US President Donald Trump has accused China of violating a truce on tariffs struck earlier this month, a claim China has responded to with its own accusations of US wrongdoing.

Washington and Beijing agreed to temporarily lower tit-for-tat tariffs after talks in Geneva.

But Trump said on Friday that China had “totally violated its agreement with us”. He did not give details but US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later said China had not been removing non-tariff barriers as agreed under the deal.

Beijing’s response on Friday did not address the US claims directly but urged the US to “cease discriminatory restrictions against China”.

The strong statements from both sides have raised concerns that trade tensions could again escalate between the world’s two largest economies despite recent negotiations.

Trump on Friday said in a Truth Social post that the tariffs his administration had imposed had been “devastating” for China and so he had “made a FAST DEAL” to save them from “what I thought was going to be a very bad situation”.

“Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!! The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”

He did not expand on his accusation, but Ambassador Greer later told TV network CNBC that China was yet to properly roll back other trade restrictions it had levied on the US.

Greer said when China responded to the US’s tariffs with its own, they also put in place countermeasures such as putting some US companies on blacklists and restricting exports of rare earth magnets, a critical component in cars, aircraft and semiconductors.

“They removed the tariff like we did but some of the countermeasures they’ve slowed on,” Ambassador Greer said.

He added the US had been closely watching China to make sure it would comply with the deal and they were “very concerned” with the progress.

“The United States did exactly what it was supposed to do and the Chinese are slow-rolling their compliance which is completely unacceptable and has to be addressed,” Greer said.

China responded on Friday urging the US to “immediately correct its erroneous actions, cease discriminatory restrictions against China and jointly uphold the consensus reached at the high-level talks in Geneva”.

A spokesman from its Washington embassy said China had recently “repeatedly raised concerns” with the US over its “abuse of export control measures in the semiconductor sector”. The US already has restrictions in place on technology exports to China, and on Wednesday paused more sales to China of chip technologies – crucial to semiconductors – and also paused exports of chemicals and machinery.

Pengyu Liu said both sides had maintained communication since the talks in Geneva on 11 May, which had ended on a positive note.

However on Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said trade talks with China had become “a bit stalled”.

Bessent told Fox News on Thursday: “I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require [leaders of both the countries] to weigh in with each other.”

Trump’s global tariff regime was dealt a blow on Wednesday following a ruling that he had exceeded his authority. His plans have been temporarily reinstated after the White House appealed the decision.

His administration this week also moved to “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying in the US, of which there are an estimated 280,000.

In Geneva, Washington and Beijing had agreed to reduce tariffs imposed on each other’s imports in a deal where both nations cancelled some tariffs altogether and suspended others for 90 days.

Bessent said talks on a further deal had lost momentum, but stressed they were continuing.

“I believe that we will be having more talks with [China] in the next few weeks and I believe we may at some point have a call between the president and [Chinese President Xi Jinping],” Bessent said on Thursday.

He added the pair had “a very good relationship” and he was “confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his preferences known”.

Under the deal struck earlier this month, the US lowered tariffs imposed on goods from China from 145% to 30%.

China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods dropped from 125% to 10%.

The US President has argued imposing tariffs on foreign goods would encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, bringing back manufacturing jobs while increasing the amount of tax revenue raised.

They have been used by the Trump administration as leverage in negotiations as it seeks to reduce trade deficits with other nations.

A delegation from Japan are continuing trade talks with their US counterparts in Washington on Friday.

Bessent said “a couple” of US trade deals were “very close”, but “a couple of them are more complicated”.

Trump’s tariff regime remains in the balance following the decision by the US Court of International Trade, which ruled that Trump had overstepped his power by imposing the duties.

Some analysts believe it will mean countries will be less likely to rush to secure trade deals with the US.

A federal appeals court has granted a bid from the White House to temporarily suspend the lower court’s order, which Trump described as “horrific”.

“Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country [sic] threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The last hospital providing health services in the North Gaza governorate is out of service after the Israeli military ordered its immediate evacuation, the hospital’s director has said.

Dr Mohammed Salha said patients were evacuated from al-Awda hospital in Jabalia on Thursday evening.

He told the BBC “we are feeling really bad about this forced evacuation” after “two weeks of siege”, saying there is now “no health facility working in the north”.

Israel has not yet commented, but the BBC has contacted the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

“We’re really sad that we evacuated the hospital, but the Israeli occupation forces threatened us that if we didn’t evacuate, they would enter and kill whoever is inside,” Dr Salha said in a voice note to the BBC.

“Or they would bomb the hospital. We were thinking of the lives of patients and our staff.”

Dr Salha told the BBC the hospital faced “a lot of bombing and shooting from the tanks” from around noon local time (09:00 GMT) on Thursday.

He received a call from the Israeli forces at about 13:00 to evacuate, and initially refused because there were patients in need of healthcare. He offered to stay with another 10 of his staff and evacuate the others, but the military refused, he said.

After seven hours of negotiations, the evacuation occurred at about 20:30.

Staff carried patients more than 300 metres (984 feet) to ambulances parked far away from the hospital “because the roads are totally destroyed”.

Two videos sent to the BBC by al-Awda hospital staff show people, some wearing vests with the hospital’s name on the back, boarding ambulances and a lorry to the east of the hospital courtyard at sunset, and a convoy of similar vehicles heading south through Jabalia after dark.

“Due to impassable roads” the hospital’s medical equipment could not be relocated, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

UN humanitarian agency OCHA said on Thursday “ongoing hostilities over the past two weeks have damaged the hospital, disrupted access, and created panic, deterring people from seeking care”.

Patients were evacuated to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Dr Salha told the BBC they would provide services through a primary health centre in Gaza City and said another might be established in a shelter.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said the closure of al-Awda meant there was no remaining functioning hospital in the North Gaza governorate, “severing a critical lifeline for the people there”.

“WHO pleads for the hospital’s protection and staff and patients’ safety, and reiterates its call for the active protection of civilians and healthcare,” he said. “Hospitals must never be attacked or militarized.”

The IDF had ordered evacuations of the areas of Al-Atatra, Jabalia Al-Balad, Shujaiya, Al-Daraj and Al-Zeitoun on Thursday evening, spokesperson Avichay Adraee said at the time on social media.

“Terrorist organisations continue their subversive activity in the region, and therefore the IDF will expand its offensive activity in the areas where you are present to destroy the capabilities of the terrorist organisations,” he said.

“From this moment on, the mentioned areas will be considered dangerous combat.”

Al-Awda hospital was inside an evacuation zone announced last week, but had still been functioning, its director previously said.

A statement from 18 charities on Thursday said the hospital was under military besiegement “for the fourth time since October 2023 and has been struck at least 28 times”.

The emergency room was hit, injuring four staff, and the desalination plant and storage unit also struck, leading to the loss of all medicine, supplies and equipment, the charities said.

The IDF told the BBC last week it was “operating in the area against terror targets”, but that it was “not aware of any siege on the hospital itself”.

Apart from hospitals, some primary healthcare centres are still operating in Gaza, with 61 out of 158 partially or fully functional as of 18 May, OCHA said.

Nine out of 27 UN Palestinian refugee agency health centres were also functioning.

OCHA did not report how many, if any, centres were in the north Gaza governorate.

Israel is continuing its bombardment of Gaza, which most Palestinians are not currently able to leave, after a two-month ceasefire earlier this year.

At least 72 people were killed over the past day, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Friday.

Israel began to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza last week, after a nearly three-month blockade halted the delivery of supplies including food, medicine, fuel and shelter.

Scenes of chaos have broken out at aid distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a US-and Israeli-backed group.

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

The secretary-general of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Christopher Lockyear, called the plan “ineffective” and said the most vulnerable have “virtually no chance” of accessing supplies.

GHF said it had distributed six truckloads of food on Friday and plans to build additional sites, including in northern Gaza, in the weeks ahead.

Israel said it imposed the blockade on Gaza to pressurise Hamas to release the remaining hostages, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive. It has also accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

A UN-backed assessment this month said Gaza’s 2.1 million people were at a “critical risk” of famine. The UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC people in the territory were being subjected to “forced starvation” by Israel.

On Friday, a spokesman from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, Jens Laerke, called Gaza “the hungriest place on earth”.

Israel is facing international pressure to allow in more aid.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday “we will have to harden our collective position” if Israel does not do more “in the coming hours and days”.

Israel’s foreign ministry hit back on social media, saying “there is no humanitarian blockade” and accused Macron of continuing a “crusade against the Jewish state”.

Some protesters in Israel tried to block aid trucks from entering Gaza, with one saying aid should not be allowed until Hamas returns the hostages and accepts a US-proposed ceasefire.

A Hamas official said the group was “undertaking a thorough and responsible review” of the proposal, but it “fails to meet” their demands.

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

At least 54,321 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 4,058 since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March, according to the health ministry.

India’s economy grew by 7.4% in the period between January and March – up from 6.2% the previous quarter and significantly beating analyst expectations.

However, growth for full 2024-25 year, which runs between April and March, is pegged at 6.5% – the slowest in four years.

The country’s central bank – the Reserve Bank of India – meets later in June and is expected to cut rates for the third time in a row to boost growth.

India remains the world’s fastest growing major economy, although growth has sharply dropped from the 9.2% high recorded in financial year 2023-24.

Asia’s third-largest economy benefitted from strong farm activity, steady public spending and improved rural demand in the last financial year, even as manufacturing and new investments by private companies remained weak.

While rural growth has improved on account of a strong winter harvest, it is not nearly enough to offset continuing weakness in urban consumption, which has flagged due to high unemployment and lower wages.

India’s growth engine remains heavily dependent on the government’s infrastructure spending on roads, ports and highways, in the absence of significant improvement in private investment.

Going forward, domestic growth should benefit from government’s income tax cuts announced in the federal budget, as well as “monetary easing, expectations of an above normal monsoon and lower food inflation”, Aditi Nayar, an economist with the ratings agency Icra, said.

But ongoing global uncertainties, including US President Donald Trump’s trade war, are expected to weigh on export demand.

India is currently negotiating a trade-agreement with the United States which is officially expected to conclude by fall. Trump slapped tariffs of up to 27% on Indian goods in April – and a 90-day pause on these ends on 9 July.

Economists expect GDP growth in the ongoing financial year 2025-26 to further slow to 6% on the back of these global slowdown worries which could delay new private capital spending on projects.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects global growth to drop to 2.8% in 2025 and 3% in 2026.

Data from Icra earlier showed private sector expenditure, as part of overall investments in India’s economy, fell to a 10-year low of 33% in the last financial year.

Net foreign direct investment (FDI) into India – at $0.35bn in 2024-25 – also fell to the lowest level in two decades, as rising outward foreign investment and repatriations by Indian companies, neutralised inward investment.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been attempting to position India as a manufacturing hub for global companies.

While companies like Apple indicated recently that it was shifting most of its production of iPhones headed to the US from China to India, trade analysts have cautioned that such manufacturing investment could yet stall, with the US and China agreeing to roll-back tariffs earlier this month.

Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy awards for her role on the popular comedy TV series MASH, died on Friday, according to her representative.

She died at her home in New York at the age of 87, the BBC’s news partner CBS reported, citing a statement from her representative. She likely died of natural causes, although a coroner’s report is pending.

On MASH, Swit played the Army nurse Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. The series, which followed the fortunes of a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War, ran for 11 seasons from 1974 to 1983.

Swit was nominated for numerous awards, and appeared in nearly every episode of the series, including the finale which attracted a record 106m US viewers.

Xiao Chen turned up at the US Consulate in Shanghai on Thursday morning, hours after Washington announced that it would “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students.

The 22-year-old had a visa appointment: she was headed to Michigan in the autumn to study communications.

After a “pleasant” conversation, she was told her application had been rejected. She was not given a reason.

“I feel like a drifting duckweed tossed in wind and storm,” she said, using a common Chinese expression to describe feeling both uncertain and helpless.

She had been hopeful because she already had the acceptance letter. And she thought she had narrowly escaped the bombshells in recent days.

First, Donald Trump’s administration moved to end Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students, a move that has since been blocked in court. And then it said it had stopped visa appointments for all foreign students.

But now, Chen is ready for plan B. “If I can’t get the visa eventually, I’ll probably take a gap year. Then I’ll wait to see if things will get better next year.”

A valid visa may still not be enough, she adds, because students with visas could be “stopped at the airport and deported”.

“It’s bad for every Chinese student. The only difference is how bad.”

