hopeful that the decision could positively influence similar cases in other countries.

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.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who has died aged 87, was a titan of modern African literature – a storyteller who refused to be bound by jail, exile and illness.

His work spanned roughly six decades, primarily documenting the transformation of his country – Kenya – from a colonial subject to a democracy.

Ngũgĩ was tipped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature countless times, leaving fans dismayed each time the medal slipped through his fingers.

He will be remembered not only as a Nobel-worthy writer, but also as a fierce proponent of literature written in native African languages.

Ngũgĩ was born James Thiong’o Ngũgĩ in 1938, when Kenya was under British colonial rule. He grew up in the town of Limuru among a large family of low-income agricultural workers.

His parents scrimped and saved to pay for his tuition at Alliance, a boarding school run by British missionaries.

In an interview, Ngũgĩ recalled returning home from Alliance at the end of term to find his entire village had been razed by the colonial authorities.

His family members were among the hundreds and thousands forced to live in detention camps during a crackdown on the Mau Mau, a movement of independence fighters.

The Mau Mau uprising, which lasted from 1952 to 1960, touched Ngũgĩ’s life in numerous, devastating ways.

In one of the most crushing, Ngũgĩ’s brother, Gitogo, was fatally shot in the back for refusing to comply with a British soldier’s command.

Gitogo had not heard the command because he was deaf.

In 1959, as the British struggled to maintain their grip on Kenya, Ngũgĩ left to study in Uganda. He enrolled at Makerere University, which remains one of Africa’s most prestigious universities.

During a writers’ conference at Makerere, Ngũgĩ shared the manuscript for his debut novel with revered Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.

Achebe forwarded the manuscript to his publisher in the UK and the book, named Weep Not, Child, was released to critical acclaim in 1964. It was the first major English-language novel to be written by an East African.

Ngũgĩ swiftly followed up with two more popular novels, A Grain of Wheat and The River Between. In 1972, the UK’s Times newspaper said Ngũgĩ, then aged 33, was “accepted as one of Africa’s outstanding contemporary writers”.

Then came 1977 – a period that marked a huge change in Ngũgĩ’s life and career. For starters, this was the year he became Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and shed his birth name, James. Ngũgĩ made the change as he wanted a name free of colonial influence.

He also dropped English as the primary language for his literature and vowed to only write in his mother tongue, Kikuyu.

He published his last English language novel, Petals of Blood, in 1977.

Ngũgĩ’s previous books had been critical of the colonial state, but Petals of Blood attacked the new leaders of independent Kenya, portraying them as an elite class who had betrayed ordinary Kenyans.

Ngũgĩ didn’t stop there. The same year, he co-wrote the play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), which was a searing look at Kenya’s class struggle.

Its theatre run was shut down by the government of then President Jomo Kenyatta and Ngũgĩ was locked up in a maximum security jail for a year without trial.

It was a fruitful 12 months, however – as Ngũgĩ wrote his first Kikuyu novel, Devil on the Cross, while in prison. It is said he used toilet paper to write the entire book, as he did not have access to a notebook.

Ngũgĩ was released after Daniel arap Moi replaced Mr Kenyatta as president.

Ngũgĩ said that four years later, while in London for a book launch, he learnt there was a plot to kill him on his return to Kenya.

Ngũgĩ began self-imposed exile in the UK and then the US. He did not return to Kenya for 22 years.

When he finally did return, he received a hero’s welcome – thousands of Kenyans turned out to greet him.

But the homecoming was marred when assailants broke into Ngũgĩ’s apartment, brutally attacking the author and raping his wife.

Ngũgĩ insisted the assault was “political”.

He returned to the US, where he had held professorships at universities including Yale, New York and California Irvine.

In academia and beyond, Ngũgĩ became known as one of the foremost advocates of literature written in African languages.

Throughout his career – and to this day – African literature was dominated by books written in English or French, official languages in most countries on the continent.

“What is the difference between a politician who says Africa cannot do without imperialism and the writer who says Africa cannot do without European languages?” Ngũgĩ asked in a seminal, fiery essay collection, named Decolonising the Mind.

In one section, Ngũgĩ called out Chinua Achebe – the author who helped to launch his career – for writing in English. Their friendship soured as a result.