It has been a bleak week for international students in the US – and perhaps even harder for the 280,000 or so Chinese students who would have noticed that their country has been singled out.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of “co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the move against Chinese students in the US would include “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields”.

That could hit a wide swathe of them given membership of the Communist Party is common among officials, entrepreneurs, business people and even artists and celebrities in China.

Beijing has called it a “politically motivated and discriminatory action”, and its foreign ministry has lodged a formal protest.

There was a time when China sent the highest number of foreign students to American campuses. But those numbers slipped as the relationship between the two countries soured.

A more powerful and increasingly assertive Beijing is now clashing with Washington for supremacy in just about everything, from trade to tech.

Trump’s first term had already spelled trouble for Chinese students. He signed an order in 2020 barring Chinese students and researchers with ties to Beijing’s military from obtaining US visas.

That order remained in place during President Joe Biden’s term. Washington never clarified what constitutes “ties” to the military, so many students had their visas revoked or were turned away at US borders, sometimes without a proper explanation.

One of them, who did not wish to be named, said his visa was cancelled by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) when he landed in Boston in August 2023.

He had been accepted into a post-doctoral program at Harvard University. He was going to study regenerative medicine with a focus on breast cancer, and had done his master’s degree from a military-affiliated research institution in China.

He said he was not a member of the Communist Party and his research had nothing to do with the military.

“They asked me what the relationship was between my research and China’s defence affairs,” he told the BBC then. “I said, how could breast cancer have anything to do with national defence? If you know, please tell me.”

He believes he never stood a chance because the officials had already made up their minds. He recalled one of them asking: “Did Xi Jinping buy your suitcase for you?”

What was surprising, or even shocking then, slowly turned normal as more and more Chinese students struggled to secure visas or admissions to study science and technology in US universities.

Mr Cao, a psychology major whose research involves neuroscience, has spent the past school year applying for PhD programs in the US.

He had graduated from top-tier universities – credentials that could send him to an Ivy League school. But of the more than 10 universities he applied to, only one extended an offer.

Trump’s cuts to biomedical research didn’t help, but the mistrust surrounding Chinese researchers was also a factor. Allegations and rumours of espionage, especially in sensitive subjects, have loomed over Chinese nationals at US universities in recent years, even derailing some careers.

“One of the professors even told me, ‘We rarely give offers to Chinese students these days, so I cannot give you an interview,” Mr Cao told the BBC in February.

“I feel like I am just a grain of sand under the wheel of time. There is nothing I can do.”

For those who did graduate from US colleges, returning home to China has not been easy either.

They used to be lauded as a bridge to the rest of the world. Now, they find that their once-coveted degrees don’t draw the same reaction.

Chen Jian, who did not want to use his real name, said he quickly realised that his undergraduate degree from a US college had become an obstacle.

When he first came back in 2020, he interned at a state-owned bank and asked a supervisor if there was a chance to stay on.

The supervisor didn’t say it outright, but Chen got the message: “Employees should have local degrees. People like me (with overseas degrees) won’t even get a response.”

He later realised that “there really weren’t any colleagues with overseas undergraduate background in the department”.

He went back to the US and did his master’s at Johns Hopkins University, and now works at Chinese tech giant Baidu.

But despite the degree from a prestigious American university, Mr Chen does not feel he has an edge because of the stiff competition from graduates in China.

What also has not helped is the suspicion around foreign graduates. Beijing has ramped up warnings of foreign spies, telling civilians to be on the lookout for suspicious figures.

In April, prominent Chinese businesswoman Dong Mingzhu told shareholders in a closed-door meeting that her company, home appliance maker Gree Electric, will “never” recruit Chinese people educated overseas “because among them are spies”.

“I don’t know who is and who isn’t,” Ms Dong said, in comments that were leaked and went viral online.

Days later, the CIA released promotional videos encouraging Chinese officials dissatisfied with the government to become spies and provide classified information. “Your destiny is in your own hands,” the video said.

The suspicion of foreigners as the US and China pull further away from each other is a surprising turn for many Chinese people who remember growing up in a very different country.

Zhang Ni, who also did not want to use her real name, says she was “very shocked” by Ms Dong’s remarks.

The 24-year-old is a recent journalism graduate from Columbia University in New York. She says she “doesn’t care about working at Gree”, but what surprised her was the shift in attitudes.

That so many Chinese companies “don’t like anything that might be associated with the international” is a huge contrast from what Ms Zhang grew up with – a childhood “filled with [conversations centred on] the Olympics and World Expo”.

“Whenever we saw foreigners, my mom would push me to go talk to them to practice my English,” she says.

That willingness to exchange ideas and learn from the outside world appears to be waning in China, according to many.

And America, once a place that drew so many young Chinese people, is no longer that welcoming.

Looking back, Ms Zhang can’t help but recall a joke her friend made at a farewell dinner before she left for the US.

Then a flippant comment, it now sums up the fear in both Washington and Beijing: “Don’t become a spy.”

Ukraine’s president has questioned Russia’s commitment to progressing peace talks after Moscow confirmed it was sending a team to talks in Istanbul on Monday.

Russia is yet to send its negotiating proposals to Ukraine – a key demand by Kyiv. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow’s conditions for a ceasefire would be discussed in Turkey.

But Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of “doing everything it can to ensure the next possible meeting is fruitless”.

“For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,” he said. Ukraine had sent its proposals to Russia, reaffirming “readiness for a full and unconditional ceasefire”.

The first round of talks two weeks ago in Istanbul brought no breakthrough, but achieved a prisoner of war swap.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia currently controls about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, including the southern Crimea peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014.

On Friday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha reiterated that Kyiv had already sent its own “vision of future steps” to Russia, adding Moscow “must accept an unconditional ceasefire” to pave the way for broader negotiations.

“We are interested in seeing these meetings continue because we want the war to end this year,” Sybiha said during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.

Putin and Zelensky are not expected to attend the talks on Monday.

But Fidan said Turkey was hoping to eventually host a high-level summit.

“We sincerely think it is time to bring President Trump, President Putin and President Zelensky to the table,” he said.

Peskov said Russia’s ceasefire proposals would not be made public, and Moscow would only entertain the idea of a high-level summit if meaningful progress was achieved in preliminary discussions between the two countries.

He welcomed comments made by Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, retired Gen Keith Kellogg, who described Russian concerns over Nato enlargement as “fair”.

Gen Kellogg said Ukraine joining the military alliance, long hoped for by Kyiv, was not on the table.

He added President Trump was “frustrated” by what he described as Russia’s intransigence, but emphasised the need to keep negotiations alive.

On 19 May, Trump and Putin had a two-hour phone call to discuss a US-proposed ceasefire deal to halt the fighting.

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

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

In a rare rebuke to Putin just days later, Trump called the Kremlin leader “absolutely crazy” and threatened US sanctions. His comments followed Moscow’s largest drone and missile attacks on Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told Zelensky that Berlin would help Kyiv produce long-range missiles to defend itself from future Russian attacks.

The Kremlin said any decision to end range restrictions on the missiles Ukraine could use would represent a dangerous change in policy that would harm efforts to bring an end to the war.

More than a thousand Indians have “come back or [been] deported” from the United States since January, India’s foreign ministry has said.

Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that around 62% of them came on commercial flights, without providing more details.

This comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s campaign against undocumented migrants to the US. Trump had earlier said that India “will do what’s right” on the deportation of illegal migrants.

In February, the US had deported more than hundred Indians on a US military flight, with reports saying some of them were brought back shackled.

“We have close cooperation between India and the United States on migration issues,” Mr Jaiswal said during the ministry’s weekly briefing, adding that India verifies nationalities before “we take them back”.

In total, the US is said to have identified about 18,000 Indian nationals it believes entered the country illegally.

Earlier this month, the US Embassy in India issued a warning that overstaying in the US could lead to deportation or a permanent ban on entry in the country, even for those who entered legally.

Mr Jaiswal also spoke about the Trump administration’s updated policy on student visas which is likely to impact Indian students planning to enrol in US universities.

The US had announced on Thursday that it had halted the scheduling of new visa interviews for foreign students as it considered expanding the screening of their social media activities.

“While we note that issuance of a visa is a sovereign function, we hope that the application of Indian students will be considered on merit, and they will be able to join their academic programs on time,” Mr Jaiswal said.

Mr Jaiswal also said that 330,000 Indians students had gone to the US for studies in 2023-24 – which makes India the largest source of international students in the country.

On Thursday, expanding its new visa policy, the US further announced that it was working to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields”.

Elon Musk’s time in the Trump administration has come to an end with a news conference in the Oval Office in which he and the US president defended the work of Doge – and vowed it would continue, even without Musk.

According to President Trump, Musk is “not really leaving” and will continue to be “back and forth” to the White House.

“It’s his baby,” Trump said of Musk’s work with Doge, short for the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk’s departure comes 130 days after Trump returned to office, the maximum allowable through his status as a “special government employee”.

Doge – which is an advisory body, rather than a formal government department – has the stated aim of slashing government spending, saving taxpayer money and reducing the US national debt, which stands at $36tn (£28.9tn).

Musk’s work with Doge, however, has come with considerable controversy, particularly after mass lay-offs across federal agencies and the elimination of most programmes run by USAID, the main US foreign aid organisation.

It also led to Musk’s companies coming under scrutiny, with global protests against Tesla and calls for boycotts. In turn, the company saw sales plummet to their lowest level in years.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump praised Musk, who he credited with “tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform programme in generations”.

• It’s Musk’s last day – what has he achieved at the White House?

Trump added that the “mindsets” of federal officials have changed as a result of Doge’s work to detect fraud and “slash waste”.

According to Doge’s website, it had saved the US government a total of $175bn as of 29 May.

A BBC analysis conducted in late April, however, found that only $61.5bn of that amount was itemised, and evidence of how the savings were achieved was available about $32.5bn of the total.

“He’s not really leaving,” Trump said of Musk. “He’s going to be back and forth…I think he’s going to be doing a lot of things.”

Musk, for his part, insisted that Doge will continue to “relentlessly” seek $1 trillion in reductions.

The meeting between the two men comes just days after an interview with CBS – the BBC’s US partner – in which Musk said he was “disappointed” in what Trump has referred to as his “big, beautiful” bill, which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending.

While Musk had previously said he believes that the bill “undermines” the work of Doge, he did not comment on it during the Oval Office meeting. Trump, though, delivered a lengthy defence of the “unbelievable” legislation that “does amazing things”.

“But there are two things I’d like to see,” Trump said. “Maybe cut a little bit more. I’d like to see a bigger cut in taxes.”

The news conference also took several turns, including when Musk was asked about a New York Times report this week that suggested he was using drugs heavily during Trump’s 2024 campaign.

After cutting off the reporter before he could finish the question, Musk responded by citing a recent judge’s decision that Trump can proceed with a defamation case against the Washington Post and New York Times for their reporting on alleged connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

“That New York Times?” Musk asked. “Let’s move on.”

Additionally, Musk was asked why he appeared to have a bruised eye.

“I wasn’t anywhere near France,” Musk replied, a reference to a recent incident between French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigette.

Musk said his injury by saying he had told his son, X Æ A-12 – known as X – to punch him.

“Turns out even a five-year-old-punching you in the fact actually does – that was X,” he said.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron warned the US and Europe risked losing their credibility and being accused of “double standards” if they do not resolve the wars in Ukraine and Gaza soon.

He also appealed to Asian countries to build a new alliance with Europe to ensure they do not become “collateral damage” in the struggle for power between the US and China.

Macron was speaking at the Shangri-la Dialogue, an annual high-level Asia defence summit held in Singapore.

Among the guests listening were US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as top military officials from the region.

Macron pointed out that if Russia could take Ukrainian territory “without any restrictions, without any constraints… what could happen in Taiwan? What will you do the day something happens in the Philippines?”

“What is at stake in Ukraine is our common credibility, that we are still able to preserve territorial integrity and sovereignty of people,” he said. “No double standards.”

Many in Asia worry of instability in the region should China attempt to forcibly “reunify” with Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. China has also increasingly clashed with the Philippines over competing claims in the South China Sea.

Macron later answered a question posed by the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner on Europe’s military role in Asia while a full-scale war was still raging on the continent.

“If both the US and Europeans are unable to fix in the short term the Ukrainian situation, I think the credibility of both the US and Europeans pretending to fix any crisis in this region would be very low,” the French leader said.

US President Donald Trump has put increasing pressure on both Russia and Ukraine’s leaders to end the war, and has appeared to give Vladimir Putin a two-week deadline. Trump has also previously berated Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and accused him of being “not ready for peace”.

Macron also made his point about double standards on the war in Gaza, acknowledging there was a perception the West has given a “free pass” to Israel.

He stressed the importance of working towards a ceasefire and mutual recognition of a Palestinian state, saying: “If we abandon Gaza, if we consider there is a free pass for Israel, even if we do condemn the terrorist attacks, we kill our own credibility in the rest of the world.”

In recent weeks, European leaders have criticised Israel’s attacks for exacerbating the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Macron has moved closer to signalling recognition of a Palestinian state. Next month, France will co-host with Saudi Arabia a conference at the UN aimed at laying out a roadmap for a two-state solution.

He has been fiercely criticised by Israel, with the foreign ministry on Friday saying: “Instead of applying pressure on the jihadist terrorists, Macron wants to reward them with a Palestinian state.”

Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also launched a blistering attack on Macron and the leaders of Canada and the UK, accusing them of effectively siding with Hamas and being “on the wrong side of humanity”.

Meanwhile the US has worked with Israel to table a ceasefire proposal to Hamas, while creating a much-criticised aid distribution model in Gaza.

Macron also used his speech on Friday to sell his vision of “strategic autonomy”, where countries protect their interests while also working closely together to uphold a rules-based global order not dominated by superpowers.

He touted France as an example of being friends with both the US and China while guarding its own sovereignty, and said this model could form the basis of a new alliance between Europe and Asia.

“We want to co-operate but we don’t want to depend… we don’t want to be instructed on a daily basis on what is allowed, what is not allowed and how our life can change because of a decision by a single person,” he said, in what appeared to be a veiled reference to Trump or Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He also made references to Trump’s global tariffs and allies’ uncertainty of the US’s security commitments, saying: “We cannot just remain seated and say… what do we do with tariffs, okay we are not so sure that we have the full-fledged guarantee in the existing alliance, what do we do?”

“We want to act, we want to preserve our stability and our peace and our prosperity,” he said, calling for a “positive new alliance between Europe and Asia” where they would ensure “our countries are not collateral damage of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers”.

He noted that both Europe and Asia’s challenges were increasingly intertwined, and referenced the Ukraine war again where North Korea has been aiding Russia’s efforts with thousands of its troops.

Macron said that in the past he had objected to the Western alliance Nato having a role in Asia, “because I don’t want to be involved with someone else’s strategic rivalry”.

“But what’s happening with North Korea being present alongside Russia on European soil is a big question for all of us,” he said.

“So this is why if China doesn’t want Nato involved in South-East Asia or Asia, they should prevent clearly [North Korea] from being engaged on European soil.”

Mathieu Duchatel, director of international studies at the Paris-based think tank Institut Montaigne, said Macron’s comments on credibility had “implied criticism of the US’s Middle East policy, and a direct call on the US to adjust its diplomacy towards Russia”.

Observers agree China would likely be angered by Macron’s speech, with Dr Duchatel noting the French leader’s comments on Taiwan were “the furthest he has gone” on the issue.

Some parts of Asia may welcome Macron’s message on strategic autonomy given their anxieties about choosing between the US and China, said Andrew Small, senior fellow of the Asia-Pacific programme of Washington-based think tank GMF.

“His argument is that most of the rest of the world does not want to be stuck with this dichotomy and wants to hold together some version of global order – that’s what a number of states in Asia would agree,” he said.

Among several European and Asian states, Dr Small said, there was “genuine concern about how China will interpret a Russian victory” in Ukraine, while “the Trump administration takes a different view and is trying to make the case that there is no read across”.

He added that Macron’s mention of the recognition of a Palestinian state – on which France has been leading European efforts – was to signal “we are moving on this”.

President Donald Trump’s administration can temporarily revoke the legal status of over 500,000 migrants living in the US, the US Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The ruling put on hold a previous federal judge’s order stopping the administration from ending the “parole” immigration programme, established by former President Joe Biden. The programme protected immigrants fleeing economic and political turmoil in their home countries.

The new order puts roughly 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela at risk of being deported.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, two of the court’s three liberal justices, dissented.

The parole programme allows immigrants temporary status to work and live in the US for two years because of “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit”, according to the US government.

The Trump administration had filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration from ending the programme, also known as CHNV humanitarian parole.

The White House “celebrated” the opportunity to deport 500,000 “invaders”, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told CNN. “The Supreme Court justly stepped in”.

In her dissent, Justice Jackson wrote that the court’s order would “have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims”.

On the day he took office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to get rid of parole programmes. Then, in March, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the end of CHNV humanitarian parole.

Several immigrants rights groups and migrants from the programme sued the Trump administration over the decision, arguing they could “face serious risks of danger, persecution and even death” if deported back to their home countries.

The ruling comes after the Supreme Court earlier this month allowed Trump officials to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) – a separate programme – for some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants living and working in the US.

Humanitarian parole programmes have been used for decades to allow immigrants fleeing war and other tumultuous conditions in their home countries to come to the US, including Cubans in the 1960s following the revolution.

The Biden administration also established a parole programme in 2022 for Ukrainians fleeing after Russia’s invasion.

Taylor Swift has bought back the rights to her first six albums, ending a long-running battle over the ownership of her music.

“All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me,” said the star, announcing the news on her official website. “I’ve been bursting into tears of joy… ever since I found out this is really happening.”

The saga began in June 2019, when music manager Scooter Braun bought Swift’s former record label Big Machine and, with it, all of the songs from Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation.

Swift had personal objections to the deal, blaming Braun for complicity in the “incessant, manipulative bullying” against her by Kanye West, one of his clients.

On her website, Swift said that reclaiming the rights to her music had, for a long time, seemed unimaginable.

“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she added, thanking fans for their support as the drama played out.

“I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.

“I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,” she wrote.

“But that’s all in the past now.”

In the music industry, the owner of a master recording controls the way it is distributed and licenced. The artist still earns royalties, but controlling the masters offers protection over how the work is used in future.

Swift responded to the original sale of her masters by vowing to re-record those records, effectively diminishing the value of those master tapes, and putting ownership back in her hands.

To date, she has released four re-recorded albums – known as “Taylor’s Versions” – with dozens of bonus tracks and supplementary material.

In her letter, the star told fans she had yet to complete the project, after “hitting a stopping point” while trying to remake 2017’s Reputation album – which dealt with public scrutiny of her private life, and the fall-out of her feud with Kanye West.

“The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life,” she explained. “All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposefully misunderstood…

“To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first six that I thought couldn’t be improved by re-doing it… so I kept putting it off.”

Last week, the star previewed the new version of Reputation’s first single, Look What You Made Me Do, in an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale – but her letter suggested that a full re-recording would be delayed or even scrapped.

However, she promised that vault tracks from the record would be released at a future date, if fans were “into the idea”.

She also confirmed that she had re-recorded her self-titled debut, adding: “I really love how it sounds now”.

“Those two albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right,” she added.

“But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”

As the name suggests, a master recording is the original recorded performance of a song. Whoever owns it controls all the rights to exploit the music.

That includes distributing it to streaming services, pressing new physical CDs and vinyl, creating box sets, or licensing songs to movies or video games.

Swift, as the writer or co-writer of her music, always maintained her publishing rights, which meant she was able to veto attempts to license songs like Shake It Off and Love Story to other companies.

“I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies. I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it,” she told Billboard in 2019.

It is not known how much it cost Swift to acquire her masters, but the catalogue previously sold for $300m (£222m) in 2020.

The BBC understands that rumours she paid between $600m to $1bn are inaccurately high.

When 14-year-old Taylor Swift moved to Nashville in 2004 to chase her dream of becoming a country pop star, she signed a record deal with Big Machine.

Label boss Scott Borchetta gave the unproven singer a big cash advance in exchange for having ownership of the master recordings to her first six albums “in perpetuity”.

This was fairly common practice in the era before streaming, when artists needed record label backing to get played on the radio, and for the manufacture and distribution of CDs.

Swift’s deal with Big Machine expired in 2018, at which point she left and signed with Republic Records and Universal Music Group (UMG).

A year later, Borchetta sold his label to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings.

Swift said she only learned about the deal when it was announced; characterising it as an act of aggression that “stripped me of my life’s work”.

She labelled Braun – who rose to prominence as the manager of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande – as “the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry”.

She also expressed frustration that she had been unable to make a counter offer for her music.

“I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity,” she told Billboard, adding that: “Artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.”

• Was Taylor Swift really banned from playing her hits?
• What is the Swift vs Braun dispute all about
• Taylor Swift’s Red: The stories behind the songs
• Taylor Swift releases a ‘perfect replica’ of Fearless

Braun later told Variety that the dispute had “gotten out of hand” after he and his family received death threats.

The music mogul later sold his stake in Swift’s back catalogue to Shamrock Holdings, a Los Angeles investment fund founded by the Disney family in 1978, in November 2020.

The multi-million dollar deal left Swift feeling betrayed again.

“This is the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge,” she said in a social media post.

While she was “open to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock”, she subsequently learnt that, under the terms of the sale, Braun would “continue to profit off my old music” for years.

“I simply cannot in good conscience bring myself to be involved in benefiting Scooter Braun’s interests,” she wrote in a letter to the company, which she posted on X.

She began releasing her re-recorded albums in 2021, starting with her breakthrough, coming-of-age album Fearless.

Produced with forensic attention to detail, they were often indistinguishable from the originals – albeit with slightly cleaner mixes, and greater separation between the instruments.

But the big attraction was the bonus tracks, including the unabridged, 10-minute version of her break-up ballad All Too Well – described by Variety magazine as the “holy grail” of the star’s back catalogue.

The song went on to top the US charts, and made number three in the UK – where it is the longest song ever to reach the top five.

In the meantime, the singer continued to release original material, including the Grammy Award-winning albums Folklore and Midnights.

In 2023, Forbes magazine reported that Swift had become the first musician to make $1 billion (£740 million) solely from songwriting and performing.

Half of her fortune came from music royalties and touring, while the rest came from the increasing value of her music catalogue, including her re-recordings.

Revisiting the old material also inspired Swift’s career-spanning Eras tour, which made more than $2 billion (£1.48 billion) in ticket sales across 2023 and 2024.

In her letter, Swift said the success of the Eras tour “is why I was able to buy back my music”.

She added that she was heartened to see her struggle inspiring other artists.

“Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen.

“Thank you being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion.

“You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted, and ended us up here.”

At least 110 people have died in floods caused by torrential rain in central Nigeria, officials have told the BBC.

The downpours lasted for several hours, said the head of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (Nsema), Abullahi Baba-Arah.

He added that “surging flood water submerged and washed away over 50 residential houses with their occupants” in the town of Mokwa.

The Nigerian government has expressed its “profound sorrow” over the floods, with the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, saying that security and emergency agencies have been directed to assist in the search and rescue operation.

According to Nsema, the Tiffin Maza and Anguwan Hausawa districts of Mokwa were worst affected.

Mokwa’s District Head, Muhammad Shaba Aliyu, said it has been “60 years” since the community had suffered this kind of flooding.

“I beg the government to support us,” Mr Aliyu said.

The search and rescue operation is still ongoing and many more people are still at risk, authorities say.

A local fisherman told the AFP news agency that he had been left homeless.

“I don’t have a house to sleep in. My house has already collapsed,” Danjuma Shaba said.

Nigeria often experiences flooding during the rainy season, which usually lasts from April to October.

The authorities have warned of heavy downpours in at least 15 of the country’s 36 states.

Last year, many parts of northern Nigeria experienced heavy rainfall and flooding which caused deaths, displacement of people and destruction of houses and infrastructure.

The country also suffered severe flooding in 2022, which forced around 1.3 million people out of the homes and caused more than 600 deaths.

• Nigeria’s floods and drought worsening food insecurity
• Songs and testimonies from a drowning world
• Nigeria floods: ‘I have nowhere to go’

The French scientist who created the abortion pill has died at the age of 98.

Étienne-Émile Baulieu helped develop the oral drug RU-486, also known as mifepristone, which has provided millions of women across the world with a safe and inexpensive alternative to a surgical abortion.

Dr Baulieu died at his home in Paris on Friday, his widow confirmed in a statement.

Simone Harari Baulieu said: “His research was guided by his commitment to progress through science, his dedication to women’s freedom and his desire to enable everyone to live better and longer lives.”

French President Emmanuel Macron called Dr Baulieu “a beacon of courage” and “a progressive mind who enabled women to win their freedom”.