Away from his literary career, Ngũgĩ was married – and divorced – twice. He had nine children, four of whom are published authors.

“My own family has become one of my literary rivals,” Ngũgĩ joked in a 2020 LA Times interview.

His son, Mukoma wa Ngũgĩ, has alleged that his mother was physically abused by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.

“Some of my earliest memories are me going to visit her at my grandmother’s where she would seek refuge,” his son wrote in a social media post, which Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o did not respond to.

Later in his life, Ngũgĩ’s health deteriorated. He had triple heart bypass surgery in 2019 and began to struggle with kidney failure. In 1995, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and given three months to live.

Ngũgĩ recovered, however, adding cancer to the lengthy list of struggles he had overcome.

But now one of African literature’s guiding lights – as Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once called him – is gone, leaving the world of words a little darker.

• Ngugi wa Thiong’o and his son discuss family and writing
• Why Tanzanian Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah is hardly known back home
• Africa’s lost languages: How English can fuel an identity crisis

Five protesters have been arrested after they allegedly targeted the filming of Gal Gadot’s new movie in central London.

Demonstrators have disrupted filming at various locations across London in recent weeks, the Metropolitan Police said.

The force said the film was targeted “solely because an actress involved in the production is Israeli”.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (Pacbi) has previously said Gadot films should be boycotted, claiming she has shown support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Gadot’s agent has been approached for comment.

The 40-year-old actress, who has been vocal in her support of Israel, is believed to currently be filming action thriller The Runner.

Police were deployed to a filming location in Westminster on Wednesday to identify suspects wanted in connection with offences at earlier protests and to deal with any new offences, Scotland Yard said.

Five people were arrested on suspicion of harassment and offences under Section 241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, which deals with wrongfully and unlawfully obstructing access to a workplace.

They remain in custody.

Two of the arrests relate to incidents at previous protests while three relate to alleged offences that took place on Wednesday, the force said.

Supt Neil Holyoak said: “While we absolutely acknowledge the importance of peaceful protest, we have a duty to intervene where it crosses the line into serious disruption or criminality.

“We have been in discussions with the production company to understand the impact of the protests on their work and on any individuals involved.

“I hope today’s operation shows we will not tolerate the harassment of or unlawful interference with those trying to go about their legitimate professional work in London.”

A man wrongly identified on social media as being the driver of a car which ploughed into crowds of people in Liverpool says he has moved his children out of their home because he fears for their safety.

Peter Cunningham, 54, had his picture circulated online after the incident on Monday, when 79 people were injured while celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League victory.

Police have been granted more time to question the suspected driver of the Ford Galaxy that hit pedestrians at the parade – a 53-year-old man from West Derby in Liverpool who has not been named.

Water Street, where the incident happened, reopened on Wednesday morning. Seven people remain in a stable condition in hospital.

Peter Cunningham, from Huyton in Liverpool, told the BBC on Wednesday that he had been with his children along the parade route about four miles (6.4km) away from Water Street at the time of the incident, which he didn’t find out about until he got home.

He said of the false accusations: “It’s not me. I’m in work – the police need to give the [suspect’s] name out because I’m getting accused.

“Family members and friends are ringing and asking me, but it could get a whole lot worse. The police need to do something.

“I was down Queens Drive with my children. I’m in a completely different car anyway, I’ve got a Hyundai.

“I wouldn’t go into town because I knew it was too chocka to go up there with the girls.”

When asked if he was fearful of an attack due to the viral post about him, Mr Cunningham said: “It can still put me at great harm, I’ve had to move my children to a different house today because we’re that nervous.”

Research by BBC Verify found the name Peter Cunningham was mentioned by a user on X on Monday evening, in response to a post enquiring about the identity of the suspect.

On Tuesday night, an Instagram post with an image of Mr Cunningham was shared by a user claiming to be based in Liverpool, along with the false claim that it was the first photo of the suspect.

This same image appears on Mr Cunningham’s own Facebook profile. The Instagram post featuring Mr Cunningham’s picture – which has also been shared on Facebook – has now been deleted.

The BBC’s disinformation and social media correspondent Marianna Spring said false accusations about the identities of suspects can flood social media following high-profile attacks or incidents.