“Few French people have changed the world to such an extent,” he added in a post on X.

Aurore Bergé, France’s gender equality minister, said Dr Baulieu “was guided throughout his life by one requirement: that of human dignity” in a post on X.

Dr Baulieu was born Étienne Blum on 12 December 1926 in Strasbourg. He changed his name to join the French resistance against the Nazi occupation when he was 15.

Following his graduation, he travelled to the United States where he worked with the man known as the father of the contraceptive pill, Dr Gregory Pincus. Dr Pincus advised him on focusing on sex hormones.

Back in France, Dr Baulieu designed a method to block the effect of the hormone progesterone – which is essential for the egg to implant in the uterus following fertilisation.

While the abortion pill was developed within 10 years, Dr Baulieu spent decades pushing international governments to authorise the drug despite facing fierce criticism and sometimes threats from opponents of abortion.

The approval for sale of the pill in 1988 sparked backlash, both in Europe and the United States, where to this day it remains a point of contention between pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners.

While use of the drug has been approved in over 100 countries globally, access to mifepristone is still heavily regulated or restricted in the US and several other countries.

In recent years, some anti-abortion campaigners have also promoted claims that abortion medication – cast as “chemical abortion” – ineffective and dangerous, despite medical authorities consistently saying it is safe for use.

Since its approval in 2000, the US Food and Drug Administration has reported a total of 26 deaths associated with mifepristone – a rate of about 0.65 deaths per 100,000 medication abortions.

For comparison, the death rate associated with habitual aspirin use is about 15.3 deaths per 100,000 aspirin users.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) added mifepristone to its list of essential medication in 2010.

Upon Wyoming becoming the first US state to ban the abortion pill in 2023, Dr Baulieu noted he had spent a large part of his life trying to increase “the freedom of women”, adding such bans were a step in the wrong direction.

His recent research included trying to find a way to prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as a treatment for severe depression.

French President Macron presented Dr Baulieu with the Grand Cross of the Legion d’Honneur in 2023 saying: “You, a Jew and a member of the resistance, were heaped with the most atrocious insults and compared to Nazi scientists.

“But you held firm, out of love for freedom and science.”

China does not want to go to war with anyone, especially the US.

But Beijing does have aspirations to be the number one economic power in the world.

And that means flexing its muscles to rid the seas around East and South East Asia of their US military presence, so it can dominate the shipping lanes so vital for global trade.

By building up its nuclear and conventional arsenals, China aims to show the US that times have changed and that it’s too dangerous a power to challenge.

The US has long had the upper hand in the Asia-Pacific – with tens of thousands of troops based in Japan and South Korea, alongside several military bases.

Trump’s administration has clearly focused its energy on countering China – by initiating a trade war and seeking to strengthen alliances with Asian nations.

The Shangri-La Dialogue has historically been the setting for top-level encounters between the US and China – an arena for the superpowers to set out their vision for security in the region.

And it’s opening again in Singapore on Friday. Here’s what we can expect from the three-day event:

The growing struggle for dominance between the US and China is undoubtedly the biggest issue in Asia-Pacific security.

Gone are the days when China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was characterised by outdated weaponry and rigid Maoist doctrine. Today it is a formidable force deploying state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles and fifth-generation warplanes like the J20.

Its navy has the largest number of warships in the world, outstripping the United States.

While China lags far behind the US and Russia in its number of nuclear warheads, it is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal, with missiles that can travel up to 15,000km, putting the continental US easily within range.

The US Navy’s formidable 7th Fleet, based in Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo, can no longer claim to have guaranteed naval supremacy in the region.

China’s array of Dong Feng missiles and swarms of explosive drones would make any approach to its shores extremely hazardous for US warships.

Ultimately, Beijing is believed to be working to “push” the US military out of the western Pacific.

Taiwan is a liberal, self-governing, pro-Western island democracy that China’s President Xi Jinping has vowed to “take back” by force if necessary.

It has an economic importance well beyond its geographic small size. It manufactures more than 90% of the world’s high-end microchips, the all-important semi-conductors that power so much of our tech.

Recent opinion polls have made clear that a majority of Taiwanese people do not want to be ruled by Beijing, but Xi has made this a key policy aim.

The US has done much to help Taiwan bolster its defences but the key question of whether Washington would go to war with China over Taiwan has always been shrouded in something called “strategic ambiguity”, i.e. keeping Beijing guessing.

On more than one occasion President Biden indicated the US would respond militarily in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. But the return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office has brought back a degree of uncertainty.

There are also major concerns in the region over China’s attempts to turn the entire South China Sea into what some have called a “Chinese lake”.

The PLA Navy has established military bases on reefs, many artificially dredged, across the strategically important South China Sea, an area through which an estimated $3 trillion’s worth of maritime trade passes annually.

Today China deploys a vast, industrial fishing fleet across the South China Sea, backed by its fleet of coastguard ships and warships. These vessels clash frequently with Filipino fishermen, fishing close to their own country’s shores.

China frequently challenges planes and ships transiting the South China Sea, warning them they are entering Chinese territory without permission, when the rest of the world considers this to be international waters.

Donald Trump, when asked during his first presidency if North Korea could ever develop nuclear missiles that could reach the continental United States, vowed “it’s never going to happen”. But it has.

In what amounts to a serious CIA intelligence failure, Pyongyang has demonstrated that it now possesses both the nuclear know-how and the means to deliver those warheads across the Pacific Ocean.

Successive US presidencies have failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and this isolated, economically backward yet militarily powerful nation is thought to have at least 20 nuclear warheads.

It also has an enormous, well-armed army, some of which its autocratic leader Kim Jong Un has sent to help Russia fight Ukraine.

Defence analysts are still dissecting the recent, brief but alarming conflict between these two nuclear-armed neighbours. India’s military far outnumbers Pakistan’s and yet the latter was allegedly able to land an embarrassing blow against India’s air force, when Pakistan’s Chinese-made J10-C jets went up against India’s advanced, French-made Rafales.

Pakistan reportedly shot down at least one of the Indian warplanes, using Chinese-made PL-15 air-to-air missiles. The reports were denied in India’s media.

China’s assistance to Pakistan in the conflict has reportedly been critical to Islamabad, including repositioning its satellites to provide it with real-time intelligence.

Both India and Pakistan are expected to make high-level addresses at the Shangri-La Dialogue this weekend while the US and others will be looking for ways to prevent a repeat of their clash over Kashmir.

All of this is happening in a dramatically changed US context.

Donald Trump’s sudden imposition of trade tariffs, while eventually modified, has caused many in the region to rethink their reliance on Washington. Would an ally that is prepared to inflict so much economic pain on its friends really come to their aid if they were attacked?

China has been quick to capitalise on the confusion. It reached out to neighbours such as Vietnam – a country it went to war with in 1979 – to point out the People’s Republic represented stability and continuity in an unstable world.

Under the previous US administration, Washington signed up to a multi-billion dollar trilateral partnership between the US, UK and Australia under the acronym of Aukus.

It aims to not only build Canberra’s next generation of submarines but to guarantee freedom of navigation across the South China Sea using intelligence and naval force deployed by the three nations.

President Trump, when asked in February about his commitment to the Aukus pact, appeared not to recognise the term, asking in reply: “What does that mean?”

But early this Saturday morning the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth will be addressing the Shangri-La Dialogue, potentially offering some clarity on Aukus as well as how the US plans to work with, and quite possibly against, China’s interests across the Asia-Pacific region.

Elon Musk’s time in the Trump administration is coming to an end after a tempestuous 129 days in which the world’s richest man took an axe to government spending – stirring ample controversy along the way.

Earlier this week, the South African-born billionaire, on his social media platform, X, thanked President Trump for his time at the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge.

Trump announced he will host a news conference in the Oval Office on Friday with Musk, writing: “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way.”

While Musk’s time in government lasted little more than four months, his work with Doge upended the federal government and had an impact not just in the halls of power in Washington – but around the world.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways Musk has left a mark.

Musk took a job with the Trump White House with one mission: to cut spending from the government as much as possible.

He began with an initial target of “at least $2 trillion”, which then shifted to $1tn and ultimately $150bn.

To date, Doge claims to have saved $175bn through a combination of asset sales, lease and grant cancellations, “fraud and improper payment deletion”, regulatory savings and a 260,000-person reduction from the 2.3 million-strong federal workforce.

A BBC analysis of those figures, however, found that evidence is sometimes lacking.

This mission has at times caused both chaos and controversy, including some instances in which federal judges halted mass firings and ordered employees reinstated.

In other instances, the administration has been forced to backtrack on firings.

In one notable instance in February, the administration stopped the firing of hundreds of federal employees working at the National Nuclear Security Administration, including some with sensitive jobs related to the US nuclear arsenal.

Musk himself repeatedly acknowledged that mass firings would inevitably include mistakes.

“We will make mistakes,” he said in February, after his department mistook a region of Mozambique for Hamas-controlled Gaza while cutting an aid programme. “But we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes.”

Doge’s efforts to access data also garnered controversy, particularly the department’s push for access to sensitive treasury department systems that control the private information of millions of Americans.

Polls show that cuts to government spending remain popular with many Americans – even if Musk’s personal popularity has waned.

The presence of Musk – an unelected “special government employee” with companies that count the US government as customers – in Trump’s White House has also raised eyebrows, prompting questions about potential conflicts of interest.

His corporate empire includes large companies that do business with US and foreign governments. SpaceX has $22 billion in US government contracts, according to the company’s chief executive.

Some Democrats also accused Musk of taking advantage of his position to drum up business abroad for his satellite internet services firm, Starlink.

The White House was accused of helping Musk’s businesses by showcasing vehicles made by Tesla – his embattled car company – on the White House lawn in March.

Musk and Trump have both shrugged off any suggestion that his work with the government is conflicted or ethically problematic.

Around the world, Musk’s work with Doge was most felt after the vast majority – over 80% – of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) programmes were eliminated following a six-week review by Doge. The rest were absorbed by the State Department.

The Musk and Doge-led cuts formed part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to bring overseas spending closer in line with its “America First” approach.

The cuts to the agency – tasked with work such as famine detection, vaccinations and food aid in conflict areas – quickly had an impact on projects including communal kitchens in war-torn Sudan, scholarships for young Afghan women who fled the Taliban and clinics for transgender people in India.

USAID also was a crucial instrument of US “soft power” around the world, leading some detractors pointing to its elimination as a sign of waning American influence on the global stage.

While Musk – and Trump – have for years been accused by detractors of spreading baseless conspiracy theories, Musk’s presence in the White House starkly highlighted how misinformation has crept into discourse at the highest levels of the US government.

For example, Musk spread an unfounded internet theory that US gold reserves had quietly been stolen from Fort Knox in Kentucky. At one point, he floated the idea of livestreaming a visit there to ensure the gold was secured.

• Fact-checking Trump’s Oval Office confrontation with Ramaphosa

More recently, Musk spread widely discredited rumours that the white Afrikaner population of South Africa is facing “genocide” in their home country.

Those rumours found their way into the Oval Office earlier in May, when a meeting aimed at soothing tensions between the US and South Africa took a drastic twist after Trump presented South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with videos and articles he said were evidence of crimes against Afrikaners.

Musk’s work in government also showed that, despite public pledges of unity, there are tensions within the “Trump 2.0” administration.

While Trump publicly – and repeatedly – backed the work of Musk and Doge, Musk’s tenure was marked by reports of tension between him and members of the cabinet who felt Doge cuts were impacting their agencies.

“They have a lot of respect for Elon and that he’s doing this, and some disagree a little bit,” Trump acknowledged in a February cabinet meeting. “If they aren’t, I want them to speak up.”

At one point, he was asked whether any cabinet members had expressed dissatisfaction with Musk and turned to the room to ask them. No one spoke.

The announcement of Musk’s departure also came the same day that CBS – the BBC’s US partner – publicised part of an interview during which Musk said he was “disappointed” by Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill. The bill includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending.

Musk said the bill “undermines” the work of Doge to cut spending – reflecting larger tensions within the Republican Party over the path forward.

This week saw Elon Musk part ways with the White House, Gary Lineker present his final Match of the Day, and the world of television pay tribute to former BBC presenter and executive Alan Yentob.

But how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world?

Quiz collated by Ben Fell.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week’s quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

A woman who travelled across the South West Coastal Path with her terminally ill husband has said a film depicting their journey took her “right back” to those difficult moments.