“The problem is exacerbated by the limitations police forces face when it comes to releasing more information about a suspect when they’re yet to be charged,” she said.

“Ultimately, there are few repercussions for those sharing these defamatory posts online. The impact is principally felt by the person whose reputation is dragged through the virtual mud, as worried family and friends watch on.

“And it’s yet another example where some of the social media sites take little to no action over what’s posted on their platforms – principally because they don’t know the facts either, but also because they have relaxed their policies to deal with disinformation and abuse.”

Merseyside Police said in an update on Wednesday that it had been granted more time to question the suspect following a previous extension, which will remain in place until Thursday.

Police do not ordinarily name a suspect before they are charged, and Merseyside Police have urged people not to speculate on the identity of the man in custody.

The arrest was made shortly after 18:00 BST on Monday, and police usually have 24 hours to question a suspect in custody before they have to either charge them or let them go.

People suspected of terrorism offences can be held for up to a fortnight without a charge, but police have ruled out terrorism in this case.

Det Supt Rachel Wilson said the force was making “significant progress” to establish the “full circumstances that led to what happened”, with CCTV being used to track the movements of the car before it hit the crowds.

“I’m pleased to say that the number of people in hospital is reducing as they continue to recover from the awful incident,” she said.

“We continue to support those still receiving treatment and, as part of our ongoing enquiries, we are identifying more people who were injured.”

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 threatened” 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.

The bodies of 11 people believed to have been migrants have been found inside a boat washed onto the shores of the Caribbean island of Canouan, which forms part of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The identities of those on board remain unclear, a police official said, but several passports found at the scene suggest they were from Mali, a land-locked country in western Africa more than 6,000km (3,800 miles) away.

The boat, measuring 45ft (14m) in length, 12ft in width and 6ft in depth, was found grounded in Little Bay, on Monday.

The discovery comes just months after a boat with 13 dead bodies – some of whom also had Malian documents – was found washed ashore in St Kitts and Nevis.

Authorities in St Vincent and the Grenadines said they were alerted to the boat with the 11 deceased migrants on Monday.

Eujin Byun, the UN Refugee Agency’s global spokesperson, told the BBC the migrants – believed to be from Mali – had probably planned to go to the Canary Islands.

Given the small size of the boat recovered in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ms Byun said it was “highly unlikely” those on board would have been attempting to reach the Caribbean.

She added: “We cannot talk on behalf of those who have passed away, but our best guess is that they wanted to take the Atlantic route to get to the Canary Islands”

Hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced inside Mali, whose central and northern regions have known little stability since independence from France in September 1960, and many others have fled abroad.

Around 6.4 million people in the country are in need of humanitarian aid, according to the European Commission, and more than 1.5 million people require emergency food assistance.

Ms Buyn explained that Mali had experienced “a cycle of violence” since 2012, when the Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali triggered a military coup and Islamist groups that helped defeat the government captured several towns.

Access to services in the west African country had been “severely restricted” and Malians were crossing the border in search for better livelihoods, she added.

But when refugees cross the border to neighbouring countries in the Sahel region, they are often confronted with a similar landscape, Ms Byun said, which leads them to seek refuge further afield.

“Desperate people make desperate decisions,” she concluded.

The UN official worries that the Atlantic route from Africa to Europe is not getting as much attention as the Mediterranean route, and “smugglers are taking advantage of this”.

An acrid smell hangs over the town of Rodynske. A couple of minutes after we drive into the city we see where it’s coming from.

A 250kg glide bomb has ripped through the town’s main administrative building, and taken down three residential blocks. We’re visiting a day after the bomb struck, but parts of the wreckage are still smoking. From the edges of the town we hear the sound of artillery fire, and of gunshots – Ukrainian soldiers shooting down drones.

Rodynske is about 15km (9 miles) north of the embattled city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been trying to capture it from the south since the autumn of last year, but Ukrainian forces have so far managed to stop Russian soldiers from marching in.

So Russia has changed tactics, moving instead to encircle the city, cutting off supply routes.

In the past two weeks, as hectic diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Ukraine have failed, Russia has intensified its push, making its most significant advances since January.

We find proof of that in Rodynske.

Within minutes of us arriving in town, we hear a Russian drone above us. Our team runs to the closest cover available – a tree.

We press up against it so the drone won’t see us. Then there’s the sound of a loud explosion – it’s a second drone making impact nearby. The drone above us is still hovering. For a few more minutes, we hear the terrifying whirring sound of what’s become the deadliest weapon of this war.

When we can’t hear it any more we take the chance to run to hard cover in an abandoned building 100ft away.

From the shelter, we hear the drone again. It’s possible it returned after seeing our movement.

That Rodynske is being swarmed by Russian drones is evidence that the attacks are coming from positions much closer than known Russian positions to the south of Pokrovsk. They were most likely coming from newly captured territory on a key road running from the east of Pokrovsk to Kostyantynivka.

After half an hour of waiting in the shelter, when we can’t hear the drone anymore, we move quickly to our car parked under tree cover, and speed out of Rodynske. By the side of the highway we see smoke billowing and something burning – it’s most likely a downed drone.

We drive to Bilytske, further away from the frontline. We see a row of houses destroyed by a missile strike overnight. One of them was Svitlana’s home.

“It’s getting worse and worse. Earlier, we could hear distant explosions, they were far away. But now our town is getting targeted – we’re experiencing it ourselves,” says the 61-year-old, as she picks up a few belongings from the wreckage of her home. Luckily Svitlana wasn’t at home when the attack occurred.

“Go into the centre of the town, you’ll see so much that is destroyed there. And the bakery and zoo have been destroyed too,” she says.

At a safehouse just out of reach of drones, we meet soldiers of the artillery unit of the 5th Assault Brigade.

“You can feel the intensity of Russian assaults increasing. Rockets, mortars, drones, they’re using everything they have to cut off supply routes going into the city,” says Serhii.

His unit has been waiting for three days to deploy to their positions, waiting for cloud cover or high-speed winds to give them protection from drones.

In an ever-evolving conflict, soldiers have had to rapidly adapt to new threats posed by changing technology. And the latest threat comes from fibre optic drones. A spool of tens of kilometres of cable is fitted to the bottom of a drone and the physical fibre optic cord is attached to the controller held by the pilot.

“The video and control signal is transmitted to and from the drone through the cable, not through radio frequencies. This means it can’t be jammed by electronic interceptors,” says a soldier with the call sign Moderator, a drone engineer with the 68th Jaeger Brigade.

When drones began to be used in this war in a big way, both militaries fitted their vehicles with electronic warfare systems, which could neutralise drones. That protection has evaporated with the arrival of fibre optic drones, and in the deployment of these devices, Russia currently has the edge. Ukraine is trying to ramp up production.

“Russia started using fibre optic drones much before us, while we were still testing them. These drones can be used in places where we have to go lower than usual drones. We can even enter houses and look for targets inside,” says Venia, a drone pilot with the 68th Jaeger Brigade.

“We’ve started joking that maybe we should carry scissors to cut the cord,” says Serhii, the artillery man.

Fibre optic drones do have drawbacks – they are slower and the cable could get entangled in trees. But at the moment, their widespread use by Russia means that transporting soldiers to and from their positions can often be deadlier than the battlefield itself.

“When you enter a position, you don’t know whether you’ve been spotted or not. And if you have been spotted, then you may already be living the last hours of your life,” says Oles, Chief Sergeant of the reconnaissance unit of the 5th Assault Brigade.

This threat means that soldiers are spending longer and longer in their positions.

Oles and his men are in the infantry, serving in the trenches right at the very front of Ukraine’s defence. It’s rare for journalists these days to speak to infantrymen, as it’s become too risky to go to these trenches. We meet Oles and Maksym in a rural home converted into a makeshift base, where the soldiers come to rest when they’re not on deployment.

“The longest I spent at the position was 31 days, but I do know guys who have spent 90 and even 120 days there. Back before the drones arrived, the rotations could have been between 3 or 7 days at the position,” says Maksym.

“War is blood, death, wet mud and a chill that spreads from head to toe. And this is how you spend every day. I remember one instance when we didn’t sleep for three days, alert every minute. The Russians kept coming at us wave after wave. Even a minor lapse would have meant we were dead.”

Oles says Russia’s infantry has changed its tactics. “Earlier they attacked in groups. Now they only send one or two people at times. They also use motorcycles and in a few instances, quad bikes. Sometimes they slip through.”