Raynor Winn, a writer who grew up on a farm in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, said a financial dispute meant she had lost her dream home in Wales in 2013 just days after her husband Moth was diagnosed with Corticobasal Degeneration, a rare brain disease.

With nothing to lose, the couple set off on a 630-mile trek from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.

Their journey across England’s largest uninterrupted path has now been made into a film – The Salt Path – featuring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

“As we were preparing to leave the house, and the bailiffs were knocking at the door, we were hiding under the stairs. We were not ready to go,” Mrs Winn said.

“It was in those last moments that I saw a book about someone who had walked the coastal path with their dog.

“In that desperate time, it just seemed like the most obvious thing to do. All we wanted to do was pack our bags and take a walk.”

Five years on from the adventure, in 2018, Mrs Winn released her memoir entitled The Salt Path.

It received nationwide acclaim and was shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Prize, an award that celebrates travel-based writing.

She said: “We had nowhere to go. We knew that when we stepped out of the door, we were going to be homeless.

“Moth’s illness had no treatment, or no cure. I was drawn to following a line on the map. It gave us a purpose, and that’s what it was all about.”

Just a few months after her book was published, Mrs Winn said she was approached by a producer and filming of The Salt Path started in the summer of 2023.

“It makes no sense. I remember the day we met. There was a knock at the door, and there was Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs outside.

“They told me to put the kettle on. That’s not what is supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray,” she said.

Mrs Winn – who continues to fundraise alongside her husband for research into his illness – said the film had taken her “straight back to those emotions that were so difficult”.

“The producer and director have created something that’s sparse in dialogue.

“It’s huge in emotion and it urges anyone to focus on the now. Just focus on now and all will turn out differently tomorrow,” she said.

A suspect wanted for the murder of a South African university student has been killed in a shootout with police.

The man had been linked to the death of Olorato Mongale, whose body was found in Johannesburg on Sunday, about two hours after she was reported missing having gone on a date.

In the early hours of Friday morning, police officers found the main suspect hiding at a residential complex in the coastal town of Amanzimtoti, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said.

The suspect, who has not been named by the police, shot at the officers, who returned fire and killed him, Brigadier Mathe added.

Regional police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said that at the time of the suspect’s death, he had 28 ID cards and a dozen mobile phones in his possession.

After hearing of the fatal shootout, Chriselda Kananda, a spokesperson for Ms Mongale’s family, told South African broadcaster SABC News: “It is quite a relief for the family that justice for Olorato, before we even lay her body to rest, would have been served.”

Ms Mongale’s death has sparked a fierce debate about the levels of violence faced by women in South Africa.

The country has one of the highest rates of femicide and gender-based violence in the world.

In an impassioned statement, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu called Ms Mongale’s killing “inhumane” and “gruesome”, adding: “To all men, this is a plea – simple, urgent, and human: Please, stop killing women.”

While continuing the search for two other men allegedly linked to the murder, the police took the parents of the deceased suspect into custody.

The suspect’s mother is accused of enabling him to “evade arrest” by tipping him off about the police’s presence at her house.

The police also said the suspect’s father is the owner of a VW Polo allegedly used in Ms Mongale’s murder.

The vehicle, which has been seized by the police, had traces of blood inside it, Brig Mathe said.

The suspect’s parents were questioned in custody but have now been released, said commissioner Mkhwanazi.

Earlier this week, the police named the three suspects linked to the killing as Fezile Ngubane, Philangenkosi Sibongokuhle Makhanya and Bongani Mthimkhulu.

Two of them – Mr Makhanya and Mr Mthimkhulu – were last month arrested for kidnapping and robbing a woman in KwaZulu-Natal, using the same VW Polo involved in Ms Mongale’s murder, police said. Both men had been freed on bail.

As part of their investigation into the killing, the police have identified a criminal gang or “syndicate” who have been targeting women in malls “for kidnapping and robbery”, said police spokesperson Mathe.

“They propose them, request to take them out on a date. When they agree, that is when they plan to rob them,” she added.

When Ms Mongale was last seen on Sunday, she was on a date with a man she had met a few days earlier at a shopping centre.

CCTV footage showed her leaving a location in Kew, Johannesburg, and walking towards a white VW Polo with fake licence plates.

The 30-year-old’s friends said she was invited for a date by a man only identified as John, who she had met in Johannesburg, where she was studying for a postgraduate degree at Witwatersrand University.

She texted one of her friends shortly before leaving home, saying that she was excited and getting ready for her date.

But police later found her body in an open field, sparking public outrage and calls for justice.

The family spokesperson said Ms Mongale’s body had been “brutally violated”.

A candlelight vigil was held on Wednesday evening in Lombardy West, at the site where her body was found.

Family and friends have described her as an outspoken, bubbly woman who “lived with purpose and love”, local media reported.

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The mother of a British-Egyptian activist imprisoned in Cairo has been admitted to hospital for the second time, a week after resuming a full hunger strike to campaign for his release, her family says.

Laila Soueif, 69, the mother of Alaa Abdel Fattah, was taken to Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London on Thursday with dangerously low blood sugar and blood pressure. She is refusing glucose treatment.

She began consuming only tea, coffee and rehydration salts in September.

She moved to a partial strike in February, consuming 300 calories a day, after she was admitted to hospital for the first time and the British prime minister said he had “pressed” Egypt’s president to free her son.

Despite having lost more than 40% of her original body weight, Ms Soueif announced on 20 May that she had decided to return to a zero-calorie diet because “nothing has changed, nothing is happening”.

Two days later, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he had again pressed Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi for the urgent release of her son, and “underlined how important it is to him to bring an end to the anguish Alaa and his family have faced”.

Alaa Abdel Fattah is also on his 91st day of his own hunger strike – consuming nothing but herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts, like his mother, at Wadi al-Natrun prison in Egypt, according to the family.

The 43-year-old blogger and pro-democracy activist is one of Egypt’s best known political prisoners.

He was arrested in September 2019, six months after finishing a previous five-year sentence.

He was convicted in 2021 of “spreading false news”, for sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egypt.

He should have been released on 29 September 2024 – the day Mrs Soueif started her hunger strike. However, the Egyptian authorities refused to count the more than two years he spent in pre-trial detention towards his time served.

Although he acquired British citizenship in 2021, Egypt has never allowed him a consular visit by British diplomats.

In a statement issued on Friday, Mrs Soueif’s family said her blood sugar levels had “dropped to a shocking new low of 1.1 mmol/L” overnight.

The levels rose to 2.7 mmol/L after she was given glucagon – a natural hormone used to treat severe hypoglycaemia – but quickly dropped back down to 1.4 mmol/L, they added.

Her daughter, Mona Seif, wrote on X: “No-one here comprehends the numbers, that she is still conscious and adamantly refusing medical intervention.”

Eilidh Macpherson of Amnesty International UK said: “It should never have come to this. Alaa is a prisoner of conscience, he shouldn’t have spent a single minute behind bars, and his mother shouldn’t have had to spend a minute on hunger strike to campaign for his release.

“The UK government must use all of the tools at its disposal to step up the pressure on President Sisi to release Alaa, including through further direct calls.”

On Wednesday, a UN panel of independent human rights experts said in a legal opinion that Alaa Abdel Fattah’s detention was arbitrary and illegal under international law, and called for his immediate release, his lawyer said.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) determined that he was arbitrarily arrested for exercising his right to freedom of expression, was not given a fair trial and continued to be detained for his political opinions.

According to the panel, the Egyptian government said he was afforded “all fair trial rights” and that his sentence would be completed in January 2027.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary is on track to pocket bonuses worth more than €100m in what could reportedly mark one of the biggest pay-outs in European corporate history.

It comes after shares in the budget airline closed above €21 (£17.65) for a 28th consecutive day on Thursday, meeting a key performance target.

Mr O’Leary will have the option to receive 10 million shares worth some €111.2m (£93.3m) providing he stays with the airline until the end of July 2028.

The Irish boss, known for his punchy comments, said earlier this month that Ryanair was “delivering exceptional value” to shareholders despite it reporting a fall in full-year profits.

“I think Ryanair shareholders are getting a particular value out of our share options – both mine and the rest of the management team,” he said in response to being asked about the share option on an analyst call earlier this month.

“We’re delivering exceptional value for Ryanair shareholders in an era when premiership footballers or the managers are getting paid 20 to 25 million a year.”

Ryanair said in a statement that the share price aspect of the bonus was “on only one of two conditions”, adding: “The second condition is that Michael and the rest of the management team must remain employed by Ryanair until the end of July 2028, so these share options won’t vest for another three years yet.”

Mr O’Leary has indicated that he could stay on longer at the airline when his current contract expires in 2028. He has been with Ryanair since 1988.

Since becoming chief executive in 1994, He has spearheaded the airline’s sharp trajectory from a relatively small regional airline into a Europe’s largest low-cost carrier.

“There’ll have to be some discussion I presume with the board as to how my remuneration will be fixed from 2028 onwards, if they want me to stay on after 2028,” he said.

The long-term incentive scheme for Mr O’Leary was first set out in 2019, the year he became group chief executive.

But the High Pay Centre, a think tank which tracks executives’ pay, criticised the bonus, saying “regardless of how successful a business or how effective the company’s leader is, no-one individual’s contribution can ever be great enough to be worth a €100m bonus”.

A statement added: “This is especially true when most of Ryanair’s employees – who also play a crucial role in the company’s success – are unlikely to earn more than a fraction of that across their whole working lives.”

Low-cost rival carrier, Wizz Air has a similar potential pay deal in place for its chief executive József Váradi.

Mr Váradi stands to earn £100m if his airline’s share price hits £120 by 2028. But Wizz Air has previously conceded that this was unlikely to be met with the shares trading well below that level.

Earlier this month, Ryanair ordered some flight attendants in Spain to repay salary increases following a legal dispute with their union.

The attorney general has said he regrets “clumsy” remarks in which he compared calls for the UK to depart from international law and arguments made in 1930s Germany.

In a speech on Thursday, Lord Hermer criticised politicians who argue the UK should abandon “the constraints of international law in favour of raw power”.

He said similar claims had been made by legal theorists in Germany in the years before the Nazis came to power.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused him of “calling people who disagree with him Nazis,” and urged the prime minister to sack him.

A spokesperson for Lord Hermer said he rejected “the characterisation of his speech by the Conservatives”.

But they added the Labour peer “acknowledges though that his choice of words was clumsy and regrets having used this reference”.

They added that the speech was aimed at “defending international law which underpins our security, protects against threats from aggressive states like Russia and helps tackle organised immigration crime”.

In a speech at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, Lord Hermer said the Labour government wanted to combine a “pragmatic approach to the UK’s national interests with a principled commitment to a rules-based international order”.

He said the approach was “a rejection of the siren song that can sadly now be heard in the Palace of Westminster, and in some spectrums of the media, that Britain abandons the constraints of international law in favour of raw power”.

Lord Hermer added: “This is not a new song.

“The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law.

“Because of the experience of what followed in 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law, as well as internal constitutional law.”

Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933.

Carl Schmitt, a German legal scholar, was a supporter of the Nazi Party who sought to justify Hitler’s policies in his writings on legal and political theory.

The Conservatives and Reform UK have been critical of some elements of international law and the courts that enforce it.

For example, some politicians from these parties have called for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), an international treaty which sets out the rights and freedoms people are entitled to in signatory countries, including the UK.

Critics of the ECHR say it hampers the UK’s ability to deal with migration issues, including deporting people who cross the English Channel on small boats.

Badenoch, who has previously suggested the UK would have to leave the ECHR if it stops the country from doing “what is right”, said Lord Hermer had shown “appalling judgement” in his speech.

“Now he’s calling people who disagree with him Nazis,” she added.

“This isn’t just embarrassing, it’s dangerous. Hermer doesn’t understand government.

“If Keir Starmer had any backbone, he’d sack him.”

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice said Lord Hermer should apologise.

“If anyone on the right of politics used his language, there would be outrage,” Tice posted on social media.

“He has shown himself as unfit to be attorney general.”

Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty to charges of rape, sexual assault and indecent assault at a court hearing in London.

The broadcaster, comedian and actor appeared at Southwark Crown Court, where he formally denied the five charges for the first time.

He faces one allegation of rape, one of indecent assault, one of oral rape and two further counts of sexual assault. The offences are alleged to have taken place in central London and Bournemouth between 1999 and 2005, and relate to four women.

The 49-year-old will now face a trial, which is scheduled to begin on 3 June 2026.

Brand is accused of oral rape and sexual assault against one of the women in July 2004, and is accused of raping another woman in 1999.

He is also charged with indecently assaulting a woman by grabbing her arm and dragging her towards a male toilet in 2001, and with sexually assaulting a different woman by kissing and groping her in 2004 or 2005.

Mr Brand did not speak to reporters and looked straight ahead as he entered the court building wearing a dark suit and unbuttoned shirt.

He stood in the glass dock as he spoke to confirm his name, and replied “not guilty” after each of the counts were put to him.

He then put his sunglasses back on as he walked out of the dock, thanking the usher as he left.

Leaving the building shortly afterwards, he was flanked by security guards as he walked past photographers and camera crews to a waiting car.

The media personality and influencer, of Hambleden, Buckinghamshire, will remain on conditional bail until the trial.

A pre-trial review has been scheduled for 20 May 2026.

After being charged in April, he released a video saying he was not a rapist and had never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity.

“I’m now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court and I’m incredibly grateful for that,” he told followers at the time.

Mr Brand, who was born in Essex, rose to fame as a stand-up comedian and became a household name as host of TV shows like Big Brother’s Big Mouth, and with his own radio programmes on stations including BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music.

He went on to establish a Hollywood career, starring in films like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek.

Bernard Kerik, New York City’s former police commissioner during the 11 September 2001 attacks, has died aged 69.

His death was confirmed by FBI Director Kash Patel, who said the former police officer died Thursday after a “private battle with illness.”

Kerik oversaw the police response to the deadliest terrorist attack in US history, and was later appointed by former US President George Bush as head of a provisional police force in Iraq.

He pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud in 2009 and served three years in prison, though he was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2020.

Those who paid tribute to Kerik include former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was in office when Kerik served as commissioner of the NYPD, and current mayor Eric Adams.

“We’ve been together since the beginning. He’s like my brother,” Giuiliani said Thursday on his show.

“I was a better man for having known Bernie,” Giuiliani said. “I certainly was a braver and stronger man.”

Adams, who had been friends with Kerik for nearly 30 years, said he had visited him in hospital before his death.

“He was with his loved ones who are in my prayers tonight,” Adams said in a statement. “He was a great New Yorker and American.”

Kerik, a former army veteran and a decorated law enforcement officer, rose up the ranks through his career, and was nearly tapped to run the Department of Homeland Security under Bush in 2004 before he abruptly withdrew his nomination.

In 2009, Kerik pleaded guilty to federal charges after he was accused of lying to investigators about interest-free loans he received from an Israeli billionaire and a New York real estate magnet while he was in public office.

He was granted a full pardon by Trump in 2020, and later joined Giuiliani’s efforts to overturn Trump’s election loss that same year.

US President Donald Trump has accused China of violating a truce on tariffs struck earlier this month, a claim China has responded to with its own accusations of US wrongdoing.

Washington and Beijing agreed to temporarily lower tit-for-tat tariffs after talks in Geneva.

But Trump said on Friday that China had “totally violated its agreement with us”. He did not give details but US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later said China had not been removing non-tariff barriers as agreed under the deal.

Beijing’s response on Friday did not address the US claims directly but urged the US to “cease discriminatory restrictions against China”.

The strong statements from both sides have raised concerns that trade tensions could again escalate between the world’s two largest economies despite recent negotiations.

Trump on Friday said in a Truth Social post that the tariffs his administration had imposed had been “devastating” for China and so he had “made a FAST DEAL” to save them from “what I thought was going to be a very bad situation”.

“Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!! The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”

He did not expand on his accusation, but Ambassador Greer later told TV network CNBC that China was yet to properly roll back other trade restrictions it had levied on the US.

Greer said when China responded to the US’s tariffs with its own, they also put in place countermeasures such as putting some US companies on blacklists and restricting exports of rare earth magnets, a critical component in cars, aircraft and semiconductors.

“They removed the tariff like we did but some of the countermeasures they’ve slowed on,” Ambassador Greer said.

He added the US had been closely watching China to make sure it would comply with the deal and they were “very concerned” with the progress.

“The United States did exactly what it was supposed to do and the Chinese are slow-rolling their compliance which is completely unacceptable and has to be addressed,” Greer said.

China responded on Friday urging the US to “immediately correct its erroneous actions, cease discriminatory restrictions against China and jointly uphold the consensus reached at the high-level talks in Geneva”.

A spokesman from its Washington embassy said China had recently “repeatedly raised concerns” with the US over its “abuse of export control measures in the semiconductor sector”. The US already has restrictions in place on technology exports to China, and on Wednesday paused more sales to China of chip technologies – crucial to semiconductors – and also paused exports of chemicals and machinery.

Pengyu Liu said both sides had maintained communication since the talks in Geneva on 11 May, which had ended on a positive note.

However on Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said trade talks with China had become “a bit stalled”.

Bessent told Fox News on Thursday: “I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require [leaders of both the countries] to weigh in with each other.”

Trump’s global tariff regime was dealt a blow on Wednesday following a ruling that he had exceeded his authority. His plans have been temporarily reinstated after the White House appealed the decision.

His administration this week also moved to “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying in the US, of which there are an estimated 280,000.

In Geneva, Washington and Beijing had agreed to reduce tariffs imposed on each other’s imports in a deal where both nations cancelled some tariffs altogether and suspended others for 90 days.

Bessent said talks on a further deal had lost momentum, but stressed they were continuing.

“I believe that we will be having more talks with [China] in the next few weeks and I believe we may at some point have a call between the president and [Chinese President Xi Jinping],” Bessent said on Thursday.

He added the pair had “a very good relationship” and he was “confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his preferences known”.

Under the deal struck earlier this month, the US lowered tariffs imposed on goods from China from 145% to 30%.

China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods dropped from 125% to 10%.

The US President has argued imposing tariffs on foreign goods would encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, bringing back manufacturing jobs while increasing the amount of tax revenue raised.

They have been used by the Trump administration as leverage in negotiations as it seeks to reduce trade deficits with other nations.

A delegation from Japan are continuing trade talks with their US counterparts in Washington on Friday.

Bessent said “a couple” of US trade deals were “very close”, but “a couple of them are more complicated”.

Trump’s tariff regime remains in the balance following the decision by the US Court of International Trade, which ruled that Trump had overstepped his power by imposing the duties.

Some analysts believe it will mean countries will be less likely to rush to secure trade deals with the US.

A federal appeals court has granted a bid from the White House to temporarily suspend the lower court’s order, which Trump described as “horrific”.

“Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country [sic] threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

President Donald Trump’s administration can temporarily revoke the legal status of over 500,000 migrants living in the US, the US Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The ruling put on hold a previous federal judge’s order stopping the administration from ending the “parole” immigration programme, established by former President Joe Biden. The programme protected immigrants fleeing economic and political turmoil in their home countries.

The new order puts roughly 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela at risk of being deported.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, two of the court’s three liberal justices, dissented.

The parole programme allows immigrants temporary status to work and live in the US for two years because of “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit”, according to the US government.

The Trump administration had filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration from ending the programme, also known as CHNV humanitarian parole.

The White House “celebrated” the opportunity to deport 500,000 “invaders”, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told CNN. “The Supreme Court justly stepped in”.

In her dissent, Justice Jackson wrote that the court’s order would “have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims”.

On the day he took office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to get rid of parole programmes. Then, in March, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the end of CHNV humanitarian parole.

Several immigrants rights groups and migrants from the programme sued the Trump administration over the decision, arguing they could “face serious risks of danger, persecution and even death” if deported back to their home countries.

The ruling comes after the Supreme Court earlier this month allowed Trump officials to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) – a separate programme – for some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants living and working in the US.

Humanitarian parole programmes have been used for decades to allow immigrants fleeing war and other tumultuous conditions in their home countries to come to the US, including Cubans in the 1960s following the revolution.

The Biden administration also established a parole programme in 2022 for Ukrainians fleeing after Russia’s invasion.

Taylor Swift has bought back the rights to her first six albums, ending a long-running battle over the ownership of her music.

“All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me,” said the star, announcing the news on her official website. “I’ve been bursting into tears of joy… ever since I found out this is really happening.”

The saga began in June 2019, when music manager Scooter Braun bought Swift’s former record label Big Machine and, with it, all of the songs from Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation.

Swift had personal objections to the deal, blaming Braun for complicity in the “incessant, manipulative bullying” against her by Kanye West, one of his clients.

On her website, Swift said that reclaiming the rights to her music had, for a long time, seemed unimaginable.

“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she added, thanking fans for their support as the drama played out.

“I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.

“I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,” she wrote.

“But that’s all in the past now.”

In the music industry, the owner of a master recording controls the way it is distributed and licenced. The artist still earns royalties, but controlling the masters offers protection over how the work is used in future.

Swift responded to the original sale of her masters by vowing to re-record those records, effectively diminishing the value of those master tapes, and putting ownership back in her hands.

To date, she has released four re-recorded albums – known as “Taylor’s Versions” – with dozens of bonus tracks and supplementary material.

In her letter, the star told fans she had yet to complete the project, after “hitting a stopping point” while trying to remake 2017’s Reputation album – which dealt with public scrutiny of her private life, and the fall-out of her feud with Kanye West.

“The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life,” she explained. “All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposefully misunderstood…

“To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first six that I thought couldn’t be improved by re-doing it… so I kept putting it off.”

Last week, the star previewed the new version of Reputation’s first single, Look What You Made Me Do, in an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale – but her letter suggested that a full re-recording would be delayed or even scrapped.

However, she promised that vault tracks from the record would be released at a future date, if fans were “into the idea”.

She also confirmed that she had re-recorded her self-titled debut, adding: “I really love how it sounds now”.

“Those two albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right,” she added.

“But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”

As the name suggests, a master recording is the original recorded performance of a song. Whoever owns it controls all the rights to exploit the music.

That includes distributing it to streaming services, pressing new physical CDs and vinyl, creating box sets, or licensing songs to movies or video games.

Swift, as the writer or co-writer of her music, always maintained her publishing rights, which meant she was able to veto attempts to license songs like Shake It Off and Love Story to other companies.

“I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies. I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it,” she told Billboard in 2019.

It is not known how much it cost Swift to acquire her masters, but the catalogue previously sold for $300m (£222m) in 2020.

The BBC understands that rumours she paid between $600m to $1bn are inaccurately high.

When 14-year-old Taylor Swift moved to Nashville in 2004 to chase her dream of becoming a country pop star, she signed a record deal with Big Machine.

Label boss Scott Borchetta gave the unproven singer a big cash advance in exchange for having ownership of the master recordings to her first six albums “in perpetuity”.

This was fairly common practice in the era before streaming, when artists needed record label backing to get played on the radio, and for the manufacture and distribution of CDs.

Swift’s deal with Big Machine expired in 2018, at which point she left and signed with Republic Records and Universal Music Group (UMG).

A year later, Borchetta sold his label to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings.

Swift said she only learned about the deal when it was announced; characterising it as an act of aggression that “stripped me of my life’s work”.

She labelled Braun – who rose to prominence as the manager of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande – as “the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry”.

She also expressed frustration that she had been unable to make a counter offer for her music.

“I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity,” she told Billboard, adding that: “Artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.”

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Braun later told Variety that the dispute had “gotten out of hand” after he and his family received death threats.

The music mogul later sold his stake in Swift’s back catalogue to Shamrock Holdings, a Los Angeles investment fund founded by the Disney family in 1978, in November 2020.

The multi-million dollar deal left Swift feeling betrayed again.

“This is the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge,” she said in a social media post.

While she was “open to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock”, she subsequently learnt that, under the terms of the sale, Braun would “continue to profit off my old music” for years.

“I simply cannot in good conscience bring myself to be involved in benefiting Scooter Braun’s interests,” she wrote in a letter to the company, which she posted on X.

She began releasing her re-recorded albums in 2021, starting with her breakthrough, coming-of-age album Fearless.

Produced with forensic attention to detail, they were often indistinguishable from the originals – albeit with slightly cleaner mixes, and greater separation between the instruments.

But the big attraction was the bonus tracks, including the unabridged, 10-minute version of her break-up ballad All Too Well – described by Variety magazine as the “holy grail” of the star’s back catalogue.

The song went on to top the US charts, and made number three in the UK – where it is the longest song ever to reach the top five.

In the meantime, the singer continued to release original material, including the Grammy Award-winning albums Folklore and Midnights.