What this means is that the front lines in some parts are no longer conventional lines with the Ukrainians on one side and the Russians on the other, but more like pieces on a chessboard during play, where positions can be intertwined.

This also makes it harder to see advances made by either side.

Despite Russia’s recent gains, it will not be quick or easy for it to take the whole of the Donetsk region, where Pokrovsk lies.

Ukraine has pushed back hard, but it needs a steady supply of weapons and ammunition to sustain the fight.

And as the war enters a fourth summer, Ukraine’s manpower issues against a much bigger Russian army are also evident. Most of the soldiers we meet joined the military after the war began. They’ve had a few months of training, but have had to learn a lot on the job in the middle of a raging war.

Maksym worked for a drinks company before he joined the military. I asked how his family copes with his job.

“It’s hard, it’s really hard. My family really supports me. But I have a two-year-old son, and I don’t get to see him much. I do video call him though, so everything is as fine as it could be under the circumstances,” he trails off, eyes welling up with tears.

Maksym is a soldier fighting for his country, but he’s also just a father missing his two-year-old boy.

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.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that he is “not happy about certain aspects” of the bill while at the same time being “thrilled” about some aspects, such as tax cuts.

“It’s the big, beautiful bill,” he said. “And it’s beautiful because of all the things we have.”

When asked, Trump did not directly comment on Musk’s remarks.

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 Swiss village of Blatten has been partially destroyed after a huge chunk of glacier crashed down into the valley.

Although the village had been evacuated some days ago because of fears the Birch glacier was disintegrating, one person has been reported missing, and many homes have been completely flattened.

Blatten’s mayor, Matthias Bellwald, said “the unimaginable has happened” but promised the village still had a future.

Local authorities have requested support from the Swiss army’s disaster relief unit and members of the Swiss government are on their way to the scene.

The disaster that has befallen Blatten is the worst nightmare for communities across the Alps.

The village’s 300 inhabitants had to leave their homes on 19 May after geologists monitoring the area warned that the glacier appeared unstable. Now many of them may never be able to return.

Appearing to fight back tears, Bellwald said: “We have lost our village, but not our heart. We will support each other and console each other. After a long night, it will be morning again.”

The Swiss government has already promised funding to make sure residents can stay, if not in the village itself, at least in the locality.

However, Raphaël Mayoraz, head of the regional office for Natural Hazards, warned that further evacuations in the areas close to Blatten might be necessary.

Climate change is causing the glaciers – frozen rivers of ice – to melt faster and faster, and the permafrost, often described as the glue that holds the high mountains together, is also thawing.

Drone footage showed a large section of the Birch glacier collapsing at about 15:30 (14:30 BST) on Wednesday. The avalanche of mud that swept over Blatten sounded like a deafening roar, as it swept down into the valley leaving an enormous cloud of dust.

Glaciologists monitoring the thaw have warned for years that some alpine towns and villages could be at risk, and Blatten is not even the first to be evacuated.

In eastern Switzerland, residents of the village of Brienz were evacuated two years ago because the mountainside above them was crumbling.

Since then, they have only been permitted to return for short periods.

In 2017, eight hikers were killed, and many homes destroyed, when the biggest landslide in over a century came down close to the village of Bondo.

The most recent report into the condition of Switzerland’s glaciers suggested they could all be gone within a century, if global temperatures could not be kept within a rise of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, agreed ten years ago by almost 200 countries under the Paris climate accord.

Many climate scientists suggest that target has already been missed, meaning the glacier thaw will continue to accelerate, increasing the risk of flooding and landslides, and threatening more communities like Blatten.

Prosecutors have confirmed for the first time the full list of 21 charges Andrew and Tristan Tate will face when they are returned to the UK, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.

The Crown Prosecution Service said that it had authorised the charges against the brothers in 2024, before an extradition warrant was issued to bring them back from Romania.

The two British-Americans are under investigation in Romania, facing a number of charges, which they deny – and the CPS said “the domestic criminal matters in Romania must be settled first”.

The CPS’s charging decision came after it received a file of evidence from Bedfordshire Police about allegations made in the UK.