In 2023, Forbes magazine reported that Swift had become the first musician to make $1 billion (£740 million) solely from songwriting and performing.

Half of her fortune came from music royalties and touring, while the rest came from the increasing value of her music catalogue, including her re-recordings.

Revisiting the old material also inspired Swift’s career-spanning Eras tour, which made more than $2 billion (£1.48 billion) in ticket sales across 2023 and 2024.

In her letter, Swift said the success of the Eras tour “is why I was able to buy back my music”.

She added that she was heartened to see her struggle inspiring other artists.

“Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen.

“Thank you being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion.

“You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted, and ended us up here.”

Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy awards for her role on the popular comedy TV series M*A*S*H, died on Friday, according to her representative.

She died at her home in New York at age 87, her publicist Harlan Boll told the BBC. She likely died of natural causes, although a coroner’s report is pending.

On M*A*S*H, Swit played US Army nurse Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. The series, which followed a mobile Army surgical hospital during the Korean war, ran for 11 seasons from 1974 to 1983.

Swit was nominated for numerous awards, and appeared in nearly every episode of the series, including the finale which attracted a record 106m US viewers.

The show remains one of the most successful and acclaimed series in US television history. Its season finale was the most watched episode of any TV series in history when it ended in 1983.

As “Hot Lips,” Swit played a tough but vulnerable Army nurse who gained the nickname after having an affair with Maj. Frank Burns, who was played by Larry Linville.

The show used comedy and pranks to tackle tough issues like racism, sexism and the impacts of PTSD within the military. It was based on the 1968 book, “MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors,” penned by an Army surgeon.

Along with M*A*S*H, Swit also appeared in other TV shows, movies and even game shows over her career. She took to the Broadway stage in “Same Time, Next Year,” “Mame” and “Shirley Valentine”.

“Acting is not hiding to me, it’s revealing. We give you license to feel,” she said in an interview with the Star magazine in 2010. “That’s the most important thing in the world, because when you stop feeling, that’s when you’re dead.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron warned the US and Europe risked losing their credibility and being accused of “double standards” if they do not resolve the wars in Ukraine and Gaza soon.

He also appealed to Asian countries to build a new alliance with Europe to ensure they do not become “collateral damage” in the struggle for power between the US and China.

Macron was speaking at the Shangri-la Dialogue, an annual high-level Asia defence summit held in Singapore.

Among the guests listening were US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as top military officials from the region.

Macron pointed out that if Russia could take Ukrainian territory “without any restrictions, without any constraints… what could happen in Taiwan? What will you do the day something happens in the Philippines?”

“What is at stake in Ukraine is our common credibility, that we are still able to preserve territorial integrity and sovereignty of people,” he said. “No double standards.”

Many in Asia worry of instability in the region should China attempt to forcibly “reunify” with Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. China has also increasingly clashed with the Philippines over competing claims in the South China Sea.

Macron later answered a question posed by the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner on Europe’s military role in Asia while a full-scale war was still raging on the continent.

“If both the US and Europeans are unable to fix in the short term the Ukrainian situation, I think the credibility of both the US and Europeans pretending to fix any crisis in this region would be very low,” the French leader said.

US President Donald Trump has put increasing pressure on both Russia and Ukraine’s leaders to end the war, and has appeared to give Vladimir Putin a two-week deadline. Trump has also previously berated Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and accused him of being “not ready for peace”.

Macron also made his point about double standards on the war in Gaza, acknowledging there was a perception the West has given a “free pass” to Israel.

He stressed the importance of working towards a ceasefire and mutual recognition of a Palestinian state, saying: “If we abandon Gaza, if we consider there is a free pass for Israel, even if we do condemn the terrorist attacks, we kill our own credibility in the rest of the world.”

In recent weeks, European leaders have criticised Israel’s attacks for exacerbating the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Macron has moved closer to signalling recognition of a Palestinian state. Next month, France will co-host with Saudi Arabia a conference at the UN aimed at laying out a roadmap for a two-state solution.

He has been fiercely criticised by Israel, with the foreign ministry on Friday saying: “Instead of applying pressure on the jihadist terrorists, Macron wants to reward them with a Palestinian state.”

Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also launched a blistering attack on Macron and the leaders of Canada and the UK, accusing them of effectively siding with Hamas and being “on the wrong side of humanity”.

Meanwhile the US has worked with Israel to table a ceasefire proposal to Hamas, while creating a much-criticised aid distribution model in Gaza.

Macron also used his speech on Friday to sell his vision of “strategic autonomy”, where countries protect their interests while also working closely together to uphold a rules-based global order not dominated by superpowers.

He touted France as an example of being friends with both the US and China while guarding its own sovereignty, and said this model could form the basis of a new alliance between Europe and Asia.

“We want to co-operate but we don’t want to depend… we don’t want to be instructed on a daily basis on what is allowed, what is not allowed and how our life can change because of a decision by a single person,” he said, in what appeared to be a veiled reference to Trump or Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He also made references to Trump’s global tariffs and allies’ uncertainty of the US’s security commitments, saying: “We cannot just remain seated and say… what do we do with tariffs, okay we are not so sure that we have the full-fledged guarantee in the existing alliance, what do we do?”

“We want to act, we want to preserve our stability and our peace and our prosperity,” he said, calling for a “positive new alliance between Europe and Asia” where they would ensure “our countries are not collateral damage of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers”.

He noted that both Europe and Asia’s challenges were increasingly intertwined, and referenced the Ukraine war again where North Korea has been aiding Russia’s efforts with thousands of its troops.

Macron said that in the past he had objected to the Western alliance Nato having a role in Asia, “because I don’t want to be involved with someone else’s strategic rivalry”.

“But what’s happening with North Korea being present alongside Russia on European soil is a big question for all of us,” he said.

“So this is why if China doesn’t want Nato involved in South-East Asia or Asia, they should prevent clearly [North Korea] from being engaged on European soil.”

Mathieu Duchatel, director of international studies at the Paris-based think tank Institut Montaigne, said Macron’s comments on credibility had “implied criticism of the US’s Middle East policy, and a direct call on the US to adjust its diplomacy towards Russia”.

Observers agree China would likely be angered by Macron’s speech, with Dr Duchatel noting the French leader’s comments on Taiwan were “the furthest he has gone” on the issue.

Some parts of Asia may welcome Macron’s message on strategic autonomy given their anxieties about choosing between the US and China, said Andrew Small, senior fellow of the Asia-Pacific programme of Washington-based think tank GMF.

“His argument is that most of the rest of the world does not want to be stuck with this dichotomy and wants to hold together some version of global order – that’s what a number of states in Asia would agree,” he said.

Among several European and Asian states, Dr Small said, there was “genuine concern about how China will interpret a Russian victory” in Ukraine, while “the Trump administration takes a different view and is trying to make the case that there is no read across”.

He added that Macron’s mention of the recognition of a Palestinian state – on which France has been leading European efforts – was to signal “we are moving on this”.

Elon Musk’s time in the Trump administration has come to an end with a news conference in the Oval Office in which he and the US president defended the work of Doge – and vowed it would continue, even without Musk.

According to President Trump, Musk is “not really leaving” and will continue to be “back and forth” to the White House.

“It’s his baby,” Trump said of Musk’s work with Doge, short for the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk’s departure comes 130 days after Trump returned to office, the maximum allowable through his status as a “special government employee”.

Doge – which is an advisory body, rather than a formal government department – has the stated aim of slashing government spending, saving taxpayer money and reducing the US national debt, which stands at $36tn (£28.9tn).

Musk’s work with Doge, however, has come with considerable controversy, particularly after mass lay-offs across federal agencies and the elimination of most programmes run by USAID, the main US foreign aid organisation.

It also led to Musk’s companies coming under scrutiny, with global protests against Tesla and calls for boycotts. In turn, the company saw sales plummet to their lowest level in years.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump praised Musk, who he credited with “tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform programme in generations”.

• It’s Musk’s last day – what has he achieved at the White House?

Trump added that the “mindsets” of federal officials have changed as a result of Doge’s work to detect fraud and “slash waste”.

According to Doge’s website, it had saved the US government a total of $175bn as of 29 May.

A BBC analysis conducted in late April, however, found that only $61.5bn of that amount was itemised, and evidence of how the savings were achieved was available about $32.5bn of the total.

“He’s not really leaving,” Trump said of Musk. “He’s going to be back and forth…I think he’s going to be doing a lot of things.”

Musk, for his part, insisted that Doge will continue to “relentlessly” seek $1 trillion in reductions.

The meeting between the two men comes just days after an interview with CBS – the BBC’s US partner – in which Musk said he was “disappointed” in what Trump has referred to as his “big, beautiful” bill, which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending.

While Musk had previously said he believes that the bill “undermines” the work of Doge, he did not comment on it during the Oval Office meeting. Trump, though, delivered a lengthy defence of the “unbelievable” legislation that “does amazing things”.

“But there are two things I’d like to see,” Trump said. “Maybe cut a little bit more. I’d like to see a bigger cut in taxes.”

The news conference also took several turns, including when Musk was asked about a New York Times report this week that suggested he was using drugs heavily during Trump’s 2024 campaign.

After cutting off the reporter before he could finish the question, Musk responded by citing a recent judge’s decision that Trump can proceed with a defamation case against the Washington Post and New York Times for their reporting on alleged connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

“That New York Times?” Musk asked. “Let’s move on.”

Additionally, Musk was asked why he appeared to have a bruised eye.

“I wasn’t anywhere near France,” Musk replied, a reference to a recent incident between French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigette.

Musk said his injury by saying he had told his son, X Æ A-12 – known as X – to punch him.

“Turns out even a five-year-old-punching you in the fact actually does – that was X,” he said.

A former Royal Marine who is accused of “deliberately” driving his car into a crowd after Liverpool FC’s trophy parade leaving 79 people injured has appeared in court.

Paul Doyle, 53, appeared at both Liverpool Magistrates’ Court and Liverpool Crown Court on Friday where he faced seven charges including wounding with intent, causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent, attempting to cause GBH with intent and dangerous driving.

The court heard the prosecution allege the father-of-three used his car “as a weapon” when it was driven into the crowds.

Mr Doyle, of Burghill Road in West Derby, Liverpool appeared emotional as he appeared in court for the first time, speaking quietly only to confirm his date of birth and age. No family members or friends were present in either court rooms.

Philip Astbury, prosecuting, said: “This defendant, it is the prosecution’s case, drove deliberately in that car at people amongst that crowd as they tried to leave the area.

“Six charges of assault reflect the most seriously injured of those who were struck by the vehicle. The first count of dangerous driving reflects the manner of driving before and up until the point he used his vehicle deliberately as a weapon to injure those individuals.”

Mr Doyle faces charges relating to six victims, including two children aged 11 and 17, after a total of 79 people were injured in the city centre on Monday evening.

The father-of-three of Burghill Road in West Derby, Liverpool was escorted into the dock at Liverpool Magistrates Court wearing a black suit, grey tie and white shirt.

His case was then fast-tracked to Liverpool Crown Court, where more serious offences are dealt with.

Mr Doyle was not asked to respond to the charges at the hearing.

He sat with his head down as the charges were read to him, and was told he would next appear on 14 August for a plea hearing.

Judge Andrew Menary KC said that reporting restrictions, introduced when Mr Doyle appeared before magistrates earlier, would remain in place.

Those restrictions prohibit the identification of the six victims named in the charges so far from being published.

Philip Astbury, prosecuting, told Judge Menary: “This is an ongoing investigation and there are a great deal of witnesses to be interviewed and footage to be reviewed.”

The court heard that the dangerous driving charge included Mr Doyle’s home street of Burghill Road and Water Street, as well as unnamed roads in between.

Damian Nolan, defending, said there would be no application for bail at the hearing.

Judge Menary set a provisional trial date for 24 November, with an estimated length of three to four weeks.

Mr Doyle stood with his hands clasped and nodded as he was remanded in custody.

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

Reports of a car colliding with pedestrians along Water Street, just off the parade route, were first received by police at about 18:00 on Monday.

Ambulances arrived to take people to hospital, with a nine-year-old among the youngest victims of the incident.

A pram carrying a baby boy was spun metres down the street when it was struck, but the child was not hurt.

A fundraising campaign set up for those affected by the incident has raised more than £30,000, including a £10,000 donation from ex-player Jamie Carragher’s charity foundation.

The last hospital providing health services in the North Gaza governorate is out of service after the Israeli military ordered its immediate evacuation, the hospital’s director has said.