The CPS said Andrew Tate, a 38-year-old influencer and former kickboxer, faces 10 charges connected to three alleged victims, including rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain.

Tristan Tate, 36, faces 11 charges connected to one alleged victim, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.

The pair were both born in the US but moved to Luton in the UK with their mother after their parents divorced.

In recent years, Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist, has built a massive online presence, including more than 10 million followers on X, sharing his lifestyle of fast cars, private jets, and yachts.

He and his brother were first arrested in Romania in December 2022, with Andrew accused of rape and human trafficking and Tristan suspected of human trafficking.

They both denied the charges and spent several months under house arrest. A year and a half later, in August 2024, they faced new allegations in Romania including sex with a minor and trafficking underage persons, all of which they deny.

Separately, the pair were detained in Bucharest in March 2024 after Bedfordshire Police said it had obtained an arrest warrant in relation to allegations of rape and trafficking.

According to the brothers’ legal representatives, the UK allegations dated back to between 2012 and 2015. At the time of the arrest warrant, the Tates said they “categorically reject all charges” and were “very innocent men”.

A Romanian court ruled that they could be extradited to the UK only once the separate proceedings against them in Romania concluded.

They were then released from custody. Prosecutors unexpectedly lifted a two-year travel ban earlier this year, after which the brothers travelled from Romania to the US state of Florida by private jet in February 2025.

They returned to Romania in March 2025, telling reporters that “innocent men don’t run from anything”.

The brothers say they registered with Bucharest authorities in a legal formality to demonstrate their compliance with an ongoing criminal investigation. Andrew did not say whether he would remain in Romania, but vowed to clear his name there and in the UK.

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.

Joel Le Scouarnec, the former surgeon who has admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients, mostly children, between 1989 and 2014 has been sentenced to a maximum term of 20 years in jail.

Le Scouarnec was dressed in black as he stood emotionless in court listening to judge Aude Burési deliver the verdict. In March, he admitted sexually abusing all 299 victims.

Judge Burési said the court had taken into account the fact that the former surgeon had especially sought out unwell, vulnerable and sedated victims.

The sentence has a mandatory minimum term of two-thirds – and because Le Scouarnec has already served seven years, he may be eligible for parole by 2030.

Amélie Lévêque, one of Le Scouarnec’s victims, said: “To think one day he could walk down the street, see people – that upsets me. We [the victims] no longer have a normal life while they’re giving him back that life, and that disgusts me.”

“Twenty years is little compared to the number of victims in this trial,” said Francesca Satta, a lawyer for some of the victims. “It is time for the law to change so we can have more appropriate sentences.”

His lawyer Maxime Tessier said Le Scouarnec had no intention of appealing.

Le Scouarnec, 74, has been dubbed France’s most prolific paedophile. He is already in jail after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.

The former doctor has been on trial in Brittany since late February.

During that time dozens of his victims have testified, telling the court how the abuse they sustained as children shaped their lives.

In March, Le Scouarnec admitted sexually abusing all of his victims, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations.

He kept diaries in which he described the assaults in graphic detail, which allowed police to track down his victims – many of whom had no memory of the abuse they suffered while in Le Scouarnec’s care.

Earlier this month he also said he was “responsible” for the deaths of two victims whose relatives say died by suicide, following the trauma of being sexually assaulted by Le Scouarnec when they were children.

The grandparents of one of them, Mathis Vinet, who died four years ago, told the BBC about the “descent into hell” experienced by his grandson when police revealed to him that his name appeared in one of the diaries.

“I can no longer look at myself the same way because I am a paedophile and a child rapist,” Le Scouarnec said during his last statements to the court last week.

“Many things have been said. I don’t necessarily remember everything now. It will no doubt come back to me when I’m in my cell, but what I’ve witnessed [in court] is the suffering for which I am responsible,” he said.

He added he neither wanted or expected to be given any leniency.

The trial has sparked fury that Le Scouarnec got away with the abuse for over fifteen years, and that he was allowed to continue to treat children despite a conviction in 2005 for downloading paedophile images.

The Victims of Joel Le Scouarnec Collective group lamented that the trial had failed to capture the attention of politicians and society at large.

“No lesson has been drawn from this, neither from the medical world nor from politicians,” the group said in a statement. Several victims held a protest in front of the courthouse ahead of the verdict being delivered on Wednesday afternoon.

Catherine, the mother of a victim, said on the day of the verdict that it was the first time she had seen so many journalists covering the trial and added that she felt the victims had been forgotten.

“It’s a pity but my hope is that now our message can be passed on. Not for the generation that has been hurt but for my grandchildren,” she said, adding that she hoped institutions would “react”.

Le Scouarnec, who was present in court every day of the 14-week trial, repeatedly apologised for his “revolting” acts.

Many of his victims were left unimpressed with his demeanour. “His words are always the same, in the same tone, I don’t see any sincerity in them,” Louis-Marie, 35, told the BBC. “The only thing I hope is that he doesn’t do any more harm to society… that he stays locked up.”

“I never saw tears running down his cheeks,” said another victim named Manon Lemoine.

But Maxime Tessier, Le Scouarnec’s lawyer, said he believed his client had been sincere. “He was very moved during this trial… It was very important for him to confess as he did. It was a moment of truth and justice.”

Mr Tessier also pointed the finger at the medical establishment, which civil parties have accused of not doing more to stop Le Scouarnec’s from practicing medicine even when rumours of his paedophilia were circulating widely.

“No one acknowledged responsibility, whereas all the victims said it’s not only a man who did that – but also the system which let him do it,” he told the BBC.

The National Order of Doctors (Cnom), which has also filed a lawsuit against Le Scouranec, said in March that it “expressed its deep regrets” as the former surgeon should have been “prevented from practicing”.

“This situation has highlighted poor communication between the different entities of the Order of Doctors, and we deeply regret this,” they said in a statement.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he wants his country to join a major European plan to bolster defences by 1 July.

Speaking to CBC on Tuesday, Carney said he hoped Canada would sign on to ReArm Europe – a plan to dramatically increase defence spending on the continent to in the next five years – in a bid to reduce reliance on the US.

“Seventy-five cents of every (Canadian) dollar of capital spending for defence goes to the United States. That’s not smart,” Carney told the public broadcaster.

His remarks come amid tension with the US after threats from President Donald Trump – though Carney has also previously said he is open to joining a missile defence project proposed by Trump.

A day after Carney’s remarks, Canada’s defence minister told a military trade show that his country wanted to quickly boost defence capacity in the face of growing global threats.

“The global security environment is today volatile and uncertain,” said defence minister David McGuinty on Wednesday, citing Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as a more assertive China.

McGuinty said there would be a future focus on the Arctic, where competing nations were challenging Canada’s sovereignty.

Defence also featured on Tuesday in the Speech from the Throne – an event that opened the new parliament and outlined the sitting government’s agenda.

The address was read in person by King Charles III, Canada’s monarch, as part of a royal visit that was designed to highlight Canada’s identity and sovereignty.

The speech contained commitments to “rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting” in Canada’s military.

It also outlined the government’s goal of strengthening defence relationships with European allies, and made mention of joining the ReArm Europe plan.

• Canada ‘strong and free’ and other takeaways from King’s throne speech
• King’s Canadian speech doesn’t mention you-know-who

The remarks by Canadian officials come after Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said he expected members of his Western defence alliance – including Canada – to grow their annual defence spending to a level equivalent to 5% of each nation’s GDP.

The Nato target was previously 2% of GDP, but Rutte said members must prepare to defend themselves from increasingly powerful adversaries like Russia and China.

“Russia has teamed up with China, North Korea and Iran,” Rutte told a Nato forum in the US on Monday. “They are expanding their militaries and their capabilities. They are preparing for long-term confrontation.”

The plan to increase Nato’s spending target still has to be approved by member-country leaders, who are set to meet in the Netherlands in late June.

Canada has long faced pressure for failing to meet Nato targets, and was accused last year by US House Speaker Mike Johnson of “riding on America’s coattails”.

Canadian business leaders have also called on their government to majorly boost spending in the defence industry, touting this as a way to boost the economy.

In Wednesday’s remarks, McGuinty told defence industry representatives that Carney’s government would prioritise procuring military technology and equipment from Canadian companies.

Last week, Carney said that “high-level” talks were also taking place with the US about joining Trump’s Golden Dome missile defence system. The King’s throne speech noted that Canada wanted to continue talks with the US on security on trade.