Dr Mohammed Salha said patients were evacuated from al-Awda hospital in Jabalia on Thursday evening.

He told the BBC “we are feeling really bad about this forced evacuation” after “two weeks of siege”, saying there is now “no health facility working in the north”.

Israel has not yet commented, but the BBC has contacted the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

“We’re really sad that we evacuated the hospital, but the Israeli occupation forces threatened us that if we didn’t evacuate, they would enter and kill whoever is inside,” Dr Salha said in a voice note to the BBC.

“Or they would bomb the hospital. We were thinking of the lives of patients and our staff.”

Dr Salha told the BBC the hospital faced “a lot of bombing and shooting from the tanks” from around noon local time (09:00 GMT) on Thursday.

He received a call from the Israeli forces at about 13:00 to evacuate, and initially refused because there were patients in need of healthcare. He offered to stay with another 10 of his staff and evacuate the others, but the military refused, he said.

After seven hours of negotiations, the evacuation occurred at about 20:30.

Staff carried patients more than 300 metres (984 feet) to ambulances parked far away from the hospital “because the roads are totally destroyed”.

Two videos sent to the BBC by al-Awda hospital staff show people, some wearing vests with the hospital’s name on the back, boarding ambulances and a lorry to the east of the hospital courtyard at sunset, and a convoy of similar vehicles heading south through Jabalia after dark.

“Due to impassable roads” the hospital’s medical equipment could not be relocated, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

UN humanitarian agency OCHA said on Thursday “ongoing hostilities over the past two weeks have damaged the hospital, disrupted access, and created panic, deterring people from seeking care”.

Patients were evacuated to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Dr Salha told the BBC they would provide services through a primary health centre in Gaza City and said another might be established in a shelter.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said the closure of al-Awda meant there was no remaining functioning hospital in the North Gaza governorate, “severing a critical lifeline for the people there”.

“WHO pleads for the hospital’s protection and staff and patients’ safety, and reiterates its call for the active protection of civilians and healthcare,” he said. “Hospitals must never be attacked or militarized.”

The IDF had ordered evacuations of the areas of Al-Atatra, Jabalia Al-Balad, Shujaiya, Al-Daraj and Al-Zeitoun on Thursday evening, spokesperson Avichay Adraee said at the time on social media.

“Terrorist organisations continue their subversive activity in the region, and therefore the IDF will expand its offensive activity in the areas where you are present to destroy the capabilities of the terrorist organisations,” he said.

“From this moment on, the mentioned areas will be considered dangerous combat.”

Al-Awda hospital was inside an evacuation zone announced last week, but had still been functioning, its director previously said.

A statement from 18 charities on Thursday said the hospital was under military besiegement “for the fourth time since October 2023 and has been struck at least 28 times”.

The emergency room was hit, injuring four staff, and the desalination plant and storage unit also struck, leading to the loss of all medicine, supplies and equipment, the charities said.

The IDF told the BBC last week it was “operating in the area against terror targets”, but that it was “not aware of any siege on the hospital itself”.

Apart from hospitals, some primary healthcare centres are still operating in Gaza, with 61 out of 158 partially or fully functional as of 18 May, OCHA said.

Nine out of 27 UN Palestinian refugee agency health centres were also functioning.

OCHA did not report how many, if any, centres were in the north Gaza governorate.

Israel is continuing its bombardment of Gaza, which most Palestinians are not currently able to leave, after a two-month ceasefire earlier this year.

At least 72 people were killed over the past day, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Friday.

Israel began to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza last week, after a nearly three-month blockade halted the delivery of supplies including food, medicine, fuel and shelter.

Scenes of chaos have broken out at aid distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a US-and Israeli-backed group.

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

The secretary-general of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Christopher Lockyear, called the plan “ineffective” and said the most vulnerable have “virtually no chance” of accessing supplies.

GHF said it had distributed six truckloads of food on Friday and plans to build additional sites, including in northern Gaza, in the weeks ahead.

Israel said it imposed the blockade on Gaza to pressurise Hamas to release the remaining hostages, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive. It has also accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

A UN-backed assessment this month said Gaza’s 2.1 million people were at a “critical risk” of famine. The UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC people in the territory were being subjected to “forced starvation” by Israel.

On Friday, a spokesman from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, Jens Laerke, called Gaza “the hungriest place on earth”.

Israel is facing international pressure to allow in more aid.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday “we will have to harden our collective position” if Israel does not do more “in the coming hours and days”.

Israel’s foreign ministry hit back on social media, saying “there is no humanitarian blockade” and accused Macron of continuing a “crusade against the Jewish state”.

Some protesters in Israel tried to block aid trucks from entering Gaza, with one saying aid should not be allowed until Hamas returns the hostages and accepts a US-proposed ceasefire.

A Hamas official said the group was “undertaking a thorough and responsible review” of the proposal, but it “fails to meet” their demands.

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

At least 54,321 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 4,058 since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March, according to the health ministry.

A woman who travelled across the South West Coastal Path with her terminally ill husband has said a film depicting their journey took her “right back” to those difficult moments.

Raynor Winn, a writer who grew up on a farm in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, said a financial dispute meant she had lost her dream home in Wales in 2013 just days after her husband Moth was diagnosed with Corticobasal Degeneration, a rare brain disease.

With nothing to lose, the couple set off on a 630-mile trek from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.

Their journey across England’s largest uninterrupted path has now been made into a film – The Salt Path – featuring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

“As we were preparing to leave the house, and the bailiffs were knocking at the door, we were hiding under the stairs. We were not ready to go,” Mrs Winn said.

“It was in those last moments that I saw a book about someone who had walked the coastal path with their dog.

“In that desperate time, it just seemed like the most obvious thing to do. All we wanted to do was pack our bags and take a walk.”

Five years on from the adventure, in 2018, Mrs Winn released her memoir entitled The Salt Path.

It received nationwide acclaim and was shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Prize, an award that celebrates travel-based writing.

She said: “We had nowhere to go. We knew that when we stepped out of the door, we were going to be homeless.

“Moth’s illness had no treatment, or no cure. I was drawn to following a line on the map. It gave us a purpose, and that’s what it was all about.”

Just a few months after her book was published, Mrs Winn said she was approached by a producer and filming of The Salt Path started in the summer of 2023.

“It makes no sense. I remember the day we met. There was a knock at the door, and there was Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs outside.

“They told me to put the kettle on. That’s not what is supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray,” she said.

Mrs Winn – who continues to fundraise alongside her husband for research into his illness – said the film had taken her “straight back to those emotions that were so difficult”.

“The producer and director have created something that’s sparse in dialogue.

“It’s huge in emotion and it urges anyone to focus on the now. Just focus on now and all will turn out differently tomorrow,” she said.

Xiao Chen turned up at the US Consulate in Shanghai on Thursday morning, hours after Washington announced that it would “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students.

The 22-year-old had a visa appointment: she was headed to Michigan in the autumn to study communications.

After a “pleasant” conversation, she was told her application had been rejected. She was not given a reason.

“I feel like a drifting duckweed tossed in wind and storm,” she said, using a common Chinese expression to describe feeling both uncertain and helpless.

She had been hopeful because she already had the acceptance letter. And she thought she had narrowly escaped the bombshells in recent days.

First, Donald Trump’s administration moved to end Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students, a move that has since been blocked in court. And then it said it had stopped visa appointments for all foreign students.

But now, Chen is ready for plan B. “If I can’t get the visa eventually, I’ll probably take a gap year. Then I’ll wait to see if things will get better next year.”

A valid visa may still not be enough, she adds, because students with visas could be “stopped at the airport and deported”.

“It’s bad for every Chinese student. The only difference is how bad.”

It has been a bleak week for international students in the US – and perhaps even harder for the 280,000 or so Chinese students who would have noticed that their country has been singled out.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of “co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the move against Chinese students in the US would include “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields”.

That could hit a wide swathe of them given membership of the Communist Party is common among officials, entrepreneurs, business people and even artists and celebrities in China.

Beijing has called it a “politically motivated and discriminatory action”, and its foreign ministry has lodged a formal protest.

There was a time when China sent the highest number of foreign students to American campuses. But those numbers slipped as the relationship between the two countries soured.

A more powerful and increasingly assertive Beijing is now clashing with Washington for supremacy in just about everything, from trade to tech.

Trump’s first term had already spelled trouble for Chinese students. He signed an order in 2020 barring Chinese students and researchers with ties to Beijing’s military from obtaining US visas.

That order remained in place during President Joe Biden’s term. Washington never clarified what constitutes “ties” to the military, so many students had their visas revoked or were turned away at US borders, sometimes without a proper explanation.

One of them, who did not wish to be named, said his visa was cancelled by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) when he landed in Boston in August 2023.

He had been accepted into a post-doctoral program at Harvard University. He was going to study regenerative medicine with a focus on breast cancer, and had done his master’s degree from a military-affiliated research institution in China.

He said he was not a member of the Communist Party and his research had nothing to do with the military.

“They asked me what the relationship was between my research and China’s defence affairs,” he told the BBC then. “I said, how could breast cancer have anything to do with national defence? If you know, please tell me.”

He believes he never stood a chance because the officials had already made up their minds. He recalled one of them asking: “Did Xi Jinping buy your suitcase for you?”

What was surprising, or even shocking then, slowly turned normal as more and more Chinese students struggled to secure visas or admissions to study science and technology in US universities.

Mr Cao, a psychology major whose research involves neuroscience, has spent the past school year applying for PhD programs in the US.

He had graduated from top-tier universities – credentials that could send him to an Ivy League school. But of the more than 10 universities he applied to, only one extended an offer.

Trump’s cuts to biomedical research didn’t help, but the mistrust surrounding Chinese researchers was also a factor. Allegations and rumours of espionage, especially in sensitive subjects, have loomed over Chinese nationals at US universities in recent years, even derailing some careers.

“One of the professors even told me, ‘We rarely give offers to Chinese students these days, so I cannot give you an interview,” Mr Cao told the BBC in February.

“I feel like I am just a grain of sand under the wheel of time. There is nothing I can do.”

For those who did graduate from US colleges, returning home to China has not been easy either.

They used to be lauded as a bridge to the rest of the world. Now, they find that their once-coveted degrees don’t draw the same reaction.

Chen Jian, who did not want to use his real name, said he quickly realised that his undergraduate degree from a US college had become an obstacle.

When he first came back in 2020, he interned at a state-owned bank and asked a supervisor if there was a chance to stay on.

The supervisor didn’t say it outright, but Chen got the message: “Employees should have local degrees. People like me (with overseas degrees) won’t even get a response.”

He later realised that “there really weren’t any colleagues with overseas undergraduate background in the department”.

He went back to the US and did his master’s at Johns Hopkins University, and now works at Chinese tech giant Baidu.

But despite the degree from a prestigious American university, Mr Chen does not feel he has an edge because of the stiff competition from graduates in China.

What also has not helped is the suspicion around foreign graduates. Beijing has ramped up warnings of foreign spies, telling civilians to be on the lookout for suspicious figures.

In April, prominent Chinese businesswoman Dong Mingzhu told shareholders in a closed-door meeting that her company, home appliance maker Gree Electric, will “never” recruit Chinese people educated overseas “because among them are spies”.

“I don’t know who is and who isn’t,” Ms Dong said, in comments that were leaked and went viral online.

Days later, the CIA released promotional videos encouraging Chinese officials dissatisfied with the government to become spies and provide classified information. “Your destiny is in your own hands,” the video said.

The suspicion of foreigners as the US and China pull further away from each other is a surprising turn for many Chinese people who remember growing up in a very different country.

Zhang Ni, who also did not want to use her real name, says she was “very shocked” by Ms Dong’s remarks.

The 24-year-old is a recent journalism graduate from Columbia University in New York. She says she “doesn’t care about working at Gree”, but what surprised her was the shift in attitudes.

That so many Chinese companies “don’t like anything that might be associated with the international” is a huge contrast from what Ms Zhang grew up with – a childhood “filled with [conversations centred on] the Olympics and World Expo”.

“Whenever we saw foreigners, my mom would push me to go talk to them to practice my English,” she says.

That willingness to exchange ideas and learn from the outside world appears to be waning in China, according to many.

And America, once a place that drew so many young Chinese people, is no longer that welcoming.

Looking back, Ms Zhang can’t help but recall a joke her friend made at a farewell dinner before she left for the US.

Then a flippant comment, it now sums up the fear in both Washington and Beijing: “Don’t become a spy.”