The US president posted on his Truth Social network later on Tuesday evening that the Golden Dome project would cost Canada US$61bn “if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation.”

“But will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State,” he added, repeating his often-repeated view that Canada should be absorbed by the US. “They are considering the offer!” he claimed.

In response, Carney’s office said in a statement that the prime minister “has been clear at every opportunity, including in his conversations with President Trump, that Canada is an independent, sovereign nation, and it will remain one”.

Meanwhile, Canada’s UN ambassador reposted the US president’s comment on X with the response: “In another context this would called a ‘protection racket’.”

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 “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.

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.

“We have recently installed a new system at some stores which helps customers using self-service checkouts identify if an item has not been scanned properly, making the checkout process quicker and easier,” a Tesco spokesperson said.

The supermarket did not say which stores or how many stores the new system was in.

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.

Police have been given extra time to question a man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a car ploughed into football fans during Liverpool’s Premier League victory parade.

Seven people remain in hospital from a total of 79 casualties struck by the Ford Galaxy on Water Street in the city centre shortly after 18:00 BST on Monday.

Merseyside Police said it had been given more time to question a 53-year-old man from West Derby, who was also detained on suspicion of dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drugs.

The force said the car had followed an ambulance through a road block, which had been lifted to allow medics to reach someone having a suspected heart attack.

Police said they had now spoken to 14 more people who had been injured after reporting 65 were hurt at a news conference on Tuesday.

Officers confirmed they had been granted further time to continue questioning the suspect until Thursday.

• Live page recap: Liverpool police continue to question suspect

Under laws around the detention of suspects, police forces can keep a person in custody for 24 hours without charge, while a senior officer of at least superintendent rank can sign off on an initial 12-hour extension.

After that, an application can be made to a magistrates’ court for further 12-hour extensions to a maximum of 96 hours – or 14 days if the offence is terrorism related.

Within two hours of the suspect’s arrest, the force confirmed he was a “white British male” and said the incident was not being treated as terror related.

The Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visited Merseyside Police headquarters earlier.

He met with Deputy Chief Constable Chris Green, Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims, Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell and Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram at the force’s base on Rose Hill, Liverpool.

At the start of the meeting, the prime minister said: “The scenes on Monday were just awful, to see how incredible joy at an amazing achievement turned to horror in a moment.

“Steve, the mayor, has been keeping me informed and updated, along with my team, but it’s really important to be here to go through this first-hand with you, so thank you for making time and ensuring that I get to see the detail in the way that I’d like to.”

Earlier 54-year-old Peter Cunningham, from Huyton in Merseyside, spoke out after his picture was circulated on social media by people falsely claiming he was the suspect.

“I’m in work – the police need to give the name out because I’m getting accused”, he told the BBC.

Merseyside Police urged people not to speculate and reiterated that the only suspect in custody was a 53-year-old man from the West Derby area of Liverpool.

• Liverpool parade crash: How not to get caught out by fake news

Water Street reopened earlier after cordon was lifted and the aftermath of the parade and the incident was cleaned up overnight.

One survivor, Daniel Eveson from Telford in Shropshire, said his partner was dragged under the wheels of the car and his baby son’s pram was tossed down the street.

“I saw a gentleman on the bonnet and the rest was just chaos,” he told BBC Radio Shropshire.

“It was hard because I didn’t know where anyone was or what to do,” he said.

“A lot of people were angry and I saw the car getting smashed.”

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

Their baby was now as “good as gold”, he said, while his partner remained in hospital and was waiting to hear whether she could return home.

“It was the day it was meant to be to start off with, it was perfect,” he said, but added “under the sea of chaos it changed to the worst day of my life”.

Det Supt Rachel Wilson said on Thursday: “I’m pleased to say the number of people in hospital is reducing as they continue to recover from the awful incident.

“We continue to support those still receiving treatment and as part of our ongoing enquiries we are identifying more people who were injured.”

She said detectives were making “significant progress” in establishing the full circumstances that led to what happened.

Officers are carrying out a trawl of CCTV inquiries across the city to establish the movements of the Ford Galaxy before the incident took place.

Some flowers and cards with well wishes have been left as a reminder of the events which unfolded.

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